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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
PETERBORO, FEB. 21ST, 1858.
old one.
WORD has gone out that I am this day to present a new
religion: and hence no doubt this unusually large assembly.
It is indeed a new religion that I am to present; and yet it is an
old one. It is old, and yet it is new. It is the same religion
which was preached and lived by Jesus Christ more than
eighteen centuries ago. It is the same "faith which was once
delivered unto the saints." Thus old is this religion: and yet
so little is it preached and apprehended, that it well deserves to
be called a new one.
I see, my neighbors, that you are disappointed. You came
to this place with your curiosity highly excited to hear about a
new religion : and it turns out that I am to tell you of but the
I have put a damper upon your raised expectations
by announcing for my theme the old religion of Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, is it not a new religion to many of you? The
commandment that " ye love one another," was in point of fact
an old one: and yet Jesus said: “A new commandment I give
that
ye
love one another.' To those whom He.
addressed it was new.
Do I stir the indignation of some of you by intimating that
you are not accustomed to hear the religion of Jesus preached ?
But when and where do you hear it preached ? "Every Sun-
day," say you. “In all the churches,” say you. Well, if this
is
SO,
I confess that I am not so fortunate as you are. For very
rarely do I hear it. You tell me that the clergymen of this
neighborhood preach it. These are good men. I love and
unto you,
1)
4
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
honor them: and I doubt not that they are all in the way to
heaven. But if I understand them, it is not the religion of
Jesus which they preach. They preach in favor of creeds and
churches and a clerical order of men. So mistaken are they, as
still to believe that Jesus came to establish all these :-whereas
He came to send them all down stream. Blind are they still to
the fact, that when His religion shall have come to prevail over
the whole earth, there will not one church creed be left; no, nor
one clergyman; no, nor one church in the present and popular
sense of the word.
A religious creed is proper. Every man should have one.
But a church creed is improper. Fifty or a hundred people in
Peterboro or Cazenovia, however much alike in their views
and spirit, should no more be required to adopt a common
religious creed than to shorten or stretch out their bodies to a
common length.
There is a sad misconception in regard to a church also. The
common idea is, that to make a church people must come toge-
ther and organize, much as in the case of a Mutual Insurance
Company. This is the way a Sectarian church is made. But
Jesus no more thought of providing for a sectarian church than
for a political party. In His eye the Christians of a place are
the church of the place: and this too whether they know it or
not, will it or not. They are such by force of their character:
and votes can neither make nor unmake the fact.
As to the clerical order. Many clergymen are among the
best of men. Nevertheless such an order is wholly unauthoriz-
ed and exceedingly pernicious. Their assumption of an ex-
clusive right to teach religion makes the teachers conceited,
dogmatic, arrogant, tyrannical; and their hearers lazy in mind
and slavish in spirit.
The plea for a clerical order is that men learned in religion
are needed to teach it. This however is a pagan idea, that has
come down to us. To be able to teach a pagan religion—to
explain its mysteries and superstitions and absurdities does
indeed require much study of books and much cabalistic learning.
Somewhat so is it in the case of the Hebrew religion also. But
the religion taught by Jesus is not a letter but a life. So simple
is it that the unlearned can both understand and teach it.
Even fishermen He pronounced fit to preach His religion. Ay,
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
5
little children can comprehend it. "Out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise," says Jesus. “I
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth," says He,
" that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes." Wise and good men are
the teachers in many theological seminaries. Emphatically true
is this in the case of the one in our own county. Nevertheless
a theological seminary is a mistake. This it is because the cur-
rent religion is a mistake. The true religion is too simple to
make the training of a theological seminary necessary for those
who teach it. We should allow the wisdom and goodness of
God to assure us that the religion which He has given to the
world must correspond in its simplicity with the simplicity of
the masses.
Let it not be supposed from what I have said, that I object to
the pastorship. Every church should have at least one pastor.
He may or may not however have many of the gifts of a
preacher.
Every true church of Christ is a simple democracy. Such
practically were the primitive churches. Its ordinary assem-
blies should be mere conferences in which all persons, male or
female, are to feel entirely free to speak as the spirit moves them.
In this wise are they capable, without having any other preachers
than those of their own body, to edify the church, and to glorify
God. No Christian should doubt his right to open his lips on
such occasions. Faith in Christ is the warrant to speak for
Christ. "I believed,” says Paul,"and therefore have I spoken.”
But in addition to this means of grace and growth within them-
selves, the collective churches should have and should liberally
support a powerful itinerant ministry: and this I can say
without being inconsistent with what I have said of the sim-
plicity of Christ's religion. The Pauls and Barnabases of
modern times should travel among the churches, as did the Pauls
and Barnabases of ancient times. The obscurest country church
should be favored, as often as every month or two, with a dis-
course from a Finney, a Beecher, a Lucretia Mott, an Angelina
Weld, a Chapin, a Parker, a Beriah Green, an Alonzo Potter,
or an Abram Pryne.
But I proceed to add to my reasons for declaring that the
clergymen of this neighborhood do not preach the religion of
6
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
Jesus. They do not preach it-for they preach that salvation
turns on believing in the "doctrines." I am not blaming them
for teaching the divinity of Christ, the atonement, an eternal
hell, and the plenary inspiration of the Bible. What I blame
them for, is their teaching that they who do not understand and
receive these doctrines must perish. I might admit that Jesus
taught all these doctrines. But where did He teach that if a
man does not understand and receive them, he shall perish ?
He taught that at the close of this earthly drama men are to be
judged by their lives. The great decisive question then will
be-not what were your doctrines, but what were your deeds ?
How did you acquit yourself in regard to those simple duties,
opportunities for doing which crowd the whole pathway of
both high and humble life, even from childhood to the grave?
Did
you feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and welcome
the stranger, and visit the sick and the prisoner ? In perfect
and beautiful consistency with these interrogatories is the
Saviour's declaration: "By their fruits ye shall know them;"
and also the Apostles': “Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is to visit the widow and the fatherless in
their affliction.'
False tests of character do our clerical neighbors apply in their
trying of us by "the doctrines." In reference to good King
Josiah, Jeremiah says: “He judged the cause of the poor and
needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me?
saith the Lord.” Says Micah: “What doth the Lord require
of thee but to do justly, and love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God ?" And how emphatically does Jesus make the
life the test when He says: “Therefore all things whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them.”
It is honesty, that He enjoins in these words. To be honest is
to be a Christian. The most honest man on earth is the best
Christian on earth. It is indeed the most comprehensive honesty,
that is here required. The spirit, which dwelt in Jesus, can
alone inspire it: and strangers are we to that spirit until we are
born again. Radical must be the change in our fallen and
depraved nature, ere a thorough and gospel honesty can
characterize us. I say fallen nature. Let me remark that I do
not entertain the common views of this subject. Owing to
ancestral violations of moral as well as physical and intellectual
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
7
laws, we inherit a constitution morally as well as physically
and intellectually impaired. This is all I mean by a fallen
nature, adding thereto what we may ourselves have done to
degrade it.
The clergymen of our neighborhood believe and inculcate
that little can be done for a man until he has become thoroughly
instructed in and entirely converted to that whole form of
doctrine which they regard as vital. This step taken, and his
next is to conform his life to the teaching. Now I admit that
the creed exerts an influence upon the life:—but it is not so
great as that which the life exerts upon the creed. The creed
should be left to grow out of the life rather than the life out of
the creed. Let a man set out to deal more justly and lovingly
with all his fellow men, and he will soon find himself forming a
creed, which corresponds with his improved course of life. As
his life becomes increasingly pure and beautiful, so will his creed
become increasingly sound and comprehensive. · In saying that
the life influences the creed more than the creed the life, I am
justified by the Saviour's declaration : "If any man will do his
will he shall know of the doctrine." It is mainly in doing right
that we get a right creed.
But it is said that Jesus requires faith, and makes it the con-
dition of salvation. Faith in what? In the doctrines on which
our clergymen harp babitually ?-I ask again—where does He
teach that the want of such faith is fatal? “However this may
be," reply our clergymen, “He nevertheless makes faith in
Himself essential." I admit it. He says: "If ye believe not
that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.” But just here comes
up the great question--what is it to believe in Christ? Is it to
believe in " the doctrines ?” If so, then the millions of good men,
who had never heard of them, nor even of Christ, and the
millions too of good men who, having heard of them, had
nevertheless rnistaken conceptions of them, have perished. But
as sure as God is just and merciful, all good men, live and die
they in whatever ignorance of the person of Christ or of "the
doctrines,” are saved. What then is it to believe in Christ? I
answer that such belief in its very highest sense is faith in
justice, sincerity, mercy, love, and the other moral qualities of
which man, be he in Christendom or heathendom, has instinctive
knowledge, and for his growth in which, be he in Christendom or
8
.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
heathendom, he is responsible. These are the qualities, which
make
up
that sum of truth which Jesus came into our world to
live to honor and die to magnify: and of which He declares
Himself to be the impersonation when He says: "I am the way,
the truth and the life.” This is the truth of which He spake
when He said to Pilate: "To this end was I born and for this
cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the
truth." I repeat that to believe in Jesus in the very highest
sense is to believe in those virtues which were all clustered in
His perfect character: and moreover it is to believe in them so
cordially and so constantly as to make them our own, and to
prove that they are our own by their blossoms and fruits in our
lives. Our lives and our likeness to Christ are the precise
measure of our faith in Christ.
I am well aware how contrary to the common view of it is
this view of faith in Christ. As is generally held, right appre-
hensions—adoring, melting thoughts of His person and personal
character constitute pre-eminently true faith in Christ. I would
not undervalue such apprehensions and thoughts. He who has
them not, even though the life and death of Christ are clearly
before him, can give no satisfactory proof that he appreciates the
truths which Christ came to teach and illustrate, and no satis-
factory proof that he welcomes the duties which He came to
enjoin. Nevertheless the Saviour does Himself admit that men
may mistake Him and yet be safe. " Whosoever," says He,
speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven
him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall
not be forgiven him." That is, he shall not be safe who mistakes
in regard to the spirit and essence—the soul and substance of
religion. If men may err in regard to Christ and yet be
forgiven, it nevertheless does not follow that they shall be for-
given, who live in the denial of those vital truths, which the
Spirit of God teaches in every heart.
I said that our clergymen make the doctrine of the plenary
inspiration of the Bible essential to salvation; and that in so
doing they preach not the religion of Christ. But are they not
also in error in respect to the fact of such inspiration ?
The Bible is really the best book in the world: though the
present uses of it make it practically the worst. All other books
put together are, not so much as the Bible is, the occasion of
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
9
obstructing the progress of civilization and of filling the world
with ignorance and superstition. It is adapted as no other book
is to enrich the mind and expand the soul. But misapprehen-
ed, misinterpreted, and perverted to the extent it is, no other
book-nay no number of books---does so much to darken the
mind and shrivel the soul.
The clergy make the Bible supreme authority. But our
reason is under God the final judge in all questions. The Bible,
instead of being used but to enlighten reason, is made to over-
ride it. Nevertheless this book, like every other book, is to be
regarded as the servant of reason, and not reason as the servant
of it. Reason must sit in judgment upon the Bible, as well as
upon all things else :—for it is the voice of God in the soul, and
nothing must ever be allowed to be exalted above it. In reply
to the folly, which makes reason inferior or antagonistic to faith,
we declare it to be the basis of all true faith and repugnant to
,no true faith. Reason, in a word, is religion; and the one duty
of every man is to bring his passions and appetites and whole
self into subjection to it. The most reasonable person in
Peterboro is the best Christian in Peterboro. Most happily
chosen is the word where Paul calls religion a reasonable
service.
But it is said that reason is not competent to pass upon reli-
gious questions. Jesus however says it is. Why judge ye
not even of yourselves what is right?" He came to throw men
back upon their own consciousness of right and wrong, and to
hold them to the deductions and confessions of their own reason.
And does not Paul also teach the sufficiency of reason in the
first chapter of Romans, (19, 20, 21 )?
It is true that the reason of most men is greatly perverted.
It is true that in innumerable instances it is reduced to little
better than a compound of passion and prejudice :--or, to speak
with perhaps more philosophical correctness, such a compound
is allowed to take the place of reason. Nevertheless reason,
poor guide though we may make it, is our only legitimate guide:
It may lead us to ruin. Still we are not at liberty to give it up
for any other leader: no, not for church, nor pope, nor Bible.
If we have debased and corrupted our reason, we alone are re-
sponsible for the wrong, and we alone must bear the loss. What
was due from us when we had a right reason is equally due
66
10
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
from us when we have destroyed or supplanted it. We can not
cancel our obligations by our crimes.
Our acknowledgment of the absolute and supreme authority
of the Bible is claimed on the ground of its inspiration. But
where is the proof that it is inspired? Is it in the assertion to
this end of the churches and clergy? Is it to be looked for in
what are called external evidences—which by the way are to
be searched after in that stream of ignorant and superstitious
traditions, which has come down to our age? Oh! no. The
proof of the inspiration is to be looked for alone in the pages of
the Bible. If not found there, it can be found no where. More-
over, every man must, and upon his own responsibility, judge of
the proof for himself.
I do myself believe that most of the writers of the Bible were
inspired. All however that I mean by their inspiration is that
special flowing of the divine mind into the human mind, of
which they enjoy the most, who walk the closest with God.
Thus blessed were prophets and apostles. Subjects of this
inspiration there are in every age. The sublime pages of Paul
prove that he was largely inspired. But he is not infallible.
He does not claim to be.
I believe in the Bible. That is, I believe in its great unchange-
able principles and everlasting truths, and in all of it which is
in harmony with those principles and truths. If there are parts
of it, which my reason shall ever teach me are not in such har-
mony, these I will reject. For these, to use a law phrase, are
void for inconsistency, and are no part of the Bible.
In what I said of inspiration, I had no reference to the power
to tell future events. That events were foretold by some of the
writers of the Bible I can not doubt.
I said that reason has been overridden by the Bible. The
vast evil consequences of it no human mind can measure.
Why, for instance, is it that slavery is able to make so plausible
and effective a defense of itself? It is because its defenders
have been allowed to take it out of the jurisdiction of reason,
and submit its claims to the Bible. So, too, war and polygamy
and the drinking of intoxicating liquors and the wrongs suffered
by woman have done not a little to prolong their existence by
fleeing from their prompt condemnation in the court of reason
to try what they can make for themselves out of certain cunning
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
11
And this proves
interpretations of the Bible. Alas! that it should ever be left
to the decision of a book whether these naked and enormous
crimes are or are not crimes! For what book is there that men
can not read in any and every way to suit their interests? The
matchless crime of slavery is instantly condemned by not only
the enlightened reason of manhood but the untutored instincts
of childhood. How absurd then to submit its character to the
.
decision of pages and philology and exegesis-to the decision,
which learning and ingenuity are as like to draw to the one side
as to the other !
If men are so low in understanding as to need a Bible to teach
them the moral character of the crimes I have enumerated, then
are they too low in understanding to be helped by a Bible.
Then may Bibles be made as well for donkeys and monkeys as
for men.
Who is willing to be a slave? No one.
that the reason of.man and the whole nature of man universally
condemn slavery. Hence does it prove that if there is any
thing in the Bible for slavery, the Bible is so far wrong.
Again, how speedy and certain the conclusion we are brought
to by experience, observation, science, study of the laws of life
and health, that intoxicating liquors are unfit for a beverage!
And who but a very wicked or a very stupid man will appeal
from that conclusion to the Bible or to any thing else ?
Who too but such a man will ever feel it necessary to go to
the Bible to put polygamy on trial? Higher authority and
more certain evidence than the Bible have we on this point as
well as on the point of rum-drinking, The census tables in all
ages
and all nations dispose of the question of polygamy. They
prove the equal numbers of the sexes, and confirm the declara-
tion of Jesus that God made us " male and female"-only one
woman for one man, and only one man for one woman. Who-
ever therefore gets a plurality of wives robs his brother; and
whoever gets a plurality of husbands robs her sister ;—just as
the people who get two or three farms apiece have made them-
selves guilty of robbing the landless. By the way, our Govern-
ment shrinks from putting down its foot upon polygamy where
it is made a religious institution. But the province of govern-
ment is to uphold the great natural rights of its subjects ;-and
none the less so where the violation of these rights is under the
12
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
a
cover and in the name of religion. The very same obligation
rests on government to suppress polygamy that rests on it to sup-
press land-monopoly. The very same obligation to punish the
robbing men of women as to punish the robbing men of land.
Again, let the Bible say what it will of war, who in the light
of reason does not condemn it as madness and murder?
And what too, if, as is held by many, Paul does teach that
who that receives bith:
woman as compared with man is an inferior order of being ?-
a daughter?
Lest what I have now said might be construed into the ad-
mission that these crimes are countenanced by the Bible, I take
this occasion to affirm that no one of them finds the least shel-
ter in the principles of that blessed book. Neither the super-
stitious regard for the Bible and the superstitious assumptions
in its behalf on the one hand; nor the assaults, which atheism,
skepticism, and ungodly rationalism make upon it on the other,
can ever shake the confidence which he reposes in it, who, in
the light of a true and therefore reverent reason, has studied
the claims of this volume to acceptance, honor, love, and obedi-
ence.
I arraigned our clergymen for holding that the doctrine of
an eternal hell must be believed in, in order to salvation. For
be the doctrine true or false, I can not think that we shall be
either saved or lost by any views we may entertain of it. I
now arraign them for their undoubting faith in it. No war-
rapt have they either to preach or to entertain a faith in it
which is free from all doubts.
I confess—perhaps to my shame and condemnation—that I
do not feel a deep and abiding interest in the next stage of our
being. Far less concerned am I to know what is the future
state than to know and do the duties of the present.
I believe in future punishment. It is a reasonable doctrine.
It is philosophically and necessarily true. Every where our
character must determine our condition. Every man on dying
must go to his own place—to the place for which his character
fits him. The death of his body can no more affect his charac-
ter than the breaking of his spectacles or cane. His body, no
more than his spectacles or cane, is a part of himself. That his
character will surely remain eternally unchanged, I deny that
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
13
any one has the right to affirm. Jude teaches that persons can
fall from heaven. Why then may they not rise from hell? For
aught we can certainly know, there may be room in the life to
come for repentance as well as apostasy. In one sense of “ever-
lasting punishment,” I am an undoubting believer in it:—for I
can not doubt that the punishment of the sinner will be as ever-
lasting as his sin.
Whilst I confess that I have no certain apprehensions of the
kind or degree or continuance of either future punishment or
future enjoyment; I nevertheless confidently maintain that
enough knowledge for me and for all men on this point is that
in the life to come "it shall be well" with the righteous and
"ill” with the wicked; and that the "Judge of all the earth
will do right,” as well there as here. Whilst earth is our home,
let us discharge with alacrity and delight the duties of earth.
In that way, and in that way only, shall we be fitted for heaven.
In that way, and in that way only, shall we get to heaven.
I spoke of the future as a place. I had perhaps better call it
a state.
That there are millions of heavens and millions of
hells—that they are in short as numerous as are the differences
in moral character-better answers my conception.
I blamed the clergy for holding that they must perish who
subscribe not to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. For be
the doctrine true or false, there is no right to attributte such
consequences to its rejection. I also blame them for refusing
to admit even the smallest doubt of the truth of the doctrine.
In the mind of every man who allows his reason free play there
is certainly room for such a doubt. But whether Christ is God
or man I leave to be discussed by those who bave a taste for
speculative discussions. It suffices me to see in Him the in-
fallible teacher of religious truth, the perfect representative and
the fullest and most winning expression of His Father. I wel-
come Him as “God manifest in the flesh.” My largest concep-
tions of wisdom, justice, love are more than realized in Him:
and it is my largest conceptions of these and other attributes of
Deity, that make up the Deity I love and honor. Surely, if
Lady Guion may say: "The providences of God are God," I
may say: The attributes of God are God.
The mission of Christ to the world was to give all needed ex-
tension to the acquaintance of man with God. The heavens
14
TBE RELIGION OF REASON.
above and the earth beneath ; the instructive course of provi-
dence; and the more instructive teachings of the Spirit were
insufficient to this end without the manifestation of God in
Christ. Is it said that His mission was to die for the world ? I
answer that His death was incidental to His faithful exhibition
of His Father's character. It was because He was like God
that He was crucified.
The one thing else for which I blamed our clergymen was
their making faith in the doctrine of the atonement essential to
salvation. But are they not also blameworthy for making
themselves so perfectly and stubbornly certain of the truth of
the doctrine ?
I am not disposed to controvert the doctrine. In my eye
there is none of that absurdity in it, which is so freely imputed
to it. For aught I see, it might have been decreed in the coun-
sels of heaven, that a being of Christ's superior dignity must die
for man in order that the claims of the law be satisfied; in or.
der that God "might be just, and the justifier" of man.
But although I make no opposition to the doctrine, nor even
object to being numbered with those who subscribe to it, I
nevertheless can not feel, as do many, that it is true beyond all
possible question. Moreover, I can not see why I should love
and honor Christ any the less, if it shall turn out that the law,
instead of being satisfied by the righteousness of Christ, is sat-
isfied by the righteousness, which His spirit has wrought in
them who love him. That Christ lived and suffered and died
for men is abundant reason for their giving Him all possible
love and honor, without their stopping to calculate what they
have gained by Him. Moreover, it is the privilege of every
good man to know that the claims of the law against himself
are satisfied. The fact that he is good—that he loves God and
inan-is the highest possible proof he can have that they are
satisfied. Paul closes his enumeration of virtues with the de-
claration : "Against such there is no law." No more can there
he law against him who is adorned with these virtues. Admit-
ting the doctrine of the atonement to be certainly and entirely
true, nevertheless the importance of our understanding and be-
lieving it is greatly overrated. But the importance of our be-
lieving that Jesus lived, and suffered, and died for man is in no
danger of being overrated :-for, thus believing and understand-
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
15
He says
-܀
ing, our hearts are drawn out in love to Him, and to the truth,
and to our fellow-men, and to our Father. This is the needed
effect upon us of the Advent. But on what precise principles
it is, and whether by any of the supposed expedients or techni-
calities that our accounts in the books of heaven are balanced,
is a matter we may safely leave among the secret things which
belong unto the Lord our God.”
Again, I can not, because Paul seems to inculcate the doctrine
of the Atonement, feel entirely certain that it is true. He
but little of it except in his letter to the Jews :—and in what
he says of it to them, he is perhaps more swayed by his and
their common education than by any revelations or inspirations.
We must not forget that the Jewish education was full of aton-
ing sacrifices. From early childhood the Jew was taught to
believe that the animal killed in sacrifice atoned for the sins of
an individual or a family. How natural then was it for Paul
to speak to his countrymen of Jesus, who did indeed die for the
world as One who had atoned for the sins of the world! Thus
natural was it for John to say, as he looked upon Jesus: "Behold
the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world !" He
virtually said: "Behold not the literal lamb which taketh away
the sin of but an individual or a family: but behold the figu-
rative lamb—the lamb of God—which taketh away the sin of
the world !" If the atonement of Christ is but a mere fancy,
it is nevertheless not strange that a Jew should entertain it. So
fully possessed was he of the idea of atonement, that it must
have been very easy for him to fancy a sufferer for another to
be an atoning sufferer.
I do not forget that the animal sacrifices are what is most re
lied on to prove the truth of the doctrine of the atonement.
Those sacrifices do indeed seem to be meet offerings to a cruel,
bloody pagan God. Moreover, according to Paul (Heb. 10:6)
Jesus testified that His Father had “had no pleasure" in them;
and according to Jeremiah (7:22) God Himself declared that He
commanded them" not. Still it must be confessed that there
is a vast amount of evidence in the Bible that God did com-
mand these sacrifices. If however we must yield to this evi-
dence, it nevertheless remains to be proved that they are types
of the sacrifice in which the Lord Jesus offered up Himself.
May not a man be good and yet doubt the sufficiency of the
16
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
proof to this end? One thing more under this head. Instead
of the vulgar view of the atonement, may not Christ be regard-
ed as in effect an atoning sacrifice because He saves men from
the penalty of the law by the converting influences, which flow
out upon them from his life and death?
But I will weary you no further with words about “the doc-
trines.” My neighbors, we are all aware that a low place in the
ecclesiastical world is assigned to Peterboro. For many, many
years, we have been giving great offense to the clergy and the
churches. And yet, I must think, that this little village
probably the only spot in the State to which the Anti-Slavery
Society, that was mobbed out of Utica nearly a quarter of a
century ago, could retreat in safety—is, in respect to a sound
and rational religion, greatly in advance of almost every other
place in the land. Our families with certainly very few exceptions
dwell together in peace and love, and in this there is no little
proof that the religion of Jesus prevails among us. No little
proof also of this is there in the fact that a great many years
have passed away since intoxicating drinks were openly sold
among us: and no little proof too in the fact that the filthy
vice of snuffing, chewing, and smoking tobacco is held by a
large share of our people to be disgraceful and sinful. And
where I ask most emphatically is there a place in all our broad
land so free as this from the spirit of caste? Whose table is
there here to which a black man is not as welcome as a white
one? When I heard the other day that our respectable youth
of white faces and black faces had mingled together freely in a
public dance, I confess (although I am not the advocate of pub-
lic as I am of private dances) that I felt proud of my village.
Where else in our country has the religion of Jesus achieved a
conquest so beautiful, so decisive, and so much needed? Igno-
rant and unsound as we are held to be in regard to "the doc-
trines," nevertheless are we not quite as far advanced in human-
ity and practical Christianity as the places where every hair's
breadth of the most orthodox interpretation of doctrines is con-
tended for?
There is a wide-spread revival of religion in our country.
Of what religion time alone can surely tell. It is not Christian-
ity, if it shall allow the rich to stand aloof from the poor, and
the people of one complexion to refuse to associate with the
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
17
:
people of another. It is not Christianity, if it is like the current
religion. For the terms which this religion keeps with slavery
and with the murderous prejudice against the colored races
proves it to be a spurious and Satanic religion. Why, the very
first lesson in the school of Christ is to know our brother and
sister, and to see Christ in every man, woman, and child, be
they rich or poor, white, red, or black. The religion, which
does not go to bind together all human hearts is not the religion
of the Saviour. A poor opinion of this revival shall I have, if
there shall still be as much opposition as ever to negro suffrage;
and as great unwillingness as ever to mingle complexions in
the school and church; and as great readiness as ever to cast
votes for pro-slavery men.
Another delightful evidence to my mind that the spirit of
Christ has wrought great and blessed changes in Peterboro is
to be found in the breaking up of our sectarian churhes and in
the general and growing dislike to sectarianism. God hasten
the day when, here and elsewhere, there shall no longer be
Christians, who shall not be deeply ashamed to be called Metho-
dists, Baptists, Presbyterians, or to pass under any other reli-
gious party name!
But were I to go on and speak all the praises of Peterboro, I
should still be obliged to confess that she is very far from per-
fect; that there is still much in her to be reformed; and that
she greatly needs the priceless blessing of a revival of true re-
ligion. Never will our village be what it should be, until love
shall reign in all our families and all our hearts; until an altar
to God shall be erected in all our homes; and holiness to the
Lord be inscribed upon all our business and all our amusements.
My hearers, the great struggle between the religion of author-
ity and the religion of reason has begun. It did not begin
with Martin Luther and the early Protestants. They were still
creed-bound; and their enslavement to the Bible differed not
essentially from enslavement to the Church. This struggle is
chiefly the growth of the last half-century; and in America
nothing has contributed to it so much as the Temperance and
Anti-slavery reforms—since nothing so much as these has awak-
ened a sense of human dignity and human rights, and called
for a common-sense and practical religion. The Protestants are
wont to disparage the Catholics. Nevertheless the mass of the
2
18
THE RELIGION OF REASON,
Protestants are with the Catholics in favor of a religion of au-
thority and against the religion of reason. At this point they
are essentially alike. For what submission is there to the Cath-
olic Church which is more degrading or dwarfing than that
which Protestants are so inexorably required to yield to the
ecclesiastical interpretations of the Bible?
We are living in an age of great progress-great progress in
the material, mental, and moral world. Every thing is going
forward and improving except ecclesiastical religion. That re-
mains stereotyped and unchangeable. But we thank God for
the abounding evidence that it will ere long give place to an-
other and better religion. Already are there dawnings of that
glad day when the superstitions and absurdities, which have so
long debased and tormented men, shall have passed away for-
ever; and when Christianity in all her reasonableness and
righteousness shall overspread the whole earth.
Alas! how little has been accomplished by these superstitions
and absurdities for the glory of God and the good of man!
War, slavery, land-monopoly, polygamy, drunkenness, the
wrongs of woman still remain. The religion of reason—that
religion which says to man, "Yea, and why even of yourselves
judge ye not what is right?" had long ago done away with these
evils, and turned this sin-smitten, priest-ridden, superstition-
bound world into a paradise.
It is often said that we, who are busy in reducing religion to
reason, are busy, at least in effect, to overthrow it. But to
bring religion into identity with reason is not to degrade but to
exalt it. And again, it is not we who endanger religion, but
they who reduce it to a superstition. There is indeed danger
that men will break loose from the Bible. But this danger
springs mainly from the fact that rapidly increasing multitudes
will no longer consent to bow their necks to a religion of au-
thority and receive the Bible because it is the Bible rather than
because their reason has indorsed it. If this book shall be cast
aside as a superstition, it will be because its friends are unwilling
that reason and reason only shall pass upon it and interpret it.
The truth is that the civilization of Christendom is fast outgrow-
ing the religion of Christendom and this is because reason is
allowed to infuse itself more and more freely into civilization,
whilst it is still driven away from the precincts of religion.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
19
No where probably are the people more ready than they are in
Italy to reject the current Christianity. And this because
no where is the current Christianity more emphatically a bundle
of superstitions, and because no where is it more industriously
and superstitiously urged upon the superstition of the people.
As an additional reason, no where else are the people opening
their eyes faster to the religious impositions practised upon
themselves. In a word, Italy has outgrown her religion. Her
limbs have become too big for her garments. Italian civiliza-
tion is far in advance of Italian Christianity.
My hearers, who among you will to-day espouse this religion
of reason—this manly and common sense religion of the lips
and life of Jesus? You had been told by great sticklers for
doctrines, that a very accommodating religion would be pre-
sented to you on this occasion—a sort of heaven-made-easy
religion. I beg you to make trial of the religion, which I have
now presented to you. Try to bring your entire self under the
reign of reason; and then you will know that your task is not
an easy one. Then you will know that only he who is born
again is adequate to it. Then you will know that only he who
has been imbued with the spirit of Christ, and has chosen
Christ for his master and Saviour, is capable of submitting his
whole being to the demands of reason. Let me not however
be misunderstood. Notwithstanding what I have just said,
this religion which I commend to you is not a hard one. It is
hard to get. But when once gotten it is easy. When by the
grace and help of God the yoke of Christ is once upon your
neck, you will find it easy, and His burden light.
We who inculcate this religion of reason must lay our
account with great opposition, not to say virulent persecution.
Because we can not “frame to pronounce the Shibboleth of
the churches and clergy we are called infidels. It is the bad
fashion of the age—it has been the bad fashion of every age-
to apply doctrinal tests of character, instead of judging men
“by their fruits." But never is it reasonable or Christian to go
back of the life to judge of the character. To do so is to be
guilty of wicked intolerance. If we regard our neighbor's doc-
trines as unsound, and are nevertheless constrained to acknow-
ledge his pure and loving and beautiful and reverent life, then
instead of condemning him for his unsound doctrines, we are
20
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
to do him double honor for that goodness of his heart, which
maintains itself in the face of the errors of his understanding :
and, what is more, we are to thank God for consenting to dwell
by His spirit in a heart, which is coupled with a wrong head.
I close with reminding my fellow-laborers, that as we are
now embarked in the most difficult of all reforms, we are under
especial need of remembering Him whose name is “Strength."
Dismayed and overcome we surely shall be, unless our hearts
go out constantly for His support. When a quarter of a cen-
tury ago, we had to encounter a very strong anti-temperance
and pro-slavery public sentiment, we had fainted unless we had
made the Lord God our help. But then the churches were
divided and the clergy also. No very small share of them
were with us. Far different is it now when we have to breast
the well nigh entirely undivided forces of both churches and
clergy, and all that appalling public sentiment, which such
forces are able to generate. In our determination to resist the
mad intolerance, which judges character by those ever harped-
on doctrines about which even among the best of men there will
ever be as many minds as there are differences of temperament
and education, and in our determination to acknowledge no
other test of character than the life, we may be sure that we
shall not fail to provoke such an array against ourselves, as
will be utterly overwhelming, if we put not our trust in the
living God. Brave then let us be to meet the frowns of our
fellows : but all the while let us be meek and humble in the
consciousness that our bravery will die, and our cause be de-
feated, unless we keep our hearts in contact with the Divine
heart, and draw from thence the courage and strength, which
that great heart can alone supply.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
PETERBORO, JAN. 23, 1859.
A YEAR ago I gave you a discourse in favor of the religion
of reason. To-day I give you another. That discourse, wher-
ever it circulated, was severely criticised, and this will probably
experience no more tender treatment than did that.
Were men but mere machines, they could reflect but little
honor on their Maker. It is because they are free agents-free
to choose to know God, and free to be ignorant of Him-free
to grow either in likeness or unlikeness to Him-that they are
capable of doing Him large honor. That day, if it shall ever
come, in which all the intelligent creatures of His universe shall
choose this divine knowledge, will realize our present concep-
tions of the highest possible glorification of God. For the
power of this knowledge is to produce in all who choose it
likeness to Him: and likeness to Him is the greatest honor that
can be rendered to Him. Indeed, so far as we can see, is not
the making of this likeness perfect and universal, the one work
of God and of all who through His renovating grace become
"workers together with Him ?" The prophet says: "And he
shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” A beautiful fancy
connected with these words is that as the silversmith has suffi-
ciently purified the metal when it is brought to reflect his face
perfectly, so God will be satisfied with the progress of a human
character when He shall see in it his own.
As, then, our likeness to God is the highest honor we are
capable of yielding Him, so, to grow in this likeness, should be
22
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
..
中 ​.
our incessant and absorbing aim. That it is also our own high-
est enjoyment is manifest. Though of this we are to make
comparatively trivial account. Since there is no other way in
which we can so unequivocally and fully testify our regard for
our earthly friend, as in studying his character, and copying
his virtues, so the best praise we can offer God is that likeness
to Him which results from our deep interest in his character
through our knowledge and love of it.
That the one great duty of life is to grow in resemblance to
God, was deeply felt by the Psalmist, when he exclaimed: "I
shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." Nor less
deeply was it felt by the Apostle, when prompted to say:“We
know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.”
The law of our assimilation to the ruling interests of our
hearts operates no less surely and rapidly in upward than in
downward directions. All see how certain and swift is the
miser's process for shrivelling his soul. All see that the sensu-
alist sinks his whole nature to the level of his sensuality. All
see that the character of the ambitious man derives its color and
cast from no higher objects than those which come within the
range of his ambition. But no less true is it that he who makes
God his study and desire becomes godlike. He discerns, com-
prehends and conforms to the divine principles. Thankfully
and joyfully does he fall in with the divine methods and arrange-
ments. Habitually and impressively does his life reflect much
of the divine wisdom and beauty. Thus does he go forward,
fulfilling the one grand purpose of his existence--assimilation
to his heavenly Father-until, at length, his heart freed from
all evil, and his intellect emerged from all darkness, he stands
like the Angel of the Apocalypse in the very sun.
That likeness to God results from knowing Him, is taught by
the Apostle when he says: "We shall be like Him, for we
shall see him as He is.” To know God is to love Him; and
we can not love Him without being like Him. How, then, we
can best study the Divine character to the end that our own
shall most resemble it, is the great problem which every man is
to solve, and with the practical solutions of which he is to make
beautiful and blessed every day of his life.
The sun, moon and stars, and the globe we inhabit, are all
witnesses for God. Innumerable other sources are there which
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
23
flow with divine knowledge. The whole course of providence
testifies that God is strong and wise and good. Very emphatic
is such testimony through those men and women who, here and
there in all ages, have by their large partaking and faithful
illustration of the Divine Spirit taught the world the character
and excellence of that Spirit. Prophets there have been whose
mighty words and sublime lives were rich manifestations of
God. High above them all is his " beloved Son," Jesus, "full
of grace and truth,” Jesus, "filled with all the fullness of God,"
Jesus, such an incarnation of the divine wisdom and goodness
and loveliness, such a matchless exhibition of the divine charac-
ter as made it no exaggeration in the Apostle to call him "God
manifest in the flesh." "Looking unto Jesus," unto this bright-
est and fullest expression of God, is preëminently the means
for increasing in the knowledge, love and likeness of God.
Thus abundant are the means for acquainting ourselves with
God. We
e can not remain ignorant of Him if we are disposed
to study Him. We may know Him, if we will, and as we have
already said, to know Him is to love Him and be like Him.
The diligent and honest student can learn " by the things that
are made," what is that perfect law that converts the soul. But
in the words and lives of prophets, and above all in the words
and life of Jesus, he can learn it more surely, comprehensively,
and accurately.
Such are the circumstances of men. Now, which in these
circumstances is the religion best adapted to promote their like-
ness to God? There are but two religions in the world. One
is that of nature or reason; and the ten thousand varieties of
the other all come properly under the name of the conventional
or doctrinal religion.
I made preëminent the "looking unto Jesus." I might with
truth have said that it surpasses the sum total of all other means
for producing likeness to God. But alas! the religious world,
instead of "looking unto Jesus," is chiefly busy with the doc-
trinal systems and questions which sectaries and creed-mong-
ers have coupled with his name! Immeasurably more import-
ant do they count it to have orthodox views in regard to the
trinity, the atonement, and the future life, than to imbibe the
spirit of Christ and to submit all the relations and departments
and dutics of life to the sway of his principles.
24
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
The prevalent idea is that Jesus introduced a new religion,
and made essential to salvation faith in his Godship, the atone-
ment, and in other doctrines peculiar to that religion. But he
did not
The religion which Jesus so perfectly illustrated with his lips
and life was no other than the religion of reason—that one and
only true religion which is adapted to all ages and all peoples,
and which stands opposed to all those fabrications of the cun.
ning, and all those superstitions of the credulous, which are
called religion. These fabrications and superstitions, and, in
short, every other religion than that of reason, Jesus confronted.
No cabalisin or mysticism found any favor with him. The re-
ligion he taught was so obviously true as to make its appeal to
natural sense and universal intuition. So simple was it that he
found no occasion for sending men to books and priests to
acquire an understanding of it. On the contrary, he put them
upon their own convictions for the solution of its problems, and
asked them: "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is
right ?” He found reason outraged by monstrous claims in the
name of religion: and the one work of his ministry—the one
work which, amid all the storms of passion and prejudice and
bigotry he pursued so unfalteringly and calmly and sublimely
was to reëstablish the dominion of reason. He found com-
mon-sense reduced to a ruinous discount by its concessions to
religious tricks and fooleries; and he undertook to restore it to
par. Such was then and is now the whole of the religion of
Jesus. · It is a common sense religion. Wide as is its realm, it
is but commensurate with common-sense, and one with it. To
bring the whole man and the whole life under the reign of rea-
son is its sole office. The true religion is nothing more nor
less than a "reasonable service;" and wherever there is the
most reasonable man, there is the most truly religious man.
We denied that Jesus made faith in certain doctrines essen-
tial to salvation. Nor is it true that he made faith in his literal
self thus essential. What he means by faith in himself is faith
in the Christ principle and Christ character. Hence, salvation
may come to him who has never heard of Christ. Cordially to
believe in that principle of divine goodness, and truly to possess
the character which grows out of this cordial belief, is the suffi.
cient, ay, and the sole salvation.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
25
The church and priesthood will nevertheless long continue to
hold that this faith in doctrines is essential. For, beside the
force of habit in the case, they will hardly be insensible to the
fact that their surrender of the necessity of this faith would
involve the surrender of themselves. When the true religion
shall prevail, and men shall be judged by their life and charac-
ter rather than by their adoption or rejection of creeds, the
church, in the common-sense of the word, will have disap-
peared, and the priesthood have lost its vocation. When there
shall be no more battles to fight concerning the doctrines, there
will be no more occasion for sectarian churches; and when re-
ligion shall require only a good life and a good character, the
learning peculiar to a priest will be as superfluous for the cure
of souls as is that of a geologist to teach the farmer how to hold
his plow, or that of a lawyer to negotiate the simple exchange
of a bushel of wheat for a piece of meat. Every other religion
must have its priesthood, for a scholastic training is necessary
to unravel its knots. Every other religion must have an order
of men capable of exploring its mysteries. But in the religion
of Jesus there are no knots and no mysteries. I admit that
both heaven and earth are full of mysteries. Paul, in writing
to Timothy, refers to some of them. But I deny that any of
them come within the range of the true religion. All its essen-
tial teachings are intelligible to common-sense. Nay, simple
love is the fulfilling of its whole law. Hence, this religion
needs no priesthood, unless it be that "royal priesthood" in
which there are no grades, and to which every disciple, however
learned or unlearned, belongs. How different this religion, the
disciples of which are each his own priest, from those religions
which require a sacerdotal caste to study their volumes, their
legendary and mystic lore! How different from those religions
which require a class of magicians because the religions them-
selves are magic!
Nothing can be more absurd than to make faith in the doc-
trines the pivot of salvation. For this is to make such faith
the test of character, since it must turn exclusively upon our
character whether we are saved or lost. But such faith is not
absolutely subject to our control, and therefore can not be a test
of character. To the unqualified proposition that men can not,
and are not, bound to govern their beliefs, I confess I do not
26
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
assent. Every man is bound to believe that goodness is good-
ness, and wickedness is wickedness—for this he can do if his
moral affections are right, and it is in his power to have them
right. But when the question is one of the understanding
rather than of the heart, then owing to constitutional or educa-
tional differences, one man will believe and another disbelieve;
one man will come to one conclusion, and another to another.
Hence, while a person must not be excused for saying he can
not believe it wrong to lie and steal, he may be for not seeing
sufficient evidence to warrant the popular view of the atone-
ment and of the Trinity. Unbelief in the one case is necessarily
connected with a wicked heart. In the other, it may exist in
connection with the holiest heart.
The conventional or doctrinal religion is not adapted to make
men good. It teaches that we must believe the doctrines in
order to be good, and that it is illegitimate and vain to seek to
become good in any other way. Hence, they who receive this
teaching, instead of trying to be good, try to believe the doc-
trines. Hence, too, they are not expected to be good, and do
not themselves expect to be good until they have believed
them. Again, many may never be able to believe them: and
again, many give abundant proof in their lives that the doc-
trines may be believed without making the believer good.
Moreover, whatever the goodness of those who are so strenuous
for the doctrines, there is generally coupled with their strenu-
ousness the uncharitable condemnation of all who are unable to
believe them; and this intolerance is, to say the least, a great
blemish and drawback upon their type of goodness. Only here
and there is it that the goodness of these excessively doctrinal
religionists rises above this intolerance.
Absurd, indeed, is it to require men, on peril of perdi-
tion, to subscribe to certain explanations of certain facts in
religion. The fact that Christ died for us, all agree to. But it
is held that we are as much bound, and that it is as important,
to agree to certain speculations about it, and to certain systems
of faith built upon it, as to the fact itself. Again, we are
agreed that Christ spoke the words of his Father. But it is
held that we must perish unless we can bring ourselves to the
conclusion that he was, in respect to all the essential attributes
of Deity, one with his Father. The fact, too, that we shall in
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
27
the next life find it well with the righteous and ill with the
wicked, and that all should cherish a deep and abiding sense of
their accountability, is denied by none of us. But in vain, too,
is all this, unless we subscribe to certain views of heaven and
hell.
As well may it be said that a man must not plow, nor sow,
nor reap, until he can understand how his crops grow, as that
le must not enter upon a religious life and expect to be good
until he can comprehend the doctrines and philosophy of reli-
gion. At many points in them the most learned, wise, and holy
differ widely. The masses, of course, do. Indeed, it is not ex-
pected that they should comprehend these things. Their faith
in them, as all honest theologians will readily admit, is not ex-
pected to be comprehensive and intelligent, but only narrow,
superstitious, blind.
