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SERMIONS
OF
THEISM, ATHEISM,
AND
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
BY
THEODORE PARKER,
MINISTER OF THEE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN BOSTON.
THIRD EDITION.
BOSTON:
TIC KNOR  AND  FIELDS.
M DCCC LXI.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
THEODORE PARKER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts,
University Press, Cambridge:
Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company.




TO THE
REV. WILLIAM H. WHITE,
AND THE
REV. GEORGE FISKE,
WITH GRATITUDE FOR EARLY INSTRUCTION RECEIVED AT THEIR HANDS,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR
(iii)








PREFACE.
THE present volume forms part of a long series of
Sermons, but has a certain completeness in itself, and
is, perhaps, intelligible without reference to what preceded or followed.  Almost the whole of the volume
is printed from the notes of Mr. Leighton, an accomplished phonographer; only the three latter sermons
were written out by myself. I have often been asked
to repeat this portion of the series, but prefer to lay
it before a larger public than a merely spoken word can
reach.
BOSTON, July 16th, 1853.
A:3)k               (V)








CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION......   ix
OF SPECULATIVE ATHEISM, REGARDED AS A THEORY OF THE
UNIVERSE,..                                     1
II.
OF PRACTICAL ATHEISM, REGARDED AS A PRINCIPLE OF
ETHICS,.33
III.
OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTENDOM, REGARDED AS
A THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE,....  73
IV.
OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTENDOM, REGARDED
AS A PRINCIPLE OF ETHICS..                     111
V.
OF SPECULATIVE THEISM, REGARDED AS A THEORY OF THE
UNIVERSE,.........  149
(vii)




Viii                   CONTENTS.
VI.
OF PRACTICAL  THEISM, REGARDED AS A PRINCIPLE  OF
ETHICS,.. 181
VII.
OF THE FUNCTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE IDEA OF IMMORTAL LIFE,..... 217
VIII.
OF THE UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD,.. 247
IX.
OF THE ECONOMY OF PAIN AND MISERY UNDER THE UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD. PART I.... 277
X.
OF THE ECONOMY OF PAIN AND MISERY UNDER THE UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD. PART II...      319




INTRODUCTION.
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CONDITION OF CHRISTENDOM.
AT Rome, eighteen centuries ago this very year,
Nero was married to a maiden called Octavia. He
was the son of Ahenobarbus and Agrippina; the son
of a father so abandoned and a mother so profligate
that when congratulated by his friends on the birth of
his first child, and that child a son, the father said, what
is born of such a father as I, and such a mother as my
wife, can only be for the ruin of the State. Octavia
was yet worse born. She was the daughter of Claudius and Messalina. Claudius was the Emperor of
Rome, stupid by nature, licentious and drunken by long
habit, and infamous for cruelty in that age never surpassed for its oppressiveness, before or since. Messalina, his third wife, was a monster of wickedness, who
had every vice that can disgrace the human kind, except avarice and hypocrisy: her boundless prodigality
saved her from avarice, and her matchless impudence
kept her clean from hypocrisy. Too incontinent even
(ixs)




X                INTRODUCTION.
Of money to hoard it, she was so careless of the opinions of others that she made no secret of any vice.
Her name is still the catchword for the most loathsome
acts that can be conceived of. She was put to death
for attempting to destroy her husband's life; he was
drunk when he signed the warrant, and when he heard
that his wife had been assassinated at his command he
went to drinking again.
Agrippina, the mother of Nero, and the bitterest enemy of Messalina, took her place in a short time and
became the fourth wife of her uncle Claudius, who succeeded to the last and deceased husband of Agrippina
only as he succeeded to the first Roman king-a
whole commonwealth of predecessors intervening. Octavia, aged eleven, was already espoused to another,
who took his life when his bride's father married the
mother of Nero, well knowing the fate that else awaited
him. Claudius, repudiating his own son, adopted Nero
as his child and imperial heir. In less than two years
Agrippina poisoned her husband, and by a coup d' etat
put Nero on the throne, who, erelong, procured the
murder of his own mother, Seneca the philosopher
helping him in the plot, but also in due time to fall by
the hand of the tyrant.
Eighteen centuries ago this very year, Nero, expecting to be emperor, married Octavia, -he sixteen years
old, yet debauched already by premature licentiousness,
- she but eleven, espoused to another who had already
fallen by his own hand, bringing calculated odium on




INTRODUCTION.               xi
the imperial family; a yet sadder fate awaited the miserable maid thus bartered away in infancy.
This marriage of the Emperor's adopted son with his
only daughter was doubtless thought a great event.
Every body knew of it: among the millions that
swarmed in Rome, probably there was not a female
slave but knew the deed. Historians in their gravity
paused to record it; poets, doubtless, with the customary flattery of that inconstant tribe, wrote odes on the
occasion of this shameless marriage of a dissolute boy
and an unfortunate girl.
The same year, fifty-three after the birth of Christ,
according to the most ancient chronological canon
which has come down to us, there came to Rome an
obscure man Saul by name which he had altered to
Paul; a sail-maker, as it seems, from the little city of
Tarsus in Cilicia.  Nobody took much notice of it.
Nay, the time of his coming is quite uncertain and hard
to ascertain; and it appears that the writer of this most
ancient chronicle, though he lived sixteen or seventeen
hundred years nearer the fact than we do, was mistaken,
and that in the year fifty-three Paul went to Corinth
for the first time and dwelt there; and eight years after,
in the spring of the year, was brought a prisoner to
Rome. These curiosities of chronology show how unimportant Paul's coming was thought at that time.
The marriage of a dissolute boy, with an unfortunate
girl, was set down as a great thing, while the coming




xii              INTRODUCTION.
of Paul was too slight a circumstance to deserve
notice.
He came from a hated nation, — the Jews were
thought the enemies of mankind, - he was a poor plebeian, a mechanic, and lived in an age when military
power and riches had such an influence as never before,
or since. He was apparently an unlettered man, or
had only the rough, narrow culture which a Hebrew
scholar got at Tarsus and Jerusalem. He had little
eloquence; "his bodily presence was weak, and his
speech contemptible." He came to the most populous
city in the world, the richest and the wickedest. Nero
and Agrippina were types of wealthy and patrician
Rome; for that reason it is that I began by telling their
story, and, though aware of the true chronology, have
connected this atrocious wedlock with the coming of
the Apostle.
The city was full of soldiers; men from Parthia and
Britain, who had fought terrible battles, bared their
scars in the Forum and the Palace of the CEesars.
Learned men were there. Political Greece had died;
but Grecian genius long outlived the shock which overturned the state. Of science Greece was full, and her
learned men and men well-born with genius fled to
Rome. The noble minds from that classic land went
there, full of thought, full of eloquence and song, running over with beauty. Rough, mountainous streams
of young talent from Spain and Africa flowed thither,
finding their home in that great oceanic city. The




INTRODUCTION.              xiii
Syrian Orontes had emptied itself into the Tiber.
There were temples of wondrous splendor and richness, priests celebrated for their culture and famed for
their long descent. All these were hostile to the new
form of religion taught by Paul.
But the popular theology was only mythology. It
was separate from science, alienated from the life of
the people. The temple did not represent philosophy,
nor morality, nor piety. The priests of the popular
religion had no belief in the truth of its doctrines, no
faith in the efficacy of its forms. Religion was tradition with the priest; it was police with the magistrate.
The Roman augurs did not dare look each other in the
face on solemn days, lest they should laugh outright
and betray to the people what was the open secret of
the priest.
Everywhere, as a man turned his eye in Rome, there
was riches, everywhere power, everywhere vice. Did I
say everywhere? No; —the shadow of riches is poverty, and there was such poverty as only St. Giles's
Parish in London can now equal. The shadow of
power is slavery; and there was such slavery in Rome
as American New Orleans and Charleston cannot boast.
Did I say there was vice everywhere? No: in the
shadow of vice there always burns the still, calm flame
of piety, justice, philanthropy; that is the light which
goeth not out by day, which is never wholly quenched.
But slavery and poverty and sin were at home in that
city, —such slavery, such poverty, and such sin as
B




xiV              INTRODUCTION.
savage lands know nothing of. If we put together the
crime, the gluttony, the licentiousness of New Orleans,
New York, Paris, London, Vienna, and add the military power of St. Petersburg, we may have an approximate idea of the condition of ancient Rome in the year
fifty-three after Christ. Let none deny the manly virtue, the womanly nobleness, which also found a home
therein; still it was a city going to destruction, and the
causes of its ruin were swiftly at work.
Christianity came to Rome with Paul of Tarsus.
The tidings thereof went before him. Nobody knows
who brought them first. It was a new " superstition,"
not much known as yet. It was the religion of a
"blasphemer" who had got crucified between "two
others, malefactors."  Christianity was then "the latest
form of infidelity."  Paul himself came there a prisoner, but so obscure that nobody knows what year he
came, how long he remained, or what his fate was.
"He lived two years in his own hired house," - that
is the last historic word which comes down to us of
the great apostle. Catholic traditions tell us of missions to various places, and then round it off with martyrdom. The martyrdom only is probable, the missions
obviously fictitious. Probably he was in jail to the end
of his days, when the headsmen ferried that great soul
into heaven; -and very seldom was it, so it seems,
that he took over so weighty a freight as Paul made for
that bark.




INTRODUCTION.               XV
The sail-maker brought the new religion. It was an
idea, and action also; belief in men and life out of
them. It had nothing to recommend it, only itself and
himself. Paul offered no worldly riches, no honor, no
respectability. A man who "joined the church" then,
did not have his name trumpeted in the newspapers;
did not get introduced to reputable society; did not
find his honor and respectability everywhere enhanced
by that fact.
Christianity had these things to offer, - scorn, loathing, contempt, hatred from father and mother, from the
husband of the wife's bosom,- for probably it was the
wife who went first, it is commonly so, - and at last it
offered a cruel death. But it told of a to-morrow after
to-day; of a law higher than the statutes of Nero; of
-one God, the Father of all men; of a kingdom of
Heaven, where all is sunlight and peace and beauty
and triumph. Paul himself had got turned out of the
whole Eastern world, and the founder of this scheme
of religion had just been hanged as a blasphemer.
Christianity was treason to the Hebrew State; to the
Roman Church the latest form of infidelity.
Doubtless there were great errors connected with the
Christian doctrine. One need only read the epistles of
Paul to know that. But there were great truths. The
oneness of God, the brotherhood of men, the soul's immortality, the need of a virtuous, blameless, brave life
on earth, - these were the great truths of Christianity;
and they were set off by a life as great as the truths,




xvi               INTRODUCTION.
a life of brave work and manly self-denial and selfsacrifice.
The early, nay, the earliest Christians had many an
error. How does wheat grow? With manifold straw;
and there are whole cart-loads of straw for a single
sack of wheat corn. The straw is needful; not a grain
of corn could grow without it; by and by, it litters the
horses, and presently rots and fertilizes the ground
whence it came. But the grain lives on; and is seedcorn for future generations, or bread-corn to feed the
living.
Christianity as an idea was far in advance of Judaism and Hebraism. As a life it transcended every
thing which the highest man had dreamed of in days
before. Men tried to put it down, crucified Jesus,
stoned his disciples, put them in jail, scourged them,
slew them with all manner of torture. But the more
they blew the fire, the more swiftly it burned. WVater
the ground with valiant blood, the young blade of
heroism springs up and blossoms red: the maiden
blooms white out of the martyr blood which her mother
had shed on the ground; and there is a great crop of
hairy men full of valor. Christians smiled when they
looked the rack in the face; laughed at martyrdom, and
said to the tormentors, " Do you want necks for your
block?  Here are ours. Betwixt us and Heaven there
is only a red sea, and any axe makes a bridge wide
enough for a soul to go over. Exodus out of Egypt is
entrance to the promised land. Fire is a good chariot
for a Christian Elias."




INTRODUCTION.             xvii
In a few hundred years that sail-maker had swept
Rome of Heathenism: not a temple remained Pagan.
Even the statues got converted to Christianity, and
Minerva became the Virgin Mary; Venus took the vow
and was a Magdalene; Olympian Jove was christened
Simon Peter: everybody sees at Rome a bronze statue
of Jupiter, older than Paul's time, which is now put in
the great cathedral and baptized Simon Peter; and
thousands of Catholics kiss the foot of what was once' Heathen Jove."  The gods of Rome gave way to the
carpenter of Nazareth; he was called God. The Christiaf ideas and great Christian life of Paul of Tarsus
put all Olympus to rout.
Then in thirteen or fourteen hundred years more
there slowly got builded up the most remarkable
scheme of theology that the world ever saw. Hebraism went slowly down; Heathenism went slowly down.
Barbarism, a great storm from the North, beat on the
roof of the Christian house, and it fell not; — No, barbarism ran off from the eaves of the Christian church
to water the garden of Italy, Spain, France, Germany,
England; they were blessed by that river of God which
fell from the eaves.
But Hebraism, Heathenism, Barbarism —as forms
of religion - did not die all at once, they are not yet
wholly dead. No one of them was altogether a mistake. Each of them had some truth, some beauty,
which mankind needed, and there they must stand face
to face with Christianity till it has absorbed all of their
3B *




xviii            INTRODUCTION.
excellence into itself: then they will perish. Individual
freedom was the contribution which German Barbarism brought, and we have got much of that enshrined
in our trial by jury, representative democracy, and a
hundred other forms. Deep faith in God and fidelity to
one's own conscience, —these are the great things
which Moses and Samuel and David and Esaias and
Ezra taught; and accordingly the Old Testament lies
on every pulpit lid in all Christendom to this day, and
will not sink because it has those excellences. Heathenism had science, beauty, law, power of organization;
they also must be added to the Christian civilization
before Heathenism goes to its rest. We have not got
all the good from Heathenism yet; and accordingly the
superior culture of Christendom is based on Greek and
Roman classics: Fathers send their boys to superior
schools that they may learn from the Heathen; that
they may acquire strength of reasoning from Aristotle
and Plato, the bravery of eloquence from Cicero and
Demosthenes, and the beauty of literary art from Homer
and Horace and Sophocles and IEschylus, and that
mighty army of genius whose trumpets stir the world.
From many a clime, for many an age, do "pilgrims
pensive, but unwearied, throng" to Athens and Rome,
to study the remains of ancient art; remnants of temples are brought over the sea to every Christian land, to
bless the Christian heart with Pagan beauty. Patient
mankind never loses a useful truth.




INTRODUCTION.              Xix
It is curious to look and see how little notice was
taken of Christianity coming to Rome. The men of
pleasure knew nothing of the strife betwixt the old and
new in Paul's time; the political economists of that
day, as it seems, foresaw no productive power in Christianity; the politicians took little notice thereof, till Nero
sought to cut off the neck of Christendom at one blow.
A historian -Roman all through, in his hard powerful
nature, but furnished with masterly Greek culture, —
spoke of Christianity as " that detestable superstition,"
which, with other mischiefs, had flowed down into
Rome, the common sink of all abominations. Sour
Juvenal gave the new religion a wipe with his swift
lash, dipping it first in bitter ink. Pliny the younger
wrote a line to the emperor, asking how he should treat
these pestilent fellows, the Christians, who are not afraid
to die. This is all the notice literary Rome took of
Christianity for a century or so. Men knew not the
force which was going to baptize Pagan Rome with
the Christian name. Yet in their time, while the voluptuous were seeking for a new pleasure, while the
Stoics and Epicureans were doubting which was the
chief good, while politicians were busy with troops and
battles, - there came silently into Rome a power which
shook Heathenism down to the dust; and the great
battle betwixt new and old took place, and they knew
it not. So an old story tells that when Rome and
Africa crossed swords in great battle on Italian soil,
they fought with such violence and ardor, that while




xx               INTRODUCTION.
an earthquake came and shook down a neighboring
city they kept fighting on, and knew only their own
convulsion. So in the fray of pain and pleasure, the
great earthquake which threw down the Hebrew and
Pagan Theology " reeled unheededly away."
Now old Rome is buried twenty feet thick with
modern Rome; the civilization of Europe is Christian,
- all but a corner of it where the Crescent eclipses the
Cross. Nay, in London and Boston and New York is
a society of " unsocial Britons divided from all the
world," which spreads abroad the words of Paul and
of Jesus, and in twenty years has translated the gospel
of Christ and the epistles of Paul into one hundred
and forty-seven different tongues, and spread them
amongst men from the Thames to the "fabulous Hydaspes;" yea, from one end of the world to the other.
In countries alike unknown to the science of Strabo
and Plato's dream, the words of these two Hebrews
have found a home: and now two hundred and sixty
millions of men worship the Crucified as God. Not
a great city all Europe through, but has a great church
dedicated to that sail-maker of Tarsus, whose journey to
Rome was so significant and so unchronicled.
What power there must have been in the ideas and
the life of those men, to effect such a conquest in such
a time! It is no wonder that many ordinary men, who
know Christianity by rote and heroism by hearsay, and
who think that to join a fashionable church is "to re



INTRODUCTION.              Xxi
nounce the world,"- it is no wonder that they think
Christianity spread miraculously, that God wrote a
truth and sowed Christianity broadcast and, if men
would not take it without, He harrowed it into them
by miracle. Judging from their consciousness, what is
there that they know which could explain the spread
of Christianity, and the heroism of a man laying his
head, and his wife's and children's heads, on the block
for a conscientious conviction? Doubtless they are
just and true to what is actual in themselves in believing that Christianity spread by miracle; and if a man
has not soul enough to trust that soul, it is easy to
see how he may think that every great truth came by
miracle. An Esquimaux would suppose that a railroad car went miraculously.
Eighteen hundred years, with threescore generations
of men, have passed by since Paul first went to Rome.
What a change since then! It is worth while to look
at the ecclesiastical condition of Christendom at this
day. The Christian Church has very great truths,
which will last for ever. But as a whole it seems to me
that at this day the Christian Church is in a state of
decay. I do not mean to say that Religion decays, —
piety and morality: the sun will fade out of the heavens
before they perish out of man's heart. But the power
of that institution which is called the Christian Church
the power of its priesthood, -that is assuredly in a
state of decay. It has separated itself from new Science,




xxii              INTRODUCTION.
the fresh thought of mankind; from new Morality, the
fresh practical life of mankind; from new Justice; from
new Philanthropy; from new Piety. It looks back for
its inspiration. Its God is a dead God; its Christ is
a crucified Christ; all its saints are dead men: its theology is a dead science, its vaunted miracles only of old
time, not new. Paul asked for these three things, —
liberty, equality, brotherhood.  Does the  Christian
Church ask for any one of the three? It does not
trust Human Nature in its normal action; does not
look to the human Mind for truth, nor the human Conscience for justice, nor the human Heart and Soul for
love and faith. It does not trust the living God, now
revealing himself in the fresh flowers of to-day and the
fresh consciousness of man. It looks back to some
alleged action in the history of mankind, counting the
History of man better than man's Nature. It looks
back to some alleged facts in the history of God, counting those fictitious miracles as greater than the nature
of God; He has done his best, spoken for the last time!
In all this the whole Christian Church agrees, and is
unitary, and there is no discord betwixt Catholic and
Protestant. But they differ in respect to the things to
which they pay supreme and sovereign homage. The
Catholic worships the Church: that is infallible, with
its biblical and extra-biblical tradition, and its inspiration. The Roman Church is the religion of the
Catholic. He must necessarily be intolerant. Two
writers prominent in the Catholic Church of America




INTRODUCTION.              xxiii
within the last few months have declared that the
Catholic Church is just as intolerant as she always
was, and as soon as she gets power there shall be no
more freedom of thought and speech in the new continent; she only waits for a hand to clutch the sword
and put Protestantism to death. This comes unavoidably from her position. She must be sure that
everybody else is wrong.
The Protestants worship the Bible, with its Old Testament and New; that is infallible. The Bible is the
religion of the Protestants, as the Church is the religion
of the Catholics, and the Koran of the Mahometans.
This is the ultimate source of religious doctrine, the
ultimate standard of religious practice. Here the Protestant sects are unitary; even the Universalists and Unitarians agree in this same thing, or profess to do so.
Then the Protestants differ about the doctrines of
that infallible word; and so while one hand of Protestantism is clenched on the Bible, the other is divided
into a great many fingers, each pointing to its own
creed as the infallible interpretation of the infallible
word: the one pencil of white Protestant sunshine,
drawn from the Bible, is broken by the historic prism
into manifold rays of antithetic color.
It is a great mistake for the Christians as a whole to
maintain that they have nothing to learn from the
Hebrews, the HEIeathen, the Buddhists and the Mahometans; —though the Christians are in many respects
superior to these other sects of the world, yet they have




xxiv              INTRODUCTION.
much to teach us. It is a mistake for the Protestant to
say he has nothing to learn from the Catholic: the
Catholic - though far behind the Protestant - has
many things to impart to us. And it is a mistake for
the Unitarian, or Universalist, to declare that he has
nothing to learn from the Trinitarian and Partialist.
As yet no one of these great world sects, Christian,
Heathen, Hebrew, Budhist, Mahometan, has the whole
Human truth; and in Christianity no one sect has the
whole of Christian truth.
But the Christian churches have broken with Science,
and are afraid of new thought. This is somewhat less
true of the Protestant than of the Catholic priesthood.
They have broken also with fresh Morality, and are
afraid of that. And so the Christian Church to-day is
very much in the same condition that Heathenism and
Judaism were at the time when Paul first went to Rome.
Nearly twelve centuries ago the subtle Grecian intellect separated from the practical sense of the western
world, and for more than eight hundred years there
were two Christian churches, the Greek and the Latin.
Three hundred years ago a deadly blow was struck at
the unity of the Latin Church. Since then there have
been three Christian churches, the Greek, the Catholic,
and the Protestant; the two former only conservative,
the latter also progressive, but not progressive in orthodoxy, progressive only by heresy, - for the Church carefully cuts off the top of its own tree as soon as it is
found to have new and independent life therein; it falls




INTRODUCTION.              XXV
to the ground, and grows up a new tree. The Catholic
Church cut off the Protestants; in the Protestant Church
the Trinitarians cut off the Unitarians; and now the
Unitarians seek to cut off those who have newer life than
theirs, newer blossoms.
In the Christian Church there are many churches.
But there is not one that bears the same relation to the
civilization of the world which Paul bore eighteen hundred years ago. He looked forward; they look back.
He asked liberty of thought and speech; they are
afraid of both. There is not a Christian government
which has not some statute forbidding freedom  of
thought and speech. Even on the statute-books of
Massachusetts there slumbers a law prohibiting a man
to speak lightly of any of the doctrines in this blessed
bible; and it is not twenty years since a magistrate of
this State asked the grand-jury of a county to find a
true bill against a learned Doctor of Divinity, who had,
written an article proving there was no prophecy in the
Old Testament which pointed a plain finger to the
person of Jesus of Nazareth.
All over Europe religion is supported by the State,
by the arm of the law. The clergy wish it to be so,
and they say Christianity would fail if it were not.
Hence come the costly national churches of Europe,
wherein the priest sits on the cartridge-box, supported
by bayonets, a drum for his sounding-board, and
preaches in the name of the Prince of Peace, having
cannon balls to enforce his argument. What a conc




XXVi             INTRODUCTION.
trast, between the national churches of Russia, Austria,
Prussia, England, and the first church which Paul
gathered in his prisonhouse, where he preached with
his left hand chained to a soldier's right hand, " his bodily presence weak and his speech contemptible."
But there has been a great and rapid development of
humanity since Paul first came to Italy. What a
change in agriculture, mechanic art, commerce, war, in
education, politics! W'hat new science, new art, new
literature has sprung up! How the world's geography
has changed, from  Eratosthenes to Ritter! But the
interior geography of man has altered yet more. The
ancient poles are now in the modern equator. Compare the governments then and now; the wars of that
period; the condition of the people. The Peasant was
everywhere a slave at that time. Now slavery has fled
to America- she alone of all Christendom fosters in
her bosom that odious snake which has stung and
poisoned so many a departed State. Compare the condition of Woman. The change has been immense.
The compass gave mankind America; gunpowder
made a republic possible; -it could not have been
without that; - the printing-press made education
accessible to everybody. Steam makes it easy for a
nation to secure the material riches which are indispensable to civilization, and yet leave time for culture in
the great mass of men. I-ow have the humanities gone
forward, - freedom, education, temperance, chastity;
concern for the poor, the weak, the abandoned, the




INTRODUCTION.            xxvii
blind, the deaf, the dumb! Once the Christian Church
fostered the actual humanities of the times. There was
not a temperance society in the world; the Church was
the temperance society. There was not a peace society,
the Church waas the peace society: not an education
society; the Church opened her motherly arms to many
a poor man's son who had talent, and gave him culture;
and he walked through the cathedral door into the
college, thence to the great mountain of the world and
climbed as high as he could get. Now as the Church
is in the process of decay we need special missionary
societies, societies for preventing drunkenness and every
vice. The function of the ancient Church has passed
to other hands. She teaches only from memory of
times long past. The national churches apologize for
the national sins and defend them. In Europe the established clergy are seldom friendly to any movement
for the benefit of mankind. In America it is they who
are eminent supporters of every public enormity which
the nation loves, willing to send their mother into
slavery, pressing the Bible into the ranks of American
sin.
The Christian Church early departed from the piety
and morality of Jesus of Nazareth. Taken as a whole
it has made some great errors and is now suffering the
penalty thereof. It has taught that God was finite, and
not infinite; that man's nature was a mistake, a nature
which could not be trusted; it has put fictitious miracles
before real law, and forced the heretic philosopher to




XXVll             INTRODUCTION.
confess that the Church was right, though the earth did
still move; it has taught that religion was chiefly to
save mankind from the wrath of God in the next world,
not to bless us here on earth.
The Christian churches neglect the evils of their
own time. To judge from the publications that have
been sent forth by the American churches in the last
twenty years, —the tracts of the Orthodox, Baptists,
Methodists, Unitarians, —what would a stranger suppose was the great sin of America at this day? He
might read them all through and scarcely conjecture
that there was a drunkard in the land; he would never
think there was any political corruption in the country;
he would suppose we had most of all to fear from
"doubt of theological doctrines;" he would not ever
dream that there were as many slaves in America today as there are church-members. Why is this? Because the churches have concluded that it is the function of religion to save the soul from the wrath of
God; not to put down great sins here on earth, and
make mankind better and men better off. These mistakes are the reason why the Christian Church is in this
process of decay.
It does not appear that Jesus of Nazareth separated
his thought from the new Science of the age, and said
" Do not think; " or that he separated his religion from
the new Morality of the age, and said, "Never reform
a vice, oh! ye children of the Kingdom!  He laid his
axe at the root of the sinful tree and sought to hew it




INTRODUCTION.             xxix
down. With him the problem was to separate religious ideas and life fiom organizations that would not
admit of a new growth; to put his new wine into new
bottles. With Luther there was the same problem.
He endeavored to make new ecclesiastical raiment for
mankind, tired of attempts to mend and wear the old
and ill-fitting clothes of the Church which became only
worse for the botching. In the present time there is
the same problem: to gather from the past, from the
Bible, from the Catholic and Protestant churches, from
Jew and Gentile, Buddhist, Brahman, and Mahometan,
every old truth which they have got embalmed in their
precious treasuries; and then to reach out and upwards
towards God, and get every new truth that we can, and
join all these together into a whole of theological truth
- then to deepen the consciousness of God in our
own soul, and make the Absolute Religion the daily
life of men.
Let the word Philosophy stand for the whole sum of
human knowledge, and be divided into five great departments, or sciences, namely: Mathematics, treating
of quantity and the relations thereof; Physics, including a knowledge of the statical, dynamical, and vital
forces of matter, — mechanics, chemistry, and physiology in its various departments, as it relates to the structure and action of the material world as a whole, or to
any of its several parts, mineral, vegetable, or animal;
C*




XXX               INTRODUCTION.
History, embracing the actions of man in all his internal
complexity of nature and in all his external complications of movement, individual or collective; Psychology, which includes all that belongs to human consciousness, instinctive, reflective, and volitive - intellectual,
moral, affectional, and religious; and Theology,which
treats of God and his relations to matter and man.
The progressive welfare of man demands a free development in all these five departments of activity. All
these sciences are equally the productions of the human
spirit and equally amenable to the mind of man, which
collects, classifies, and studies both facts of observation
and of consciousness.
To make a special application of this doctrine - the
religious welfare of man requires, as its condition, freedom to study the facts of observation and consciousness, and to form such a scheme of Mathematics and
Physics, of History, Psychology, and Theology, as
will correspond to his general spiritual development
and his special religious development. If a man, a nation, or mankind, lacks this freedom and accepts such a
scheme of these sciences as does not fit his spiritual, or
religious condition, then there is a contradiction in his
consciousness; and there is no peace until he has cast
out the discordant element and so established unity.
At the present day in Protestant Christendom, philosophers study the first four disciplines with entire freedom. No mathematician feels bound to stop where
Archimedes, Newton, or La Place, finished his career;




INTRODUCTION.              xxxi
no naturalist checks his steeds at the goal set up by
Von Buch, or Hippocrates; the historians and metaphysicians voyage beyond the Hercules' Pillars of Thucydides and Aristotle, not fearing to sail the seas with
God. It is universally admitted by the students of
truth that all these sciences are progressive, amenable
to perpetual revision; and that in all of them the human mind is the final umpire. The inquirer looks for
the facts, their law, their meaning, and their use. There
is no artificial norm established beforehand to which
the mathematician, naturalist, historian, or metaphysician must make all things agree. There is no Procrustes' bed in any of these four sciences whereon to
torture ideas.
In Catholic countries the case is often different; the
Roman Church hinders the progress of each of these
sciences - even the Mathematics so far as that treats
of the relation of quantities, as the Earth and Sun
for example - by prohibiting freedom of thought and
speech; this Church has established its own artificial
norm, the standard measure of all science.
In Protestant countries, it is commonly thought, or at
least alleged, that Theology is an exception to the general rule which controls the other sciences; that it is
not progressive, not amenable to perpetual revision;
therein the human mind is not the final umpire; that it
is a divine science, the facts not derived from human
observation and consciousness, but miraculously communicated to man. Accordingly, the men who control




Xxxii            INTRODUCTION.
the Popular Theology and occupy most of the pulpits
of these countries, accept an old system of opinions
which does not correspond to the general consciousness
of enlightened men at this day. This obsolete Theology is set up either as religion itself, or else as the indispensable condition of religion. Thus the religious,
the moral, and indeed the general spiritual development
of mankind, is much retarded. Nay the theologians
often claim eminent domain, over the other sciences,
insisting that the naturalist, the historian, and the metaphysician shall conform to their artificial standard and
interpret facts of observation and of consciousness so as
to correspond with their whimsical dreams; so that now
the greatest obstacle which lies in the way of human
progress is the Popular Theology.
In the time of Jesus and Paul the spiritual progress
of mankind was hindered by the theological conclusions and ritual forms of previous generations. What
xwas the result of hard thinking and manifold effort on
the father's part was accepted by the sons as a foregone
conclusion, as a Finality in religion. So the sons inherited their father's thought, but not his thinking, and
made- his religious form the substitute for religious life
on their own part. If we sum up the theologies and
rituals of ante-Christian antiquity in two words, we
may say that at the time of Jesus and Paul Heathenism and Hebraism hindered the spiritual development
of mankind. The wheels of the human chariot, deep
in a rut, had reached the spot where the road ended;




INTRODUCTIONl.          XXX'1
the wheels must be lifted out, and a new highway
made ready, reaching further on. The religious problem of the human race then was to separate the human
spirit from the Mistakes and Errors and Sins of the
past, and furnishing itself with all the good of old
times, to press forward to new triumph. The old bottles were empty, there must be new wine, and that put
in new bottles. The attempt to solve this problem was
the greatest revolution which the world ever saw.
What destruction was there of the old! The flame
of old mythologies, burning to ashes, licked at the stars
of heaven. What construction was there also!  The:" Christian Theology " and the " Christian Church'" are
the most remarkable organization of thoughts and men
which the world has ever seen.
At this day the civilized world is divided into five
great world-sects having each a special Form of lReligion, all of Caucasian origin, coming either from the
Sanscrit or the Hebrew stock, —the Brahmans, the
Buddhists, the Jews, the Mahometans, and the Christians. They are now in a state of territorial equilibrium, neither gains much upon the other by means of
theological conversion. Soon after the death of Buddha,
Jesus, and Mahomet, their respective Forms of Religion
spread with great rapidity. For many centuries there
has been no national conversion. In three hundred
years Christendom probably has not converted as many




xxxiv            INTRODUCTION.
thousand Heathens to its own mode of belief. The
Christians conquer, they do not convert, the barbarians
in either hemisphere.
These five great world-sects embrace perhaps eight
hundred million men; and with them Theology, where
studied at all, is commonly studied in fetters. Just now
the spiritual progress of the world is most promoted
by the Christians. This comes partly from the superiority of their Form of Religion; but partly also from
the youth and superior vigor of the leading nations of
Christendom. But here also the progressive power is
quite unequally distributed. Christendom is broken
into three great sects, namely, the Greek, the Latin,
and the Teutonic churches.
I. The Greek Church finds most of its followers in
the Greek and Sclavonic nations, and thus serves to
unite the oldest and the newest families of Christendom.
The Greeks, the sad remnants of a nation long since
decayed, have now little influence on the religious development of the world. For a thousand years past
the descendants of the Basils and Cyrils, of Chrysostom and Athanasius, of Origen and the Clements, have
done nothing for the religious, or intellectual, advance
of Christendom. Genius flees from nations in their
dotage and decay. At present the Greeks seem to find
no contradiction in their consciousness between the
theological doctrines of their church and the religious




INTRlODUCTION.            XXXV
instincts, or intellectual convictions, of the individual
Christian. They are unproductive, generating no new
religious sentiments, no new theological ideas. Too far
gone to be conservative, they do not even reproduce the
works of the ancient masters of Christian thought or
Christian feeling. Athanasius would be more a stranger
in his own Alexandria than in any city of the west.
Chrysostom is better known at Berlin than Byzantium.
The churches which once boasted that they had "the
chairs of the Apostles " are now indebted to the charity
of London and Boston for the Epistles of Paul and
James, even for common benches to sit on. Even the
manuscripts of the Bible and of the Fathers have followed the Star of Empire which stands still in the west.
Superstition takes the place of genius; and doting
Greece seems as incapable of intellectual and religious
originality as of political freedom. There is an old age
of nations as of men. Most intellectual of nations,
the golden mouths of Homer and Chrysostom were fed
at her bosom; Socrates and Aristotle, Origen and
Athanasius are her children. She has rocked the classic
and Christian civilization in her cradle. Let the world's
benediction fall on that aged head.
The Slavonic population is not yet far enough advanced in civilization to have any influence on the
Theology of Christendom. Some of this stock are
members of the Latin church; the vast majority are of
the Greek communion.  To these sixty, or eighty




