THREE DISCOURSES
ON THE
RELIGION OF REASON.
BY
GERRIT SMITH.,
UNCHANGED FROM THEIR ORIGINAL PUBLICATION.
NEW-YORK:
FOR SALE BY ROSS & TOUSEY, 121 NASSAU STREET.
1859.
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
A DISCOURSE BY GERRIT SMITH.
IN PETERBORO, R'OB. 21ST, 1858.
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
old one. 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
unto you, 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 Sunday," 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
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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 together 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 exclusive 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,
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
little children can comprehend it.  "Out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise," says Jesus. "I
thank thee, 0 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 current 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 assemblies 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 themselves, 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 simplicity 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 discourse 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
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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 falln 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
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 o~
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 condition of salvation. Faith in what? In the doctrines on which
our clergymen harp habitually?-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 mistaken 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
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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 apprehensions-adoring, meltingthoughts-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 Chlkt came to teach and illustrate, and no satisfactory 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
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 misapprehened, 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 override 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 religious 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 responsible for the wrong, and we alone must bear the loss. What
was due from us when we had a right reason is equally due
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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! I 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. Moreover, 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 unchangeable 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 harmony, 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
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
interpretations of the Bible. Alas I 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. And this proves
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 declaration of Jesus that God made us "male and female"-only one
woman for one man, and only one man for one woman. Whoever 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 themselves guilty of robbing the landless.  By the way, our Government shrinks from putting down its foot upon polygamy where
it is made a religious institution. But the province of government is to uphold the great natural rights of its subjects;-and
none the less so where the violation of these rights is under the
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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
woman as compared with man is an inferior order of being? who that receives such insane teaching is fit to have a wife or
a daughter?
Lest what I have now said might be construed into the admission that these crimes are countenanced by the Bible, I take
this occasion to affirm that no one of them finds the least shelter in the principles of that blessed book. Neither the superstitious 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 obedience.
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 warrant 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 charaoter 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
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THlE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 "everlasting punishment," I am an undoubting believer in it:-for I
can not doubt that the punishment of the sinner will be as everlasting 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 wellthere 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 attribute 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 mnan 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 have a taste for
speculative discussions. It suffices me to see in Him the infallible teacher of religious truth, the perfect representative and
the fullest and most winning expression of His Father.  I welcome Him as "God manifest in the flesh."  My largest conceptions 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 extension to the acquaintance of man with God. The heavens
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
above and the earth beneath; the instructive course of providence; 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 Ie 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 counsels 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 order 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 satisfied 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
man-is the highest possible proof he can have that they are
satisfied. Paul closes his enumeration of virtues with the declaration: "Against such there is no law." No more can there
be law against him who is adorned with these virtues. Admitting the doctrine of the atonement to be certainly and entirely
true, nevertheless the importance of our understanding and believing it is greatly overrated. But the importance of our believing that Jesus lived, and suffered, and died for man is in no
danger of being overrated:-for, thus believing and understand
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THIIE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 says
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 fill 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 I 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 figurative lamb-the lamb of God-which taketh away the sin of
the world 1" 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 relied 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 command these sacrifices. If however we must yield to this evidence, 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
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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 regarded as in effect an atoning sacrifice because Hle 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 doctrines." 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 villageprobably 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 certainlyvery 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 out 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 publie 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? Ig'norant and unsound as we are held to be in regard to "the doctrines," nevertheless are we not quite as far advanced in humanity and practical Christianity as the places where every hair's
breadth of the most orthodox interpretation of doctrines is contended for?
There'is a wide-spread revival of religion in our country.