I have not been arguing that the prevalent doctrines and
philosophy of religion are false and worthless. There is much
of truth and value in them. All I insist on is that the import-
ance of a full and precise knowledge of them is overrated; and
that mistakes in regard to them are not necessarily fatal. For
instance, a man may be good, and yet not see that he who "in-
creased in wisdom and in favor with God," and who "learned by
the things he suffered," and who confessed his ignorance of the
times of future events, is the all-wise and unchangeable God.
A man may be good, though he can not see the reasonableness
of the theory of the twofold nature of Christ, and consequently
can not be able to reconcile with absolute divine perfection,
either this want or this growth of knowledge. Again, a man
may conceive that God can delegate to Jesus or another agent
power enough to enable him to build a world; and he may
acquiesce even in the giving of the name of God to him who
wields this great power of God. Nevertheless he may shrink
from admitting the agent to be the very God. So, too, he may
feel it proper to worship Christ, although unconvinced that
Christ is the one God. For he may hold that truth, wherever
it is, is worthy to be worshipped; and that in Christ is its per-
fect personification. Now, I do not say that this man is right
in all, or even in any of this. But I do say that however
wrong he may be in it, he may nevertheless be good. Another
thing I would say is, a man may be good, and yet not fall in
28
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
with all the popular views of the atonement. He may see that
suffering one for another, even to the laying down of life, is
altogether reasonable. But that God should be angry with his
children, and should require an innocent victim to appease
his
wrath, may strike him as an exceedingly unreasonable part of
the ecclesiastical machinery. It may strike him as turning the
loving Father into a bloody pagan deity. A man may be good,
and yet believe that the hearty repentance of the sinner is of
itself sufficient ground for his forgiveness. He may even be-
lieve that Jesus teaches this in the parable of the prodigal son.
That the early Christians interpreted the atonement as a ma-
jority of modern Christians do, is perhaps true; for such inter-
pretation would be a very natural outgrowth of Jewish educa-
tion. Beautiful and impressive to the Jew must have been the
analogy, however real or fanciful, between the literal sacrifice
and Christ-between the lamb slain for the sin of an individual
or a family, and “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins
of the world." The argument for receiving and relying on
Christ derived from this analogy must have been very imposing
to the Jewish mind.
But it is said that all this philosophy, and all these doctrines,
were taught by Jesus. If they were, it does not follow that
our misapprehensions of them would make our salvation im-
possible. But how can we be sure that they were all taught by
him? The Bible can not make us entirely sure of it. For it
is, at the most, a record of but the substance of what Jesus
spoke-certainly not always of his precise words. He did not
write them. Nor were they written as they fell from his lips;
nor probably until many years after. Hence, we may not have
so much as the substance of what he said in every recorded in-
stance. The idea that the authors of their respective parts of
the Bible were moved by God to write, word by word, and
that, by a perpetual miracle, every word has been preserved
from all possible change in itself and in its connections, is quite
too superstitious and absurd to be entertained by any reasonable
mind. Another fact of great account in interpreting the Bible
is, that Jesus was a poet, and that few poets have ever spoken
so figuratively and hyperbolically. They who mistake his pic-
ture-language for words of philosophical precision will be liable
to construe him very absurdly. Let me not be taken as under-
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
29
rating Jesus by calling him a poet. The poet is the superior
being. He deals with the essence and soul of things—common
minds with but their body and phenomena.
But to return to the chief duty inculcated in this discourse
growing in likeness to God. In saying that this is to be at-
tained by “looking unto Jesus," I did not mean that supersti-
tious looking, which expects in return the magic transformation
of the looker, but that rational looking to his principles, virtues,
spirit, life, which is accompanied by the deepest yearnings of
the soul to make them all our own. It is in this wise that we
become like Christ; and likeness to Christ is likeness to God.
For notwithstanding his repeated acknowledgment of inferiority
to the Father, he claimed that he is one with Him. If he is
not the Father, nevertheless he has the spirit of the Father.
That he is not the Father otherwise than in spirit and character,
is, perhaps, inferable from his prayer that his disciples may be-
come one even as he and the Father are one. But the oneness
of his disciples can be no further than in spirit and character.
How insulting to God and degrading to man is this sacred
rcery which is put in the place of the religion of reason!
How false every view of the new birth, (which I admit who-
ever is saved must experience,) that makes it either more or
less than a new character! How foolish and fanatical every
expectation of a salvation, which does not consist and prove
itself in a new and good life! But that a new character and a
new and good life are not what the mass of religionists under-
stand by the salvation of which they profess themselves to be
subjects, is manifest from the fact that in character and life they
are undistinguishable from others. They are no less enslaved
to party than are others; and such enslavement is among the
very strongest proofs that the subject of it moves upon a low
plane of being, and is unfitted for a higher. It has often
occurred to me that as the palæontologist has his Silurian and
Old Red Sandstone periods, his Carboniferous and other forma-
tions in which to pursue his study of fossil plants and animals,
so they, who thousands of centuries hence shall write the his-
tory of man, will also break up the past into large divisions.
Instead of the petty distinction of a Greek or Roman age, they
will grasp under one name ten thousand and twice ten thou-
sand years. What name will they give to our times? What
30
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
else can it be than the age of party? It promises to be a long
age. · It has already run through several thousand years; and
judging from the present sway of party; there is a much longer
race before it. How the palæontologists gloat over their dis-
coveries! But far greater will be the joy of these historians
when, in digging for their fossils, they shall strike upon such a
rich specimen of party architects and party magicians as a Van
Buren, a Buchanan, or a Douglas ! or upon an eminent Presby.
terian or Methodist, or other sectarian leader !
Hasten, O God, the coming of the age of individualism !
that
age in which men shall scorn to work for party, and to be
helped by party; in which they shall identify themselves with
all mankind and work for all mankind, and aspire to no better
lot in life than their individual mcrits under Heaven's blessing
can earn for them!
I said that our religionists are generally the slaves of party.
Ask them, for instance, to help you put a stop to sectarianism;
to help you overcome that monster who drags down and dwarfs
so large a share of the whole human family—and you ask in
vain. They prefer adhering to their religious parties, and re-
maining in their Baptist, Episcopal and other sectarian in-
closures, to identifying themselves with all the friends of right-
In a word, they preſer gratifying a narrow and party
spirit, to cultivating one that is broad and catholic. Entreat them
to help you elect law-makers who will shut the dram-shop, and
thereby dry the tears of tens of thousands of wives and mothers,
and make murder, and the blasphemies of drunken lips and
other great crimes, comparatively rare, and in the face of your
entreaties they will cling to their political party, and vote for
rum-drinkers and rum-sellers, and rum-makers. Or if you en-
treat them to take pity on the fugitive slave, and wield their
political power against kidnappers, you will find how much
stronger is their attachment to party than to freedom and jus-
tice and mercy; and how much more ready they are in this
case, as well as in others, to go with the majority against Christ,
than with the minority for him. These who are doctrinal rather
than Christlike Christians, have a great horror of minorities,
Their professed Master, when hanging on the cross, and deserted
by all His disciples, was reduced to a minority of one. But
these doctrinal Christians bave no taste for this lonely condi-
eousness.
THE RELIGION OF REASON,
31
tion. Indeed they will steer as wide as possible of all minori-
ties, and for the surest majority. Christians bent on being in
the majority! What a. solecism!
The Bible says:
« Thou
shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” It might say more.
In this world of abounding wickedness, the multitude can not
be followed without doing evil.
What a sad exhibition of party spirit among professing
Christians was there at the last election. The religious press
and the temperance press called on the people to vote for can-
didates who were willing to let the dram-shop continue its work
of death, and the kidnapper prowl after his prey through the
whole length and breadth of our State! I recollect that one of
the religious newspapers made an especial and very urgent call
on praying men to vote for them. The excuse of the religious
conscience for voting for such candidates is, that they can be
clected, and that candidates who stand up for God and humanity
can not be! Will Christians never learn that, instead of voting
for candidates who are on the side of wrong, they are bound to
do all they honestly can to cripple the power and reduce the
influence of such candidates! Have I a bad neighbor? Then
it should be as much my object to contract the sphere of his
injuriousness, as to enlarge. my good neighbor's sphere of use-
fulness. All this is obvious in the light of a reasonable reli-
gion. But alas! the current religion is divorced from reason!
A sad spectacle, indeed, was that to which I have referred.
So far as our State was concerned, all interest in freedom and
temperance had nearly died out. Their professed friends had,
with very few exceptions, gone into the political parties. They
were no longer proſessing to abolish Slavery; but they' were
contenting themselves with idle talk against its extension. They
no longer proposed to shut up the dram-shop; and though they
did not altogether cease to speak for temperance, yet were the
words of most of them vague and heartless, and more fitted,
and doubtless more intended to veil their apostasy, and mitigate
their consciousness of it than to accomplish any good for the
great reform. In these circumstances a handful aroused them-
selves to save, if possible, these precious causes from utter ex-
tinction. They taxed themselves heavily to hire halls and
presses in which to make their appeals to their old fellow-la-
borers. But all in vain. The dram-shop and kidnapping were
32
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
never before so triumphant. The Christianity of the State took
the side of these institutions. It went exultingly with the
sweeping majority, and laughed at and despised the little mi-
nority. But, thanks to God, such a Christianity is a counterfeit.
If it were not, then would the real Christianity be as poor and
detestable a religion as was ever imposed on human credulity.
I referred to the fact that these professed friends of temper-
ance, even while stabbing it to the heart, had the effrontery to
talk for it. They talk for it still; as much since the election as
they did before it. They hold meetings and resolve in favor of
the suppression by Government of the sale of intoxicating
drinks. All this, too, with as much of an air of sincerity and
solemnity as if their votes had always corresponded with those
talks and resolves.
I confess my alarm at these things. For, manifestly, this
machinery of Temperance Societies and Temperance Agencies,
by which these cunning men have served party purposes at the
expense of corrupting the great body of temperance men and
ruining the cause of temperance, is to be kept up. And, what
is more, these cunning men, who study and understand the
public mind, would not have dared to persevere in their impo-
sitions upon it, had they not been persuaded of its boundless
credulity and deep degradation. How, for instance, could a
gentleman, who spent his time last Fall in electioneering for a
rum ticket, and in decrying the soundness on temperance of the
temperance ticket, be bold enough to go from town to town in
our county with his proposition for shutting up the dram-shop,
unless he had first convinced himself, that the people are as
ready to be duped as he is to dupe them?
Whence comes it that these professedly religious men can
behave so unreasonably and wickedly in an election ? It is
largely owing to the fact that they are misled by their religion.
Among them are good men, who are really better than their
religion-their adopted religion—for no man is better than his
real religion. But in the case of all of them religion has been
taken on trust; and is, therefore, an unreasoned and unreasona-
ble thing, instead of being the precious product of their free and
sovereign reason. Such persons are for the most part, enslaved
to the Church instead of being the Lord's freemen;" idolaters
of the Bible rather than worshippers of God. Whither the
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
33
Church leads they almost universally follow. What its au-
thorized expounders of the Bible say is the Bible, is sufficient
to satisfy their conscience.
Every man's religion, to be worth any thing to him, must
stand in his own judgment. By his own judgment must his
life be regulated. The one standard by which he is to try his
religion must be within and not without him. To that standard
must he bring the Church-yes, and the Bible also. Gladly
must he let them inform his judgment; but he must never let
them over-ride it. Even the Bible was made for man, not man
for the Bible. Even the Bible is the servant, and not the mas-
ter, of human reason. I must receive nothing at the expense
of my reason. To honor it, is at all times my highest religious
duty. For reason is the voice of God within me, commanding
what is right, and forbidding what is wrong. By my reason
only can I know Him.
I do not forget the plausible objections to making reason the
standard in religion. They are only plausible, however.
First: the reason of many a man, if not of most men, and in-
deed of all men, is incompetent to be the standard. Then is it ne-
cessarily incompetent to choose the standard. For how, if it can
not decide for itself what is religious truth, can it be capable of
choosing the church, or creed, or man, or book that shall decide it?
May I make the Bible the standard ? Certainly not until after
my reason has passed approvingly upon the claims of the book,
and that too in the light of the book itself, and not merely nor
mainly in the light of what is said about it. But if after this
process I make the Bible the standard, is it not all one with mak-
ing reason the standard? I add that no man can be a Christian
whose reason is inadequate to decide what is Christianity.
Second: Making reason the standard of religion would make as
many religions as there are persons—reason having in every mind
a more or less different play from what it has in every other mind.
I admit that there would be a great diversity of religious views,
though the religion of all holy hearts would be substantially
the same.
But what of this diversity? Is not such a result of
the workings of free intelligence infinitely preferable to a con-
formity which is arrived at by holding reason in abeyance ?
Oh! how much longer must men, for the sake of avoiding this
diversity in religious faith, continue to "go it blind”? But,
3
34
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
beside that this ecclesiastical policy results in the degradation
of reason, and of the whole man, there is but little harmony
secured in return for all this expense. For, brimſul as is the
religious world of efforts to establish a common standard out-
side of reason, and to enforce conformity, it is also brimful of
diverse faiths and of relentless quarrels.
An error as great as common, is that we honor God by sur-
rendering our judgment to the Church and the Bible. We
deeply dishonor Him by it. Unswerving fidelity to our con-
victions is the highest service we are capable of rendering Him;
for in our convictions is our highest possible present sense of
God. The Bible or Church view of God may surpass our
own immeasurably. But we can not claim the credit of it by
simply adopting it; nor until it has become our own by being
wrought into our convictions, and made a part of ourselves.
We may adopt the religion of the Bible and the Church, and
yet be atheists. For the adoption may simply prove our en-
slavement to authority, and that we are more willing to be the
subjects of an unquestioning and blind faith, than to do and
suffer what is needful in order to become intelligently and truly
religious. For this very reason, that their religion is not their
own—is adopted and superficial instead of inwrought-the
mass of religionists are atheists.
But I shall be asked if I do not believe the Bible. I do. I
believe it to be incomparably the best of books. Daily
should it be studied and commented on in every school. Daily
should its pages be pondered in the closet. Every morning
and every evening should its precious lessons be repeated in
the assembled family. The purest and sublimest morality is
that of the Bible. Abundant proof is there in many of its
pages that they who spoke or recorded the great words had
drunk deeper of divine inspiration than any other men. It is
because they had, that we always derive from this blessed book
a deeper sense of holiness and a deeper sense of wickedness
than from any other source. What words so fire our hatred of
oppression as some which prophets spoke? When, too, do we
so much appreciate goodness as while our hearts are melting
over some of the lip and life-utterances of Jesus ?
Nevertheless, there are portions of the Bible which are worth
very little; and which, were they found elsewhere, no one
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
35
would deem worth much. Moreover, if we are shocked at the
supposition that there are mistakes and untruths in it, it is only
because of our false and superstitious education. We must pass
upon the Bible just as freely as upon any other book : and no-
thing in it that is repugnant to our reason must be allowed to
come into our faith. We are not to reject whatever in it is
above our present comprehension. That would be most unrea-
sonable. But, whatever is clearly counter to reason, we owe it
to reason, to ourselves, and to God to reject. If, for instance,
there is any passage in the Bible, (I do not say there is one,) in
which God is represented as being partial—as being guilty, it
may be, of the monstrous partiality of loving one unborn child
and hating another-we must not, for the sake of saving the
reputation and authority of the book, acquiesce in a representa-
tion that outrages all our just conceptions of God. To save
these conceptions is infinitely more important than to save the
book. If, too, we find that Paul (I do not say that we do) re-
presents woman as inferior to man, or as having lower and less
rights than man, we must not, to save Paul, sanction his wrong
against woman. Justice must be accorded to her claims at
whatever expense to his speculations.
I am not, in these remarks, denying aught of the value of the
Bible. Incomputable is that value, if for no other reason than
that it contains the life of Christ. But I may be asked how,
since I am not confident that the Bible is all true, I can be con-
fident that it gives the true life of Christ? My answer is, that
such a life could not be fabricated. It must have been sub-
stantially what the Bible represents it to be. Such a reality
transcends all the possibilities of fiction. It can not be the coin-
age of the imagination. It can not be a picture without an orig-
inal. Besides, had it been within the compass of a good man's
ability to invent such a life, his goodness would have prevented
his palming it on the world as a reality. I scarcely need add
that any approach to such a life lies wholly without the range
of a bad man's conceptions, and can find no place among his
possible inventions. And what if it were admitted that such a
life could be written at this day by Charles Dickens or Mrs.
Stowe, or other persons of their fertile genius, nevertheless it
must not be forgotten that it would be written by the light of
the actual life of Jesus, and would therefore be substantially but
a copy.
36
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
Unspeakably happy fact is it that men are outgrowing the
religions which have afflicted and debased them. An ignorant
age very naturally submits to a religion of authority; but an in-
telligent age, which demands and realizes progress in every other
direction, will not be content to have the dead past continue to
furnish the religion of the living present. Signs are rapidly
multiplying that the time has come for every man to have his
own religion: not to adopt it from his neighbor, his priest; his
church; but to construct it for himself. In the province of
reason, when pervaded by Divine influences, and especially in
the life of Jesus, who was the perfect impersonation of reason,
because He was filled with those illuminating, holy, and sweet
influences which can alone preserve the freest and fullest exer-
cise of reason there are abundant materials for such construc-
tion. Indeed, as in effect I have already said, what a man has
to do to answer the calls of the true religion, is to keep all his
appetites, passions, and inerests in subjection to his reason. I
admit that he can not do this without help—the help of that
same spirit which dwelt in Jesus—and which, by the way, is as
free to us as it was to him. In a word, all he has to do is to
keep his reason in the ascendant. Then he will be like God.
For to obey reason is to obey God. To obey it is to bring our-
selves into harmony with Him, and to make ourselves partakers
of His character. To disobey it is to prefer the character of
rebels and atheists.
The religions, including even that called Christianity, but
which is not Christianity, have proved themselves false by their
failure to overcome the great crimes and abominations. War,
slavery, drunkenness, and the various oppressions of woman
still abound. Give however, reason its full play—true reason,
I mean, and not the mixture of passion and prejudice, which
they who have stifled the voice of reason, are wont to confound
with it—and these crimes and abominations would fast disap-
pear. That they are still making hell on earth is chiefly be-
cause religions of authority put in pleas for them, and justify or
apologize for them in the name of their sacred books and
churches. Exalt reason, however, to the place of religion, or
rather religion to the place of reason, and these crimes and
abominations will depart. But, they will remain, and be rife
just as long as there is religious authority to keep them in
.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
37
countenance; just as long as men suffer others to decide religi-
ous questions for them; to be the keepers of their conscience
and the moulders of their minds. So long as rum-drinkers and
slaveholders have a religion distinct from reason, they will run
to it for permission to continue to drink rum and to be slave-
holders; and they will not fail to get it. But once cut them
off from their doctrinal or conventional religion, and throw
them back upon their reason, and they will find it difficult to
remain rum-drinkers and slaveholders. The South is full of
the common religion, and hence the impossibility of peacefully
dislodging her slavery. It is true that the religion of France
was not essentially different from that of our own country.
But so slender was its hold on the public mind, that it could
not prevent the reason of France from abolishing Slavery. The
abolition of French Slavery was largely owing to French infi-
delity. Had that nation been more religious and less rational,
her slavery would have continued to this day.
It was the policy of Jesus to cut off the Jews from their spur-
ious religion, and throw them back upon their convictions, and
upon themselves.
“And why,” says he to them, “even of
yourselves judge ye not what is right?" The like policy should
be pursued by the modern reformer. It is as indispensable now
as it was then to get reason into the place of the current re-
ligion.
Our likeness to God! The religion which has this God-hon-
oring and man-ennobling aim is to be our religion. Never does
a man's dignity appear so great as when seen in the light of his
capacity for resembling his Maker. It is in this light that he
is "the temple of God," and is never to be defiled by rum, to-
bacco, nor any sensuality. And who, viewing nan in this
light, can be guilty of degrading him in thought, word or deed ?
Who, having drunk in the spirit of this true religion, and,
therefore, opened his eyes upon the grandeur of man, can put
upon his brother's limbs the chains of slavery, or consent to see
him sunk to the guilty uses to which war sinks its hirelings?
Or who, having, under the influences of this true religion, felt
how great is man, can look with patience on his bondage to a
political or ecclesiastical party
This religion, then, which recognizes man's capacity for re-
sembling his God, and which inculcates the duties growing out
38
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
of that capacity-this is the only religion which can rid the
world of the crimes that crowd it and the vices that have con-
quered it. This alone can shut up the dram-shop, and put an
end to slavery and the other outrages upon the high nature of
man.
But I must proceed to notice some of the charges against
those who hold the views taken in this discourse.
We are accused of disparaging Christ because we refuse to be
tested by certain mystic doctrines. Subscription to these doc-
trines is held to be essential to his honor. But they make most
of Christ who, whatever their errors of doctrine, cherish his
spirit and live his liſe. On the contrary, they make least of
him who war upon his spirit and life—free however they may
be, of these doctrinal errors.
The faith in Christ on which most rely is not that intelligent
and cordial faith in his principles which good men alone can
possess. But it is a faith of which wicked as well as good men
can be the subjects for it is superstitious, unintelligent and
blind.
We hold that they most honor Christ who believe that the
religion he taught is the religion of simple reason; and who
also govern their lives by it. Let me add that I would have
Christ honored in observing the rites and institutions as well as
in espousing the comprehensive and essential principles of his
religion. Let the principles be cordially adopted, and the rites
and institutions carefully conformed to. For one, I would have
the friends of Christ baptized with water, and in the manner in
which he was. For one, I would have them partake of his ap-
pointed supper, and around a table, and with conversation as
did he and his disciples. For one, I would have them observe
a Sabbath, and choose for it the same day of the week which he
and his disciples did. Even in things which are counted among
the unessential, it is safer and happier to walk in his steps than
to depart from them.
It is charged, too, that we are not Bible men. I admit that
we are not any further than we live according to its great and
everlasting principles. They are Bible men whose lives are in
harmony with those principles; not they who trample upon
them, at the same time that they make great merit of their pre-
tended or imagined faith in the Bible.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
39
Another complaint is, that we would abolish the ministry.
But we would not. We would have the Gospel preached ten-
fold more abundantly than now. To this end, however, no
clerical order of men is needed. So simple is the true Gospel
that he who loves it is well able to preach it, even though he
may
have no more than common sense and a common educa-
tion. Here and there arise men of rare power for preaching it.
Let such be encouraged and enabled to itinerate as did Paul
and Barnabas among the churches. At the same time let the
members of every church feel that, however few or unlearned
they may be, they are, under the divine blessing, able through
the proper exercise of their gifts to ediſy each other.
I admit that a cultivated intellect adds immensely to the
power of the preacher. But it need not be cultivated in the
theological school. On the contrary, far more power to preach
the common-sense, practical gospel of Jesus Christ is to be
found in that general knowledge which the lawyer, or statesman,
or enlightened merchant acquires in his intercourse with the
world, than in the training of those institutions where religion
is taught as a trade, and years of apprenticeship are spent to gain
an understanding of its mysteries.
We
e are charged, too, with being Spiritualists.
Some of us
are and some of us are not Spiritualists. But what if we all
were—still might we not all be Christians? To be a spiritual-
ist—that is, to believe that spirits can communicate with us—is
no proof that a man is or is not a Christan. His cordial recep-
tion, as evidenced in his life, of the great essential moral truths
which come to him, whether in communications from spirits or
from any other source, this and this alone proves that he is a
Christian. If Spiritualism has been the occasion of harm to
some, nevertheless there are others in whom it has wrought
good. We have neighbors, whose religious life has been greatly
improved by their interest in Spiritualism. I can not deny that
Spiritualism is fraught with great evil to those who are foolish
enough to welcome it as a new religion, and a substitute for
Christianity.
A favorite, and certainly a very winning doctrine of the
Spiritualists, is, that a wicked man attracts wicked spirits, and
a good man good ones. How protective, purifying, and every
way happy must be its influence on him who truly believes it !
40
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
How efficient the motive it furnishes to avoid a bad and
pur-
sue a good life!
I must not to fail to add, in this connection, that the Spiritual-
ists I met in my tours through the State, last fall, were nearly
all reformers. They had broken off from both political and
ecclesiastical parties, and were earnestly and openly devoting
themselves to the abolition of sectarianism, slavery, intemper-
ance, and other wrongs. I have no doubt that, in proportion
to their numbers, Spiritualists cast tenfold as many votes for the
Abolition and Temperance ticket as did others. Surely such a
fact is highly commendatory of the influence of Spiritualism.
It is also said that we are opposed to revivals. We believe
in revivals of true religion, and rejoice in them. But we con-
fess that of revivals in general we are very suspicious. And
why should we not be? It is true that they serve to fill up the
churches; but do they increase the sum total of humanity and
holiness and happiness? The revival of last year was preëmi-
nent for extent and commended character. But I am yet to be
convinced that it has proved a public blessing. Survey the
length and breadth of our State. Is not sectarian and party spirit,
that power so mighty to shrivel and sink the soul, as rampant as
ever? Was there ever a year in which the use of tobacco in-
creased faster, or in which there was a more rapid multiplica-
tion of dram-shops? In no year among the last thirty, has so
little interest been taken in the cause of temperance. Indeed,
at the last election its professed friends seemed to delight in
pouring contempt upon it. They were as eager to vote for rum
men as they formerly had been to vote against them. And
although there is still much talk (part sincere and part hypo-
critical, and nearly all nonsensical) against the extension of
Slavery, yet has there never been a year since the dauntless
young hero, William Lloyd Garrison, first summoned the nation
to abolish it, in which has been evinced so little purpose to
abolish it.
That there was a very unusual amount of religious tender-
ness and susceptibility the last year is not to be denied.
Heaven be thanked for it; and may Heaven forgive the poor
use men made of it! Oh! had the right stamp been present
for making the right impression upon the molten inetal! Had
but the religion of Christ and reason—the religion which, in a
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
41
land of Slavery and dram-shops calls on its new-born disciples
to make their first demonstration against those greatest enemies
of God and man—had but that religion been offered to the
tens of thousands of hearts that were then open to receive it,
what an array of practical Christians would have been the
fruit of the revival! But alas ! instead of this priceless bless-
ing, the revival was perverted to the propagation of that worth-
less doctrinal or conventional religion which keeps on good
terms with Slavery, and flourishes among the dram-shops!
The city of New York was the great centre of the revival.
But when I was there, two or three weeks ago, I heard that the
use of tobacco and strong drink was increasing rapidly; and
several times I saw what I never see without sickness of soul,
deep shame and sorrow and disgust, city cars labeled: "Colored
people allowed in this car." What an insult to our equal
brethren! What an insult to our common Father! What a
blasphemous denial of His right to color as He will the varieties
of the human family!
Now, these abominations exist in that city, because her re-
vived, augmented, multiplied churches acquiesce in them.
Every one knows, that were her pulpits and pews to speak, and
vote as they should, all her cars would be opened as readily to
people of one complexion as another. Every one knows that
the dram-shops of New-York could not withstand the combined
testimony of her churches. But her churches are not churches
of Jesus Christ any further than they are actively against her
dram-shops and her outrages upon the colored man.
Peterboro, as you remember, shared in last year's revival.
But, is she the better for it? Has she less sectarianism ? Much
Has she proved herself more true to temperance and
freedom ? Much less. Have even her pastors, who were so
active in the revival, shown their own profiting by it? Of only
one of them can I speak. I well remember how earnestly at
former elections he called on the people to vote the abolition
and temperance ticket; but I am told that he was never known
to open his lips for it at the last election. It was a sad change
in my old friend and pastor. Was it the revival or something
else that wrought it? True, he is of late much taken up with
the doctrines of religion. But does he hold that he is, there-
fore, excused from its practice? True, he is of late very busy
more.
42
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
in dealing damnation among those who dissent from his inter-
pretation of these doctrines. But is the merit of this work so
great as to atone for the neglect at the ballot-box of the bleed-
ing slave and the bleeding cause of temperance? Oh! when
will these doctrinal religionists learn that the promise of heaven
is to him that “worlсeth righteousness ?”—that "he that doeth
righteousness is righteous," and that “whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother."
Finally, we are charged with being infidels. Now, although
I would advise that this and all other false charges against us
be borne with good temper, I am, nevertheless, of the opinion
that we should quit the defensive, and pursue our assailants.
When they charge us with being infidels because of our defec-
tive creeds, let us charge them with being infidels because of their
wicked deeds. And this we are to do, not in the spirit of revenge,
but for the purpose of putting them upon juster thoughts of
themselves, and, as may perhaps follow, upon a needed condem-
nation of themselves. A very large majority of those who have
the impudence to bring this charge against us prove themselves
atheists by their treatment of their fellow-men. All persons
are atheists who do not honor God by honoring his children.
Hence, all are atheists who refuse to eat with their colored breth-
ren, or to sit by their side in the carriage or the pew. And if there
are Christians that vote for men who recognize the legality of
Slavery, and wield the power of their office to perpetuate the
bondage of the slave, none the less atheistic is such voting. And
so, too, voting for those who recognize the sacred rights of pro-
perty in intoxicating liquors, when offered for sale as a beverage,
and who are in favor of keeping up the dram-shop, is none the
less atheistic, because there are Christians who are guilty of it.
But I must bring my too long discourse to a close. This is
an unsaved world. Superstitions have been employed to save
it, and of course unsuccessfully. A misinterpreted and corrup-
ted Christianity has been found inadequate. It will remain
an unsaved world untik trial shall be made of the true Christ-
ianity-of that religion of nature and reason which tests men not
by their doctrines, but "by their fruits," and which makes it the
one great work of every person to elevate himself and all within
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
43
his reach to the very highest resemblances of God that humanity
is capable of attaining.
Shall we, my neighbors, have a part in bringing the world un-
der the power of this only saving religion? Let us remember
tħat we can not have it, unless we bring ourselves under its pow-
er. We can not be instrumental in spreading abroad this only
true religion unless we have made it the treasure of our own
hearts and the attraction and glory of our own lives.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
PETERBORO, JUNE 19, 1859.
WHAT is the true religion ? No other question propounded
to mortals is so important. Answered, however, it easily can
be, if only the true God is known. For, wherever He is known,
there also is the true religion known. The religion of a people
necessarily adjusts itself to their apprehensions of God. Know
they the true God ?-then is theirs the true religion. But spu-
rious is it if they know him not. Hence the question to the so-
lution of which we address ourselves is, What is the true God?
That in knowledge and power God is infinite may be assumed.
But what is his moral charcter? Is He just, reasonable, benig-
nant, loving, beneficent? Or, is He unjust, arbitrary, capri-
cious, malignant, injurious? To compress the question into the
fewest words, Is it in good or evil that He delights ?
In order to obtain a surely right answer to this question, we
must study not the opinions which are formed of God, but God
himself. We must look not at what others tell us of His works,
but at the works themselves. We must go not to men's records
of Him, but to his own: not to books written by men, but to
books written by God—to such books as the sun and stars and
earth. For not only is it true that God can be "understood by
the things that are made," but it is also true that by no other
means can He be understood. Only in this vast creation which
we call Nature, can we find the certain evidences of God's
nature.
Man is a part of this vast creation : and in the light of him-
self and of other parts of it, and of his relation to them, he has
abundant proof that God delights in good. The sun, which
THE RELIGION OF REASON. .
45
lights and warms him, and the fruitful earth, which feeds and
clothes him, are proofs of it. The returning seasons not only
prove there is a God, but that He is a loving father. So full of
His goodness are they that one of the poets calls them God.
Though not a Pantheist, I nevertheless can forgive the Panthe-
istic personification into which this sweet poet is carried when
he says of the seasons :
“These as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee."
I referred to the constitution of man for proof of the Divine
goodness. How happy is he in obeying and how miserable in
violating the laws of his own being! Should be not, then,
allow himself to be convinced by these laws that his Maker is
his friend and father?—the designer of good and not evil?—
and that "Love" is among the fittest of all the names given to
him ?
And what is there throughout the realms of physical and
moral government to raise so much as one doubt of the Divine
attributes ? In connecting peace with righteousness, and in or-
daining the outflow of happiness from virtue, and misery from
vice, has He not shown that love of the right and the pure, that
benevolence and goodness are elements in His character ? But
death is in the world, is the reply; and such an evil and such
a curse is it in the esteem of the theologians that they insist we
need to go outside of nature and to other revelations for proof
that God governs in justice and love. It is not true, however,
that death is a curse; nor that it is so much as a calamity.
That it is a penalty is purely a theological fiction. Were the
laws of life and health properly observed, the common age of
man reaching probably to a hundred years, would give ample
time for making trial and reaping the enjoyments of this state
of being. He would then feel death to be seasonable. Abund-
antly welcome would it be if he had observed the moral laws
also—it being in his power to learn these as well as the physical,
by studying the creation and providence of God. Abundantly
welcome, I say—for then his holy, happy life would afford him
the conscious preparation for a succeeding stage of existence.
I add that death is necessary to make room for countless mil.
lions of human beings who otherwise could have no existence;
46
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
and that thus it is to be credited with swelling indefinitely the
sum total of human happiness. Again, while a perpetual earth-
ly existence would be the foregoing of another and probably
higher life, it would also be characterized by far less enjoyment,
dignity, and usefulness, than is a limited earthly existence.
Human nature is slow to be improved after its habits are
formed and fixed. The commonest illustration of this is that
the physicians over forty years of age rejected the discovery of
the true theory of the circulation of the blood. Had the earth,
instead of being peopled with a succession of young, and, be-
cause young, free spirits, been the abode of men who never die,
hoary errors would have successfully conspired against all pro-
gress, had there, indeed, been any to conspire against. Of all
the inventions which cluster upon our day, probably not one
would have been known in the whole range, from the lucifer-
match which supplies the place of carrying fire in a skillet, to
the telegraph which does in a minute what live-forever men
could hardly have begun in a month. Indeed, death seems to
be as indispensable a provision of nature for improving the con
dition and character of man, as it does to prepare the way for
new and improved races of animals., Why is it unreasonable
to believe that the races of men millions of years hence will
surpass what they are now, quite as much as the most finely or-
ganized and the most beautiful specimens of animals in this age
of the earth surpass the trilobites and other fauna of the Silurian
period ? Surely while we see death to be so great a blessing,
we are not to argue from it that God is not good; but we are
rather to exalt ourselves to such a comprehension of it, that we
shall see it to be among the most needed provisions for man,
and therefore among the highest evidences of the Divine good-
Is it said that great changes in the earth rendered it an
impossible abode for those races of animals which have disap-
peared ? Let us not forget that probably as great changes are
still going on, and that probably they are continually calling
for and continually contributing to corresponding changes in
man as well as in animals.
It is a sound rule in logic to begin with the known and pro-
ceed to the unknown; to begin with what is self-evident and
proceed to what requires proof. As such was my beginning, so
I am now at liberty to advance to a proposition which requires
ness.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
47
a little defense. It is perhaps, however, only a little explana-
tion that it requires. The proposition is that nature teaches
there is a strong resemblance between God and man. They are
"workers together.” The grand Creator-worker and the little
creature-worker are suited to each other. Man supplies what
is lacking at the hand of God. He takes up nature from her
Author, and develops her into new forms of embellishment,
and results of higher usefulness. The work of each in the de-
partment of flowers shows that each has a taste for beauty and
ornament. The work of each in the department of food for
man and beast shows that each is provident and beneficent.
The part that each has in feeding the hungry, and clothing the
naked, proves that both are pitiful and beneyolent. The moun-
tain which the one and the pyramid which the other builds
prove that both enjoy the sublime, and that both work for the
ages.
We have said enough to justify our inferring of the moral
nature of God from that of man. We deduce the former from
our knowledge of the latter. We know that man's moral na-
ture is good, and therefore that God's is. Man is loving and
merciful, and appreciates truth and equity. Goodness is natural
to him. In the narration of Paul's shipwrecked company of
two hundred and seventy-six persons it is said : “And the bar-
barous people showed us no little kindness : for they kindled a
fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain and
because of the cold.” It is true that this people might have
murdered every one.
But they would have done it under some
misapprehension springing up in their barbarous ignorance, and
contrary to that underlying humanity which called on them to
save and comfort every one of their helpless guests.
The most barbarous people on earth, could they hear the
story of the Good Samaritan, would honor him and condemn
the Priest and Levite. Even such a people would applaud the
golden rule, and would also acknowledge truth to be right and
lying to be wrong. I do not forget that such crimes as burning
the widow and casting the infant into the river are often cited
to prove that human nature is blind, and bad, and base. These,
however, are crimes not of, but against, human nature. They
express its perversions, not itself. The religions of the world
are mainly responsible for this class of crimes. It is these re-
48
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
ligions that have in all lands and ages outraged human nature,
ignored it, and created monsters to take its place and wear its
name. Most of the great crimes (Slavery included) which have
disgraced and crushed mankind, have been committed either
avowedly in the name of religion, or directly or indirectly un-
der its promptings; and scarcely ever without the plea of its
sanction.
Let, then, the theologians continue to insist on the badness,
baseness, and blindness of human nature; we nevertheless will
continue to repose faith in its moral perceptions and in its dis-
cernment and appreciation of truth, justice, and mercy. We
nevertheless will continue to draw from his resemblances to
man some of our strongest arguments for attributing a just, for-
giving, and loving spirit to God.
Most persons will recoil from the inference of God's goodness
from man's. Their eye is on the masses of men. But the
masses are only the ruins of men—though even in these ruins,
noble and beautiful characteristics of human nature can still be
discovered. Human nature can not be so successfully judged of
in the light of those who trample upon as of those who obey it
laws. We should judge of it by good men. Nay, we should
come at once to Jesus, and judge of it by him for he is its best
specimen, since he was perfectly obedient to all the laws of his
being. When we say that the Divine nature is like human na-
ture, we do indeed mean that God resembles even the common
and unfavorable specimens of man, though of course much less
than He does the best. But when Jesus, the model man, is in
our eye, then do we say with an emphasis that God is like man. .
Another argument to sustain the conclusion that God is like
man is, that it can not, without the greatest violence to all prob-
ability, be supposed that He would create His intelligent be-
ings with a moral nature contrary to His own. Were His na-
ture malignant so would be theirs. But we see them to be on
the side of justice and goodness, and so therefore is He.
Now, if human nature, wherever its voice can be heard be-
neath the immeasurable wrongs and outrages which are every
where heaped upon it, and are every where at work to suppress
that voice, does still, in spite of those wrongs and outrages,
witness for truth and justice and love and mercy, then surely
these qualities must all be found in the Author of human na-
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
49
ture. Moreover, they must be perfect in Him, in order to cor-
respond with the perfect wisdom, skill, and contrivance mani-
fested in His works. The attributes of Deity, if bad, must be
entirely bad; if good, entirely good.
When, then, we are told that God could not forgive sin until
His angry spirit had been appeased and His laws satisfied by
the sufferings of an innocent person, we reply that this view of
Him and of His spirit and laws is forbidden, not only by what
we learn of Him and them directly from His outward and visi-
ble creations, but also from those clearly warrantable inferences
of His moral nature which we draw from that of man. His
character, as viewed from these indubitable sources, assures us
that He is ever ready to forgive every repentant offender. Je-
sus was assured of it, else he would not have taught it in the
parable of the prodigal son. But Jesus goes much further.
His words on the cross imply a belief that his Father is ready
to forgive the impenitent also, provided that ignorance be cou-
pled with their impenitence. But even men are good enough
to do all this. Much more then is God. “If ye, then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more your Fa-
ther?"
But it is said that nature and the history of man abound in an-
alogies to the Atonement. I can not admit that any such analo-
gies are to be found in either. It is true that ofttimes the guilt-
less suffer for the guilty—now of necessity, and now of choice.
But in no case is there a transference of character from one to
the other. The guilty party remains no less guilty, and the
guiltless party contracts no guilt literal or constructive. Re-
member, too, that the human sense of justice revolts at visiting
upon the good man the penalty due to the bad man—a strong
argument, by the way, that the Divine sense does also.
When, too, we are told that God has prepared an eternal hell
---a place of endless and inconceivably exquisite tortures—for a
large share of his children, we are sure that this shocking pic-
ture finds no counterpart and no warrant in creation and Prov-
idence. These tell us of a father and not of a fiend ; of love,
and not of hatred; of forgiveness, and not of revenge. These
tell us that in all ages God has made “his sun to rise on the
evil and on the good," and has sent his "rain on the just and
on the unjust;" and these bid us hope that in other worlds, as
4
50
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
well as in this, He will still be the father and the friend of men.
Again, if men are miserable here, it is not of His infliction, but
because they make themselves so; yes, and make themselves
so in the midst of the numberless and suflicient means He has
provided for making themselves happy. If, in this world, men
persevere in ruining themselves, it is in the face of His perse-
verance to save them. And why should it be otherwise in
other worlds? From nothing we see of God is He changeable.
We are bound to believe that He is as ready to afford His chil-
dren opportunities in one stage of being as well as in another,
for the improvement of their character; and that He is ever in-
tent, as much so in one world as in another, to do them good
and not evil. And why should we doubt that God is as
forgiving in another life as in this? Would Jesus have told
us to set no limits to the times of forgiving our brother, had he
believed that the exercise of God's forgiving spirit is confined
to this first brief stage of human existence? Would he have
told us to be so much better than he believed God to be?
Eternal hell! Then must sin be an eternally-disturbing force
in the universe. For manifestly when sin shall have ceased,
punishment will also.
Eternal hell! Yes, and it is to be suffered by men of the
loveliest character, provided they were not able to subscribe in
this life to certain ecclesiastical interpretations of a book.
Putting people into an eternal hell! Why, the worst of men
would not thus serve their worst enemies. How much less
would God! Orthodoxy makes God infinitely more malignant
and cruel than are the most malignant and cruel men.
Eternal bell! No man does and no man can believe it. It
is untrue if only because human nature is incapable of believing
it. Moreover, were such a belief possible it would be fatal.
Let the American people wake up with it to-morrow, and none
of them would goto their fields, and none to their shops, and none
would care for their homes. All interest in the things of earth
would be dead. The whole nation would be struck with pa-
ralysis, and frozen with horror. Even the beginnings of such a
belief are too much for the safety of the brain; and every step
in that direction is a step toward the madhouse. The orthodox
preacher of an eternal hell would himself go crazy did he be-
lieve his own preaching. Did he see his wife, or children, or
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
51
friends, or neighbors, in danger of falling into it, he would be
overpowered by the sight. He saves his sanity only through
his insiperity. To be sincere in his preaching he must first be
insane.
The little influence of their religion on its professors is often
wondered at. But why should it be? They do not believe
their religion, and they can not, so long as an eternal hell is a
part of it. Since their belief of this part is at the most but a
dreamy and fancied one, there can hardly be a real, earnest and
deeply-influential belief of any part. Their conscious or uncon-
scious distrust of the truth of this part necessarily begets a sim-
ilar distrust of the truth of every part. The enormous draught
at this point upon their staggering faith can not fail to cast in
their view an air of unreality over the whole of their religion.
Herein is the explanation of the fact that, while an ignorant
church is little better than a mass of superstition, a more en-
lightened one is little better than a mass of infidelity and hy-
pocrisy. The members of the latter, required to believe in
more than their credulity can swallow, do truly and deeply be-
lieve in nothing; and thus are they infidels. Moreover, they
are very great hypocrites, since they stoutly profess to believe
it all. Doubtless, one of their motives for this boundless pro-
fession of faith is to supply their conscious lack of it. They
are something like Mrs. Stowe's Candace, who, to atone for her
past lack of faith in the celebrated Bible apple, was now ready
to eat apple, tree, and all.
We are wont to lament the prevailing want of religious ear-
nestness. But should we not rather rejoice in it, seeing how
monstrous are the religions? With what a good stomach we
should hate, and crush, and kill one another, if we really be-
lieved that we are such devils as our religions picture us to be!