Xxxvi             INTRODUCTION.
million men the Czar is an incarnate God. He is their
living Law, their living Gospel too, superior to all constitutions of the state; to all traditions, written, or only
remembered, of the church; to all aspirations and intuitions of the individual man; amenable only to the dagger of the assassin. In theological and military affairs
he commands with equal audacity; and with the same
submissiveness his slaves obey. His will is alike the
standard for the length of the priest's beard, the fusee
of the canon, and the doctrines of the catechism.  iHe
is the universal norm of faith and practice, the great
fugleman of the Sclavonic family, sixty or eighty
millions strong.  Oriental fatalism  preponderates in
the immovable Russian church. There is a mechanical
adherence to the Byzantine forms of worship. The old
ritual is retained, the old symbol respected. But the
nation has not philosophical curiosity enough to study
and comprehend the old, nor historical interest sufficient to republish, or read, the ancient masters of its
own church; still less instinctive religious life enough
to produce new sentiments in the form of mysticism,
new ideas in the shape of dissentient Theology, or new
actions in the guise of fresh, original morality. With
the people, the ceremonies of the church and obedience
to the Czar, pass for religion; with the small class of
educated men the cold negations of the French mind
in the eighteenth century, are taken for philosophy.
The nation is still sunk in semi-barbarism. Here and
there a few great minds, like the rivers of the empire,




INTRODUCTION.           XXXVii
emerge from this swamp and sweep on in grand majestic course. There is probably but little contradiction
between the religious instinct of the people and the
ecclesiastical forms imposed thereon. There is no new,
normal Russian Science - Mathematics, Physics, History, Psychology, - to conflict with the abnormal Theology inherited from Byzantium. The chief characteristics of the Russian church are Czarism and Immobility - it is so steadfast that it never seems to stir. But
let no man mistake- there is no stillness to a young
nation's mind, the root grows underground before the
blade appears. In time of peace Russia controls Europe by her diplomacy, in time of war by her bayonets.
When she cannot win a battle she can buy the result
of victory. Doubtless these expectant conquerors of
Europe, - nay, its present masters, - will one day have
a religious consciousness of their own, with sentiments,
ideas, and actions new and original. When Caesar and
Tacitus wrote of the Germans, who foresaw the Luthers
and Schleiermachers that were to come?  Nay, in the
time of Henry the Eighth, subtle Erasmus knew nothing of the religious America soon to be born of that
English mother.
II. The Latin Church includes a small part of the
Sclavonic tribes in the north of Europe; the Celtic in
Ireland and Scotland; a portion of the Teutonic in
Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries; and
D




Xxxviii          INTRODUCTION.
the Romanic tribes in the south and west of Europe —
the Italo-Romans, the Hispano-Romans, and the GalloRomans- with their descendants in America and other
quarters of the globe. A few other disciples of the
Latin church are scattered up and down the world, but
they may be neglected in a sketch so brief as this.
The Sclavonic, Celtic, and Hispano-Romanic members of the Latin church, at present, exercise no considerable spiritual influence on the world. They affect
Christendom chiefly by their brute numbers and brute
work. The Celtic and Spanish populations are plainly
in a state of decay; they can only look back with pride
to the days when Ireland and Spain were the intellectual gardens of Europe; or forward to the time when
the remnants of those once famous tribes shall mingle
their blood with the fresh life of other families still vigorous with new fire, and so shall add their tribute to
the great stream of humanity now spreading so rapidly
over the western continent and the islands of the sea.
The impotence of the HIispano-Romanic population
has been demonstrated by the experience of the last
three hundred years. Both Europe and America are
witnesses to the sad fact. When Germany invented
the printing-press, Spain set up the inquisition. Dr.
Faustus and Torquemada are types of the two nations.
Spain has not added a thought to the world's consciousness since Ferdinand and Isabella, by the butchery of
their subjects, won from the Pope the title of " Catho



INTRODUCTION.            XXxiX
lic."  In America the Spanish families have spread
only as the simoon in Africa, bringing storm and desolation. The Theology of the Latin church is a curse
in South America and Mexico. Loving the Inquisition
it hates the printer and the schoolmaster: but like the
ruins of Persepolis it retains the great sculpture of
ancient times.
Italy is Catholic in name and form. But the Italians
and the Greeks present us the same spectacle, with a
difference only in the degree of national decay; a Tartar troop has subjugated Greece; Romanic Turks rule
Italy in her decline, the dissolution not so complete as
yet.  Four great Italian navigators made. America
known to the world. But the continent slipped through
the fingers of Italy. Genoa, Florence, Venice own not
an inch of American Soil. The tongue of Columbus
and Cabot is not the language of a town in the new
world. There is no Italian church in the western hemisphere: yet New York has better Italian newspapers
than Rome or Naples, Florence or Venice. Italy has
added little to the world's thought since a Roman Pope
forced Galileo to crouch and deny the movement of the
world; "and yet it moves," leaving Pope and Rome
and Italy behind. Martin Luther fled out of the " Christian Capital," disgusted with the heathenism he saw.
Italy affects the world by her past history, by her ancient art, and her literature of beauty. The prestige of
the proud city has still a charm for Christian and for




xl                INTRODUCTION.
cultured men. The works of Leonardo, Angelo,
Raphael, Domeniehino, Titian, — when will they die?
The laurels of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso lose not
a leaf; what thunder shall scorch the crown on the
brows of Lucretius and Virgil, or blast the beauty of
the Horatian muse? Rome, the widow of two civilizations, sits there on the shore of the Tiber, sad, yet
magnificently beautiful; she bears in her bosom the
relies of heathen and Christian martyrs, but with atheistie feet tramples the ashes of her own victims, martyrs
not less noble. The dust of Arnaldo da Brescia, and
of many a noble soul, yet cries out of the Tiber against
her. Ignoble sons, a populace of priests, at her feet
consume their bread. Austria and France court and
insult her by turns. The Queen-Mother, she has lost
her power.
Yet piety still treads the aisles of the Italian church:
but alas, it is the medieval piety which tolls bells, fasts,
sings antique psalms with a half manly voice, prays,
and gives alms, but dares not think, nor work, nor do
justly and walk manly with its God. Popeism is to
Italy what Czarism is to Russia- only the Italian
more thoughtful hates the hand that rules.
In the educated classes scepticism seems chiefly to
prevail; the negations of the French and English Philosophers of the last century. Able men reproduce the
thoughts of Aristotle and Aquinas. The bold voice of
German philosophy is echoed from the Sorbonne at
Paris, and a feeble note of the echo reaches the domos




INTRODUCTION.                xli
of Italy. Little new philosophy gets spoken there.
Who supposes the educated clergy believe the Theology
they profess, or trust the ritual and sacrament which
they administer? It is plain there is a contradiction in
the consciousness of the Italian church. There seems
a negation of the substance of religion, and an affirmation of only its form. Italy does nothing to advance
the Theological Science of the world, or to diffuse a
fairer form of religion amongst mankind; the Roman
Church, the medieval Nightmare of the Caucasian
race, presses her in her sleep. Shall the Teutonic race
spread over Italy, as the Sclavonic over Greece; the
"Barbarian " possess those crops of ancient art? Who
can say what shall succeed an effete race of men?
In the ecclesiastical condition of France there is the
same wavering to and fro, which has long distinguished
all the action of this Gallo-Romanic people. Since the
Reformation, her course has been fearfully inconsistent;
the Protestant Theology came to France in the form of
Calvinism. The political character of that form  of
religion, so inimical to royalty and all centralization of
power, made it hateful to the monarchic politicians,
even Francis the First regarding it as hostile "to all
monarchy, divine or human;" its severe morality, its
devout earnestness and simplicity, were detestable to
the wealthy nobles. But it was welcomed by the manufacturing and mercantile classes, and gained for a time
such privileges as even Catholicism did not possess.
D *




xlii             INTRODUCTION.
But the Protestant star set in a sea of blood. Now
France is more ultramontane in its character than ever
since the days of Chancellor Gerson. In all things the
nation fluctuates: now with loud acclaim the public
declare the unalienable Rights of Man and seek to
build thereon a Human State; then, with acclamations
yet louder, they welcome a despotism. One day they
deify a courtezan as Goddess of Reason, then turn and
worship the Pope, and enthrone Louis Napoleon as
Emperor.
At this day France seems to reproduce the phenomena of the Lower Empire. Paris is a modern Byzantium -the period of decadence appears to have
begun.  But there is intellectual activity, profound,
various, and versatile; no nation had ever such talent
for clearness of sight, accuracy of discrimination, and
attractive nicety of statement. Not bewildered as the
Germans by the refinement of subtlety, the French
mind sees and reports the real distinctions however nice.
But no nation has a more divided consciousness.
Catholicism is the religion of the State; with the
wealthy and educated classes of men it seems to be
only a state-religion, a mere spectacle, as remote from
their convictions as the heathenism of Rome from the
mind of Cicero and Caesar. The priests forget the
lessons of Bossuet and are Roman rather than Gallic,
so medieval in their tendencies. But the philosophers
— the historians, naturalists, metaphysicians, economists,
- what is their religion? The two extremes of specu



INTRODUCTION.              xliii
lation are united in the consciousness of the nation,
which accepts alike Helvetius and Thomas' Kempis.
France does nothing to remove the contradiction from
the mind of Christendom; nay, she increases the trouble
by developing each extreme. The " Eclectic Philosophy" of modern France does not appear as yet in the
Theology of this most elastic nation.
Yet at this time France has a great influence on the
mind of Christendom. The powerful Catholic party
reprints the old masters of thought, expounds the history of times gone by, not forgetful that scholasticismwhich sought to reconcile the history of the Church
with the nature of man- was borne in her bosom.
Catholic France has more intellectual life than all the
other Romanic races, and does great service to mankind. Abelard and Descartes were her children. But
alas, her theological function is only conservative, not
creative, not even critical. The clean and the unclean
are equally taken into her ark, and equally honored
while there.
The philosophical party influence the world by their
science, history, and letters; the rich wine of Germany
is here clarified, decanted, and made ready for popular
use. But enlightened France does not study Theology.
Few important works in that science have got printed
there since the " Great Encyclopedia'" made its appearance and smote theology to the ground. The- Bible is
printed in France as in England; it is studied in Germany. The philosophers do little to mediate between




xliv             INTRODUCTION.
Scepticism — which stops with d'Holbach, or Voltaire
- and Superstition which seeks to believe what is impossible and because it is impossible. It is a strange
phenomenon that there should be a "new advent of
the Virgin Mary" in France at the same time M.
Comte publishes his " System of Positive Philosophy,"
making " a new Supreme Being" out of the mass of
men, all of them deemed merely mortal! The old defences of the Popular Theology are republished; but of
what avail are they to men who have read Bayle and
the Encyclopedie? At one extreme of society, the
Jesuits revive the theology of Thomas Aquinas; at the
other extreme there is the foremost Science of the age.
Religion never fails from the heart of a nation- but
when the Theology which is taught in the name of
religion, and as the indispensable condition thereof, is
at variance with the convictions of every enlightened
man; when it is not believed by the priests who teach
it more than by the philosophers who will not smile at
it, —why, the religious development of the nation is
attended with the greatest difficulties.
The Latin church has disciples in the Teutonic
family - among Scandinavians, Germans, and AngloSaxons. But they are chiefly found in those countries
where the government is most despotic, or where the
intellectual activity of the people, even of the learned,
is the feeblest. The cruel persecution of the Irish Catholics, so long and so systematically carried on by the




INTRODUCTION.              xlv
British government, converted men and women of
Protestant families to the faith of the patient and heroic
sufferers. Of late years some of the most pious and
most learned men of England - so it seems to one at
this distance —have gone back to the bosom of the
Latin Church. Doubtless there is much in that church
which the English Establishment has unwisely left behind. The relapse of English Churchmen to Catholicism shows at least that there is some life and a real
desire for piety and religious tranquillity in that least
Protestant of the new churches. Within twenty years
past the Catholic Theology has had considerable influence on the English mind.
The Scandinavian, Dutch, and Belgic Catholics have
little appreciable influence on the mind of Europe at
this day. The intellectual activity of these nations
does not appear in a Catholic form. Perhaps it would
not be possible to mention a Catholic book published
in these countries during the present century, which has
had any appreciable influence on the thought or feeling
of Europe. Yet in Belgium there is considerable religious life; at this distance it appears the most religiously Catholic country of Europe.
Amongst other Catholics of the Teutonic family there
is more intellectual activity. Valuable books relating
to Catholic Theology are published in the German
tongue. Hebrew and Christian antiquity is carefully
studied; much thought goes to the exposition of the
Scriptures, to the study of ecclesiastical history. An




xlvi             INTRODUCTION.
attempt is made by able and learned men to reconcile
the Catholic Theology of the middle ages with the most
advanced speculations of Kant and Hegel. Among the
German Catholics of the present century there are the
honorable names of Jahn, Hug, Wessenberg, M6hler,
Movers, Staudenmaier, and others of perhaps equal
merit, who would be an honor to any nation. Books
full of religious life also come up from the fresh consciousness of men, - both mystical and practical. The
Latin Church seems to have more intellectual and
religious life in the country of Martin Luther than elsewhere in the world. But still the new thought, the
new feeling which controls the Teutonic population is
far from Catholic. The new religious life -mystical
or practical —is not Roman. The German Catholic
movement of Ronge only weakens the Latin Church.
Of the six eminent Catholics just named, half are
obviously heretical; two of them have been put in the
Index. Intellectual activity is the deadliest foe of the
Roman church and its mediaeval divinity. Any attempt
to reconcile her Theology with the Science of the nineteenth century must needs end, as the Scholasticism of
the Middle Ages, in the conviction that the two are
natural opposites.
It is idle to suppose the Latin Church can accept any
thing new and good from the science of these times.
Her only strength is to stand still; if she moves she
must perish: "infallible," Immobility and Intolerance
are the indispensable conditions of her existence. The




INTRODUCTION.             xlvii
Protestants may learn from the Catholics as the Christians from the Jews and the Heathens; but it is not possible for the Catholics to learn from the Protestantsmore than for the Heathen, or the Hebrew, to take any
new truth from the Christians.
Celtic and other disciples of the Latin Church appear
in the portion of America settled by the Teutonic population. They have influence only by their numbers
and gregarious action. The laity are subordinate to
the clergy, who are the lowest, the most ignorant, filthy,
and oppressive ministers on the continent, and as elsewhere, studiously keep the people in darkness and the
most slavish subjection. The Latin Church has lost
none of her intolerance and despotism by removing to
America; learning nothing and forgetting nothing, she
still claims the right to cut off the head of heresy with
the sword. She only wants the power. The toothless
old lion of the medicval wilderness, his claws pared
off, roams abroad in the new world; he journeys in
"clippers," in steamboats, in railway cars; looks at the
ballot-box, the free school, the newspaper, and the Bible,
hating them all. Now and then he roars after the
old fashion; but no Inquisition echoes his voice. He
has no teeth, no claws; is not a dangerous beast. He
loved European Slavery; he loves also American Slavery; and equally hates a negro and a scholar.
A great tide of immigration sets continually to America. It is chiefly Catholics who come, many pious and
holy men among them with whom their Theology is




xlviii            INTRODUCTION.
the result of conviction, at least of satisfied experience;
many are ignorant, low, and unfortunate men, who are
Catholics from position, they cannot yet go alone in
religion, and wish a priest with assumed authority to
guide, or push, or drive them. Fear of the priest and
of hell is the hangman's knot to hold them in order.
But many are Catholics in Europe from indifference or
from fear. In America they cease to be Catholics. If
the immigrants from Catholic countries in the present
century, with their descendants, amount to four millions- a moderate estimate -then it appears that out
of thirteen persons who were reputed Catholics in Europe, or are actually born of such, not four remain in
the communion of the Catholic Church of America.
In the Latin Church as a whole, little is done to
reconcile the actual consciousness of men -with the
traditional Theology. Scotus Erigena taught that "all
authority which is not confirmed by right reason seems
to be weak;" "accordingly we must resort to reason
first and authority afterwards." The Scholastic movement may be dated from these words, whereon Erigena
stood wellnigh alone in his time. Now the aim of
the Latin Church, — nay, it always has been, —is to
subordinate Man to the Church, reason to the tradition
of the past, or the caprice of the present: accordingly
she does not allow her disciples to study any one of the
sciences in the normal manner, with perfectly free individuality of spirit. Hence she aims to control the in



INTRODUCTION.              xlix
tellectual convictions of mankind, making her medieval
catechism the norm of all science. To this end she
endeavors to keep the mass of her people uneducated,
for " ignorance is the mother of devotion" such as she
requires; so she hates the free school and the free pulpit
and the free press. She hampers the learned class of
men and prohibits them from publishing their individual
opinions; and hinders them from reading the books
which contain the new sentiments and ideas of the
times. The bosom of this church feeds the most odious
tyrannies of the age. Her clergy - with honorable
exceptions —are the allies, the advisers, and the tools
of the tormentor; and deserve the scorn and loathing
of the people whom they deceive, beguile, and oppress.
The name of Jesuit in all countries has won a reputation which no class of men ever had before. In
America, the managers of the Catholic pulpits, with
their subordinates, favor the most iniquitous measures
of Spanish cruelty, or of our own Anglo-Saxon hardheartedness. It is sad to see the well-meaning, but
ignorant, disciples of this church in America exploitered
by a twofold jesuitry - Romish priests unfeignedly
despotic, and American politicians pretending to democracy. But I doubt not there are in the United States
individual priests of sound learning, of true and beautiful philanthropy, of natural piety. Some have been
born here, others have found in republican and protestant America the asylum which the old world could
not offer. In Europe there are many such scattered
E




1                 INTRODUCTION.
abroad in the humble offices of the Church. Nay,
sometimes they find their way to a lofty place. Such
men in a Church which suits their consciousness break
the bread of humanity from house to house. Long
after Christianity became one of the religions of the
world there were truly religious men and women who
found rest for their souls in Hebraism or Heathenism,
in the faith of their fathers.
The last great sect may be called the Teutonic
Church, distinguished by its Protest against some of
the doctrines of both its predecessors. Catholicism is
the religion of the Romanic families of Christendom;
Protestantism of the Teutonic families. The love of
free individuality, which has always distinguished this
great family of men, began its opposition to the Latin
Church more than six hundred years ago. From Dutch
Peter of Bruis, in the twelfth century, to Swabian Dr.
Strauss in the nineteenth, the most powerful religious
opponents of the ancestral Theology of Christendom
have been of the Teutonic stock. Even the French
anti-Catholicism of the last century was of English
origin and went over the channel to make its fortune.
Protestants there are of other families scattered about
in all corners of Christendom. But those of the Sclavonic and Ugrian families in the East of Europe, of
the various Romanic tribes in the South and West,
have now little influence on the mind of Christendom,




INTRODUCTION.              li
and may be neglected in this brief sketch. But the services of those tribes, in the cause of religious freedom,
should not be forgot. The world ought to remember
that, spite of ethnological diversities, human nature is
still the same, loving the true, the beautiful, the just,
the holy, and the good; that Jesus and Paul were
Jews; that Origen was an Alexandrian Greek; that
Pelagius was a Celt; that Spain bore Servetus in her
bosom; that France was the mother of John Calvin;
that Italy gave birth to Occhino, the Socini, and many
of their kin; that John Huss and Jerome of Prague,
though lighting their lamps at a Teutonic spark, were
yet of another family; that Sclavonians in Poland, and
Mongol Ugrians in Transylvania afforded sympathy
and shelter to men who fled thither, centuries ago, with
the Ark of the Covenant of religious freedom in their
hands. Still the territorial home of religious freedom in
modern times, and the eminent love of free individuality
in religion belong distinctively to the various tribes of
the Teutonic family. They may be divided as before
into Scandinavians, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons.
The religious sentiments and theological doctrines of
tho Scandinavians have little influence on the spiritual
development of the other nations of Christendom at
present; and so in this sketch they may be passed by,
not without gratitude for the obstinate heroism which
went from the North with Gustavus Adolphus and
secured existence to Protestantism in the centre of Eu



uii              INTRODUCTION.
rope when Jesuitism and royalty clutched at its life.
The Germans and Anglo-Saxons require further and
extended notice: for one of them is the most speculative and scientific, and the other is the most practical
people that can be found anywhere in the history of
mankind; and both have a deep and wide influence on
the affairs of Christendom at this day.
In Germany the natural religiousness of the people
has been much hindered by the political circumstances
of the several States. The frequent wars that since the
days of John Huss have disturbed the land, which is the
battle field in the long contest between ancient bondage
and modern freedom; the oppressive character of the
local governments; the ecclesiastical routine, established by the State and enforced with the bayonet; the
restrictions of industry in many forms - all tend to hinder the development of religion in the people, and still
more in the most enlightened classes of the nation.
But serious and most profound and most varied attempts have been made by this people to reconcile human consciousness with the traditional Theology of the
Christian Church. In some Universities Theology is
studied with the same freedom as the other sciences.
Germany is the only country of Christendom where this
Queen-mother of Science is treated with such respect.
Paul and Jesus are regarded as men, not as babies.
The mind of the Germans has some qualities well fitted to solve the theological problems of the age. In



INTRODUCTION.              liii
tuitive to a great degree, as their originality in many
departments abundantly proves; deeply religious by
nature as the ante-Christian modes of worship made
plain to Roman Tacitus, and as the mysticism of the
nation has shown ever since the days of Saint Bonifacius; creative and imaginative as no other nation has
ever been, - a fact proven by the wide spread and characteristic national music, by the rich and various literature of the educated, and still more by the legends and
songs, the wild flowers of imagination, which have
sprung up from the bosom of the people, as the Forgetme-not, the Violet, the Daisy, and manifold Heaths from
their meadows and mountains, for the creative imagination seems as universal in the people as the plastic
forms of vegetation in Nature; laborious and patient,
so that their scholars are the most numerous and
learned that the human race ever bore; cosmopolitan
and universal to a degree not deemed possible to the
ancient Greeks, counting nothing unclean because it is
common, nothing inaccessible because lofty and hard to
come by, and nought barbarian however foreign; subtle in discrimination; nice in analysis of facts of observation and still more of facts of consciousness; of great
power to generalize, often running to excess; with a
natural or acquired tendency to the world of thoughts
and feeling rather than to the details of commerce and
art; with a language so pliant that it takes any form
which the human mind needs for its most various purposes of intellectual advancement, inferior only to the
E*




liv              INTRODUCTION.
ancient Greek, -it seems that the Germans are singularly fitted to solve the theological problems of the
world. All the new theological thought of Christendom
for the last three hundred years has come from some
tribe of this great Teutonic family. The Roman State
was broken by Saxon Herman; the Roman Church by
Saxon Luther on the same "red earth" of Germally.
In vain Rome cried "Give me back Varus and his
legions; " in vain " Give me back my infallible Pope
and his Indulgences.'  Germany broke with Rome.
The nation which invented Gunpowder and the Printing-Press demanded free individuality of spirit in matters of religion.
Since Luther's time, and long before it, the German
mind has studied Theology devoutly and manfully.
The interference of government has indeed checked
both religious feeling and theological speculation; it
has prevented neither. Free thought, however, has not
found any general expression in the pulpit, but in the
colleges; it speaks by the iron lips of the press, not the
living tongue of the preacher; it is addressed to the
learned, not the people. So while the Shepherd has
revelled in intellectual plenty with all the corn of
whole Egypts at his command, the flock has grazed
in scanty parish-commons, waterless and brown, or
browsed on Theology, on dry and leafless catechisms.
The learned philosopher must preach what the unlearned kings command; he may think, and print for
the army of scholars, what heresy he will. The result




INTRODUCTION.               Iv
has been a sad one for the shepherd and the flock, the
philosopher and the kings.
The great army of theological scholars in Germany
may be divided into two grand divisions, namely: the
Biblicists who make the Scriptures the norm and standard measure of Religion, Theology and all which pertains thereto; and the Philosophers, who make the human Spirit the standard measure in Theology as in all
science, in religious, as in msthetic, ethical, or affectional
affairs.
Each of these parties, the Biblicists and the Philosophers, may be again divided into two brigades: namely,
the Supernaturalists who believe in miracles, and the
Naturalists who reject miracles; and each brigade into
its Right Wing and its Left VWing; each of these into
an Extreme Right and Extreme Left. So in this theological host there are the Biblicists and Philosophers,
made up of biblical Naturalists and biblical Supernaturalists, and of philosophical Naturalists and philosophical Supernaturalists; with their Extreme Right
and Extreme Left. In the line of Christians, for mastery of the world battling face to face against the great
antagonistic sects — Brahmans and Buddhists, Jews,
Mahometans, and Heathens,-the Biblicists stand next
to the Catholics, the Extreme Right of the Biblical
Supernaturalists touching the Left Wing of the Latin
Church.  The Philosophical Naturalists are at the
opposite end of this German army, their Extreme Left
bordering, not distinguishably, upon Atheists and others of like sort.




lvi               INTRODUCTION.
All phases of Christian speculation and Christian
feeling are reproduced, examined, and judged by this
army of students. The air rings with the thunder of
the captains and the shouting. The ground is cumbered with the missiles - historical, exegetical, philological, philosophical, mystical-which are cast at the
other sects, at the Catholics, and still more at each
other. But to drop the military metaphor- a serious
attempt is making in Germany to study Theology as a
Science, with freedom and impartiality. Mistakes and
Errors must needs be made. Many Sins also will be
and are, doubtless, committed, but much truth comes to
light. Some writers affirm the absolute truth of every
word in the Bible; others deny the immortality of the
soul and the existence of God, and demand the " Rehabilitation of the Flesh in its aboriginal supremacy
over the spirit of man."
Not to dwell on the monstrous tyranny now exercised
by the government in some parts of Germany, to one
at this distance there appear three difficulties in the
way of the German Protestant churches; namely, the
great mass of the people are not even spectators to the
controversy, for the difference of culture between the
scholar and the practical man is so great that the two
are incomprehensible to each other. Then the scholars,
in consequence partly of their seclusion from the people
and of their unpractical character, use such vague
terms that it is often difficult to apprehend their meaning; subtler than Athenian and Alexandrian Greeks,




INTRODUCTION.             lvii
nice as the quibbling schoolmen of the Middle Ages,
they seem often entangled in their own intricate phraseology. Again, they are intellectual and speculative
more than ethical and practical.
But spite of these faults Christendom owes a great
obligation to the German Scholars of the last seventy
years, not to mention the noble men who preceded
them, for the services they have rendered mankind by
exploring the depths of human consciousness and expounding the past history of the race. The immoral
and atheistical philosophers are but exceptions to the
general rule. In the breaking up of old dogmas there
is always much abnormal action; a revolution is a
turning over and over.
The Anglo-Saxons are a burly-minded race of men;
more ethical than imaginative, artistic, or philosophical, they are the most practical people at this day in all
Christendom. With consummate skill to organize
things into machines, and men into industrial States,
they have now the same controlling force in the practical affairs of the Teutonic nations, - yes, of Christendom, - which the Germans have in the world of pure
thinking. The Anglo-Saxon loves things; the German
thoughts. The one symbolizes his individuality by a
visible hedge about his field, distinguishing it from his
neighbor's property; the other by some peculiar Idea
of his own; one conquers new lands, accumulates
material riches, and founds States; the other conquers
ideas, accumulates vast intellectual treasures and




lviii            INTRODUCTION.
founds Systems of Philosophy and Theology. The
Anglo-Saxon is singularly direct, simple, and devoid of
subtlety; his mind, his language, and his government,
are distinguished for plainness and simplicity -for absence of complication. He seizes things by their great
relations, and seldom understands the nicer complications which are so attractive to the Germans. This
simplicity appears also in the metaphysical systems of
the Anglo-Saxons, and in their Theology. There are
numerous sects in their churches; but they depend on
obvious and palpable differences, not on nice and abstruse distinctions. The sects differ in the form of
church-government - by Bishops, by Elders, or the
People; in the form of the ritual —baptizing in babyhood, or in manhood, from a porringer or a pond; in
the arithmetic of deity - considering the Godhead as
one person, or as more than one; in the damnation, or
salvation of mankind. These and similar differences,
easily comprehended by any one who can count his
fingers, are the matters on which the Anglo-Saxons
divide into sects. The subtle questions which vexed
the Greeks in the Patristic age, the Italians and Celts
in the Scholastic age, or the modern Germans in the
Critical age, seldom disturb the sturdy and straightforward intellect of the English and Americans, intent
on the ultimatum of practice, not the process of speculation.
This great tribe of the Teutonic family - distributed
into English and Americans — is just now in a quite




INTRODUCTION.               lix
interesting period of spiritual development. It has
accepted the traditional Theology of the Christian
Church with various superficial modifications; has
taken pains not to improve this Theology, deeming
it not susceptible of improvement, not amenable to the
mind of man. And it has now come to such a pass
that there is a plain and painful contradiction between
the Popular Theology and the consciousness of enlightened men.
In England the majority of the people are doubtless
open dissenters from the Established Church. It is not
easy to estimate the amount of secret dissent in that
Church itself, or of private disgust at the Popular
Theology in the ranks of professing dissenters. But
to judge from  the scientific, the historical, and the
aesthetic literature of England for the past twenty
years, and from the avidity with which profound treatises that show the insufficiency of this Theology have
been received, it is plain that the mind of that country
no longer accepts the Theology of the churches. The
negations of both the biblical and philosophical Naturalists of Germany, have had a rather silent, but
apparently a profound influence on the theological
opinions of the nation. Eminent talent seldom appears in her churches - established, or dissenting.
They are not the centres of religious life. Valuable
institutions, as a whole, to keep the average men from
falling back; valuable to urge some of the hindmost
men forward, they yet do not lead the nation in philan



ix                INTRODUCTION.
thropic and religious feeling, in theological thought, or
in moral action; and accordingly fail of the threefold
function of a Church.
In America no form of religion is established by law;
all the world-sects, as well as all the Christian sects, are
theoretically free and equal, subject to the same economical and ethical supervision of the civil power. This
circumstance has been eminently advantageous to the
spiritual growth of the people. No clergyman can appeal to the bayonet to enforce his feeble argument,
or to bring hearers to his meeting-house.  A  few
laws depriving men of certain civil rights if they lack
the legal minimum of religious belief, or punishing
them for the utterance of antichristian opinions, still
live on the statute-book, but they are eminently exceptional in this country, and fast becoming obsolete. All
is left to the voluntary activity of the people. The immediate practical consequence has been a multiplication of churches, of preachers, and of hearers. No
Christian country of large extent is so well furnished
with meeting-houses and with clergymen; in no country is so large a proportion of the population found in
the churches on Sunday; nowhere is the Bible, with
religious books and periodicals, so common, and universally diffused. Theological Seminaries are erected
by each denomination, and the means provided for educating, up to the level of the nation, such talent as
moves towards the pulpit. Each denomination takes
great pains with the ecclesiastical training of the chil



INTRODUCTION.               lxi
dren. Competition has the same effect in the churches
as the market.
The Americans have applied the first principles of
the Cartesian method in philosophy to every thing
except what concerns Theology and Religion. There
they have mainly consented to walk by the old traditions. But the difference between the old and the new,
between the intellectual principles of the accomplished
and philosophic lyceum-lecturer, and those of the theological preacher holding forth on the same theme, from
the same desk, to the same audience, springs in the eyes
of all. The contradiction between Theology and the
other Sciences is seen and understood by a large class
of intelligent men; it is felt, but not understood, by a
much larger class, men of genuine piety who reproach
themselves because they doubt the miracles of the Bible
and fail to relish the eternal damnation of men, or because they take so little interest in the dull routine of
what in the churches is called religion. With the wide
spread of a very superficial intellectual culture, and
with the immense intellectual activity brought out by
the political institutions and the industrial movements
of the country, a great amount of doubt on theological
matters has also been developed. Sometimes it is public, oftener it is secret. But it is plain that the contradiction between the Theology of the churches and the
Science, the Literature, the Philanthropy, and the Piety
of the age, is very widely felt and pretty widely understood.