Of what religion time alone can surely tell. It is not Christianity, if it shall allow the rich to stand aloof from the poor, and
the people of one complexion to refuse to associate with the
16 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, or to pass under any other religious party name! I
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 perfect; that there is still much in' her to be reformed; and that
she greatly needs the priceless blessing of a revival of true religion.  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 authority 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 awakened 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
17 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
Protestants are with the Catholics in favor of a religion of authority and against the religion of reason.  At this point they
are essentially alike. For what submission is there to the Catholic 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 remains stereotyped and unchangeable. But we thank God for
the abounding evidence that it will ere long give place to another 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 forever; 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 I
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, superstitionbound 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 authority 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 outgrowing 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.
18 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 presented 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 ageto 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 doetrines as unsound, and are nevertheless constrained to acknowledge his pure and loving and beautiful and reverent life, then
instead of condemning him for his unsound doctrines, we are
19
I
I I 
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 Hiis 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 century 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 harpedon 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 defeated, 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.
20
I 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
A DISCOURSE BY GERRIT SMITH.
IN PETERBORO, JAN. 23, 1859.
I0
A YEAR ago I gave you a discourse in favor of the religion
of reason. To-day I give you another. That discourse, wherever 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 conceptions 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 sufficiently 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 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
our incessant and absorbing aim. That it is also our own highest 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 sensualist 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, comprehends and conforms to the divine principles. Thankfully
and joyfully does he fall in with the divine methods and arrangements. 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
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THIE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 character as made it no exaggeration in the Apostle to call him "God
manifest in the flesh." "Looking unto Jesus," unto this brightest and fullest expression of God, is preeminently the means
for increasing in the knowledge, love and likeness of God.
Thus abundant are the means for acquainting ourselves with
God. We 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 likeness 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 preeminent 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 doctrinal systems and questions which sectaries and creed-mongers have coupled with his name! Immeasurably more important 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 duties of life to the sway of his principles.
23
.0 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
The prevalent idea is that Jesus introduced a new religion,
and made essential to salvation faith in his Godship, the atonement, 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 cunning, 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 cabalisln or mysticism found any favor with him. The religion 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 reestablish the dominion of reason.  He found common-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 reason 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 essential 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 sufficient, ay, and the sole salvation.
24 
THlE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 character rather than by their adoption or rejection of creeds, the
church, in the common-sense of the word, will have disappeared, 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 religion 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 essential 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" ill
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 themselves are magic!
Nothing can be more absurd than to make faith in the doctrines 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
25 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
assent. Every man is bound to believe that goodness is goodness, 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 educational 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 atonement 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 doctrines. Hience, 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 doctrines 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 strenuousness 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 perdition, 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
0
26 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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
he must not enter upon a religious life and expect to be good
until he can comprehend the doctrines and philosophy of religion. At many points in them the most learned, wise, and holy
differ widely. The masses, of course, do. Indeed, it is not expected that they should comprehend these things. Their faith
in them, as all honest theologians will readily admit, is not expected 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 importance 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 "increased 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 perfect 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
27
t
6 
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 majority of modern Christians do, is perhaps true; for such interpretatidn would be a very natural outgrowth of Jewish education. 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 impossible. 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 instance. 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 picture-language for words of philosophical precision will be liable
to construe him very absurdly. Let me not be taken as under
28 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 discoursegrowing in likeness to God. In saying that this is to be attained by "looking unto Jesus," I did not mean that superstitious 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 become 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
sorcery which is put in the place of the religion of reason I
How false every view of the new birth, (which I admit whoever is saved m,ust 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 understand 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 proof 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 paleontologist has his Silurian and
Old Red Sandstone periods, his Carboniferous and other formations in which to pursue his study of fossil plants and animals,
so they, who thousands of centuries hence shall write the history 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 thousand years. What name will they give to our times? What
29 
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. Ilow the paleontologists gloat over their discoveries! 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 I or upon an eminent Presbyterian or Methodist, or other sectarian leader!