Once persuade me that God is waiting to roast my neighbor,
and the way is made easier for persuading me that I shall do
God service by hurrying that neighbor with a dagger or bullet
into the prepared fire.
But it is held that these things, which are so at war with Na-
ture and Providence, are affirmed by the Bible. I do not admit
that they are. Certainly they are not by the Bible as a whole.
But even if they were, that would not prove them to be true.
It would only prove that, so far, the Bible is false. Whether
52
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
these things are true or false, is a question to be referred not to
the umpirage of a book, but to the infinitely higher one of Na-
ture and Providence.
But is not the Bible the word of God? It is no further such
than it corresponds with the manifestations of God. It is to be
judged by Nature and Providence. Formerly, men in their
folly made the Bible paramount to Nature and Providence, as
even now does the splendid Baptist writer of New-York who
calls geology and astronomy "inferior truth.” They went to
it to study the motions of the heavenly bodies. But wise men
went to astronomy. Even in our own day there are persons
who go to the Bible for an understanding of earthly creations;
and even dear Hugh Miller himself thought it very important
to save it from the reproach of ignorance in this respect. Wise
men, however, go to geology, caring nothing at all of the havoc
it may make of the traditions and allegories of Genesis. Folly,
sheer folly, seeks to mould the mountains, and deposit the rocks
and account for the waters in harmony with those traditions
and allegories. But wisdom lets the mountains, rocks and wa-
ters, speak for themselves, let what will gainsay them. So, too,
it is held that the Bible, and the Bible alone, explains the
moral government of the world. Most religionists, very fool-
ishly turning their backs upon the sure light that Creation and
Providence shed upon this subject, as foolishly acknowledge
the words of a book to be conclusive upon it. Alas! that men
should fancy that they do in this wise honor the revealed God!
They deeply dishonor Him. For the revelations of a book, to
which they confine themselves, are as small as they are uncer-
tain, compared with "the abundance of the revelations" in na-
ture.
But is not the Bible inspired ? The spirit of much of it
comes, I admit, from the heavenly fount. Very common earth-
ly sources, however, would be adequate to supply most of the
remainder. No other pages are so full of the Divine presence
and power as are a part of its pages. But there are pages of
the Bible which might have been written by entire strangers to
that presence and power.
Is not, however, the Bible infallible? No person but God is
infallible; and no thing but nature. Nature is the infallible
witness for the infallible God. Precious source of enlighten-
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
53
1
ment is the Bible. But in the light of nature only, (I need not
add providence, since that is a part of or essentially connected
with nature,) can the true religion be surely learned. The
Bible is the work of man, and hence even its best pages must
bear the marks of human imperfection. But the volume of
nature is written by the finger of God, and is, therefore, as free
from error as Himself. What, however, is the Bible, or rather
a Bible, that we are bound to adopt the whole of it unquestion-
ingly, and to worship it, and to insist that there is not in the
whole of it one unsound doctrine, nor one false sentiment? I
wish all the clergy would tell their bearers that it is simply a
selection from ancient writings—a selection, too, made by per-
sons who no one claims were inspired. Such outspoken honesty
would serve to overthrow a great deal of superstition, and to
dispel a great deal of delusion. Millions, on hearing this news,
would look upon the Bible with new eyes. Then, for the first
time, they would have courage to exercise (but oh! with what
trembling !) their reason upon it, and to judge of its merits for
themselves. Then, for the first time, the soul-darkening, soul-
shriveling, and soul-enslaving religion of authority, would be-
gin to give place in them to the soul-enlightening, soul-expand-
ing, and soul-freeing religion of reason.
The clergy should also frankly tell their hearers that they who
undertook to make up a Bible differed widely among them-
selves in respect to what should go to make it up. They should
tell them how some voted to receive and others to reject this,
that, and the other of these ancient writings. Nor should they
forget to add, that the Catholics hold that the Protestant Bible
does not take in near as many of those ancient writings as it
should; and that the Protestants hold that the Catholic Bible
takes in far more than it should.
Perhaps both the Catholic and Protestant Bibles take in too
many of these writings: perhaps too few. Were I to make up
a Bible for myself, it might differ much from both. It might
be inferior, possibly it might be superior to both. But, how-
ever this may be, my assumption of the right to force it upon
the conscience of others would be no more arrogant and non-
sensical than is the like assumption in behalf of the existing
Bibles. Every man is in an important sense bound to make up
a Bible for himself. But while this is required by the religion
54
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
of reason, the religion of authority claims that its patent right
from heaven to make Bibles excludes every other right to make
them.
I refused to admit that the Bible, especially as a whole, jus-
tifies the popular or orthodox view, either of the Atonement
or of future punishment. An eternal hell finds no countenance
in the Old Testament, and is opposed to the general tenor of the
New. There are a few words in the latter which favor the in-
stitution. I say institution—for if Slavery may be dignified
with this name, it is peculiarly proper that every other hell
should be. Such of these few words as are attributed to Jesus
(and most of them are) would be entitled to our most profound
and earnest consideration, could we be sure that he uttered
them. But even if we could be, we should be more or less un-
certain to what they refer. Moreover, as they are used in con-
nection with his highly figurative and surpassingly hyperbolical
language, we should be apprehensive that to put a literal inter-
pretation upon them might be to sacrifice their significance.
Manifestly, then, these few words constitute a basis quite too
narrow and uncertain on which to build an argument for an
eternal hell—an argument leading to the most important and
appalling of all conclusions.
In every age, thousands of the learned spend no little time
in concentrating the whole power of their minds, and the whole
interest of their hearts, upon inquiries into the meaning of an
adjective which Jesus is reported to have coupled with the word
“punishment.” Upon that meaning they make turn the future
and eternal condition of man. What matchless folly to go to
an adjective, instead of God, with a question of such overwhelm-
ing importance! Nay, what insanity to be thus driving an ex-
clusive search into a word, for the purpose of learning the very
little of the Divine will which can be learned from a mere word,
while all the while the heavens above our heads, and the earth
beneath our feet, are teeming with unmistakable and conclusive
evidences of that will! Oh! when will men "turn from these
vanities unto the living God, who made heaven and earth and
the sea, and all things that are therein; and left not himself
without witness in that He did good, and gave us rain from
heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and
gladness!"
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
55
To return for a moment to this unduly-magnified adjective.
Is it properly translated into "everlasting ?” That is uncertain.
Uncertain, too, is it whether it was spoken in Hebrew, Syriac,
or Greek. For scholars can no more decide in what language
it was spoken than in what language the Book of Matthew was
first written. Now, if the idea which Jesus conveyed in this
word, and in its original connections, has indeed gone the round
of all these languages, then it would not be strange if, by the
time it reached our language, it had become a greatly changed
idea.
Nor can it be properly said that the popular or orthodox
view of the Atonement is sustained by the Bible. The few
passages it are inconsistent with the general tenor of the
book.
The Jews were waiting for the Messiah. He came. The
mass did not own him; and the few who did were sadly disap-
pointed and utterly confounded by his death. They "thought
it had been he who should have restored Israel." But in
pro-
cess of time happy turns were given to his death, whereby the
believing Jews were lifted up out of the despair into which that
death had sunk them. One of these turns, as honest, I admit,
as it was natural, was the Atonement. The sacrifice of animals
for the remission of sins was deeply rooted in the Jewish faith.
A very easy step, therefore, was it to a fanciful analogy between
such sacrifice and the death of Christ, and still easier was the
succeeding step which transmuted the fiction into an indubit-
able fact. The early Gentile converts were probably but little
interested in the Atonement. Not being prepared for it by a
Jewish education, they would be slow to receive it. To them
Paul says very little of it. The sacrifices of the Greeks and
Romans differed widely from those of the Jews.
I admit that the Atonement is, in the esteem of the majority
of Christians, the great central doctrine of Christianity-the
great saving doctrine, inasmuch as they hold that every man
denying it must perish, and that Christianity itself would perish
without it. But if the faith of the earliest Christians is appeal-
ed to for determining its relative importance, then will but little
account be made of the doctrine. Jesus did not teach it, nor
was it taught until many years after his death. It would not
be held to at this day, had not Paul taught it. Paul would not
.
56
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
have taught it, had he not been a Jew. The Jews would not
have received it but for their faith in animal sacrifices; and
from this faith they would have been free, had they entirely
outgrown paganism. It was because of their pagan conceptions
of Deity that they numbered damnation and destruction among
His intensest delights. It was because of the lingerings of pa-
ganism in them, that they attributed to Him a burning wrath
which blood and suffering could alone appease.
No, the Atonement was not the preëminent doctrine with the
early Christians. The Resurrection held that place. This was
the "hope" for which Paul was judged—the “hope that there
shall be a resurrection of the dead.” He taught that their
preaching and faith were vain if there be no resurrection.
I have mentioned one of the happy turns given to the death
of Christ. Another and no less honest one was that which
made his death lead to a triumphant argument for the resurrec-
tion. If Christ had risen, then there would be a rising of all,
" both of the just and the unjust." His resurrection was
held to be the earnest--the "first fruits" of the general resur-
rection.
With the believing Jews, the Messiah's reign--a visible and
literal reign-was second in importance to the resurrection only.
They were sure of it. So, too, was Jesus. The difference be-
tween himself and them on this point was, that they believed
he would set up his kingdom then, and he that he must first
pass through the gates of death. Soon after his death, how-
ever, they believed that he had risen, and the effect of this be-
lief was to renew their confidence in his kingdom. Confident
were they that he would soon return to "reign in righteous-
ness." Full of this confidence was Paul. He doubted not that
"the end of the world has come;" though he did not think it
to be quite as near as the Thessalonians did. Peter doubted
not that the end of all things is at hand." So, too, James,
" that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” And John adds :
“We know it is the last time.” But Christ did himself assign
a very early date to his return. Matt. 16 : 28; 24 : 34; Mark
9:1; Luke 21 : 32.
It surely should not be allowed to deduct any thing from our
estimate of the value of Christ, nor from our love of him and
interest in him, that in this and that instance the Father has
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
57
disclosed the “ day and hour not to the angels which are in
heaven, neither the Son." , I know how common is the remark
that Christ can not be loved by those, and can be of no avail to
those, who do not see him to be at all points one with his Fa-
ther. But the remark is as foolish as it is common. That he
is one with his Father in spirit and character makes him all we
need of him; and it should produce in us no sorrowful disap-
pointment and no sense of loss to know that in the end "shall
the Son also himself be subject unto Him, that God may be all
in all.” Alas! that men should waste their time and zeal upon
these speculative and profitless questions about Christ. To
every one thus unwisely employed does he say as he did to the
impertinent Peter: "What is that to thee? follow thou me.”
Suppose Christ did misapprehend some or even many of the
things in the future. No less bound are we to follow him, and
grow in likeness to him. No less is he God's own spirit "man-
ifest in the flesh.” No less is be our teacher, pattern, Saviour.
Yes, Jesus believed not only that the Jewish nation would
within a few years be overwhelmed and scattered, but that
"then” would his kingdom be set up, and "with power and
great glory. The temple, Jerusalem, and Judea, did all meet
their fate before the generation to which Jesus spoke had pass-
ed away. But his kingdom has not yet been set up, nor bave
the signs appeared which were to precede it.
By the way, is not the scene described in Matt. 25 : 31 to
46, substantially identical with that described in Matt. 24
and Luke 21, and therefore was it not to be enacted within a
few years from the day in which Christ pictured it before his
hearers? In other words, is that scene, instead of being, as is
held, the final judgment of all the living and dead, any thing
more than a merely Jewish scene? In Matt. 24 and Luke
21, we have the foretelling of the ruin of the Jewish nation
and the setting up of the Messiah's kingdom. In Matt. 25,
are we not informed of the reward of those Jews who welcom-
ed the ministry of Christ, and of the punishment of those Jews
who rejected it—especially of the reward of those who, during
his expected brief disappearance from earth, should honor his
disciples—even “the least” of them—and the punishment of
those who, during that brief period, should neglect those dis-
ciples--even "the least" of them? It is true that the word is
58
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
translated “nations,” but it is also true that “nations" is not
among its primary meanings, and that "multitudes," "compa-
nies, » « tribes" are. In the light of Matt. 19 : 28, do we not see
some evidence that "tribes" would be a proper translation, and
that the judgment in view was not to be of "all nations,” but
only of all the Jewish tribes ?
I readily admit that this passage in Matt. 25 would not,
if standing alone, easily bear this unusual interpretation. But
must it not be looked at in connection with Matt. 16, and Mark
9, and Luke 21, etc., and interpreted in the light of these Scrip-
tures as well as in the light of its own language? Moreover,
we must remember both how exceedingly figurative is the lan-
guage in Matt. 25, and how improbable it is that it is reported
with entire correctness. I confess that owing to the fact that a
simultaneous judgment of all the living and all the dead is a
puzzle to common-sense, I am liable to give force to what are
but feeble and, indeed, but seeming objections to the common
interpretation of the scene in Matt. 25.
But however this sublime scene should be interpreted, our
duty to identify ourselves with the cause of Christ, and to walk
in his steps, remains the same. Admit we must that every ex-
planation of it is beset with difficulties. Nevertheless, we repeat
that Jesus remains the same model of moral character by which
every one is bound to fashion his own, and the same personifica-
tion of love and holiness which every one should aspire to
become.
Far from inexplicable is it that so many stickle for the
divinity and atonement of Christ and other metaphysical doc-
trines coupled with His name, while so few are found who are
intent on breathing His spirit and copying His life. Self-
complacent logic sullices for the former ; but to accomplish the
latter there must be the self-denying and cross-bearing cultiva-
tion of character. The bare profession of Christ meets the
whole demand in the one case. But character
character of Christ is called for at every step in the other. In
the light of this distinction, we see how it is that, while Christ-
ians are so very scarce, sectarians are so very plenty. Difficult
it is to follow Christ; but easy to be swayed by a party zeal for
this or that denomination. Difficult it is to perform duties; but
easy to prate about doctrines.
even the
TEIE RELIGION OF REASON.
59
I am reminded in this connection of the denial of Christian
character to all who disbelieve or doubt any of the miracles in
the history of Christ. But the denial is as unjust as it is com-
mon, since it turns not at all upon, and does not at all involve,
our moral character whether we do or do not give credit to
miracles. Men may be either good or bad, and give such credit;
either good or bad, and withhold it. A scholar in this day,
however devout, would be very like to withhold it; for, aware
as he is that all nations abound in traditions of miracles, and
agreeing with the intelligent that all others are false, be quite
naturally calls in question the truth of the Christian miracles
also. He doubts even the miraculous conception of Jesus. For
in his extensive reading he has found the instances very com-
mon all along down the track of the world's history, in which
a supernatural origin is attributed to its heroes and philosophers.
It would not be strange if
, remembering that Plato was believed
to be the offspring of a god and a virgin, and if, remembering,
too, that it was also believed that the man who subsequently
became her husband was told, in a dream, by the god not to
marry her until her divinc child was born-I say, it would not
be strange if he should suspect that the account of the origin
of Jesus is but a substantial repetition of this fable about Plato.
The scholar might be all wrong in this suspicion. Nevertheless,
he would not necessarily be a sinner for it.
To be frank, I suppose that all enlightened and broad-minded
men do at least doubt the truth of miracles. They have never
seen any, and hence they are slow to yield to even abounding
testimony in their behall. Had they ever seen so much as one
miracle, they could easily be brought to believe in others, on
the same principle that, having seen one city, men can be per-
suaded of the existence of others. Moreover, it is especially
difficult for him to believe in the Christian miracles who reflects
that Christianity has done more than all things else to dispel
belief in miracles. He would naturally expect that a religion
of such an effect would keep itself clear of miracles. By the
way, this effect of Christianity is among the arguments for
regarding it as a natural rather than a supernatural religion.
I was speaking of Christ's misapprehensions of the future,
when I was drawn off upon an incidental subject. May I not
add to what I said of these misapprehensions, that He became,
60
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
on His ascension, immeasurably more than perhaps He himself
expected to be? He lived and died the Messiah of the Jews;
and not only did He believe, in common with His disciples,
that He would return to earth, but it is somewhat probable that
He also believed that he would return to earth in no wider
capacity than that in which He left it. Unbounded and ever-
lasting thanks to God, His Messiahship and nationality fell off
at the grave, and He arose the Saviour of Mankind! His life,
and death, and words, and spirit, are not the monopoly of one
nation, but the common property of all. They are not for the
salvation and glory of the Jew only, but of all, whether Jew
or Gentile, who are willing to be saved and glorified by them.
It is time, however, we had returned from this long digression,
in which, while we have vindicated the Bible, we have, never-
theless, admitted that nature is the only authoritative instructor
in our study of the character of God. Before making this
disgression, we had said enough to prove what, in the light of
this instructor, is that character. We saw God to be just and
good; and hence it is entirely plain to reason that justice and
goodness are the spirit of the true religion. For, as was said in
the beginning of our discourse, the true religion must be like the
true God. Another thing no less plain to reason is, that if the
religion in our hearts is the true one, it will be found to recog-
nize and honor and harmonize with the several kinds of intel-
ligent beings with which it has to do. While toward God and
men and angels (provided it has to do with angels also) it is always
the same spirit of justice and goodness, it nevertheless adapts
itself to the different demands of the three different natures.
The Psalmist says: “My goodness extendeth not to Thee.”
There is a sense in which this is emphatically true. Neverthe-
less the love, gratitude, adoration, prayer due to God are ex-
pressions of the goodness as well as of the justice which enter
into the spirit of the true religion. In other words, there are
services of religion which are Godward-being called out by
his nature, and adapted to it.
Excuse me for making another disgression. Just here I must
defend prayer—the duty of the exercise being strongly doubted
in some quarters, and even totally denied in others. It is ap-
prehended by some, and fully believed by others, that prayer
overlooks and interferes with the general laws of the universe.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
61
Men must have become persuaded of the truth of the doctrine
of Divine influence before they will become men of prayer.
The influence of a great and good man pervades his town, his
county, and, may be, his whole State. Why, then, may not
God's influence pervade His universe ? But skepticism knows
the means by which man's influence is diffused, and not those by
which God's is. And shall it, therefore, deny that those exist,
and deny, too, that the influence itself exists?
The doctrine of Divine influence admitted, and there are
prayers which all will see to be reasonable; such as are in effect
prayers for the opening of the mind to that influence. Do I
pray for an increase of my physical or spiritual health ? If I
pray intelligently, it is not that God may increase it, but that
He may influence me to increase it by my improvement of the
means to that end placed by His providence within my reach.
In other words, it is asking Him to dispose me to answer my
own prayers; and surely this is not ignoring any general laws
with which we are acquainted; nor is it asking Him to come
into conflict with them.
Widely different, I admit, would be the case were I praying
for sunshine or rain. That would be praying that a work may
be done not by myself but by God—and a work involving, it
might be, an arrest of some of His general laws. Nevertheless,
I do not say that there are no possible circumstances in which a
people are to feel at liberty to pray for what involves such
arrest. When threatened with famine by drouth or rain, or
with some other great calamity, they, perhaps, ought so to pray,
and not to confine themselves to prayer for resignation. For
we do not know but, in so praying, they would keep themselves
in harmony with a law as old and fixed and eternal as the gen-
eral laws referred to. A law there may be which shall provide
that even these general laws shall give way in certain circum-
stances--as for instance, before the prayers of a suffering people,
who shall have greatly honored themselves and their God, by
attaining a certain posture of soul. A law is not impossible,
which, the conditions precedent being supplied, shall compel
even the sun and moon to stand still, in answer to prayer.
confess that it is not for man to limit the Divine possibilities,
nor to essay to number and comprehend all the laws of the uni-
verse.
62
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
Are my suppositions at war with the unchangeableness of the
general laws? They are not. The provision from eternity,
that a possible or given conjuncture shall serve to arrest one of
these laws, is from eternity a part of that law: and the actual
conjuncture does not change the law.
We can not guard too carefully against all undue limitation
of the efficiency of prayer, and all undue diminution of the
motives to engage in it. Let us, who believe that the religion
of reason calls for the religion of nature, remember that the flow
of prayer is as natural as the flow of water. The prayerless
man bas become an unnatural man. Jesus "continued all night
in prayer to God :" and he was the wisest and best of men, be-
cause the most natural of men–because the truest to his nature.
I will say nothing here of "special providences,” except that
if they do occur they must be the result of the unchangeable
and eternal laws of the unchangeable and eternal God.
A few words more in regard to these general laws. There is
a view of them which multiplies infidels with a fearful rapidity.
It is that view which puts them in the place of a personal God, by
representing Him as having set them in motion, and then turning
his back upon them. But these laws are not God. They are
only the modes by which He works, and they have no power
only as He constantly energizes them, and no existence only as
He constantly breathes his own into them.
To return again to the line of argument in this discourse
I was speaking of the true religion as a spirit of justice and good-
ness, and also of its proper service toward God. I now pass on
to speak of its proper and more important service toward man.
More important I say, since its truest service toward man is also
its truest service toward God. More important, too, since only
a small part of our time should be consumed with direct duties to
God, and nearly all of it with direct duties to man.
that " all the law is fulfilled " in our duties to man.
Alas ! how wanting in the characteristics of the true religion
have the prevailing religions of the world always proved them-
selves to be by their unbappy bearing on human nature! Con-
clusive witnesses of this are those deep wrongs done to man cver
and every where; that contemptuous disregard of his rights ;
that heartless indifference to the essential wants and urgent de-
mands of his high and sacred nature. What overwhelming tes-
Paul says
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
63
!
timony against these religions have we in Polygamy, Land-mo-
nopoly, War, Slavery, and the annihilation of the rights of Wo.
man !
These crimes prevail because conventional and false religions
prevail: and never shall we find relief from them and a remedy
for the ruin they have wrought, until we shall find it in a reli-
gion harmonizing with human nature, and growing out of it
a religion, in short, which shall allow human nature to be a law
unto itself and to be its own religion. That eminently profound
observer, Madame de Staël, justly accords to the Christian phi-
losophy the high honor of seeking to harmonize religion with
human nature, (celle qui cherche l'analogie de la religion avec la na-
ture humain.) I add that we can never learn what is the true re-
ligion except by studying the rights and wants of human nature.
Hitherto religions altogether alien and revolting to human
nature have been forced upon it-religions whose slanderous
song is :
"Nature must count her gold but dross,
If she would gain the heavenly land ;"
religions that have impudently and lyingly asserted their supe-
riority to human nature, and that have thereby succeeded in
bringing it under their tyrannical and crushing sway; religions
that under the plea of saving human nature, have gone about to
kill it. Is this idea of having our nature be our law and our re-
ligion, startling and offensive to you? Goodness, I am aware, is
well-nigh universally regarded as an external injunction upon,
rather than a law of, our nature. But to be truly good and
truly religious, is not to be in bondage to a foreign authority.
It is, on the contrary, to enjoy the freedom of living out our own
good nature and being ourselves. He who made us bids us be
what He made us--bids us live out ourselves.
I know that this doctrine of the goodness of human nature
must shock some of my hearers—for they, and, indeed, nearly all
of us, were trained up to believe in its total depravity. Would
that men universally had faith in its goodness! Such faith
would serve mightily to lift up their lives to the high level of
their nature. On the other hand, their degrading submission to
the doctrine of their total depravity goes very far toward ac-
counting for their false morality, base spirit, and dwarfed man-
hood. So long as they believe in this doctrine, they will be an
64
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
easy prey to the priesthood. For so long they will feel them-
selves to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and
compelled to go outside of themselves to supply the deficiency.
This deficiency the priesthood stands ever ready to supply,
either by means of its interpretation of books, or simply its own
dicta. Hence men receive this as right, and reject that as
wrong, not because they see them to be so, but because of their
being told that they are so. Hence it is explained that many
worthy people admit that even Slavery is right. Instantly
would they condemn it were their moral sense allowed to pass
upon it. But their moral sense, the theologians tell them, is so
blunted and blinded by their total depravity as to make it
necessary to supersede it by a revelation-by a book. It is by
thus denying to men the ability, and therefore the right, to judge
for, themselves, even in the plainest of moral matters; it is by
thus overriding them with authority, and reducing them to
puppets, that they are so largely characterized by a sense of
irresponsibility, by ignorance, weakness, superstition, cowardice.
It is, in a word, by this means, that they are brought to live a
life which is sunk so far below their nature.
A natural religion is, as we have already substantially said,
the only one for which reason calls. Men study books to learn
religion. But while we readily admit that some books, and
especially the precious Bible, (that most eloquent defender, next
to Nature, of both Divine and human rights, as we joyfully see
it to be when wielded by such a mighty man of God as
Cheever,) are useful to this end, we must nevertheless insist
that the study of nature is immeasurably more so.
So far as
the Vedas or Koran may be a record of the teachings of nature,
or may be in harmony with those teachings, they are valuable:
and only by the same rule is the value of the Bible to be
judged. It is by means of books and their own imaginations
that men conjure up these crazy religions that make such fright-
ful and ruinous war on human nature_dwarfing and shriveling
it with the terrors of their horrid hells, and debasing and be-
fooling it with their superstitious and puerile pictures of hea-
ven. But only let reason be obeyed, and a natural religion be
allowed to take the place of these artificial, fanciful, and insane
religions, and the abuses of human nature will cease, and the
deep wounds they have made upon it will be quickly healed,
THE RELIGION OF REASON:
65
its fair proportions be all recovered, and its union with the
Divine nature be reëstablished.
I spoke of the mistake of studying religion in books rather
than in nature. I remark, incidentally, that in this mistake is
to be found the fruitful source of sectarianism. Were the nature-
religion substituted for the book-religion, there could be no
sect. Nearly all cultivated men read nature substantially alike,
and so would all men but for the authority which they allow
to certain books. Take away from the thousand Christian sects
their temptation to quarrel about a few words in the Bible, and
their occupation would be gone, and their death would be cer-
tain. But this temptation will all disappear the moment they
shall see that nature, and not a book, is authority in religion.
It is our duty to be reformers. But reformers we shall not
be unless we make ourselves aware and keep ourselves aware
of the spuriousness of the popular religion. Frequent are the
occasions which reveal that spuriousness: and it may be profit-
able for us all if we bring into review at this time some of
these revelations.
The Governments of Massachusetts and New-York were
recently called on to provide protection for fugitive slaves.
But they refused. Why did they? Government in its true
sense is simply the collective people, charged with the duty of
protecting each one of the people. The plea for their refusal
was, that Massachusetts and New-York are under a promise not
to protect this class of persons. Admit that they are, (though
every endeavor to show that they are must be in contempt and
defiance of the canon of legal interpretation,) nevertheless,
ought not the protection to have been afforded first, and the
promise to have been considered afterward? The duty of the
protection could not be conditional on any thing. At all times,
and in all circumstances, such a duty is imperative and absolute.
Ought not Herod to havė saved John first, and to have left to
after consideration his promise involving the contrary? More-
over, could it have been the true religion which would have led
him, in such after consideration, to regret the breaking of a
promise that called for murder? Certainly not. No more
could it have been the true religion which would have brought
the Legislatures in question to repent themselves of having
broken a promise which called for a greater crime than murder.
5
1
66
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
I say a greater—for to be guilty, directly or indirectly, of re-
plunging a brother into the pit of Slavery is worse than to have
a part in murdering him. We had all rather have our children
murdered than enslaved. The Legislature or Court that dares
insult human nature by entertaining the question whether man
is merchandise is no better than a mob, and has no more rights
than a mob. Nay, it is a mob; and a right-minded people
would sustain their Executive in forcibly dispersing it. Were
the people of Ohio inspired by the true religion, instead of be-
ing debased by a false one, they would command their Governor
to put an immediate stop to this trying of men in her Courts
for not obeying a law for Slavery. There can be no law for
what is itself not law; and to know Slavery as law is an offense
against human nature, unsurpassed, as well for its absurdity, as
for its criminality.
Let me not be understood as holding that every unwise pro-
mise should be broken. If I have promised two dollars for a
service which proves to be worth but one, I had, nevertheless,
better pay the two dollars. If the people have in the Consti-
tution promised to do foolish things, let them be done, provided
the doing of them is insisted on. But whatever may be said in
regard to things merely foolish, there can be no obligation to do
what is clearly wicked. Law is for righteousness. For wicked-
ness there can be no law.
In this great wickedness of the Legislatures of Massachusetts
and New-York, the people of these States acquiesce. Doubt-
less they stand ready to reëlect those members who voted
against the slaves, under the plea of their virtual promise to vote
against them. Doubtless they do themselves feel the force of
this plea. So far as they do, they prove that the religion of
the people, as well as of the Legislatures of these States, is no
better than that of the infamous Elerod. Thus abominable is a
conventional and book-religion. But in what beautiful con-
trast to it stands the religion of nature !--that reasonable re-
ligion which treats all beings according to their natures—the
man according to his, and the horse according to his; not the
man as if he were a horse, any more than the horse as if he
were a man. Our slaveholding religion subjects a man to the
discipline of a horse, and thus rivals the absurdity of the me-
morable atteinpt in Rome to exalt a horse to the dignity of a
THE RELIGION OF REASUN.
67
man. The religion of nature does not treat one man as a hog,
and another as superhuman, but, recognizing the common na-
ture of all men, be they white, red, or black, it brings them all
under a common treatment. Hence, the religion of nature can
have no fellowship with slaveholding, nor with Massachusetts,
New-York, nor any other State which gives the least counte-
nance to slaveholding. For slaveholding lifts up the slave-
holder above all the rights of human nature, and reduces the
slave to a brute. Nor can it have fellowship with the selling
of intoxicating drinks, since that fills the coffers of some men
at the expense of sinking others below the brute.
What an enemy instead of friend of the natural and only rea-
sonable religion, must be the religion which is in full fellowship
with these unnatural and enormous crimes ! Base indeed must
be the religion in which there is not virtue enough to shut up
the dram-shop, and to afford shelter to the pursued slave. Base
indeed must it have made the people who elect Pro-slavery and
dram-shop Legislatures.
We pass on to other illustrations of the spuriousness of the
prevailing religion. The American Tract Society justifies its
wickedness, also, on the ground of its promise to be wicked.
Quite recently it has again, under the plea of its virtual promise
to withhold this part of the Gospel, excused itself for refusing
" to preach deliverance" to the slaves. As if a promise, be it
real or pretended, express or implied, to rob the most persecut-
ed and peeled class of men of that God's testimony for the faith-
ful promulgation of which they are in perishing need, could
excuse the robbers! And these superlatively guilty robbers
carry on their robbery in the name and with the solemn air and
long face of piety, and as if it were a plainly commanded and
indispensable duty and service to Him who has said: “I the
Lord love judgment: I hate robbery for burnt offering."
Another recent illustration of the falseness of the current reli-
gion is afforded in the almost universal sympathy with the mur-
derer of Philip Barton Key. The secular press favored his ac-
quittal. So did a portion of the religious press; and, so far as
I know, no portion of it contended for his conviction. But why
should he have been acquitted ? Because, say bis apologists,
he was angry when he did the deed. What! the ruin of his
wife beget in him the superficial and cheap emotion of anger!
68
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
A base man, indeed, must he then be. A noble man in such
circurnstances would be filled, ay, he might be even killed, with
grief. But the sorrow of his soul would be too deep, and would
be too sacred and select, to express itself in the vulgar and
brutal demonstrations of anger.
We proceed to the most relied-on and popular excuse for the
murder. It is that the adulterer deserves to die. But our law
does not say so. The law of Moses does, is the reply; and a
great parade of it was made both in and out of the Court. So
does Moses' law say that "every one who curseth his father or
his mother shall be surely put to death.” So, too, does it say
that to gather sticks on the Sabbath is an offense punishable
with death. And what gross inconsistency and glaring hypoc-
risy it is to hold up some of his laws as obligatory and to make
no account of others! Moses, however, did not mean that per-
sons should be put to death for these offenses without having
first had a trial. Moreover, his code was for an ignorant and
uncivilized people, and it is not for us. Christ is our lawgiver,
and he confronts Moses the lawgiver. Christ, rather than have
the adulterer suffer the unreasonable punishment of death,
would say to him: “Go, and sin no more."
Will the defenders of this murderer stand by their doctrine
that, where the law does not provide a penalty private wrath
should? Then let them, as consistency and honesty require,
look upon the slave, not the seduction only of whose wife and
daughters
, but the forcible subjection of them to lust
, is among
everyday actualities as well as possibilities. Let them, I say,
look on him, and admit his duty to wreak the deep vengeance
of his soul upon those who have trampled down his holy mari-
tal and parental rights, as well as all the other rights of his
manhood.
Again, are the defenders of this doctrine and this murderer
prepared to have the wife of the adulterer go forth to shoot the
adulteress? They are, if they are honest and consistent. And
again, would they have the seduced rather than the seducer
murdered ? Who knows that Key was not the seduced party ?
Whatever justice at this point he might have been able to do
his reputation, he was not permitted to do. For he was first
murdered and then tried.
Once more: Are these defenders willing that all persons who
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
69
suspect, or, if you please, believe, that their conjugal partner is
unfaithful, shall act, pistol in hand, upon the first impulses of
their suspicions, or even upon their fully-matured beliefs ? For
surely, if this action shall be allowed to any, it must be to all.
But in ten thousand cases the mind in which such suspicions
spring up or such beliefs are matured, would be so swayed by
ignorance, prejudice, and passion, as to be utterly incapable of
weighing evidence. What, however, if it shall be even a very
wise and good man who shall suspect me of a crime ?-still, and
even if it be a.crime ever so worthy of death, I must insist on
the right of being tried before I am killed.
In this new order of things, whose life is safe? Not mine;
not yours. Every where there are jealous persons silly or stupid
enough to be persuaded, though without any reason, of attempts
to debauch their wives, or daughters, or sisters. Hence, if this
tendency in our country to let the jealous man be judge, jury
and executioner in his own case, shall gain as much strength in
a few.years to come as it has in the last few years, there will
not be another country on earth where murder will be so fre-
quent, and the life of an innocent person so insecure. If juries
will help arrest the rapid progress of our nation to the lowest
barbarism, they must promptly convict the class of murderers
to which the murderer of Philip Barton Key belongs. As
things are going, they had better let any other class of murder-
ers escape.
But would I not look to the husband to protect the wife from
seduction ? No—I would look to herself. Her own virtues
are her only legitimate earthly protectors from such a fate. All
the aid I would require of a husband would be to live such a
life before her as should minister strength to those virtues,
How degrading to woman is this doctrine that blood must be
shed in order to deter men from using her upon their lusts!
To what a low place in the scale of intelligent beings does it
consign her!
But would I not have civil government prescribe a penalty
for sexual intercourse out of wedlock? Certainly I would. Its
office, ay, its sole office, is to protect the great natural rights of
man: and these are never more flagrantly invaded than by such
intercourse. Let me here say that in no land is there civil gov.
ernment. Emphatically true is this in respect to our own land.
70
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
Its place here is usurped by a bold and infamous conspiracy
against human rights. God made every man to own himself.
But this conspiracy which we call Government, allows one man
to own. another. Again, our Government, like Governments
in other lands, instead of protecting life and property, licenses
the dram-shop—that immeasurably greatest manufactory of mad-
men, murderers, and incendiaries. These are illustrative of the
spuriousness of the religion which permits them. Another is to
be found in land-monopoly. Government, here and elsewhere,
allows one man to grasp fifty homes, and to leave thereby forty-
nine men homeless. For, beside that we each need but one
home, there is but one home for each of us. The defeat of the
Grow-amended Land Bill in the last Congress shows that the
protection of human rights, which is the great object of the true
religion, is no object at all of the popular religion.
Now, it is on the very same principle on which Government
should forbid land-monopoly that it should also forbid sexual
intercourse out of wedlock. In other words, it should harmo-
nize with nature and the religion of nature, and ordain that
every man shall have but one wife, and every woman but one
husband. But one, I repeat: for tbe census tables of all coun-
tries show that the sexes are substantially equal in numbers.
And with this great fact in nature the teaching of Jesus agrees,
when he says, "God made them male and female;" not ten
women for one man, nor ten men for one woman; but one for
On this simple ground, that nature affords but one of one
sex to one of the other, should Government punish polygamy;
that is, on the simple ground that for Government to allow a
man to get two wives, or a woman to get two husbands, would
be to allow them to rob their fellows of a great natural right--
the right to a wife in the one case, and to a husband in the
other. Herein, and herein only, do we see how to reach the
solution of that great problem in Utah which so perplexes our
statesmen our poor statesmen who are as ignorant that all
questions in the province of politics are to be solved solely in
the light of the rights and wants of human nature, as are our
poor theologians, that all questions in the province of religion,
also, are to be solved solely in that same light.
But it may be said that my argument is against polygamy
only--only against a plurality of husbands and wives. I an-
one.
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
71
1
swer that it is equally applicable to the condemnation of the
licentiousness which is not practised under the name and shel-
ter of matrimony as to that which is. Government is bound to
punish the one as well as the other, for precisely the same rea-
son and with precisely the same severity—the robbery of great
natural rights being precisely the same in the one case as in the
other. That it is precisely the same is obvious, from the fact
that the man whose commerce is not confined to his wife, but
is with other women also, robs her of a husband, inasmuch as
his licentiousness disqualifies him to be a husband; and robs
men of wives by disqualifying those other women to be wives.
A similar robbery does the licentious woman practise upon her
husband and upon her own sex.
Not very remotely connected with the questions we have just
been disscussing is that of divorce. This, like the others, is
very readily solved in the clear and strong light of authoritative
nature. But how puzzling is the problem if we grope for its
solution among the uncertain and conflicting interpretations of
books! The way that this question is disposed of politically,
and for the most part ecclesiastically, is but little in harmony
with the teachings of nature, and is a further illustration of the
worthlessness of artificial religions, and of the necessity of return-
ing to the religion of nature and reason.
Why should people marry? Because “it is not good that the
man should be alone." Because the human heart yearns for the
freest communion and fullest sympathy with some other heart.
Because no one is capable of going alone and uncounselled
through the trials and perplexities before him; and with no
bosom friend to soothe and cheer and sustain him amid the sor-
rows and sufferings that await him. It is for such reasons, and
because joy is thereby doubled as well as pain divided, that the
journey of life should be travelled in pairs—each pair being
bound together in that mutual love which never wearies of its
ministerings, and never forsakes its chosen companion.
Much has been said and written in our day in favor of mak-
ing a physically healthy offspring the paramount object in
choosing a husband or wife. But, in point of fact, it is very
rarely made such; very rarely made any object whatever; and,
in my judgment, should never be. I would that persons should
marry each other simply because they have fallen so deeply in
72
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
love as to feel that they must-ay, already do belong to each
other; and are irrevocably chosen to care for and bless each
other; and can never, while life lasts, be separated from each
other. Children are to be regarded not as the direct object, but
as one of the natural and unstudied incidents of marriage. I
admit that when parents find themselves bringing diseased and
miserable children into the world they had better lock up their
faculties than multiply such children. Let me here say that it
is not only probable that the child of parents, whose marriage
sprang from their true love of each other and a deep soul-union
with each other, is far more likely to be morally sound than the
child of parents who are brought together with about the same
calculation for the improvement of human stock as enters into
the improvement of breeds of animals; but that it is also prob-
able that he who was born with a poor physical constitution
will be like to improve it if he have a good moral one; while
he who has a poor moral one will probably be reckless of his
physical constitution. Thus has a love-marriage the promise of
children healthier, not only in soul, but in the end in body also.
Far away, then, from marriage be all calculation. The blindest
and most improvident love-match is infinitely preferable to a
calculated and calculating match. A marriage, if need be, in
the face of all calculation because so brimful of love-a down-
right can't-help-it marriage—is the true one.
In what cases would I have divorce allowed ? I say, with the
Catholic Church, in none. But would I not when there is
adultery ? No, not even then. In any case whatever, it vio-
lates great human rights. Nature, as we have seen from the
census tables, does not allow it; and Jesus, far greatest of all the
moral interpreters of Nature, does not. It is true that there is one
offense for which he allows the husband to put away the wife;
but he declares him to be guilty of adultery if he marrics again.
Though we are not bound to cohabit with an adulterous person,
nevertheless, not even adultery brcaks the tie of marriage.
My wife is incapable of becoming the wife of another so long as
I live. My crime may be such as to make it incompatible with
her self-respect and her other duties to continue to live with me.
But she is never to cease from her cfforts for my reformation,
and she is never to put herself in such circumstances as would
disable her from receiving me, should I return to her in peni-
THE RELIGION OF REASON,
73
tence. This, however, she clearly would do by marrying an-
other. I know not the genius nor requirements of Christianity
if it would have the wife forgive her husband when he repents
of his lying or theft, and it would not also have her take him
back to her arms when he has repented of his adultery.
I said that my wife ought not to marry another while I am
alive; and I have already argued in effect to this conclusion.
I have already virtually shown that for her to do so would be
not only to wrong me but to practise a robbery upon her sex,
some of whom must go unmarried if others have more than one
living husband.
I said that in no case should there be divorce. Let it be un-
derstood that there can not be, and the caution in selecting a
conjugal partner would be greatly increased. Moreover, there
would be a fresh motive then for the seasonable healing of those
dissensions in married life which are so often allowed to run on
and result in mutual estrangement and divorce. But so long
as the marriage knot can be untied—even though it can be by
adultery only—so long will there be endeavors to untie it.
The wicked wife may, for the sake of getting it untied, practise
her arts to involve her husband in adultery, and the wicked
husband may seek this end by similar means.
I say no more of marriage, only that if it is to be invested
with far more of beauty, dignity, and solemnity, and to be made
far more productive of blessedness, it must be held to be as en-
during as life itself.
Thus have I set before you as far as I well could within the
narrow limits of a single discourse the religion of nature. If
the one great direct object of true religion is the protection of
natural rights, then we must have a natural religion to accom-
plish it. Natural rights never have been, and never will be,
protected under artificial religions; and the fact that they are
cloven down the earth over, is conclusive evidence that arti-
ficial religions prevail the earth over. Friend of Temperance,
friend of Peace, friend of Freedom! work on against Intoxicat-
ing Drinks, and War, and Slavery; but flatter yourselves with
no hope of permanent or extensive success—until the current
religion has been supplanted by the religion of nature. Seeker
of reform in politics! the current religion blocks up your way
also. Corrupt and crazy as are our politics, they are neverthe-
74
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
less no worse than our religion. Nay, they are always one with
it. The State is never more rotten than the Church.
We frequently hear the light of nature spoken of as dim and
doubtful and deceiving. But, in point of fact, is it not the only
clear and bright and sure one? Jesus himself is not another
light. He is the perfect medium through which the light of
nature shines. The common opinion is that nature is not a
sufficient source whence to make up our religion. A much-
relied-on proof that it is not, is its failure to teach the doctrine
of the resurrection of the body. I admit that it does not teach
it. I admit that it teaches the reverse. But this doctrine,
which is of so much interest to the superstitious and specula-
tive, natural religion has nothing at all to do with. Its only
concern is to make better the moral character of men; and
whether this doctrine is true or false does in no wise affect such
character. But, saying nothing of his body, does nature teach
that man shall live again? Unless she does, how slow should
we be to believe it? A doctrine so important as another life is
not to be confidently received on any less certain testimony
than nature herself. Unless it is at least countenanced by na-
ture, it should not be received at all.
I believe there are strong, I will not say conclusive, proofs in
nature that man shall live again. One is, that God made him
in His own likeness. That He did so, we endeavored to show
in an early part of this discourse. He put into him His own
spirit, and made him to be His immortal companion and co-
worker. Another of these proofs is, that God made him with
wants that this life can not satisfy. The horse and dog, and
other creatures, whose knowledge is mainly instinctive, attain
here their summit of knowledge, and therefore of enjoyment
and usefulness also. But man gathers up all earthly knowledge
only to long for more. The more he learns, the more unsatis-
fied is he with the measure of his learning; and by the very
laws of his being, as they stand revealed to him in his own his-
tory and experience, he seems compelled to regard his present
degrees of knowledge, and consequently of usefulness and hap-
pincss also, as but earnests of their infinite growth hereafter.