[xii             INTRODUCTION.
Clergymen endeavor to solve this contradiction in
two ways. Men of one party attempt to put man
down and bring him back to the old Theology. They
deride new Piety; they rail at new Philanthropy; they
decry Science; and at each new-comer in Theology
who puts his yeasty wine into the old bottles of the
Church, or, still worse, into others of a newer make and
pattern, they call out " Infidel! Atheist! Away with
him!" But they have no physical force at their command as in continental Europe. It is almost three
hundred years since Calvin burnt Unitarian Servetus
alive at the stake, where now a Unitarian college
teaches the obnoxious opinion.  Quakers and Baptists are never disturbed in Boston which once shed
the blood of the founders of these earnest and important sects.
The other party, scanty in numbers, endeavors to
bring Theology up to the level of the science of the
times, and to engage the churches in new piety and
new philanthropy.
The retrogressive and the progressive party are both
needed; and have valuable functions to perform.
There is always danger that some good things should
be left behind; and not only feeble and timid persons,
but warworn veterans also, are therefore properly put in
the rear of the human army marching to the promised
land; else baggage might be abandoned, and even
stragglers lost. The Christians left good things behind
in the Hebrew and Heathen cities they marched out of,




INTRODUCTION.             lxiii
or passed through; they must send back and bring
away all those things. The Protestants rejected much
that was excellent, perhaps indispensable to the welfare
of mankind; so pious men and women must go over to
the Latin Church and reclaim it.
How is the Anglo-Saxon Church, with its many denominations, performing its theological and religious
function? Certainly not very well. As a whole it rebukes no great popular Sins; it corrects no great popular Mistakes and Errors. The Churches of England
and America do not rebuke the actual evils of these
two nations; they preach mainly against small vices
which the controlling classes of the people have little
temptation to commit. In England and America, the
strong often exploiter the weak, consciously, or ignorantly. The Anglo-Saxon,- whether Briton or American, - has a most inordinate lust for land: he wishes
to annex the universe to his estate. How has England
pillaged India; how has America plundered Mexico,
and now goes "'fillibustering" towards Cuba! The
commercial policy of Christian England is quite as
selfish, and almost as cruel, as the military policy of
Heathen Rome- abroad it aims to impoverish other
countries, ruin their manufactures, and cripple their
commerce, in order to heap up enormous riches in
England; at home it aims to concentrate great wealth,
and its consequent power, in the hands of a few strong
men who shall exploiter the mass of the people. The
policy of America is to keep one seventh part of the




lXiv              INTRODUCTION.
population in such slavery as exists nowhere else in
Christendom; nay, more, the Christian "Barbary States
of America" cherish the slavery which the Mahometan
Barbary States of Africa have cast off with scorn and
loathing. The English and American churches do not
oppose the Sins, but encourage them.
In the ante-Christian governments the State and the
Church were identical, the national religion was prescribed by the national law and enforced by the sword
of the magistrate. The function of official priests was
to appease the wrath of God, or purchase his favor; it
was not to develop the spirit of the people. In Rome,
such was the eclectic spirit of the nation, all forms of
devotion were allowed to exist along with the national
religion, so long as they did not disturb the peace of the
city. But when Christianity came, affirming the unity
of God and the falseness of all antecedent, or other,
forms of religion, the Roman State, in preserving its
own form of worship, must of necessity attempt to suppress the Christian religion. Christianity grew up in
opposition to the magistrate. So there were at the
beginning two powers in the nation-the State, the
carnal temporal power; and the Church,- the spiritual
power whose kingdom was " not of this world." When
Christianity became a " lawful religion," and when it
became the national religion, there still continued this
division between the State and Church; two distinct
organizations were established, the "carnal" and the




INTRODUCTION.      ]        xv
"spiritual." This separation of the civil and religious
authorities has been of great value to the world. In
the Middle Ages, the Church was one established
power, and the State another, each independent. The
Church was a critic and check upon the State, the State
upon the Church. Ecclesiastical conformity was often
political dissent. The government of Christendom was
monarchic; but the monarchy was two-headed. The
practical effect of this was important, in many respects,
to mankind. But in the Roman States, and in all
countries which owed exclusive civil obedience to the
Pope the Church swallowed up the State; the " spiritual" became also the " carnal" power, and the people
were ruled with terrible oppression. The same result
took place when the "6 carnal" became the " religious "
power, as it sometimes did. In both of these cases the
monarchy became single-headed; the State and the
Church were merged into one; there was no city of
refuge for the victim of the magistrate, or of the priest,
to fly to. If he ran from the king's axe, he fell over the
Pope's fagot. Thus was he overtaken by one or the
other horn of the tyrannical dilemma, and if he escaped
beheading he was sure to be burned. In countries
where this division of powers was recognized, the man
fled from the court house to the temple, or from the
temple to the court house, and humanity had a fairer
opportunity to obtain justice.
But when the scholastic philosophers, after struggling for centuries, had failed to reconcile the consciousFi X




lxvi             INTRODUCTION.
ness of mankind with the dogmas of the Church; when
the Church itself became corrupt in head and members,
and the Priests of Christendom were more tyrannical
and shameless than the magistrates of Heathendom,
then human consciousness broke with the Roman
Church. But the people, long accustomed to passive
submission under the State and Church, gained apparently little by the change. The kings, or other civil
magistrates, took possession of the spiritual power
which in Protestant countries had been wrested from
the hands of the Pope. Thus as the Church grew
weak the State again grew strong, and assumed the
same authority in matters of religion which had formerly been claimed by the Pope in Christian, or by the
king in Heathen countries. This was not effected
without a struggle. In some countries the spiritual
power, in carnal hands, became absolute; in others it
was conditioned by a constitution; but in all the countries of Protestant Europe the State still claims eminent
domain over the Church, prescribes the ritual, and establishes the creed. Thus in Prussia the king demands
that every man shall be a soldier and a church-member;
he is drilled in the manual exercise and the catechism.
Even England has her national religion, and rejects
with scorn from her two wealthy universities all who
cannot subscribe to the contradictory formularies of
belief: though she allows dissent, she by no means admits the dissenters to an equality with the disciples of
her own Church, in which the aristocratic element pre



INTRODUCTION.              lxvii
ponderates over the popular -for the congregation is
only of " dead-heads," which have no voice in making
the doctrines of the Church, or even in electing its
minister.
In this way the Protestant Church of Europe has lost
one of its most valuable functions -it is no longer a
critic on the State, it is the servant and creature of the
State. If the magistrates are corrupt, the laws unjust
and oppressive, the clergy dare not say a word against
the iniquity. The Bench of Bishops is seldom found
to be more humane than the House of Lords where it
sits; and the Protestant Pulpit, in these countries, takes
special care not to rebuke any popular Error or Sin.
So the established Church in Protestant countries is
commonly found siding with Government and not with
the People: it attends to the Form - the ritual and the
creed -not to the Substance of Religion. It does not
demand a free mind, free conscience, free affection, and
a free soul, all in their normal mode of activity.
In America there is no State-religion and no national Church.  Each  denomination determines its
creed for itself, and manages its own affairs. But such
is the dependence of the preacher on his parish for
pecuniary support, and so much is that thought to
depend on servility to the controlling and wealthy
classes of society, that any popular wickedness is pretty
sure of the support of the greater part of the American
clergy. This is eminently the case in the great towns
-the seat of riches, of commercial and political power.




lxviii            INTRODUCTION.
The minister may forget his God, his Conscience, his
Self-respect; he must not attempt to correct " the hand
that feeds him." Slavery, the great sin of America, has
long found its most effectual support in the American
Church. The powerful denominations are on its side,
the Tract Society says nothing against it; the leaders
of the sects, with the rarest exception, are in favor of
this wickedness. When prominent political men deny
that there is any law of God to overrule the most
wicked enactment of corrupt politicians, the wealthy
churches say " Amen! "
In England the churches seem no better; they can
rebuke American, but not British Sins, as the American
British and not their own. In the military age the
spiritual and carnal powers were independent of each
other, and mutual checks; in the commercial age the
Spiritual depends on the carnal power for daily bread,
and dares not offend the hand that feeds it; forgetting
the Eye which "T seeth not as man seeth." The great
theological movement of the Anglo-Saxons, the great
religious movement, is not carried on by the churches
but in spite of them.
To sum up the theological and religious condition
of the Protestant countries as a whole, it must be confessed that there is a great contradiction in the consciousness of the people; that the Popular Theology is
at variance with the other sciences, and is fading from




INTRODUCTION.              ixix
the respect of the people. A great intellectual movement goes on, a great moral, philanthropic, and religious
movement, but the preachers in the churches do little
directly either to diffuse new truths, or to kindle a
deeper sentiment of piety, or philanthropy. The Protestant Church, counts this its chief function —to appease the wrath of God and to admininister the Scriptures to men, not to promote piety and morality.
Take the whole Christian Church at this day -
fwhere is the vigor, the energy, the faith in God, the
love for man, which marked the lives of those persons
who built churches with their lives? Taken as a whole,
the clergy of Christendom oppose the foremost science,
justice, philanthropy, and piety of the age. The ecclesiastical institutions seem to bear the same relation to
mankind now, as the ecclesiastical institutions of the
Hebrews and Heathens two thousand years ago. Every
year the Science of the scholar separates him further
and further from the Theology of the churches. The
once united Church is rent into three. The infallibility
of the Roman Church  who believes it? the Pope,
the superior Catholic clergy? The Infallibility of the
Bible, -its divine origin, its miraculous inspiration -
do the Scholars of Christendom believe that in defiance
of Mathematics, Physics, History, and Psychology?
They leave it to the clergy. The Trinity is shaken;
men lose their faith in the efficacy of water-baptism,




Ixx               INTRODUCTION.
and other artificial sacraments, to save the souls of
men; miracles disappear from the belief of all but the
clergy. Do they believe them?  The Catholic doubts
the medireval miracles of his own Church; it is in vain
that the Virgin Mary reappears in Switzerland and
France; that Saint Januarius annually liquifies his
blood; that statues weep: the stomachs of reapers refuse such bread. It avails nothing to threaten scientific
doubters with eternal hell. Superior talent forsakes the
Church, — even in Catholic countries, there are few
clergymen of genius, or even great talent. In Protestant Germany theological genius teaches in the college,
not in the pulpit; and with new science destroys the
mediaeval opinions it was once set to defend. Will the
spirit of the human race come back and reanimate the
dry bones of dead Theology? When the mummies of
AEgypt shall worship again their half-forgotten gods -
Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis; when mankind goes back to
the other sciences of half-savage life the Theology of
that period may be welcomed again. Not till then.
Is Religion to die out of the consciousness of man!
Believe it not.  Even the protests against "Christianity " are oftenest made by men full of the religious
spirit. Many of the "Unbelievers" of this age are
eminent for their religion; atheists are often made such
by circumstances. Even M. Comte must have a New
Supreme - Nouveau Grand Etre, - and recommends
daily prayer to his composite and progressive deity!
There was never a time when Christendom was so




INTRODUCTION.             lxxi
pious -in love of God; so philanthropic- in love of
man; so moral -in obedience to the law of God; so
intellectual - knowing it so well; so rich — possessing
such power over the material world. Yet through lack
of a true Idea of God, from want of institutions to
teach and apply the Absolute Religion -there is not
that conscious and total religious activity which is
indispensable for the healthy and harmonious development of mankind.
What need there is of a new religious life! The
three great public forces of the leading nations of
Christendom, - Business, Politics, and the Press, excite a great intellectual activity. Christendom was
never so thoughtful as now. Shall this great movement
of mind be unreligious, without consciousness of God?
It will not be controlled by the Theology of the Christian Church. But it is not a wicked age. What philanthropies are there new born in our time?  Catholic
France is rich in the literature of charity, shaming the
haughtiness of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Yet within
not many years at what great cost has England set
free almost a million men "owned" as slaves! Nay,
Russian Nicholas emancipates his serfs.  Socialists
seek to abolish poverty, and all the curses it brings on
the body and the spirit of man. Wise men, begin to
see that the majority of criminals are the victims of
society more than its foes, and seek to abolish the
causes of crime; what pains are taken with the poor,
the crazy, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; nay,




lxxii            INTRODUCTION.
with the fool! Great men look at the condition of
woman —and generous hearted women rise up to
emancipate their sex. The churches are busy with
their Theology and their ritual, and cannot attend
much to these great humane movements; they must
appease the "' wrath of God," or baptize men's bodies
with water and their minds with wind. Still the work
goes on, but without a corresponding consciousness of
God, and connection with the religious emotions. No
wonder Christendom seems tending to anarchy. But
it is only the anarchy which comes of the breaking up
of darkness.
There must be a better form of Religion. It must
be free, and welcome the highest, the proudest, and the
widest thought. Its organization must not depend on
the State; it must ask no force to bring men to meeting, to control a man's opinions, to tell him on what
day he shall worship, when he shall pray, what he shall
believe, what he shall disbelieve, or what he shall denounce.
The Christian world has something to learn, at this
day, even from the Atheist; for he asks entire Freedom
for human nature, - freedom to think, freedom to will,
freedom to love, freedom to worship if he may, not to
worship if he will not. And if the Christian Church
had granted this freedom there would have been no
atheism. If Theology had not severed itself from Science, Science would have adorned the Church with its
magnificent beauty. If the Christian Church had not




INTRODUCTION.             lxxii
separated itself from the world's life there would be no
need of anti-slavery societies, temperance societies,
education societies, and all the thousand other forms of
philanthropic action. A new religious life can beautify
all these movements into one. There is one great
truth which can do it: that God is not finite, as all
previous forms of religion have taught, but is Infinite
in his Power, in his Wisdom, in his Justice, in his Holiness, and in his Love.
It is for earnest men of this age to protest against
the evils of the Christian Church, as Luther against
the Catholic Church, as Paul against the Heathen, as
Jesus against the Hebrew Church. This can be done
only by a Piety deeper, a Philanthropy wider, and a
Theology profounder than the Church has ever known;
by a life which, like that of Luther, Paul, Jesus, puts
the vulgar life of the churches all to shame. The new
Church must gather to its bosom all the truth, the
righteousness and beauty of the old world, and add
other excellence new got from God. Piety must be
applied to all daily life, to politics, to literature, to all
business: it must be the creed which a man repeats as
he delivers goods over his counter, repeats with his
hands, which he works into every thing that he manufactures. That is a Piety already on its way to success, and sure to triumph.
There are evils which demand a religious hand to
redress them. The slave is to be freed, the State and
Society to be reorganized; woman is to be elevated to
G




lxxiv             INTRODUCTION.
her natural place; political corruption to be buried in
its grave. Pauperism is to end, war to cease, and the
insane lust of our times for gold and pleasure is to be
tamed and corrected. This can be done only by a deep
religious life in the heart of the people. All great civilizations begin with God.
It is a sad thing to look at the noble and largeminded men who in this century have become disgusted
with the Popular Theology, and so have turned off
from all Conscious Religion. In a better age they
would have been leaders of the world's piety. It is
for men who have sought to cut loose from every false
tradition, to worship the Infinite Father and Infinite
Mother!  They rhay scold, and are then the Church
termagant, worth nothing but their criticism. They
may toil to remove these evils, their life making a new
Church, and then they are the Church beneficent; their
influence will go into the world's life, and hasten the
development of mankind.
How much does all Christendom need a new Form
of Religion, to reconcile the understanding, to bring the
conscience, and the heart, and the soul, to the great
work of life! Then if men are faithful, when eighteen
hundred other years have passed by, they will have
produced an influence in the world's history like that of
the great Christian apostle, who went to the Gentiles
so poor and so obscure that no man knows of his
whereabouts, or his whence, or his whither. Now, as
of old, " God hath chosen the weak things of the world




INTRODUCTION.                 lxxv
to confound the mighty," and the true to confound the
false.  There is no reason to fear.  The Infinite God is
perfect Cause and perfect Providence; He made the
universe from a perfect motive, of perfect materials, for
a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereto. Shall
He fail of his intentions?  Man marches forth to fresh
triumphs in Religion as in Philosophy and Art.  What
is gained once is gained for all time, and for eternity.
Hebraism, Heathenism, Christianism  are places where
Man halted in his march towards the Promised Land,,encampments on his pilgrimage.  He rests awhile;
then God says to him, "long enough hast thou compassed this Mountain; turn and take thy journey forward.  Lo! the Land of Promise is still before thee."
In the anarchy of this age are we taught to feel,
"That man's heart is a holy thing,
And Nature, through a world of death,
Breathes into him a second breath,
More searching than the breath of spring."








SERMON I.
OF ATHEISM AS THEORY.
(1)




PSALM XIV. 1.
THE FOOL HATH SAID IN HIS HEART, THERE IS NO GOD.
(2)




I.
OF SPECULATIVE ATHEISM REGARDED AS A
THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
ON this and several following Sundays I propose to
speak of Atheism, of the Popular Theology, and of
pure Theism: of each first as a Theory of the Universe, and then as a Principle of practical life; first as
speculative Philosophy, then as practical Ethics
The Idea which a man forms of God is always the
most important element in his speculative theory of the
universe, and in his particular, practical plan of action
for the church, the state, the community, the family,
and his own individual life. You see to-day the vast
influence of the popular idea of God. All the great
historical civilizations of the race have grown out of
the national idea which was formed of God, or have
been intimately connected with it. The popular Theology, which at first is only an abstract idea in the heads
of the philosophers, by and by shows itself in the laws,
the navies, the forts, and the jails; in the churches, the
ceremonies, and the sacraments, the weddings, the baptisms, and the funerals; in the hospitals, the colleges,
the schools, in all the social charities; in the relation of
(3)




4              SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
a husband and wife, parent and child; in the daily
work and the daily prayer of each man. Thus, what at
first is the abstractest of thoughts, by and by becomes
the concretest of things. If a man concludes there is
no God at all, that conclusion, negative though it is,
will have an immense influence; subjectively on his
feelings and opinions, objectively on his outward conduct; subjectively as the theory of the universe; objectively as the principle of practical life.
Speculative Theism is the belief in the existence of
God, in one form or another; and I call him a Theist
who believes in any God. By Atheism I mean absolute denial of the existence of any God. A man may
deny actuality to the Hebrew idea of God, to the Christian idea of God, or to the Mahometan idea of God,
and yet be no atheist.
The Hebrews formed a certain conception of a being
with many good qualities, and some extraordinarily
bad qualities, and called it Jehovah, and said, " That is
God: it is the only God." The majority of Christians
form a certain conception of a being with more good
qualities than are ascribed to Jehovah, but with some
most atrociously evil qualities, and call it Trinity, or
Unity, and say, -" That is God: it is the only God."
Now a man may deny the actuality of either or
both these ideas of God, and yet be no atheist. He
may do so because he is more of a theist than the majority of Hebrews or Christians; because he has a higher
development of the religious faculty, and has thereby obtained a better idea of God. Thus the Old Testament
prophets, with a religious development often far in advance of their Gentile neighbors, declared, that Baal
was no God. Of course, the worshipper of Baal called




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            5
the Hebrew prophets atheists, for they denied all the
God that Gentile knew. Paul, in the New Testament,
more of a theist than the Greeks and Asiatics about
him, with a larger religious development than they
dreamed of, said,-" "an Idol is nothing." That is,
there is no divine being which corresponds exactly to
the qualities ascribed to any material idol. Their idea
of God, said Paul, lacked actuality; it was a personal
or national whimsey; not a perfect subjective representation of the objective fact of the universe; but only a
mistaken notion of that fact.
If a man has outgrown the Hebrew, or common
Christian idea of God, he may say what Paul said of
the Idol, -" It is nothing."  He will not be an atheist,
but a theist all the more. The superior conception of
God always nullifies the inferior conception.
Thus as the world grows in its development, it necessarily outgrows its ancient ideas of God, which were
only temporary and provisional. As it goes forward,
the ancient deities are looked on first as devils; next as
a mere mistaken notion which some men had formed
about God. For example, a hundred years aego it was
the custom of the learned men of the Christian church
to speak of the Heathen deities, - Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and the rest, - as Devils. They did not deny the
actual existence of those beings, only affirmed them to
be not Gods but devils or " fallen angels;" at any rate,
evil beings. Some of the heretics among the early
Christians said the same of the Hebrew Jehovah, that
he was not the true God, but only a Devil who misled
the Jews. Now-a-days well educated men who still
use the terms, say that Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and the
others, were only mistaken notions which men formed
of God. They deny the actuality of the idea; " Jupi1 *




6             SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
ter is nothing." A man who has a higher conception
of God than those about him, who denies their conception, is often called an atheist by men who are less theistic than he. Thus the Christians, who said the fHeathen idols were no gods, were accounted atheists by the
people, and accordingly put to death. Thus Jesus of
Nazareth was accused of blasphemy, and crucified by
men who had not a tithe of the religious development
and reverence for God which he possessed. The men
who centuries ago denied the actuality of the Trinity,
were put to death as atheists, - Servetus among the
rest, John Calvin himself tending the flames.
At this day the Devil is a part of the popular Godhead in the common theology, representing the malignant element which still belongs to the ecclesiastical
conception of Deity. If a man says there is no devil,
he is thought to be, if not an atheist, at least very
closely related to an atheist. He denies a portion of
the popular Godhead; is constructively an atheist; an
atheist as far as lihe goes; atheistic in kind, as much as
if he denied the whole Godhead, when he would obviously be branded an atheist.
I use the word Atheism in quite a different sense.
It is the absolute denial of any and all forms of God;
the denial of the Genus; the denial of all possible ideas
of God, - highest as well as lowest.
At this day there are some philosophers, quite eminent
men too, who call themselves atheists, and in set terms,
deny the actuality of any possible idea of God. They
say the idea of God is a mere whimsey of men, and
God is not a fact of the universe. Man has a notion
of God, as of a ghost, or devil; but it is a pure subjective fancy, —something which he has spun out of
his own brain, for there is nothing in the universe to




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            7
correspond thereto. Man has an Idea of God, but the
universe has no Fact of God.
These men do not mean to scoff at others. They
teach their doctrines with the calmness and precision
of philosophy, and affirm atheism as their Theory of the
Universe. It is a conclusion they have deliberately
arrived at. They are not ashamed of it; they do not
conceal it; do not ostentatiously set it forth.
I am doing these men no injustice in giving them this
name, because they claim the style and title of atheists,
and professedly teach atheism. They are not always
bigoted atheists, but sometimes philosophical. A few
of them are in this country, founding schools and sects
of their way of thinking. Some of them are men of
quite superior ability, men of very large intellectual culture. They seem to be truth-loving and sincere persons; conscientious, just, humane, philanthropic, and
modest men aiming to be faithful to their nature, their
whole nature. They are commonly on the side of man,
as opposed to the enemies of man; on the side of the
people, as against a tyrant: they are or mean to be, on
the side of truth, of justice, and of love. I shall not
throw stones at these men; I shall devise no hard
names against them: they will get abuse enough without my giving them any at all. I feel great tenderness
towards them, and very great compassion, —which I
suppose they would not thank me for. Some of them
I know personally; others by their reputation; some
by their writings. I think they are much higher in their
moral and religious growth than a great many men
who are always saying to God, -" I go, sir," - and
yet never stir. These are men who have made sacrifices even, to be faithful; and, without knowing it, they
have a good deal of practical religiousness of character,




8              SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
both in its subjective form of Piety, and in its objective
form of personal and social Morality.
I do not believe that such men are real atheists,
though they think themselves so; and I only call them
so to distinguish their doctrines, and because they themselves assume the name. I think the philosophical
atheist lacks actuality as much as a devil or a ghost.
The Bible says, "The fool hath said in his heart,
There is no God." If the Fool says so, I shall believe
the fool thinks so; and if the fool holds up his five
fingers and says " There is no hand," I shall believe the
fool thinks so. But when a Philosopher says there is
no God, I do not believe he thinks so, only that he
thinks he thinks so. A man may sometimes think he
sees a thing when he does not see it; and so a man
may think he thinks a thing when he does not think it.
A philosophical and consistent atheist is as much an
impossibility, I think, as a mathematician who cannot
count two; or as a round square, or a three-cornered
circle. I shall never believe that a sane man who can
understand the multiplication table is an atheist, though
he may call himself so. But inasmuch as atheism is
set up as a theory of the universe, let us look at it, and
see what real Speculative Atheism is. That is the first
thing.
There is a mere formal atheism, which is a denial of
God in terms. A man says, There is no God; no God
that is self-originated, who is the Cause of existence,
who is the Mind and the Providence of the universe:
and so the order, beauty, and harmony of the world of
matter or mind does not indicate any plan or purpose of
Deity. But, he says, Nature,- meaning by that the




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.             9
whole sum total of existence, -is powerful, wise, and
good; Nature is self-originated, the Cause of its own
existence, the mind of the universe, and the Providence thereof. There is obviously a plan and purpose,
says he, whereby order, beauty, and harmony are
brought to pass; but all that is the plan and purpose
of Nature.
Very well. In such cases the absolute denial of God
is only formal, but not real. The Quality of God is
still admitted, and affirmed to be real; only the representative of that quality is called Nature, and not
called God. That is only a change of name. The
question is this,-"Are there such Qualities in existence as we call God?"  It is not, - " How shall we
name the qualities?" One man may call the sum
total of these qualities Nature, another Heaven, a third
Universe, a fourth Matter, a fifth Spirit, a sixth Geist,
a seventh God, an eighth Tlieos, a ninth Allah, or what
he pleases. Spinoza may call God Natura naturans,
and the rest of the universe Natura naturata; Berosqs
may call God El, and the rest of the Universe Thebal.
They all admit the existence of the thing so diversely
entitled. The name is of the smallest consequence.
All those men that I know, who call themselves atheists, really admit the actual existence of the qualities I
speak of.
Real Atheism is a denial of the existence of any
God; a denial of the Genus God, of the actuality of all
possible ideas of God. It denies that there is any
Mind, or Being, which is the Cause and Providence of
the universe, and which intentionally produces the order,
beauty, and harmony thereof with the constant modes
of operation therein. To be consistent, it ought to go
a step further, and deny that there is any law, order,




10            SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
or harmony in existence, or any constant modes of
operation in the world. The real Speculative Atheist denies the existence of the qualities of God; denies
that there is any Mind of the universe, any self-conscious Providence, any Providence at all. If he follows
out his principle he must deny the actuality of the Infinite, deny that there is any Being or Cause of finite
things which is self-consciously powerful, wise, just,
loving, and self-faithful. To him there are only finite
things, - each self-originated, self-sustained, self-directed,- and no more; the universe, comprising the
world of matter, and the world of mind, is a finite
whole, made up of finite parts; each part is imperfect,
the whole incomplete; the finite has no Infinite to
depend on as its Ground and Cause; there is no plan
in the universe or any part thereof.
Now see the subjective Effect of this Theory. By
subjective, I mean the effect it produces on the sentiments and opinions within me.
I. Look at it first as a Theory of the World of
Matter.
In respect to the Origin of matter, both theist and
atheist labor under the same difficulty: neither knows
any thing about that. I know men, chiefly theologians,
pretend to understand all about the creation of matter
originally; and to hear them talk you would suppose it
was as easy to comprehend how " God made a world out
of nothing," as it is to understand how a tailor makes
a coat out of broadcloth or velvet. But if a man looks
with a philosophical eye, he sees this is an extraordinarily difficult thing. The philosophical theist admits




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            11
the existence of the universe, and the atheist does the
same; but in the present state of our knowledge neither
atheist nor theist knows the mode of origination. You
may go back a good ways and study the formation of
an egg, a fish, seed, tree, or rock, or the solar system
after the fashion of La Place; but the manner of originating matter, out of which the egg, fish, seed, tree, rock,
and solar system are made, is just as far off as ever;
and it seems to be beyond the reach of the faculties of
man. I will not say that it is so, only, in the present
stage of man's development and scientific acquirements,
it seems so. The origin of Body,- of any specific
form of matter,- may be made out, but the origin of
Matter, the primitive, universal substance whence Body
comes, still eludes our search. I know that ecclesiastical theists often call the philosophical atheist very hard
names because he denies that wTe can understand this
process at present; the charge is gratuitous.
But the real speculative atheist must declare that
Matter, the general substance whereof Body is made, is
eternal but without thought, or will; and the specific
forms of existence, - of egg, fish, seed, tree, rock, and
solar system, - all came with no forethought preceding
them; came "by chance;" that is to say, by the " fortuitous concourse of atoms " which has no thought or
will, and that they indicate no mind, no plan, no purpose, no providence. That is the atheistic theory of the
universe; compare it with facts.
See how this scheme works on a great scale in the
material world. The solar system has a sun and numerous planets; they are all distributed in a certain
ratio of distance; they move round the sun with a certain velocity, always exactly proportionate to their dis



12             SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
tance from the sun; this holds good with regard to the
nearest and the furthest. They move in paths of the
same form; they are ruled by the same laws of motion;
they receive and emit light in the same way. The
laws, which are the constant modes of planetary operation, when we come to study them, are found to be exceedingly intricate; yet they are uniform, and the same
for one planet as for another; the same for a satellite
as for a planet. They are perfectly kept, and so uniform  in action that if you go back to the time of
Thales, five hundred years before Christ, you can calculate the eclipse of the moon, and find that it took
place exactly as the historians of that day relate; or
you may go forward five days, or five years, or five
thousand years, and calculate with the same precision.
So accurate are these laws, that an astronomer studying the perturbations of a remote planet, the phenomena
of its economy not accounted for by the attraction of
bodies known to be in existence, conjectures the existence of some other planet which causes the phenomena
not accounted for. Nay, by mathematical science he
determines its place and size, inferring the fact of a
new planet outside of the uttermost ring of the solar
system; at a certain minute he turns his telescope to
the calculated spot, and, for the first time, the star of
Leverrier springs before the eye of conscious man!
Now the atheist must declare that all this order of
the solar system, was brought about by the fortuitous
concourse of atoms, and indicates no mind, plan, or
purpose in the universe. This is absurd. A man
might as well deny the fact of the law of the solar system, or the existence of the sun, or of himself, as to deny
that these facts, thus coordinated, indicate a mind, de-i
note a plan, and serve a purpose calculated beforehand.




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.             13
See the same thing on a smaller scale. The composition of the air is such that first it helps light and
warm the earth; is a swaddling garment to keep in the
specific heat of the earth, and prevent it from radiating
off into the cold, void spaces of the universe. Next,
by its free circulation as wind, it helps cleanse and purify the earth. Then, it promotes vegetation; carries
water from the Tropics to the Norwegian pine, furnishes much of the food of plants, their means of life.
Next, it helps animal life, is the vehicle of respiration:
all plants which grow, all things that breathe, continually suck the breasts of heaven. Again, it is a most
important instrument for the service of man; through
this we communicate by artificial light and artificial
sound. Without it all were motionless and dumb;
not a bird could sing or fly, not a cricket creak to his
partner at night, not a man utter a word; and a voiceless ocean would ebb and flow upon a silent shore.
The thought-mill would be as idle as the windmill.
Man kindles his fire by the air; it moves his ship,
winnows his corn, fans his temples, carries his balloon.
Now the air is capable of these, and a great many
other functions in virtue of its peculiar composition, -
so much nitrogen, so much oxygen. No other combination of elements could ever have accomplished this.
Vary the composition, have a little more nitrogen or
oxygen, and you alter its powers as a vehicle of radiation, evaporation, vegetation, purification, respiration,
communication, and combustion. The atheist must
believe that this composition is not the result of any
mind, that it serves no plan and purpose, and came by
the fortuitous concourse of matter; no more; that it is
all chance.
2




14            SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
If I should say that this sermon came by the fortuitous concourse of matter, that last Monday I shut up
pen, ink, and paper in a drawer, and to-day went and
found there a sermon, which had come by the fortuitous
concourse of pen, ink, and paper, -- every man would
think I was very absurd. And yet I should not commit so great a quantity of absurdity as if I were to say
"the composition of air came by the fortuitous concourse of atoms;" for it takes a much greater mind to
bring together and compose the air which fills a thimble
than to produce all the sermons, yea, literature, in the
world.
If the atheist says there is mind in matter which arranges the planets, controls their distances, their revolutions, their constant modes of operation, that this
mind in matter arranges the elements in the air so as
to perform all the functions which I have named, and
many more, — then he is false to his atheism, and becomes a theist; for he no longer denies the Qualities of
God, but only calls them by a different name.
With atheism as the theory of the universe, the world
ought to be a jumble of parts with no contexture; for
the moment you admit the existence of order in the
very least form, a constant mode of operation on the
very smallest scale, -why, you must admit the existence of the mind which devised the order and the
mode of operation; and if you call the mind Geist,
or, God, or Nature, or Jehovah, it makes small odds:
the question is not about the name, but about the
fact.
Now the world is nowhere a jumble. Things are
not " huddled and lumped together " in the composition
of the eyeball of the emmet, or of the solar system.




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.           15
Every part of the universe is an argument against atheism as a theory thereof.
II. Look next at atheism as the Theory of Individual I-uman Life. According to the atheistic scheme
there is no Conscious Power which is the Cause of
me and of my life, which is the Providence thereof; no
Mind which arranges the world in reference to me, or
me in reference to the world. Does that conclusion
satisfy the instinctive desires of human nature, any
better than it accounts for the facts of material nature?
Look at human life from this point of view. I see
but little ways behind, around, or before me; and yet,
in all directions, my power of knowledge is greater
than my power of work. I know little of the consequences which will follow from my action. I invent an
alphabet; I organize the elements into gunpowder, the
printing-press, the steam-engine, or men into a repre..
sentative form of government, with a written constitution. I know very little of the effect which these vast
forces will produce in the world of man. I know that
the steam-engine will turn my mill, that the printingpress will print my newspaper, that gunpowder will explode at the touch of fire; but I do not know the effect
which these organizations, newly introduced to the
world, are to have on the families, the communities, the
churches, the states of mankind, and on the general
development of the human race.
The atheist says there is nothing which knows any
better, or which knows any more about it; nothing
which uses these inventions as forces for the advancement of any purpose. " The universe," says he, " has
no self-conscious mind except the mind of man, and




16            SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
he is only' darkly wise and meanly great.' Nothing in
the world," says our atheist, " knows what a day may
bring forth. The universe is drifting in the void inane,
and knows nothing of its whence, its whither, or its
whereabouts. Man is drifting in the universe, and
knows little of his whereabouts, nothing of his whence
or whither. There is no mind, no providence, no power,
which knows any better; nothing which guides and
directs man in his drifting, or the universe in the wide
weltering waste of time. Nothing is laid up for tomorrow. My life also tends to nothing."
I am joyful: joy is very well, but nothing comes of it.
I am sorrowful, and suffer: this is hard, but it is no part
of a plan which is to lead to something further. And
when my manhood falls away, and my body dissolves,
all that is to lead to nothing better. My baby-teeth fall
out, giving way to my man-teeth, but that is all chance
indicating no forethought of a mind which provided for
the man before the baby was born!
I serve men, and get their hate and scorn: the Sadducee grumbles because I tell him of his soul and immortality; the Pharisee, because I demand that he
devour widows' houses no more, nor for a pretence
make long prayers; and both of these hunkers, the
hunker Sadducee and the hunker Pharisee, throw stones
at me, and put me to death. It all comes to nothing
for me; I am a dead body, and not a live man: that is
is all I get for my virtue!
I am a brave man, and my country needs me to repel
the Spanish Armada, or to keep imperial Nicholas, or
Francis, or papal Pius the Ninth, or the little-hearted
President Napoleon, from kidnapping my liberty. I go
out to do battle, and I come home scarred all over with
heroism, half my limbs hewed off, aching at every pore.