Hasten, 0 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 merits under Hieaven's blessing
can earn for them I
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 remaining in their Baptist, Episcopal and other sectarian in
closures, to identifying themselves with all the friends of righteousness. In a word, they prefer 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 entreat 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 justice 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 have no taste for this lonely condi
30
it 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
tion. Indeed they will steer as wide as possible of all minorities, 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 candidates 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
elected, 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 usefulness. All this is obvious in the light of a reasonable religion.   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 professing 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 themselves to save, if possible, these precious causes from utter extinction.  They taxed themselves heavily to hire halls  and
presses in which to make their appeals to their old fellow-laborers. But all in vain. The dram-shop and kidnapping were
31 
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 minority. 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 temperance, 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 -mindd, would not have dared to persevere in their impositions 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 unreason Sand unreasonable 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
82 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 override it. Even the Bible was made for man, not man
for the Bible. Even the Bible is the servant, and not the master, 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 indeed 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 making reason the standard? I add that no man can be a Christian
whose reason is inadequate to decide what is Christianity.
Second: Jfaking 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 vhat of this diversity?  Is not such a result of
the workings of free intelligence infinitely preferable to a conformity 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
33 
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, brimful as is the
religious world of efforts to establish a common standard outside 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 surrendering our judgment to the Church and the Bible. We
deeply dishonor Him by it. Unswerving fidelity to our convictions 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.
WVe may adopt the religion of the Bible and the Church, and
yet be atheists. For the adoption may simply prove our enslavement 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
34 
TIHE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 nothing 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 unreasonable. 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 representation 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) represents 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 confident that it gives the true life of Christ?  My answer is, that
such a life could not be fabricated. It must have been substantially what the Bible represents it to be. Such a reality
transcends all the possibilities of fiction. It can not be the coinage of the imagination. It can not be a picture without an original. 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.
35 
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 intelligent 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 exercise of reason-there are abundant materials for such construction. 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 ourselves 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 disappear. That they are still making hell on earth is chiefly because 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
36 
THE  RELIGION OF REASON.
countenance; just as long as men suffer others to decide religious 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 slaveholders; 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 inlfidelity. HIad 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 spurious reiigion, 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 religion.
Our likeness to God! The religion which has this God-honoring 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, tobacco, nor any sensuality. And who, viewing man 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 resembling his God, and which inculcates the duties growing out
3 i' 
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 conquered it. This alone can shut up the dram-shop, and put all
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 doetrines 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 life. 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 appointed 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 pretended or imagined faith in the Bible.
38 
THIE RELIGION OF REASON.
Another complaint is, that we would abolish the ministry.
But we would not.  We would have the Gospel preached tenfold 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 education. 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 edify 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 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 spiritualist-that is, to believe that spirits can communicate with us-is
no proof that a man is or is not a Christan. His cordial reception, 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. Hiow protective, purifying, and every
way happy must be its influence on him who truly believes it!
39 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
How efficient the motive it furnishes to avoid a bad and pursue a good life I
I must not to fail to add, in this connection, that the Spiritualists 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, intemperance, 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 confess 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 preeminent 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 increased faster, or in which there was a more rapid multiplication 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 hypocritical, 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 tenderness 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 metal!  Had
but the religion of Christ and reason-the religion which, in a
40 
THiE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 itwhat an array of practical Christians would have been the
fruit of the revival!  But alas! instead of this priceless blessing, the revival was perverted to the propagation of that worthless 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 I What an insult to our common Father I 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 revived, 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? Hias she less sectarianism? Much
more. ltas she proved herself more true to temperance and
freedom?  Much less.  Hiave 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 tat 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, therefore, excused from its practice? True, he is of late very busy
41 
TIE RELIGION OF REASON.
in dealing damnation among those who dissent from his interpretation of these doctrines. But is the merit of this work so
great as to atone for the neglect at the ballot-box of the bleeding slave and the bleeding cause of temperance? Oh! when
will these doctrinal religionists learn that the promise of heaven
is to him that " worketh 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 condemnation 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 brethren, 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 property 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 corrupted Christianity has been found inadequate.   It will remain
an unsaved world until trial shall be made of the true Christianity-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
42 
THIE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 under the power of this only saving religion? Let us remember
that we can not have it, unless we bring ourselves under its power. 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.