The more Newton and Humboldt learned, the more they became
little children; not only in the growing simplicity of their spirit,
but in the conscious poverty of their knowledge. With the
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
75
?
growth of their knowledge grew their sense of their ignorance ;
and when they came to die, the rich and deep diapason, made
up of all the voices of their being and all the voices of their
experience, sounded out the sweet and full assurance that they
were but in the infancy of their existence, and that their death
was to be not their death, but a new and nobler life.
I have but time to add, under this head, that if the spiritual-
ists are not deceived, they have discovered another and a con-
clusive natural evidence that man is to live again. It may be
many years, however, before the phenomena of spiritualism will
be sufficiently accumulated and authenticated to establish in all
minds the fact that Nature teaches another state of human ex-
istence.
Repeatedly, in this discourse, have I called the religion I am
commending the religion of nature. With entire propriety I
might always have called it the religion of reason, since it is
reason that discerns and approves and adopts it.
I notice that my use of the word reason in former discourses
on the religion of reason is criticised. My critics appear to
confine the meaning of the word to ratiocination, or the process
of reasoning. But does it not also mean the result arrived at
through such process? The conclusion that the slave should
be set free results from sound reasoning: in other words, is sup-
ported by reason, and therefore may be and is called reason.
So, too, the conclusion that men should not poison and defile
themselves with intoxicating liquors and tobacco is another
result of sound reasoning, and comes properly under the name
of reason. The right--the right as it is seen in the light of
reason-is surely one of the admitted definitions of reason; and
therefore have I felt justified to speak of reason as the standard
with which to compare the claims of a religion. Does a religion
attribute to God an arbitrary and cruel disposition ?--then do I
condemn it, because it wars at that essential point with reason.
Does it, on the other hand, accord to Him a paternal and loving
spirit ?—so far, then, do I welcome it, because so far it abides
the test of reason.
My efforts the last few years in behalf of the religion of rea-
son, have been construed by many into attacks upon Christian-
ity. Nevertheless, they were intended as an humble means
toward saying it. Love to God and love to man are the essen-
76
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
tial elements of Christianity; and as nothing can be more rea-
sonable than these, it is impossible that reason should make war
upon Christianity. More than this: the religion of reason and
the Christian religion are necessarily one. I admit that the
religion of reason is a different thing from the spurious Christ-
ianity which prevails in every part of Christendom. I admit
that all its artillery is directed against that wicked and ruinous
counterfeit. But the true Christianity-the Christianity of the
Bible—the Christianity taught by the lips and life of Jesus-
has no truer friend than reason. Indeed, it is alone by the
force of reason, guided and blest of heaven, that a false Christ-
ianity can be beaten back from its usurpations, and the true
reënthroned.
The religion of reason is indispensable, not only for the pur-
pose of putting to flight a counterfeit, but also for the purpose
of preserving the genuine Christianity, and gaining a hold for
it on the public heart. It is indispensable not only to show
how worthless is the Christianity which is in fellowship with
slavery and the dram-shop and other abominations, but also to
persuade men of the truth and preciousness of that Christianity
which allies itself to no wrong, and sustains every right. To
persuade them I mean, by proofs addressed to their understand-
ing, and not by appeals to their superstitious credulity.
Because of their own deep sense of its excellence, Christians
have been wont to challenge an unquestioning and unhesitating
faith in their religion. They have promptly sentenced to end-
less woe all who dare to doubt the truth of any position of the
Bible, or to call in question any of the principal ecclesiastical
interpretations of it. True, many of them have acknowledged
in words the right to investigate the popular views of Christian-
ity: but with very few exceptions, they have all abjúred it in
practice. Even those who tolerate this investigation, do so with
the understanding and advertisement that whoever shall dare
come to a conclusion opposite their own, will, for a daring so
wicked, merit everlasting punishment. But the growing intel-
ligence of mankind will not much longer consent to repose a
blind faith in the best religion. It will soon insist that even
such a religion must be more than alleged-must be proved-
to be true, before men will be bound to believe in it. In the
ages of superstition, and in the subsequent ages of speculation,
1
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
77
through which nations pass, a religion does not need to be
backed with logic in order to gain currency even with the intel-
ligent. But Christendom has now become so philosophical and
practical that nothing except religion can longer pass in it with-
out proof; and before many years more shall have elapsed there
will be no longer even this exception.
By the way, this assuming the truth of Christianity as the
churches and their members do, is not, as they suppose it to be,
honoring Christianity. It is dishonoring it. Truth is honored
not by a blind assent to her claims, but by that acquiescence in
them which she wins from those who faithfully investigate them.
The Bible is insulted by being assumed to be true, but honored
by those who think its claims upon their faith worthy to be
investigated.
Our claim of superiority for this age will be admitted only
with qualifications. Our superiority in general science will be
admitted, but not in the science of religion. Is not, however,
the delusion as great as it is common, that the one gets ahead of
the other? As a general proposition the one always keeps
pace with the other. Do you say that France, while on the one
hand making rapid progress in general science, has on the other
become infidel? I admit it, especially in respect to the intel-
lectual portion of her people. But I claim that her infidelity
proves her great progress toward the true religion ; for it proves
that she is passing out of the superstitious and speculative ages
that every nation will yet pass out of, and that she can no longer
be satisfied with religions that claim faith without making good
their claim. Her call now is for a religion which can be proved
to be true; and, unhappily, her belief to a very great extent is
that Christianity can not be proved to be true. Such, also, is
the call, and to such an extent the unhappy belief of Italy and
of some of the German States. Such, too, of vast numbers in
England and America, who, in common with vast numbers in
other lands, have either become, or always were infidels. But
while we rejoice in their escape from the superstitious and vis-
ionary, we are nevertheless not blind to their mistake-their
great and lamentable mistake—that Christianity can not be
proved to be true. What if the churches and priesthood do
assume the truth of it, and do virtually forbid the bringing
forth of its legitimate and conclusive proofs ? Nevertheless the
78
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
proofs exist, and the religion of reason will take them up and
use them to the scattering of all skepticism, and to the sure and
successful planting of the blessed faith in the waste places and
fallow grounds of infidelity. The religion of reason will prove
that nature teaches love to God and love to man, justice and
mercy, and all the elements of Christianity, and that, therefore,
Christianity is true. Or, to use another form of statement, the
religion of reason will show that Christianity is true by showing
that Jesus was, as we have already said, the true moral inter-
preter of nature.
Such will be the service that the religion of reason will ren-
der to Christianity. Of boundless importance, however, as this
service will be, it will nevertheless be but an incidental one.
The direct object-the sole aim of the religion of reason is:
First, to convince every man that his reason is to be allowed
(for his reason alone is authorized) to decide what shall be his
conduct and character; and, second, to keep him by means of
his own strength and of all the aids of heaven and earth in a
state of unswerving fidelity to this bigh conviction and all its
just requirements. God speaks in His creation and providence.
Jesus speaks as " never man spake." His ministry will never
cease to pour forth a flood of light. The great and good men
and women of every age contribute their measures of enlighten-
ment. But these are all voices for the ear of reason; and not
one of them--no, not even that of the Great God-has a right
to be heard in the sanctuary of the soul except through the
influence of such voice upon the reason.
I have been wont to
say that the reason of man is the voice of God within him. If
this is not literally true, nevertheless that God's voice reaches
him through his reason is literally true. Save that which lies
through our reason wrought convictions, there is not for the
Church, nor for the Priesthood, nor for the Bible, any road to
those sacred chambers where the mind, under its sole responsi-
bility, because sole master of itself, forms its judgments and
comes to its decisions. It is God himself who has ordained this
supremacy of reason; and not to acknowledge this supremacy,
constantly and practically and gratefully, is to be guilty of
rebelling against His government. It is God himself who has
made the bringing of all our appetites, passions and pursuits
into quick and glad subjection to our reason, the great law of
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
79
It may
our nature; and therefore not to obey this law is to prove our-
selves traitors to our own nature.
Yet awhile, the religion of reason will continue to be derided
and hated. But it will be neither discouraged nor impatient.
It will be of good cheer and bide its time. Yet awhile, super-
stition, bigotry, and prejudice will continue to darken men's
minds, and corrupt their hearts, and indispose them to the reign
of reason. But the fallacy and failure of every religion which
does not make its appeal to reason, become every day more and
more manifest; and thus every day is the way becoming clearer
and easier for the progress of the religion of reason.
not soon prevail, but it surely will prevail. Linger however it
may, the day will yet dawn when men the earth over will
believe that they must let their reason rule them in all things,
especially in religion. It will yet be acknowledged that the
most reason-ruled man is the most religious man—that to be
reasonable is the highest possible attainment: nay, that reason
-clear, sound, right reason-is itself religion—the highest and
truest religion. But dawn that day when it may, not till then
will man become what his Maker made him to be, for not till
then will he realize and verify his own grand nature. Not till
he shall study to mould himself after the standards and ideals
of reason will his life and character be such as to prove to the
universe that God made him but "little lower than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor."
Do you ask how we shall attain to an understanding of the
duties of the religion of reason? I answer by living reasonably.
Jesus teaches that the doctrines of God are to be learned by
doing the will of God. A similar rule applies in the present
similar case. We inust not act unreasonably, as do the secta-
rians—for they organize parties with the intent of excluding
from them the friends of Christ. As if the friends of Christ
could be excluded without his being excluded also ! We must
not act unreasonably, as do the temperance societies, which will
one day denounce the selling of intoxicating drinks as the black-
est crime, and will the next use their machinery and members
to elect men whose official powers are employed to whitewash
this blackest crime and screen it from punishment. Nor must
we act unreasonably, as do the Abolitionists, who, though
declaring Slavery to be the superlative piracy, do nevertheless
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TIE RELIGION OF REASON.
elect men who honor it as law, and thereby give to it their offi-
cial and sustaining sanction. He is in effect a Pro-Slavery man
and not an Abolitionist, who does not hold slavery to be an
outlaw, and does not confine bis votes to such candidates as hold
likewise. Nor must we act unreasonably, as do those clergy-
men who on one occcasion pour out unmeasured execrations
upon slavery, and upon another virtually recall and sadly neu-
tralize them by fellowshipping as Christians, and by honoring with
their love and commending with their confidence, clergymen
who are the most notorious and wicked defenders of slavery.
Nor must we act unreasonably, as does that large class of pro-
fessing Christians who, though recognizing themselves to be
“the temple of God," and often praying to be cleansed “ from
all filthiness of the flesh and spirit," are, notwithstanding, guilty
of defiling body and soul with rum, tobacco, or opium.
In all respects and all relations we must act reasonably, if we
would see most clearly and learn most fully what the one true
religion-the religion of nature or reason-calls for. Such rca-
sonable acting will of itself reveal the duties that lie all along
our path, and make that path "as the shining light that shineth
more and more unto the perfect day.”
But is reason suficient for all these things? It is. Not,
however, unless the Divine influence upon it be unceasing.
Man, as much as the planet, needs to be set in motion, and kept
in motion by God. Vain is an enlightened reason, unless there
be also the God-given spirit of submission to its control. Vain
is it that man is made with ability to will and to do, unless he
allow his Maker to work in him to will and to do. Vain all
his physical, mental, moral powers if he let not Heaven dispose
him to put them to a heavenly use. Vain, in a word, is the
earthly existence of man unless he shall be born again. But,
blessed be God, all the heaven-wrought changes of spirit, pur-
posc, life, which are denoted by the figure of the new birth, and
which every man must experience in order to be saved, lie
within the reach of every man. If any are left unholy, it is
because they refuse to be made holy. If any are cut off from
the overflowing fountain of impartial love and free salvation, it
is because they cut themselves off from it.
THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
PETERBORO, JULY 22, 1860.
“WHEREFORE by their fruits ye shall know them." — Matt. 7: 20.
THESE are the words of Jesus. This immeasurably greatest
of all moral teachers bids us judge men not by their profession,
but by their practice; not by their doctrines, but by their deeds ;
not by their lips, but by their lives. The saying that “ Actions
speak louder than words," is not more trite than true. Words
are the lowest, and actions the highest grade of evidence. Jesus
did not mean that immoral, profane, polluting, shameless words
are not evidence of the bad character of him who utters them.
They are in themselves such evidence, and also in the fact that
bad words are wont to be accompanied by bad deeds. Evil-
speaking and evil-doing go together. No, Jesus meant that
good words are not proof that the speaker of them is good.
Bad words are bad fruits. But it does not follow that good
words are good fruits. Good fruits may be hung upon a tree
for the purpose of disguising its bad character. And good
words may be spoken dissemblingly by one whose disposition
is to speak bad words.
There died a few weeks ago one of the wisest and best of
men. I mean Theodore Parker. The churches believe that he
was wicked. That he lived an eminently pure and loving and
benevolent life, and died a peaceful death, they are constrained
to admit. Nevertheless, they hold that he lived and died a
wicked man. Why? Because his creed was wrong. His fruit
was good; but he was not good. And this do they hold, not-
withstanding Jesus said: “Neither can a corrupt tree bring
82
THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
66
forth good fruit;" and notwithstanding, too, that he immedi-
ately deduced from this proposition the injunction : "Where-
fore by their fruits ye shall know them."
It is true, that in rare cascs we may possibly be deceived by
even this life-test of character. Nevertheless, it is not only our
best test, but our only one. It is not for man to look directly
upon the heart. All he can do is to argue what is within from
what is without. · For man looketh on the outward appear-
ance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."
Outside of the churches, and of the sphere of their conven.
tional religion, men judge one another by their fruits far more
than by aught else. Happy that it is so. Else would the world
get on far worse than it does. But inside of them the creed is
the paramount question. I do not say that it is the sole crite-
rion. I admit that the life also is recognized as one. But this
real test is so disparaged by being coupled with the fallacious
one of a bundle of doctrines, as to be made nearly vain. From
being put upon the same level with a test so entirely empty, it
must soon sink far below it, if only for this reason among sev-
eral, that a sectarian church must lose its distinctive character,
and lose itself, if it cease to make its doctrinal test its main one.
It is for its very life that such a church shall not cease to do this.
That church-members vote for slave-catching and dram-shop
candidates, proves that in the eye of the churches such an im-
morality is as nothing compared with errors of doctrine. In
their eye, lying is less sinful than unsoundness in regard to the
Atonement.
This making of the creed the test is of course justified on
the ground that a man's creed determines his character. Now,
I cheerfully admit, that not only does his life give shape to his
creed, but that his creed does also give shape to his life. It is,
however, his whole creed that does so, and not a very small
part of it. It is his ten thousand beliefs, and not some half
dozen of them. Just here is the greatest mistake of the
churches. A man has this or that view of the future state;
this or that view of some of the attributes or offices of Christ;
this or that view of one or another ecclesiastical doctrine; and
because he has them, the churches approve or condemn him.
But what is bis creed in regard to feeding the hungry, and
clothing the naked, serving the sick, liberating the oppressed,
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83
supplying the homeless with homes, or in regard to innumerable
other things, may have very far more to do with the formation
of his character than have all these views on which such undue
stress is laid. Yes, if we will judge a man by his creed, it should
be by his whole creed. But how can we know his whole creed ?
He does not know it himself. He may be unconscious of even
those elements in it which are exerting the most influence upon
his character. The most we can do toward learning his creed,
is to observe the effect of it upon his life, and to argue its gen-
eral character from this effect. Even in this wise we may be
able to do no more than ascertain, and that, too, with but little
correctness, the average or mean proportion of the truths and
untruths, reason and superstition, wisdom and folly, mixed up
in his creed.
We have already admitted the influence of the creed upon
the life. But in the light of what we have just said, it is mani.
fest that we are to deduce the character of the creed from the
character of the man, rather than that of the man from that of
the creed-or, more correctly, from that of the few known ele-
ments of his creed. In this light do we see how absurd it is to
make the creed instead of the life the criterion of the character;
for in this light do we see that we must look to the life to learn
wbat is the creed.
The churches, in their bigotry and blindness, look at three or
four of a man's beliefs, and count them for his whole creed.
How foolish are they in not reflecting, that it comprises a vast
number of other beliefs, some, or even many of which may be far
more busy and successful in moulding the character than are
any of those few which have been counted for all. Indeed, it
may often be that none of those few beliefs are entitled to be
called a part of the creed. They may be but speculations float-
ing in the brain, and wholly distinct from the convictions which
are stirring the depths of the soul, and making the life a good
or a bad one-a blessing or a curse.
Theodore Parker's creed may have contained errors. But
that it was, as a whole, a good one, is proved by his good life.
The creed of a liquor-drinking and tobacco defiled Doctor of
Divinity, may include much truth; but his vices prove that his
creed is radically unsound.
This false standard of character set up by the churches—this
1
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wide departure from that only one set up by Jesus—is fraught
with consequences the most deplorable. What less than a bad
state of morals is to be looked for in a church where there is
more concern because its member has given up the doctrine of
election or the doctrine of falling from grace, than there would
have been had his life been disgraced and his soul stained by
"covetousness which is idolatry”! Or what less than such a
state of morals in a church where a member would much sooner
be forgiven for getting drunk than for a misapprehension of
something in the assumed character of the Virgin Mary! Or in
a church where the denial of the Apostolic succession is a
graver offense than the occasional soiling of the lips with an
oath! Or in a church where sprinkling babies produces more
horror than stealing babies!
Self-complacency goes far to promote the growth of bad
morals. But how filled with it must be be who is educated to
regard devotion to doctrines as the highest merit, and to make
far less account of the sins of his own life than of the doctrinal
unsoundness of others! The Thugs are probably as self-com-
placent as our churches. What if they do commit murder
every day? Their test of character is not practical goodness.
They, too, as well as the churches, reject Christ's test. They,
too, as well as the churches, have a creed to go by and
judge by.
And bad, too, must be the state of morals outside of the
churches, as long as it is so inside; and as long as their claim
to be “the light of the world" continues to be acknowledged
outside.
A handful of men in this country have, for these twenty or
thirty years, been laboring to hold back their fellow-citizens
from voting for rum and slavery. But all in vain. To vote
thus is not held in the churches to be criminal, nor even in the
slightest degree censurable. Nay, it is held to be cunning and
commendable, and the reverse to be stupid and fanatical. The
New-York Independent, no less than the other religious news-
papers, would have us all vote a party ticket, even though the
candidates upon it be in favor of dram-shops and slave-catching.
The church-member may vote power into hands that will use
it to perpetuate and multiply the dram-shops, and to return the
slave to the hell from which he had escaped—that hell in which
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85
the Bible is not allowed to be read; nor even the name of God
to be spelt; and in which parent, husband and wife, are names
that carry no sacredness and no rights—and yet he can remain
in good standing and in full fellowship with his brethren. But
if, instead of having borne these bad and bitter fruits, by which
Christ would have him judged, he had so much as cast one
doubt upon some favorite tenet in its creed, he would have been
hurled out of the church. "By their fruits shall ye know them,"
says Christ. By their creed, or rather by half a dozen of the
ten thousand things in it, shall ye know them, say the churches.
Every where is the Christ-test dishonored and thrown aside.
Even in Peterboro, where so much has been done to restore it,
the church-test still prevails. Creeds made up chiefly of a few
stereotyped phrases about total depravity, trinity, atonement,
election, baptism, etc., are still in the ascendant; and the life is
comparatively unimportant. I doubt not that even here in
Peterboro there will, at the approaching election, be seen going
to the polls, with tickets in their hands for dram-shop and slave-
catching candidates, not a few church-members. These, our
creed-bound and church-bound neighbors, are conscientious.
They have been trained to regard their doctrinal and sectarian
churches as very dear to the heart of Christ; and all the world
could not suffice to bribe them to lisp a word against their
church-creed. Alas! how many ages more must pass away ere
ignorance and superstition and bigotry will be so far dispelled
as to permit men to see that these churches are, in effect, the
worst enemies of Christ; and that the progress of his cause over
the earth will be measured by their disappearance from it!
They are a libel on his character, and an outrage upon his
memory. They have no right to his name. Theirs is another
religion than his. Their unconsciousness of the fact does not
alter the fact.
We spoke of voting. So paramount to the life is the creed
held to be—the profession to the practice—that the good deed
of a morally right yote would pass rather to the discredit than
credit of one's ecclesiastical soundness. Indeed, it is not too
much to say that an uncompromising attitude in behalf of the
great and vital reforms is regarded as at least prima facie evi.
dence of infidelity. It was their devotion to these reforms that
prepared the way for calling Garrison and Phillips infideis.
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THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
Must not the church, if only from the necessities of self-defense,
stigmatize those who are at work to throw down the abomina-
tions which she helps sustain ?
Our answer to the inquiry by what means the church has
succeeded in thrusting aside Christ's test is, that it has done so
by thrusting aside his religion. This religion is simple, intelli-
gible, practical. Ignorance and weakness can comprehend it.
It is revealed even unto babes. Its test of character corre-
sponds necessarily with its own character, and is as simple, in
telligible and practical as itself. Were this religion the com-
plex and cabalistic one of the churches, the criterion of disciple-
ship-of initiation into its mysteries—could not be simple. So
simple, however, is the Christ-religion, that its only criterion of
discipleship is the fruits of the life—the every-day conduct in
the presence of the world. A religion, the sum total of whose
requirements is comprised in the injunction “to do as you would
be done by," must of course have a test of character which all
men are capable of understanding and applying. But the reli-
gion of the churches, not being this common sense and easily-
understood religion, but being a doctrinal and difficult one,
must necessarily have doctrinal and difficult tests of character.
How numerous and vast the changes that would result from
purging the churches of their spurious religion, and supplying
its place with the religion of Jesus! It is in the doctrinal re-
ligion that sectarianism lives and moves and has its being. A
fish out of water is not more out of its element than is sectarian-
ism when out of the foggy atmosphere of the doctrinal religion.
Bring the Roman Catholic and the countless Protestant sects
into the sphere of the simple, practical religion of Jesus, and
they would quickly die. In that sphere are no facilities and no
encouragements to continue their work of comparing tweedle-
dums with tweedledees. But to deny them this work is to deny
them their life. Catholics and Protestants would not all die.
Their sects only. Good Catholics and good Protestants would
still live; and their immeasurably higher life in that sphere
would be as much more useful and beautiful as it would be
more harmonious and happy.
Once succeed in expelling from the churches their conyen-
tional and unnatural religion, and in bringing into its stead the
religion of Jesus, and there will never be another book written
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87
about the Immaculate Conception, nor the Apostolic Succession,
nor Election, nor the points of Calvinism. Turning these nomi-
nal churches of Christ into real churches of Christ, would turn
them into associations for feeding the hungry, clothing the
naked, delivering the oppressed, lifting up the low, and enlight-
ening the benighted. Their present degrading, useless, perni-
cious occupations would be gone forever; and they would stand
forth glorious witnesses for God and his dear Son in every de-
partment of outcast and trampled-down humanity.
The abolition of the doctrinal religion, and, along with it, of
sectarianism, could not fail to be followed by the abolition of
the technical ministry. Not that a Charles G. Finney, a Beriah
Green, a George B. Cheever, and a Henry Ward Beecher would
no longer be needed. Far more than ever would they then be
sought after:-none of them, however, for the purpose of hav-
ing them defend this or that group of church-doctrines, but all
of them for the purpose of having them persuade men to buy
and sell and vote right, and in all respects live right, and thus
honor the claims of a practical every day and every where
religion.
Theological seminaries would, of course, go down stream
along with the doctrinal religion and the technical ministry. A
theological seminary is an institution for training men to teach
the doctrinal religion. Hence its Greek and Hebrew studies, its
metaphysics and abstractions. But to fit men to teach the one
true and practical religion, three years spent in an honest law-
yer's office, or behind an honest merchant's counter, would avail
unspeakably more than that amount of time spent in a theo-
logical seminary. Actual contact with a great variety of living
heads and living hearts in the busy walks of life serves far
more than do poring over books and dreaming over doctrines
to furnish the teacher of the religion of Jesus with advantages
for making his ministry effectual.
We next inquire how it is that Christendom has consented to
remain in bondage to doctrinal religions. The answer is, be-
cause her peoples are not yet sufficiently independent and
courageous to overcome their habit of submission to authority,
nor sufficiently enlightened to desire to overcome it. Every
doctrinal religion is a religion of authority, and holds its sub-
>
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THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
son.
now
jects, not in virtue of being understood by them, but in virtue
of its authority over them.
A great curse is the authority which usurps the place of rea-
Liberated from their thraldom to this despot, men would
soon be more like angels than like the men they now are; and
earth would soon be more like heaven than like the earth it
is. For then, feeling their own responsibility for their own
steps, they would not submit to be led blindfold by others.
For then, where now the million ignorantly and superstitiously
and tamely do the bidding of the ecclesiastical and civil power,
there would be a million free minds at work, and most of them
at work to swell the tide of human wisdom and human happi-
ness. For then, reason being in exercise, where now even in
the highest matters it is suffered to be overridden by the
claims of authority, truth would commonly be established; and
the calmness, order, and beauty which ever wait upon her,
would succeed to the confusion and misery that must continue
to overspread the earth, so long as it shall be held that ignorant
superstitions and cowardly submission better become men than
the studying of their duties in the light of their reason.
It is true, that not every one would improve his release from
authority. To many it would prove polluting license instead
of rational freedom. Nevertheless, even in such cases, it would
be more the blameless occasion of revealing an existing charac-
ter than the responsible creator of a bad one. It is also true
that authority can not be dispensed with every where. The
child must obey its commands, even its wrong commands,
whilst as yet it is too young to see them to be wrong. Often-
times the sick man, not being able to judge of the prescription
for his cure, must submit himself entirely to authority. So, too,
when in danger of shipwreck, all on board must conform their
efforts to the captain's commands, whether they can or can not
see them to be wise. So, too, the jury must acknowledge the
authority of the scientific witness or expert, and receive his tes-
timony on subjects they do not comprehend. Authority in
such instances is proper, is necessary. Reason approves it.
To reject it would be most unreasonable. We war with no
authority but that which invades the province of reason; but
that, in short, which wars with reason.
The assumptions of authority by Civil Government, and the
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89
abject and wicked submission to them, work very great injury
to the human family and very great dishonor to God. It is
held that what Government commands, be it right or wrong,
must be obeyed. Nay more, that the authority of Government
precludes all inquiry into the moral character of its commands.
The panting slave must be put back into the pit from which he
had escaped, because it is Government that says he must. The
innocent Mexicans must be robbed of territory and murdered,
because it is Government that says they must. And all this
must take place irrespective of what justice and mercy and the
God of justice and mercy say, either in or out of the Bible,
Government instead of God is looked to as authority. The
Legislature and Judiciary, instead of confining themselves to
the declaration of God's law, would have themselves regarded
as the very source of law.
What but a boundless authority claimed for Government
could have led the Supreme Court of the United States when
dooming certain freemen to slavery, to say that: “Every State
has an undoubted right to determine the status or domestic and
social condition of the persons domiciled within its territory ?11*
And what but their recognition of such authority can induce
the people to acquiesce in this opinion of the Court? The
Chief Justice, who delivered it, holds in effect that his State of
Maryland can, on his returning to it, make him a slave; and
that President Buchanan can likewise be made a slave on his
returning to Pennsylvania! By the way, there are perhaps no
men who would have less reason to complain of such a fate
than these two, who have done so much to fasten slavery on
millions.
It is owing in no small part to the recognition by the
people of this boundless authority of Government, that they
suffer, and even welcome, other intrusions of Government into
matters with which Government has legitimately nothing to do.
Veneration goes far toward explaining the readiness of the peo-
ple to let Government meddle with their schools and churches
and with their God-given liberty to buy and sell freely in all
the markets of the world. The American people are paying
three times as great an amount of postage as they would have
* Strader et al., v. Graham, 10th Howard.
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to pay, were the carrying of letters and papers left to the free
competition of companies and individuals. Their blind admira-
tion of a great authoritative power is no small reason why they
consent to leave the Post-Office in the bungling and blundering,
defrauding and despoiling hands of Government. The legiti-
mate limits of Government are very narrow. They comprise
nothing but the protection of person and property. The peo-
ple of State after State and nation after nation will, as fast as
they shall become enlightened, snap asunder the leading-strings
of usurped Governmental authority, and assert their right to be
no longer treated as children, but to be allowed the liberty of
men.
It is, however, in its enormous assumptions in the sphere of
religion, that we find authority doing its worst work. To these
assumptions more than to the aggregate of all other causes are
owing the dwarfed intellect, the shrivelled spirit, the deep de-
basement of mankind. Reason is competent to determine all
the duties of that sphere. Therefore reason should be allowed
to reign in it. Nevertheless reason is shut out from it, and au-
thority fills it. Am I asked whether not even God's authority
should be welcomed in the sphere of religion? I answer that
it exists every where, and should be welcomed every where.
But God's authority comes to men through their reason. Rea-
son is the authoritative voice of God in the soul.
I said that a doctrinal religion is a religion of authority. To
render it more fully and effectually such, the mass of the doc-
trines are made so metaphysical or rather so muddy, as to be
comprehended not at all by the common intellect, and scarcely at
all by the uncommon intellect. Take for instance the doctrines
of the religion, which is current among ourselves. Not more
than ten men in this town, if called on to explain them, would
be able to make a decent show of understanding them; and
even the ten men, including if you please all the ministers,
would interpret them quite differently. Not two of them would
agree at all points. In the presence of these mystical phrases, ,
that abound in the formulary of the church faith, learning is
about as much at fault as ignorance. Whether you have or
have not been to college makes but little difference in your at-
tempt to understand them.
How amazing that the common-sense of mankind should
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91
suffer these unintelligible doctrines to be made tests of character!
But even were they intelligible, it would scarcely be less absurd
to make them such. The longer I live, however, the more do
I see that even common-sense prostrates itself before an ecclesi-
astical religion. Such religion is authority: and men of sense
as well as men of nonsense have been trained not to dare to
speak nor even think against authority.
The true religion is a reasonable one--a "reasonable service"
to use the words of the Apostle. It makes its appeal direct-
ly to reason. Says its great Teacher: "And why judge ye not
even of yourselves what is right?” Observe that he does not
say:
“Why feel you it not ?”—or“Why fancy you it not?”
or “Why receive you it not upon the authority of the priest-
hood, the council, the church, the book ?” But he says:
“Why judge ye not?”——or what is the same:"Why reason ye
not what is right?” That Jesus should thus submit his religion
to the reason of his hearers is not strange when we consider the
exceeding simplicity of its character. That the churches can
not do so with theirs is obvious from the fact that instead of
being, as his is, universally intelligible, it is a technic, a trade,
a mystery. Whilst his religion is apparent to reason at first
sight, their unintelligible one claims assent by force of author-
ity. Whilst his religion courts the severest trials of reason, and
comes out of them all brighter and stronger, theirs is horrified
that reason should presume to pass upon religion.
Mohammedans, Hindoos, and other Eastern peoples, are more
earnest and devout worshipers than Christians. This is the
natural result of their being less enlightened. For being so,
they are the more ready subjects of authority, and the more
implicit believers in the dogmas which that authority imposes
upon them. In this wise is it explained that the Roman Catho-
lic has so much more faith, and earnestness, and zeal than the
Protestant. For whatever may be said of the equality of edu-
cated Catholics with educated Protestants, all must admit that,
in point of intelligence, the Catholic masses fall below the Pro
testant. Never were Protestant nations and communities in-
creasing so rapidly in knowledge as in our day; and, therefore,
never were Protestant infidels (infidels in the sense of having
forsaken their ecclesiastical faith) multiplying so rapidly. These
infidels have become too enlightened for their religion. They
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have outgrown a doctrinal religion. If a religion of authority
would once do for them, it nevertheless can do for them no
longer. Their religious want, lying deep in their rational
nature, can now be supplied with nothing less than a rational
religion; with nothing less than the religion of Jesus. It will
yet come, by means of the rapid enlightenment of the Protest-
ant world, that between reason on the one hand and authority
on the other, there will be no room left for Protestantism. As
a religion of authority, Roman Catholicism is admirable. In
the breaking up of the Protestant churches, such of their mem-
bers as shall still prefer a religion of authority, will go off to
Catholicism, and the remainder will mount up to the religion
of reason.
The doctrinal religion would soon lose its hold on the public
mind, were it not kept wrapped up in mystery. Mystery is as
indispensable here, as in the occupation of Signor Blitz and
his fellow-jugglers. Preachers there are of this religion, who
would no sooner consent to lay bare its methods and machinery
than would a quack doctor to reveal the hidden sources of his
boasted skill, and tell the ingredients of his never-failing medi-
cine. Their use of the Bible (and by some of them a juggling
use) is what chiefly enables our clergy to maintain the author-
ity of their doctrinal religion. They say that this book-all
of it, every chapter and every sentence of it came from God.
Whoever denies, or even faintly doubts this assertion, is a hated,
persecuted infidel. Moreover, he is such if he fails to find in
it--although ever so honestly intent on finding them--some of
the doctrines which the clergy claim to be in it. Protestants
encourage a freer reading of the Bible than do the Catholics.
But what of that? The Protestant who ventures to oppose
the standard interpretations of the Bible, is as promptly and
cordially anathematized as is the Catholic, who makes a similar
experiment upon ecclesiastical tolerance.
How happy if all the preachers in Christendom could be
induced to rise in their pulpits on a given Sabbath, and tell
their congregations how the world came by the Bible. This
honesty and bravery would be followed by a greater revolution
than the world has ever yet seen; and it would be no less
blessed than great. Should all the clergy of Peterboro tell
their hearers next Sunday the simple facts in the case, Peter-
THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
93
boro would be filled with astonishment at the news; and she
would be enlightened as she never had been. The thick church-
clouds, which still envelop our people, would disappear almost
as suddenly and almost as visibly too, as the mists of the morn-
ing before the rising sun. It is of little avail-certainly of lit-
tle present avail--for persons not belonging to the churches, to
tell these simple facts. They can not get a hearing. The men
who have parties to back them up, can alone be heard in this
party-ridden, party-governed world. The men whose con-
sciences compel them to stand outside of both the political and
ecclesiastical parties, must be content to live and die without
exerting the influence which their "soul breaketh for the long-
ing that it hath” to exert. Perhaps, however, and this is their
hope and consolation,) that years or ages after they shall have
been gathered to their fathers, rich harvests of good to man and
glory to God shall be reaped from the seed which they sowed
in faith and watered with tears.
Yes, great indeed would be the sensation in these congrega-
tions of Christendom, should their preachers confess to them
that the Bible is but a selection from a great heap of Jewish
writings. Greater still would it be, should they proceed to con-
fess, that some of these writings were selected, and some of
them rejected, by small majorities. And into what astonish-
ment and staring would not these congregations be wrought,
when their preachers had added that the compilers of the Bible
lived in a dark and superstitious age; that no one pretends that
they were inspired; and that history, so far from informing us
of their intellectual or moral character, has not preserved so
much as the name of even one of them !
Many, who juggle others with the Bible, are themselves jug.
gled by it. It is often the case that men become the dupes of
their own dupings. A striking instance of this have we in the
Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring. He justifies slavery. He would
not liberate the slaves even if he could do so by offering up a
single prayer. He would have his poor colored brothers and
sisters sent back into the pit from which they had escaped !
Now, whence comes all this diabolism ? It comes from his
believing in the blasphemous nonsense which ecclesiastical
authority attributes to the Bible. He believes that God cursed
the blacks--and with so enduring a curse that, even in the mil-
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lennium, they are still to suffer under it. He confounds the
belchings of drunken Noah's anger with the curse of God.
But what blasphemous nonsense is it, that God curses his
children! Alas! how still prevalent are the Pagan concep-
tions of “OUR FATHER," who loves all and hates none, who
blesses all and curses none! Doubtless Dr. Spring believes, in
common with the churches, that God was such a bloody mon-
ster as to command the Jews to torture and slay innocent women
and children. All these absurdities, which he has been so long
trying to make others believe, he has come at last to believe
himself. Very likely that fifty years ago he thought he believed
them. That be now really believes them is owing not a little
to the reflex influence upon himself of his teachings to others.
In duping others he has duped himself.
The authoritative interpreters of the Bible have made nearly
the whole of Christendom believe that it teaches that children
are born devils; and that dying in childhood, they must all
drop into an eternal hell, unless the blood of Christ, or bap-
tism, or something else exterior to themselves, shall save them
from this fate. I do not believe that this doctrine is taught in
the Bible—this doctrine of innate total depravity, on which
rests the superstructure of the theology of Christendom. But
if I did, I should nevertheless refuse to be guilty of such a
total and abject renunciation of my reason as to believe in the
monstrous doctrine. To believe in it would be to transmute
my loving Father into the most hateful of all tyrants. To be-
lieve in it, would be to cut all the sinews of my obligation to
love and honor Him. This doctrine must be cast out of Christ-
endom before Christendom will become like Christ. We admit
that thousands of good men believe in it; but their goodness
exists notwithstanding it, and not because of it.
As I have already said, I do not believe that this doctrine is
in the Bible. David's saying, "Behold, I was shapen in ini-
quity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," only proves that
the dear penitent was in a mood to write the bitterest things
against himself. And Paul's words to the Ephesians, from
which the translators and the churches argue that we are all by
nature " the children of wrath"-objects of the Divine wrath-
mean, probably, but little else than that men are naturally, as
he taught the people of Lystra, "of like passions.” Moreover,
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95
I have but little respect for whatever in the Bible is at war with
the teaching of Christ: and if this book says that children are
hell-born, nevertheless He says that "Of such is the kingdom
of heaven." I believe that children are born good, and become
bad; born religious, and become irreligious. I do not mean
that they all become bad and irreligious, though it is certain
that the great mass of them do. That they do is in my judg-
ment owing in no responsible way to human nature; nor in
any comparatively large degree to the imperfections which they
inherit from those who had violated the physical, intellectual,
or moral laws of that nature; but mainly to the misleading and
corrupting influences to which, not in their first years only, but
even in their early months also, they are subjected by others.
Not only do I believe that they who die in childhood go to
heaven in virtue of their intrinsic and inborn state, but I also
believe that men and women can not go to heaven until they
have first become as little children-simple, sincere, ingenuous,
trustful as little children. Jesus himself says they can not.
Again, these authoritative teachers hold that the Bible de-
clares Christ to be the essential God, and that whoever doubts
the doctrine must perish. I do not think it is taught there. As
I view it, Christ teaches that he is one with the Father in no
other sense than that in which he would have us all one with
each other and one with the Father. But this is a great sense ;
and identifies him in spirit and moral character with God himself.
The world had one God. It did not need another. But it
needed a perfect man; and in Christ that was given to it. Had
reason been allowed its freedom in the Bible and in religion,
this perfect man," the measure of the stature of whose fulness'
is reached in being a perfect man, would have been left to the
world. But that same authority, which thrust out reason
from the Bible and religion, carried him away from the sphere
of simple manhood where, and where only, he was needed;
and sublimated him into a superfluous God. Never, until he
shall again be restored to that sphere which was robbed of him,
will he be generally beld, even by the mass of Christians, to
be in all things the example of men. And never, until he shall be
so held, will they follow or even aim to follow him in all things.
We set before a bad little child the example of a good little
But who would be so foolish as to think of weaning
one.
2
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THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER
early childhood from its perversities by commending to it the
ripe harvests of truth and virtue in the life of some precious
white-haired saint? The space between them would be too
wide to make the example influential. But infinitely wider is
the space between man and God—between the best man and
Tesus, if Jesus is God.
Christians will agree with the propositions that Christ would
not vote for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates; and that
he would not take up a gun to shoot people. But the mass of
them will thus agree, because, believing him to be God, they be-
lieve that he would not vote for anyone, and would not take up
gun for any purpose. They will thus agree, because they believe
that to talk of his handling a vote or a gun is to drag him down
from Godhood to manhood. It needs a man to be an example
for men. In respect to some sublime abstractions we may aspire
to copy God. But in respect to the practical, every-day con-
cerns of life, He will never be our example. For that we need
a man-a man
a man "of like passions" with ourselves; our fellow,
who can walk by our side without having to come out of his
sphere and down from his nature; and who can walk with us
every where where it is right for us to walk, and do every thing
- which it is right for us to do. Whatever may be said to the
contrary, the great body of Christians will never, so long as
they look upon Christ to be God, or a being compounded of
God and man, make him their example in the whole range of
human affairs. They will continue, as now, to go a little way
with him, and a great way against him. They will weep with
Christ over the slave, over the landless, over the dram-shop-
ruined family, and over the desolations of war; and then they
will turn against him and vote for slavery and land-monopoly
and the dram-shop and war. Some twenty years ago
I I was
urging a man to vote for the slave on the ground that God
votes for him. He laughed in my face, and told me that God
doesn't vote. He shut out God from the ballot-box. And so
also do the great mass, who believe him to be God, shut out
fron it Christ and his example and influence.
I do not forget that in these remarks I have exposed myself
to the inquiry whether Unitarians do actually more than Trini-
tarians, make Christ their example in all things. The compar-
ison should be between Unitarians who really believe in Christ,
THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
97
and Trinitarians who really believe in him. Both the one and
the other are few. Really to believe in Christ is to be imbued
with his spirit, established in his principles, and identified with
his aims. To such belief, the view that he is or is not God, is
in no wise essential. All who thus really believe in him will
make him their example. But they who connect with this be-
lief the belief that Christ is but a man--but a man, although
filled with his Father's spirit would, in ten thousand instances,
be far more like to recognize his example than would they who
believe him to be God. Admit that in every matter of life they
would both feel his precept nevertheless, to associate his ex-
ample with it, might be as violent and unusual for the one
party as it would be natural, easy and common for the other.
To return to the Bible. It is not perfect. No work of man
is. Inconsiderable, however, are the mistakes which are mingled
with its essential, sublime and saving truths. Few and small
are the spots upon this glorious sun. No where else does the
human heart come in contact with such eloquent and mighty
inspirations. And in more enlightened ages, when human au-
thority shall be driven out of the realm of religion, and human
reason shall be installed in its place, the Bible will be no longer
an object of blind idolatry, but a treasure comprehended by the
understanding and cherished by the soul. Then its religion,
instead of being but the superstition of Christendom, will be the
accepted and sound religion of the whole world. For the religion
of the Bible is a reasonable religion; and when reason shall be
left free to investigate the claims of the Bible-to approve here
and disapprove thereupon its own solemn responsibility—this
book of books will be found to commend itself triumphantly,
even to that severe investigator. Its standard teachers make it
say much that is very good, and much that is very bad. They
make it a book of the very best, and also of the very worst in-
fluences. Many a great folly here, and many a great crime
there, do they make it sanction. Not a few of them would
have us go to the Bible for a warrant for slavery. But as well
might they bid us look into heaven for Satan as into this pre-
cious book for such warrant. Moreover, the effect of finding
slavery in the Bible could not be to whitewash slavery. It
could be only to leave a big black blot upon the Bible.
That there are good men in Christendom with great sins
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THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
upon them proceeds more from the worship of the Bible and
of its authoritativa interpretations than from all other causes.
I am often censured for my belief that there are pious slave-
holders. Nevertheless there are such, and ever will be, wher-
ever slavery exists, and there is also a worshiped book. Inter-
pretations of the book are made to suit the interests of its
worshipers, and thus to blind them. The great wickedness
which there is in some of these interpretations is not perceived
by all-no, no even by all who are blessed with Christian dis-
cernment. There are sins, and great ones too, which can be so
presented as to deceive and win the approbation of even a
Christian. But this can no longer be so, after he shall have
come to let his reason instead of his Fetich-book decide moral
questions for him. If the idolatry of a book and of its author-
ity-imposed interpretations can so pervert the vision that even
slavery shall appear right, nevertheless in the light of reason
there can be no such illusion. No pious slaveholders will there
be after the reasonable and practical religion of Jesus shall
have taken the place of bundles of theory and superstition.
Never, never can the Bible be loved as it should be by any
one, who feels himself shut up to it as an authority, and his
free inquiry into the truthfulness of any of its pages forbidden.