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            17
Or I die on the spot; I carry no heroism, no manhood
with me; I am a heap of dust which other dust will
soon cover, but the manhood which once enchanted this
dust with valiant life, is put out and quenched forever,
- it is all gone; it is nothing. My brother in that time
of peril was a coward; and when war blew the trumpet
and his country called on him, he crept under the oven.
When all is over, and quiet is restored, he comes out
with a whole skin, and over my unburied bones he
marches into peace and carousing, and says, " A pretty
fool was this man to lay down his life for me and get
nothing for it!"  And the atheist says, " He is right."
The patriot soldier gets his wounds and crutch, the
martyr his fagot and flame, Jesus his cup of bitterness
and cross of death, -and that is all. Dives has his
purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day,
more heedless than the dogs are of the beggar at his
gate. Lazarus has his sores and the medical attendance
of the hounds in the street, but death ends all.
The mother, whose self-denial leads her to forget every thing but her feeble, crippled child, has nothing but
her transient affection and watching; she dies and all is
ended. Another mother abandons her sickly, pestilential child to die of her neglect, and she lives forty years
longer in joyous wantonness and riot; and when she
also passes away it is to the same end as the other;
only she for her falseness has had forty years of animal
joy, and the noble mother for her faithfulness has had
nothing but an instantaneous death. And my atheist
says, " There is no future world to compensate the
mother who died for love."
My life is a great disappointment, let me suppose; —
and for no fault of tnine, but for my excellence, my
justice, my philanthropy, for the service I have rendered
2*




18            SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
to mankind. I am poor, and hated, and persecuted. I
flee to my atheist for consolation, and I ask, "What
does all this come to?"  And he says, "It comes to
nothing. Your nobleness will do you no good. You
will die, and your self-denial will do mankind no service; for there is no plan, or order in all these things;
every thing comes and goes by the fortuitous concourse
of atoms. If you had been a hunker you might have
had money, ease, honor, respectability, and a long life,
with the approbation of your minister. You had better
have been so."
I lay in the ground one dearest to me; some only
daughter - her life but a bud, not a blossom, yet mere
bud as it is, the better part of my life. In the agony of
my heart I flee to my atheist for comfort; and he cannot give me a drop of water from the tip of his finger,
while I am tormented in that unutterable grief. " A
worm," says he, "has eaten up your rose-bud. Get
what comfort you can. This is the last spring day, no
leaf will be green again for you."
I come myself to die. I have labored to extend my
existence, which every man loves to do; and so I
reached back and sought to find out who my fathers
and grandfathers were, and trace out my pedigree. I
wished to extend myself collaterally, and reached forth
toward Nature, and linked myself with that by science
and art, and with man by love. The same desire to
extend myself urges me to go forward, instinct with
immortality, and join myself again to my dear ones,
and to mankind, for eternal life. But my atheist stands
between me and futurity. " Death is the end," says he.
" This is a world without a God; you are a body with..
out a soul; there is a here but no Hereafter; an earth
without a Heaven. Die, and return to your dust!"




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.           19
"I am a philosopher," says he, " I have been up to
the sky, and there is no Heaven. Look through my
telescope: that which you see afar off there is a little
star in the nebula of Orion's belt; so distant that it
will take light a thousand million years to come from it
to the earth, journeying at the rate of twelve million
miles a minute. There is no Heaven this side of that;
you see all the way through; there is not a speck of
Heaven. And do you think there is any beyond it?
" Talk about your soul! I have been into man with
my scalpel in my hand, and my microscope, and there
is no soul. Man is bones, blood, bowels, and brain.
Mind is matter. I)o you doubt this? Here is Arnoldis' perfect map of the brain: there is no soul there;
nothing but nerves.
" Talk of Providence! There is no such thing. I
have been through the universe, and there is no God.
God is a whim of men; Nature is a fortuitous concourse of atoms; man is a fortuitous concourse of
atoms; thought is a fortuitous function of matter, a
fortuitous result of a fortuitous result, a chance-shot
from the great wind-gun of the universe, - which itself
is also a chance-shot, from a chance-charge of a chancegun, accidentally loaded, pointed at random, and fired
off by chance. Things happen; they are not arranged.
There is luck, and ill-luck; but there is no providence.
Die into dust! True, you sigh for immortality; you
long for the dear arms of father and mother, that went
to the ground before you, and for the rose-bud daughter
prematurely nipped. True, you complain of tears that
have left a deep and bitter furrow in your cheek; you
complain of virtue not rewarded; of nobleness that felt
for the Infinite; of a mighty hungering and thirst for
everlasting life; a longing and a yearning after God: —




20            SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
All that is nothing. Die, and be still!"  Does not that
content you? Does this theory square with the facts
of consciousness?
III. Now look at Atheism as a Theory of the Life
of Mankind. Man came by chance; the family by
chance; society by chance; nations by chance; the
human race by chance. Man is his own sole guide
and guardian. No Mind ever grouped the faculties
together and made a cosmic man, —it was all chance.
There is no Mind which groups the solitary into families, these into nations, and the nations to a world, - it
is all chance. There is no Providence for man, except
in human'heads; Politicians are the only legislators;
their statutes the only law -" There is no Higher
Law."  Kings and presidents are the only rulers: there
is no great Father and Mother of all the nations of
mankind. There is no Mind that thinks for man, no
Conscience to enact eternal laws, no Heart to love me
when father and mother forsake me and let me fall; no
Will of the universe to marshal the nations in the way
of wisdom, justice, and love. History is the fortuitous
concourse of events, as Nature of atoms; there is no
plan, nor purpose in it which is to guide our going out
and coming in. True, there is a mighty going, but it
goes nowhere. True, there has been a progressive development of man's body and mind, and the functions
thereof; a growth of beauty, wisdom, justice, affection,
piety; but it is an accident, and may end to-morrow,
and the next day there may be a decay of mankind, a
decay of beauty, intellect, justice, affection; science, art,
literature, civilization may be all forgot, and the naked
savage come and burn up Boston, New York, London,




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.           21
and Paris, and drown the last baby of civilization in the
blood of the last mother. You are not sure that any
good will come of it; there is no reason to think that
any good will come of it. Says Atheism, " Everywhere
is instability and insecurity."
Look on the aspect of human misery, the outrage,
blood, and wrong which the earth groans under. Here
is the wife of a drunkard, whose marriage life is a perpetual violation. She married for love a man who once
loved her; but the Mayor and Aldermen of the city
insisted that he should be made a beast. A beast, did
I say? Ye fourfooted and creeping things of the earth,
I beg your pardon! Even the swine is sober in his sty.
The Mayor and Aldermen of the city made this man a
drunkard; and the poor wife watches over him, cleanses
his garments, wipes off the foulness of his debauch, and
stitches her life into the garments which some wealthy
tailor will sell, - giving her for wages the tenth part of
his own profit, - and which some dandy will wear, -
thanking the " Gods of dandies " that he is not like that
poor woman, so ill-clad and industrious.  She will
stitch her life into the garments, working at starvation
wages, and yet will pay the fines to keep the street
drunkard out of the House of Correction, where the
city government hides the bodies of the men it slays.
She toils till at length the silver cord of life has got
loosed, and the golden bowl begins to break. She goes
to my atheist, and asks, " What comes of all this?
Am I to have any compensation for my suffering?"
And the Atheist says, "Nothing comes of it; there is
no compensation. You are a fool. You had better
have got a license from the Mayor and Aldermen to
prey on other men's wives about you; and then you




22             SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
might have had wealth and ease and respectability.
You ought to drink blood, and not shed your own."
" Abel's blood cries out of the ground;" continues
our Atheist, " but there is no ear of justice to hear it, and
Cain, red with slaughter, goes off welcomed to the arms
of the daughters of Nod; the victims of nobleness rot
in their blood; booty and beauty are both for him.
The world festers with the wounds of the hero; but
there is no cure for them: the hero is a fool, —his
wounds prove it. Saint Catherine has her wheel, Saint
Andrew his sword, Saint Sebastian his arrows, Saint
Lawrence his fire of green wood; Paul has his fastings,
his watchings, his scourge, and his jail, his perils of
waters, of robbers, of the city and the wilderness, his
perils among false brethren, and Jesus his thorny crown,
his malefactor's death; Kossuth gets his hard fate, and
Francis the Stupid sits on the Hungarian throne; the
patriots of France broil in the tropic marshes of Cayenne, and Napoleon, surrounded by cultivated women
who make him merchandise of their loveliness, and by
able men who make merchandise of their intellect,
Napoleon fills his own bosom and the throne of France
with his debauchery; Europe is dotted with dungeons,
— Austrian, Hungarian, German, French, Italian,they are crowded with the noblest men of the age, who
there do perpetual penance for their self-denial, their
wisdom, their justice, their affection for mankind, and
their fidelity to God. These die as the fool dieth.
There is no hope for any one of them, in a body without a soul, in an earth without a heaven, in a world
without a God. Does not that content you? "
" All the Christian world over, Oppression plies its
bloody knout, - its well paid metropolitan Priest bless



SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            23
ing the scourge before it is laid on. The groan of the
poor comes up from the bogs of Ireland, and from the
rich farms of England, and her crowded manufactories.
Men make circumstances in London, which degrade
two hundred thousand people below the Cannibals of
New Zealand, and starve the Irish into exile, brutality,
or death. The sighing of the prisoner, breaks out from
the jail of the tormentor, who' Holds the body bound,
But knows not what a range the spirit takes.'
" The iron gripe of kings chokes the throat of the
people. Every empire is girded at the loins with an
iron belt of soldiers, which eats into the nation's flesh.
Siberia fattens with Freedom's noble dead, and in America three millions of men drag out a life in chains,
bought as cattle, sold as cattle, counted as cattle, only
not prayed for in the Christian churches, as cattle are;
and the little commissioner who kidnaps at Boston, and
the great stealers of men who enact the statutes which
make American women into marketable things, are honored in all the' Christian' churches of the land. Most
of' the great men,' all the'citizens of eminent gravity,'
all the'unimpeachable divines,' are on the side of
wrong. Cry out, blood of Abel! there is no ear to hear
you. Victims of nobleness, rot in your blood! it will
enrich the ground. Ye saints, — Catherine, Andrew,
Sebastian, Lawrence, Paul, Jesus, - bear your rack
and gibbet as best your bodies may! Kossuth, stoop
to Francis the Stupid! Ye patriots of France, kneel
to Napoleon the Little, and be jolly in the Sodom
which he makes. Ye that groan in the dungeons of the
world, who starve in its fertile soils, who wear chains in
free America, -yield to the Jeffries, the Haynaus, the




24             SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
slave-hunters, and the priests! for there is a body without a soul, an earth without a heaven, a world without
a God. Atheism is the Theory of the Universe; and
there is no God, no Cause, no Mind, no Providence."
The Atheist looks on the lives of the noble men
"Who in the public breach devoted stood,
And for their country's cause were prodigal of blood,"
and he says," these men were fools; every man of them
might have been as sleek, as comfortable, and as fat as
the oiliest priest that Mammon consecrates. They
were fools, and only fools, and fools continually. To
the individual hero there comes nothing but blood and
wounds."
He looks on the nations that failed in their struggle
against a tyrant's chain: Poland fell, and Kosciusko
went to London, only " Peter Pindar " to welcome the
exile; Greece went down in Turkish night; Italy and
Spain must bow them to a tyrant's whim, - and the
Atheist has no hope. The States which fail read no
lesson to mankind, and have no return for their unblest toil. He looks on the nations now in their agony
and bloody sweat, sitting in darkness and iron; he sees
no Angel strengthening them. What a picture the
world presents: Heroism unrequited, paid with misery,
vice on a throne, and nobleness in chains. Want, misery, violence, meet him everywhere; and for his comfort he has his creed - a body without a soul, an earth
without a heaven, a world without a God!
The Atheist sends out his Intellect to seek for the
controlling mind, which is the Cause of the created, the
Reason of the conceivable, the ground of the true, and




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            25
the loveliness of things beautiful. His intellect comes
back, and has brought nothing, has found nothing, but
the reflection of its own littleness mirrored on the surfaces of things. He saw matter everywhere; he met no
causal and providing Mind.
He sends out his Moral Sense to seek the legislating Conscience which is Justice in what is right, the
Ground of good, and the Altogether Beautiful to the
Moral Sense, the Equitable Will which rules the world.
But his Moral Sense returns silent, alone, and empty;
there is no Equitable Will, no Altogether Beautiful of
moral excellence, no Ground of Good, no Conscience
which enacts Justice into an unchanging law of right;
there is only the finite will of man, often erring and
always feeble, man an animated and self-conscious drop
of dew in the Sahara of the world, conscious of desire,
of will, but of such feebleness that soon he will exhale
into thin air, and be no more a drop in all the world, -
will evaporate into nothing Everywhere is material
fate, material chance: spiritual order, spiritual providence, - that is a dream.
He sends out his Affections on the same quest, seeking his heart's desire. They have grown strong by love
of Nature, - the crystal, the plant, and animal; they
have been educated by loving man - parent and friend,
and Twife and child, and all mankind; refined by loving
noble men, who attract ingenuous youth as loadstones
draw the iron dust. Now his Affections fly forth with
trembling wing, and seek the All-perfect Ideal, the object of their love, to stay the hunger of the heart which
craves the Infinite to feed upon and love. But the
affections also come back to the sad man with no return. " There is nought to love," say they; "nothing
save man and the ideals of his heart; they are beauti3




26             SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
ful, but only bubbles; his warm breath fills them for a
moment; how -fair they shine, - they cool, they perish,
and are not! The breath was but a part of the windy
cheat which blows along the world, — the bubble
breaks, and is nothing. There are only finite things
for you to love; only finite things to love you in return."  He presses the frail object of his affection closer
and closer to his heart.  " This, at least," say I, "' is
secure, and is a fact - the dear one is a reality, and
not a dream."  Still there is a sadness in my eye,
whence speaks the unrest and wasting of the heart
which longs for the unchangeable lovely. Death comes
down to separate me from the best beloved. Beauty
forsakes the elemental clod, the lip is cold; the heart is
still; the eye - its lovely light all quenched and gone.
Where is the mind which once spoke to me in hand
and lip; the affection which loved me, finding its delight in loving, serving, and in being loved?  It is
nothing, all gone-like the rainbow of yesterday, no
trace thereof still lingering on the sky. " But what!"
say I, "is there nothing for me to love which will
not pass away?"' No: love gravitation, if you like,
cohesion, the primary qualities of matter; nought else
abides." I look up, and an ugly Force is there, alien
to my mind, foreign to my conscience, and hurtful to
my heart, and wantonly strikes down the One I valued
more than self, and sought to defend with my own
bosom; then I die, I stiffen into rigid death. So the
heathen fable tells that Niobe clung to her children with
warding arms, while the envious deities shot child after
child, daughters and fair sons, till the twelve were slain,
and the mother, all powerless to defend her own, herself
became a stone!
Last hope of all, as first not less of all, the atheist




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            27
sends out his Soul, to seek its rest and bring back tidings of great joy. Throughout the vast inane it flies,
feeling the darkness with its wings, seeking the Soul of
all, which at once is Reason, Conscience, and the Heart
of all that is, which will give satisfaction to the various
needs-of each. But the soul likewise comes backempty and alone, to say, " There is no God; the universe is a disorder; man is a confusion; there is no Infinite, no Reason, no Conscience, no Heart, no Soul of
things. There is nought to reverence, to esteem, to
worship, to love, to trust in, nothing which in turn loves
us, with all its universal force. I am but a worm on
the hot sand of the world, seeking to fly — but it is
only the instinct of wings I feel; striving to walk, but
handless and without a foot; essaying then to crawl,
so it be only up. But there is not a blade of grass to
hold on to and climb up by, not a weed to shelter me
in the intolerable heat of life."
Thus left alone I look at the ground, and it seems
cruel, — a mother that devours her young. No voice
cries thence to comfort me; it is a force, but nothing
more. Its history tells of tumult, confusion, and continual change; it prophesies no future peace, tells of no
plan in the confusion. I look up to the sky, there looks
not back again a kind Providence, to smile upon me
with a thousand starry eyes, and bless me with the
sun's ambrosial light. In the storms a vengeful violnce, with its lightning sword, stabs into darkness, seeking for murtherable men.
There is no Providence, only capricious, senseless
Fate. Here is the marble of human nature, the atheist would pile it up into palace or common dwelling;
but there is only the fleeting sand to build upon, which
the rains wash away, or the winds blow off; nowhere is




28             SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
there eternal Rock to hold his building up. No, he
has not daily bread, - nothing to satisfy the hunger of
his mind, his conscience, and his heart, the famine of
his soul, only the cold, thin atmosphere of fancy.
Does he believe in immortality, - it is an immortality
of fear, of doubt, of dread. Experience tells him of the
history of mankind, a sad history it seems, — a record
of war and want, of oppression and servility. He sees
that pride elbows misery into the kennel and is honored
for the merciless act, that tyrants tread the nations
underfoot, while some patriot pines to oblivion and
death; he sees no prophecy of better things. How can
he in an earth without a heaven, in a soul without a
body, a world without a God?
Atheism sits down on the shore of Time; the
stream of Human History rolls by, bearing successively,
as bubbles on its bosom, the Egyptian civilization, and
it passes slowly by with its myriads of millions, and that
bubble breaks; the Hebrew, Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, Roman, Christian civilization, and they pass by
as other bubbles, with their many myriads of millions
multiplied by myriads of millions. Their sorrows are
all ended; they were sorrows for nothing. The tears
which furrowed the cheek, the unrequited heroism, the
virtue unrewarded, —they have perished, and there is
no compensation; because it is a body without a soul,
an earth without a heaven, a world without a God.
" Does not that content you? " asks our atheist.
No man can ever be content with that. Few men
ever come to it, -
"Thanks to the human heart by which we live!"
Human nature stops a great way this side of that.
I am not a cowardly man; but if I were convinced




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.           29
there was no God, my courage would drop as water,
and be no more. I am not an unhopeful man; there
are few men who hope so much; I never despair of
truth, of justice, of love, and piety; I know man will
triumph over matter, the people over tyrants, right over
wrong, truth over falsehood, love over hate; I always
expect defeat to-day, but I am sure of triumph at the
last; and with truth on my side, justice on my side,
love on my side, I should not fear to stand in a minority of one, against the whole population of this
whole globe of lands: I would bow and say to them,
— "I am the stronger; you may glory now, but I
shall conquer you at last." Such hope have I for
man here and hereafter, that the wickedest of sinners,
I trust, God will bring face to face with the best of
men, his sins wiped clean off, and together they shall
sit down at the table of the Lord, in the Kingdom of
God. But take away my consciousness of God, and I
have no hope; none for myself, none for you, none for
mankind. If no Mind in the universe were greater than
Humboldt's, no ruler wiser than presidents, and kings,
and senates, and congresses, if there were no appeal
from the statutes of men to the Laws of God, from present misery to future eternal triumph, on earth, or in
Heaven, -then I should have no hope. But I know
that the universe is insured at the office of the Infinite
God, and no particle of matter, no particle of mind shall
ever suffer ultimate shipwreck in this vast voyage of
mortal and immortal life.
I am not a sad man. Spite of the experience of life,
somewhat bitter, I am a cheerful, and a joyous, and a
happy man. But take away my consciousness of God;
let me believe there is no Infinite God; no infinite
Mind which thought the world into existence, and
3 *




30             SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.
thinks it into continuance; no infinite Conscience which
everlastingly enacts the Eternal Laws of the Universe;
no infinite Affection which loves the world; loves Abel
and Cain, — loves the drunkard's wife and the drunkard; the Mayors and Aldermen who made the drunkard; which loves the victim of the tyrant, and loves the
tyrant; loves the slave and his master; loves the murdered and the murderer, the fugitive, and the kidnapper,
-publicly griping his price of blood, the third part of
Iscariot's pay, and then secretly taking his anonymous
revenge, stealthily calumniating some friend of humanity; convince me that there is no God who watches
over the nation, but "forsaken Israel wanders lone;"
that the sad people of Europe, Africa, America, have
no guardian, -then I should be sadder than Egyptian
night! My life would be only the shadow of a dimple
on the bottom of a little brook,- whirling and passing
away; all the joy I have in the daily business of the
world, in literature and science and art, in the friendships and wide philanthropies of the time, would perish
at once, — borne down in the rush of waters and lost
in their headlong noise. Yes, I should die in uncontrollable anguish and despair.
A realizing sense of atheism, a realizing sense of the
consequences of atheism, - that would separate our
nature, and we should give up the ghost; and the elements of the body would go back to the elements of
the earth. But - God be thanked! - the foundation
of religion is too deep within us. There is a great cry
through all creation for the Living God. Thanks to
Him, the evidence of God has been ploughed into Nature so deeply, and so deeply woven into the texture of
the human soul, that very few men call themselves
atheists in this sense. No man ever willingly came to




SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.            31
this conclusion: no man; no, not one! Those men,
who have arrived at this conclusion, — we should cast
no scorn at them; we should give them our sympathy;
a friendly heart, and the most affectionate and tender
treatment of their soul.
Religion is natural to man. Instinctively we turn to
God, reverence Him, and rely on Him. And when
Reason becomes powerful, when all the spiritual faculties get enlarged, and we know how to see the true, to
will the just, to love the beautiful, and to live the holy,
- then our idea of God rises higher and higher, as the
child's voice changes from the baby's treble pipe to the
dignity of manly speech. Then the feeble, provisional
ideas of God which were formed at first, pass by us;
the true idea of God gets written in our soul, complete
Beauty drives out partial ugliness, and perfect Love
casts out all partial fear.








SERMON II.
OF ATHEISM AS ETHICS.
(33)




LUKE XVII. 5.
INCREASE OUR FAITH.
(84)




II.
OF PRACTICAL ATHEISM, REGARDED AS A
PRINCIPLE OF ETHICS.
LAST Sunday I said something of Speculative Atheism, that is, of atheism considered as a theory of the
universe; with some of the effects on the feelings, and
the views of Nature, and individual and general human
life, which come thereof. To-day I ask your attention
to a sermon of Practical Atheism; that is to say, of
Atheism, considered as the Principle of practical Ethics.
If a man starts with the idea that there is a body and
no soul, an earth without a heaven, and a world without a God, that idea needs must become a principle of
practice, and as such it will have a quite powerful effect
on the man's active character; it will come at length to
be the controlling principle of his life. For as in human
nature the religious is the foundation-element of man,
as I showed the other day, so any misarrangement in
that quarter presently appears at the end of the hands,
and affects the whole life of man.
Speculative Atheism will not be fully reduced to
practice all at once, but in the long run it will assuredly produce certain peculiar results; just as certainly
(36)




36              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
as any seed you plant in the ground will bear fruit after
its own kind, and not after another kind. You and I
are not very consistent, it may be, and we therefore
allow something to come between our first principle
and the conclusion which would follow from it; but
the Human Race is exceeding logical, and carries out
every principle into practice, making its earnest thoughts
into very serious things: only the idea is not carried
out at once, but in long ages of time, and by successive
generations of men. Every theological idea, positive
or negative, that is firmly believed in by mankind or by
nations, will ultimately be carried out by them to its
legitimate, practical effect, and will appear in their trade,
politics, laws, manners, - in all the active life of mankind. We think that the litany which we repeat in the
church is our confession of faith. Often, that reaches
very little ways in; but the real confession of the world's
faith is writ in its trade and politics, in its wars and
hospitals, in its armies and school-houses, better than
in its "pious literature."  The history of America, is
the publication of our real theology, the confession of
our actual creed. Each intentional act comes from a
sentiment or idea. It is well to see what our ideas are
before the thought becomes a thing.
Last Sunday I showed that there was a mere formal
speculative atheism, which was only a denial of God
in terms, or the denial of the actuality of a certain
special idea of God, but yet contained an affirmation
of the quality of God under another name; while real
speculative atheism was the denial of the quality of
God under all names, a denial of the actuality of any
possible idea of God. And I showed also that there
were reputed atheists, who denied some specific notion




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             37
of God, because they had a better one; and because
they were really more theistic and more religious than
the men about them.
The same distinction is to be made in respect to
practical atheism. Real practical atheism is the living
of speculative atheism as a practice; that is, the living
as if there was no God, who is the Mind, Cause, and
Providence of the world; and that is living as if a man
had no natural obligation to think and speak true, to do
right, to feel kind, and to be holy or faithful to himself;
living as if there were no soul, no heaven, no God.
That is real, practical atheism.
There is a formal practical atheism, which is merely
formal, and is based on formal speculative atheism. As
the mere formal speculative atheist denies the name of
God, but affirms the quality of God, and ascribes that
quality to Nature, - so the mere formal practical atheist
denies that man owes any natural absolute obligation
to God, to think true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be
holy; but he affirms that he owes this natural and absolute obligation to Nature; either to all Nature, represented by the universe, or to partial Nature, represented
by mankind, or by the individual man, or some special
faculty in man. In this case the atheist really affirms
the absolute obligation of man to the quality of God,
only he gives that quality of God another name, and is
no practical atheist at all; though he thinks he is so,
and calls himself by that hard name. For only the
semblance of real practical atheism can be built on the
semblance of real speculative atheism. If a man confesses that he has a natural and absolute obligation to
think true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be holy, it is
comparatively of little consequence whether he says
4




38              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
that he owes this obligation to Nature or to God;
because in such a case he means the same by the
word "' Nature' that another man means by the word
"God; 9  and the obligation is the same, the consciousness of it is the same, and the duty which comes therefrom will be just the same.
I dislike to hear Nature called God, or God called
Nature. Let each thing have its own name. In due
time I will show what evils are like to follow from this
confusion of terms, miscalling the finite and the Infinite.
Still that confusion is not atheism.
Real practical atheism, I say, is the carrying out of
real speculative atheism into life, living as if there were
no natural obligation on man to think true, to do right,'
to feel kind, and to be holy; no obligation, therefore, to
be faithful to himself as a whole, or to any part of himself as a part.
This real practical atheism is divisible for the present
purpose into two forms.
First, the Undisguised practical Atheism. Here the
practical atheist openly and undisguisedly denies the
quality of God, denies that he owes any natural obligation to think true, to do right, to feel kind, or to be selffaithful; and on the contrary affirms speculative atheism
as his practical principle and motive of life, and then
endeavors to live up to it, - or live down to it. That
is one form.
Second, the other is Disguised practical Atheism.
Here the practical atheist acts on the idea that he has
no natural obligation to think true, to do right, to feel
kind, and to be holy; and thus really and in act denies
the idea of God; but suppresses the formal denial of
God and the affirmation of atheism; or he even goes




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             39
so far as to affirm his belief in God, and deny his assumption of atheism as a principle of action. That is
the other form.
Now in truth these two men, the undisguised professor of atheism, and the disguised practiser thereof, if
they were consistent, would act pretty much alike in
most cases, and do the same thing; only the undisguised atheist would do it overtly, with no denial of the
fact and motive, but with the affirmation of each; and
the disguised atheist would do it covertly, denying both
the fact and the motive, thus adding hypocrisy to atheism. The undisguised atheist will be the more manly,
because he is more thorough-going in his manhood;
and such a person will always command a certain
degree of admiration, because it is manly in the man
to say right out what he thinks right in; and if he is
going to live after a certain principle, to declare that
principle beforehand. There is a consistency of manhood in that, and the very assertion is therefore often a
guarantee of the man's honesty. But the disguised
atheist will be the more atheistic, because he is really
the more thorough-going in his atheism. One is true
to his natural character as man, the other to his conventional character as atheist, for as atheism is the
negation of Nature, so the negation of itself is a legitimate function of atheism. The reason of this will
appear presently.
I said last Sunday that there never was any complete, real speculative atheism in the world; for complete, real speculative atheism is so abhorrent to human
nature, that if a man had a realizing sense thereof and
of its speculative consequences, he must needs die outright. I may say the same of complete, real practical
atheism. There is no complete and real practical athe



40              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
ism; for I think nobody could ever be perfectly consist.
ent with real speculative atheism, and live as if he felt
absolutely no obligation to speak true, to do right, to
feel kind, and to be holy. That, therefore, is an extreme which man cannot possibly reach. Human
nature would give up before it came to such a conclusion. It is conceivable-but neither actual nor possible.
But yet there is a great deal of practical conduct
which logically rests on this basis, and on no other, and
though no man was ever fully false to his nature, and
fully true to his atheism, yet very many are partially
false to their nature, and partially true to atheism; and
so there is a good deal of practical atheism in the world;
much more than there appears of real speculative atheism; and though no man is a complete practical atheist,
yet there are many with whom practical atheism preponderates in their daily life, and turns the balance. I
mean to say they live more atheistically than theistically. The man does not clearly say to himself, " There
is no God; " he only half-says it, and little more than
half-acts on that supposition. HIe does not say out,
" There is no God, and hence no obligation to speak
true, act right, feel kind, and be faithful to myself; " because, first, there is some theism left in the man, —I
think nobody can ever empty himself wholly of the
consciousness of God; — or next, because the man is
not fully self-conscious of his consciousness, so to say,
and does not really and distinctly bring to light the
principles which are yet the governing principles in his
nature; - Or, finally, if he is thus conscious, he does
not dare to say it, but yet acts mainly on that supposition. Now there is a great deal of this in the world;
very much more than appears at first sight.




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.            41
I mentioned the other day that some men whom I
knew, calling themselves atheists, were yet excellentl
men; true, just, loving, and holy men; full of a certainl
religiousness, eminently faithful to themselves, keeping
the integrity of their conscience at great cost' of selfdenial, and feeling more strongly than the majority of
men the absolute obligation they were under to be faithful to every limb of their body and every faculty of their
spirit. These were only formal atheists, not real atheists. They did not think there was no God; they only
thought that they thought so. Some of these men
have really a higher idea of the quality of God than the
Christians about them; only they do not call it God,
but Nature; for the " Nature " of the physical philosopher, or the " Mind" of the metaphysical philosopher is
sometimes higher in some particulars, than the notion
of the " Trinity," or the notion of the "Unity," which
the general run of Christians have formed. I am bound
as a faithful man to confess this. So some of these
who are called atheists, and who name themselves so,
are in reality more theistic and more religious than the
general run of Christians about them. Such men as
these do not show the practical characteristics of real
atheism, but of the real theism which they have disguised to themselves by the name of atheism.
Thus one of these in America says, " It will do very
well for Christian Doctors of Divinity and deacons, who
believe in an angry God that will damn mankind forever, to declare there is in the universe no Law higher
than the Baltimore Platform, and the Compromise Measures of the American Congress. It will do very well for
them to declare that an angry God has given politicians
authority to make such statutes, and declare them binding on men, and so' suppress' and' discountenance all
4*




42             PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
agitation' for the welfare of one sixth part of the population of the country. ]But atheists, who believe in Nature,- the material world, —in Mind,- the spiritual
world, - they must declare that there is a Higher Law;
to wit: the Law of Nature, seen everywhere in the
ground, and in the sun; and the Law of Mind also,
felt everywhere in the consciousness of Man."
It is very plain that this man, though he calls himself an atheist, has really an idea of God, and consequently of man's obligation to speak true, act right, feel
kind, and be holy, much higher than the Christian divine who would send his mother into bondage to keep
the Compromise Measures; a much higher idea than
the man who would renounce his reason for the sake
of his creed, and who would give up his humanity in
order to join a church, or to keep the wicked statutes
which men make in their parliaments. Here you perceive the man calling himself by that ugly name, was
only a formal atheist, and had really an idea of God
which vastly transcended that of the churches about
him. I am bound in justice to say this.
The actual consequence of atheism as a principle of
action is something very different from that. The practical atheist, starting from his speculative principle that
there is nothing which is the Mind, the Cause, and the
Providence of the universe, or of any part thereof; and
accordingly that Nature and Man are, respectively, the
only mind, cause, and providence of themselves, — he
must necessarily believe that man is under no natural
and absolute obligation to think true, to do right, to feel
kind, and to be holy. He must deny that there is any
such obligation to God, because he denies the existence
of God, or because he denies the existence of the quality
of God, and he must deny that he owes this obligation




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.            43
to himself; for as man is his own mind, cause, providence, lawgiver, and director, so every propensity of the
man is likewise and equally its own cause, its own
mind, its own providence, its own lawgiver and director.
Accordingly passion is no more amenable to reason and
conscience, than reason and conscience are amenable to
passion. The parts are no more amenable to the whole,
than the whole to any one of the parts. Man is finite,
and there is no Higher Being above man; and so there
is no Higher Law above the caprice of any passion or
any calculation. The man may will any thing that he
will, and it shall be his law. For reason there stands
the arbitrary caprice of man, the arbitrary caprice of
each instinctive desire, or of any calculated act of will,
and no more.
If the atheist admits there is in human consciousness
an Idea of Right, he must declare it is not any more
binding upon man than the Idea of Wrong. We form
an Idea of Absolute Right: "it is a mere whim," says
the atheist; "there exists no substance in which the
Absolute Right can inhere. It is an abstract quality
which belongs to no substance. It is a nothing; only
it differs from an absolute transcendental nothing in
this, that it is a thinkable nothing; not real, - an actual
thing; not possible, - a thing to become actual; yet
conceivable —an actual thought in the mind. You
may distribute nothing into various heads, and say there
is a pure nothing, which cannot be conceived of at all.
You can have no notion of a pure nothing - it is not
even thinkable; that is absolute transcendental negation- a denial of subjective conceivableness, as well
as of objective actuality. Then you may say, there is
also another form of nothing, which is the thinkable
nothing. According to an atheist, God is a thinkable




44              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
nothing, and the Idea which men have of God, has no
more objective actualness to support it, than the Idea
of Light would have if all material light, all actual, and
all possible light, were blotted out of being. Then all
the necessary attributes of God fall into the same class
- thinkable nothings. So do all the transcendent attributes of man. Truth is a thinkable nothing, Justice a
thinkable nothing, and any excellence which surpasses
the excellence of Thomas, and Richard, and Henry, or
all actual men, is also nothing; only it is a thinkable
nothing, not a transcendental nothing.
This being the case, there is nothing for me to aspire
after. Ideal wisdom, justice, love, holiness, each is but
a thinkable nothing; —I should not aspire after that,
more than I should marshal ghosts into an army to go
out and fight a battle; or put in battery a non-existent
but yet thinkable cannon, which is no cannon, and good
for nothing. And then, all reverence must, of course, be
weeded out from the mind of the practical atheist. He
can only reverence something that he sees with his eye
or feels with his hand, or reverence himself. This
faculty of reverence which is born in us, - so delightful
as a sentiment, as a principle so strong, —must take
one of two forms: that of servility, crouching down
before a man; or of self-esteem, strutting proudly in
its own conceit. There is no other form possible for it.
The practical atheist denies God, and of course
denies religion in all its parts; absolutely denies all
obligation; to him the idea of obligation and of duty
must lack actuality. He must deny my obligation to
conform to my reason, conscience, affections. There is
no reason therefore why I should speak and think true,
do right, feel kind, and be holy, if it is agreeable to me
to do otherwise. Therefore if I am an atheist, and if




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             45
atheism be unpopular, my atheism will justify me in
denying atheism itself and in affirming theism. So
atheism, in this way, is self-destructive; its development
is its dissolution. So to deny atheism, under such circumstances, will be more atheistic than to affirm it.
The atheist who denies it is false to his manhood;
there is no atheistic reason why he should be true to it;
and the more he denies it, the more he is faithful to his
atheistic opinion.  So the expedient must take the
place of the true and the right; the agreeable must take
the place of the beautiful; desire, the place of duty;
and I will must take the place of that solemn word, I
ought. There can be no ought in the grammar of
atheism.
But as the atheist in denying God denies the soul,
and in doing that denies the immortality of man, his
range of expediency must be limited to this life; and
not only must it be limited to the earthly life of the
human race, — which may be eternal for aught we
know, -but it must be limited to the life of the particular atheist who thinks it, and even to the humbler faculties and lower wants of his nature; and so the highest thing he can desire must be his own present comfort. That is the highest real thing that he knows.
So speculative atheism reduced to practice, must logii
cally lead to complete material selfishness, and can lea4
to nothing else.
But as human nature will not allow complete speculative atheism as a theory of the universe, so it will not
any more allow complete practical atheism, or complete
selfishness, as a principle of life. There is a margin of
oscillation around every man, and we are allowed to
vibrate a little from side to side. This margin seems
sometimes pretty wide, but complete practical atheism