43 
THlE RELIGION
A DISCOURSE BY GERRIT SMITH.
IN PETERBORO, JUIJNE 19TH, 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 spurious is it if they know him not. Hence the question to the solution 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, benignant, loving, beneficent? Or, is He unjust, arbitrary, capricious, 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 himself and of other parts of it, and of his relation to them, he has
abundant proof that God delights in good. The sun, which
OF REASON. 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 iHe is a loving father. So full of
Hlis goodness are they that one of the poets calls them God.
Though not a Pantheist, I nevertheless can forgive the Pantheistic 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 he 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 ordaining 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. Hie would then feel death to be seasonable. Abundantly 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 millions of human beings who otherwise could have no existence;
45 
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 earthly 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, because young, free spirits, been the abode of men who never die,
hoary errors would have successfully conspired against all progress, 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 lucifermatch 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 condition 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 organized 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 goodness. Is it said that great changes in the earth rendered it an
impossible abode for those races of animals which have disappeared? 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 proceed 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
46 
TIE RELIGION OF REASON.
a little defense. It is perhaps, however, only a little explanation 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-worlker 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 department 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 benevolent. The mountain 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 nature 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 barbarous 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 oce. 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
47 
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 gTeat crimes (Slavery included) which have
disgraced and crushed mankind, have been committed either
avowedly in the name of religion, or directly or indirectly under 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 discernment 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, forgiving, 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 its
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 nature, 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 probability, be supposed that He would create His intelligent beings with a moral nature contrary to His own. Were His nature malignant so would be theirs. But we see them to be on
the side of justice and goodness, and so therefore is Ile.
Now, if human nature, wherever its voice can be heard beneath 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
48 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
ture. Moreover, they must be perfect in Him, in order to correspond with the perfect wisdom, skill, and contrivance manifested 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 visible 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. Jesus 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 coupled 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 Father?"
But it is said that nature and the history of man abound in analogies to the Atonement. I can not admit that any such analogies are to be found in either. It is true that ofttimes the guiltless 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. Remember, too, that the human sense of justice revolts at visiting
upon the good man the penalty due to the bad man-arstrong
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 picture finds no counterpart and no warrant in creation and Providence. 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
49 
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 sufficient means He has
provided for making themselves happy. If, in this world, men
persevere in ruining themselves, it is in the face of His perseverance 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 children opportunities in one stage of being as well as in another,
for the improvement of their character; and that He is ever intent, 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 hell! 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 gototheir 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 paralysis, 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 believe his own preaching. Did he see his wife, or children, or
50 
THE RELIGION OF REASON'.
friends, or neighbors, in danger of falling into it, he would be
overpowered by the sight. He saves his sanity only through
his insincerity. 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 unconscious distrust of the truth of this part necessarily begets a similar 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 enlightened one is little better than a mass of infidelity and hypocrisy. The members of the latter, required to believe in
more than their credulity can swallow, do truly and deeply believe 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 profession 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 earnestness. 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 believed that we are such devils as our religions picture us to be I
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 Nature 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 fir, the Bible is false. Whether
51 
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 Nature 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 waters, 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 foolishly 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 uncertain, compared with "the abundance of the revelations" in nature.
But is not the Bible inspired? The spirit of much of it
comes, I admit, from the heavenly fount. Very common earthly 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
52 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 Ilimself. What, however, is the Bible, or rather
a Bible, that we are bound to adopt the whole of it unquestioningly, 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 hearers that it is simply a
selection from ancient writings-a selection, too, made by persons 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, soulshriveling, and soul-enslaving religion of authority, would begin to give place in them to the soul-enlightening, soul-expanding, 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 themselves 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, however this may be, my assumption of the right to force it upon
the conscience of others would be no more arrogant and nonsensical 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
li3 
THE RIELIGION 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, justifies 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 institution. 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 uncertain to what they refer. Moreover, as they are used in connection with his highly figurative and surpassingly hyperbolical
language, we should be apprehensive that to put a literal interpretation 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 overwhelming importance I Nay, what insanity to be thus driving an exclusive 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!"