It can be intelligently and truly loved only so far as reason
grasps it. The much talk that we are bound to love things in
the Bible, which are above our reason, is all nonsense. We
can believe only so far as belief seems reasonable; and we can
not love what we can not believe. The Bible is of but little
use to those who receive it without understanding it. The dif-
ference between the Bible received upon authority and the
Bible received through the reason is the difference between un-
digested and digested food.
What a blessing to the world will not the Bible be when, in-
stead of being clung to superstitiously and bigotedly and hypo-
critically and compulsorily, REASON shall own its truth, and be
imbued with its elevating and sanctifying spirit! The Bible
speaks reasonably through reason. But it speaks absurdly un-
der authority. It is the policy of authority to teach absurdi-
ties. In proportion to its teaching of the reasonable, would it
leave less room for itself, and make more for reason. This
authority will quite vanish from the world when the world sball
THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
99
come to have less taste for the conventional than the natural,
for the reasonable than the absurd.
It is this religion of authority which accounts for the poor
character of the great mass of church-members. Large-hearted
men, such as William Goodell and George B. Cheever, are
working hard to arouse them to take hold of the great Reforms
so vital to mankind. But they will find their work to be nearly
in vain. It had far better be expended upon the more hopeful
material outside of the churches—upon the men whose humanity
is not suffocated by a spurious religion. The current religion,
warring upon reason with its authority, and appalling the heart
with its pagan terrors, and substituting policy for principle, is just
the magnet to draw into the churches the base and the timid; and
is just the power to reduce to baseness and timidity the braver
and loftier spirits, who here and there find their way into them.
The espousal of these Reforms, and an unflinching, life-long
adherence to them requires honesty, disinterestedness and cour-
age. But the last place to look for the growth of these high
qualities is under the shadow of an authority religion. Look
there for selfishness and abjectness, cowardice and corruption.
The noble man you find there is the rare exceptional case, in
which resistance is successfully maintained against influences so
generally irresistible. A servile spirit and a shrunken intel-
lect are the common and legitimate product of the religion of
the churches. So it is, that whilst the true church of Christ is
the school for producing the choicest specimens of humanity,
these sham churches of Christ are the manufactories of the
meanest.
I am well aware that I speak offensively. Nevertheless, do I
not speak truly? What is meanness if tyranny is not? What
is the meanest of all meanness if it is not that tyranny which
would "rob the poor because he is poor”? But of this very
type of superlative meanness is the tyranny of American slay-
ery; and of American slavery are the American churches the
bulwark. To this bear witness not only James G. Birney and
Albert Barnes, but every other man of just observation. Why,
even the churches of William Goodell and George B. Cheever
will, at the coming election, and this, too, notwithstanding the
remonstrances of these faithful men, vote, not only for dram-
shop candidates, but also for slave-catching candidates.
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THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
No, the first work of the Goodells and Cheevers is to set
themselves to displace, with the reasonable religion of Jesus,
this authority-religion of the churches — this corrupting and
crushing religion. Until this is done they will, as I have
already substantially said, do well to look for fellow-reformers
outside of the churches-to look for them among the men whose
generosity and manliness have not been conquered by the
withering influences which prevail inside of the churches.
Yet awhile the churches will continue to be jealous of
reason; and no wonder, for it is their enemy—the enemy of
all human authority in religion; and hence, the enemy of all
doctrinal religions. Yet awhile the churches will continue
to talk foolishly about reason, and to deny its right to pass
upon religion. Yet awhile the churches will consider it a
mark of piety to speak disparagingly of reason, and will regard
themselves as honoring God by pouring contempt on this no-
blest attribute of man. Nevertheless, God is not with them in
this folly. In his sight human reason is greater than the sun
and stars. Not only would He have the Bible passed upon by
reason, but He submits his own works and ways-nay, his own
self-to the inquiries and tests of human reason.
that He submits them to the bundle of passions and prejudices
which men are wont to confound with reason.
Nor do I say
that men can, by exercising their reason in a proud spirit, learn
all of God that they need to know. They will learn little of
Him, unless they shall exercise it in an humble spirit. Nor do
I say that human reason can, without the help of divine
influences, discern divine things. “Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God.” They alone who have purity of
heart have the heaven-anointed vision. They alone who are
"born again” have a reason enlightened and trustworthy
in spiritual things. They alone can see the kingdom of God.
Verily, verily I say unto thee: Except a man be born again,
he can not see the kingdom of God."
Permit me to close my Discourse with a few words respecting
this Church, which, taking the name of its locality, as did every
Apostolic Church, calls itself "The Church of Peterboro." It
is now nearly seventeen years since we gathered ourselves from
the seats. We could no longer endure the sectarian or creed-
tests. We believed in Jesus Christ, and we therefore held that
I do not say
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101
men should be judged by their lives instead of their lips—by
their deeds instead of their doctrines. From that day to this
we have been misrepresented and maligned by the sects; and
from this time onward all who refuse to adopt the Christ-test
as the one test of character, will have no patience with us. We
are stigmatized as "The Infidel Church"-but not at all so be-
cause of our lives and only so because we reject the tests of
sectarianism, and persevere in knowing men-approving or dis-
approving them—“by their fruits.” Most of all, are we disliked
and spoken against when "Election” is at hand -- especially
one of unusual interest. Such an election now agitates the
country. The candidates of the sectarian churches will, as
usual, be slave-catchers and dram-shop upholders; and our
little Church will, as usual, insist on practical righteousness,
and condemn voting for such candidates.
We are told, that a Church should not meddle with politics.
There is, however, nothing on earth, that should give it more
concern. Politics, rightly interpreted, are the care of all for
each--the protection afforded by the whole people to every one
of the people; and hence a Church might better omit to apply:
the principles of Christ to every thing else than to politics.
Manifestly, I am not speaking here of the satanic politics, which
have ever cursed every part of the world, but of the Heaven-
commanded and Heaven-imbued politics, which have never yet
extended their blessed sway over any people. Manifestly, I am
speaking not of the politics which are, but of the politics which
are to be.
We are told that a Church should say nothing against the
wickedness of voting, even for the worst candidates. But we
claim, that no wickedness lies outside the jurisdiction of a Church,
least of all the wickedness which its members are in danger of
perpetrating
Rum and Slavery may be called the two great "Institutions"
of this country. They sway the political parties, and these in
turn sway the churches. Were the churches more concerned
for right-doing than for acceptable professing, they would be
effectual breakwaters against the tide of corruption, which the
parties pour over the land. But not being churches of Christ,
they are easily turned into tools of the parties. Their morals
never rise higher than the morals of the parties. They never
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THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.
lead. They always follow. The morals and manners of a
church should be such, as to realize our highest conceptions of
human dignity. But these sham churches, too low to be taken
into partnership even with politicians, are but taken into their
service.
Church of Peterboro! Be true to your own God at the ap-
proaching Election. He is not your God, who would have men
vote for candidates who are in favor of a white man's Party,
and of excluding the black man from suffrage and citizenship.
For your God "made of one blood all nations," and is impartial
and loving toward them all. He is not your God, who would
have men vote for candidates in favor of seizing the poor inno-
cents, as they fly from the pit of slavery, and of casting them
back into it. For your God would have the ruler do justice to
the "poor of the people, save the children of the needy, and
break in pieces the oppressor." His rulers, in making report
of their administrations, can say as the Buchanans and Pierces
have never said, that they “brake the jaws of the wicked, and
plucked the spoil out of his teeth.” He is not your God, who
would have men vote for candidates who recognize a law for
slavery. For a law for slavery is a greater and crueller absurd-
ity than a law for murder. Every right-minded man would see
his children in the grave rather than in the chains of slavery.
Daniel knew no other law than "the law of his God." Nor did
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Peter and the other
apostles answered and said: "We ought to obey God rather
than men.' But the God of all these is He whom you
have chosen to be your God. Cling to Him, and you are safe.
Cling to Him, and you shall not be washed away, even by the
high-dashing waves of corrupt politics, which, meeting with no
resistance in the churches that exalt doctrines above duties,
strew the land with wrecks at every returning election, and
prove how vain, in times of temptation, is every other religion
than the practical religion of Jesus Christ.
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
PETERBORO, NOV. 18, 1860.
ANOTHER Election has come and gone. Much of good, in
both its near and remote results, do we look for. Nevertheless,
we are not to overlook its many baleful influences, and its
wide havoc of virtue and happiness. We have again passed
through the great quadrennial Demoralization, which sinks
into a lower deep tens of thousands of drunkards; which turns
into drunkards tens of thousands of the sober; which makes
tens of thousands of new liars, and makes worse tens of thou-
sands of old ones; which cheapens sincerity and simplicity,
by putting high prices upon intrigue and dishonesty; which
puts falsehood for truth and darkness for light, and makes ten
appeals to passion and prejudice where it makes one to reason.
While, however, we affirm that this is the general character
of a Presidential Election, we are free to admit that some of
the actors in it are candid, and some of the influences in it en-
lightening and elevating. But with all this, and every other
conceivable alleviation, still who does not see that a Presi-
dential Election frightfully lowers the standard of morality,
pours tides of wickedness through all ranks and classes, and
preys fatally with its rampant vices on numberless bodies and
numberless souls? Many and mighty are the influences needed
to redeem great popular Elections from the coarseness and
corruption which characterize them. Preëminent among these
influences is the presence and the part of woman. The con-
duct and character of men as voters will become far better
after the advancing stages of civilization shall have brought
up women to vote by their side.
A
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And where were our church people in the late Election?
They were voting for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates.
Nay, some of them were themselves such candidates. Our
church people were mixed up with the abominations of the
Election, and not a few of them were drenched in its corrup-
tions.
I turn for a moment from the church people to notice the
fact that even the rescuers of slaves did, with very few excep-
tions; vote for these candidates. In their measureless incon-
sistency and infatuation, they voted power into hands ready to
use it both for re-seizing the slave and punishing his rescuers.
Doubtless these inconsistent and infatuated men will still
wonder that we should refuse to join them in celebrations of
slave-rescues.
To return to the church people. It must be confessed that
thousands of them honestly believed that their candidate would
be found faithful to all the claims of freedom and righteous-
ness, and it must also be confessed that, but for this belief, they
would not have voted for him. Admit, too, will we that thou-
sands of them voted as they did because they believed the
Constitution to be for Slavery, and thousands because they be-
lieved the Bible sustains it. I believe both to be against it.
But what if both are for it? Why, only that both are so far
void of obligation. The Bible and the Constitution are the
work of men; but Freedom is the great gift of the Great God.
Hence, believing, as I do, with “Peter and the other Apostles
that we ought to obey God rather than man,” I must insist
that all shall go for Freedom, however the Constitution and
“ The law of his God," or, in other words,
the law of Justice, was Daniel's law, and it should be every
man's law, the Constitution and even the Bible to the contrary
notwithstanding.
Will the church people never believe in the religion of the
Bible? They believe in its theologies and its philosophies, or
in what are interpreted to be such. Why will they not be-
lieve in its religion also ? One answer is, that they are sec-
taries; that their sects are organized to uphold, some this part
and some that of these theologies and philosophies; and that
in this wise religion is in general greatly undervalued, and
the Bible may go.
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BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
105
often quite ignored or lost sight of. Indeed, the mistake be-
comes almost universal among them, that these theologies or
philosophies are themselves religion, or at least a part of it,
and that their zeal and contention for them have all the merit
of zeal and contention for religion itself. Another explanation
is, that whilst the good man alone is willing to be religious,
these theologies or philosophies are a substitute for religion so
cheap and easy that the wickedest man finds no cross in adopt-
ing them. And still another explanation of the refusal of these
church people to receive the religion of the Bible is, that whilst
this true religion enters a man's heart through his heaven-
enlightened and heaven-sanctified reason, they are educated
to distrust reason in the province of religion, and to receive
upon authority what passes with them for religion. Much,
too, might be said to show that religions imposed by authority
are not only like to differ very widely from the religion which
a sound understanding and a sound heart make their own, but
are also peculiarly effective in shutting it out.
I have spoken of the religion of the Bible as one with the
true religion. It manifestly is; and nowhere else is that true
religion presented so simply, so sublimely, or so perfectly.
Foolish skepticism rejects the Bible; credulous and unques-
tioning superstition gulps it down.
But reason
son blest with divine illumination-the reason coupled with a
renewed heart—though sitting, as it is bound to do, in stern
and unsparing, whilst yet in meek and humble judgment, on
the Bible, and deciding for itself on the popular interpreta-
tions of it, and on the theological and philosophical structures
built upon it, comes at last to acknowledge the preëminence
of its inspirations and the truth of its religion.
What is the religion of the Bible? The churches hold that
it is largely contained in their speculations and theories re-
specting Trinity, Atonenient, Heaven, Hell, etc. But the
Bible resolves it into love, especially love to the destitute and
afflicted. It says that, “ God is love," and that man should be
also. It says that, “Love is the fulfilling of the law," and that,
"All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.” It says that to do justice to the
poor and needy is to know God. (Jeremiah 22 : 16.) It says
the rea-
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BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
that, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father,
is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,
and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” It says: "Re-
member them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them
which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body.”
It says: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended,
and I burn not ?" It says, in short, that the whole of religion
consists in doing as you would be done by. The churches
make religion to consist mainly in creeds, but the Bible wholly
in deeds, and in the spirit of which they are the necessary out-
flow. Church religion dreams, but Bible religion bids us do.
Nothing in all the Bible, save the life of Jesus, which was
given to reflect before men the life of the Father, and in which
the character of God shines out in the character of the God-
filled Man, is so rich in tenderness and beauty and so power-
ful in appeals to love and admiration as its portrayal of right-
eous civil government. Nothing, with that exception, so
clearly and attractively reveals the genius of the religion of
the Bible. How little the church people appreciate this re-
ligion is manifest from their indifference to the Bible view of
civil government. Altogether welcome to them would be this
view, and altogether corresponding with it their political
action, did they but love this religion.
Civil government is, in the eye of reason, the collective
people caring for each of the people the combination of all
for the protection of each one. Such is it also in spirit and
scope on the pages of the Bible. We there see it to be, next
to God himself, the great Protector; and, as is reasonable, the
special Protector of the innocent and helpless poor. The Bible
requires for civil rulers "able men, such as fear God, men of
truth, hating covetousness;” men who “shall judge the people
with just judgment, shall not respect persons, neither take a
gift;"
;"> « shall judge [do justice to] the poor of the people, save
the children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor.”
Of this true and Bible type of civil rulers was Job, who says:
"I delivered the poor that cried; and the fatherless and him
that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was
ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart
to leap for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
107
my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the
blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor,
and the cause which I knew not I searched out. And I brake
the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth."
I am always pained when I hear Christians praise certain
persons as great statesmen. Great statesmen they are—not
because they care for the poor, for they uphold statutes and
execute decrees for enslaving and crushing the poor--but be-
cause they have talents and learning, and talk ingeniously and
eloquently about banks and tariffs and internal improvements,
and prate cunningly and winningly of human rights. Were
these Christians more Christian, they would see more states-
manship in that noble ruler who was a father to the poor,"
than in the sum total of those sham statesmen who are so un-
wisely and guiltily lauded.
For the reason that it looks upon the civil ruler as the pro-
tector of the needy, the Bible says to him: “Open thy mouth
for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to de-
struction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the
cause of the poor and needy.” “Seek judgment, relieve the
oppressed." " Let the oppressed go free: break every yoke.”
It is for this reason that it pronounces “ Wo unto them that
decree unrighteous decrees and that write grievousness which
they have prescribed ; to turn aside the needy from judgment
and to take away the right from the poor of my people ;" and
says: "Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him
that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor.”
We can not mistake the Bible apprehension of civil govern-
ment, when it tells us that “rulers are not a terror to good
works but to the evil;" nor when it says that the ruler is "the
minister of God," or in other words, acts on and acts out the
principles of God. And who can mistake it, or fail to be
touched and melted by it, when he reads the injunction upon
civil government: “ Take counsel, execute judgment, make
thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noon day; hide
the outcasts, bewray [betray] not him that wandereth. Let
rnine outcasts dwell with thee; be thou a covert to them
from the face of the spoiler." Or who can misapprehend it,
or not be moved by it, wlien le reads : “Thou shalt not de-
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و
liver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his
master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you,
in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where
it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.”
I need quote no further from the Bible to prove that the civil
government it commends is the protector of the innocent and
helpless poor ; nor to prove how widely it contrasts with the
civil governments of the whole earth, and especially with the
oppressive and murderous rule which, in our own nation,
nsurps the name of civil government-a rule so sanctioned by
the priesthood and upheld by the people, as forcibly to recall
the prophet's description of a similar conspiracy. “There is
a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roar-
ing lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they
have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made
her many widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have vio-
lated my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have
put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have
they showed difference between the unclean and the clean,
and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned
among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves
ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get
dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed them with
uintempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them,
saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not
spoken. The people of the land have used oppression and
exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea,
they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.” Need I add
that the civil government of this land is the devourer, instead
of the protector, of the poor? and that, while continuing to
devour them with Land Monopoly, and Rum, and Slavery, the
protection it boastingly and lyingly professes and promises is
no better than that which the prophet here describes—the pro-
tection which wolves give to lambs.
I have said enough to warrant me in asserting-
First. That of all the institutions of earth, civil govern-
ment is unspeakably the most important.
Second. That religious men only are fit to bear civil rule,
and that therefore none other should be chosen for it. This
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
109
says Reason, and this says the Bible, whose religion is the re-
ligion of reason. In what sublimely eloquent and command- .
ing language is it said by the Psalmist, when, having reserved
it for his last, because most important utterance and admoni-
tion, he exclaims : “ The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and
his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock
of Israel spake to me: He that ruleth over men must be just,
ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the
morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds ;
as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining
after rain."
Surely none but a religious man can answer to the Psalm-
ist's description of the civil ruler. Surely none but a religious
man can have the broad, undeviating justice, the honest, com-
prehensive care for others, the quick, tender, and thorough
sympathy with the poor, helpless, and trodden-down, which
should ever characterize the civil ruler,
Are not religious better than irreligious men? None can
doubt it. Why, then, should they not be chosen to fill the
most important and responsible places in human affairs ? That
they are not, dishonors religion and sets reason at naught. If
religious men are needed any where, it is in the capacity of
civil rulers.
My hearers know what I mean by a religious man, and they
will not go away saying that I refuse to vote for persons unless
they belong to the church. I vote for those who do and for
those who do not belong to it. But I aim to vote for religious
persons only. Believing in the Bible, and accepting its re-
ligion with my whole head and heart, I am shut up to such
voting. Other men, and immeasurably better than myself, can
vote otherwise. But I can not. I can not without severing my
connection with this Book of books, dishonoring and disown-
ing iny God-given and God-present reason, debauching my
conscience, and sinking myself into atheism.
With me a religious man is simply a just man. Show me a
just man, and you show me a religious one.
show me a religious one. The more just he
is the more religious he is. And when, under the new-creat-
ing influences of Heaven, he has reached the sublime hight of
doing in all things as he would be done by, then has he ful-
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BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
filled the claims of justice and religion, of the Bible and rea-
son, of earth and heaven. Beliefs in regard to the Trinity,
Atonement, Election, etc., etc., have their value. They may
favor or hinder religion ; but they are no part of it.
Say not that my stress on doing ignores faith. Say not that
I forget the Bible words: “The just shall live by faith.”
Readily do I admit that our moral and spiritual nature can not
live unless it be fed by faith. But in what must this faith be?
Must it be, as is generally held, in ecclesiastical dogmas and
formulas?, No; but in justice and goodness. Most it not be
in Christ? Not necessarily in the historic Christ; but it must
be in the spirit he breathed, the principles he taught, and the
aims he pursued. In the high and essential sense every man
has faith in Christ just as far as this spirit, these principles, and
these aims become his own, and no farther; or, in other words,
to the precise extent that he is like Christ.
And say not that I have onnitted from my definition of a re-
ligions man love to God. No one, destitute of this element,
can love his brother as he should do. No one can do this
without loving God for having made him capable of it. I add
that every one's love to God is proved and measured by his
love to man.
The little handful of uncompromising Abolitionists are
blamed for refusing to vote at the late Election for this, that, or
the other party ticket. But there were irreligious men upon
each--men whose principles and practices proved their dispo-
sition to wield government for the destruction instead of the
protection of the people. Men there were upon all these
tickets, who would license the dram-shop, that great manufac-
tory of paupers and madmen, that great slaughter-house of
bodies and souls, that great source of peril to the persons and
property of the sober, as well as of suffering to the families of
drunkards, that great multiplier of our taxes, but for which we
should pay only shillings to the tax-gatherers where we now
pay them dollars, and but for which there would be compara-
tively little occasion for courts and prisons, and probably none
at all for poor-houses. Men there were upon all these tickets,
who would replunge into the deep pit of slavery the poor
trembling ones who have escaped from it; and who would de-
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
111
grade and dislearten millions of their countrymen by exclud-
ing them from citizenship and the ballot-box.
How, then, could we vote for any one of these tickets? How
could we do so, and still honor the Bible view of religion and
civil government? What! vote for men who would worse
than murder their innocent brothers and sisters by enslaving
them? Impossible, withont most deeply dishonoring that
view. I said worse than murder--for who would not rather
have his child murdered than enslaved? What! vote for men
who would use the power we give them to punish complexion
with civil and political disabilities ! Surely, we could not do
so without outraging all our convictions of what the Bible
teaches of religion and civil government. All the varieties of
the human faoily are equally dear to Him who hath made
of one blood all nations of men;" and if the religion of the
Bible is both his and ours, then are they equally dear to us
also. The recent refusal of the majority of the voters of this
State to restore suffrage to the black man proves that majority
to be atheists. The contempt which that refusal pours upon
human nature is wholly incompatible with true religion. A
man may love himself, and this or that branch of the human
family ; but unless he love all its branches, he is the guilty
enemny of human nature, and of the God in whose image it is
made.
Some of these Abolitionists are blamed for entertaining, as
did their sainted brother, James G. Birney, so small a hope
that the voters of our country will bring slavery to a peaceful
end through the ballot-box. Their little faith in these voters
is construed into evidence of their want of faith in God. But
more properly might little faith in such of these voters as love
to cast pro-slavery and dram-shop votes be construed into
want of faith in the devil. Our speeches and writings for a
quarter of a century, show that we look for a speedy termina-
tion of American Slavery. But our growing fear, in the light
of our growing knowledge of American voters, is, that the ter-
mination will be violent instead of peaceful. It will come in
some way in God's providence, and it will come soon. But to
say that, because we doubt its coming in the bloodless and de.
sired way, we doubt His providence, and have a reduced faith
in Himself, is to do us a groundless and a great wrong.
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BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
It is very true that our hope of seeing slavery voted to death
is small. This is as true as that the facts in the case forbid it
to be large. And if I may be allowed to speak for some
of these Abolitionists, I will add that not only do they appre-
hend that a people who receive their religion upon authority,
instead of understandingly, will be found inadequate to the
task of putting away peaceably a system of slavery so inwov-
en as is ours with political, ecclesiastical, commercial, social
interests, but inadequate also to the maintenance of democratic
institutions. The religions of the world, being authority re-
ligions, harmonize with monarchies and despotisms. If peoples
who are swayed by them call for democratic forms of govern-
ment, then do they call for what is far above them--for what
they are not yet educated to meet the cost of. Were the Ital-
ians now to put away their authority religion, and now to as-
sert their right to judge for themselves as freely of every page
in the Bible as of every page in any other book, and as freely
of every proceeding in the Church as of every proceeding in
any other association, it would not be strange if, fifty years
hence, that happily delivered people should look out from the
midst of their flourishing democratic institutions upon the ruin
of ours.
Some of these Abolitionists hold that the North is particeps
criminis in American Slavery, and should therefore consent to
share with the South in the present loss of emancipation.
They hold that here is a case for applying the motto: “Honor
among thieves.” Now, to charge them, therefore, with recog-
nizing the right of property in man is as unjust as to deduce
from their lack of faith in American voters their lack of faith
in God. But these Abolitionists would buy the slaves l_all
the slaves! Well, let it pass for buying. And, pray, do not
their accusers sometimes help buy a slave? Oh, yes !-but
they have never undertaken to buy all the slaves! Neverthe-
less, does not what they themselves do estop them from com-
plaining of the morality of this undertaking? Moreover,
would not all their accusers consent to be bought out of slave-
ry were they to fall under its heavy yoke? If they would,
then let them first become so self-crucifying as to be able to
reduce to practice in their own case that sublime morality by
which they presume to try and condemn others.
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
113
.
No less is the injustice done to such of these Abolitionists as
are charged with consenting to leave the governmental action,
which shall attend the annexation to each other of nations, or
parts of nations, include the sanction and upholding of slavery.
With their broad democracy and their immeasurably greater
account of the natural rights of people than of the conventional
claims of Government, they can not consistently withstand the
desire of two peoples (bond and free, male and female included)
to cast in their lot together. They can not withstand it, even
though the conspirators, who have usurped the name and au-
thority of Civil Government, enact theft, slavery, murder, or
whatever else, as the conspirators' terms of the blending.
Does it follow, however, from such enactments, that these
Abolitionists recognize these conspirators as Civil Govern-
ment? Not at all. They do, in fact, recognize as Civil Gov-
ernment that only which administers the law of God. Such
Governments as do not administer it, and especially the pro-
slavery governments of this country, are in their eyes but pi-
racies. Or does it follow that the Abolitionists of whom we
are speaking consent to, or are in any wise responsible for, the
man-crushing and God-defying terms on which these conspira-
tors condition the blending ? Certainly not. No more does it
follow that they would bave the consociating peoples consent
to or be responsible for them.
Moreover, if these Abolitionists believe that the slaves of
Cuba and of the United States wisely desire to bring their sad
fortunes together, and their desolate hearts together into one
tion, or that they would desire it if they knew their true in-
terests, and would do so even if the parties who hold the reins
of power should seek to turn to the advantage of slavery such
bringing together—then these Abolitionists should not only
not withstand the desire, but should promote its realization.
They should themselves speak for these “poor, poor dumb
mouths," and should feel not the least responsibility for the
inrighteousness which others may succeed in coupling with
the longed-for annexation.
Nor less is the injustice of classing with "disunionists”
those Abolitionists, who, opposing by all moral and political
influences the secession of States from the Union, would nev-
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ertheless not have the seceders pursued with armies. Those
Abolitionists believe in love rather than in hatred; and, hence,
they would be more disposed to bless than to curse the seceders;
to protect them rather than to shed their blood. For my own
part, I still feel on this subject as I felt half a dozen years ago,
when I said on the floor of Congress : “If they will go, let
them go, and we, though loving the Union, and every part of
it, and willing to lose no part, will let them go in peace, and
follow them with our blessing, and with our warm prayer
that
they may return to us, and with our firm belief that they will
return to us after they shall have spent a few miserable years,
or perhaps no more than a few miserable months in their mis-
erable experiment of separating themselves from their brethren.
Of course I can not forget that many-alas, that they are so
many--would prefer following the seceders with curses and
guns. Oh! how slow are men to emerge from the brutehood
into which their passions and their false education have sunk
them. I say brutehood, for rage and violence and war belong
to it, while love and gentleness and peace, are the adornments
of true manhood."
What will be the spirit of the North toward the seceding
States, bids fair to be soon proved. It is even probable that
the Slave States will secede-a part now and nearly all the
remainder soon. This will not be because of the election of
Lincoln. That is at the most an occasion or pretext for seces-
sion. Nor will this be because it has long been resolved on.
There is something, but not so much, in that. It will be be.
cause their “iniquity—is full," and the time for their destruc-
tion at hand. During the last few years the South has been
busy in leaving nothing to add to her iniquity. I speak not
so much of her reöpening the African slave-trade, nor of her
increasingly tenacious grasp of her slaves as of her purpose to
banish what she can of her long-tortured free colored people,
and reënslave the rest. This crowning iniquity ripens her for
ruin. It ripens her for secession, which is ruin. Maryland,
having refused to be guilty of this crowning iniquity, will, we
trust, be saved from the fate of secession. Missouri means to
be a Free State, and Delaware is already substantially one.
Hence they will not secede.
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
115
course.
The South would know herself to be hurrying on to destruc-
tion were she not blind to the lessons of history and deaf to the
voice of Providence. She ought to know it if but from the
fate of the oppressors of Hayti. They were not slaughtered
until they undertook to reënslave the free—and then they were.
Divine Providence has its course in the Southern States as
well as elsewhere; and there as well as elsewhere, both the
wickedness and righteousness of men contribute to shape that
In the words of a precious Moravian hymn:
"He every where hath rule,
And all things serve his might.”
God did not fail to hear the piercing cry sent up a few
months ago by the exiles of Arkansas. His tender heart
pitied the poor ones driven out about the same time from the
State of Louisiana. He witnesses the atrocious cruelties which
South-Carolina heaps upon her free colored people, and follows
them in their flight from their oppressors. And all this, we
may feel assured, goes to "serve his might and to shape his
providence.
I spoke of the secession as ruin. It will be only a present
ruin, however. It will result in a glorious renovation. The
seceding States will return to us, not to be Slave States again,
but to be Free States; not again to oppress the poor, but cor-
dially and practically to acknowledge the equal rights of all;
not again to disgrace America, and hinder the spread of De-
mocracy over the earth, but to honor the one and extend the
other; not again to be a heavy curse, but to be a rich blessing
to mankind.
But we pass on, to speak of another injustice. It is that of
denouncing as enemies of the Bible those of us who believe
there are a few errors in it, and of denouncing, as guilty of
setting their reason above the word of God, those of us who
would let their reason inquire what is and what is not the
word of God.
There is a child who deeply loves and honors his another;
but he confesses that the few pimples or moles upon her face
are blemishes, slight indeed, but still blemishes upon her beauty.
Is it to the shame and discredit of his filial piety that he makes
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}
this confession? Even if it is, it does not become such of her
children to say so, as disgrace her, and break her heart by
their flagrant disobedience, and make no other atonement than
their hollow ascription of entire perfection to her.
It is argued that reason, having once decided that the whole
Bible, and nothing else, is the word of God, is bound to rest
there. This is sound argument. But is it bound to rest there
always ? By no means. Reason must ever be left free to re-
vise and repeal its own decisions, and to deny to a verse to-day
the inspiration it admitted yesterday. When I was young, my
reason (if reason it was) accepted the statement that God or-
dered the Jews to plunge into bloody wars, and to torture in-
nocent women and children. But now it does not, and does
not because it has, as I believe, become more enlightened. It
now refuses to regard the loving Father as an arbitrary, re-
vengeful, bloody, pagan deity.
Good and wise men (and I admit that both this age and
former ages are on their side) call on us to abandon our claim
for the ceaseless free play of reason upon the pages of the Bible.
So, too, did the ages call on Galileo to abandon his belief that
the world moves. But Galileo has come to be justified; and
so also will they who, in opposition to the world.—-both the
present and the past world-claim that even the Bible itself
does never, at any period of his life, fall without the jurisdic.
tion of any man's reason. There is great astonishment that
the Church so dreaded the influence of astronomy upon the
Bible; but there will be greater that it so dreaded the influ.
ence of reason upon it. The dread in both cases is explained
by its foolishly regarding a book instead of Nature as absolute
authority, and the Divine inspiration of every page in it as a
fact no more to be questioned than the existence of the sun.
We admit that we can not honestly deny that we make our
reason final arbiter in all our investigations--even our investi-
gations of the Bible. We dare not hold it in abeyance, nor
disclaim its supremacy even there. At all times and in all
places we must let it decide what is the word of God. If Dr.
Cheever makes it turn supremely and finally upon the Bible
whether immortal man can be rightfully enslaved; or, in
other words, rightfully reduced to brutehood and merchandise,
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
117
we can not go with him in that. We must there diverge from
this dear and noble man of God. We can not leave it to the
interpretation of any words whether a hog is a hog, a horse a
horse, or a man a man. Whatever words may say to the contra-
ry, we must, in all circumstances, treat each according to its
nature. So should every thing be treated, and what is its na-
ture should be learned (because there it can be more surely
learned) from itself rather than from any, even the best ac-
count of itself. The world admits that Shakspeare is a won-
derfully deep and accurate reader of human nature. But it
admits this because Shakspeare agrees with its own observa-
tions of human nature. Does it test man by Shakspeare's
knowledge of him? Far more does it test Shakspeare by its
own knowledge of man. And so, likewise, instead of making
the Bible either the exclusive or the conclusive expounder of
man, the Bible reading of him is also to be judged of by our
own observations of him.
This leaving it to words whether slavery is right or wrong
accounts for the sad fact that the church people South are all
pro-slavery, and that a large share of them North are also.
Dr. Cheever found the like in his recent travels in Switzer-
land—the church people in favor of slavery, because they
read the Bible to be in favor of it. Lamentable effect, we ad-
mit, of their misinterpretation of this precious book! but far
more lamentable effect of the ecclesiastical requirement to turn
from man to a book in order to learn what he is and what are
his rights ! Possibly Dr. Cheever himself inay yet become
pro-slavery. Should he wake up some incrning with the con-
viction that there are words in the Bible on the side of slavery,
he would either have to renounce the authority of the Bible,
or have to becoine pro-slavery. I do not doubt that he wonld
renounce it, even though he should see that he would thereby
make himself as odious as I, by doing so, have made myself.
Jesus saw that men were enslaved to authority, and that
their own experience of truth could alone set them free. He
took up men out of their bondage to superstitions, and out
of their debasing and blinding submission to authority, and
threw them back upon their own consciences and convictions,
and demanded that they should judge for themselves, yes, and
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of themselves, what is right. This to individualize and insu-
late each man was his first step towards getting each man
right.
The question which Jesus puts to the slaveholder is not,
" What does the Church or the Bible think of slavery?" but
it is: “What think you of it-you yourself ?” “What think
you of it in the light of human nature of that high nature
it tramples under foot-whose holy affections it outrages-
whose sweet hopes and loves it mocks-whose sublime aspira-
tions it chokes and kills—and of all whose rich and glorious
relations to earth and heaven, to time and eternity, it makes
no account? “What think you of it in the light of the gold-
en rule, to do as you would be done by ?"
6. What think you
of slavery as a condition for yourself—as a yoke upon your
own neck, by however solemn enactments imposed, or however
poor and helpless you were at the time of the imposition ?"
“What think you of it for your children--for even the dullest
of them, and for those least able to take care of themselves ?”
In a word, “What think you of slavery, when you try it by
that self-application mode of reasoning which Jesus taught ?"
Could you pin the slaveholder to such questions ; could you
prevent his escape from the tribunal of his own conscience, he
would soon cease to be a slaveholder. But, unhappily, the
Church has taught him how to evade the pressure of your ques-
tions, and of his conscience. He finds shelter in an authorita-
tive religion, and is relieved of the necessity of self-arraign-
ment.
This self-application mode of reasoning, when faithfully
wielded, makes the problems simple and the duties plain. The
Presidential candidates in the late Election would send other
people's children into slavery. But wonld they send their
own, even if pressed to it by ten thousand Constitutions and
ten thousand statutes, and ten thousand judicial decrees, ay,
and ten thousand Bibles also ? My neighbors voted for them.
But would they have done so, had it been my neigh-
bors' children, whom these candidates proposed to send into
slavery?
The sincere and self-sacrificing John Brown was adjudged
worthy of death because he would put weapons into the hands
BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
119
of slaves wherewith to defend theinselves in their flight from
slavery. But would not his judges, ay, and the famous
Harper's Ferry Committee also, were they in slavery, welcome
such a service? Such are my own ethics and education that I
had rather live and die in slavery than shed blood to escape
from it. But had they?
The work Dr. Cheever has chosen for himself is to persuade
the Swiss, the Americans, and the world, that the Bible is
against slavery. But far more important, far more hopeful;
and far shorter would be his work, were it to convince them
that, say what the Bible may, slavery is wrong; and to con-
vince them of it by carrying them straight to man, and de-
manding their solution of the problem amid the influences shed
upon them by that august and god-like presence. It is when
pervaded by these influences—the solemn influences of the
most holy and glorious of all earthly temples—the temple of
man-that we feel how exceedingly poor, compared with its
real authority—the authority of God in man—is that which is
80 falsely claimed for traditions, books, and churches.
Dr. Cheever sees no hope for freedom, if the Bible shall be
given to the side of slavery. But I see no hope for the Bible
if it shall be proved to be for slavery. Slavery is not to be
tried by the Bible, but the Bible by freedom. All this talk
that the Bible is the charter of man's rights is nonsense. His
nature is that charter; and his rights are the rights of his na-
ture-no more nor less-every book to the contrary notwith-
standing. The nature of a monkey determines its rights. The
nature of a man his.
Nothing can be more degrading to the high nature God has
given us than to argue that its rights stand in a book, and that
we need run to it to learn whether we may or inay not get
drunk, commit theft, murder, or enslave men. No book
points ont men's crimes so clearly, or protests against them
so strongly as their own nature; and if they turn away from
the best teacher, under the plea of hearing a better, they will,
in the end, be apt to hear neither. There is no safety for us
any further than we respond to the utterances of our being.
We may, and we shonld, study that being in the light of the
Bible and of all other lights at our command. Nevertheless,
B
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it is that which we are to study. We may, and we should,
have respect to the wise judgments which abound both within
and without the Bible. Nevertheless, the final and decisive.
judgment is that which we are ourselves to form. We are
never, nor in the least, to doubt our capacity to judge rightly
in regard to every thing which enters into the essence of reli-
gion--every such thing being entirely plain and simple. Were
it not so, Jesus would not have said to the people: "And why
judge ye not even of yourselves what is right?”
But it will be long, very long, ere the people are weaned
from depending on book-interpreters for their religion, and
are brought to study it for themselves in nature. The educa-
tion of the age has served to enslave men to authority; and
an authority-religion is therefore just what their education
calls for. They must not presume to go to the plain volume of
nature for their religion. But, with blind faith in others, and
boundless submission to authority, they must receive for reli-
gion what the churches, wlio quarrel among themselves as to
the meanings of a book, tell them is the religion of that
book,
I close my discourse abruptly, to the end that the congrega-
tion may have the more time for reviewing it. Happy usage
this, of having the church and congregation resolve themselves
in the afternoon into a conference for reviewing the discourse
they have heard in the morning. Not a little of its marked
knowledge of the true religion does Peterboro owe to this
usage.
Although the mass of the voters at the late Election were
for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates ; and although
they who sternly refused to vote for men in favor of licensing
the dram-shop, or for men who know as law any form of piracy,
and least of all the superlative piracy of slavery, were but a
very little handful, nevertheless we are not to be discouraged.
This very little handful, even though it shall never increase, will
not fail to exert a growing influence for Freedom, truth, and
righteousness. But it may increase rapidly-ay, under the
Divine blessing, even triumphantly. Like the "handful of
corn on the top of the mountains, the fruit thereof may yet
shake like Lebanon."
MIRACLES.
PETERBORO, APRIL 14, 1861.
Have there ever been miracles? By which I mean, have
the laws of Nature ever been suspended ? Neither the obser:
vations and computations of astronomers nor the explorations
of geologists detect such suspension. “All things continue as
they were from the beginning of the creation.'
As yet, it
holds true that, " While the earth remaineth, seed-time and
harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day
and night shall not cease."
Whatever the good that might come of miracles, certain it
is that immeasurable evil would also come of them. Men
would no longer know what to rely on in either the physical
or the moral world in the character of nature or the cha-
racter of God. That with God “is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning," and that like his Son, who reflects him,
he is “the same yesterday and to-day and forever," is taught
more largely and surely by the unchanging operations of his
laws than elsewhere. What an appalling and withering un-
certainty miracles would send throughout the realms of natural
science! Quite discouraged would be the geologists and as-
tronomers, and quickly abandoned their enterprises, should
they come to fear change in those operations. Unhappy would
be the effect upon the navigator, the farmer, the mechanic, the
physician, and indeed upon whom not?
But, you will say, that miracles are too infrequent for such
disastrous consequences. You are, with few exceptions, Pro-
testants; and you will say, that the sole object of miracles is
the authentication of Christianity. Nay, you will say, that
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MIRACLES.
there have been none for the last eighteen centuries, and that
there never will be any more.
Even, however, if miracles are to this end only, they can not
be so infrequent as you suppose. The conditions of belief in
one age may differ very widely from those in another; and so,
also, in one country from those in another. What to the Jews
were miracles, might not to the English wear the least sem.
blance of them. So common were they in Judea, that their
being miracles was not at all in the way of their being believed.
But a great change must be wrought in the English mind be-
fore it can be brought so far as even to listen to testimony in
behalf of present miracles. Deep-rooted preconceptions are to
be removed, and life-long habits of thought to be overcome ere
the way will be clear to hear witnesses. Hence, though there
may still linger so much superstition and religious prejudice
in the English mind as to make it still acquiesce in old Jewish
miracles, it remains true that Jewish testimony can not prove
them to that mind. What, to the Jew of two thousand years
ago, might have been entirely convincing evidence of a miracle,
might to the modern Englishman be but illegitimate and inad-
missible evidence. The ancient Jew is no more capable of
bringing proof on this subject to the modern Englishman than
children are of proving to their parents the truth of children's
marvelous stories. If, then, the miraculous authentication of
Christianity is needed, there should be miracles to this end in
England as well as in Judea-miracles within sight of Englishı
eyes and within hearing of English ears. Jewish testimony of
miracles, however honest the observation of them, and how-
ever honest the transmitted record of them, can not suffice to
overcome all incredulity outside of Judea.
It follows then, in the light of what has been said, that if
miracles are a needed proof of Christianity they must be more
frequent than you believe them to be. They must be needed
in this age and that, all along down the track of time; in this
and that country, all over the world's surface.
Again, God is impartial. The salvation of one people is (all
foolish, selfish, sinful Hebrew superstitions to the contrary not-
withstanding) as dear to him as that of another. Hence, if he
would vouchsafe miracles to one people for the purpose of as-
MIRACLES.
123
suring them that their religion is true, he would vouchsafe
them to another people as the means of convincing them that
their religion is false. The one would be as needful as the
other. The Hindus are in as much need of miracles to per-
suade them that their religion is false as were the Jews to per-
suade them that Christianity was true.
Evidently, then, my neighbors, you are bound by fair logic
either to give up your faith in all miracles, or to admit that
they are so frequent as to forbid reliance upon the unvarying
character and operation of the laws of nature.
But you feel that you can not possibly cease to credit the
miracles which are historically connected with your religion.
Remember, however, that they are no part of it, and that its
truth does not make them true. Your faith in thein, to be
justified must have a basis quite independent of that of your
religions faith. You must neither assume nor infer them to
be true. You must have clear and direct proof of them, or
you must reject them. Is there enough of such proof to carry
conviction to an enlightened and unbiased mind? I think
there is not. Of the numberless educated and good men,
whether Protestants or Catholics, who believe in miracles, I
do not think there is one who could believe in them, but for
their being identified in his apprehensions with his religion.
Such identification makes them sacred to him. He feels no
need of their being proved to him, and to every disproof of
them he is impervious and blind.
We proceed to inquire why it is that, as a general proposi-
tion, and indeed in every case save this in which the miracles
are associated with the cherished religion, sound and cultivated
men refuse their credence to them. It is because their obser-
vation and experience of the constancy and certainty of natız-
ral laws are too conclusive to be shaken by even the utmost
accumulations of human testimony. Never have they seen in-
constancy and uncertainty in these laws. But the fallibility
of human testimony they have seen every day.
It turns not simply nor even mainly upon the words of the
witnesses whether we believe or disbelieve in the alleged
events. Much more depends upon the antecedent state and
habits of our minds—upon our educated preparation to believe
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MIRACLES.
or disbelieve than upon the words, or number, or general cred-
ibility of the witnesses. I read that a man has died. Why
I believe it so unhesitatingly, is chiefly because death is not
only a possible and probable, but a very common actual event.
News comes that a child is born with two heads and four arms
and four legs. We disbelieve it. But when thousands of cre-
dible persons assure us that they have seen the prodigy, our
disbelief can hold out no longer. It is, however, still more by
force of our previous observation, experience, convictions, or,
in one word, education, than of these numerous witnesses, that
we are enabled to believe. We knew before that some per-
sons were born deficient in meinbers, and some with too many;
and hence we were prepared to listen to testimony in behalf
of this astonishing and at first incredible phenomenon. But
had the news been that an infant was seen to enter the world
without a mother, then, and even though millions had testified
to their personal and certain knowledge of the event, we
should (always provided that our religion did not call for faith
in it) have from first to last refused to believe in the event.