46              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
or complete speculative atheism lies a great ways beyond the limit of human oscillation. It is a thinkable nothing, - conceivable but not actual, or even possible. Still practical atheism actually tends to that conclusion.
All this which I have said is general in its application; is universal -it will apply to all forms of life.
Now see how this atheism will manifest itself in the
practical conduct of men in the various forms of Individual, Domestic, Social, National, and General Human
Life. Let me say a word of each of these in its order.
I. I will speak first of the Individual Life.
As by the atheistic theory of the universe there is no
such thing as moral obligation, no such thing as Duty,
no Absolute Right, —as Man is the highest Mind in
the universe, his own Cause, his own Providence, his
own Originator, his own Sustainer, and his own Director, - so he is perfectly free to do exactly as he pleases.
Duty will resolve itself into caprice of selfishness.
Each man is to concentrate himself particularly upon
the desire that is uppermost at the time; for as I am
my own end, and to seek my own welfare at all hazards,
so each particular propensity in me is its own end, and
to seek its own welfare, - that is, its own gratification,
-at any or all hazards.
So in my Period of Passion, the gratification of the
passional propensities will be the chief thing which I
am to seek. I recognize no Higher Law, in me or out
of me; no law to prescribe a rule of conduct for me as
a whole, or to prescribe a rule of conduct for any particular part of me, - any special passion. To acknowledge an imperative and extra-human law from without,,




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             47
which has a natural right to claim allegiance from me
and to rule me as a whole- that would be to confess a
God; not in terms, but in fact. To acknowledge an
imperative and extra-passional law within me, to which
I owe allegiance and which has a natural right to rule
over any one passion, is to acknowledge God in degree;
for what has a natural right to rule absolutely over any
one particular propensity is God, so far as that propensity
is concerned; and as I deny the actuality of the Infinite,
and do not acknowledge a God who is the Reason and
Conscience of the Universe and has the right to rule
over me as a whole, no more do I acknowledge that
my own personal reason and conscience have the right
to rule over me or over any special appetite or desire.
There is no extra-personal and Infinite Norm to prescribe a rule of conduct for me; there is no intra-personal
and finite norm to prescribe a rule of conduct for any appetite or passion. So I am to let my passion have its
swing in its quest for pleasure. If I have got rid of the
great God of the universe, and acknowledge no absolute obligation to think true, to do right, to feel kind,
and to be holy, -it will be ridiculous in me to set up a
little God in my own consciousness, and acknowledge
the obligation of my members to conform thereto in
any one particular.
So the negation of religion as a whole carries with
it the negation of control over any one particular passion. As the universe is a "fortuitous concourse of
atoms," without any thing to rule it, with no mind to
direct it, self-originated, self-directed, self-sustained, so
my consciousness must be a fortuitous concourse of
passions with no harmony therein,; every passion selforiginated, self-directed, self-sustained, its own end, and




48              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
to seek its own gratification wholly regardless of its
neighbor, or the whole body.
Accordingly in the Period of Passion I may give
loose to my instinctive appetites. You come to me
and say, "' There is a God. You must not break his
law." I deny this. " At least there is something that
is right, and you must do that." I deny that also; I
say there is no such thing as right. " At any rate you
must control your passions for the good of your whole
nature, during a long life." But, why should I do that?
What right have I to control this or that passion, and
debar it of its temporary lust, for the sake of giving
the whole man a lasting delight? The passion has no
norm but itself; what right has the whole man to control any part of him, or one part to hold another in
check? or put off pleasure to-day for more pleasure tomorrow? So at this period of life anarchy of passions
is the only atheistic self-government.
In the Period of Ambition -which in New England
is commonly by far the more dangerous of the two, as
its perils lead to fortune, and the ruin it brings is
deemed "eminent success" -I am  to let the other
selfish propensities seek each its own object, and not
hinder them. I am covetous: I am not to restrain my
avarice by my reason, my conscience, my affections;
I am to seek my own gain in all ways, at all hazards,
and in derision of reason, of conscience, and of affection.
There is no principle to stand between me and the dollar, or the office which I covet. I am to be wholly unscrupulous in my zeal, and in the means I make use of
to achieve my end. I have a great love of power, fame,
ease; and I am to let each of these desires have its full
swing. There is no higher power to prescribe a rule of




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             49
conduct for my ambition, more than for my passion.
Here all must be a fortuitous concourse of ambitions,
the anarchy of ambitions is the only atheistic self-government at this period.
So there is nothing to prevent my life from being the
mere selfishness of passion in youth, seeking pleasure
as its object; or the selfishness of ambition in manhood,
seeking profit as its goal; for nothing has any right to
stand between me and the object of my ambition, more
than between me and the object of my passion. Atheism must be universal anarchy!
Now each of these forms of atheism may assume two
modes. One is that of Gross Selfishness, that is, gross
sensualism of pleasure in the period of passion, or gross
calculation of profit in the period of ambition. It will
terminate in the gross voluptuary or the gross hunker.
That is one form. It is the rude, coarse, vulgar form.
It is the shape in which atheism would manifest itself
with the poor, with the uneducated, with the roughest
of men. It is the atheism of savagery,- the practical
atheism of St. Giles' parish in London.
The other mode is that of Refined Selfishness, that is,
refined sensualism of pleasure in the period of passion,
or the refined calculation of profit, in the period of ambition; and so here it will terminate in the delicate and
subtle voluptuary, or else in the delicate and subtle
hunker;- - This is the atheism of civilization, the atheism of St. James' parish in London. The mode will
depend on the temperament and circumstances of the
man. And yet you see these two are generically the
same; with unity of idea and unity of purpose, both
seek a selfish object, and both come to the same end,
only one in the delicate and the other in the gross form.
5




50              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
In either case the aim of life is to be the rehabilitation
of selfishness; I mean the enthroning of selfishness as
the leading practical principle of life. The atheist is to
look on every faculty as an instrument of pleasure or
profit; to look on his life as a means of selfishness and
no more; to look on himself as a beast of pleasure or a
beast of prey. Behold the man of atheism! - his controlling principle selfishness; his life "poor, and nasty,
and short! "
Now man is not selfish by nature. We have self-love
enough to hold us together. Self-love, the conservative
principle of man, is the natural girdle put about our
consciousness to keep us from falling loose, and spreading, and breaking asunder. In human nature self-love
is not too strong. When all the faculties act in harmony there is no excess of this. But if you deny that
faculty which looks to the Infinite, which hungers for
the ideal true, the ideal just and lovely and holy, then
self-love, conservative of the individual, degenerates
into selfishness, invades others, and each man becomes
merely selfish.
This fact implies no defect in the original constitution of Man; for it is a part of the plan of human nature that religion, the consciousness of God, should be
the foundation-element of spiritual consciousness, and
so the condition of manifestation for all the high faculties put together: and as roses will not bloom without
light and warmth, or as ships cannot keep the sea without keel and rudder and a hand upon the helm, no more
can the high qualities of humanity come forth without
we put in its proper place the foundation-element of
man, and let the religious faculty lay its hand upon the
helm. The individual atheist, if consistent, must prac



PRACTICAL ATHEISM.               51
tically live in utter selfishness - material selfishness, selfishness bounded by the short span of his own earthly
existence.  And that is individual ruin.
II. See next the effect of practical atheism  on Domestic Life, in the Family. The normal basis and
bond of union in the family is Mutuality of Love in its
various forms: connubial —between man and wife, -
parental, affiliative or kindly between kith and ki,,and friendly love.
Connubial love in its normal state consists of two
factors,- passion, seeking the welfare of the lover, and
affection, which seeks the welfare of the beloved.  In
normal connubial love these two, the plastic and the
pliant are coordinated together. Each aims to delight
the other more than to enjoy himself, and finds his satisfaction less in enjoying than in delighting. Passion is
then beautiful and affection is delightful. Self-love is
subordinate to the love of another, the special to the
universal. The love of the true, the just, the ever beautiful, and the holy, comes in, and prevents even the
existence of selfishness. This condition affords an opportunity for developing and enjoying some of the
highest qualities of man. Passion is instinctive, and
affection also is instinctive at first; but as man develops himself by culture, as the human race enlarges
in its progressive unfolding, so the affections become
larger and larger, more powerful in the individual and
the race, and the joy of delighting becomes greater and
more.
But in practical atheism the family must rest on
fAutuality of Selfishness, not on mutuality of love.
And this must appear in all its forms, in the relation
between acquaintances or friends, between kith and kin,




52               PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
between parent and child, between man and wife.
Marriage must be only for the selfishness of transient
pleasure, or the selfishness of permanent profit. The
parental and filial relation must be only a relation of
selfishness, the parents wanting the child to serve them
as a beast of burden or as a toy, and the children wanting the parent to serve them, and valuing father or
mother only for what they get therefrom. The relations of kinship, of brother and sister, of uncle and
nephew, of aunt and niece; the relation of friendship
must also be of selfishness, and no more. Passion
must be all lust, and affection die out and give place to
selfish calculation. The wife must be the husband's
tool or his toy, and. the husband the toy or the tool of
the wife.
Marriage is then possible for the sake only of three
things; first, for animal gratification; next for pecuniary profit; last for social respectability. It is a union
of passions in the one case, of estates in the next, of
respectabilities in the last; at any rate it is the conjunction of bodies without a soul, of selfishness without
self.denial, for a here with no hereafter, and in a world
with no God. Behold the family of practical atheists!
Atheism gone to housekeeping! the housekeeping of
atheism like the individual life thereof, - must be what
Hobbes said of it, -" poor, and nasty, and short! "  Expect no self-command here for conscience' or affection's
sake; no self-denial to-day, for dear and lasting delight
to-morrow; no self-sacrifice for another's joy or another's
growth: mutuality of selfishness is all; and the stronger
selfishness must carry the day; and that is the ruin of
the family. No family life of joy is possible without
self-denial on all sides. The wife must deny herself
for the husband; the husband, himself for the wife; the




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.            53
parent for the child; kith for kin, and friend for friend.
The stronger and nearer I fold another to my bosom,
the nearer and stronger is the demand on me for selfdenial, yea for self-sacrifice for the sake of the object that
my arms enfold.
Now there is much partial practical atheism which
appears in this domestic form. The present position
of woman is only justified on the ground that there is no
God: men do not understand it as yet; one day they
surely will. Every marriage which is not based on mutuality of affection, -where good is to be taken and
good is to be given, and man and wife both are to take
and both are to give,- is bottomed at last on practical
atheism; only on that. The other day I said it was.impossible for a man to be a complete speculative atheist. It is impossible for him to be a complete practical
atheist. But grant that there was a complete practical
atheistic man, and a complete practical atheistic woman;
would marriage be possible between the two? By
no means! Not at all! Juxtaposition of bodies is all
that would take place. Selfishness is never a bond of
real wedlock.
Philosophers in the last century, in France, thought
that the Spider had not yet developed all its economy,
but might be used for nice purposes of fabric and
manufacture amongst men. They thought they could
get the filament of a web finer than that of the silkworm's weaving, out from the spider's mouth. The
spider is not gregarious.  The philosophers gathered
together an innumerable host of the insects and shut
them up in one room, and left them to their weaving,
feeding them with flies and other food which the spider's appetite longed for. After a few days there was
only a single spider left. They fought with each other,
5*




54              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
and slew one another, till the king-spider was the only
one left, and selfishness had eat itself up.
III. See how practical atheism will appear in a
larger form of action,- the Social Form, in the Neighborhood and Community.
The normal basis of society is first the gregarious instinct, which we have in common with sheep and kine.
Next, comes the social will, which is peculiar to man,
and has this superiority over the gregarious instinct, —
it is to join men together in such a way that the individuality of each shall be preserved, while the sociality
of all is made sure of. That cannot take place with
the animals; and for this reason,- because they are
not persons, and free spiritual individuality does not
seem of so much value among sheep and kine as
amongst men. Each particular Ox may be only " so
much of the ox-kind;" this Bison only so much of the
bison-kind, and that Buffalo so much of the buffalo-kind;
and the individuality of either is of no great value for the
development of the ox or the ox-kind. But when you
come to man, Thomas is one man, and Oliver is another,
and Jason is a third; and it is just as necessary to preserve the free spiritual individuality of each one of these
as the individuality of the whole human race. Therefore this social will must so control the gregarious instinct that the individual shall be kept whole while sociality is made sure of.
Then there is a third thing; namely, the religious aspiration, which desires the absolutely true, just, and
lovely; and this desire can only be brought out in full
action in the company or society of men.
Accordingly in a normal society there will be, first,
individual self-love, seeking to develop and enjoy itself:




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.              55
then the social affection, seeking to delight and develop
others about us; and these two may be so coordinated
that the individual is kept in society, and the mass also
is developed and blessed by the concurrent desire to
enjoy and to delight: then there will also be the religious love of God, the ideal True, Just, Loving, and
Holy, involving as it does the religious love of men.
In short, that will be a society shaped by the Golden
Rule.
But the society of atheism must be a mutuality of
selfishness; a society of bodies without souls; ruled by
selfishness, not conscious affection; for an earth without a heaven, in a world without a God; and in a
world, too, without actual reverence, which comes instinctively into every person above the rank of the idiot;
— for with atheists reverence must take either the outward form of servility and baseness, or the inward form
of gross self-esteem. So this must be a short-sighted
selfishness, which lays out for to-day, but never lays up
for to-morrow.
Each conjunction of selfishness must needs be a battle.
The individual is a warfare of contending passions, lust
striving against acquisitiveness, and ambition against
amativeness. The family must be a warfare of men
and women striving for mastery. Society must be a
warfare of great and little, of cunning and foolish, rich
and poor, cultivated and ignorant, - contending for
mastery.  Amongst all these, the strong passion will
carry it in the individual, the strong person in the family,
and the strong class in society; and therefore no peace
is at all possible till the strong passion has subdued the
weak in the individual, the strong man the weak men
in the family, and the strong class has got its heel on
the throat of the weak class in society. Then there




56             PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
will be unity, and the conquering passion will proclaim
peace where it has made a solitude. The social aim
will be to rule over others, and make them serve you;
to give them the least and get the most from them;
and then he will be thought the most fortunate man
and so the most " respectable " in the community, and
" honorable" in the state, who does the least service for
mankind, and gets the most pay and the most power
from them. Society will be controlled by selfish propensities, not moral ideas, affectional feelings, or religious aspirations for ideal perfection.
See how this principle will work practically in social
affairs. Such is the distribution of faculties amongst
men that a few persons always control the mass of men.
We may deny this because we are Democrats, but it is
a fact which everywhere stares us in the face. It is so
with gregarious animals: the strong barnyard-fowl is
always cock of the walk, and rules the roost just as he
will, only as he has but a small margin of individual
oscillation, little individual caprice, he rules according to
the law of his nature, not the caprice of his will. The
actual preponderance of the few men over the many has
hitherto prevailed in every form of state government,
whether it be called a despotism, an aristocracy, or a
republic.  Six hundred men, self-appointed almost,
meet together in two Conventions at Baltimore, and
select two men, and then say to the people, -" One of
these is to be your President for four years." And the
twenty millions fling up their caps and say which of the
two it shall be; and the majority thinks it has made
the President. If the conventions had selected two
notorious kidnappers,- the Philadelphia kidnapper on
one side, and the Boston kidnapper on the other, - one
of these would as assuredly be President as either of the




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             57
actual nominees will be. This, I say, is so at present.
It is a fact all over the world, in Republics as well as in
Despotisms. The political " democrat" has commonly
been also a despot.
But the principle on which atheistic society must
needs be founded will be that of mere private selfishness. So all the rulers must of necessity be tyrants,
ruling with cruel and selfish aims. Oppression, which
is a Measure in the practice of men, must be also a
Principle in the theory of the atheist, the accidental
actual of human history will then become the substantial ideal of human nature. The most appropriate nomination in that case would be the nomination of the kidnappers.  The capitalist wishes to operate by his
money; that is his tool to increase his power of selfish
enjoyment. The operative wishes to act by his hand
and head; these are his tools to increase his power of
selfish enjoyment. But both must be thoroughly selfish
in principle, and so they will be natural and irreconcilable enemies waging a war for mutual extermination.
Accordingly the capitalist will aim to get the operatives'
work without giving them his money; and the operatives will aim to get the capitalist's money without
giving him their work; and so there will be a perpetual
" strike" and warfare between the two, each continually laying at the other with all his might. The harmony of society will be the equilibrium of selfishness;
and that will be brought about when the strong has
crushed down the weak, has got him under his foot and
has destroyed him. Harmony will take place when the
last spider has eaten up all his coadjutors. The social
peace of atheism is solitude.
In trade the aim will be to accumulate money, - no
matter how it is got, by fraud, by lies, by rack-rent on




58              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
houses, by ruinous usury on land, or less ruinous piracy
on the sea. The man will allow nothing to stand between him and the dollar he covets, no intellectual idea,
no moral principle, no affectional feeling, no religious
emotion. Mr. New  England is greedy for money;
Mr. South Carolina greedy for slaves. Mr. New England steals men in Africa, or in Massachusetts, and
sells them to his brother, Mr. South Carolina, getting
great pay. You say to both of these, This is very
wrong; it is inhuman, it is wicked. But the atheists
say, " What do we know about right and wrong?"
" I only know," says Mr. New England, "it brings me
money."  "I only know it brings me slaves," says Mr.
South Carolina. "All we want is money and slaves."
You can have nothing further to say to these two gentlemen.
Mr. Salem sends cargoes of rum to Africa, and when
it gets there dilutes it with half its bulk of water, drugs
it to its old intoxicating power, and then sells it to the
black man, who is made just as drunk, and a little more
poisoned than if he had the genuine article, the only
thing to which New England has characteristically
given its name. He sells this to the black man, and
sells him also powder and balls to use in capturing his
brother men; and when they are caught he " prudently "
leaves some other American to take and transport them
to market at Rio, or Cuba, with the sanction of the
American government. You say to Mr. Salem, This
is all wicked. " What do I care for that?" says he.
" It brings me very good money, very good honor, the
first respectability. You do n't think it's righteousness
I am trading for, that I baptize Negroes with poisoned
rum for the sake of their' Salvation!' I leave that
matter and the' Justification of Slavery' to the Chris



PRACTICAL ATHEISM.              59
tian clergy. It is quite enough for the merchant to
make slaves; I leave it to the ministers to prove it is
right. You think I am aiming at' Heaven,' do you?
You are very young, Sir! "
But, say you, you are false to your natural obligations
to do right, to speak true, to feel kind, and to be holy.
"Obligations of that sort!" adds he, " I know no such
obligations.  This is consciousness without a conscience." At least you must fear the judgment passed
against wrong in the next life! - say you, almost driven
to your last appeal. " But I know no next life," says
he; " here is the present life; I am sure of that."  But
at least you reverence God?  "Not at all," says  Lr.
Salem, " it is a world without a God! "
If a man starts with such a theory of the universe, and
such principles of practice, what can you say to him?
Call on that man for heroism when your country is in
danger, and he creeps under the oven. Call on him for
charity when the country is starving, and he sells bread
for a dollar a pound. You can get nothing from him
but selfishness.  An atheistic community could not
build a free School-house, or an Alms-house, or a Hospital, only a Jail. Behold atheism carried into society!
Now, as I said the other day, there is not much acknowledged speculative atheism, - acknowledged to
one's self, -but there is a great deal of partial practical
atheism, which lets houses at rack-rent, to the ruin of
the tenant; which lets money at rack-usury, to the ruin
of the borrower; sells rum to the ruin of the buyer; it
deals falsely in honorable goods, — there may be as
much baseness in the dealing, as danger in the merchandise,- and then with the profits it builds up great
houses, which are palaces for selfishness. I look on




60             PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
them as on the rude hovels of the buccaneers of Jamaica and the Caribbees, who went down to the shore
of the Spanish main and murdered the crews of the
ships they took, and then carried the ships to port and
broke them to pieces to build up their own houses from
the fragments. You ask these men to forbear from
destroying their brothers. You appeal to their human.
ity, —and they are true to their practical atheism.
You appeal to justice, -they know it not; to respect
for conscience, -they have none of it; to their consciousness of God, —they recognize no such thing.
Tell these men of some absolute right, of their immortal soul,  it is all a dream.
Am  I spealking mere fictions?  When Boston had
kidnapped Thomas Sims, and carried him away, two
members of a Christian church in this city, both merchants, met accidentally in its chief business street, and
talked the matter over. Both disliked the deed; but
one thus justified it, and said, " If we did n't do this we
shouldn't get any more trade from the South, and I
remember we have got to live here."  So do I," said
the other, " remember we have got to live hereafter."
There were practical atheism and practical religion
looking one another in the face. Boston went to the
side of practical atheism, as you know, thinking, as her
prominent ministers declared, there was no "Higher
Law."
There is a great deal of social practical atheism
which appears under the guise and with the name of
religion. This is the most ghastly, the most deadly
kind. It is concealed, - a wolf in sheep's clothing; still
a wolf, and his jaws are there under the innocent covering
of the lamb. It is Satan transformed " into an angel of




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             61
light," but still the old devil, spite of usurping the
angel's wings. The more consistent atheist will join
the church.
Here is an example of that. A man of property in
this city dishonestly failed; dishonestly, and yet legally
became a bankrupt; paid his creditors sixpence or a
shilling on the dollar; and secured to himself considerable property, getting a discharge from all his creditors except one. Afterwards he became rich. The
poor man who had refused to compound his debt
claimed his due. The rich man did not deny that it
was justly due, only declared it was not legally due.
There was no redress. At length our defaulting debtor
" experienced religion," as they say; - I call it experiencing theology, and very poor theology besides;'" experienced religion" at one of the sectarian churches of
Boston, -and became what is there called " a religious
man; " and came up before a communion table, and professed to commune with God, and Christ, and Man,
through the elements of bread and wine. Our poor
creditor goes to him again, and says, " Now I hope you
will pay me, since you have become a'religious man'
and have joined the church." Quoth the debtor, " Business is business, and religion is religion. Business is
for the week and religion for Sunday "   and paid him
not a cent. There was social practical atheism in the
guise of religion, all the more consistent in that garb.
Sometimes practical atheism gets into the pulpit as
well as the pews, and then it is tenfold more deadly;
for it poisons the wells of society, and next diffuses the
contents abroad as the waters of life. It cries out,
"Ho! every one that thirsteth, come up here and be
comforted in your sins. Slavery is a Christian Institution." Ask such a man, of that denomination, to preach
6




62             PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
against any popular wickedness which shakes the steeple over his head, and which jars the great Bible on his
pulpit's lid; ask him to preach against wickedness which
turns one half his congregation into voluptuaries, -
victims of passion, - and the other half into hunkers,
victims of ambition, -and he only cries, " Save us,
Good Lord!"  Tell him of some noble excellence that
is going abroad into society, and is ready to be struck
down by the wickedness of the world, and ask him to
speak only a word in its favor over the cushions of his
pulpit, and he mumbles, "Miserable Offenders! Save
us, Good Lord." That is all he can say.
All these practically deny the Higher Law. I am
not speaking of momentary errors. You all know I am
far more charitable than most men to all errors of that
sort. I know myself how easy it is to do wrong; how
many depraved things may be done without any depravity in the human heart. But atheism of this sort,
disguised or undisguised, - I cannot express the abhorrence and loathing that I feel for the thing. Offences
are one thing, but the theory which makes offences -
that is the baser thing.
Look about you and see how much there is, however,
of practical atheism not confessed to itself. The Sadducee comes forward and says, " There is no Angel,
nor Resurrection; " and men cry out "Atheist!"
"Away with him!"  The Pharisee devours widows'
houses, and then struts into the temple, drops with
brassy ring his shekel into the public chest, and stands
before the seven golden candlesticks and prays, " God,
I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I
fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess."  Men cry out, " This is a Saint! a great Chris



PRACTICAL ATHEISM.              63
tian! "- and run over the poor widow who is dropping
into the alms-box her two mites, all the living that she
has, and tread her down. This practical social atheism
is the death of all heroism, all manliness, all beauty, all
love.
IV. See this practical atheism in the Political Form,
in the Nation. The normal motive of national union
is the gregarious instinct and the social will, acting in
their larger modes of operation, and joining men by
mutuality of interest, and mutuality of love. This is
the foundation of all real patriotism. Then the union
will be for the sake of the universal good of all, and the
particular good of each. National institutions, constitutions, and statutes will be the result of a national
desire for what is useful to-day, and for what is absolutely true, just, lovely, and holy. There will be a coordination of the particular desire of Thomas and Jane,
each seeking his owvn special good in the action of personal self-love; and of the general desire of the nation
seeking the united good of all in the joint action of selflove and of benevolence. All of this let me represent
by one word, Justice, a symbol alike of the transient
and eternal interests of both all and each. All national
statutes will come from the conscience of the nation;
which aims to make them so as to conform with the
conscience of God, as that is shown in the constitution
of the Universe, in the unchanging laws of Human
Nature, which represent the Justice and the Love of
God. Then every statute will be a part of the intrinsic
law of human nature writ out in human speech, and
laid down as a rule of conduct for men. Every such
statute will be human and conventional in its form, but
yet divine and absolute in its substance, as all true sci



64              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
ence is the divine and absolute Fact of Nature expressed in human speech. Then the reason for obeying
the human statutes will be the natural obligation to
speak true, do right, feel kind, and be holy; for so far
as the statutes of men represent the natural law of God,
obedience is moral, and it is obligatory on all to observe
them; but beyond this point obedience to those statutes is obligatory on no man, but is immoral, unmanly,
and wicked.
But the politics of practical atheism must be based
on selfishness. As selfishness obtains in the individual,
establishing a personal anarchy of desires; in the family,
establishing a domestic anarchy of its members; in the
community, establishing a social anarchy in the classes
thereof; so it must prevail in the state, establishing a
national anarchy in its various parts. Political morality is impossible in the atheistic state; there can be
only political economy, which aims to provide merely
for the selfishness of men. For by this hypothesis,
there is a body without a soul, a here but no hereafter,
a world without a God. Men awill be consciously held
together, in a negative manner, by the mutual and universal repulsion of selfishness, not at all, positively, by
the mutual and universal attraction of Justice. All
men will be natural enemies, joined by mutual hatred,
huddled together by Want and Fear.
Government is a contrivance whereby a few men
control the rest. In a democracy, the majority of the
people determine what great or little man shall perform
this function; or rather they think they determine this,
and at least can say who shall not officially attempt
this function. In a despotism the majority have not
that privilege - but the great or little man himself determines who shall control the nation. In the state of




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.             65
practical atheism, in either case, the government must
be one of selfishness -the controlling power seeking
the most for itself and the least for the people. So the
government will be a tyranny, representing only the
selfishness of the ruling power. In all cases the appeal
must be to Superior Force - to that as the proximate
appeal, to that the ultimate. Now it will be Force of
Body, then Force of Cunning. The government may
assume various forms, —the controlling power may be
a king, a monarchy of selfishness; a few great families,
an aristocracy of selfishness; or the majority, a democracy of selfishness: but the substance is still the same,
- tyranny and despotism, subjecting the world to monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic force; a rule of the
strong over the weak, and against the transient and permanent interests of the weak. To the individual whose
natural rights are destroyed, it is of small consequence
whether the destroyer is single-headed, several-headed,
or many-headed. Political atheism in one, in few, or
in many, is still the same.
Special maxims and special aims will vary with
special forms of government. Is the controlling power
a monarch, he will say, " The king can do no wrong,"
and above all things will aim to protect the conventional privilege of kings. Is it an aristocracy of long
descent, the maxim will be, " Birth before Merit;" "the
nobility cannot err." They will make all the power of
the people serve to rock the cradle for men of famous
line, scorning the common mortal's " puddle-blood."
Is it a company of capitalists, the maxim  will be
"' Property, before persons;" " let the State take care of
the rich, and they will take care of the people;" " money
can do no wrong." They will aim to oppress the poor
and make them servants, serfs, or slaves. Is it the mob
6*




66              PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
of proletaries, "Property is theft;" " the majority can
do no wrong;" "Minorities have no rights," will be the
maxim, and to plunder the rich the aim.
Political atheism is the exploitation of the people, —
by the selfishness of the king, the nobles, or the majority;
all right must yield to might. There is no moral element in the laws - in making, administering, or obeying
them; for atheism itself knows no obligation, no duty,
no right, only force and desire. All government is a
reign of terror.
In the atheistic state there must be another class.
As the formal negation of atheism, and the affirmation
of the opposite thereof, is one form of its practical profession, so the Priesthood of Atheism, an atheistic clergy,
is philosophically as possible, and historically as real,
as the monarchy, the aristocracy, or the democracy of
atheism. The clergy will be the ally of the tyrant, the
enemy of the oppressed, of the poor, the ignorant, the
servant, the serf, the slave. In the name of the Soul
which it rejects, of the Hereafter which it denies, of the
God whom it derides, the Atheistic Church will declare,
" There is no law above the pleasure of King Monarch,
or King Many. Obey or be damned."  So in the
atheistic state the atheistic church will be supple to
the master, and hate the slave; will cringe to power,
and abhor all which appeals to the Eternal Right; will
love empire, and hate piety. Now it will praise royalty,
now nobility, now riches, now numbers, claiming always
that the actual power holds by divine right; quoting
Scripture to show it. This is the most odious form
of practical political atheism, —the negation of itself,
the affirmation of its opposite; crushing man while it
whines out its litany- -" Save us, good Lord, miserable
offenders."




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.            67
Hobbes of Malmesbury, was right when he said
"Atheism is the best ally of despotism," for it denies
the reality of Justice; takes Conscience out of human
consciousness, the soul out of the body, Hereafter away
from  here, and dismisses God from the universe —
selfishness the only motive, force the last appeal. That
politician was a crafty man who said of religion - " in
politics it makes men mad," for it bids them speak true,
do right, feel kind, and be holy against the consent of
governments when they stand in its way. Alexander
at a feast slew Clitus, both drunk with Bacchic wine.
One of the flatterers, not drunk but sober, said " It is
all right; there is no law above the king! " That was
practical political atheism -the sober flatterer exalting
a drunken murderer above the eternal God; the exceptional measure of a king, raging with wine and anger,
was made a universal principle for all time.
Here in this nation there is much partial practical
atheism in the political form. Look at the corruption,
the bribery of eminent men, sometimes detected, acknowledged, and vindicated; at the conduct of political
parties, no one seeking to govern the nation for the
joint good of all the citizens, only for the peculiar
good of the party in power; at the tyranny of the
majority, striking down the obvious right of the
lesser number; at three million men made slaves by
the people of America: —what is it all but partial
practical atheism? I am glad political men boldly
declare the speculative principle which lies at the basis
of their practical measures and tell the people, " There
is no Natural Law above the statutes which men
enact:" no God above King Monarch, or King Many.
I am glad they " define their position," all atheistic as




68             PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
it is. Look at the political and clerical defences of the
most enormous public wickedness, and you see how
deep this practical atheism has gone down into the
people, how widely it has spread. But the hope which
I have for this nation is built on the Character of God,
and on the consciousness of God in the people's heart.
V. You may see how practical atheism must work
in the form of General Human Life, the Life of the
Human Race taken as a whole. Mankind is a Family
of Nations, amenable to the constitution of the universe,
and normally to be ruled by the laws of human nature,
by Justice, -by the moral obligation to speak true, to
do right, feel kind, and be holy. As the members in
the body form a harmonious person; as the individuals
in a house form a harmonious family; as the families
in society form a harmonious community; as the communities in a nation form a harmonious state; so the
nations in the earth are to form a harmonious World,
with human unity of action for all, with national variety
of action for each state, social variety of action for each
community, domestic for each family, and individual
for each person. Justice is to be the rule of conduct
for individual, domestic, social, national, and general
human conduct. Thus the ideal of human life in these
five forms will be attained and made actual.
But practical atheism makes selfishness, material
selfishness, the motive, and material desire the rule of
conduct for the nations which make up the world, as
for communities which compose the state, or for persons
who join in families. So the World of atheism, like
its state, society, family, and man, must be only an
anarchy of conflicting elements, the strong plundering,




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.            69
enslaving, or killing the weak. The proximate and
ultimate appeal will be to force, now force of body,
then force of brain.
Here I will not repeat what I have said before in
another form; but practical atheism will do on the
large scale for the world what it did on the small in
the state, community, and home. Each nation will be
deemed its own exclusive cause, its own sustainer,
director, mind, and providence. " There is no law of
God above the nation's will," says the Atheist; "no
God above the peoples of the earth. Let us bite and
devour one another."
There is much practical atheism of this form in the
world. See how Russia oppresses the feebler nations
of the East and West. See how this great AngloSaxon tribe, with its American and its British head,
invades the other feeble nations, - the yellow men in
Asia and the islands of the sea, the red men in America, and the black men in Africa. It is only practical
atheism which in England justifies her treatment of
Ireland, of India, China, Africa, and yet other regions of the world: in America it is only by practical
atheism that we can vindicate our treatment of the
Mexican and the Spaniard; still more of the red man
and the black. Atheism bids the powerful exploiter the
weak - now with the sword alone - the heathen way
of Rome; now with commerce and the sword - the
Christian way of the Anglo-Saxon.
I would gladly say much more that burns in my
bosom to be spoken, respecting atheism in its Political
and General Human Form, atheism making laws, atheism crushing down the people. I would gladly show
how this manifests itself in wicked wars.  I could
never look on an army invading another country to do




70             PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
it wrong, without asking, " Are the men who send the
army abroad atheists before men, as well as before
God?"  I would gladly speak of this in its Universal
Form, — arraying nation against nation, making the
strong tread down the weak. But yonder silent finger
warns me that I must not trespass too long.
Speculative atheism is a thing human nature revolts
at. So of speculative atheists, who have a full consciousness of complete atheism, there are at most but
few; I think not one. Practical atheism would be just
as impossible, if one could be thoroughly conscious
thereof. But without knowing it, there are men who
thus act, and move, and live, and have their being, as
if there were no God; as if man had no soul; as if there
was no special obligation to speak true, to do right, to
feel kind, and to be holy. But there are many depraved
things done which indicate no depravity in the manexcesses of instinct not yet understood, errors of passion
untamed as yet, nay of ambition, not knowing itself.
But there are depraved things which come out of conscious and systematic wickedness, - the deliberate
frauds of theology and trade, and the confessed wrong
in domestic, social, national, and general human life.
These are the fruits of practical atheism, though the
man knows not what tree it is which bears them.
We see atheism in two forms: One speculative, denying that there is any God. I shudder at that. I see
men of large culture attempting to found schools of
speculative atheism in this land. My bosom burns
with pity and love for those men. Others may throw




PRACTICAL ATHEISM.            71
stones at them; I shall throw none. Abuse enough
from every hireling clergyman they will have, and every
unreasonable sect; they shall have no abuse from my
lips; for I see how the creed and the conduct of- the
churches of our land, and of the Christian world, have
helped drive these men to their speculative atheism.
Yet I am bound to warn every man against this;
against its beginning, for at first there is something
rather attractive in the freedom of thought which it
allows. Let us have all that freedom of thought and
exercise every faculty of the intellect, and never fear.
Little thought stops at Atheism; much thought does
not turn out of the way in that direction; or if it do, it
comes rounding home, and so returns to God.
But I see practical atheism far more abundant, and
far more dangerous; by deeds, men denying there is
any God, any soul, any everlasting life, any obligation
to speak true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be holy.
This is a sad sight.
Speculative Atheism sits down, as I said last Sunday, on the shore of Time, and the stream of Human
History runs by, bearing the various civilizations,Egyptian, East Indian, Chaldean, Grecian, Roman;
each seems a bubble, though it contains the birth and
life, the groans unheard, the virtue unrewarded, the
prayers unanswered, of millions of millions of men.
Yet the remorseless stream, which comes from no
whence, and goes to no whither, swallows all these down,
- love unrequited, heroism not paid, virtue unrewarded.
Practical Atheism does not sit down in this way; it
goes out into the storm and tumult of active life, and
there it stands, this Cerberus of selfishness, with its
three heads; — Lust, which hungers and barks after
pleasure; Ambition, that thirsts for fame and power;




72             PRACTICAL ATHEISM.
and Avarice, which is greedier than all the rest. And
this monster of three heads stands there, making havoc
of the individual, the family, the community, the church,
the -nation, and the world.
But, thanks be to Almighty God! not only is the
religious element so strong in us, but the moral and
affectional are so powerful, the intellectual so mighty,
that human nature must stop a great ways this side of
complete Atheism. A body without a soul, a here but
no hereafter, a history without a plan, an earth without
a heaven, a universe but no God - no man can have a
realizing sense of it and live. Only let us be warned in
season, and freely develop the moral, affectional, and
religious faculties, and have their blest reward.