64 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 for it are inconsistent with the general tenor of the
book.
The Jews were waiting for the Messiah. Hie came. The
mass did not own him; and the few who did were sadly disappointed and utterly confounded by his death. They "thought
it had been he who should have restored Israel." But in process 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 indubitable 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 appealed 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
55 
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 paganism in them, that they attributed to Him a burning wrath
which blood and suffering could alone appease.
No, the Atonement was not the preeminent 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 resurrection. 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 resurrection.
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 between 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, however, they believed that he had risen, and the effect of this belief was to renew their confidence in his kingdom. Confident
were they that he would soon return to "reign in righteousness." 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. 1 6: 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
56 
THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 Father. 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 disappointment 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 "manifest in the flesh." No less is he 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 passed away. But his kingdom has not yet been set up, nor have
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 welcomed 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
discipleseven "the least" of them-and the punishment of
those who, during that brief period, should neglect those disciples-even "the least" of them? It is true that the word is
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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 explanation 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 personification 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 doctrines coupled with His name, while so few are found who are
intent on breathing His spirit and copying His life. Selfcomp]acent logic suffices for the former; but to accomplish the
latter there must be the self-denying and cross-bearing cultivation of character. The bare profession of Christ meets the
whole demand in the one case. But character -even the
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 Christians 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.
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 commnon, 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, he 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 common 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 divine 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 behalf. 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 persuaded 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,
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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 everlasting 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, nevertheless, 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 recognize and honor and harmonize with the several kinds of intelligent beings with which it has to do. While toward God and
men and angels (provided it has to do with angels also) it is atways
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. Nevertheless the love, gratitude, adoration, prayer due to God are expressions 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 apprehended by some, and fully believed by others, that prayer
overlooks and interferes with the general laws of the universe.
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 general 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. I
confess that it is not for man to limit the Divine possibilities,
nor to essay to number and comprehend all the laws of the universe.
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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 has become an unnatural man.  Jesus "continued all night
in prayer to God:" and he was the wisest and best of men, because 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 goodness, 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. Paul says
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 themselves to be by their unhappy bearing on human nature! Conclusive witnesses of this are those deep wrongs done to man ever
and every where; that contemptuous disregard of his rights;
that heartless indifference to the essential wants and urgent demands of his high and sacred nature. What overwhelming tes
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timony against these religions have we in Polygamy, Land-monopoly, War, Slavery, and the annihilation of the rights of Woman!
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 religion harmonizing with human nature, and growing out of ita 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 Stael, justly accords to the Christian philosophy the high honor of seeking to harmonize religion with
human nature, (celle qui cherche l'analogie e la religion avec la nature humain.) I add that we can never learn what is the true religion 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 superiority 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 religion, 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 natare 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 I 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 accounting for their false morality, base spirit, and dwarfed manhood. So long as they believe in this doctrine, they will-be an
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easy prey to the priesthood. For so long they will feel themselves 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 frightful and ruinous war on human nature-dwarfing and shriveling
it with the terrors of their horrid hells, and debasing and befooling it with their superstitious and puerile pictures of heaven. 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,
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its fair proportions be all recovered, and its union with the
Divine nature be reestablished.
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 profitable 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 Hierod to have saved John first, and to have left to
after consideration his promise involving the contrary? Moreover, 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
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
I say a greater-for to be guilty, directly or indirectly, of replunging 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 being 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 promise 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 Constitution 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 wickedness there can be no law.