For there is nothing in our previous knowledge and training
to help, but on the contrary, every thing to prevent our believ-
ing in it. However entire our faith in the honesty and intelli-
gence of the witnesses, we nevertheless could not believe in it.
Nay, we would in such case discredit the report, and impeach
the trustworthiness of even our own senses; for while on the
one hand our eyes, ears, and hands have often deceived us, and
we have known the senses of the most wary to be the subjects
of illusions, we have, on the other, never known the least falter-
ing in the laws of nature. In other words, we have never
known a miracle. A however greatly deformed child is but a
lusus naturce~not a natural impossibility-not a miracle.
But a child without a birth-a birth without a mother--that is
a natural impossibility—that is a miracle.
Yon admit that there is but one reason for miracles, and this
is, that the Christian religion may be thereby authenticated.
But is there even this reason? Can there be miracles even to
this one end ? Religion consists in nothing more nor less than
the knowledge and observance of the laws of nature. Hence,
to make her laws uncertain is to make her religion uncertain,
MIRACLES.
125
To make the laws of nature uncertain, is to deprive mankind
of their great and sure religious teacher. Miracles, then,
might serve to unsettle and destroy, but not to establish reli-
gion; and therefore they will never be among the expedients
of the Supreme Wisdom for establishing it.
I persist in my definition of religion. The man who beyond
all others treats God and man and all beings according to the
nature of each, is religions beyond all others. If human na-
ture in the slave calls not for a contrary treatment, then is the
slaveholder right in with holding from him knowledge, wages,
wife, child, self; and so far, he is more religious than the abo-
litionist. If the nature of men requires their frequenting the
dram shop, then keeping a dram-shop shows more religion than
being a temperance man. If liis nature calls for it, then is the
daily beating and bruising of the horse religious. Only fall in
with all the claims of nature, and you will then fall in with all
the claims of religion.
That miracles are not needed to open men's minds and
hearts to religious truth, and that, therefore, none are wrought
to this end, is manifest from the fact, that they can not serve
this end. They can not be believed. It is true that even cul-
tivated men are inconsiderate enough to allow miracles to pass
for a part of their religion. But this is believing in the reli-
gion rather than in the miracles coupled with it; and miracles
are worthless unless this order be inverted, and the religion be
believed in because of the belief in them. Moreover, it is ap-
preciation of the truth that can alone serve the purpose
claimed for miracles. If this be lacking, no miracle can sup-
ply the lack. “If they hear not Moses and the Prophets,
neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”
It is the hearing of the truth and not the hearing or seeing of
a miracle, which produces conviction of the truth. Our
Maker has adapted us to the truth. This adaptation he has
left us free to honor or despise ; and this freedom he will not
overrule with miracles. The moral constitution he has given
us he will not dishonor by such overruling. Both our glory
and his own require him to hold it to its high responsibili-
ties; and, therefore, the sinking of it from its free choices to
the necessities of a machine can never be his policy.
126
. MIRACLES.
It is said that if miracles do not convince of truth, they are
nevertheless useful to call attention to it. But life abounds
.
in events far better adapted to this service than miracles could
be. The death of our husband, wife, child; our prostration
by sickness; our sudden reduction from riches to poverty-if
they have not as much power as miracles to astonish, have
nevertheless far more to call attention to religious truth. Not
only has God given us a nature fitted to the impressions and
sway of truth, but such is the course of his providence, that
it need not be disturbed and broken by miracles in order to
add to the already sufficient number of awakening and solem-
pizing occurrences.
By our moral sense and not by miracles we are to decide
what is moral truth. What commends itself as such to that
sepse we are to receive. What does not—and even though it
be backed by the most stupendous miracle---we are to reject.
Paul bids us abide in our convictions even against the preach-
ing of “an angel from heaven.” A miracle is reduced to a
very cheap thing, if we are to acknowledge its value only
when and so far as it harmonizes with our previous convic-
tions. Again, does not Paul quite exclude the necessity of
miracles in what he says to the Corintliians of the competency
of the spiritual mind to know and judge ?
I do not forget that the coming of man into the world has
been called a miracle, and a change of the laws of nature.
But may not such coming have been the result of laws as
old as any other of the laws of nature? If Darwin's theory
of "the origin of species by natural selection” should be held
to be in its application to man entirely fanciful, nevertheless
is it not conceivable that God might in some other way pro-
duce man from the original and eternal laws of nature? But
the coming of man into the world was so late! Not there.
fore the less probable is it that he did come from such opera-
tion. Moreover, who of us knows that man is a recent inhab.
itant of earth? Late geological discoveries in France and
England of what must have been the work of no less than
human hands carry the existence of man very far back of the
date given to Adam and Eve.
I need say no more to show that the Christian miracles as
MIRACLES.
127
well as the miracles of other religions are neither proved nor
capable of being proved. They may not be the coinage of
craft and cunning. The love of the marvelous, and the cre-
dality of superstition, may chiefly account for them.
But it is held, that not to believe in miracles is not to believe
in the Bible. We believe, however, in other ancient histories,
notwithstanding our disbelief of their miracles. Why, then,
should our disbelief of the miracles of the Bible be construed
into disbelief of the histories of the Bible? Moreover, the
peculiar and chief value of the Bible is not only aside from its
miracles, but from most of its narratives, and froin very many
of its pages. Its precious sentiments, its pure and profound
philosophy, its sublime moralities, its "commandments exceed-
ing broad,” which many of its writers and speakers were in-
spired to utter with a more impressive and soul-reaching elo-
quence than belongs to any other inspirations--these are what
give its preëininence to the Bible. Nay, these are the Bible;
and these are what justify me in still saying as I have been
wont to do: "The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but
the Bible.” The religion of the Bible is the true religion.
Men need no other, and they need the whole of it. Far am I
from claiming exclusive inspiration for these writers and
speakers. The Common Father is impartial. The influences
of his Spirit are free to men of all ages and nations. But
these speakers and writers got nearer to God, and knew more
of him than did others. Not content with striking the
streams, they traveled up them to the fountains, and slaked
their holy thirst ere yet the divine waters had begun
to flow down through human impurities. No other writers
and speakers seem to have escaped so far from the sphere of
human uncertainties-none to have entered so far into the
sphere of divine ceriainties. No other voices of earth sound
so much like voices of heaven.
It is also held, that not to believe in iniracles is not to be-
lieve in Christ. But why should it be so held ? Substantially
the same miracles are told of the conception and birth of
Plato, who lived hundreds of years before Christ, as are told
of the conception and birth of Christ. Nevertheless, our
making no account of these marvels in the case of Plato does
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MIRACLES.
not cause us to make no account, nor even any less account,
of Plato himself. Miracles are coupled with the names, with
the birth, deeds, and death of many ancient philosophers and
heroes. But our rejection of the miracles involves not the re-
jection of the men. And what if we do believe that the ori-
ginal attribution of miracles to Christ was crafty or supersti-
tious, and that, therefore, instead of being sanctioned, it should
be set aside? Nevertheless Christ is not thereby set aside.
He still remains; and he remains the same great Teacher and
Example, and therein the same great Saviour. He still real-
izes our highest conceptions of God's moral character, and
therein is he still - God manifest in the flesh.”
Miracles and magic go together. Hence they who believe
that they are saved by what Christ has done, rather than by what
his spirit — the spirit which filled him both in life and deatlı
---las led them to do, will naturally cling to miracles. They
will feel that to give them up is to give up Christ, and to give
up the magic salvation which they expect at his hands. But
they who take no interest in the question, whether Christ's
mother was born sinful or sinless; and but little interest in the
questions how, when, where he was born, and who believe that
he saves nen from the penalty of no other sins than those
which his spirit saves them from committing; and who be-
lieve that all they have to do with him is to grow, and bring
others to grow, in love and likeness to him—they will as natu-
rally be undisturbed by the conclusion that the miracles con-
nected with his birth, life, and death, are mere fictions.
Let me do injustice to none. Tens of thousands believe in
the miracles, and also in that view of the atonement which I
have disfavored, who not only believe in following Christ, but
who set that duty far above all dogmas. The best and the
worst men believe in the miracles, the Trinity, and in that
view of the atonement. The best and the worst men are or-
thodox; and the best and the worst men are heterodox. Prac-
tical religion only-lived-out goodness only--that alone is the
test; that alone puits all the good on one side, and all the bad
on the other.
I have glanced at the arguments for believing in miracles.
I will now pass on to the great need of their being disbelieved.
MIRACLES.
129
Formerly I thought it not very important whether they were
believed or disbelieved. But of late years I have reached the
conclusion, that scarcely any thing is more important than
that they be disbelieved. Book-religion may justly be re-
garded as the greatest evil in the world. It will, however,
last as long as miracles are believed in—they being recorded
with it, and regarded as a part of it. Herein, then, is the great
need of the rejection of niracles. Nevertheless, who will live
long enough to witness the rejection ? It is the union with
each other of miracles, and a book-religion which serves to
make each well nigh invincible. The miracles admitted, and
the religion is held to be true; the religion admitted, and the
miracles are held to be true.
One of the necessities growing out of a book-religion is a
priesthood—that frightful enemy of manhood. The inission
of the book-religion priest is to unman himself and his people;
to make a book-war upon human nature and all nature; and
to displace the real God by a conventional and book-God.
His people get their religion at second-hand, and it is what
the priesthood have prepared for them. For, if they are al-
lowed to read the sacred book, it is only in the light of priestly
interpretations, and with no liberty to depart from priestly
conclusions. Its religion is held to be wrapped up in mys-
teries, which priestly learning is alone adequate to unfold—to
be a cabalistic science, which sacerdotal skill can alone deci-
pher. I should have called this popular religion a third-hand
one, since no book-religion can rise any higher than a second-
hand one--any higher than a record of the religious utterances
of nature.
Am I asked whether I am opposed to all priests? I am.
What, even to priests of the type of Henry Ward Beecher?
There are no priests of that type. Mr. Beecher is not a priest
--he is a man. His soul is manly, and his preaching is manly.
He is not the servant of the book; the book is his servant.
He preaches from current life to current life; from nature to
nature; from all nature and the God who fills all nature, to
human nature. He does indeed love the Bible; and how
could such a man fail to love such a book? He preaches its
views of God and inan. But he does so because his reason
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MIRACLES.
commends tliem to him as the richest and truest views of God
and man which human hearts have ever conceived or human
hands ever recorded. Should he find, as he never will, passages
in that book favoring slavery or intemperance, he would in no
wise be trammeled by them. He would still go with nature
and religion, and against these enemies of both. But Mr.
Beecher has speculative views of Christ differing from yours
and mine! That may be. Still, as he subscribes with us to
Christ's practical religion of doing as we would be done by,
we can be very tolerant of such speculative views.
I mentioned Mr. Beecher not to eulogize him, but simply to
illustrate an unpriestly preacher. I could find fault even with
Mr. Beecher. The great and good Theodore Parker was al-
most disposed to welcome infirmities, not to say sins, in
Washington, on the ground that they served as points and ties
of sympathy between him and his fellow-men, and to retain
within the sphere of humanity this seemingly superhuman
saviour of his country. Mr. Beecher does, now and then,
slide down into expediency; and now and then make conces-
sions to a great wrong. I will not deny that he does by this
means help keep himself in sympathy with the masses—help
retain his hold upon them-and help preserve a wide field in
which to wield his rich and exhaustless eloquence. Yet I
must believe that God is never honored, nor mankind ever
benefited, by any inconsistency, whether in Washington or
Beecher, or any one else, with the stern law of absolute
rectitude.
It is not to get rid of preaching that we would have the priest-
hood abolished. Its abolition, which will he simultaneous with
that of the book-religion, will make room for multitudes of
preachers, such preachers as the world needs, preachers of na-
ture, and reason, and righteousness.
One of the great evils of book-religion is its forbidding pro-
gress in religion. Is the book a thousand years old ? then is it
mighty to hold back the human mind to a period a thou-
sand years ago; and if three thousand, then to a period
three thousand years ago. The believers in the Koran, in the
Vedas, and in the sacred books of China, are at the present
time religiously, and therefore intellectually and otherwise,
3
MIRACLES.
131
where they have been for many, many ages. The same is
true of the tribes which are bound and imprisoned by tradition-
ary religions--the effect of such religions being in this respect
the same as that of the written religions. How sadly do the
condition and character of the Mohammedans, Hindoos, and
Chinese illustrate the cramping and crushing influences of a
book-fastened, stereotyped, stationary religion! Happy for
Christendom that her sacred book is incoinparably better than
the sacred books of other parts of the world ! For, in spite of
the false and narrow interpretations pnt upon it by the priest-
hood, there has been great progress in Christendom. Yet how
little this progress, compared with what it would have been had
the book been held to be but a helper, and not a finality in
religion! All the way down to the present time has the
priesthood (putting its own meaning upon the book) arrayed
it, more or less, in one way or another, against nature, l'eason,
science, religion, and progress. At one time it is made to
withstand astronomy, and at another geology. At the present
time it is made to withstand the efforts to abolish war, intem-
perance, slavery, and the wrongs which oppress woman. As
the authority of the book has always been set by the priesthood
above nature, above the teachings of nature both in and out
of man, so it is not strange that the book, or rather what has
passed for it, has been involved in this incessant fight with na-
ture. All now see the folly of its fight with astronomical and
geological nature; and all will yet see the wickedness of its
fight with human nature. The doctrine that man was made
to wear the yoke of slavery will yet be as universally scouted
as the doctrine that the great sun was made to revolve around
the little earth.
Book-religion can not subdue the mighty evils of the world.
Dr. Cheever interprets the Bible against, and another Doctor
interprets it for, slavery. Dr. Nott interprets it against, and
another Doctor for, the drinking of intoxicating liquors. When
Doctors disagree, the people can not decide-for it requires
learning to decide in such a case, and the people are not
learned. They are not linguists and critics.
Hence they
must go this way and that, according not only to the different
but also to the changing courses of their learned leaders.
}
t
132
MIRACLES.
By the way, it is not clear that Dr. Cheever's anti-slavery
labors will, on the whole be useful. They certainly will be, so
far as the noble man succeeds in vindicating the precious Bi-
ble from pro-slavery aspersions. But they will not be if he
shall bring large numbers to consent to let it turn finally on
the Bible whether slavery is right or wrong. Dr. Nott speaks
and writes for temperance with very great ability. Neverthe-
less, he will do more harm than good if he shall lead multi-
tudes to make a book the final arbiter on this vital question.
Who battles more effectively for both freedom and temper-
ance than the great American orator, Wendell Phillips ?
Nevertheless, although he now welcomes the aid of the Bible,
he would be found battling against it also, were he to become
convinced that it is against freedom and temperance. Go the
Bible as it might, he would still go for human nature, and
therefore for the God in whose image it is made. Would you
have himn turn away from the authority of God's plainly-writ-
ten book to construct an authority out of the controverted
pages of a man-written book ?
The religion of Nature is alone the true religion. Nature
then is what we must study in order to know the true religion.
Bacon and Shakspeare, and the Bible, far above all other
books, can help us in this study. But not even the Bible is
the end. All books, the Bible itself included, are but ineans
to the end. And of the value of these means, each one, the
humblest as well as the highest, is to judge for himself. No
one of them, and no interpretations nor interpreters of any one
of them, are to be tolerated as an authority by even the most
ignorant.
Because of our doctrine that reason must sit in judgment
upon the Bible, we are often charged with placing reason
above God. But they are guilty of placing the Bible above
God—the human above the divine-who place it above Na-
ture. Sweetly and gloriously as God shines in the inspired
pages of the Bible, it is nevertheless nature, and especially
man, the masterpiece of nature, that is emphatically and pre-
eminently the Shekinah—the divine dwelling-place.
The great need of men is to return to the religion of nature.
In other words, they need to become natural. In still other
MIRACLES.
133
words, they need to be born again. The doctrine of the new
birth, which sacerdotalism and superstition have so mystified,
has no other significance and no wider scope than the return-
ing of men to the normal action of their nature. Every one
who has returned to his nature from his foolish and guilty de-
sertions of it, is born again. To bring him back to his nature
and hold him there; that, and that only, is it for which he
needs to be the subject of divine influences.
That the public mind is fast escaping from its bondage to
book-religions and the priesthood, is owing, under God, mainly
to its enlightenment and elevation by science. The effect
nay, the very office also—of science is to recall men to nature;
to acquaint them with her; to regain the recognition of her
claims, their love of her treasures, and admiration of her won-
ders. The astronomer, geologist, chemist, anatomist, the ex-
plorers by land and sea, the inventors and discoverers, the
mental and moral philosophers—such are the men who, along
with the divine inspirations both in and out of the Bible, are
now at work, whether wittingly or unwittingly, to build up
the religion of nature God's only religion-on the basis of
nature. · At break of day, "ghosts troop home to church-
yards," and owls and bats disappear. Thus inust retreat the
superstitions and despotisms which almost ever and almost
every where have occupied the place belonging to religion.
The floods of light which science is pouring ont upon the earth,
will soon leave no dark corners for book-religions to live in,
and cabalistic priests to work and rule in.
"They must for aye consort with black-browed night."
It is because it has a book religion that our country is now
a -
involved in a horrible civil war. The South could never have
been incited to her unnatural and atrocious aggressions on the
North had not her priesthood first convinced her that the Bible
is for slavery. Her war is not merely for her slavery. It is
for her religion also. Called for, I admit, the war is by her
despotism, pride, avarice, luxury, licentiousness, and intense
selfishness. Nevertheless it is also called for by her religious
conscience. Thirty or forty years ago she would not have
made war for slavery, for then she believed the Bible to be
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MIRACLES.
against slavery. Then she excused instead of justifying it.
Then she regarded it as an evil, and but a temporary one.
The Bible is so read as to suit customers. It is read this way
and that—now for rum and slavery, now against them. But
I
may be asked if there would not be as great uncertainty of
interpretation were Nature and Providence instead of the
Bible to become the authority in religion. There would not
---for Nature and Providence are necessarily an open book,
accessible and intelligible to all. They may be reasoned upon
by all, and they will be similarly viewed by all when all are
freed from book-religion. But the Bible is lield to be above
human reason: and he who ventures to shove aside the priest-
ly interpretations of it and claims the right of his reason to
pass upon it, is promptly branded as a despiser of authority
and an enemy of God.
Ere closing my discourse, let me say that among the great
evils which will be reduced to comparatively little ones when
the world shall be delivered from the curse of book-religions,
is party. Small occasion will there be for religious sects, or as
I might otherwise say, for the strife of words, when questions
about the meanings of phrases shall have lost their paramount
importance. And when there shall be but little of party in
the religious world, there will be less of it out of the religious
world. It is religious parties that train men for other parties,
and create in tliem such a habit of party, and such a depend-
ence on it, that they can not live without it. Alas! the
Alas! the power
of party to demoralize and destroy its snbjects ! This power
is explained by the fact, that absolute rectitude, even when it
is the theoretical, is never the practical standard of party; and
by the further fact, that each member of it leans upon it, stands
not in his own strength, but in the strength of his party; not
in his own character, but in that of his party. His individual-
ism is lost in a crowd; and his own definite responsibilities are
merged in those of a party, each member's share of which is
quite too vague and intangible to be enforced either by his
own conscience or the public tribunal.
In my condemnation of party, I have had no reference to
the temporary combinations of men for repealing this wrong
law, or enacting that right one; for preventing this or securing
MIRACLES.
135
that measure of political economy; for electing this good can-
didate, or defeating that bad one. Such combinations may be
as justifiable as are those for raising or removing buildings.
What I condemn is going into a permanent party; going into
it for life; going into it for personal advantage, and to supply
with party influence the lack of personal influence. What I
condemn is going into a party as a matter of course; going
into the Baptist or Methodist, or Odd Fellow, or Masonic
party, because others do; going into a political or other party,
because you weary of the dullness of your family or yourself;
going into it to exchange the quiet enjoyments of individual-
ism for the excitements and frenzies of party spirit. How
poor and evanescent the pleasures of party !-of clubs! How
rich the harvests of self-cultivation! How noble the results
of self-reliance !
I will detain you no longer. For years our little church has
testified against a book-religion as a great and ruinous mistake.
This testimony, along with others which we have felt bound
to give, has made us very odious. But still more odious shall
we be if we deny miracles. And yet must we not deny them
if we would do all we can to rid the world of a book-religion,
and if we would be faithful to all our convictions? Life is
short. Let us hasten to say what we believe men need to
have said, even though we shall be hated for saying it. We
can afford to forego the public approbation if but our con-
science approve us.
C
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON,
THE ALLEGED MURDERER.
CANA
TORONTO, CANADA, JANUARY 15, 1861.
Tuis is my second visit to Canada within the last three weeks.
My two journeys will inake a thousand miles. I have much
to do and much to enjoy at my home. Why, then, do I leave
it to make these visits? It is that I may look into the face
and press the land of my imprisoned brother, who is in danger
of being burnt at the stake. It is that I may mingle my sym-
pathies with yours over his hard lot, and join you in supplica-
tions to God and arguments and appeals to men for his deliver-
ance. Is it asked why I, a foreigner, presume to come among
you and meddle with your affairs? I answer, that these are
my affairs as well as yours. The prisoner was from my own
country, as indeed were most of your colored people. Their
fate is bound up in his; and to take from him the protection
of
your
laws is to take it from them also. It is also to take from
them, who are still American slaves, their hope of a refuge.
Hundreds of thousands of my oppressed countrymen are look-
ing to Canada for it. But this hope will wither and die when
they shall have learned that here too the law of slavery has
come to be administered. And the slaves' friends, the abo-
litionists of my country, we also may yet need Canada for a
retreat. But if you cut off the slave from it, you will cut off
his friends likewise. I say, we may need it. For we know not
what is in store for us. The servility of the Northern States
to the slave power now threatens, for the sake of appeasing the
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
137
wrath of that power and preserving our thrice guilty Union, a
more rigid enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, and nore
certain and fearful penalties against those who shall dare to
help fleeing slaves. Nevertheless we abolitionists must help
them, whenever, wherever, and lowever we can--for we be-
lieve in Christ's, religion of doing as we would be done by.
We must help them or give up onr manhood, our souls, and our
God. We are under necessity to remember them that are in
bonds as bound with them," and to put our souls in their souls'
stead. We can not « forbear to deliver thein that are drawn
unto death, and those that are ready to be slain.” We can not
stop our ears when the poor cry. We can not as we pity them.
We can not, lest we shall therefore cry ourselves, and not be
heard. In a word, we must obey God rather than men. Like
Daniel we must be found steadfast “concerning the law of our
God." We abolitionists are commanded to prostrate ourselves,
in common with our whole nation, before slavery. But we
must as strenuously refuse idol-worship as did Shadrach, Me-
shach and Abednego.
Suppression of speech on the subject of slavery is again
threatened in my distracted country. Mobs are breaking up
our anti-slavery meetings as they did twenty or thirty years
ago. Nevertheless we must continue to hold these meetings.
Nevertheless we must continue to open our mouth for the
dumb, in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction."
And now, Canadians, will you deny an asylum to us abo-
litionists as well as to the slaves ? I have already said that to
deny it to them is to deny it to us also. You deny it to both,
if you administer the law of slavery. Tell me, if we shall coine
to you with our bare lives, having left and lost all else in our
unequal struggle with the slave power, will you recognize
slavery as law, and surrender us to that power ?
I excused myself from coming here, and for what might else
appear intrusive, by referring to the fact that the prisoner and
most of your colored people once dwelt in my own country,
and to the fact that outlawing him is ontlawing them, and to
the deep interest of the slaves of my country in this asylum,
and also to the contingent interest in it of the American aboli-
tionists. And now, if all this shall fail to excuse me for being
138
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
here-nay, if all this shall not convince you that I am properly
here—then must I step up, far up, above this low ground of
apology, and in the name of our common humanity claim the
right to be here. Then must I, in the words of Terence, who,
like poor Anderson, had also been an African slave, exclaim:
“ Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto.” Then must I,
ignoring all conventionalisms, all state lines and national
boundaries, fall back upon the unsurrendered right of human
brotherhood—the right, ay, the obligation of every man to be
every other man's keeper--that right, in the presence of which
men are “no more strangers and foreigners to each other.”
I referred to the fact, that the law of slavery had come to be
administered in this Province. Is it not a fact, and am I not
therefore guiltless of slander in declaring it? I have read the
Opinions of your Court of Queen's Bench in Anderson's case,
and I find that this law is administered not only by your in.
ferior magistracy, but by that Honourable Court itself. On
reading them I could but think with what surprise and grief
they would be read in dear Old England.
There is a very wide difference between Slavery's law and
British law. What British law is in respect to slavery, even
your school-boys know. I learned it in my school-boy days
from your Curran--from my Curran as well as yours--for we
were one nation in his day. He is my Curran on the same
principle that my Washington and my Jefferson are yours--
they, as well as Curran, having been born and educated, and
fashioned-yes, fashioned too, I admit-under British instituz-
tions. I love to recall the great and glowing words in which
this splendid orator taught me my youthful lesson : and school-
boyish though it may appear in me, I still love, though now
an old man, to warm my heart by repeating: “I speak in the
spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate
with and inseparable from the British soil; which proclaims to
the stranger and sojourner the first moment he puts his foot on
British earth that the ground he treads is holy, and consecrated
by the genius of universal emancipation. No matter in what
language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter
what complexion incompatible with freedom an Indian or an
African sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in what
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
139
#
disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no
matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon
the altar of slavery - the first moment he touches the sacred
soil of Britain the altar and the god sink together in the dust
---his soul walks abroad in her own majesty, his body swells
beyond the measure of his chains which burst from around
him, and he stands, redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled
by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation.”
What British law is in respect to slavery, your Sheridan and
mine has taught me-for it was in its school that he learned
to say: "Allegiance to that Power, which gives us the forms
of men, commands us to maintain the rights of men, and never,
in any time, in any age; never in any clime where rude man
ever had any social feelings; never was this unextinguishable
truth destroyed from the heart of man, placed as it is in the
core and center of it by his Maker, that MAN WAS NOT MADE
THE PROPERTY OF MAN."
How British law regards slavery, your and my Pitt has
taught me—for it was the spirit of this law, which prompted
him to declare it to be “injustice to permit slavery to remain
for a single hour," and to declare that: “Any contract for the
promotion of the slave-trade must, in his opinion, have been
void from the beginning; for it was an outrage upon justice
and only another name for fraud, robbery, and murder.”
And how British law regards slavery, your Brougham has
taught me. Since he was born before England consented to
the separation of her American Colonies from herself, may I
not call him also mine? In the school of this law it was that
he learned to say: "Tell me not of rights. Talk not of the
property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the rights—I
acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of
our common nature rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal
made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the
same that rejects it! In vain you tell me of laws that sanc-
tion such a claim. There is a law above all the enactments of
human codes. It is the law written by the finger of God upon
the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal,
while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood,
140
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
they shall reject with indignation THE WILD AND GUILTY FANTASY
THAT MAN CAN HOLD PROPERTY IN MAN."
I need say no more to show what is British law in regard to
slavery - this glorious law, which in Anderson's case was
thrust aside to make room for the infernal law of slavery.
How strange that British hands should have done this! May
British hands never be so strangely and unfitly employed
again !
And wliy did not your Courts try Anderson by British law
exclusively? How came they to descend from it on this oc-
casion to the law of slavery? They surely would not have
done so had the alleged offense been committed in your Pro-
vince. Had he been pursued here, as he was in Missouri, by
half a dozen men avowing their purpose to kidnap hinn and re-
duce him to slavery, and had he turned and killed one of thein,
your Courts, instead of convicting him, would have honored
him; and had he turned and killed them all, then all your
Courts would have joined all your people in exalting him to a
very high place in the heaven of British heroes. In such case
your Courts, had they been called on to act, would have ad-
ministered British law only. And, I ask, why did they not in
the present case administer that only? Because, as they tell
us, they had to be governed by the Asliburton Treaty; and
this Treaty, they tell us, recognizes the law of slavery, and
therefore requires the Courts of Great Britian to conform to
that law. And is this indeed a feature of the Ashburton
Treaty? Then for the honor of Great Britain let all the
es of it be thrown into a bonfire. If Great Britain did in
that Treaty bind herself to conform the action of her Courts to
the law of American slavery, then did she bring upon her
fame a disgrace which all the blood of her most brilliant vic-
tory is insufficient to wash out. For what is American slavery?
It is the superlative piracy, the matchless barbarism, of all
earth; and its law is like unto it. Let whoever would obtain
the truest view of its barbarous and barbarizing character
read the grand speech delivered the last year by my eloquent
friend Charles Surnner, in the Senate of the United States.
I confess my amazement at finding your Chief Justice
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
141
.
speaking gravelý— not ironically but gravely—of the jury
trial, under the direction of a judge, which Anderson will be
favored with on his return to the South. Does not your Chief-
Justice know that Anderson will scarcely have set foot within
Missouri ere he will be seized by a mob, and amidst fiendish
exultations be burnt at the stake? St. Louis is the most civil.
ized spot in that State; nevertheless, even there it is thought
proper to burn a black inan.
Not very many years ago,
McIntosh, a black man, was burnt to death in that city for
stabbing a white man.
Think not that there are no good men in the slave States of
my nation. In all of them there are many good men and
more good women, whose beautiful nature and happy culture
have saved them amidst all the depraving influences of slavery.
The people of the slave States have not lost all good traits of
character. Indeed in no other hands would such a horrid
system as American slavery work less cruelly and less ruin-
ously.
By the way, your Judge McLean, whose Opinion in the
Anderson case is so welcome to my heart, is scarcely less
ignorant than your Chief Justice of American abominations.
For he fancies that our laws, though robbing our slaves of
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, do nevertheless protect
their lives. Many thousands of American slaves have been
murdered by their masters. But I have never heard of a
single instance in which the laws have put one of the mur-
derers to death. I do not believe that, previous to the last
fifteen years, there ever was one case in which any white man
in the slave States suffered death under the laws for the mur-
der of any black man, bond or free; and I do not believe that
there have been half a dozen cases during the fifteen years.
With what impunity, and therefore with what frequency, black
men are murdered in those States, Judge McLean can not fail
to see in the light of the fact that they are not allowed to tes-
tify against white man. He will see it, too, in the light of the
further fact, that the Courts of the South agree with the people
of the South that slavery can not be maintained unless the
slaveholders be armed with absolute power over the person of
the slave. Judge McLean will permit me to commend to him
142
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON,
the reading of Judge Ruffin's Opinion in the case of North-
Carolina against Mann, 2 Devereux's Reports; the opinion in
which he so candidly and conclusively argues that it is indis-
pensable to the maintenance of slavery that the slaveholder
ħave "uncontrolled authority over the body” of his slave.
But to return from this digression, I deny that the Ashbur-
ton Treaty applies to fugitive slaves.
1st. If it does, then was Lord Ashburton himself ignorant
of its scope and significance. The pleasant morning of the
day that his Lordship left New-York for England, September
3d, 1842, I called upon him in company with Mr. Lewis Tap-
pan, Mr. S. S. Jocelyn, and Mr. LeRoy Sunderland. He
kindly consented to an interview on the subject of the Tenth
or Extradition Article of the Treaty, which he had just nego-
tiated with Daniel Webster. I can not recall all his remarks. .
But the doctrine running through them all was that the slave
might do whatever was needful to help himself out of slavery
without making himself liable to be surrendered upon a re-
clamation. This doctrine was entirely coïncident with that on
which his Government was insisting at this very time in the
case of the Creole. This vessel, the November previous, had
left Richmond for New Orleans, having on board upwards of
one hundred slaves. A portion of these revolted, and obtain-
ed control of her. They exhibited no less mercy than bravery
and wisdom, having accomplished their undertaking by kill-
ing only one man, and wounding only two or three. They
succeeded in bringing the vessel to Nassau, in the Bahama
Islands. The pro-slavery Government of my country claimed
them as “mutineers and murderers.” But the anti-slavery
Government of your country did not see that to be their true
character, and would not surrender them. The ccrrespond-
ence of Lord Ashburton with Mr. Webster during their nego-
tiation of the Treaty, proves abundantly that he would not
have it apply to fugitive slaves. “When these slaves do
reach us,” says his Lordship, "by whatever means, there is no
alternative.” That is, they could not be surrendered. And
remember that the slaves he was here speaking of were those
who had reached British dominions by means of bloody
revolt.
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON,
143
2d. The Treaty can not be properly construed to apply to
fugitive slaves in the face of the fact that its two Articles, im-
mediately preceding the Extradition Article, provide for the
suppression of the slave-trade. A very incongruous group
would be the three Articles, if the third slould be found to
make provision in behalf of slavery. Were Ashburton and
Webster and their ratifying Governments, unselfish and sin-
cere in the eighth and ninth Articles, then the tenth can not
be against fugitive slaves. For no men were ever unselfish
and sincere in their opposition to the slave-trade, who were at
the same time in favor of replunging the fugitive slave into
the horrible pit from which he had escaped.
3d. Had the Treaty applied to fugitive slaves, the British
Government would never have ratified it. The attitude of
Great Britain toward slavery is of itself sufficient to justify
this remark. In entire harmony with this attitude was the
course of her Government in the case of the Creole. That
course we referred to a few moments ago. In entire harmony
with it was the course of her authorities a year after, in the
case of the claim for the seven slaves who had escaped from
Florida, and who were demanded on the ground of their " per-
petration of a most wanton murder, and the commission of
several acts of piracy and robbery.” The demand rested on
indictments. The authorities nevertheless resisted it, and
would not so much as suffer the fugitives to be apprehended.
In entire harmony too with this attitude, was the tone of the
debate in Parliament during the passage of the Bill for giving
effect to the Treaty. Said Lord Aberdeen : "Some people
had supposed that a fugitive slave might be delivered up
under this Treaty. This, he must say, was a most unfounded
notion." Said Lord Ashburton: “Besides, this question was
now settled on perfectly fair grounds, namely, that a slave,
once landing on any part of our dominions, could never be
claimed, nor his liberty be called in question.” The Attorney-
General said: “He begged to call to remembrance what had
occurred in the case of the Creole. In that case, the law offi-
cers of the Crown gave it as their opinion that the liberty of
escaped slaves should be protected, that we dare not give them
up, that no law would tolerate such an act, and that the libe-
ול
144
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
rated slaves should be as safe in the Bahamas as in the Royal
Exchange. That opinion was given when slaves were abso-
lutely demanded as criminals, snbject to the American law;
and the practical exposition of our law on that occasion ought,
he thought, to be taken as a perfect pledge of the course which
the Government would most undoubtedly pursue, should
future occasions arise." "Any fugitive taking refuge in this
country could only be given up upon evidence that would
justify his committal in this country.” Lord Palmerston said:
“He understood that if the offense would not be deemed such
by the law of England, the magistrate would not be justified
in delivering up the party, and as the law of England did not
acknowledge slavery, the act of a slave in resisting coercion
would not be considered the crime it would be held by the
law of America.” Lord Derby (then Lord Stanley) said :
" That no extradition should take place, unless the act be a
crime according to the laws of the place (not where the alleg-
ed offense was committed) where the fugitive may be.”
Nothing can exceed in unreasonableness the belief that the
British Government would have ratified the Treaty, had it
construed it to allow the recovery of a fugitive slave from
Canada. A ship, with the flag and in the name and author-
ity of the United States, or of any other nation, however
strong, enters whatever Britislı port, and the slaves on board
of her become immediately free. But if the law of slavery,
when in circumstances so imposing, so coinmanding, is ignor-
ed by British authorities, how absurd to suppose that the Bri-
tish Government intended, at the time of ratifying the Treaty,
that this same law, when presenting itself, as in Anderson's
case, in circumstances infinitely less imposing and command-
ing, should nevertheless be respected !
4th. I deny that the Treaty applies to fugitive slaves, be-
cause I deny that there are good grounds for believing that
either Ashburton or Webster, or the British Government in-
tended to depart in the Treaty from the law of nations in re-
spect to the surrender of fugitives from justice. All know
that by this law the claim and surrender are to be in cases,
not of local crimes, but of what are held to be crimes by the
universal laws of all civilized countries.
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
115
5th. The Treaty could not have been intended to apply to
fugitive slaves, because slavery is emphatically a state of war.
All its victims are captives of war. No prisoners in an enemy's
country have a clearer right than they to make their escape
at whatever expense to their enemies; and as they are the
most wronged of all prisoners, they should be judged more
leniently than the others, under the charge of having done
excessive and needless damage to obtain their liberty. By all
international law-by all the rules of war-the prisoner in an
enemy's country may kill his gnard in order to effect his es-
cape, without making himself thereby liable to be reclaimed
as a murderer. But what was Digges, whom Anderson is
said to have killed? What by his own showing but one of
the guard of Anderson's prison-house?
6th. Your Courts are estopped from applying the Treaty to
fugitive slaves by the fact that they would not themselves ap-
ply it to them in any other case than murder. The Treaty
provides for the surrender of persons charged with “ robbery,"
a word which I will assume includes all other theft as well as
that which is accompanied with violence. But suppose that one
of your fugitive slaves had in his flight helped himself without
leave to horses, boats, food and clothing, would your Courts
have called it robbery and surrendered him?
“ No!" they
respond. But why not? “Because he was a slave, and had
therefore full right-both legal and moral--to take all he
needed to inake good his escape.” The Treaty further pro-
vides for the surrender of persons charged with "forgery, or
the utterance of forged paper." But many slaves have made
their escape by uttering forged paper-that is, by using forged
passes. And would your Courts surrender one of your fugi-
tive slaves who stood charged with having l'esorted to this ex-
pedient? “No!” say they, “not even if he had forged and
uttered bank.notes to the amount of millions." But why not?
"Because he was a slave, and liad full right to get himself out
of slavery by such deception." But if he were charged with
murder, your Courts would surrender him. What in another
than a slave they would pronounce to be the crime of robbery
or forgery, they hold to be no crime in him. But what in an-
other than a slave they would hold to be murder, they would
146
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
hold to be murder in him also. At every other point than
murder they stand upon British law. But at that point
--the very point where human peril most needs their stead-
fastness—they desert and go over to slave law. Whence this
distinction? They find no authority for it in the Treaty.
Either every part or no part of the Extradition Article applies
to the fugitive' slave as well as to others. If some parts do
not, then no part does. But your Courts are entirely ready to
admit that some parts do not; and to be consistent with them-
selves they should be as ready to admit that none do.
I would need to say no more to vindicate the Treaty from
the pro-slavery interpretation put upon it by your Courts, had
not your Court of Queen's Bench put what seems to me to be
a very narrow, entirely uncalled for, and in effect gratuitously
cruel meaning upon three words in it. These words are, "cvi-
dence of criminality." The Court makes them refer wholly to
the proof of the offense-not at all to the nature of the offense.
To explain, the Court makes them refer, in the present case,
whatever it might do in others, solely to the kind and amount
of the proof that the offense was committed ; and assumes
that the offense is in name and nature what it is held to be in
the State where it is alleged to have been committed. To ex-
plain further, the Court recognizes a twofold allegiance to be
due from itself-one to British law and the other to slave
law; but British law in respect only to the technicalities of
testimony, whilst to slave law in respect to the very sonl and
substance of the case. Alas! since it would divide its alle-
giance, why did it not accord the great share of its obligations
to righteous British law, and the small share to wicked slave
law! True, this would have deprived the transaction of its
present charming air of chivalrous comity and boundless
generosity to the ways and wishes of a foreign people. But
would not this great loss on the one hand be abundantly re-
compensed by the great gain on the other, of saving their own
laws and their own nation from dishonor ? Alas ! too, since in
this matter of the two laws, the Court would divide its favors
between poor Anderson and his enemies, why, instead of giv-
ing the husk to him and the kernel to thein, did it not give
the kernel to him and the husk to them? Why make a di-
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
147
vision so contrary to the beautiful genius and merciful leanings
of British law ?
If these three words must be taken to express but one of
these two ideas, (I will not object to their being taken to ex-
press both,) should not the nature of the offense be preferred to
the proof of the offense ? Taken for granted it might well
have been by those who negotiated and those who ratified the
Treaty, that the party called on to make the surrender would
require the proper kind and amount of proof to justify the
apprehension and commitment for trial. Britons and Ameri-
cans do not essentially differ from each other, nor do other
civilized people, in regard to the kind and amount of evidence
necessary for the final, and still less in regard to the kind and
amount necessary for only the prima facie proof of a charge.
In this respect there are no local standards. The laws of mind
dispose of this matter quite irrespective of state lines and
national distinctions. But in respect to the nature of the of
fense there are local standards. For instance, in the Southern
half of my country it would be a high crime in millions should
they attempt to read the Bible, and a high crime in millions
should they resist the ravisher or murderer, and a high crime
in millions should they assert their claim to their wife or child.
If these three words bear only the narrow meaning given to
them by your Court of Queen's Bench, then where there is
proof enough to establislı against the fugitive slave, what in
another than a fugitive slave would be robbery or forgery,
why would it not surrender him? It would not. But why
not? Because, as has already been said, it would hold that
there was no "criminality" on his part for doing these things.
That is to say, it would in such case hold that whatever else
the three words do or do not refer to, they do refer to the na-
ture of the offense. And thus should it, for consistency's sake,
interpret these words in every case, as well in that of murder
as in that of robbery or forgery. And thus should it interpret
them because the words are clearly capable of such an inter-
pretation. And thus should it interpret them because of the
duty of deriving from words all the ideas they are capable of
yielding, and especially that which is most important. And
thus should it interpret them, if it believe that they can by
148
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
eren a bare possibility bear this interpretation; and that they
can, even your Chief-Justice impliedly admits.
For if they
can, though by the barest possibility, bear this interpretation
in behalf of justice and humanity, then that which is given
thein by your Court, not being the irresistibly clear one, and
serving, as it does, the purposes of injustice and inhumanity,
can not be the proper or legal one. I presume that British
jurisprudence fully concurs at this point with American juris-
prudence. The rule of the Supreme Court of the United
States is : “Where rights are infringed, where fundamental
principles are overthrown, where the general system of the
laws is departed froin, the legislative intention MUST BE EX-
PRESSED WITH IRRESISTIBLE CLEARNESS to induce a court of jus-
tice to suppose a design to such objects.” (2 Cranch, 390.)
Surely I need not say, that the interpretation given by your
Court of Queen's Bench to these three words in the Treaty is
one whereby "rights are infringed ”-all the dearest and most
sacred rights of your fugitive slaves. Surely I need not say,
,
that "fundamental principles are overthrown” by it-ay, all
the fundamental principles of British law and British justice
and British humanity. And surely I need not say, that this
Court has, in departing from Britislı law to slave law, depart-
ed from the general system of the laws of Great Britain.
By every just consideration then is this Court bound to
abandon its narrow interpretation of these three words—an
interpretation so unnecessary, so unauthorized, so illegal, so
cruel and frightful in its bearings upon the innocent Anderson,
and so fatal to the security of all your people who were once
slaves. By every just consideration is it required to supplant
it with an interpretation which shall call for the study of the
nature of the offense in the light of, and to use the words of the
Treaty, “according to the laws of the place where the fugitive
or person so charged shall be found.”
Let me advert to another reason for believing that Lord
Ashburton and Mr. Webster, an Old England man and a New
England man—and the New England man not yet entirely
conquered by the slave power—intended in these three words
a reference to the nature of the offense. It was in the year
1842 that they negotiated the Treaty. In the first month of
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
149
that year appeared the first address to the American slaves. It
was put forth by a very large State Anti-Slavery Convention
held in Central New-York; and because it inculcated the
novel and startling---startling, because as yet but little studied
doctrine that the slave might take horse, boat, food, and
clothing to help him on his way out of his prisonhouse, it was
for many months much in the minds and mouths of men, and
frequently and extensively commented upon by the press.