SERMION  III.
OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY, AS THEORY
7            (73)




MATTHEW  XV. 9.
TEACHING FOR DOCTRINES THE COMMANDBMENTS OF MEN.
(74)




III.
OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTENDOM,
REGARDED AS A THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
ON the last two Sundays I spoke of Atheism. First
of Atheism as Philosophy, - a theory of the universe;
and next of atheism as Ethics- a principle of practical life. To-day I ask your attention to a sermon
of the Popular Theology of Christendom, regarded as
Philosophy, a theory of the universe; and next Sunday I hope to speak of it as Ethics, a principle of
practice.
From the beginning of human history there has been
a progressive development of all the higher faculties of
man; of the religious powers, which connect man with
God, as well as of the other faculties, which connect
man with the material universe and men with one
another. There has been a progress in. Piety, in Morality, and in the Theories of these two. Of course, then,
there has been a progress in the visible results of this
development of the religious faculties. The progress
appears in the rise, decline, and disappearance of various forms of religion. Each of these has been necessary to the welfare of the human race; for at one time
(75)




76            THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
it represented the highest religious development of the
persons who embraced that form of religion. Sometimes it was a sect; sometimes a nation; sometimes a
great assemblage of nations: but in each case the form
of religion which the people accepted represented the
highest development of the religious faculties of those
people at that time. As the science of a nation represents its intellectual development, so the form of religion shows how far men have got on in their piety and
morality. But as each form of religion, when it is once
established, is a thing which is fixed and does not
change, and as the religious faculties are not fixed, but
go on with increasing power from age to age, so it happens that men must necessarily outgrow any specific
and imperfect form of religion whatever, just as they
outgrow each specific and imperfect form of science.
Human nature continually transcends the facts of human history, so new schemes of science, new forms of
religion continually crowd off the old.
This work of making a form of religion, and then
outgrowing it and making a new one is continually
going on. On a small scale it takes place in you and
me, who are constantly transcending to-day the form of
religion which satisfied us yesterday; it takes place on
a large scale in the human race as a whole. Sometimes a man distinctly and suddenly breaks with his
form of religion, or no religion, and takes a new one.
Sometimes a nation does so. This is called a Conversion of the individual, a Reformation of the nation; in
either case it is a Revolution in religion. But in general there is nothing sudden or abrupt about this; the
whole change takes place silently and slowly, with no
crisis of revolution; but insensibly, little by little, the
boy's religion passes away and the man's religion takes




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.             77
its place. A nation improves in its religion as in its
agriculture, its manufactures, its commerce, and its
modes of travelling; and the improvement is not by a
leap, which Nature abhors, but by a gradual sliding
upwards, almost insensible. It has been so with the
human race.
Two thousand years ago our fathers in the heart of
Europe were Pagans. Ten or twelve hundred years
ago they put off their Paganism and accepted Papal
Christianity. Three hundred years ago they put off
Papal Christianity and accepted Protestant Christianity. Each of these obvious changes, from Paganism to
Papacy, from Papacy to Protestantism, was sudden and
violent, a crisis of revolution. But before that crisis
came about, a yet greater change had taken place,
silently and slowly, the Pagans getting ready for Papalism, and the Catholic getting ready for Protestantism.
That was unobserved. First they grew up to Paganism, then to Papal Christianity, and then to Protestant Christianity. Shall mankind stop at Paganism?
at Papal Christianity?  at Protestant Christianity?
You and I may perversely stop, we may stand still, -
at least try to do so; but mankind never stops. The
soul of the human race constantly unfolds; it does not
pause. Like the stars in their courses without haste
and without rest it goes ever on. There is a continual
and silent change taking place at this day, and it must
for ever take place. It is not possible for the human
race to stand still in its religious development; no more
than for the matter of the Earth to cease to attract the
Moon and be itself attracted thereby.
The leading nations of the Caucasian race have thus
far outgrown, first, the savages' rude Fetichistic worship; then classic Heathenism; then patriarchal Deism:
7*




78            THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
then the Mosaic worship of Jehovah; and now the
most enlightened portion thereof have come to what is
called " Christianity."  That is the form  of religion
which they have reached to-day. Shall we stop with
the present form of religion called " Christianity?"
Mankind never surrenders to time. There is a progress
in what is called Christianity, a continual change of the
thing, though the name abides the same. Protestantism is clearly, on the whole, a step in advance of Catholicism - and Protestantism has advanced very much
since the death of Martin Luther. A change is going
on at this day within Catholicism and Protestantism.
What is called Christianity embraces three things,
namely: first Sentiments, next Ideas, and third Actions.
It is chiefly of the Ideas that I shall speak to-day.
These Ideas united together I shall call the Popular
Theology.
This Popular Theology is not wholly nor in chief the
work of Jesus of Nazareth, or of his immediate followers; for, though called by his name, it is no more his
production than modern philosophy is the production of
Socrates, or modern medicine the production of Galen.
What is called Christianity in this sense, - the Popular
Theology I mean, -is the result of the religions and
philosophical development of mankind up to this day.
The development of mankind - in matters pertaining
to the sentiment of religion, the idea of religion, the
practice of religion,s-has gone on a great deal more
rapidly since the time of Jesus than before or at his
time. The change which is now taking place in the
religious world - the change in the sentiments of relig.
ion, the ideas of religion, and the actions of religion —
is greater by far than the change from Judaism or Hea



THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           79
thenism to the Christianity of Paul and Tertullian. I
mean to say distinctly that between the Ideas of the
foremost religious men of this age and the popular theology of the churches, there is a greater chasm, a wider
and deeper gulf, than there was between the ideas of
Saint Paul or Tertullian and those of the Jews and Pagans who were around them.
If Jesus of Nazareth were to come back and preach
his ideas of theology as he set them forth in Judea, they
would not be accepted as Christianity. I think no one
of the apostles even would be thought Christian in any
church in the world. For, first, there has been a real
progress of mankind since their day; and the average
preachers have dropped some errors of the apostles, and
have got some new truths pertaining to the sentiment,
the idea, and the action of religion; and thus there has
been a real progress in religious growth.
But then again there has been a change without any
progress, as well as a change with progress; and the
caprice of individuals of to-day has taken the place of
the caprice of the individuals who lived ten, twelve, or
eighteen hundred years ago —one error taking the place
of another. A change of caprice does not always indicate a progress; but the acceptance of new truths - of
sentiment, of idea, and of action,- does represent a real
progress.
This progress has been influenced very much by the
genius of certain great men, some of them remarkable
for feelings of piety, some for ideas of philosophy, some
for actions of philanthropy. Jesus of Nazareth has had
an immense influence in giving mankind a start in the
direction which has been taken since his time. When
he declared that love of God and love of Man was the
sum of human duty to God and to man, then he made




80           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
a statement which can never be gainsaid, nor transcended, for in that he came upon the eternal substance
of religion. That idea can no more fade out of the religious consciousness of mankind than the multiplication table be dispensed with in Mathematics, the Alpha
bet in Literature, or the continent of America fail and
be left out of the Geographies which describe the Earth.
Jesus of Nazareth appears to have summed up religion
in these two things, namely, -in Piety, the love of
God; and Morality, the keeping of the laws of God,
and especially in keeping the law which commands us
to love our brother as ourselves. But that is at the
present day thought to be a very small part of Christianity; and it is thought in all the great sects, Catholic or Protestant, to be the least important part thereof.
I do not mean to say that I think Jesus had a complete and analytic comprehension of all which is included in his own words, nor that he did not demand
other things inconsistent therewith, only that he made
Love to God and Man, the chief thing in his religious
teaching. I make a distinction between his theology
and his religion. His theology seems to have had many
Jewish notions in it, wholly untenable in our day, though
commonly accepted by wise men in his. It was in his
religion that he surpassed his age.
If any one of the gospels, or if all of them represent
his thoughts correctly, then his theology contained a
considerable mixture of error, which indeed is obvious
to any man who will read those records without prejudice. With those works in our hands it would be
absurd to maintain that Jesus entertained no theological error, in matters of importance; that he had all
theologic truth; or all the theologic truth known to any
or all persons of his own time. From  the time of




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           81
Moses to Jesus there was a large intellectual and religious development of mankind, a marked progress in the
religious sentiments, ideas, and actions of individual
men, and of the leading nations of mankind. From the
time of Jesus to our time this progress, both in individuals and in nations, has been yet more rapid. Old
errors have been cast away, new truths have been added
to the consciousness of mankind. The theology of the
most eminent Catholics or Protestants at this day represents the thought of Jesus as it appears in the oldest
of the four Gospels, no more than a common plough
represents the thought of the man who first broke up
ground with oxen. No man is so great as mankind.
If the great genius at first is so far before his brothers
as to be incomprehensible, by and by they overtake him,
pass by him, and go still further on' till they become incomprehensible to the man who stands where the genius
once stood. I know it is thought very wicked to say
this in its application to the historical development of
religion, as it would be thought very foolish to deny it
in its application to the historical development of
agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, to any science,
to any art. Every great genius for religion will add
new facts to the world's experience of religion, just as
much since the death of Jesus as before his time. The
road is easier after a saint has trod it, and no saint
travels the whole length thereof.
Look at the Ideas of Christendom, the doctrines.
There is one great scheme of doctrines called" Christian Theology." It contains some things held in common with every other system of theology that has ever
been; they are the generic element of the popular the



82             THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
ology. Then it contains likewise other things peculiar
to itself, which do not belong to any other form of religion; these are the specific element of the popular theology. The first denote the agreement thereof with
other schemes of theology, and the next its difference
therefrom.
This great scheme of theology is common to all
Christendom as a whole, with few individual exceptions.
The Christians in general agree in a belief of this cornmon theology, and are thereby distinguished from men
of all other modes of religion.  The Protestant has
departed from the Catholic theology a little, separating
therefrom on the question of the authority and functions
of the Church -the Protestant affirming the power of
the individual as against the power of the great body
of Christians. The- Unitarian has separated from other
Protestants in his doctrine as to the arithmetic of the
Godhead, reducing the deity to one denomination, instead of three which the Trinitarians affirm. The Universalist differs from the rest in his doctrine of the final
destination of man. But still the great 1" body of divinity," — the mass of doctrines called " Christian theology," and" Christianity," - has escaped untouched, at
least unhurt by Protestants,- Unitarians or Universalists. So Protestants and Catholics, Unitarians and
Trinitarians, Universalists and Partialists, agree in the
main parts of their theology: they all substantially
unite in their idea of God, their idea of Man, and their
idea of the Relation between God and Man. The root
is the same, the trunk the same, the fruit the same in
kind, only the branches are unlike in their form, and
direction.
Some of these doctrines, called Christian, were old




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           83
at the time of Jesus; some were new at that time:
- some of these latter were, doubtless, added by Jesus
himself; others by his followers; - a great many have
been added since that age, taken either from the transient caprice of men, or from the permanent truths
which man has arrived at.
Take an example of the doctrines since formed out
of the transient caprice of men, and then regarded as
Christian.
First it was declared that the "immaculate conception," the supernatural birth of Jesus, should be a doctrine of the Church. This has become fixed in the
Church, and there has been no sect for sixteen hundred
years at least, venturing to deny it. All sects, even including the Unitarian and Universalist, affirm the super
natural birth of Jesus - that he had no human father;
or are supposed to affirm it, stoutly enough denouncing
such as doubt or deny it.
Then men went further and affirmed the supernatural
birth of Mary, the Mother of Jesus; and, after twelve
or thirteen hundred years, that became a doctrine fixed
in the Catholic Church which had two "immaculate
conceptions." But at the Reformation the Protestant
churches rejected this latter doctrine with all their might,
staving it off with both hands, thinking it as great an
error to believe the supernatural birth of the mother as
to doubt that of the son.
Men did not stop there; they went further, and
presently declared the supernatural birth of the Mother
of Mary to be an essential doctrine, -and they called
that mother Anna. That idea is now in the process
of fixation; it is getting formulated, -to use a philosophical phrase. That is to say, it has been accepted
by a portion of the Catholic Church; and some of the




84            THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
leaders are now insisting that it shall become a fixed
doctrine, a point of Catholic theology which all are to
believe, or " perish everlastingly."
This process of doctrinization by caprice may go
on; there is no reason it should stop here. By and by
it may be said that the Grandmother, the Great-grandmother, and the Great-great-grandmother were all born
supernaturally; and then in addition to Anna, the
fictitious mother of Mary, there may be a Joanna, a
Rosanna, a Roxanna, and a Susanna, and each of these
declared to have a supernatural birth. It may become
a doctrine of some future Church that a man must
believe in all the seven "immaculate conceptions," or
else "perish everlastingly."  Why should Catholics
stop with three while the Hindoos have so many?
There is no historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth
ever believed himself supernaturally born or his mother
supernaturally born; and Anna, the mother of Mary, is
a person as purely fictitious as Joanna, and Rosanna,
and Roxanna, and Susanna, whom I have just invented.
That is one example of the process of forming a doctrine out of caprice and fixing it in the Church; the
popular theology contains many more. The Mohammedan theology equally abounds in doctrines derived
from caprice. Nay, all the mythologies of the world
are full of such fancies; for human nature is the same
in Gentile, Jew, and Christian.
Some doctrines of Christian theology are Biblical,
and were taught by Jesus; some Biblical and were
not taught by him. After the death of Jesus there
was a great development of theological doctrines quite
foreign to him, as any one may see who will read the
book of Revelation,- which has very little religious
feeling in it, — or the fourth Gospel, full of religious




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           85
feeling, each containing a theology widely unlike that
which is taught in the words of Jesus in the former
three gospels; nay, directly antagonistic thereto. But
the greater part of what is called Christian theology is
post-Biblical, and would be as strange to Paul and
Apollos, as much of their teaching would be foreign
to the ear of Jesus. Some of its doctrines at his time
lay latent in the mind of the world, and have since
become patent, so to say; others have been added
anew.
In the popular theology there are comprised some of
the greatest truths of religion which man has attained
thus far.
There is, for example, the doctrine of the Existence
of God, as Creator and Governor of the world, a Being
different in kind from matter, and from man.
Next, there is the great doctrine of the Immortality
of every man, and the certainty of retribution.
As a third thing, there is the doctrine of the moral
Obligation of every man to obey the Law of God.
As a fourth thing, there is the doctrine concerning the Connection between Man and God, whereby
man receives from God inspiration, guidance, and
blessing.
And as a fifth thing, it is affirmed that there is this
Connection between man and man,- a duty on the
part of one to love another, of all to love each, and of
each to love all.
These are great doctrines, of immense value to mankind.
I am by no means disposed to underrate science,
the grand achievements of human thought, which have
brought the stars down to the astronomer's mirror, and
8o




86           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
have brought up to common knowledge the little things
which millions of years ago were laid away and embalmed in the unchanging rock. Man has formulated
the sky and knows the whereabouts of the stars; has
formulated the rock and knows the habits of the little
insects which you find in a piece of slate from Berlin,
in the chalk of Dover Cliff, in the sands under our feet,
or in the slime that skirts our wharves as each receding
tide goes out. All these are grand triumphs of human
thought. But these five great doctrines which I have
spoken of, - the existence of God, the immortality of
man, the moral obligation of man to obey the law of
God, the connection between man and God, and the
connection of love between man and man, — these I
think are by far the most important speculative doctrines
known to the human intellect.
But the popular theology has very great defects as a
scheme of the universe, and it teaches great errors.
Fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago Arnobius and
Augustine, with other great teachers of Christianity,
pointed out the follies of Heathenism in the most bitter
polemics. It would be just as easy and just as appropriate in bitter sermons, at this day, to point out the
errors of the popular theology of the churches. I wish
with no bitterness to expose the error. Bitterness is
always out of place in philosophy, in theology, in philanthropy. The Heathens before Christ meant to be
right, and as a whole did the best they could; and so
the Christians after Christ have meant to be right, and
have done the best they could as a whole. Aristotle
and Augustine seem to me equally honest, and equally
mistaken in many matters. Individuals have purposely
gone wrong, but ninety-nine out of a hundred of the




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.             87
men who have taught theology before Jesus or after
him, it seems to me, meant to learn the truth and teach
the truth. Let us thank all of these for the good they
did, and let us do better if we can; hoping that somebody, by and by, will come and do better than we, and
will efface our errors, seeing truths clearly which we
have but dimly seen, and the truths dimly which we
have not seen at all.
I say there are great errors in the popular theology
of the Christian churches, regarded as a Theory of the
Universe; great errors in the Idea of God; in the Idea
of tian, and next in the Idea of the Relation betwveen
the two.
I. Look at the Idea of God. In thile popular theology God is represented as a finite and imperfect God.
It is not said so in words; the contrary is often said;
nevertheless it is so. He is actually represented as imperfect in power, imperfect in wisdom, imperfect in justice, in love, and in holiness. It is so represented in
facts, or alleged facts, related in the Bible, in the Old
and New Testament both. It is so in the Catholic
Church and the Protestant Church; with the Unitarian
and the Trinitarian, with the Partialist and the Universalist.
In terms, religious writers very rarely speak of God
as malignant, but they continually represent Him so in
act. I say they rarely speak of God as malignant;
now and then a writer does. Some " divines " have
distinctly declared that God was malignant; and not
long ago, in a sister city of New England, a clergyman
preached a sermon to his people with this title: " On
the Malevolence of God;" If you study the popular




88           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
theology as a whole, you will find that it regards God
as eminently malignant, though it does not say so in
plain words.  The Tyrian idolaters, I think, called
Baal merciful and beneficent, even when they thought
he demanded the sacrifice of their children.
According to the popular theology there are three
acknowledged persons in the Godhead.
First, there is " God the Father," the Creator of the
universe, and all that is therein; the great Being of the
world, made to appear remarkable for three things, —
first for great power to will and do; second for great
selfishness; and third for great destructiveness. In the
popular theology God the Father is the grimmest object in the universe; not loving and not lovely. In the
New Testament, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, there are some dreadful qualities ascribed to God,
which belonged to the Hebrew conception of Jehovah:
but a great many exceeding kind and beautiful qualities
are also assigned to Him; — witness the Parable of the
Prodigal Son; witness many things put into the mouth
of Jesus. The book of Revelation attributes to the
Deity dark and malignant conduct which it is dreadful
to think of. But the popular theology in the dreadful
qualities assigned to God has gone a great ways beyond the first three Gospels, and the book of Revelation.
It has taken the dark things and made them blacker
with notions derived from other sources.
Then there is" God the Son," who is the Father in
the flesh, but with more humanity in him, and with
very much less selfishness and destructiveness than is
attributed to the Father. Still in the popular theology
the love which the Son bears towards man is always
limited: first limited to Believers, and next to the Elect.




THE POPULAR TI-EOLOGY.            89
It is no doctrine of the popular theology that Christ
actually loves transgressors, and as little that God loves
them.
Then, thirdly, there is "' God the Holy Ghost," the
least important person in the Trinity, who continually
" spreads undivided and operates unspent," but does
not spread far or operate much, and is easily grieved
away. The Holy Ghost is not represented as loving
wicked men, that is, men who lack conventional faith,
or who are deficient in conventional righteousness. No
one of these three persons of the Godhead has any love
for the souls of the damned.
All this is aclknowledged and writ down in the creeds
of Catholic and Protestant, and in this they do not
differ. A few heretical Unitarians have differed from
the main church on the arithmetic of deity, not on the
ethics or psychology thereof.
It is commonly said there are only three persons in
the Deity. But there is really a fourth person in the
popular idea of God, in the Christian theology, to wit,
the Devil; for the Devil is really the fourth person of
the popular Godhead in the Christian churches, only he
is not so named and confessed. The belief in the devil
is almost universal in Christendom.  It is a New
Testament doctrine, and an Old Testament doctrine.
Catholic and Protestant, Trinitarian and Unitarian,
Partialist and Universalist, agree in this. No Christian
seet has ever denied his existence; they cannot whilst
they believe in the  J Infallibility of the Scriptures."
Says a writer of undoubted soundness, who represents
the popular theology of the English and American sects,
"The devil is the implacable enemy of the human race,
and especially of believers, whom he desires to devour."
He is represented as absolutely evil, without any good
8*




90           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
in him. When Origen, sixteen hundred years ago, de.
clared that the devil would be saved in the final redemption, if there were a spark of goodness in him, he
was declared a heretic by the churches, and all Christendom rung with accusations against him, because he
thought the devil might be saved. It was a heresy in
Robert Burns when he said he was loath to think of the
pit of darkness even for the devil's sake, and wished he
might " take a thought and mend."
Well, now, this absolutely evil Devil, if there were
such a being, must have come from God, who is the
only Creator; and of course, therefore, is as much a
part of God's work and design as the Eternal Son after
he was "' eternally begotten," or the Eternal Holy Ghost
after he had " eternally proceeded;" and the existence
of the devil, therefore, is as much a work of God as the
existence of the Son or the Holy Ghost; and all the
evil of the devil must have originated with God. God,
therefore, must have made the devil absolutely evil, because He wanted to make the devil absolutely evil. If
the devil were made partially good, with a nature
which, under the circumstances he was placed in, would
develop into absolute evil - all of that must be so, because God the Father wished it to be so. The devil
must be "the implacable enemy of the human race,"
with this extraordinary appetite for'believers," because
God wished him to be so. God therefore is responsible
for the devil; and the character of absolute evil, which
is in the devil, must have been in God first.
The power assigned to the devil and the influence
over men commonly attributed to him, is much greater,
since the creation, than that of all the three other Persons put together. And so the devil is really therefore
the most effective person of the popular Godhead, only




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          91
not so confessed. There is no mistake in this reasoning, strange as it may seem. It takes all these four
Persons to make up and represent the popular theological notion of God.
Then God as a whole is represented as angry with
mankind as a whole. There is, on the one side, an
offended God, and on the other an offending human
race. God the Father is angry with mankind; God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are both angry with
mankind; and the devil, " the implacable enemy of the
human race," as a roaring lion walks about seeking
whom he may devour, " especially believers."
But there are a few whom the devil will not be able
to devour, who will be saved, whom the Holy Ghost
will inspire, whom the Son will ransom and the Father
bless. These are only the smallest fraction of mankind, and the devil gets all the rest: so that really, according to the practical teaching of this theology, the
devil, the unacknowledged person of the Godhead, is,
after all, stronger than God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Ghost, all united.
To speak of the deity as a Unit, God is represented
as not working by law, that is, by a constant mode of
operation - in the most important cases, — but by
miracle. So God and the universe are not completely
at one, but He acts in it by miracle; that is, by an irregular and capricious mode of operation, reversing its
laws; for example, in the Flood, in the storms and
earthquakes of the material world, in the creation of
woman, the birth of Jesus, the inspiration of the prophets and apostles. All these are theologically represented as results of the spasmodic action of God, now
a spasm. of wrath, then of love. This theory does not
properly belong to that idea of God - original perhaps




92            THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
with the Hebrews - which makes Him independent of
matter and transcendent over it. M]iuch better does it
cohere with the notion of the classic deists, with whom
God and Matter were both eternal and irreconcilable
forces, always a little at feud. However the absurd
theory has crept in to the Christian theology, where it
appears yet more absurd than in the schemes of Socra.
tes and Aristippus.
The authors of the popular theology had no conception of a uniformity of force, no conception of a universal law, whereby God works in the world of matter and
of spirit — in short, no conception of the Infinite God.
So theologians make two forms of operations in the
universe. One is the "work of Nature," by means of
law — a constant mode of the operation of a constant
force; the other is the " Twork of Grace," by means of
miracles - inconstant modes of the operation of an inconstant force. Wheat grows out of the ground by the
law of Nature, and is not thought, in theology, eminently to show the goodness of God; but when Jesus
made, as it is said, five loaves feed five thousand men,
besides women and children, and leave twelve baskets
of broken bread, that is thought a miracle, a revelation
of the immense power of God, which shows much more
of his goodness than all the wheat that grows from
the bosom of the earth, century out and century in,
furnishing food for the whole human race! Newton
writes the Principia of the Universe; he writes by the
"light of Nature " and describes only the "XTwork of
Nature," and his masterpiece is considered, theologically, a small thing. St. Jude writes an epistle of twenty-five verses, and it is claimed that he wrote by the
"light of miraculous inspiration;" his book is a "work
of Grace;;" a miracle; and that poor production of Jude




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.            93
is thought to be incomparably greater than the Principia
of Newton, with the WMecanique Celeste of La Place
thrown in. "N lewton and La Place,9' says this theology, "write by the carnal reason, and their works are
fallible; while Jude wrote by miraculous inspiration,
and his writings are infallible."
The doctrine concerning Man is no better. Man is
represented after this wise: He was so made by God
and furnished with such surroundings that as soon as
he tried to go alone he " fell from a state of innocence
into a state of sin," and has transmitted " original sin "
to all his posterity. Men are born with a sinful nature,
and if not "totally depraved" they are so nearly so
that the fraction of goodness is infinitesimal and not
worth estimating. Sin does not consist in sinning, but
in being born of Adam after the fall; for his offence
wrought an attainder in the soul of all his children, forever. Man of himself, it is said, has no power to find
out moral or religious truth, and to secure his own religious or moral welfare. He is naturally wicked and
hates God, hates other men, hates truth with his reason,
justice with his conscience, love with his affections,
holiness with his soul; loves falsehood, injustice, hate,
and wickedness, all for their own sake, not as means to
an end; - hates God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Ghost, and only loves the Devil. In his
flesh there dwells no good thing. The natural desires
are sinful, and men are first wicked by nature and next
also by will. There is none that doeth good, not one.
Men are evil and evil continually; their heart is as
prone to wickedness as the sparks to fly upward; they
are conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. If they




94           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
do something that seems good, even their righteousness
is as filthy rags.
All things which God made work well except
human nature; and that worked so badly that it fell
as soon as it was put together. God must start anew,
and so he destroys all, except eight persons. But, so
bad is human nature, the new family behave no better;
they must be cast aside; and God discards all excepting the posterity of a single man. But they turn out
as bad as the rest, and must be thrown over. No good
comes of human reason, and human nature; so at
length " a New Dispensation" is established, But the
new dispensation has worked scarcely better than the
others. The human race does not turn out as God designed, or expected. It is a failure.
This is taught in every great scheme of theology,
Protestant or Catholic.
Note next the doctrine of the Relation between God
and Man. God is the sovereign lord, the king of the
human race, and is represented as creating and ruling
the world not for the wTorld's good, but for his own good
or glory. Jesus calls God " THE FATER," -- the favorite name with that great noble heart, - and does not
call Him King. In the third Gospel God is the Father
who sees his penitent prodigal son a great way off, and
goes out to meet him, and falls on his neck and kisses
him, and rejoices more over one sinner brought to repentance than over ninety and nine just men. The author of the Epistle ascribed to John, says -" God is
Love."  It is the bravest word in the whole Bible. But
by the popular theology God is King; Catholics and
Protestants represent Him as a despotic king. There




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.            95
are three elements, as I just said, conspicuous in his
character. The first is Power,- force of hand, force
of head; next, Selfishness,- love of his own glory;
and third, Destructiveness. Like other kings lide cares
little for the welfare of his creatures, though He pretends to care much. Men must fear this king; this is
the highest thing you can do. You must pray to God
only by attorney. Your prayer will make Him alter
his mind and change his purpose, if you employ the
right attorney in the right way; for though this king is
said to be unchangeable, it is thought He will be
moved by the poor petitions you and I put up. Divines
talk of " constraining prayer," - a prayer that will constrain God to alter his will! The classic mythology
represents the ancient Heathen gods as selfish in their
ruling propensity; and the popular theology represents
God as selfish in his love of power and of glory, and
terribly selfish in his wrath. Accordingly, such actions
are ascribed to the Deity, in the popular theology, as in
almost any country of Christendom would send a man
to the gallows. The God of the popular theology is the
exploiterer of the human race.
In this theology God is represented as having made
and finished a miraculous communication of his will
to a small portion of mankind, - the Jews and Christians: that is the "law of God " written in the Bible;
the Old Testament is his first word, and the New Testament is his last word. But in fact the two are in
many fundamental teachings exactly opposite; yet men
are told to believe them exactly alike. A man must
believe every word in the Old and New Testament, and
keep every command there. Does his reason stand in
the way? — " down with reason!" does his conscience,
his affection, or his soul stand in the way? — " down




96           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
with them  all!" cries the popular theology, "down
with human nature! " The universe is not thought to
be the word of God at all, that is "Nature;;" and here
again the old heathen notion of a discord betwixt God
and the world comes up anew. The laws written in
this marvellous body; the laws of the understanding,
the conscience, the affections, the soul, — they are
not thought to be the word of God; they are not imperative, ultimately binding on men. We are to obey
only an arbitrary and capricious command.
But man has not kept this command. Men could
not keep it; God knew they could not and would not
keep it when He made them. Of course He wished to
make such a law and such men as are thus unfit for
one another — Nature unlawful, and law unnatural.
And when men do not keep the law that He told them
to keep, and which he had made it impossible for them
to keep, straightway He is angry with them, and hates
them, and will destroy them in wrath. So He makes
the earth bring forth thorns and thistles for the first
offenders, and provides eternal torments for the erring
sons of men.
This theology declares, Every sin is an infinite evil,
because it is a violation of the absolute command of
God. In a moment of time you can commit an infinite
sin, and if you have once transgressed any commandment of God, even in the smallest particular, you are
guilty of violating the whole law of God, and are under
the infinite wrath of God; and all you can do, all you
can suffer, will not reconcile God to you: He hates you
with all his power, all his selfishness, all his destructiveness. But if you do not commit any of these sins, at
least you are born of the first sinner, and accordingly
were as much hurt by the "fall" as he. But, the the



THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           97
ology continues, an atonement has been made, a sacrifice for the sin of the world. God the Father eternally
begot God the Son, and sent him into the world, going
voluntarily, and had him crucified as a sacrifice for the
sin of the world. Thus God the Father is appeased
by the sacrifice of God the Son, who has made atonement for men and taken all the sins of men upon himself, and so pacified the infinite wrath of God the
Father.
But he did this only for such as would comply with
certain doctrinal and liturgical conditions: that is, they
must believe certain doctrines which are repugnant to
the whole nature of a good and cultivated man; repugnant to his reason, his conscience, his affections, and
his soul. Then they must do certain sacramental deeds,
which have no connection with practical life; nothing
to do with natural piety and natural morality. The
belief of these doctrines and the doing of these deeds
is called "Christianity," or "religion."  It is represented
as wholly unnatural and all the more valuable for-that
reason, for the natural heart is at enmity with God.
Thus some men are to be "saved;" such-as comply
enjoy eternal happiness, the rest "perish everlastingly."
The theoretic and principal design of this the0ology.is not to make better men,- better fathers, husbands,
brothers, sons; better mechanics, merchants, farmers, -
only to get them "saved;" that is, to insure them a
good time in the next world. Morality and its consequent welfare on earth is only incidental to the end of
religion. So religion is positively selfish —not for its
own sake, but for salvation's sake.
But very few come to that salvation; it is only a
few that are saved, — look at the list of mankind, -
only the Christians and a few of the eminent Hebrews
9




98           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
before Christ, no Hebrew since; and of the Christians,
none but the Elect in the Protestant Church, and in the
Catholic Church only such as die in its communion.
Well, to speak approximately, in round numbers, at
this day there are a thousand million men on the earth.
Two hundred and fifty millions are "nominal Christians."  To take the Protestant view, — of these nominal Christians perhaps one in forty is what might be
called a real Christian; that is an ecclesiastical Christian, or actual member of a church with the doctrinal
and liturgical qualifications just referred to.  That
gives us six and a quarter millions of real ecclesiastical Christians. According to the theology of the
prevailing Protestant sects, none can be saved unless
he is of that company. But this number must be
winnowed down still further; for only the Elect are
to be saved. What is the ratio of the elect Christians
to the non-elect? I do not find it put down in the theological arithmetic, and have no means of ascertaining.
But all the rest are to be damned to everlasting woe;
that is, all men now living who are not Christians, namely, seven hundred and fifty millions; and of the nominal Christians ninety-seven and a half per cent., or two
hundred and forty-three millions and a quarter more;
and of the real Christians I know not how many; and
of men long ago deceased, all the non-elect of the real
Christians, all the merely nominal Christians, and all
who were -not nominal Christians; - so that not more
than one out of a hundred thousand men could ever
taste of Heaven.
The Catholic doctrine on this point condemns all
who are out of the Catholic Church. The distinction
sometimes made by tender-hearted and pious Catholics,
between the Body of the Church which is visible, and