In this great wickedness of the Legislatures of Massachusetts
and New-York, the people of these States acquiesce. Doubtless they stand ready to reelect 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 Herod. Thus abominable is a
conventional and book-religion. But in what beautiful contrast to it stands the religion of nature!-that reasonable religion 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 memorable attempt in Rome to exalt a horse to the dignity of a
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 persecuted and peeled class of men of that God's testimony for the faithful 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 religion is afforded in the almost universal sympathy with the murderer of Philip Barton Key. The secular press favored his acquittal. 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 his apologists,
he was angry when he did the deed. What I the ruin of his
wife beget in him the superficial and cheap emotion of anger I
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
A base man, indeed, must he then be. A noble man in such
circumstances 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 reliea-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 hypocrisy it is to hold up some of his laws as obligatory and to make
no account of others! Moses, however, did not mean that persons 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 marital and parental rights, as well as all the other rights of his
manhiood.
Ag,ain, 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
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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. HIence, 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 frequent, 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 murderers escape.
But would I not look to the husband to protect the wife from
sedection? No-I would look to herself. I1er 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 government. Emphatically true is this in respect to our own land.
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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 madmen, 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 fortynine 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 harmonize 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 the census tables of all countries 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
one. 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
onlyonly against a plurality of husbands and wives.  I an
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
swer that it is equally applicable to the condemnation.of the
licentiousness which is not practised under the name and shelter of matrimony as to that which is. Government is bound to
punish the one as well as the other, for precisely the same reason 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 returning 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 sorrows 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-ach 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 making 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
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THIE 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 probable 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 downright 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 violates 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 marries again.
Though we are not bound to cohabit with an adulterous person,
nevertheless, not even adultery breaks 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 efforts 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
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tence.  This, however, she clearly would do by marrying another. 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 understood 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 enduring 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 accomplish 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
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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 otf 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 nature, 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 coworker. 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 unsatisfied 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 history and experience, he seems compelled to regard his present
degrees of knowledge, and consequently of usefulness and happiness 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
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
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 spiritualists are not deceived, they have discovered another and a conclusive 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 existence.
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 supported 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 reason, have been construed by many into attacks upon Christianity. Nevertheless, they were intended as an humble means
toward saving it. Love to God and love to man are the essen
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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 Christianity 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 Jesushas no truer friend than reason. Indeed, it is alone by the
force of reason, guided and blest of heaven, that a false Christianity can be beaten back from its usurpations, and the true
reenthroned.
The religion of reason is indispensable, not only for the purpose 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 understanding, 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 endless 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 Christianity: but with very few exceptions, they have all abjured 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 intelli,ence 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 provedto be true, before men will be bound to believe in it. In the
ages of superstition, and in the subsequent ages of speculation,
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through which nations pass, a religion does not need to be
backed with logic in order to gain currency even with the intelligent. But Christendom has now become so philosophical and
practical that nothing except religion can longer pass in it without 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
7',7 
THiE 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
successfiul 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 high 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 responsibility, 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
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
our nature; and therefore not to obey this law is to prove ourselves 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, superstition, 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. It may
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 must 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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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
elect men who honor it as law, and thereby give to it their offi.
cial and sustaining sanction. Hie is in effect a Pro-Slavery man
and not an Abolitionist, who does not hold slavery to be an
outlaw, and does not confine his votes to such candidates as hold
likewise. Nor must we act unreasonably, as do those clergy men who on one ocecasion 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 professing 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 reasonable 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 sufficient 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, purpose, 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.
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LETTER TO MR. GOODELL.
PETERBORO, August, 13, 1859.
REV. Wm. GOODELL,
MY OLD AND DEAR FRIEND: I have read your letter in the
New -York Tribune of 9th inst.; and I beg you to believe that
it is from no want of respect for you that I refrain from attempting a reply to its arguments.  You know that I honor and love
you greatly.