Then in the fourth month of the saine year Governor Seward
agitated the whole nation by the reasons be gave in his Mes-
sage to the Legislature for refusing to surrender the three men
who had abducted a slave from Virginia. It was in this mes-
sage that he said: “I remain of opinion that a being possess-
ed of the physical, moral and intellectual faculties common to
the human race, can not, by the force of any constitution or
laws, be goods or chattels or a thing." Alas! how great and
how sad the change since that day in this very intellectual and
very influential man! Then denying to slavery all constitu-
tional and legal power over its prey, and now not only recog.
nizing this power, but proposing means for its more free, cer-
tain and permanent exercise !
These facts to which I have adverted show that at the very
time the Treaty was negotiated the question was up, talked
abont, and written about, and exciting men's minds, whether
slavery's law is valid law, and especially whether it is valid
as between different nations and different states, or has, at the
most, but a local validity. This question Ashburton and
Webster answered with such words in the Treaty as tell your
Courts to judge what is crime in the light of British law and
not of slavery's law. Your Chief-Justice admits that in the fra-
ming and ratification of the Treaty, an eye was probably had
to fugitive slaves. But as the matter lies in his mind it must
have been an eye to their destruction rather than to their pro-
tection. I, too, think they were had in view, but in such view
that it was therefore carefully provided in the Treaty that all
proceedings under it in British dominions should be governed
by British law-all proceedings whether with regard to the
proof or with regard to the nature of the offense.
Perhaps what I have just been saying to the praise of Lord
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er's.
Ashburton and Mr. Webster should have been said to the
praise of his Lordship only. For I do not forget that it was in
the same year in which the Treaty was negotiated that Mr.
Webster was, in his capacity of Secretary of State, endeavor-
ing to accomplish the surrender of the slaves of the Creole.
This of itself, you will perhaps say, is conclusive proof that he
was entirely conquered by the slave power. It is true that
Mr. Webster liad yielded himself up to the folly of coveting
political honors, and that in this his folly he would, as in the
case of the Creole, stoop to do things to please the slavehold-
But I can not believe that his early and great love of free-
dom was entirely extinguished. I must believe that where, as
in the case of the Treaty, he conld serve freedom without
alarming the slaveholders, and, without, I should perhaps in
candor add, being seen to serve her, there he would, in spite
of his degeneracy, be still glad to do so. The nature of Daniel
Webster, which shone so great in his noble anti-slavery speech
forty years ago on Forefathers' day and on Plymouth Rock-
that beautiful nature, which never lost its early and simple
love for his father's home and family, and which went out so
fondly even to the cattle-it may have been, and it was, driven
into abeyance by the slave power and the greater power of his
ambition—but it never was all spoiled by them. That rich
fountain was never all dried up. Alas! that guilty causes were
ever allowed to check its flow !
But have we not evidence from Mr. Webster's own pen of
his entire concurrence with Lord Ashburton that fugitive
slaves could not be reclaimed from British territory !--even
such as are charged with murder? In his correspondence with
Lord Ashburton he gives force to his argument for the surren-
der of the slaves of the Creole, by contrasting the liabilities of
their state with the perfect security of fugitive slaves who have
made good their escape into the Britislı territories. He says :
“If slaves, the property of citizens of the United States,
escape into British territories, it is not expected that they will
be restored. In that case the territorial jurisdiction of Eng-
land will have become exclusive over them, and must decide
their condition. But slaves on board of American vessels ly-
ing in British waters are not within the exclusive jurisdiction
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
151
SO
of England, or under the exclusive operation of English law;
and this founds the broad distinction between the cases."
Before passing from the Ashburton Treaty let me say, that,
both in your country and mine, the wrong judgments of Courts,
in cases involving the question of slavery, proceed from nothing
so much as from an insufficient sense of the wrongs and horrors
of slavery. Your Chief Justice does himself admit that there
may be "circumstances of provocation, and that there may
be “a necessity of self-defense" in which even the "intentional
killing of his master by a slave” would not be murder. Were
all men like myself, there would be but little bloodshed. In
my esteem the shedding of blood is the poorest of all remedies
for wrongs. But I am not here to inculcate my large measure
of non-resistance, but to remind you of what consistency with
British laws and consistency with yourselves call for. And
therefore do I say that there is no "provocation "so great as that
which a man suffers at the hands of those who would stop his
escape from slavery, and no “necessity of self-defense"
great as that which he is under against them. Your Chief-
Justice would kill the man who should try to kill him; and
more determined would he be to kill the man who should try
to enslave him. He would rather be killed than enslaved. He
would rather have all his children killed than have one of them
under the yoke of slavery. Hence when he said that a slave
might intentionally kill his master and yet be innocent, he was
bound by his own premises, and by the dernanded and irresist-
ible logical deductions from them, to let Anderson go free.
Would not your Chief-Justice, had he been in Anderson's
circumstances, have cut his way to liberty if he could ? He
would; and his failure, had he failed, would have been not in
his will, but in his powers; not for lack of an Anderson's pur-
pose, but for lack of the strong right arm of an Anderson.
Again, were the conditions of your Chief-Justice and An-
derson exchanged-Anderson exalted to the Bench, and your
Chief Justice cast down into prison, would not your Chief-
Justice have Anderson set him free? Oh! yes. Then do I
repeat to lis Honor the words of Jesus: “Therefore all things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even
so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Against
D
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this law there is no valid law-none that will be held valid in
that Great Day, when his Honor and Anderson and all of us
shall be tried by that law of equal and reciprocal justice, whiclı
is the law of Heaven, and which Heaven requires to be the
law of earth—the law for governing men on the Bench as well
as off the Bench.
We will now pass on, and for the sake of the argument, ad-
mit that the Extradition Article of the Treaty does require
your Courts to adjudicate not exclusively upon the principles
of British law, but upon the principles of some other law also.
What then is this other law? It is clearly the law of the
United States. But was your Court of Queen's Bench dnly
careful to ascertain and conform itself to this law? Let us see.
It accepted the proceedings of the Court of the committing
inagistrates. From these proceedings we learn that a man
testified that he lived in Missouri, and was a lawyer, and that
certain things had been enacted by the Missouri Legislature.
It does not appear that he produced the statute-book ; nor
that he was known to the magistrates; nor that any witnesses
were called to the point of his identity or reputation. This
was trnly a loose and uncertain way of arriving at the know-
ledge of the enactments in question ; quite too loose and un-
certain in a case involving the most horrid peril of a human
being. So it seems to me, notwithstanding your Chief-Justice
says that it is authorized by the existing state of the law
both in England and Canada.” But I pass over this objection
to ask whether the enactments were shown to be law. There
are ten thousand enactments which are not law.' Were these
shown to be in harmony with the Constitution of Missouri ?
From naught that appears was 'the Constitution present.
Where the enactments of one of our States are in question in
your Courts, and are full of flagrant and murderons injustice,
and are wielded to compass the death, the most horrible death,
of a fellow-being, it seems proper and important to the last
degree, that the Constitution of the State should be called for.
For learned as are your Courts, it is not to be supposed that
they are so familiar with each of our State Constitutions as to
know, without looking, whether every enactment, claimed to
be in harmony with it, is really so.
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
153
Again, the enactments in the present case can not be law
simply from being in harmony with the Constitution of Mis-
souri. To be law they must needs be free of repugnance to
the American Constitution. For that, to use its own words, is
"the supreme law of the land, and the Judges in every State
shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws
of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." But I am not
aware that either the Constitution of Missouri or that of the
United States was so much as spoken of in either of the Courts.
And now to the question whether these enactments are free
of repuguance to the American Constitution. They certainly
are not, if the Supreme Court of the United States has rightly
interpreted it in the celebrated Prigg case, 16 Peters, 616.
For in that case the Court holds that the American Constitu-
tion does, in respect to its fugitive servant clause, give exclu-
sive legislation to the American Government. Hence, all
State legislation in respect to it is utterly void. But the enact-
ments in question concern and grow out of that clause. They
provide for cases of escape, not merely from one to another
part of the same State, but, as does that clause, for cases of es-
cape from one State to another. They are therefore void ; and
at this one point, not to speak of others, your Courts had ann.
ple ground for discharging Anderson.
But I renew my inqniry, whether these enactments are
free of repugnance to the American Constitution; and again I
answer that they are not. They are not because they are full
and foul of slavery, whilst the Constitution is all empty and
clean of it. There is not one line nor one word in it in favor
of slavery. No wonder that the slave power has, with the
help of Northern demagogues and doughfaces, been able to
fasten pro-slavery interpretations upon it. Our President, our
Congress, and our Judiciary, are bound hand and foot by that
iniglity power. Our ambitious men court it. Our Church
and our Commerce do its bidding. No wonder, indeed, that
the great falsehood that the Constitution is pro-slavery, has
rolled and re-rolled through the land, until at last a very large
share of the people have come to believe it to be a truth.
Many even of our abolitionists, including the brightest and
best, have fallen in with this popular belief. Nevertheless,
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SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
the falsehood remains a falsehood; and you, a third party and
an enlightened party, should not assume it to be a truth. In
this wise you do immense harm to the cause of Freedom in my
country, whereas you would be giving it inuch help were you
testifying to the true and anti-slavery character of our Consti-
tution. Let the Courts and the people of Canada make An-
derson's case an occasion for publishing to the world that our
Constitution is opposed to slavery, and they will confer such a
blessing on my poor slavery-ridden and well nigh slavery.
ruined nation, as shall be requited with everlasting gratitude.
Astonishing do you say it is, that the great majority of the
American people should be ignorant of the true character of
their own Constitution at a point so vital? But not more as-
tonishing than was the similar ignorance of the mass of your
countrymen before Mansfield pronounced slavery unconstitu-
tional in England. Not till then did they wake up to see the
truth, which Mansfield himself was as slow to declare. I ad-
init that there is one respect in which the ignorance of the
American people, that their Constitution is anti-slavery, is
amore amazing than was the ignorance of English men regarding
their own. The English Constitution being unwritten, slavery
can not be shut out from it as definitely and certainly as it is
from the written Constitution of my country. "No person
shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due pro-
cess of law,” are words which leave no possible room for slave-
l'y in the American Constitution. I do not forgot the pro-
slavery plea that this injunction is solely on exclusively Fed-
eral jurisdictions, such as the District of Columbia and the
national territories. But neither do the words theinselves nor
their history countenance this limitation of their meaning.
Again, our Constitution says: “No State shall pass any bill
of attainder.” But where was there ever so cruel and abomin-
ble a bill of attainder as that which attaints a woman and all
her posterity for no other cause than her having, however lit-
tle, African blood in her veins? So too, our Constitution says:
"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus-
pended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the pub-
lic safety inay require it.” This writ Blackstone calls “the
most celebrated writ of England, and the chief bulwark of the
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON,
155
1
Constitution." One of his editors, Mr. Christian, says: “It is
this writ which makes slavery impossible in England." But
this writ is wholly incompatible with the right of property in
man; and therefore where this right is allowed, the writ must
be impotent. If property can be plead in the prisoner (and
possession is proof of ownership) the writ is defeated.
One of the reigning purposes of the framers of the American
Constitution was that it should wear a clean and fair face for
freedom. But to smuggle slavery into it in defiance thereof
would have been as impossible as it would be to build up a
fire on the bosom of the sea, or preserve icebergs in the midst
of the sun. Slavery in that Constitution! Impossible! For,
according to the wise rule of the Supreme Court of the United
States, which I have already quoted, it can not be there unless
expressed with irresistible clearness." So far is it from being
there, that our ambitious and slavery-courting statesmen, in-
cluding the President himself, are at this very time proposing
to have the Constitution so amended that slavery shall be dis-
tinctly recognized in it. Surely such a proposition implies
their confession that slavery is not in it now.
Among the many able arguments, written to justify the
anti-slavery construction of the American Constitution, let me
commend to you Lysander Spooner's as by far the ablest of
them all. Whoever delights in a legal argument of surpassing
logic and lucidness, and characterized from beginning to end
by a stern and uncompromising morality, will find a rich re-
past by reading Mr. Spooner's “ Unconstitutionality of Slave-
William Goodell, that old and faithful servant of the
cause of Freedom, has also written much and with marked
ability on the same subject.
Candor requires my acknowledgment that many sincere
and impressive arguments have also been written on the other
side of this question. Among their authors are Mr. Garrison,
Mr. Phillips, Mr. Bowditchi, Mr. S. J. May, Mr. C. C. Burleigh,
and Mr. Oliver Johnson. That Wendell Phillips did not
make his argument triumphant, was the fault not of the powers
of this eloquent, noble and dear brother, but of his cause--a
cause which did not give ample scope to those great powers.
I would here remark that the arguments to prove the Ameri-
ry.”
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SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
1
;
can Constitution to be pro-slavery are generally arguments to
prove its history to be so. But the history of the Constitution is
not the Constitution. Its letter alone is: and that being ex-
plicit and clear for liberty, nothing whatever for slavery can
the true canon of legal interpretation wring from it. With
entire safety, however, miglit we suffer the Constitution to be
interpreted in the light of its history instead of its letter. Both
its history and that of the country prove that American slavery
was expected to cease half a century ago ; that it and the
African slave-trade, (the one then being held by American
statesmen and philanthropists, as well as by British statesmen
and philanthropists, to be able to live no longer than the
other,) were to die with the generation which gave us the
Constitution.
But some of you may be disposed to inquire: “What of the
incessantly talked of Fugitive Slave clause of the American
Constitution ?" Nothing: because there is no such clause.
The clause in your mind refers to persons and not to chattels,
and to persons who are bound to render service because they
owe it. But you add: “What of the pro-slavery history of
the insertion of this clause in the Constitution ?" Nothing:
because it has no such history. That it was one of the com-
promises of the Constitution is a bald fabrication. There was
not a word said, nor a vote given against it. A clause for
slave-catching was offered near the close of the session of the
Convention which framed the Constitution. But it was scouted
out. Moreover, a few days after the adoption by the Conven-
tion of the clause respecting persons who owe " service,” it did
by a unanimous vote associate "service" with freedom, and
"servitude” with slavery. Resulting from this vote was the
substitution of "service” for “servitude" wherever servitude"
occurred in the Constitution. But you will perhaps proceed
to inquire how it has come to pass that this clause about "ser-
vice” has all this time been used by the slave power? The
answer is that in my country that power has sway, and is able
to put to its own guilty uses priest and politician, Church and
State, Bible and Constitution.
I have consumed as much of your time as is proper. If
there are any present, wlio wish to argue that the American
>>
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
157
Constitntion is pro-slavery, I shall be happy to hear them and
to reply to them. Or if any are disposed to interrogate me, I
hope they will not, from any considerations of the kindness
and delicacy due to a stranger, shrink from putting, however
searching and puzzling, questions to me.
Corner and crowd
and even crush me with questions if you will, and I shall es-
teem it no violation of the rites of hospitality. I have made
bold to review the positions of your Courts; and, therefore,
have you liberty to make reprisals on mine.
Before taking my seat let me beseech you to save poor An-
derson and to save all the fugitives of your Province. Your
Courts will save them, if they hear the people calling out for
their salvation. You have good Courts—Courts that sympa-
thize with freedom and with the persecuted and peeled races
of Africa. You have learned Courts; and their learning is
not of the kind to puff them up into a refusal to be enlightened
by the voice of the people—by the voice of even the common
people. Indeed they are the most truly learned judges, who
keep their ears open to the common-sense of the common
people. Your Province must not break faith with the black
men. You gave them abundant reason for believing that
they would find a secure asylum among you. Had you not,
they would have turned their eyes elsewhere.
You must not send Anderson back to slavery-back to be
burned. If you do, all Christendom will execrate what to all
Christendom will appear to be a moustrous and gratuitous
cruelty. In vain will you try to take shelter under the plea
that the Ashburton Treaty laid you under a promise to send
him back. Others will not see that promise; and if they
should, they will indignantly ask you: “Why, then, in the
name of earth and Heaven, did you not break it ?" There are
promises, which it is infinitely better to break than to keep.
Infinitely better had it been for Herod to break his promise
than to kill John. And infinitely better would it be for you,
were you laid under a promise to burn Anderson, to break it
than to burn him.
Just here let me say two things. First. Every nation under
the heavens is bound to God and man to be an asylum for the
oppressed. Second. If the interpretation put upon the Ash-
158
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
burton Treaty by your Court of Queen's Bench shall pass into
law, then no fugitive slaves in your Province will be safe. It
is true, that but few of them might be called for as murderers;
but all of them might be called for as robbers; and if as slen-
der and as uncertain testimony, as that upon which Anderson
was committed, would suffice for their commitment, it could
easily be furnished by this or that villain. I need not repeat
that if the Treaty imposes an obligation to return the man
charged with murder, it imposes the same to return him who
is charged with robbery.
I have made a free use on this occasion of the language of
exhortation and remonstrance. But it would grieve me greatly
should you construe it to imply the least delinquency on your
part. Never have a people aroused themselves more promptly,
generously, and enthusiastically at the cry of deep wrong than
have the slavery-hating and freedom-loving people of this Pro-
vince in the present case. Continue, faithful friends, your
noble efforts for Anderson's release. The world will honor
you for them. But remember that it will also hold you re-
sponsible for their success. For it will believe that your
Courts and rulers can not resist the floods of love and light
which the great popular heart and understanding are capable
of pouring out in behalf of human distress. Pardon
Pardon me, that
whilst I speak your praises, I also remind you of your respon-
sibilities.
Nor can I take my seat without having asked you to help
with all your moral influence the cause of human rights in my
own country. Its friends are waging a long and hard battle
with its enemies. The influence of Great Britain in behalf of
that cause, has hitherto been great. Let it not be turned
against it now. The precious and powerful effect of her ex-
ample in abolishing her slavery at the cost of twenty millions
sterling, and of her example in expending so many millions in
the merciful work of suppressing the slave-trade, can not be
overrated. But for the quickening influences of this example,
France, Holland, Denmark, Russia, and my own country had
not improbably been still asleep over the sin of slavery.
I said let not the influence of Great Britain be now turned
against the cause of human rights in my country. But it will
SPEECH IN BEHALF OF ANDERSON.
159
be if she recognizes slave law. It will be if she joins our pro-
slavery men in giving a pro-slavery construction to our Con-
stitution. But if she shall at this crisis boldly declare not only
that our Constitution is against slavery, but that this matchless
crime against human and divine rights is utterly incapable of
legalization either in America or any other part of the world,
then will the influence of her wisdom and learning, her national
power and grandeur be mighty on the right side in my coun-
try. I said at this crisis. For I would have you know that
the present is emphatically our time of fear and hope. We
are now in our last struggle with the slave power. A very
few years more, and that power will probably be either su-
preme over every part of the nation, or expelled from every
part of it. Help is now then. Help us heartily. And we
will bless you; and all the ages of our posterity will bless
you; and Heaven will bless you.
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
CAPITOL, ALBANY, FEB. 6, 1861.
I THANK you, gentlemen, in the name of the petitioners for a
Personal Liberty Law, for this opportunity to speak for them.
Your courtesy and kindness in granting it are all the greater
because of your arduous labors and the demands upon all your
time.
Men concede that Massachusetts should govern Massachu-
setts, the United States the United States, and England Eng-
land. But they seem not yet to have learned that it is the
right of the world to govern the world. Nevertheless, it is
solely in virtue of this right that Massachusetts, the United
Sttates, and England are entitled to their respective jurisdic-
tions. The governing or taking care of the whole world by
the whole world is a natural and absolute right. The govern-
ing or taking care of a part by a part is but a conventional
arrangement for the more convenient and effectual execution
of that right.
All men are inade of one blood, and in the image of their
Maker. The human race is not merely one family. It is a
unit. Our fellow man is not merely our brother. He is an-
other self. Not the Jew only, but the Samaritan also is neigh-
bor of the Jew, To the right-minded there are no partition
walls between the bond and free, the circumcision and uncir-
cumcision, the Jew and Gentile. "Go ye into all the world,”
said Jesus to his disciples. No state lines were to bound their
sympathies. No national governments were to arrest their
labors. Every man is every other man's keeper. The Chinese
and the Americans are as absolutely in charge of each other as
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
161
are contignous peoples; as absolutely as those who dwell
under the same civil government.
I meant, by a conventional arrangement, a civil government.
Such arrangement or government is to be regarded not only
as subordinate to the world's governinent, but as an agency
appointed by it, or at least authorized or permitted by it.
This world-government has no right of abdication. The
whole world is intrusted to the keeping of the whole world.
Not one human being may it discharge from its universal
care. This wide government is oinnipresent to supervise its
agencies or civil governments; to encourage and urge them to
the faithful performance of their duties; to recover them from
their delinquencies ; or, after all patience with such of them as,
nevertheless, became unendurably and irreclaimably oppres-
sive or perverse, to resume the power it had delegated or
allowed to unworthy hands, and to do itself in the capacity of
principle what could no longer be left undone, and what
there was no longer any ground of hope that its unfit trustees
would do.
This world-government is not to take decisive steps in view
of every wrong. The English Government might be guilty of
oppressing its subjects, and the world-government be bound
but to remonstrate with it, and to seek to enlighten and reform
it. Should it, however, fall to murdering its subjects, or
should it suffer them to murder each other, then must the
world-government dismiss the wicked agent, and provide a
righteous government for this outraged portion of the human
brotherhood. Let the French Government compel its men
whose stature falls below five and a half feet to be the slaves
of its men above that light, and here too a case would have
arisen for the resumption of delegated power after duly patient
and
yet
fruitless remonstrance for the abuse of it. The world-
government would summon the neighboring nations to the
work of providing a better government for the French portion
of its world-wide subjects.
The doctrine that a national government is supreme, and
not amenable beyond its own jurisdiction for any however
great wrong it may do to its own subjects, can find no favor
with him who truly believes in the unity of mankind.
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SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
It must not be assumed that such interference as I have siip-
posed would necessarily be attended with much, or even with
any bloodshed—that poorest of all remedies for human wrongs.
Moreover, it must not be assumed that such interference would
occur frequently, or, indeed, ever necessarily. Let the world-
government wield moral influence to the extent it should do
for the redressing of wrongs, and still more for their preven-
tion, and its subordinate or civil governments would seldom, if
ever, need to be thrust aside to make room for better.
And this world-government is to be present on small as well
as on great occasions. A man in this city is wont to vent his
ill-temper upon his wife and children. This would not justify
the interposition of that government. He falls upon them
with fist and club. Nor even then would it be justified, pro-
vided a faithful protective police were at hand. But civil
government and its instrumentalities all failing, the world-
government is promptly to supply the lack. In other words,
the neighbors of this brutal man are, without waiting to in-
quire whether the civil government will bear them out in it,
to rush into bis honse, and in the name of the whole human
brotherhood and of Almighty God, to restrain the offender and
protect his family.
A slave is a man thrown down into the category of brutes.
He is still a man, though denied all the rights of a inan,
though not owning his wife, nor child, nor himself. Why are
there in the Southern half of our country four millions like
him? Because the world-government, which stands back of
all other earthly governments, and is bound to supervise them
all, and supply the final lack of them all, has, to a very guilty
extent, closed its eyes and ears and heart to this matchless
wrong.
It is because the human brotherhood has proved
faithless to this outraged portion of itself. It is because men
have refused to be keepers of their fellow-men. I do not say
that this world-government should have rescued these slaves
by force. It could have rescued them by persuasions and pro-
tests purely moral. Nay, had it been what it should have
been, none of its subjects would liave ever dared, or indeed
have ever been disposed, to perpetrate this immeasurable
crime against their fellow-subjects.
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
163
I do not forget that President Buchanan says that the peo-
ple of our Northern States are not responsible for slavery in
our Southern. States. He says that they are no more responsi-
ble for it than they are for slavery in Brazil or Russia. We
can almost afford to let this nonsense, that they are no more
responsible in the one case than in the other, pass for sense,
since in point of fact they are so largely responsible for slave.
ry in Brazil and Russia. The people of the Northern States,
being part of the human brotherhood, are responsible for
slavery in whatever portion of the human brotherhood, and
being part of the world-government, are responsible for putting
it down wherever it may exist.
President Buchanan speaks foolishly, as indeed do all who
presume to speak of human relations, whilst as yet they know
not what is human nature-know not of its oneness and sacred-
ness, and keep not their hearts in loving and electric commu-
nication with the men of every cline and complexion, and
especially with the trodden-down and outraged partakers of
that immortal and godlike nature.
Deeply guilty before God is this world-government—is the
human brotherhood--for permitting American Slavery. Not
our Southern and Northern States only are guilty for it, but
France and England, and all the nations. The dwellers on
the opposite side of the globe are to remember our Southern
bondmen "as bound with them.” In regard to those most
distant from him, as well as those nearest to him, every man
is bound to exclaim with the Apostle: "Who is weak, and I
am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?"
And not only of permitting American Slavery are our
Northern States guilty. They, as well as the Southern States,
have sustained it, and enlarged its borders. Particeps crimi-
nuis in this inatter have we made ourselves in ten thousand
ways, socially, ecclesiastically, commercially, politically. We
have not only suffered the fleeing slave to be hunted down in
this State, but her own citizens have helped hunt him down.
The great State of New York has furnished facilities to this
exceedingly guilty end. I do not overlook the two imposing
excuses for this crime, 1. That the Bible calls for the commis-
sion of it; and 2. That the Constitution does.
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It is held that he was a fugitive slave whom Paul sent back
to his master. Be it so. But he sent him to a master who he
knew would "receive him not now as a slave, but above a
slave—as a brother beloved.” Paul never told any one that
he might hold his fellow-man in slavery. But in telling the
slave, if slave he were, to “use it rather," that is, to take his
liberty if he could get it, he necessarily told his inaster to
give it to him. The Bible rule in respect to the fugitive serv-
ant–call him slave if you please—though the Hebrews had
no slavery, and the Bible utterly condemns all slavery-is :
- Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is
escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee,
even among you in that place which he shall choose, in one
of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress
him.” I know it is claimed that this provision of justice and
mercy was for the Hebrew servant only. But there is no such
limitation in the words; and if there were, it ceased forever
after Jesus had “broken down the middle wall of partition be-
tween” Jew and Gentile. Thenceforth, however it might
have been before, the rule was free of all nationality and all
partiality
And now to the constitutional excuse for returning the fugi-
tive slave. There is, in fact, no other Federal Constitution
than the original and literal one. But, very unhappily, a
spurious one has been added. It may be called the Historical
Constitution. Spurious as it is, it has, nevertheless, so far as
slavery is concerned, been allowed to supplant the real Con-
stitution. Moreover, this supplanting is not in the popular
mind only. It took place there because it had first taken
place among the learned and the leaders. Whenever our
lawyers and judges, legislators and clergy speak of the Con-
stitution in connection with slavery, it is with very few excep-
tions, the history or supposed history of the Constitution, in-
stead of the Constitution itself, of which they speak.
In vain, however, is it that we look either into the historical
or literal Constitution for an excuse for slave-catching. Where
can we find it in the literal one? The canon of legal inter-
pretation forbids the interpreting of a law in favor of funda-
mental wrong, unless the wrong be expressed with irresistible
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
165
clearness. The Supreme Court of the United States says:
“Where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles
are overthrown, where the general system of the laws is de-
parted from, the legislative intention must be expressed with
irresistible clearness to induce a court of justice to suppose a
design to effect such objects.” (2 Cranch, 390.) But slavery
is the preëminent wrong; and it is not expressed at all in the
Constitution, much less "with irresistible clearness.” Presi-
dent Buchanan and others, in their present endeavors to get
the Constitution so amended that it shall expressly contain
slavery, do, in the light of this rule of the Supreme Court,
virtually admit that it does not contain it at all. Who be-
lieves that had it been so expressed the Constitution would
have been adopted ? Would such slavery-hating States as
Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and just coming out of a
war for Liberty, have voted with their eyes open for the most
shameless outrage upon her ? Had the Constitution provided
in plain terms for running down innocent men and women to
sink them into slavery, would such States have voted for the
enormously guilty provision ?
Again, the fugitives referred to in the Constitution are “held
to service under the laws" of a State. But not all enactments
are laws; and it must not be assumed that the pro-slavery
enactments under which fugitives are pursued among us are
laws, until it has been shown that the Constitution is also pro-
slavery. Is it held that we have no right to go back of these
enactments to inquire whether they are laws, and that we
must receive them as laws simply because they are enact-
ments? Imagine for a moment what a variety of horrible
obligations such a doctrine might lay us under! If we must,
because of bare enactments, be they constitutional or uncon-
stitutional, laws or no laws, let our innocent brothers and sis-
ters go back into slavery, then must we prepare ourselves to
let go back to the South their accomplished white women,
who shall flee to us from a supposable future enactment, en-
titled, “An Act to Promote Marriage,” that shall doom all
ladies who refuse to marry to be the unpaid domestics of
those who do marry. Then, too, we must prepare ourselves
to let these unmarried ladies go back to harlotry, if that be
the service to which an enactinent shall devote them. And
ון
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then, also, we must obey the enactment which shall declare
the light-haired men of the South to be the unpaid domestics
of her dark-haired men.
Is there a flaw in this reasoning ? Say you that our fathers
had not in their eye any "service or labor" more degrading
or cruel than slavery, and that they, therefore, did not bind
themselves to return fugitives from any other? The Consti-
tution does not say it. Moreover, the service or labor in my
supposed cases falls far short of the sweeping exactions of slave-
ry. Or say you that the laws spoken of in this clause of
the Constitution are such only as existed at the time of its
adoption ? Would this were so! For then in the case of
most of the slaves—including, of course, all in the new States
-there could be no possible plea of obligation to return any.
But the clause has no such limitation. If it binds us by force
of past enactments to send our poor brothers and sisters to
however horrible service, equally does it bind us and our
children to do so by force of future enactments. In the light
of all this, how obvious it is that the service in this clause can
not be due on the mere ground and by the mere force of legis-
lation. This clause, if interpreted on the principle that service
can be due only for an admitted equivalent, is reasonable, use-
ful, innocent. But if interpreted on the principle that legis-
lation, purely arbitrary and wholly defiant and contemptuous
of reason and justice, can create obligations of service, it is to
the last degree wicked and absurd. I close under this head
with the remark that for us to acknowledge ourselves ready to
carry out the guiltily accepted interpretation of this clause is
to acknowledge ourselves to be servants at command. It is
to stand ready to do a great variety of dirty or devilish work,
which our masters may at any time take it into their heads to
set us about.
Another of the many reasons why the service referred to in
this clause can not be that of a slave is, that it is due from a
person : and that person can not, in the constitutional sense of
the word, mean slave, is manifest from the Constitutional De-
claration :“Nor shall any person be deprived of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law.” *
* For the meaning of " due process of law," see Hill's Reports, iv. 147.
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
167
We will now pass from the real Constitution to see whether
the historical one gives any countenance to slave-catching.
Our first remark is, that we have no right to pass from itano.
right because the people voted upon and adopted the simple
letter of the Constitution. Neither the motives of its framers
nor their discussions, even had the discussions been as open as
they were secret, are any part of the Constitution. Where a
legal paper speaks plainly for itself, there is no right to go ont
of it into history or any thing else for the purpose of modify-
ing the interpretation of its words. The Constitution is such
a paper. But even were its words obscure, there is no liberty
to go beyond them to help them speak in behalf of fundamen-
tal wrong. We will, however, break throngh these objections,
to see whether slave-catching finds any favor in the history of
the Constitution. But how can it, since one of the reigning
purposes of its framers was to have it in all eyes a Consti-
tution for Freedom! Slavery could not be smuggled into it
in spite of such a purpose. For the avowed reason that it
doth "express the condition of slaves," the framers of the Con-
stitution refused to let the word "servitude" be in the Consti-
tution. For the avowed reason that "service" doth "
express
the obligation of free persons," they unanimously substituted
it for “servitude." I am aware, you may say, that in all this
the framers of the Coustitution were hypocrites. But I am
also aware that the moment you say so, you cut yourselves off
from quoting any of their words in favor of a pro-slavery con-
struction of the Constitution, and your historical Constitution
falls quite to the ground,
I do not forget that it is continually declared in Courts, and
Congress, and by both the learned and unlearned, that the
fugitive servant clause is one of the compromises of the Con-
stitution. Even that highly intelligent gentleman, Mr. John
Bell of Tennessee, in his letter of 6th Decernber last, to Mr.
Burwell of his own State, says that we should liave had no
Federal Union if the objections to the “rendition clause” had
not been yielded, and that “the Convention was at one time
upon the point of breaking up in confusion" on this subject.
President Buchanan, in his last Annual Message, says: "With-
out this provision, it is a well-known historical fact, that the
E
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כל
Constitution itself could never have been adopted by the Con-
vention.” And Sonth-Carolina, in her recent Declaration,
says: “The stipulation was so material to the compact, that
without it the compact would not have been made.? Now,
in what histories or records these parties find all this, or ever
so little of all this, I do not know, nor can I so much as con-
jecture. They are too honorable to have said it without be-
lieving it; and yet I am fully persuaded that they have pick-
ed it up from such vagne and groundless hearsays as intelli-
gent men can never believe unless they have strong desires to
believe them. I do not see either in the “Madison Papers,"
or any where else, that there was, in any of the numerous
plans of a Constitution submitted to the Convention, the
slightest reference to fugitives from service; nor that there
was any reference to them in the Convention until the motion
made but twenty days before its close, for the surrender of
fugitive slaves." This motion, we learn from the "Madison
Papers," was immediately and indignantly scouted out of the
Convention. From the same source we learn that the subse-
quent motion for returning a person from whom “service or
labor may be due," was adopted unanimously and without
discussion. The clause in the Constitution being substan-
tially the latter motion, what a glaring falsification is it of
history to call it a compromise for returning fugitive slaves, or
indeed any compromise at all !
Why, even if it does refer historically to fugitive slaves,
should the clause be regarded as one of the cornpromises of
the Constitution? Who in the Convention could have cared
much about it? At that time slaveholders were emancipating
their slaves rapidly; and the instance of a slave's running
away was very rare. His temptation to run away was com-
paratively very small. The danger of being sold to plantation
labor was then too slight to run away from, for then that con-
suming labor had scarcely begun. Sugar and cotton were not
yet grown in our country, and there were but a few patches of
rice. The days of the slave's light labor and laziness were not
Fet ended; and that there were such days is manifest from the
fact that his market value was then but froin one to two hun-
dred dollars.
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
169
.
The misinterpretation of the Constitution in respect to slave-
ry comes from nothing so much as from the interpreter's
taking his standpoint amidst present scenes and interests when
“ Cotton is King," and slavery bears sway both in Church and
State, instead of taking it in that period seventy-three years
ago, when there was no important department of labor inter-
ested in slavery; when the sense of its inherent wickedness
was all but universal in Georgia and South-Carolina, as well
as in every other part of our country; and when the utter-
ances of Washington and Jefferson, and other Southern slave-
holders against it were as decided and radical as are those of
Northern Abolitionists—as efficient to please Southern hearts
as they would now be to enrage them-as honorable to their
authors as they would now be fatal to them.
Again, I ask, why should this clause, even if it does refer
historically to fugitive slaves, have been one of the compro-
mises of the Constitution? Why even in that case should there
have been so great or even any considerable interest in it?
History clearly teaches that it was expected on all hands that
slavery would die with the generation which achieved our
liberties. Even South-Carolina' and Georgia looked to the
year 1808 as about the year of its death ; that being the year, ,
as we learn from history, not from the words of the Constitu-
tion, when the African slave-trade was to cease, and the ceas-
ing of that being then held, in this country as well as in Eng-
land, to be the end of slavery. Another proof that slavery
was then understood to be of very brief duration is to be
found in the fact that the Ordinance of the North-West Terri-
tory (a paper of the same age as the Constitution) limits the
power to recapture fugitive slaves to the original States. And
another, provided the migration and importation clause of the
Constitution refers to slavery is, that this clause does also con-
fine its privileges to the original States. Now, it could not
have been intended by either the Ordinance or the Constitu-
tion that the States should be unequal to each other in rights
and privileges ; that the new States should be put upon a less
favored footing than the old. Hence it must have been in-
tended by both that slavery should be very short-lived; nay,
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that it should disappear before any new States should enter the
Union, or certainly very soon after.
But there is still another fact in the light of which is re-
vealed the absurdity of the allegation that stress was laid on
this clause at the time of the framing or adopting of the Con-
stitution. History teaches, not the Constitution, that slavery
was contemplated in two of the clauses of the Constitution-
the apportionment clause and the migration and importation
clause. Now, the fact I refer to is that whilst the Constitution
provides expressly that one of these clauses, and virtually that
the other, shall not be amended before the year 1808—that is,
the year of the expected death of slavery-it provides no
guard whatever against disturbing the clause respecting fugi.
tives from service. In other words, as long as slavery should
last, the two clauses should last; but the other might be blot-
ted out at the people's pleasure.
But we shall probably be reminded that a Fugitive Slave
law was enacted in 1793. Call it such, if you please, and the
enactment of it can be no wonder ; for by that time slavery
had come to be regarded with new hope and more favor.
Whitney's cotton-gin was invented in that year. Half a mil-
lion pounds of cotton were exported from America that year
against 142,000 pounds the previous year. The export next
year was one and two thirds millions, and the following year
six and a quarter millions. Nevertheless, so few slaves fled,
and so low was their price, that many years passed before any
were returned under this law. And we shall probably be re-
minded that in the present generation slavery has put to its
own and to a very effective use the fugitive servant clause of
the Constitution. But, pray, what is there which could avail it
that it has not put to such use? Of this monster, whose motto
is "Rule or ruin," and who, after having ruled the nation, is
now busy in ruining it, Constitution, and Bible, State and
Church, have all become servants.
In the light of all we have now said of this fugitive servant
clause, what folly is it to affirm that it was one of the compro-
inises of the Constitution! What folly to affirm that many
members of the Convention were at all careful to construct it
of words that would cover fugitive slaves; or that any mem-
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
171
bers were very careful to do so! But what supreme folly to
look in such circumstances for a clause applying so clearly, so
certainly, so necessarily to fugitive slaves, as to bring the Con-
stitution irresistibly to the side of slave-catching!
Let me add here that had slavery been the matter of deep
concern with the framers and adopters of the Constitution
which it is now claimed that it was, there would surely have
been greater pains taken to gain for it a certain lodgment in
the Constitution. Not only would words to this necessary
effect have been brought into the Constitution, but words to
prevent this effect would have been kept out of it. In that
case there would have been a proviso that the writ of habeas
corpus should not be used to free the slaves, (and clearly it
might be thus used at any time,) a proviso too that the forbid-
ding to pass a bill of attainder should not apply to slavery
which is the very worst form of attainder ; a proviso that Con-
gress should not recruit the army and navy from the slave
population, and another that slaves should be excluded from
“the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Nothing is
plainer than that Congress has the power to put arms into
whatever American hands it pleases; and nothing is plainer
than that to put arms into the hands of the slaves is to put
whips out of the hands of their masters.*
The Constitution abounds in powers, any one of which, if
applied to that end, would result in the speedy overthrow of
slavery. I admit that it was not originally intended that they
should be thus applied. The natural death of slavery in a few
years was an expectation quite satisfactory to the friends of
Freedom. But an utterly inexcusable crime against her was
it to delay such application when slavery, instead of resigning
itself to its appointed death, had begun to claim the right to a
new, vigorous, and liberty-devouring life. Nothing more false
and unreasonable ever tried human patience than this inces-
sant talk of slaveholders and their satellites, that to abolish
slavery or even restrict it would be a violation of good faith.
Requiring or even permitting its continuance after the genera-
tion which gave us the Constitution had passed away; that,
* See in Lysander Spooner's Unconstitutionality of Slavery—a book which every
awyer should read his masterly arguments on these and kindred points.
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SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
that is the violation of good faith in the case. And how
enormous is the violation is testified not alone by the slavery-
broken anti-slavery Constitution; not alone by the violated
understanding of the Fathers; but by the sighs and tears and
agonies of millions of living slaves; by the accusations against
us which more millions of slaves have carried up to the Court
of Heaven; and now at last by the retributive dissolution of
our blood-stained and murderous Union.
Surely nothing more need be added to prove that, according
to even the Historical Constitution, slavery should have ceased
from our land more than half a century ago. We will now
return to take another look at the original, literal and only
real Constitution. Allowing, for the sake of the argument,
that there are words in it which seem to favor the surrender
of the fugitive slave, nevertheless no reasonable persons will
affirm that they are so clear and certain as to constitute an
entirely indisputable law for his surrender. In my own judg-
ment a man would not consent to give up a favorite dog upon
a no better show of law than this. And he who should pro-
pose to give up a white man upon it, would be scorned and
loathed forever. Why, then, are the American people so
ready to give up a black man upon it? It is because the
spirit of caste—that worst spirit of Satan--is in their hearts;
that spirit which has turned them against their equal brother,
and turned the people, as well those in as those out of the
Church, into a nation of atheists. All the varieties of the
human family must a man love; in them all must be see and
honor their common Maker, or be an atheist.
"It is so nominated in the bond.” Often are these words
quoted from the Merchant of Venice to justify the returning
of the fugitive slave. But do we tax our ingenuity, as did
noble Portia hers, to make the bond speak for justice and
mercy? She taxed hers to save but one person from death.
Can we not afford to tax ours to save millions from what is
worse than death? I say worse, for there is no parent among
us who would not infinitely rather have his child dead than
enslaved. I asked, in effect, if we would not try to make our
bond, the Constitution, speak for liberty? Alas! many of our
politicians, including even our President, are busy, as we have
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
173
already said, to get the Constitution so amended, that it shall
speak expressly and surely for slavery. Did ever a nation
surpass ours in wickedness and meanness?
I supposed, for the sake of the argument, that there are
words in the Constitution which seem to favor slave-catching.
I now extend my supposition to words clearly and certainly
on the side of this crime, and affirm, that even though the
number of them in the Constitution were not few, they would
all be void--void for their inconsistency with the scope and
spirit of the Constitution. Its enacting clause, as its preamble
inight better be called, reveals this scope and spirit. The Con-
stitution or law, which this clause enacts, is for union, justice,
tranquillity, the common defense, the general welfare and lib-
erty. If any of its words are in conflict with these exalted and
precious objects, they are to be regarded as mistakes, and en-
titled to no weight. Were there words in the Constitution
which favor murder, would you not all admit that they are
overruled and nullified by the objects and law of the Constitu-
tion? Why, then, if there were words in it for what is worse
than murder, would you not have them also overruled and
nullified ?
I called the preamble of the Constitution its enacting clause.
Such it is, not only because it declares the fact of an enact-
ment, and its objects, but also by whom was the enactment.
More than ever do we now hear that the States ordained the
Constitution. But its enacting clause says that the people of
the United States did. “Yes," say the objectors, “but they
did it by States." I admit it. This was convenient. More-
over, it was necessary, since in this wise only could the people
of each State express their consent to the transference of a por-
tion of the power of their State Government to the new or
General Government. No, the Constitution was not the work
of the several States, but of “the people of the United States;"
and the claim for a State of a constitutional right to secede
from the Union is groundless. A State has it no more than a
county, town, or individual. All of them may be so wronged
as to have the revolutionary right both to secede and resist.
Every slave has it. He should secede if he can. I do not say
that he should resist unto blood.
17+
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
I said that words in the Constitution clearly on the side of
slavery wonld nevertheless be void, because conflicting with
the essential Constitution. But I must not, I dare not, stop
there. Were I to do so, I should be unfaithful to God and
man. Convictions lying deep in my soul, and too sacred to
be violated, bid me go on and say that were the Constitution
itself for slavery, it would so far be void—would so far be des-
titute of authority and law. Truth alone is authority. But
slavery, which pronounces immortal man a commodity, is the
boldest and baldest of all lies. Right alone is law. But
slavery, comprising all crimes and vices, and not one virtue, is
just that unmitigated wrong in which most emphatically there
can not be one possible element nor semblance of element of
law. Do not suppose me to be an advocate of the " Higher
Law Doctrine.” I have ever regarded it as very demoralizing.