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.             99
the Soul of the Church which is invisible, is only an
individual departure from the doctrinal tradition of the
Church itself.
The first Gospel represents the way to Heaven as
narrow and strait, and found by few; and the other, the
way to Hell, is represented as broad and abundantly
travelled.  Says the Methodist hymn, which incarnates
in a single verse the teaching of the popular theology,
" Broad is the road that leads to Death,
And thousands walk together there;
But Wisdom shows a narrow path,
With here and there a traveller."
Those that are saved are not saved by their character;
virtue has no virtue to save your soul. Tell the Catholic priest you expect Heaven for your good works, and
your faithfulness to yourself, -he assures you that you
are in the bond of iniquity. Tell the Protestant priest
the same thing, he is certain you are in the broad way
to destruction. You must be saved only by the sufferings of Christ as the divine cause; and by belief in this
theology, as the human condition. Piety and Morality,
"natural religion," is no condition of salvation; good
works are bad things for that. The elect are no better
than other men; they are saved by virtue of the Decrees of God, who has mercy on whom  He will have
mercy, and rejects whom he will, and takes his elect
to heaven by a short path through 1"grace," not over
the long, flat, dull road of "works."  It is supposed
that man has no right towards God, and that God's
mode of operation is infinite caprice. Laws of Nature
are no finality with their Maker!
The Holy Ghost is represented as going about seeking to inspire men with the will to be saved. He does




100          THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
not come into assemblies of men of science, who are
seeking to learn the laws of God. It would be deemed
impious to speak of the Holy Ghost as attending the
meetings of the French Institute, or the Academy of
Arts and Sciences in Boston. He does not come into
assemblies of men trying to make the world better off,
and men better. It would be deemed blasphemy to
speak of the Holy Ghost as attending a meeting for the
prevention of pauperism or crime; a peace meeting, a
temperance meeting, a meeting against capital punishment, an anti-slavery convention, or a Woman's Rights'
meeting. If somebody should say of the Convention
that met at Syracuse, day before yesterday, to commemorate the rescue of a fugitive slave out of the
hands of the kidnappers, that "the Holy Ghost descended upon it," what would the clergymen say?
Why, that would be thought a greater atrocity than
even I have ever yet committed. The Holy Ghost is
not represented as inspiring philosophers like Leibnitz,
Newton, and Kant, or philanthropists like the reformers
of old or modern times. He attends camp-meetings, is
present at " Revivals," frequents tract societies, and the
like.  You never saw a picture of the Holy Ghost
coming down upon a chemist inventing ether, on Columbus thinking America into life, or on Faustus
making a printing-press - it is the Devil that is said to
have inspired him, and by no means the Holy Ghost.
Oh no, the Holy Ghost is not represented as descending
on Franklin, flying a kite into a thundercloud and
taking out the lightning with a string, founding academies, and hospitals, and libraries; but he comes down
upon monks, and nuns, and ascetics, praying with their
lips; not on common laborious men and women praying with their hands. It would be thought impious to




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           101
paint the "s gentle spirit" coming down on a New England school-house, where an intelligent young woman
was teaching children the way they should go; or to
paint the " Heavenly Dove" fluttering over the head of
John Pounds, the British shoemaker, sitting in his narrow shop amid paste-horns and swine's bristles, and
bits of leather,
" His lapstone over his knee,
Drawing his quarters and sole together,"
whilst teaching the little boys and girls to read and
write after he had picked them out of the streets. The
Holy Ghost of theology has nothing to do with such
things at all; nothing to do with schemes for making
the wvorld better, or men better.
Then it is represented that God once inspired men,
Hebrews and Christians. Now he inspires no man as
of old; he only sends you to a book and the meetinghouse. It is thought God inspires nobody now. He
has spoken his last word, and made his last will and
testament. There can be no progress in Christianity,
none out of it. We have got all the religious truth
God will ever give us. The fount of inspiration is
clean dried up, and God is so far off that the human
soul may wander all its mortal life and never come near
him. All it gets must be at second-hand.
Such, my friends, is the popular theology as a Theory
of the Universe. This is the theology which lies at the
basis of all the prevailing sects. I have taken pains not
to quote the language of particular sects or particular
persons. Let no one be answerable for the common
vice. The Universalists have departed widely from
9*




102          THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
this theology in the doctrine of damnation; the Unitarians have departed less widely in the doctrine of the
threefold personality of God. But with the mass of
theologians God is still represented as finite and malignant; man the veriest wretch in creation, with a depraved nature; the relation between him and God is
represented as a selfish rule on God's part, and a slavish
fear on man's part; - one man is saved out of a hundred thousand, and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred
and ninety-nine are damned to eternal ruin.  God
exploiters the human race. Man is a worm, and God
is represented as a mighty heel to crush him down to
hell, not to death but to writhings without end.
This being so, see how the world looks from this
theological point of view.
God is not represented as a friend, but the worst foe
to men; existence is a curse to all but one out of a
hundred thousand; immortality is a curse to ninetynine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine out of
every hundred thousand on earth; religion a blessing to
only ten in a million, to all the rest a torment on earth,
and in hell, the bitterest part of the bitter fire which
burns everlastingly the immortal flesh and quivering
soul.
Is this popular theology a satisfactory Theory of the
Universe? Does it correspond to the facts of material
Nature, under all men's eyes; the facts of human history, the facts of daily observation? Does this idea of
God, of Man, and of their Relation - of God's providence and man's destination —does this agree with
the natural sentiments of reverence and trust which
spring unbidden in the living heart; with the spontaneous intuitions of the True, the Beautiful, the Good,
the Holy; with the results of the highest reflective con



THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          103
sciousness? No, it is a theory which does not correspond with facts of material Nature and human history,
facts of daily observation; it does not agree with natural sentiments, spontaneous intuitions, or with voluntary reflection! It is a theory without facts, without
reason, a theory whose facts are Fancies, and its reason
Caprice. It swings in the air at both ends. So it bids
us ignore the facts of the outer universe and deny the
powers of the inner world; then where it has made a
solitude it proclaims a peace, and calls it the Peace of
God.
The other Sunday I spoke of Speculative Atheism
as a Theory of the Universe. I hope I did no injustice
to atheism, or the atheist. But which is the worst, to
believe that there is no God who is Mind, Cause, and
Providence of this universe, that all comes by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, the world a chance-shot; or
to believe there is a God who is Almighty, yet omnipotently malignant, who consciously aims the forces of
the universe at the wretched head of his own child?
Which is the worst, to believe that I die wholly, absolutely, irrecoverably, and go down to be a brother to
the worm of the dust, or to believe that, immortal, I go
to curl and stretch and writhe in tortures forever and
ever? Which is the hardest, to believe that your only
child, which fades out of your bosom before the rosebud is fully blown, is no more in all the earth, in all the
sky, in all the universe, or that she goes to torment unspeakable, unmitigable, which can have no end when
the universe of worlds shall have passed away, and left
no wrinkle on the sky that has also grown old and
passed out of being? Which, I ask, is the worst, to
believe that there is no ear to hear Abel's blood crying




104           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
against Cain, or to believe that there is an ear which
hears it, One who will damn Cain and millions on millions of men, guilty of no sin but birth — the act of
God;- will damn all these forever and ever, and then
will look down with the Eye which never slumbers nor
sleeps, and see the innumerable millions of men,
-women, and babes, all lie there a mass quivering with
torment, which He had inflicted of his own freewill,
and made them for the sake of inflicting it, while Himself feels not a twinge of pity, nor lets fall a single teardrop of love, but rolls all the universe of hell as a sweet
morsel under his tongue! Which I say, is the worstto declare with the atheist " There is no God, all possible ideas thereof lack actuality," or to paint the Cause,
the Mind, and Providence of all this world as a hideous
Devil -and the universe itself an odious and inexorable hell?
Yet the atheist, I suppose, has been faithful to himself; and the men who have taught these horrid and
odious doctrines, I cannot say they have not been faithful. But I must say that as I hate atheism, so I hate
this other doctrine, which represents religion as a torment, immortality a curse, and God a fiend.
Atheism, as I said the other Sunday, sits down on
the shore of Time, and sees the stream of Humanity
pass by. All the civilizations which have enfolded so
many millions of men in their arms, seem but frail and
brittle bubbles, passing into nought, - virtues unrequited, tears not wiped away, sufferings unrecompensed,
and man without hope.
Look again. The Popular Theology sits down on
the same spot by the shore of Time, and the great river
of Human History sweeps by, fed by a thousand different streams, all mingling their murmurs into one great




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          105
oceanic harmony of sounds, as it rolls on through Time,
passing to Eternity. I go up before Theology and ask,
"what is this? "    It is the stream of Human History."
"Whence does it come?"  " It flows from  God."
"Where is He? " " There is God! Clouds and thick
darkness are about Him. He is a consuming fire, a
jealous God, and the breath of his nostrils and the
wrath of his heart are poured out against mankind.
In His hand is a twoedged sword, and out from His
mouth there goes forth fire to wither and destroy."
" Where does this stream end? " ask I. " Look!" is
the answer; " there is the mouth and terminus of this
great stream."  On the right Theology points to Jesus,
standing there with benignant face,- -yet not all benignant, but cruel also; Theology paints the friend of publicans and sinners with malicious pencil, making to the
right a little, thin, narrow outlet, which is to admit a
mere scantling of the water into a shallow pool, where
it shall gleam forever. But on the other hand a whole
Amazon pours down to perdition the drainage of a
continent, into the bottomless pit, which Hell is moved
to meet at its coming, and a mighty devil - the vulture
of God's wrath, tormentor and tormented, - sailing on
horrid vans, hovers above the whole. And there is the
end! No, - not the end, there is the beginning of the
eternal torments of the vast mass of the human family
— acquaintance and friend, kith and kin, lover and
maid, husband and wife, parent and child.
Which - Atheism or Theology - gives us the fairest
picture? Atheism, even annihilation of the soul, would
be a relief from such a Deity as that; from such an
end.
I said the other day there were atheists in America
seeking to spread their notions.  But for one who




106          THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
denies a deity there are a hundred ministers who preach
this other doctrine of a jealous and an angry God;
the exploiterer of the race, who will drive down the
majority of men to perdition, and go on his way rejoicing! The few atheists will do harm with their theory
of the universe; but not a hundredth part of the harm
which must be done by this view of God, and Man,
and the Relation between the two. Atheism is taught
in the name of philosophy, in the name of Man; this
theology is taught in the name of religion, in the name
of God. I said I should throw no stones at atheists;
that I felt pity for them. I shall throw none at theologians, who teach that religion is a torment, immortality
a curse, and God a devil. I pity them; they did not
mean to go astray. Mankind is honest. Most of the
men who teach the dreadful doctrines of atheism, and
of the popular theology are alike honest. Lucretius
and Augustine, d'Holbach and Calvin, I think, were all
sincere men, and honest men-and perhaps equally
went astray.
Do men really believe these doctrines which they
teach? The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no
God! " and I can believe the fool thinks so when he
says it. Yes, if the fool should say what the theologian
has said, -" God is a devil, Man is a worm, hell is his
everlasting home; immortality the greatest curse to all
but ten men in a million," I should believe the fool
thought it. But does any sober man really believe all
this of God, and Man, and the Relation between them?
He may say so, but I see not how any man can really
believe it, and have a realizing sense of this theology,
and still live. Even the men who wrote this odious
doctrine, - the Basils and Gregories and Augustines of
old time, the Edwardses and Hopkinses of the last gen



THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          107
eration, and the Emmonses of this day, - they did not
believe it, they could not believe it. The atheist thinks
that he thinks there is no God, and theologians think
that they think religion is a torment, immortality a
curse, and God a devil. But, God be thanked, Nature
cries out against this odious doctrine, that man is a
worm, that religion is a torment, immortality a curse,
and God a fiend.
From behind this dark and thundering cloud of the
popular theology, how beautifully comes forth the calm,
clear light of natural human religion, revealing to us
God as the Infinite Father, as the Infinite Mother of
all, perfectly powerful, perfectly wise, perfectly just and
loving, and perfectly holy too! Then how beautiful is
the Universe! It is the great Bible of God; -- Material Nature is the Old Testament, millions of years old,
spangled with truths under our feet, sparkling with
glories over our head; and Human Nature, is the New
Testament from the Infinite God, every day revealing a
new page as Time turns over the leaf. Immortality
stands waiting to give a recompense for every virtue
not rewarded, for every tear not wiped away, for every
sorrow unrecompensed, for every prayer, for each pure
intention of the heart. And over the whole, - Old
Testament and New Testament, Mortality and Immortality, —the Infinite Loving-Kindness of God the
Father, comes brooding down as a bird over her nest;
aye, taking us to His own infinite arms and blessing us
with Himself.
Look up at the stars, study the mathematics of the
heavens writ in those gorgeous diagrams of fire, where
all is law, order, harmony, beauty without end; look




108            THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
down on the ant-hill in the fields some morning in early
summer, and study the ethics of the emmets, all law,
order, harmony, beauty without end; look round on the
cattle, on the birds, on the cold fishes in the stream, the
reptiles, insects, and see the mathematics of their structure, and the ethics of their lives; do you find any sign
that the First Person of the Godhead is malignant and
capricious, and the Fourth Person thereof is a devil;
that Hate preponderates in the world? Look back over
the whole course of human history; you see war and
violence it is true, but the higher powers of man gaining continually on the animal appetites at every step,
the race getting fairer, wiser, juster, more affectionate,
more faithful unto justice, love, and all their laws; look
in you, and study the instinctive emotions of your own
nature, and in some high hour of self-excitement when
you are most yourself, ask if there can be such a horrid
God as the popular theology so blackly paints, making
his human world from such a selfish motive, of such a
base material, and for such a purpose, - to rot its fiery
immortality in hell?
Is this dreadful theology to continue? The days of
its foul doctrines are numbered.  The natural instincts
of man are against it; the facts of history are against it;
every advance of science makes this theology appear
the more ghastly and odious.  It is in a process of dissolution and must die. The popular theology,
"Mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,
Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,
Lies there exiled from eternal God,
Lost to her place and name;
And death and life she hateth equally,
And nothing sees for her despair,




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.                 109
But dreadful Time, dreadful Eternity.
No comfort anywhere;
Remaining utterly confused with fears,
And ever worse with growing time,
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,
And all alone in crime
Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round
With blackness as a solid wall,
Far off she seems to hear the dully sound
Of human footsteps fall;
As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,
In doubt and great perplexity,
A little before moon-rise hears the low
Moan of an unknown sea,
And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound
Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh,' I have found
A new land, but I die!'"
10








SERMON IV.
OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY AS ETHICS.
(111)




MATTHEW VII. 19.
A CORRUPT TREE BRINGETH FORTH EVIL FRUIT.
(112)




IV.
OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTENDOM,
REGARDED AS A PRINCIPLE OF ETHICS.
LAST Sunday I spoke of the popular Christian Theology, as a Theory of the Universe. To-day I ask
your attention to a sermon of this Theology, regarded
as a Principle of Ethics; that is to say, of the practical
effects thereof when the Idea shall become a Fact.
I am not now to speak of the practical effects of
the Christian Religion; that is to say, of Piety and
Morality: I am to speak of something very different;
namely, of the Popular Theology, with its false idea
of God, its false idea of Man, and its false idea of the
relation between the two.
I shall not speak of this theology, with these three
false ideas, as a fraud, but as a mistake. The worst
doctrines thereof, which make man a worm, religion a
curse, immortality a torment, and God a devil, I take it,
once represented the honest thought of honest men, or
what they thought was their thought. John Calvin was
an honest man; Augustine and St. Thomas were honest men; Edwards and Hopkins and Emmons, - they
were all honest men. The greatest may easily be mis10*               (113)




114           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
taken, especially if they throw away their reason when
they start.  The Hebrew theology, the Greek and
Roman theology, the Mahometan theology, - all these
are the productions of honest men, who meant to be
right and not wrong. So the errors of alchemy, in the
Middle Ages, of astrology, - they also were the mistakes of honest men.
This theology —very much miscalled Christian —
has been made a practical principle of Christendom for
many hundred years. It is set up as Religion; for
though religion and theology are as different from one
another as breathing is different from the theory of
breath, or as slumber is different from the philosophy
of sleep, yet it is taught that this theology is religion, is
Christianity, and that without this there can be no adequate piety and morality, no sufficient belief in God,
and no happiness in the next life. This theology declares, " There is no stopping betwixt me and blank
atheism."
Since religion is represented as thus unnatural and
unreasonable, there are many who "' sign off" from conscious religion altogether: they reject it, and will have
nothing to do with it. It seems to war with their reason, with their conscience, their affections, their soul;
and so far as possible, they reject it. They mean to be
true to their noblest faculties in doing so. The popular
theology, with its idea of God and Man, and of their
Relation, is the philosophy of unreason, of folly. How
can you ask men of large reason, large conscience, large
affections, large love for the good God, to believe any
one of the numerous schemes of the Trinity, the Miracles of the New or Old Testament; to believe in the




THIE POPULAR THEOLOGY.         115
existence of a Devil whom God has made, seeking to
devour mankind? How can you ask such men to believe in the existence of an angry God, jealous, capricious, selfish, and revengeful, who has made an immeasurable hell under his feet, wherein he designs to
crowd down ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of every hundred thousand of his children?  Will you ask Humbolt, the greatest of living
philosophers, to believe that a wafer is "the body of
God," as the Catholics say? or Mr. Comte, to believe
that the Bible is " the word of God," as the Protestants
say?  Will you ask a man of great genius, of great
culture, to lay his whole nature in the dust, and submit
to some little man, with no genius, who only reads to
him a catechism which was dreamed by some celibate monks in the dark ages of human history? You
cannot expect such men to assent to that: as well
might you ask the whole solar system to revolve
about the smallest satellite that belongs to the planet
Saturn.
A methodist minister explained the success of his
sect by saying, " We preach religion without philosophy."  That is to say, religion without reason; resting
on the authority of the priest who preaches it. An
eminent Unitarian minister says, " We also must preach
religion without philosophy." That is, religion without
reason, resting on the authority of the minister. What
is the effect of it?  Men who have philosophy, who
have reason, will shun your Unitarian and Methodist
churches, and keep to their reason and philosophy; and
they will have as little of such " religion " as possible.
Will you ask a philanthropic woman to believe that
1" God hates sinners," and will abandon his own chil



116          THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
dren to the eternal torments of the devil, when the phi.
lanthropist would not leave the devil's children to their
infernal father's care, but lay down her own life to save
them? Shall mortal men believe in a God meaner and
less humane than they themselves?
See the effect of this theology. The new literature
of our time, the new science of our time, the new philanthropy of our time, have no relation to the popular
theology, except that of hate and of warfare. There is
a very sad negation and denial of religion in the popular literature. Religion is seldom appealed to in the
Houses of Parliament, in Old England or New England. It does not appear as a conscious motive force
in any of the great actions of the age, in the great philanthropies, the great philosophies and literatures, in the
great commerce. In the most popular writers of England, France, Germany, religion does not appear at
all as an acknowledged motive. The ideal Brothers
Cheeryble of Mr. Dickens, the actual philanthropists
of Europe and America, are God's men, but not the
Church's Christians. All the real piety which appears
in the works and words of Jesus of Nazareth, all the
real philanthropy, is bottomed on something exceedingly different from the popular theology.
The immortality of the soul is represented as a curse;
and, accordingly, that immortality is denied by many
philosophical and good men. From the damnation of
theological immortality they flee away for relief to
sheer annihilation; - and it is a good exchange which
they make; for if the popular theology were true, then
immortality would be the greatest curse which the Almighty God could inflict on mankind; and the whole




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           117
human race ought to go up in a mass before the Father, and say, " Annihilate us all at once, and make an
end of your slow, everlasting, butchery of human souls!"
There is but one denomination of hell, and in respect
to this there is no difference between the Catholics and
the Protestants - only one quite modern sect of the
latter formally and utterly rejecting it. With that exception the modern Christian Church is unitary on the
ghastly doctrine of eternal damnation, and it makes
small odds whether I quote from Aquinas, Quenstedt,
or Edwards. It is a favorite doctrine with the Catholic
and Protestant clergy.
According to the popular theology the Elect are very
well satisfied with hell as the portion for their neighbors.
Listen to Jonathan Edwards, who is commonly reckoned one of the ablest intellectual men New England
ever bore in her bosom; a self-denying and good man,
a man who would have laid down his life for his
brother, if his brother had needed the sacrifice. Hear
what he says, following Calvin, Aquinas, and Augustine: "The destruction of the unfruitful" (and the
unfruitful are those not elected to eternal bliss) "is
of use to give the saints a greater sense of their own
happiness and of God's grace to them." The damned
"shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels,
and in the presence of the Lamb. So they will be tormented in the presence also of the glorified saints. Hereby the saints will be made the more sensible how great
their salvation is. When they shall see how great the
misery is from which God hath saved them, and how
great a difference He hath made between their state and
the state of others, who were by nature and perhaps for
a time by practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving than
any, it will give them a greater sense of the wonder



118          THE POPULAR THIEOLOGY.
fulness of God's grace to them. Every time they look
upon the damned it will excite in them a lively and
admiring sense of the grace of God in making them
so to differ." " The view of the misery of the damned
will double the ardor of the love and gratitude of the
saints in Heaven;" "will make them prize his favor
and love vastly the more, and they will be so much the
more happy in the enjoyment of it."
A good man on earth cannot eat his dinner, if a
hungry dog looks in his face, without giving him a
bone, surely the crumbs that fall from his table; but the
elect of Mr. Edwards, chosen out of God's Universe, are
to whet their appetite with the groans of the damned.
What shall we think of the Ethics which makes a
Christian Minister anticipate new joy in heaven from
looking down upon the torment of his former neighbors
and friends, nay, of his own children, — and whetting
his appetite for Heaven with the smoke of their torment steaming up from hell! But such is the doctrine of the popular theology of New England and of
Old England, and all Christendom. The idea is sufficiently scriptural, and has long been claimed as a " doctrine of revelation," Everybody who denies it from
Adamantine Origen of Alexandria to Hosea Ballou in
Boston, gets a bad name in the churches. The idea
of eternal damnation is the Goliath of the Church.
Now I say annihilation is a relief from that form of
"everlasting life;" and that is the cause why many
men deny the immortality of the soul.
Then God is represented as a tyrant; an omnipotence
of selfishness, with a mode of action which is wholly
inconsistent with the facts of Nature and the laws
of the human mind. Of all the grim conceptions of




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          119
Deity which men have ever formed, from Tyrian Melkarth to Scandinavian Loke, I know none more grim
and abominable than the conception of God set forth by
some of the ablest writers of the Catholic and Protestant Church. It revolts the dearest instincts of human
nature.
Accordingly some men. deny the existence of God.
They not only deny the actuality of the popular theological idea of God, but of all possible ideas of God.
There is much excuse for the speculative atheist in his
denial.
The popular theological idea of God is not adequate
to the purposes of science. God is not represented as
really omnipresent, a constant and perpetual power,
but as present eminently in one spot called Heaven.
A modern Doctor of Divinity declares in an address,
well studied, and delivered before scholarly men, that
we are not to suppose that God is in all places as he
is in some one special place. Accordingly his action is
to be regarded as irregular and spasmodic. This doctrine, though seldom plainly put, though often denied in
terms, lies deep in the popular theology-which knows
no God immanent in the Universe and yet transcendent thereof. It is the Bible doctrine, Catholic and
Protestant.
Science knows no limited and local God; it tells us
of a power immanent and uniform;
"As full as perfect in a hair as heart."
So then Science rejects the theological idea of God
as not being adequate for scientific purposes.
Then as Theology tells you of a God who loves one
and rejects nine hundred and ninety-nine out of the




120           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
thousand, modern Philanthropy rejects that idea of
God, as inadequate to its purpose. Science rejects it
because he is impotent; Philanthropy rejects it because
he is malignant.
The popular idea of God does lack actuality. It is
a conceivable nothing; but impossible, and involving
as much contradiction as the notion of a cubical sphere,
or of a thing which is and is not at the same time.
The atheist is right in denying the existence of an
angry and jealous God, who makes ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine for ruin, and only
one for bliss. The "atheism" of Comte and Feuerbach, is higher and better than the theological idea of
God, as represented by Jonathan Edwards, the great
champion of New England divinity. But Edwards
only painted full length, and in colors, what Augustine
and Aquinas and other great theological artists had
faintly sketched, with paler tints, shrinking back a little
from the gorgon head they dimly drew.
Now as this theology gives us such an unjust and
unnatural idea of God, of Man, and of the Relation
between the two, there has followed, as an unavoidable
consequence of this, a great denial of religion all over
Christendom; a denial of the religious nature of man,
of the immortality of the soul, and of the existence of
God. The great priests are technical Christians everywhere; the great philosophers and the great philanthropists are not technical Christians anywhere. I mean to
say the Church does not recognize them as belonging
to its bosom;- and they do not belong to the Church's
bosom. What is more- the sincerity of the great
priests in their professions of theological belief, is popularly doubted just in proportion to the intellect and




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           121
education of the priest; while nobody doubts that the
denial of the philosopher is sincere and honest. Out
of the priesthood the great minds reject the popular
theology; many of them I fear reject all theology.  Of
all the greatest minds of the Germanic race, Humboldt,
Von-Buch, Oken, Oersted, Vogt, not one of them  is
technically a Christian. The great Germanic minds
not long ago deceased - Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Gtthe,
Schiller, and the rest were any thing but "' professing
Christians;" not one of them could accept the theology
of the Church which baptized him. The leaders of the
new French literature,- Comte, the Communists, and
George Sand, and several popular writers - they are
atheistic: I mean speculatively atheistic. I fear that
the leaders of English literature are not at all better,
only in the English there is a greater amount of national reserve; they do not speak right out, as the
French or Germans.  The later works of the greatest
mind of England at this day, have no religiousness in
them, according to the common sense of the word, and
he has been led even to go far towards absolute denial
of all religion.
In England there is a social aristocracy composed of
rich or well-descended men, well instructed also in their
intellect; they seem almost entirely destitute of conscious religion; they have no theology which satisfies
their intellectual and religious need. Some of them
turn round, and follow the dim candle of tradition leading them back to medimval, or even ante-Christian
darkness. Some positively deny the truths of religion
which come to consciousness in every age, - mediaeval
or ante-Christian. The most hopeful it is who feel their
way along by the natural instincts of the soul - feel



122          THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
ing after God if haply they may find him who lives and
moves and has his being in them, as they theirs in him.
Near the other extreme of society there is a large body
of hardy, able, thinking men who treat the popular
theology with well-deserved scoff and scorn; but yet
they see no clear light.
On the Eastern Continent, in addition to those
classes there is another, —the army of learned men,
whose doubts are yet deeper than the English, and
their denial less compromising and more public. Since
the breaking up of Paganism in Europe, there has never
been such a period of distrust, of anarchy, and of chaos
in religion.
Is it any better in America? Here the ablest men
are so busy in the race for money or for rank, men are
so uniformly "up for California," or " up for office,"
that there seems to be little thought in that quarter
directed to theological or religious matters. Among
these men compliance with popular opinion and popular forms, I suppose often means the same in America
in our time, as in Rome in the days of Cicero.
Newton and Leibnitz two hundred years ago were
the tallest heads in Europe; they were the leaders also
in the theology of Europe, and a strong consciousness
of God pervades all the writings of those mighty men.
But the minds that at this day take the place of the
Newtons and Leibnitzes of the last age, are silent on
the matter, or else mock it to scorn. I do not know a
single great philosopher in all Christendom who is, in
the technical sense of the churches, a " Christian," or
who would wish to be. Of course these men have the
elements of religion, -love of justice, love of truth,
love of men, and of faithfulness to their own souls; but




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          123
they do not often make it shape these elements into
conscious religion, and seem to have little conscious
trust in God.
This theology has led to a great amount of real rejection of religion by men who wish to be faithful to
their nature in all its parts. It is of no use to say they
are bad men. They are not bad men: they lead the
science, and philanthropies of the world; and I am
afraid that the average speculative "6 atheist," as he calls
himself, is at this day better than the average speculative "6 Christians," as they call themselves. The atheist
has abandoned religion because it is painted in such
a form that it seems worse than atheism. The Church
taught him  his denial, and it ought to baptize him,
and not blaspheme him. I think Calvin and Edwards
have driven more men from religion than all the speculative " atheists "9 have ever done from Pomponatius to
Feuerbach.
Then there are bad men who reject religion, reject it
in their badness. The popular theology is no terror to
the wicked man. The corrupt politician of England,
America, Germany, France, the extortioner, the kidnapper, -they pretend to accept this theology, they
"join the Church," bring the minister over to their side,
and do not fear a single fagot in the great hell of theology. They may laugh at the theological devil, they
can beat him at his own weapons. The baron of the
Middle Ages living for the flesh, and against the better
instincts of his soul, kept clear of the Church till death
knocked at his door, then all at once compounded for
sin, appeased the clergy, and paid off the old score.
The modern freebooters pay as they go. It is the
cheaper way. What does the American slave-holder
care for the devil, for hell, or for the God of Christian




124           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
theology? He gets ministers enough to baptize slaveholding, and prove it is " only the application of the
golden rule to life."  " Christianity " is not a terror to
evil doers, but it is a terror to good doers; for at least
the American churches launch their feeble thunders in
the defence of every popular wickedness.
Now see the effect of this theology on such as accept it.
Note first its effect on the Feelings.  Religion is
not thought a welcome thing, a thing that is to be
loved for its own sake. Men do not love to speak of it;
it is a subject almost wholly banished from " good society." It is sad, grim, melancholy; it is not love, it is
fear; almost wholly fear. If you take the theological
idea of God, you cannot love Him,- I defy anybody
to love Jonathan Edwards's or John Calvin's conception of the Deity: you can only fear him as the great
jailor and hangman and tormentor of the universe, the
divine exploiterer of the race. His world is represented
as a great inquisition-the torture-chamber holding in
its hideous embrace all but ten in the million! Ask
the children brought up in families who believe much in
this theology, if they ever liked religion: ask the grown
men. Look in the faces of the severe sects who take
this theology to heart, and what sad, joyless faces they
are. Read the publications of the American Tract Society, read the New England Primer, the popular books
treating of religion and circulated in all Catholic countries, and you see that this religion is fear, and not joy.
Men hold their breath when it thunders lest God should
hear them breathe, and lay at them with his lightning.
I once heard an eminent Trinitarian minister preach in




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           125
this city that it was wholly impossible for God to love
any man except just so far as that man believed all the
doctrines of the Bible and the New England Primer,
and kept every commandment in both of these books.
So, then, there could only be a very few millions of the
whole world that God cared any thing about. All the
rest he would damn; and they would get hell-fire, but
no pity from angel, God, or devil. No Abraham would
give Dives a drop of water from his finger's tip. Could
you love such a God? I should hate him; not as I
should dislike a tyrant like Cesar Borgia, or even as I
should loathe a New  England kidnapper, but as I
should hate a devil.
God is represented as selfish and only selfish, and
selfish continually. He has the power to bless men,
and prefers to curse them. Religion is represented as
selfishness, only carried out to all eternity, - and such
selfishness, too, as none but pirates and kidnappers ever
practise on earth. "s Aha,"'9 say the blessed Catholics of
Aquinas, " Aha," say the elect Puritans of Edwards, as
they look on the torture of their brethren, "' Let God be
praised for the torment of the wicked; so religion
bids!"
This crow of fear flies round all the churches of Christendom.  lMen tremble at death; they are afraid of
hell. Read the Dies Irae of the Catholic Church, the
"'Judgment Hymns" of the Protestants, or still worse
hear them sung by some full-voiced choir to appropriate
music, and you understand what lies at the bottom of
the ecclesiastical service. Attend a funeral in one of
the stricter sects, - the funeral of the best man you can
find, but one who was not a " church-member;" - and
how cheerless, how hopeless, how comfortless!  You
1.1 *




126           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
would think that the door which led to the street where
the last and loved remains of the friend, husband, father,
were to be borne out, opened into the bottomless pit.
Men talk of death, and say it is a dreadful thing to
come into the presence of the Living God! Are we
not always in Thy presence, O Living Father?  Are
not these flowers thy gift? and when I also blossom out
of the body, and the husks of the flesh drop away, is it
a dreadful thing to come into thy presence, O Living
God; to be taken to the arms of the Mother who
bore me?
I once knew a boy of early development in religion,
dry-nursed at school, against his father's command, on
the New England Primer, and he was filled with ghastly
fear of the God represented in that Primer, and the hell
thereof, and the devil therein, and he used to sob himself to sleep with the prayer, " O God! I beg that I
may not be damned!" until at last, before eight years
old, driven to desperation by that fear, he made way
with that Primer, and with its grim God, and Hell, and
Devil, and found rest for his soul in the spontaneous
teachings of the religious sentiment which sprung up in
his heart. There are many who have been tortured by
it all their lives long, and who have not sobbed themselves to sleep after fourscore years of torment.
You may divide the feelings into two classes: one
that seeks a finite object, - father, mother, child, brother,
sister, aunt, friend; the other which seeks the infinite
Object, the Father and Mother of all. This theology
is poison and blight and mildew to both of these classes
of feelings. It makes the trembling mother afraid that
she shall love her child too well; so the desire of the
finite object is balked of its satisfaction. She cannot




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          127
love the God painted to her in the dark theology of our
day -and so the infinite hunger of the soul is yet unstilled.
Note its effect on the Intellect. It debases the mind.
Quoth Protestant theology, " Reason is carnal: you
must accept the Scriptures as the word of God, the Old
Testament as His first word, and the New Testament
as His last word; therein God has spoken once for all;
you can get nothing further from Him. You must prostrate your mind to the Bible; you must believe it all."
The Roman Church is the great idol of the Catholies: it is infallible. The Pope is the Church in little;
he is infallible, and is God, so far as doctrine is concerned. With the Protestants the Bible stands in just
the same place; it is God to the Protestant theology,
to all intents and purposes, so far as doctrine is concerned.
This theology stands in the way of physical science.
Here is the scheme of the Universe which belongs to
the popular theology: There is an expanse called the
earth with its hills and valleys, rivers, lakes, and seas;
next below it, there are the waters which are under the
earth; then above it is the firmament, beneath which
are the sun, the moon, and the stars, and above it the
waters which are over the earth; the sun, moon, and
stars move round the earth. This rude notion has long
stood in the way of science; it wrung from Alphonso
of Castile the exclamation, " If God had asked my advice at the creation, the world would have been more
simple and better arranged."  Galileo must subscribe
to this scheme of the universe, or be burned at the stake.
The Jesuits who edited Newton's Principia declare that
his theory is contrary to theology - and they publish




128           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
his mathematical demonstrations of the revolutions of
the earth only as a " hypothesis," as a theory not a fact.
The popular theology meets the Geologists at every
turn, and denies the most obvious phenomena of sense,
and the strictest conclusions of science. An eminent
theologian, a professor in the most liberal theological
school in America once said: " I can believe that God
created all the geological strata of the Earth, with their
fossil remains, all at once, just as they are to-day, much
easier than I can believe the popular theology is mistaken in its account of the creation in six days!"  Gee
ology must give way to Genesis!
It stands in the way of history. This is the theological scheme of human history: About six thousand
years ago God created one man, and out of one of his
ribs formed one woman. The human race is descended from that pair. About fifteen hundred years later
He destroyed by a flood all their descendants except a
single family from which all the men now on earth
have descended. God chose one family out of all the
rest, made a bargain with them, revealed himself to
them, and not to others, and loved them while he hated
the rest, and protected his chosen by constant miracles,
giving Abraham a son miraculously born, then miraculously commanding the father to offer him as a bloody
sacrifice; and at last God himself becomes a man, born
miraculously, and lives a human life on earth, is put to
death, and thence returns to life and divinity once more.
Theology sharply opposes every discovery, every fact,
and every thought which is at variance with these assumptions. It demands belief therein as the condition
of religion and of acceptance with God.
See how this theology affects the Conscience. If




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.         129
you wish to know what is right, for the standard of
ultimate appeal, the theologian sends you to the Bible,
- full of blessed things, but no master; it contains the
opinions of forty or fifty different men, the greater part
of them living from four to ten hundred years before
Jesus, and belonging to a people we should now call
half-civilized. For example, if you ask, Is it right for
the community to kill a man who has slain one of his
neighbors, when the community have caught and put
him in a jail, and can keep him there all his life, shut
from doing harm? — the theologian sends you to the
Bible, and tells you that once, (nobody knows when,)
somebody, (nobody knows who,) in some place, (nobody
knows where,) said, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man shall his blood be shed! "- and therefore to the
end of time you shall hang every murderer.
You ask, Is it right to catch a dark-colored man, and
make him your slave for life and pay him nothing for
his services? and Theology answers, "Yes, for Abraham did so, even with white men, and every thing
that Abraham did of course was right;" and next,
"Paul sent back a man who had fled from bondage,"
— only he was not black, but white; and thirdly, -
and this is the great argument of all, — " Ham, the
son of Noah laughed at his father when he was drunk,
and when Noah rose up from his debauch he cursed
the son of Ham, saying,' Cursed be Canaan! a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren!' and
therefore the whites are right in enslaving the blacks."
This is the theological argument.
I ask, Must I obey the law statute of men, when it
offends my conscience?  "Yes," says Theology, "for
when Nero was emperor of Rome a poor sailmaker
said,' The powers that be are ordained of God,' and




130           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.'whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance
of God."' The fact that Paul's noble life was a manly
resistance to tyrants, and a brave obedience to God, is
not taken into the account.
This theology leads men to disregard the natural laws
of both body and spirit, in order to keep an arbitrary
command. So it underrates the natural morality and
natural piety. Men keep the Ten Commandments:
therein they do well; but they forget that every faculty
of the body, every faculty of the spirit — of the mind,
the conscience, the heart, and the soul, —has also its
commandmenlts, just as imperative as though they had
been thundered forth by the voice of the lMost High,
amidst the clouds of Sinai. The popular theology
denies this.
See the effect of this theology on Practical Life.
Religion is largely separated from daily work and daily
charity. It has a place for itself, the meeting-house; a
time for itself, Sunday or the hour of prayer. It is not
thought that "saving religion" has any thing important to do in the chaisemaker's yard, in the tailor's shop,
or on the farm of the husbandman, in the countingroom of the merchant, or the banking-house of the
capitalist. Religion consists, first, in belief; next in
sacraments,  ritual work, attending meeting by passive bodily presence, baptism, prayer in words, and conmmunion, as it is called, by bread and wine. Religion is
for eternity; its function is to get souls "saved,""'redeemed;" - saved from an angry God, redeemed from
eternal torment; not saved from a mean and selfish
and wicked -life, not saved from this cowardly and boyish fear of death,- by no means that.