Whether it be owing to the lack of lucidness in my Discourse, or to your being excited and discomposed when reading
it, so it is that you have mistaken its positions, misconceived its
tenor, and drawn a picture of it which bears no resemblance to
the original. This being so, it devolves on me no more than
on any other person, to reply to your arguments. That you
have thus misapprehended and misrepresented the Discourse,
will be obvious even to yourself, when you shall have again
read, and with more care and composure, those portions of it to
which I will now proceed to refer you.
1st. You understand me to ignore the offices of conscience
and faith in religion, and to hold that reason is the only faculty
to be employed in it. But the doctrine of my Discourse is, that
in religion as well as in other things, reason should guide our
faculties. To guide them is surely not all one with excluding
them. I am not to be charged with denying the necessity of
faith, when I affirm that all religious faith which is not based
on reason, is but superstition and delusion. I would say here,
that I am amazed that William Goodell can argue from the confiding look of the infant, or from any thing else, or that he
can in the least degree believe, that faith in God can precede the
exercise of reason. I did not suppose that such a dream could
impose on such an intellect. I feel now more than ever how
urgent is the necessity of preaching the Religion of Reason.
2'd. You understand me to say that the sun, stars, and earth
are the only sources of religious knowledge.  But do I not add
6
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to these man, and providence, and inspiration, and divine influence? Is not the last paragraph of my Discourse a declaration, that even an enlightened reason is vain without divine influence? It is true that one class of evidence is more certain
than another; and that the less certain is to be rejected wherever it comes in conflict with the more certain. But it is also
true, that there is much evidence which, though not reaching
to absolute certainty, is nevertheless legitimate and important.
3d. You believe that I hope for light from the spiritualists.
But my Discourse does not say that I do or do not entertain such
a hope.
4th. I shall be sorry to have your readers believe that I am
uncertain of a future existence. I wonder that you can believe
that, notwithstanding my earnest argument for such an existence, I am still uncertain of it. No, my brother, I have no
doubts of another life. I do not believe that the noble thoughts
which William Goodell has uttered, will live, and he not be
permitted to live along with them; that the ages are to enjoy
them, and he to be shut out from enjoying them; that his own
blessed work is to be carried on, and he never permitted to take
part in it.
5th. I did not say, as you intimate I did, that the orthodox
crieed was opposed to the conviction of the murderer of Key.
Nor do I now say, that, according to this creed, Mr. and Mrs.
Sickles should not be forgiven, if penitent.  But I do say
that the heartless and Christ-denying current religion, which
carries along both orthodox and heterodox, holds out no encouragement to their repentance. What an appeal to the heart
of Christ must be the spectacle of these poor desolate and
despised ones, undertaking, amidst all the ridicule and scorn of
a malignant world and no less malignant church, to re-collect
and build anew, by, penitence and forgiveness, their overwhelmed and scattered family! Such an appeal must it also be
to every heart that is imbued by the spirit and won by the example of Christ.
6th. I infer from your comparison of orthodoxy with the
theological systems opposed to it, that you confound and class
me with Unitarians or Universalists.  But for aught I see, Unitarians and Universalists are no better than the orthodox, and
are no less chargeable with trampling on human rights, and
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
turning their backs on the religion of Christ.  Unitarians and
Universalists are as ready as the orthodox to vote pro-slavery
and rum  tickets.  Some very sound doctrines there may be
in their creeds; nevertheless, what, as a whole, is a man's
religion worth, which is not able to hold him back from
voting for men who  believe that there can be valid, obligatory, sacred, real law for making slaves, and from voting
for men who believe in the right of making drunkards?  For
many, many years have I been calling on the Unitarians and
Universalists, as well as on the orthodox, to throw away these
religions, which murder instead of saving humanity, and which
are a stench instead of an incense in the nostrils of heaven.
For many, many years have I been calling on them to accept,
in exchange for their abominable religions, the simple religion
of reason and justice and Jesus. What the world is perishing
for, is a religion of common sense and common honesty.