A higher law implies a lower law; and where two laws are
recognized, men are wont to hold themselves amenable but to
the lower, and to deride as well as disown the higher. There
is but one law. The same law is for both heaven and earth.
“Against such," says the Apostle, “there is no law.”
Against liberty there is no law. Against the slave there is no
law-neither against him who has fled froin the great Southern
prison-house, nor against him who still remains in it. On the
contrary, all law is for liberty, and all law is for the slave.
Not only, then, in virtue of the letter of the Constitution-
that letter which is clear of all slavery; not only in virtue of
the spirit of Liberty, which informs the Constitution; not only
in the name of the Constitution, do I call on you to enact a
statute which shall throw the strong protecting arms of our
State around every slave who shall come within its jurisdiction
a statute which shall effectually forbid any person in this
State from claiming any person in it as a slave; but I call on
you in the name of justice also—that justice which is the one
law of earth and heaven, of time and eternity, and with which
the true religion is identical-to render this service to man
and this honor to God. I scarcely need say that I do not mean
by this true religion the superstitious and sham religion which
infests every part of Christendom. I scarcely need say that I
mean by it the religion of the Bible, of Reason, and of Jesus
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
175
Christ-the religion, in other words, of doing as you would be
done by. It is this religion which teaches us that no man can
administer the law of slavery, and yet be honest. For what
legislator, or judge, or executive would not, were he so unfor-
tunate as to be shut up in slavery, break out if he could, and
that, too, though he might thereby be violating and dishonor-
ing ten thousand statutes, verdicts, and Constitutions? In the
name of such a religion is it that I call upon you to enact the
Personal Liberty law, which so many thousands petition for.
I often feel how vain it is to call on men in the name of this
religion. I hope, however, that it is not so in the case of your
Legislature. Few have this religion of doing as you would be
done by-of doing as you (under the supposition that you are
in your right mind) would have others do unto you. Yes, few
have this, which is the whole of Christ's religion, and in which
all his teachings are summed up. Many believe in it more or
less earnestly. I am, myself, of their number. But only. few
have it. Of this few I long to be, strive to be, but often fear
I never shall be. Who have this religion? Not the church
members—for they, with comparatively few exceptions, would
not bear with ininisters who should preach and pray against
returning the fugitive slave. Nevertheless, were they in the
sad changes of life to become slaves, they would desire to have
all the pulpits, ay, and all the people, on the side of every
slave. Nor have the political parties this religion--for they
all resolve in favor of returning fugitive slaves. Yet, should
any of these parties fall under the yoke of slavery, they would
desire all political parties to stand forth for the slave. I fear
that even my old friend, Gov. Seward, the great favorite of his
party, has not this religion. Indeed, he seems to be even fur-
ther than myself from having it. For I wish the three doors
to be kept open to the slave—the door by which he might run
away, the door of deliverance by national action, and the door
of deliverance by State action. But the first of these doors the
Governor would in effect have closed, inasmuch as he would
remove impediments (such are Personal Liberty laws) out of
the way of returning the slave who had escaped by this door.
I do not forget that it is only unconstitutional Personal Liberty
laws that he would have repealed. Nor do I forget that were
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he a slave he would have every law stand, whether constitu-
tional or unconstitutional, which might favor his escape; and
that he would have even the Constitution, ay, and the Bible
too, cast aside, if politicians and priests were using them to
hinder his escape. Hence, whether the Personal Liberty laws
in his eye are or are not constitutional, does in no wise affect
the argument which I am making at this point. As I have al-
ready said: “Against the slave there is no law.” I add, that
what is for him is law. All Personal Liberty laws, so far as
they are for him are law. Thank God, the day hastens on
when he will no longer be called a statesman who outrages his
brother and shrivels his own soul by recognizing slavery as
law; and when he, and he only, will be connted worthy of the
name, who amidst all the conspiracies in both Church and
State against human nature, doth Jesus-like bravely vindicate
its claims in the person of the poorest, and doth Jesus-like
generously identify himself with the most loathed and hated
outcasts. As to the second of these doors, that by which the
nation could deliver the slave, Gov. Seward proposes to have
it barred and bolted anew, and so strongly as to forbid and
frown down every proposition to open it. Nevertheless, were
the Governor himself to become a slave he would want as
many doors as possible cut in the sides of his prison, and he
would count that man his worst enemy, who should propose to
shut up any one of them, even the smallest, or that which
would be as unlikely to be opened, as in his judgment is the
Southern slave's door of national deliverance. Therefore even
Gov. Seward himself can not have this religion of doing as he
would be done by.
But stop! have I not been doing an injustice to Gov. Sew.
ard and to the political and Church parties ? May it not be
that they, after all, have this religion of Christ-this religion
of doing as we would be done by—and that they suspend its
operation but at the point of politics—that point where nearly
all our countrymen deem it proper to suspend it? Gov. Sew-
ard is beloved in his family and neighborhood, and ought I not
in charity to have assumed that he has this religion, and that
he makes it practical save at this one point, where to nearly
all men it seems to be utterly impracticable? Perhaps, in
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
177
common with so many, he so construes Christ's words, “Ren-
der to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things
that are God's," as to set human laws above the Divine where
they come in conflict with each other. I remember that in
tlıe first speech I made in Congress, I had occasion to notice
and criticise Gov. Marcy's suspension of the golden rule at
this point. In his correspondence in the Koszta case with Mr.
Hulsemann, the representative of the Austrian Government, he
said that the Bible - enjoins upon all men every where, when
not acting under legal restraint, to do unto others whatever
they would that others should do unto them." Doubtless Gov.
Marcy sincerely believed that such a qualification is necessary
in order to save the injunction from bearing perilously on
slavery. I imputed no insincerity to him. I impute none to
Gov. Seward—nothing worse than a lamentable mistake. My
own understanding of this injunction to do as we would be
done by, is, that it covers the whole limitless field of human
relations, and is no less commanding in than out of the sphere
of human legislation. It is free of all qualification ; and it is
not merely the higher law, but it is, in the presence of all con-
trary laws, the only law. It binds men as well when on as off
the throne ; as well when on as off the bench; as well when in
as out of Parliament, Congress, or a State Legislature. Judi-
cial decrees, statutes, and constitutions are all void so far as
they conflict with this injunction to do as we would be
done by:
For the sake of guarding myself agaiust misrepresentation,
let me step aside for a moment to say, that though right is al-
ways law, and wrong can never be law, we are, nevertheless,
not to resist every wrong which comes to us and challenges
our obedience and submission in the name of law. We are to
be patient with all legalized wrongs which are at all bearable.
Only such as are absolutely unbearable--and among these
slavery of course has the preëminence—are we at liberty to
resist.
I have spoken plainly, especially so of the churches and
parties; and I am not unmindful that with many the force of
what has been spoken will be nentralized by the fact that he
who spoke it is an Abolitionist. It is true that I am an Abo-
178
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
litionist. I can not deny it. I wish not to deny it. I am not
ashamed of it. As it lies in my mind, one must be an Abo-
litionist in order to be emphatically a man. To recall men to
their deserted manhood is the sole ministry of Christianity, and
this she accomplishes in no wise so much as in prompting them
to vindicate the insulted manhood of others. Nothing goes so
far to nourish and invigorate the manliness of our own bosoms
as our generous and self-sacrificing resistance to the policies
and efforts for crushing out the manhood of our brethren.
Never was it so needful as now for an American to prove him-
self a man, and never was it so difficult as now, tempted as he
is on the one hand by the abundance of Southern menace,
and on the other by the influential examples of Northern ser-
vility and apostasy to sink his manhood. Never before was
he in circumstances to reflect so much honor upon his Maker
by pursuing a manly course, and never before could he by
such a course do so much towards delivering the oppressed,
and lifting up the fallen. Never before did his own safety and
his own exemption from loss make it so necessary for his soul
to be unselfish and noble. In the midst of our country's corn-
motions and mutations, how indispensable to maintain a high
inanhood, and to be therefore subjects of that kingdom which
can never be mored surrounded by Divine strength, even“ as
the mountains are round about Jerusalem !” We know not
how multiforin a ruin may be awaiting our country-ruin, it
may be, of lier riches and renown, her patriotism and her
people. But we do know that if the Republic shall even quite
perish, he who passes through her trials and perils, and comes
out a man, will be able to stand upon her ashes, and exultingly
exclaim: "I am safe. I have lost nothing. Through God's
help I have preserved my manhood, and that is to preserve
iny all."
The speech I have now made is, indeed, an uncompromising
one; "too uncompromising," you will, perhaps say. Think
not, however, that I am opposed to all compromises. I believe
in compromises; and I would consent to large concessions in
the way of justice and kindness to our Southern brethren. The
Southern people slıould be as dear to us as the Northern peo-
ple. Both are guilty of upholding slavery. Nevertheless,
are not they who have done this against their education more
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
179
guilty than they, who in doing it, have but carried out their
education? I would not have the Slave States secede-cer-
tainly not until they shall have abolished their slavery. For
whilst they are in the Union we have the clear constitutional
right and are, therefore, under the solemn obligation to abolish
it. Hence, for one, I could never consent to let my colored
brethren be taken out of the Union while their chains are still
upon them. Nevertheless, if the South will go withont abol-
ishing slavery, I would not have her pursued with guns and
swords. Our States can not be held together by force, and
should not be if they could. I would, however, insist, that if
the departure of any of them is to be peaceful on our part, it shall
be peaceful on theirs also. They must not rob us of our pro-
perty and fire at our men. They must not, like Parthian
archers, hurl back destruction upon is as they go from us.
It
is not to be disguised that they have made a fearful issue.
Had they asked the nation to let them withdraw, all would
have been well. The nation would have been sad to part with
them, but nevertheless would have parted with them, and in
peace. Would that the seceding States miglit even now think
it not too late to ask for what even now would not be refused.
But if they shall persevere in breaking out of the nation, sword
in hand, and in trampling upon all her rights and insulting all
her honor, will they not, should they not, be resisted ? I de-
precate bloodshed. Trom the whole sphere of private strife it
should be excluded. War, by which I mean a bloody collision
between nations, is unnecessary, and therefore indefensible.
But civil government must maintain itself. If possible, with-
out bloodshed; but if not possible, then with it. It "beareth
not the sword in vain;" and I see not how it can bear it in
vain, if the seceding States shall refuse to reduce their tone
from armed demanding to unarmed asking; from threats and
aggressions, which not only provoke but justify retaliations, to
peaceful and kind requests, whose peacefulness and kindness,
even though unaccompanied by reasonableness, would win
what is requested
Just here is another point on which I should like to make
myself understood. Whatever concessions may be due from
the North to the South-whatever modifications of the Govern-
.
180
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
ment-nothing of all this is to be made, no, nor a hair's breadth
of all this so much as acknowledged, until the South shall have
relinquished her menacing attitude, and returned to her alle-
giance. I must not pay my creditor while his fist is in my
face. Righteous as may be his claim, the claim of my self-
l'espect is a prior one. For our Government to yield to its sub-
jects whilst they are in a state of revolt would be to cheapen
itself beyond all possible recovery of its honor and power;
would be to part with its prestige beyond all possible recall of
it; would be to make itself contemptible in the eyes of all its
worthy subjects; would be to make itself the jest of every
monarch, and the scorn and ridicule of the world; would be,
in a word, to demoralize and destroy itself. Whilst the South
maintains her insolent and defiant attitude, our Government
can not, but at the risk of utterly perishing, make any peace
offering to her, or so much as entertain any propositions of
peace from her. To talk of “reconstructing" our Government
after it shall, in the present circumstances, have made, or how-
ever faintly promised to make, any, however small, conces-
sious, is as absurd as for a woman to encourage herself to throw
away her virtue in the hope that she can afterwards reconstruct
another and better character. The reconstruction of the Gov-
ernment would be as impossible as the resurrection of a dead
body-of any other dead body.
I spoke of my faith in compromises, and of my readiness for
concessions. If our Southern brethren are oppressed by the
Tariff, then let it be so changed that it shall no longer oppress
them. If they will consent to emancipate their slaves, then
let the North share with them in the present loss of eman-
cipation. For the North, as well as the South, is respon-
sible for slavery. The North has in various ways encour-
aged Southern men to invest capital in human flesh. Her
church people have countenanced slavery, and her merchants
and politicians have songht gain from it. There is a joint l'es-
ponsibility for the crime, and the expense of putting it away
should be joint. Let all this, and whatever else justice and
generosity may call for at the hands of the North, pass freely
into the compromise which the North shall be willing to make
with the South, and let the South reciprocate the justice and
generosity.
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
181
Thus you see that I am in favor of a compromise with the
South. But you also see that mine is the honest and righteous
kind of compromise, which makes the parties to it bear tlie
expense of it. The compromises proposed by the politicians (I
do not like to call them statesmen) are dishonest and wicked,
because they are between the white men of the country at the
expense of the black men of the country. A man says: “I
honestly believe that I owe you but ten dollars." The answer
is: “I honestly believe that you owe me thirty. Let us, there-
fore, each yield ten dollars, and call the debt twenty.”
"Agreed,” is the rejoinder. This is well. Every such manifest-
ation of respect for each other's judgment, sincerity, and inter-
est is beautiful, and honors human nature. But if, instead of
stopping here, the parties to this compromise had said, “Now
let us complete this compromise in which we have each lost
ten dollars, by going ont and stealing twenty to make our.
selves whole," then would our admiration be turned into ab-
hòrrence. Nevertheless this is the kind of compromise pro-
posed between the white men of the North and the white men
of the South --- a compromise at the sole expense of another
party--at the sole expense of the innocent black men.
Poor black men! All the deeper will be your sorrows when
the North and the South shall come together again, light-
hearted, loving, and joyful, in another and ungodly compro-
mise. “And the King and Haman sat down to drink--but
the city Shushan was perplexed.” Alas! for our city Shushan,
if still more perplexities are in store for her troubled spirits
and bleeding hearts! Will neither North nor South ever have
done with torturing and murdering her? It is a cheap thing
(though in the end it may be found very dear) for quarreling
parties to make peace at the expense of an innocent party.
Herod and Pilate made peace at the expense of Christ. Gov-
ernor Seward and others would make peace between the op-
pressors at the expense of the slave. God's way to make it, is
to “break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by
showing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy
tranquillity.” God's peace-making voice to this guilty nation
is : "Let my people go." "Let my people go." This was his
voice to an ancient nation. It refused to give heed and per-
ished, as will this nation also if it shall refuse to be warned.
182
SPEECH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
ness.
Our great men are working their wits to devise a salvation for
our crumbling national edifice. The Divine prescription,
- Let my people go,” is, however, its only possible salvation.
In otlier words, repentance is our only remedy. I said that
Gov. Seward and others would make peace at the expense of
the slave. They would make it by heaping up fresh cruelties
and outrages upon him. They would make it by making his
prison tighter, and the return of the fugitive from it surer.
The wickedness of such a peace kindles all my abhorrence; its
meanness all my disgust. “Rob not the poor because he is
poor," is a solemn command of the precious Bible; and em-
phatically is the present a case where the poor is robbed be-
cause liis helple. s poverty gives impunity to the robbery.
My speech is done. Old age is upon me. Sickness has
often hushed my voice. I may never again be allowed to lift
it up in this Hall, where for more than thirty years it has oc-
casionally been heard in behalf of various causes of righteous-
And if I am now to speak the last words I shall be
allowed to speak here, what better can I do than exclaimn :
“Let my sicknesses be multiplied. Let me, as I have repeat-
ly done, go down to the gates of death. Let my brain again
sink so low that I shall not know one friend froin another.
Let me suffer every anguish of body and every anguish of
spirit. Let me become, if it is possible, even more than ever
the public laughing-stock, because of my fanaticism, which
prefers truth to numbers and the right to popularity. Let all
this come upon me.
But let nie never be guilty of seeking to
adjust a claim or coinpose a strife between my fellow-man and
myself at the expense of a third person, and especially an in-
nocent third person. But never let me be guilty of favoring a
compromise between two people, at the expense of robbing
another and an innocent people, and that too, a people whom
they had always robbed. But never let me be guilty of favor-
ing the plan to reünite two peoples by re-crushing and more
thoroughly crushing a poor people whom they liad always
been crushing. But let me never be left to approve the
taking of the heart's blood of the innocents to cement the bro-
ken friendship of their enemies. Froin such superlative wicked-
ness, from such ineffable meanness, from such stupendous hypo-
crisy, may God preserve me.
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
SPEECH OF GERRIT SMITH.-April 27, 1861.
.
We are assembled, my neighbors, not as Republicans, nor
Democrats, nor Abolitionists—but as Americans. And we are
assembled to say that we are all on the side of the Govern-
ment; and that it must be upheld at whatever expense to
friend or foe.
As I am a peace man, and have often spoken against war,
some persons may think it improper in' me to take part in a
war meeting. But I have never spoken against putting down
traitors. It is true, too, that I am too old to fight; and that I
am so ignorant of arms as not to know how to load a gun;
and that my horror of bloodshed is so great that, were I a
slave, I should probably choose to live and die one, rather than
kill my master. All this is true. Nevertheless, I
Nevertheless, I may be of
some service in the present crisis. I can, along with others,
care for the families of my brave and patriotic neighbors, who
go forth to peril their lives for their country. Let this be my
work. It falls in not with my principles only, but also with
my habits of feeling and acting.
The end of American Slavery is at hand. That it is to be
in blood does not surprise me. For fifteen years I have been
constantly predicting that it would be. From my desk in
Congress I repeated the prediction, and said that this bloody
end “would be such a reckoning for deep and damning wrongs
-such an outbursting of smothered and pent-up revenge as
living man has never seen.” But I had no party, no press, no
influence; and I was a Cassandra whose predictions no one
would listen to.
184
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
Pardon the immodesty of another personal reference. Im-
inediately after the last Presidential election, we all saw that
the South was hurrying on this bloody end of slavery. The
discourse I then delivered, and which was printed in The Tri.
bune, says: “It is even probable that the Slave States will
secede-a part now, and nearly all the remainder soon. This
will not be because of the election of Lincoln. That is, at the
most, an occasion or pretext for secession. Nor will this be
because it has long been resolved on. There is something, but
not so much, in that. It will be because their iniquity is full,
and the time for their destruction at hand."
Why did I believe that nearly all the Slave States would
secede? I have given the reason. Did I forget that their
non-slaveholding whites greatly outnumber the slaveholders ?
I did not. But I remembered how controlling is the slavehold-
ing power by reason of its concentration and intelligence. It
resides in comparatively few hands, and not only are the slave-
holders the educated class, but the other whites are almost as
illiterate and ignorant as the blacks. Secession was, therefore,
practicable, if the slaveholders willed it: and what was so like
as that to be the chosen means for destroying them ?
Alas! what a sorrow, what a shame, what a sin, that the
North did not, long ago peaceably abolish the whole system of
American Slavery by political action! It is now left to her
angry and revengeful passions to do what she had not virtue
enough to do. Those passions will do it.
Slavery is war-constant as well as most cruel. Hence I
call it a war—incessant, infamous, infernal war--which the
Northern whites have, in league with the Southern whites,
been waging for more than half a century against the blacks
of the whole country. This war the whites of the North were
willing to have prolonged — ay, and were willing to adopt
new measures for prolonging it. But now that slavery has
struck at themselves, they are not only disposed to forbear
warring upon the blacks, but very soon they will, under greater
exasperations, be disposed to make common cause with them
against the Southern whites. A few more outrages at the
hands of the "plug-ugly” mob which rules miserable Mary-
land, and our intellectual and eloquent Secretary will no longer
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
185
think rhetorical twattle to be the very best language in which
to answer the silly and impudent propositions of her poor, fee.
ble, vacillating Governor. A few more such outrages will
stiffen up our President into the downright refusal to hold any
further parley with traitors, or give them any more comforting
assurances of the limited services which he intends for his
troops.* We have strong men to wield the Government. Chase
is a giant. And we shall soon see that they are as determined
as they are strong:
In such times as these we grow fast. Only a fortnight ago
The N. Y. Times said: “We have nothing to do in this con-
test with slavery or slaves." Then it would not allow the
slave to benefit in the least by the contest. A week after,
however, The Times was talking of the propriety of "setting
free the Southern slaves, and arming them against the Southern
rebels !" The truly good Democratic meeting held a few days
ago in Albany, sought to conciliate the traitors by saying that
they did not seek to stir up servile insurrection." But the
meeting would not have descended to even this disclaimer,
had it been held a few weeks later, and just after some battle
in which the traitors had slain hundreds of Northern fathers,
brothers, and sons. I said that in such times we grow fast.
Who has clung so persistingly, gallantly, and defiantly to the
South as our Daniel S. Dickinson ? Indeed, so Southern were
his sympathies and attachments, that he was wont to regret
that he had not been born there. Nevertheless, even he has
been carried by the force of events to the side of the North.
And so boundless is the zeal of this young convert, that he not
only counts on “servile war," but with a vindictiveness alto-
gether savage, he would " wipe the South from the face of the
earth.”+ Often as he had been told by the Abolitionists of the
treachery of slaveholders, he never before could believe that
they would dare prove so treacherous to the great Northern
Democracy. And so he, in common with thousands of promi-
* May not this have been a piece of policy for gaining time and saving Wash-
ington, and therefore a piece of wisdom rather than of weakness? Mr. Smith
has, since making his speech, seen reason to think so.
+ This was said by Mr. Smith on the authority of the newspapers. But Mr
Dickinson has since published that the newspapers are wrong.
186
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
nent Democrats, is in a great rage about it. Even Senator
Douglas, though he still prates of his abiding and profound re-
spect for the rights of property in man, and though his child-
ren's ownership of a Mississippi plantation places him under
bonds for his good behavior toward the South, will ere long
break these bonds, and cease from this prating. A few more
Southern atrocities, and he, too, will openly curse slavery as
the cause of them, and be eager to see it go out in blood. Let
the city of Washington be captured, or let some of Jefferson
Davis' pirate-ships capture some of our merchantmen, and the
North will then lose no time in arming the slaves. She will
do it, if her Government will not. The British armed savages
against the Americans, and the Americans armed them against
the Britons. And, unless the South shall immediately cease
from her rebellion, the North will arm her slaves against her.
As sure as human nature is human nature, she will do it.
Saddening as is the prospect, it will, nevertheless, be realized.
When men get enraged against their fellow-men, they will
avail themselves of whatever help is within their reach.
Especially true is this of Southern men. They go so far as to
set dogs on men—ay, even the most ferocious and devouring
dogs.
I have spoken of the capture of Washington as a possibility.
So difficult of defense is that city in several points of view,
that a few weeks ago (not so now) I could almost have con-
sented to the Government's withdrawing from it and going to
Philadelphia or New-York. An unsuitable place is it for the
Capitol; and I felt compelled to say so on the floor of Con-
gress. In no event will it be there a long time. Soon after
the Pacific Railroad is built, and the Pacific States thereby
permanently attached to us, the Capitol will, if the nation shall
be then undivided, be transferred to the West, probably to St.
Louis. Should Washington then become a seat of science, and
the great American University be there, her costly buildings
will be put to what will probably be their best possible use.
To return from this digression—the approaching Congress
will, of course, hasten to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act. Now
that slavery has broken up our nation, and made war upon us,
that Act can not be left unrepealed. Is it said that the Con-
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
187
stitution calls for a Fugitive Slave Act? It calls for a Fugi-
tive Servant Act-but not even that at the hands of Congress.
It is due from the States only. What, however, if it did call
for a Fugitive Slave Act ?--and that, too, at the hands of Con-
gress ? Surely, we are under no constitutional obligations to
those who are trampling on the Constitution and breaking
away from the nation.
The repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act would correspond
with even the present state of the public mind. THE FIRST
GUN FIRED AT FORT SUMTER ANNOUNCED THE FACT THAT THE LAST
FUGITIVE SLAVE HAD BEEN RETURNED.
Let us thank God that any thing has occurred to save Con-
gress from repeating its foolishi and guilty talk about compro-
mises and the reconstruction of the Government. There
would have been nothing of this at the last session had not
Congress been blind to the fact that the day of the destruction
of slavery bad come, and that the Gulf States were, therefore,
too infatuated to listen to any propositions of compromise and
reconstruction. Those States had long before decided that the
Slave States, in order to save their slavery, must insulate them-
selves, build up a despotism all their own, and surround them-
selves with a wall so thick as to be impervious, and so high as
to be insurmountable to the world's growing anti-slavery sen-
timent. Congress now sees this, and it also sees that the Bor-
der Slave States were holding in their treason only against the
time when it might burst forth with the most deadly effect
against the nation. What folly it was for Congress and the
Peace Convention to hope for any thing from the Border Slave
States !
And what if, when Congress shall come together in this Ex-
tra Session, the Slave States shall all have ceased from their
treason, and shall all ask that they may be suffered to go from
us? Shall Congress let them go? Certainly. But only, how-
ever, on the condition that those States shall first abolish slave-
ry. Congress has clearly no constitutional right to let them
go on any conditions. But I believe that the people would
approve the proceeding, and would be ready to confirm it in
the most formal and sufficient manner. A few weeks ago I
would have consented to let the Slave States go without re-
188
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
quiring the abolition of slavery. I would, looking to the
interests of both the bond and free, have preferred this to an
attempt to abolish it in blood. Nevertheless, I would have
had the North sternly refuse to establish diplomatic relations
with them, or even so much as recognize their nationality so
long as they continued their horrible oppression. Less than
this it could not have insisted on. But now, since the South-
eru tiger has smeared himself with our blood, we will not, if
we get him in our power, let him go until we have drawn his
teeth and his claws. In other words, when the South shall lie
conquered before us, we will inexorably condition peace on
her surrender of slavery. The Government will not consent,
and if it will, the people will not, to allow it any longer exist-
ence.
It is quite enough that slavery has, in time past, corrupted
and disgraced us, and imposed its heavy taxes upon our indus-
try. It is quite enough that it has, within the last year,
lynched, tarred and feathered, and hung hundreds of our inno-
cent people. It is quite enough that it has now involved us in
a war by which we shall lose hundreds of millions of dollars,
and an incomputable wealth of lives. If we suffer it to live,
it may return to torment 11s. Let no Northern man henceforth
propose, for any reasons whatever, the sparing of slavery.
Such nonsense, such insult, such contempt of her interests, and
rights, and honor, the North will stand no longer. A traitor
to her will she regard every man who shall be guilty of it.
Thank God! the spirit of the North is at last aroused at this
point. She is determined to kill slavery, and she will be pa-
tient with no man who shall thrust himself between her and
her victim. The sword she has drawn to defend herself against
the sword of slavery will never be sheathed until she has anni-
hilated the one cause of lier calamities. If, after all she has
suffered, and is now suffering from slavery, she shall still be so
spiritless, and servile, and compromising, as still to let it live,
then is she herself unworthy to live. The world would be in-
finitely better without than with her.
It will not, however, be strange, should this war continue so
long, if the Slave States shall themselves ask Congress, at the
approaching session, to exercise its war-power in abolishing the
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
189
3
whole system of American slavery. They may be driven to
ask this as the only escape from the servile insurrections which
shall then be upon them. That the North will yet, and speed-
ily too, have to save the South from her own slaves, I have no
doubt. Would that the President's anti-slavery training had
been so thorough that he could now see slavery to be the pre-
eminent piracy, and therefore the preëminent outlaw ! Would
that he could now see it to have but just one right-the right
of the wolf caught in the sheep-fold—the right to be killed.
Then would he not delay to set all the slaves free by procla-
mation.
But it may be said, that although we should require the
Slave States to abolish slavery, yet, if we should let them set
up an independent nation, they would reëstablish slavery.
Have no fear of that. They would not be disposed to do it.
All their interests, as well as their recent horrors, would forbid
it. The cotton manufacturers of Europe will no longer rely on
our country for cotton. This mad outbreak of the Soutlı
makes it indispensable for them to discontinue this precarious
and odious dependence as soon as possible. In a very few
years they will be abundantly supplied from other sources,
where labor is much cheaper than is slave-labor, and where
nature is much more favorable than in any part of our own
land to the growth of cotton. Indeed, it is not probable that
either cotton or cane-sugar will, after a little time, be produced
extensively in our country—so much better adapted to both
are other regions. But for the high tariff protection it has
enjoyed, very little cane-sugar would ever have been produced
in it. I scarcely need add that slavery will be of short dura-
tion in the Border Slave States after there shall be no further
call on them to breed slaves for the Gulf States.
Again, slavery in Christendom has outlived its day. Its
prolonged existence in it has for many years been an exceed-
ingly forced one. It is dying out of it very rapidly. The
dark thing can not live in the strong light of this age. The
foolish thing is shamed by the wisdom of this age. The wicked
thing is condemned by the better ethics which are coming to
prevail in this age. In our time, one pation after another has
come forth against slavery. Few of the nations of Christen-
190
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
dom are any longer in guilty connection with it. Russia has
just declared the liberty of her twenty millions of slaves;
and America must now give up her four millions. The organ-
izing of a nation at such a time as this on the basis of slavery
is an unendurable defiance of the moral sense of the civilized
world. I do not deny that American Slavery, if now suffered
to live, might live many years. But if killed now, it will
never live again.
I rejoice to see the North so united against this Southern re-
bellion. But to make the union more perfect, and cordial, and
effective, by bringing into it, with their whole heart, all the
wisest and best, the men of prayer and the women of prayer,
and by bringing into it the Great God, the North must clear
herself of all guilty relations to slavery. IT IS NOT ENOUGH
THAT WE HAVE A SOUTH WICKED ENOUGII TO GO AGAINST. WE
MUST HAVE A NORTH RIGHTEOUS ENOUGH TO GO FOR. A slave-
catching North is no better, but is immeasurably worse, than
a slave-owning South. The North can not at the same time
go against and for slavery.
A word in respect to the armed men who go South. They
should go more in sorrow than in anger. The sad necessity
should be their only excuse for going. They must still love
the South. We must all still love her. Conquer her, and
most completely, too, we must, both for her sake and our own.
But does it not ill become us to talk of punishing her ? Slave-
ry, which has so infatuated her, is the crime of the North as
well as of the South. As her chiefs shall one after another fall
into our hands, let us be restrained from dealing revengefully,
and moved to deal tenderly with them, by our remembrance
of the large share which the North has had in blinding them.
The conspiracy of Northern merchants and manufacturers,
Northern publishers, priests, and politicians, against the slave-
holders, carried on under the guise of friendship, has been
mighty to benumb their conscience, and darken their under-
standing in regard to slavery. When slavery shall have been
swept away from our whole land, the North and South will
come together, and mingle tears of repentance over their joint
sin of upholding the matchlessly cruel and bloody system.
And then our nation, which has so deeply disgraced the cause
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
191
of Freedom by being herself deeply disgraced by slavery, will
be the pattern for all nations, and the glory of all lands.
Despots will draw from this war arguments against democratic
government. But not justly. It furnishes arguments, not
against democratic, but against despotic government. The
Slave States were never democratic save in name. They have
always been despotic, because always Slave States; and there.
fore is it that they are now making war upon democracy.
These despotisms should be construed into a reproach upon our
free government no more than the polygamy of Utah into a
reproach upon 'our Christianity. It is as unfair and absurd to
look to South-Carolina or Virginia for a specimen of the work-
ings of free government, as to the Mormons for that of Christ-
ianity. Would the despots of the Old World learn the cha-
racter of real democracy, let them look at such a State as
Massachusetts or Vermont. Would they learn its power, the
promptness with which we shall put down this war, which
their brother despots are making upon us, will teach it to
them.
Ere taking my seat, let me say, that I cordially approve the
attitude which the Administration has now taken toward the
traitors. Its patience and moderation with them, while as yet
patience and moderation were called for, were praiseworthy to
the last degree. I had begun to fear that the exercise of these
virtues was continued beyond their proper period. The energy
and resoluteness which have succeeded them, promise to make
the war a very short one.
It will not survive the summer
months. How can it? The cause of the traitors is as bad as
it can be. Then they have a dreadful enemy at their very
doors, blacker than all the Black Republicans, whom they so
much abhor, dread, and reproach; yes, blacker than the black-
est Republicans. Then, too, their little money will soon be
all spent. Moreover, they have no credit with any of the
world-bankers; and they are destitute of the sympathy of
every court on earth, unless it may possibly be that of the
King of Dahomey. Our cause, on the contrary, is just. It is
backed by hundreds of millions of specie ; by boundless credit
with all the nations of Christendom, and by their boundless
sympathy, also. It is backed, too, by the whole North—by its
twenty millions of people—yes, by all of them.
192
WAR MEETING IN PETERBORO.
If the Democrats and Bell Everett men went further than
did the Republicans to pacify and please the South, neverthe-
less, the Republicans will not go further than will the Demo-
crats and Bell-Everett men to save the country. Never did
men make a greater or more fatal mistake in their reckoning
than did these Southern traitors when they flattered them-
selves that the Northern Democrats and Bell-Everett men
would still stand with them after the contest had come to
blows. After the firing at Fort Sumter, there were no Re.
publicans, nor Democrats, or Bell-Everett men left among us.
That firing turned them all into Americans. The next firing,
be it at one of our forts, or towns, or armies, will turn them
all into anti-slavery men. And then, about the third or
fourth firing at us, will turn them all into radical, uncompro-
mising, slave - arming, slave - freeing Abolitionists. A few
months longer, my countrymen, and we shall all sing and
shout together :
" Jehovah has triumphed! His people are free !"
LETTER TO REV. DR. G. C. BECKWITH.
Even Peace-Societies Hold to Defending Government.
Even Peace-Societies Hold to no Peace with Traitors,
PETERBORO', May 18, 1861.
Rev. Dr. G. O. BECKWITIT, Sec’y of American Peace Society :
MY DEAR SIR: Our Society is laughed at. It is held that,
in the light of the present necessities of our country, its prin-
ciples are seen to be false, ridiculously false. That the raising
of armies is among these necessities, can not be denied. It is
not denied even by the Society. Nevertheless, I do not see
that the condemnation or so much as any modification of its
principles is called for by the condition and claims of the
country.
The Society was organized to oppose War-meaning by the
word, bloody strife between nations. But the North is arming
herself to protect Government against the domestic traitors and
pirates who are at work to overthrow it. If there are prin-
ciples of the Society forbidding this, I am not aware of them.
The speech at its Anniversary, in 1858, after arguing against
war--the conflict of nation with nation--puts the question
whether a nation must not “arm herself to encounter piracies,
and quell and prevent domestic disturbances ? It proceeds to
say that "the American Peace Society must answer it affirm-
atively, and must take the ground that, although no nation
needs an army to protect itself from war, erery nation needs
an armed police, to protect the persons and property of her
subjects both on sea and land, and to uphold civil government
and the social fabric." I do not know that any members of
the Society dissent from this portion of the speech. The same
speech argues that the other nations would not suffer a nation
194
LETTER TO REV. DR. G. C. BECKWITH.
to make war upon an unresisting nation. But it does not
argue that they would interpose to save a nation which refuses
to arm herself against traitors in her own bosom.
But although the present state of the country does not falsify
the principles, I confess it does disappoint the expectations of
the Society. I confess, moreover, the ignorance of the Society
at one point. It did not know that slavery could produce so
deep and wide-spread an insanity as this which has impelled
the South to attempt the overthrow of the Government. Never-
theless, had it known that it could, and even foreseen that it
would, no obligations would have reșted on the Society to
qualify the absoluteness of its principles against armies. It
would not have been bound to provide in its positions and de-
clarations for this exceptional case—for this only case in which
on its principles the raising of armies would be justifiable.
But it must be confessed that the Society did not foresee that
slavery would, or even could, muster a traitorous opposition to
the Government so multitudinous and mighty, as to require for
its defense not an armed police, but such vast armies and mili-
tary arrangements as are called for by contests which reach
the dimensions and wear the name of war. The Society had
not, and who indeed had, adequately conceived the power of
slavery to such an end? I repeat, however, that this treason,
gigantic as it is, yet as in all probability it is not to be repeat.
ed in any of the coming centuries, should not, even if clearly
foreseen by the Society, have been allowed to work the least
change in its principles or general course.
What if our Southern brethren had taken to the eating of a
vegetable which produces insanity, and such insanity as drives
its subjects to undertake the destruction of existing govern-
ments? Surely such a wholly unexpected occurrence, such a
never-to-be-repeated singularity, even had it thrown upon us
the necessity of arming a million of men, would not have dis-
credited nor called for the least changing of the anti-war and
anti-army principles of our Society. The eating of the vege-
table would—forcibly if necessary—have been speedily ended,
and that source of rebellion have been closed forever. But
the present rebellion does, no more than would that, show de-
fectiveness in our principles. The slavery, which is the sole
LETTER TO REV. DR. G. C. BECKWITH.
195
source of it, is now to die; and as it is hardly possible that it
will ever live again, so it is hardly possible that this type of
insanity will ever be reproduced, and so it is hardly possible
that our Society will ever again have occasion to approve the
raising of armies. For, although the passions, prejudices, and
perverseness of men beget many forms of insanity, Southern
slavery only is capable of driving millions to the mad work of
violently overthrowing a government whose partiality towards
them and indulgence of them are the only wrong it has done
thern.
Is there one who doubts that the South is insane, and that
slavery is the cause of her insanity? We cite him to a few
of the proofs of it. It is not necessary to speak of her address-
ing herself defiantly to the maintenance of slavery a quarter of
a century ago, when so many parts of Christendom were rid-
ding themselves of the accursed thing. More recent proofs of
her insanity will suffice.
First. What could more certainly tend to make her slaves
impatient of their yoke than listening to the words and drink-
ing in the spirit of those who had been hurled back to slavery,
after having escaped from it, and for years grown in the
knowledge and for years enjoyed the sweets of liberty? And
yet the South, instead of earnestly desiring that no fugitive
slaves should ever return to leaven the lump and enlighten the
ignorance of her black population, got a law enacted some ten
years ago, under which she has been able to scatter these fugi-
tive firebrands all through her powder-house!
Second. She repealed the Missouri Compromise, so reckless
was she of incensing the North against her bad faith and
against slavery.
Third. The Dred Scott decision, which she drove the Su-
preme Court of the United States to make, was another kin-
dling of the North against slavery.
Fourth. All through the last year the South has been exas-
perating the North, and outraging the moral sense of the
world, by imprisoning, or tarring and feathering, or whipping,
or hanging innocent Northern men and women. Greater will
be such effect from her inviting swarms of sea-pirates to prey
upon our commerce. And still greater should it be from her
G
196
LETTER TO REV. DR. G. C. BECKWITH.
seizing our seamen and selling them into slavery, as she has
recently done.
Fifth. She has broken away from the nation, and thereby
not only repealed the Fugitive Slave Act, but deprived herself
of the strong arm of Federal protection from her insurgent
slaves
Sixth. The South might have left us in peace, had she but
asked us to let her do so. But tyrants can not ask. They take
without asking. More than this, we would soon have ac-
quiesced in her breaking out of the nation, could she but have
restrained herself from wairing upon it. But tyrants can not,
restrain themselves from aggression. It is true that Govern-
ment might have continued to occupy its Southern forts and
collect its Southern revenues—but not for more than a year or
two. The whole North would ere long have said: “If the
South does not want us, we do not want her. If she prefers to
be a nation by herself, let her be it. If she prefers another
government to ours, is there not at least a seeming oppression
and meanness in our depriving her of the means of supporting
it ?" To a patient South the North would have been like to
concede much more than justice called for.
Seventh. The South is using ber black people against us.
She puts spades, axes, and hammers into the hands of some,
and arms, it is said, into the hands of others. Thus strongly
does she invite us to use our black people against her. Unless
the war shall be ended very soon, black regiments will be seen
marching Southward. God forbid that we should arm the
slaves unless it be such of them as come into military organiza-
tions and under intelligent and merciful guidance. Certainly,
so long as they can be made free otherwise, it would be great
wickedness to arm them and leave them to their own ignorant,
wild, and revengeful impulses. I would commend General
Butler for restraining the slaves from falling upon their mas-
ters and mistresses. But I would have him either put them
into his ranks and subject them to military rule, or send them
where they can be barmless as well as free. The South is,
however, provoking servile insurrections, and the provoked
North is on the eve of welcoming them.
Eighth. The North is rich, and the South is poor. She has
a navy and the Sonth has not. The North, beside the black
LETTER TO REV. DR. G. C. BECKWITH.
197
:
}
population of the whole land is in heart with her, has more'.
than twice as many whites as the South. The sympathy of
the world is with the North. This flagrant treason, and
this organizing a nation on the hoasted basis of slavery, have
turned the world against the South. Yet, in spite of all this,
the South makes war upon the North and expects to conquer
her. Great as is the disparity in all these essential respects,
the South insists that it is largely overbalanced by the unparal-
leled courage of herself and the unparalleled cowardice of her
foe.
I need refer to no more proofs that the South is mad, and
that slavery has made her so. Alas, this madness! and, alas,
that the North is so extensively responsible for it! All over
the North have there been found priests, politicians, publishers,
merchants, and manufacturers, willing to serve a selfish pur-
pose, by testifying to the rightfulness of slavery, and by flatter-
ing slaveholders in their blinding and maddening sin.
Let us thank God that any thing, even though it had to be
this insanity of the whole South, has brought slavery to its
dying hour. Never more will the American Peace Society
witness the need of raising armies to put down a treasonable
onslaught upon our Government. For the one cause of so
formidable an onslaught will be gone when slavery is gone.
Besides, when slavery is gone from the whole world, the whole
world will then be freed not only from a source of war, but
from the most cruel and horrid forin of war. For slavery is
war as well as the source of war. Thus has the Peace Society,
as well as the Abolition Society, much to hope for from this
grand uprising of the North. For while the whole North
rejoices in the direct and immediate object of the uprising-
the maintenance of government; and while the Abolitionists
do, in addition to this object, cherish the further one of the
abolition of slavery, the Peace men are happy to know that
the abolition of slavery will be the abolition of one form of
war, the drying up of one source of war, and of one source of
occasions for raising armies.
The explanation of this Southern insanity is as simple as the
fact is obvious. The worst tyranny-such as the habit of abso-
lute control over others can alone generate-prepared the way
for this insanity. Such tyranny is itself but little short of in-
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LETTER TO REV. DR. G. C. BECKWITH.
sanity. In this case the will of the tyrant is his only law; and
when circumstances favor it, the will becomes so insane as to
stop at no obstacle in its way, and submit to no denial of its
gratification. That the slaveholders could succeed in drawing
the masses into the vortex of this insanity is easily explained
in the light of the fact that the Southern masses are as full of
ignorance as the slaveholders are of intelligence, and as ready
to be swayed as the slaveholders are to sway.
I am not unaware that all through my letter I have said the
South, instead of the Seceded States. I have said so purposely.
But for the presence of United States troops, all the Slave
States (Delaware is not one) would secede. A Slave State is
as ready to go into secession as water is to go down hill. The
holding back of even Missouri will require a great foreign
force. A few slaveholders can always, by reason of their con-
centrated, intelligent, and tyrannous power, control a great
community.
Thoughtful and good men are sad in view of the present
condition of our beloved country. But let them rejoice in its
glorious future. The war will be short. It will establish Gov-
ernment beyond all hope of present or future traitors to over-
throw it. It will free the slave; and then the North and South,
freed forever from the only cause of their mutual alienation,
will grow up together into that “more perfect union” for which
the Fathers ordained the Constitution, and into a nation as
much surpassing every other in the work of men as it surpasses
them in the gifts of God; as much surpassing every other in
human development as in providential opportunities for it.
Of all this I feel thoroughly and constantly persuaded, save
only when I read that our troops are sending back fugitive
slaves to their murderous masters, or are threatening to take
part with those murderous masters in servile insurrections.
These things make me tremble with the apprehension that the
North may possibly be left to sanction and sustain such devil-
ism. For if she is, what better will she be than the South? or
what better right will she have to hope for the blessing of
heaven? But in the present contest the North will not go
against the slave. If she has not virtue enough to go for him,
she will, at the least, be driven to his side by her anger toward
his traitorous master.
With great regard, your friend, GERRIT SMITH.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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