7th. You ask me if "the theology of the New Testament is
proved to be corrupting?" What is this theology? It is justice, love, mercy; it is doing unto others as we would have
others do unto us; it is in one word, reason.  If we would redeem theology from the contempt into which it has fallen, we
must make comparatively no account of every thing in its popular signification, which does not stand in essential connection
with morality and goodness. Comparatively no account must
we make of the question, whether Christ and his disciples were
mistaken in regard to any future events. Comparatively no account of the nature and duration of future punishment and
future enjoyment. Act well your part here, and trust your
Heavenly Father for your future, is the theology of the New
Testament. I grant that there are many things in this book of
books which are important and precious helps to our progress
in theology. But it is the confounding of these helps with this
theology; of the scaffolding with the building; of the husk
with the grain; of the circumstantial and speculative with the
absolute and essential, that so stumbles the world, and holds it
in the bondage of superstition, and ignorance, and sin.
No, no, my old friend, I do not believe that the theology of
the New Testament is corrupting. It "is very pure, therefore
thy servant loveth it." It commends itself to my reason. My
nature calls for it.  It grows out of my nature and the Divine
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nature. I love Jesus, too, as well as this theology; I love him
because he taught it in his life, and more impressively in his
death. No man can look steadily, honestly, comprehensively
upon that death, and remain destitute of the blessed experience
that "the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin."  Upon that
death, and upon the life which it crowned, men can not fix
broad and believing looks without growing in likeness to
Christ. Such looks upon his matchless illustration of the virtues must result in their making these virtues their own. And
this is their salvation; the very salvation taught by Jesus in
his use of the legend of the brazen serpent.  It comes not of a
magical nor in anywise mysterious operation; but from studying and copying his death-honored life.
8th. You ask how I "know that miracles and plenary inspiration are violations of general laws."  I do not know it.
My Discourse does not claim that I do. On the contrary, it admits that, however improbable may be a miracle, it is possible,
and this, too, even to the standing still of the sun and moon. As
to plenary inspiration, I have not pronounced it to be either an
impossibility or an improbability. All I insist on at this point
is, that whenever a claim of inspiration, plenary or partial, is
put forth for any man's words or writings, either inside or outside of the Bible, every one shall be allowed to judge for himself of its merits.  It may be an unreasonable claim, even thoucgh
made in behalf of some portion of the Bible-of that book, the
time of the first compilation of which history has not preserved,
nor the character of the compilers, nor even their names. On
the other hand, it may be a reasonable one, even though made
in behalf of words or writings elsewhere than in the Bible.
9th. You tell me that I "have only expressed horror and indignation at the doctrine of eternal punishment;" and you virtually advise me to attempt an argument against it.  Inasmuch
as I did this at so great length in my Discourse, I must apprehend that you have not read the whole of it.
10th. You refer to my position, that even Christ did not
know all the future. But as you make no reply to my extended argument in favor of this position, nor do not so much
as notice it, am  I to conclude that you failed to read this
argument? It would be vanity in me to suppose that you read
it, and found it easier to ignore than answer it.
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THE RELIGION OF REASON.
I proceed no farther with this exposure of your misapprehensions and misrepresentations of my Discourse.  Enough,
and more than enoug,h, has been said, to convince you that it
is not my Discourse that you have reviewed. There are hours
in the life of almost every man when fancy has more power
over him than fact. It was probably in one of these dreamy
hours that my Discourse fell under your eye; and hence we
have your review of what is not, instead of your review of
what is.
But, my dear friend, I know your power and my weakness
too well to exult in my present escape. You may yet lay hold
of the Discourse itself; and when you do, your criticisms will
be nothing to make light of. Moreover, they will be quite
like to be sharp and relentless as well as weighty, your spirit
being still vexed, if not revengeful, under the recollection of
your having hastily substituted for the Discourse the mere
coinage of your imagination.
With great regard,
Your friend,
GERRIT SMITH.
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