THE POPUJLA  THEOLOGY.         1I31
A practical philanthropist who picks drunkards out
of the mire, gets them washed and clothed and restored
to their right mind, once visited a poor widow in a cold
winter day.  She had no wood to burn, no means
to get it. A clergyman was trying to console her;
"Have faith in Christ," said he, H"  e will help you!"
Quoth the practical man,'" It is not faith in Christ she
lacks, she has as much of that as you or I, it is wood
she stands in need of. Her faith will not save her, with
the thermometer at zero. Do you think the Saviour
will come and tip her up two feet of wood at her door?
No such thing! She has got faith, but wants firewood."' The missionary went his way, there was no
mrore that he could do, the practical man had the wood
there in an hour!
The Unitarians and Universalists have less of the
popular theology than the other sects. I have heard
Orthodox men confess the fact that these heretics were
the best neighbors, the best friends, the most honest
business men, eminent in charity, and all good works;
and I believe the praise was pretty just: but, they
said, "' they are the worst Christians in the world, and
all their goodness is good for nothing, except in this
life, and God does not value their works a straw; at
the last day He will pass by every Universalist and
Unitarian in the world, with all their philanthropy, to
save some Orthodox deacon who never went out of his
way to do a kind deed."
Hence it comes to pass that men who are eminent
for theological piety are not to be trusted. Their theology makes them attend to beliefs, rituals, and sacraments, but there it ends. ir. Screw has the devoutest
belief in the popular theology, never fails of a sacrament, never cherishes a doubt. His morning and even



132           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
ing are fringed with a form of prayer, but he will
devour a widow's house the next moment, and say
grace after the meal. An Arabian proverb says, "' A
man who has been a pilgrimage to Mecca is not to be
trusted again."  Men that have much of this theology,
and its "piety," generally have a bad name in business. A business man told me he always wanted more
indorsement on a note from a long-faced man, eminent
in theology, than from a common citizen who met him
in the street. " Strict Christians " are said to be worse
in these matters than other men; I mean more covetous, more sly, more grasping, less to be relied upon.
The severe sects are austere in their theology, loose in
business; strict in sacrament, lax in charity; instant in
prayer, not seasonable in humane works. If you want
self-denial to spread abroad the doctrines of their sect,
there are no men so ready to make such a sacrifice.
The efforts which have been made in the stricter American Churches to carry what they call the Gospel - but
which is only their theology - to Heathen lands, are
of immense value to the men who have made the sacrifice; whether the Heathen are thereby profited I will
not say. But for works in morality, in philanthropy, in
charity, these sects are not first and foremost. Of selfdenial for a theological purpose they have the manliest
abundance, but of self-denial for humanity the meanest
lack.
The present position of the clergy is to be attributed
to the character of their theology. There are at this
day about twenty-eight thousand Protestant clergymen
In the United States, and about a thousand Catholic
priests. Almost all of them come from the middle
class in society, — the class most remarkable for industry, enterprise, charity, morality, and piety, —in a




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           133
word, for religion. They have the most costly culture
of any class in the nation: the professional education
of the clergymen has cost the public more than the
professional culture of all the lawyers; or all the doctors,
or all the merchants and men of science and literature
in the country; for most of these latter men pay for
their education as they go, or at any rate their fathers
pay for it, but a large special outlay is made by public
charity, for the education of the minister, - very properly made too. Nine tenths of these, I believe, who
accept this calling, come to it from a love of it, from a
desire to serve God in it; not from selfishness, but with
the expectation of self-denial. Surely at this day there
is little from without to attract a man to so thankless a
calling, for their average pay does not equal that of a
fireman on a railroad. They count it the holiest and
most arduous office in the world. But yet, starting from
that class, with that education, the costliest in the land,
and with such noble motives, - how very little do they
bring to pass, in promoting sentiments of love to God
and men; how little in diffusing ideas of truth and justice, or in any noble action in any practical department
of life! They do exceedingly little for any one of the
three. Many of these men stand in the way of the
human race, and while mankind is painfully toiling up
hill they block the wheels forward, and not hindward.
This is not wholly the fault of these men. They are
earnest and self-denying, and mean to be faithful, most
of them. But it is the bad theology they start with
which hinders them,- their false idea of God, of Man,
and of Religion, - the Relation between God and Man.
They are working with bad tools, - dull theology,
dull sermons. Once a clam shell was the best cutting
instrument which the human race had used or discov12




134           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
ered. Then it was received with thankfulness of heart.
But if a man in these times should go out into the
fields to cut grass or corn with a clam shell, how do
you think his day's work would compare with that of
a man who mowed with scythes, or reaped with sickles
or with shears moved by horses cut down his acre in
an hour? Verily the fields are white for harvest-, the
laborers many, but with the clam shell for sickle, they
tread down more with their feet than they bind up with
arms!
The clergymen cannot defend their theology. Attacks have long ago been made against the philosophical part of it, and they have never been repelled;
against the historical part of it, and there is no satisfactory answer thereto. The Unitarians have attacked the
divinity of Jesus, the Universalists the eternity of hell,
and the assaults have not been philosophically met.
There is a breach in the theologic wall, not filled up
save with denunciations, which are but straws that a
breath blows off, or which rot of their own accord.
Within a few years most serious attacks have been
made on the "; Inspiration of the Scriptures."  Its
physics are shown to be false science, its metaphysics
false philosophy, its history often mistaken. In England, Mr. Hennell denies the divine origin of Christianity, and writes a labored book to prove that it came
as other forms of religion have come, — the best
thought of noble men. In Germany, Mir. Strauss, with
a toop of scholars before and behind him, denies the
accuracy of the history of the New Testament; denies
the divine birth of Jesus, his miracles, his ascension, his
resurrection - they are what one of the latest writers of
the Ne-w  Testament calls " old wives' fables;" Mr.
Newman tells of "' the Soul, her sorrows and her aspi.




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           135
rations," and shows the " Phases of Faith" which a
devout and truthful spirit passes through in the journey
after religion, exposing the dreadful famine in the
churches, and showing that much of the popular theology is a mere show-bread which it is not possible for
a man to feed on. No man shows that Newman is
mistaken, none refutes Strauss, no man answers Hennell. Books enough are written it is true: " Lives of
Jesus," "Defences of Miracles,"  "Evidences of Christianity," - to prove that some men wrote some books
with such miraculous helps from God that they could
make no mistakes, but yet the mistakes are there in the
books; -" Voices of the Church:" "1 Eclipses of Faith,"
and the like, and denunciations " Against Freethinking,'" without stint. Now and then a feeble charge is
repelled, a weak position of the assailant is reconquered,
but still the theologians are continually beaten and
driven back before the well served artillery of thought.
Church-membership is thought a needful condition
of salvation: without that a man is not a Christian in
full, and is not sure of any thing good hereafter. But
very few join the Church. Of the twenty-three millions
of America, there are not three and a half million members of the Protestant Church, not one hundred and
thirty to a minister; — a little more than three million
Protestant church-members, a little more than three
million slaves also.  Singular statistics!' so many
church-members, so many slaves! There were never so
many voters with so small a proportion of church-members; never so small a proportionate sprinkling of baptism in the face of the community; never so little taking
of the sacraments of the Church.
Ecclesiastical interests do not thrive. Compare the
interest men feel in a bank, in a manufacturing com



136           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
pany, in a lyceum, with what they take in a Church.
And yet the minister tells them that the bank, the lyceum, and the manufactory are only for to-day and tomorrow - for the body while the Church is for the soul,
and forever!
What is the reason of this lack of interest? Even
clergymen themselves partake of the general dulness,
and do not study vigorously as the doctors and men of
science; do not plead for the souls of men, as the
lawyer for their money; do not toil as the merchant or
mechanic for his gain.  Ministers do not study the
science of their calling as the physician, the engineer,
the manufacturer of cloth or leather, the geologist, the
watchmaker, studies the science of his calling. Even
the almanac-maker is a philosopher; the clergyman, -
how seldom does he show any tinge of analogous culture?
In practical affairs the American clergy have but little
good influence on public morals and manners; an influence not at all in proportion to the number, the education, the character, the position, and the motives of
these men.
Politicians declare there is no law higher than an Act
of Congress, which makes it felony to give a cup of cold
water to a man fleeing from bondage. What do the
clergymen say? " The powers that be are ordained of
God, and whoso resisteth the powers that be, resisteth
the ordinance of God."  " Religion is an excellent
thing," says the politician, " for every thing but politics:
there it makes men mad." The minister does not say,'" I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the
words of soberness and truth:"- not at all. Felix
trembled before Paul preaching; now Paul in the pulpit, preaching, trembles before Felix in the pew, slum



THE POPULAR THEOLOGY              137
bering. The statesman says, "Religion must not be
applied to politics: there let us be practical atheists."
The minister says, " I will not apply religion to politics.
Be practical atheists there.  I will not disturb you.
My Kingdom is not of this world."
Traders apply to business the same principle which
the politician applies to the State, and say, " Religion
is an excellent thing everywhere but in business: there
it makes men mad.  The'golden rule' is the last one
that the merchant ought to have in his desk; it is
wholly unknown to the official' sealer of weights and
measures.' Let us not apply religion to business."
The clergymen answer, " Let us not apply religion to
business. Here let us be practical atheists together.
The golden rule is for the pulpit desk; for Sunday,
not for the counting-house and the merchant's shop.
Religion is to get the soul saved, not to prevent the
extortion of the usurer, or the tyranny of the oppressor.
Business is business, religion is religion."
Different traders make particular application of this
rule to their several specialities. The liquor dealer
says, " Religion is an excellent thing everywhere but
in the rum  trade: there it makes men mad. Let us
never apply it to the sale of intoxicating drink." The
clergyman says, "Let it be so."  The dealer in human
flesh declares,'" Religion is a, most excellent thing in all
matters except slave-trading: there it makes men mad.
Let us not apply religion to the'patriarchal institution."' The clergyman answers, "Slavery is of God.
Abraham was a slave-holder; Christ Jesus says nothing
against the worst evils of Grecian or of Roman slavery,
— not a word against buying slaves, breeding slaves,
selling slaves, beating slaves, or putting them to death.
It is plain that he approved of the institution, and de12*




138           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
signed that it should be perpetual. The great Apostle
to the Gentiles sent back a runaway slave, thus executing the fugitive slave act of those times, and giving an
example to Christians'to fulfil all righteousness.' It is
only' natural religion' which forbids slavery, the heathenism of pagan Seneca and Modestinus. Christians
are not in a state of Nature, but of Grace. One of'the advantages of a revelation' is this - the kidnapper
may keep his bondmen forever. Mr. Jefferson said all
men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator
with certain natural and unalienable Rights, amongst
others with the Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit
of Happiness. He was an infidel, stumbling by the
light of Nature; but we have a more excellent way,
and hold slaves by divine revelation which transcends
the light of Nature.  Let us not destroy slavery by'natural religion,' but preserve it by' Christianity.' It
is a good thing to have as many slaves as churchmembers!"
At this day the popular preaching does very little to
correct the great popular sins of the people. It does
more to encourage them. Here are the vices of the
leading class of men in their period of calculation after
the period of passion has passed by - covetousness of
money, ambition for political and social rank. Both of
these are unscrupulous in their modes of action. Does
the body of clergymen do any thing to correct this evil,
— corruption in trade, corruption in politics?  Far
more I think to encourage each of these leading vices
of the age.
America invades the other nations. The pulpit never
stands in front of the cannon. Who preached against
the Mexican War? How many ministers, think you,
in the twenty-eight thousand Protestant pulpits? Who




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          139
will preach against the present national lust for land?
Extortioners levy their usury to the ruin of the borroawter, -the pulpit does not say a word against it.
Politicians declare that the great object of government
is the protection of property, —the pulpit knows no
higher object for government; "take care of the rich
and they will take care of the poor." Intemperance
floods the cities, fills the Almshouse and the Jail, - the
pulpit says but little: thank God, in humble places it
does say something, though the metropolitan pulpit
commonly "hangs out" for Rum. Licentiousness
mows down the beauty of the girl, and prostitutes the
manly dignity of the man, - but the pulpit is silent as
the house of death. It has forgotten the book of Proverbs. The kidnapper comes to Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, to seize our fellow-worshippers, - and
most of the churches are on his side. In this city, a
man fleeing from slavery, seized by ruffians and confined in our illegal jail, brought into most imminent
peril, sends round his petition to the churches for their
prayer; the churches are dumb; eloquent ministers
come out and defend the stealing of men. The American pulpit is powerless against sin: it is a dumb dog
that cannot bark at the wolf. The great Rabbis of the
popular theology are on the side of every popular sin.
What Roman augur ever opposed a Roman wickedness?
All over the world woman is in a state of subjection
to man, almost everywhere counted inferior to him, a
tool for. his convenience, created only because it was
" not good for him to be alone;" throughout Christendom deprived of the ecclesiastical, political, and academic rights or privileges of men, and consequently




140           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
oppressed by the strong arm. What has the Christian
Church to say?
Do not blame the minister too much.  He is the
victim of his theological circumstances, and is commonly a great deal better than his creed. He is wiser
than he dares to preach. His theology tells him that
religion is not for the earth but for Heaven; not to
make the world better, but insurance on souls, to get
them  saved from  an angry God.  What he calls
"means of Grace" are not a diligent use of all out
faculties of body and mind, each in its normal mode
of activity; but the vicarious sufferings of Jesus of
Nazareth are the Divine Cause, and a belief in the
popular theology is the Human Condition; all our
"righteousnesses are as filthy rags," and shelter no
man from the wrath of God and the flames of hell. It
tells him that the function of the minister is not to promote piety and morality, but first, to intercede with an
offended God for the sake of an offending people; next,
to administer the sacrament of baptism,- to sprinkle
a little water on the face of a baby, - and of the Christian communion, -to give some  men a morsel of
bread to eat and a drop of wine to drink in the meeting-house; and next to expound the Scriptures according to the standard of his sect. That is the ecclesiastic
theological function of a minister, whereby he is " to
save souls;" this he thinks is "'to preach Christ and
Him crucified."  So the churches are not chiefly institutions of religion, to teach piety and morality; but institutions of theology, and are controlled not by the
blameless religion of Jesus, but by Theology and Mammon. In small country towns where the people are
ruled by the clergy, the churches are mainly controlled




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          141
by Theology; and in large wealthy towns, where
another class of men bears sway, they are controlled
chiefly by Mammon. The Church sitting on her cockatrice's eggs in the one case, hatches mainly churchlings,,and in the other chiefly wordlings.
So the churches are no defence against political
tyranny: they are on its side; in old England, New
England, France, Germany, Russia, all through Christendom, the churches side with despotic power. They
are no protection against practical atheism: if the
statesmen say," There is no Higher Law," the leading
clergy answer "Very true! there is none."  They are
no defence against covetousness: the great ecclesiastical
teachers of Christendom are its allies. All the popular
vices are sure to have the churches on their side.
None of the great ideas of the times originate with
the clergy and the Church: new thought is not generated there. Theology keeps
" Hawking at geology and schism,"
and hates new ideas. None of the great sentiments
of devotion to God are cradled there: Theology mumbles its ritual, and scoffs at the light of Christian sentiment. None of the great philanthropies begin there:
Theology is getting men saved from future torment,
and kills philanthropy. The temperance movement, the
peace movement, the education movement, the antislavery movement, the great movement for the elevation of woman, the philanthropy which would heal the
criminal, cure the sick, teach the deaf, dumb, blind, and
the fool, - all these are foreign to the Church and the
clergy, to the popular theology which underlies both.
You know the qualities most valued in a man called




142            THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
Christian, in all the sects of the sectarian churches:belief in all the doctrines of his sect; a devout attendance on all the forms thereof; a sad countenance; —
much talk on theological matters; the reading of theological books. That makes up what is called " Christianity." Do you think that Jesus would recognize
such things as "the essentials of religion" in one of
his followers?
How would you judge of the health of a man wNho
proceeded in that way; a man who was thick with the
doctors, who was always puddering with medicine, and
reading medical treatises, and everlastingly in a fuss
about his head, or his heart, or his stomach, -his digestion, or his circulation?  Would you think that was
a proof that he was sound and healthy? The doctors
might say he was a very good patient, but a very silly
man.
A celebrated clergyman of America once preached a
funeral sermon on a distinguished statesman then lately
deceased. The minister claimed the politician as an
exemplary follower of Christ, " He had full faith in the
leading doctrines of the Gospel." What do you think
they were? Jesus of Nazareth would be a little
amazed to hear: "the sinfulness of man; the divinity
of Christ; the necessity of his atonement; need of
being born again, and that his own personal hope of
salvation depended on the promises and grace of Christ,
and that he now wished to throw himself upon it as a
practical and blessed remedy." That was what a Doctor of Divinity took for proof that a famous American
statesman, almost eighty years old, was a Christian!
lie did not ask for piety, not for morality, only for a
belief in these doctrines of the popular theology.
If Jesus of Nazareth were to come back, and bear




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.           143
the same relation to the nineteenth century which he
bore so blessedly to the first, it seems to me that the
first thihg he would preach against is what is called
" Christianity"99 in these days; - I mean the Theology
of Christendom.
This theology is the greatest evil of our times. It
stands in the way of the emancipation of man. It
defends the despotism of the Church, and the despotism
of the State, the despotism of the noble over the proletary in Europe, of the master over the slave in
America, of the capitalist over the laborer, of the
rich over the poor, of the learned over the ignorant,
and last of all, the despotism of man over woman. It
is a lion in the path of humankind.
This theology rests on two great pillars as its foundation, the Jachin and Boaz of theology.
I. The notion that God is finite in his wisdom, justice, love, and holiness -only infinite in power to damn;
that He is a jealous, angry, and revengeful God, with
eternal hell behind him, wherein he will torture forever
the vast majority of his children, and that Man is wicked
by nature, subject to the wrath of God, and utterly incapable, by his own efforts, of escaping from it.
II. The notion that Christ has made an atonement
for the sin of the world, and by his sufferings and death
has mitigated the anger of the Jealous God who has
given a conditional pardon of sin and promise of salvation, and that the condition of this Salvation is a
belief in the popular theology, - which is commonly
called Faith,;" faith in Christ,'9 and " faith in God," -
and a compliance with the ritual of the Church.
This Theology makes man a worm; religion a torment to all but ten in a million; immortality a curse




144           THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
to mankind; God a devil omnipotent to damn, and his
rule in time and eternity the most selfish despotism
which the world ever knew.
This Theology is not always to last: it is in the
process of dissolution —there is dry-rot in its limbs.
Philosophy shows there is no such dreadful God;
criticism that there is no such atoning sacrifice to
appease imaginary wrath, no need of such belief, or of
such compliance; consciousness knows no such human
nature as the popular theology proclaims. No, we are
all conscious of a nature quite different from that. Yea,
O Father in Heaven, thou hast written of Thyself on
the walls of human consciousness, and we feel Thee in
our heart, with all thy Infinite Wisdom, Justice, Love,
and Holiness.
This dark theology must pass away.
It is at this day in the same condition that Judaism
and Paganism were in Paul's time. Then the great
priests were Pagans or Jews; the great philosophers,
the great philanthropists, were neither Jew nor Pagan.
Now the great priests are theological Christians, the
great philosophers far otherwise.  The new bud is
crowding off the old leaf. The great hearts have no
confidence in this theology; the great heads have no
confidence in it; the great hands have no confidence in it. The social aristocracy of England seems
false to religion.  A writer, one of the learnedest
men in Europe, himself really religious, declares that
since the breaking up of Paganism there has never
been such a decline of religion in Europe as at this
day. Another not at all bigoted declares that in England the foremost classes of the people, —men of birth




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.          145
and riches, -have no regard for religion. The laboring men whose daily toil hardly fills their mouths and
satisfies their hunger, - they also have small confidence
in it. The intellectual aristocracy of France and Germany have mainly turned their faces not only against
this theology, but against conscious religion itself.
Well, how much of religion is there in America?
Ask the twenty-eight thousand ministers: ask the three
million, three hundred thousand church-members that
question: then let the three million, three hundred
thousand slaves give answer to the question. " The
dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of
cruelty;" the American pulpit knows it, and defends
the cruelty and the darkness of the dark places of the
earth. Ask the politician who says there is no Higher
Law for the State; ask the trader who says there is no
Higher Law for business, and who wishes to sign off
from religion, each in his peculiar vocation, - ask them
what respect there is for religion in America!
You and I, my friends, live in an age when mankind
has outgrown the popular theology. God be thanked!
we have outgrown its idea of God, its idea of Man,
and its idea of Religion. Hence comes the confusion
of the times; hence the denial of religion in politics,
in trade. We live in an age of transition. The old
theology will pass away; depend upon it, it will pass
away. Philosophers have destroyed its philosophical
basis, critics have destroyed its historical basis, and it
swings in the air at both ends. That must pass away.
But Religion, —that will not fade out of the human
heart: sooner shall yonder sun, which those clouds
only hide, fade out of heaven. No! with every advance
of man religion shines brighter and brighter, leading
onward to its perfect day. Out of this chaos of the13




146            THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.
ology, how beautifully comes up the manly and mild
and trusting face of Jesus of Nazareth!  Far off,
severed from us by two thousand years of time, and
five thousand miles of space, we see him with his beatitudes, his parable of the Good Samaritan, of the Father
who went after his prodigal son, having more joy in his
heaven over the one sinner that repented than over the
ninety and nine that never went astray. How beautifully comes up that young Nazarene, proclaiming the one
religion, - love to the Father, and love to the Son- to
Man here on the earth, for mankind is the Son of God!
Coming out of the popular theology, I feel as one
who has wandered long in some dark, subterranean,
mammoth cave, where the sound of running water was
thunderous and sad,-lit by uncertain torches, led by
wandering guides, where lifeless stones grinned as horrible monsters at him, and he hesitated and stumbled at
every step, -where the air was contaminated by the
smoke of the torches, and his steps faltered and his
heart sank. I feel as one coming out into the glad
light of day, where the sky is blue over me, and the sun
sheds down its golden light, and the ground is green
with grass, and is beautiful with summer or with
autumn flowers, fragrant to every sense.
God be thanked that we leave the cavern behind us,
with its smoky lights, its paths that lead to wandering;
that God's heaven is over us and his ground is under
our feet, his eternity before us, and his Spirit in our
spirit.
"Oh ye, who pined in dungeons for the sake
Of Truth which tyrants shadowed with their hate,
Whose only crime was that ye were awake
Too soon, or that your brethren slept too late;
Mountainous minds, upon whose top the great




THE POPULAR THEOLOGY.                   147
Sunrise of knowledge came, long e'er its glance
Fell on the foggy swamps of fear and ignorance;
"The time shall come when from your heights serene,
Beyond the grave, ye will look back and smile,
To see the plains of earth all growing green,
Where Science, Art, and Love repeat Heaven's style,
And with God's beauty fill the desert isle,'Till Eden blooms where martyr-fires have burned,
And to the Lord of life all hearts and minds are turned.
"The seeds are planted, and the spring is near;
Ages of blight are but a fleeting frost:
Truth circles into Truth. Each mote is dear
To God, no drop of Ocean is e'er lost,
No leaf forever dry and tempest-tost.
Life centres deathless underneath Decay,
And no true Word or Deed can ever pass away."








SERMON V.
OF THEISM AS THEORY.
13 *         (149j




MATTHEW X. 29.
ARE NOT TWO SPARROWS SOLD FOR A FARTHING? AND ONE OF THEM
SHALL NOT FALL ON THE GROUND WITHOUT YOUR FATHER.
(150)




V.
OF SPECULATIVE THEISM, REGARDED AS A
THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
ON the last four Sundays I spoke of Atheism, regarded first as a Theory of the Universe, and then as
a Principle of Ethics; next of the popular Christian
Theology, also regarded first as a Theory of the Universe, and then as a Principle of Ethics. I have spoken
of each, as metaphysics and as ethics; as theory first,
and then as practice. Both subjects were painful to
touch, yet needing to be handled at this day. It is
never pleasant to point out and expose a false theory
of philosophy, or a false system of practice, and I am
glad I have passed by that for the present. A good
man hates to kill any thing, — even snakes and hymenas.
I now come to a theme much more pleasant: namely,
the Philosophical Idea of God. So I ask your attention to a Sermon of Speculative Theism, considered as
a Theory of the Universe; and next Sunday I hope to
speak of Theism considered as a Principle of Practice.
If what I have to say this morning be somewhat abstract and metaphysical, and closely joined together,
(151)




152            SPECULATIVE THEISM.
and rather hard to follow, I beg you will remember that
this dryness belongs to the nature of the subject, which
I shall treat as well as I can, and as plain as I may.
I use the word Theism, first, as distinguished from
Atheism; that is, from the absolute denial of all possible ideas of God. Second, as distinguished from the
Popular Theology, which indeed affirms God, but ascribes to Him a finite character, and makes Him a ferocious God. And third, as distinguished from Deism,
which affirms a God without the ferocious character of
the popular theology, but still starts from the sensational philosophy, abuts in materialism, derives its idea
of God solely by induction from the phenomena of material nature, or of human history, leaving out of sight
the intuition of human nature; and so gets its idea of
God solely from external observation, and not at all
from consciousness, and thus accordingly, represents
God as finite and imperfect. I use the word as distinguished from Atheism, the denial of God; from the
Popular Theology, which affirms a finite ferocious God;
and from Deism, which affirms a finite God without
ferocity. So much for the definition of terms.
Some of you may perhaps remember the introductory
sermon of last year's course, treating of the Infinite Perfection of God. In that discourse I started from human
nature, from the facts of consciousness in your heart
and in my heart, assuming only the fidelity of the
human faculties, their power to ascertain truth in religious matters, as in philosophical and mathematical
matters; and I showed, or think I showed, that those
faculties of human nature- the intellectual, the moral,
the affectional, and the simply religious — in their




SPECULATIVE THEISM.           153
joint and normal exercise, led to the idea of God as
a Being infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, infinitely
just, infinitely loving, and infinitely holy, that is, faithful
to Himself.
To-day I start with that conclusion as a fact. I shall
not undertake to prove the actuality of this idea, — the
existence of the infinite God; I shall take it for granted.
I did not undertake to prove the existence of a God
against Atheism; nor the non-existence of the ferocious
God against the Popular Theology. At this stage of
proceeding I shall assume the existence of the Infinite
God, relying for proof on what has been said so often
before, and still more, on what is felt in your consciousness, without my saying any thing. Only for clearness
of conception, let me state some of the most important
matters connected with the idea of God.
I. There must be many qualities of God not at all
known to men, some of them not at all knowable by us;
because we have not the faculties to know them by.
Man's consciousness of God, and God's consciousness
of himself must differ immeasurably. God's ideas of
himself must differ as much from our idea of him, as
the constellation called the Great Bear differs from one
of the beasts in the public den at Berne. For no man
can ever have an exhaustive conception of God, - one
I mean which uses up and comprises the whole of God.
We have scarcely an exhaustive conception of any
thing.  Certain properties and forces of things we
know; the substance of things is almost, if not quite
beyond our ken. But we may have such an idea of
God as though incomplete, is perfectly true, and comprises no quality which is not also a quality of God.
Then our idea of God is true as far as it goes, only it




154            SPECULATIVE THEISM.
does not describe the whole of God. To illustrate
this, —a thimble cannot contain all the water in the
Atlantic Ocean at once, but it may be brimful of water
from the Atlantic Ocean; and it may contain nothing
but water from the Atlantic Ocean. So our idea of
God, though not containing the whole of him, may yet
comprise no quality which is not a quality of God, and
may omit none which it is needful for our welfare, that
we should know. In the self-consciousness of God
subject and object are the same, and he must know all
his own Infinite Nature. But in our consciousness of
God the limitations of the finite subject make it impossible that we should comprehend God as he is conscious
of himself. It is enough for us to know of the Infinite
what is knowable to finite man.
With qualities not knowable to us I have nothing to
do. I shall not undertake to discuss the psychology and
metaphysics of God. The metaphysics of man are quite
hard enough for me to grapple with and understand.
IL. Then as a next thing, God must be different in
kind from what I call the Universe; that is from Nature, the world of Matter, and from Spirit, the world of
Man. They are finite, He infinite; they dependent,
He self-subsisting; they variable, He unchanging. God
must include both, matter and spirit.
There are two classes of philosophers often called
Atheists; but better, and perhaps justly, called Pantheists.
One of these says, " there are only material things in
existence," resolving all into matter; " The sum-total
of these material things is God."  That is material
Pantheism. If I mistake not, M. Comte of Paris, and
the anonymous author of the " Vestiges of the Natural




SPECULATIVE THEISM.           155
History of Creation," with their numerous coadjutors,
belong to that class.
The other class admits the existence of spirit, sometimes resolves every thing into spirit, and says, "the,sum total of finite spirit, that is God."  These are
spiritual Pantheists. Several of the German philosophers, if I understand them, are of that stamp.
One difficulty with both of these classes is this:
Their idea of God is only the idea of the world of
Nature and of Spirit, as it is to-day; and as the world
of Nature and of Spirit will be fairer and wiser a
thousand years hence than it is now, so, according to
them, God will be fairer and wiser a thousand years
hence than he is now. Thus they give you a variable
God, who learns by experience, and who grows with
the growth and strengthens with the strength of the
universe itself. According to them, when there was no
vegetation in the world of matter, God knew nothing
of a plant; no more than the stones on the earth.
When the animal came, when man came, God was
wiser, and He advances with the advance of man
When Jesus came, He was a better God; HIe was a
wiser God, after Newton and La Place; and was more
a philosophical Being, after those pantheistic philosophers had taught him the way to be so: for their
God knows nothing until it is either a fact of observation in finite Nature - in the material world, - or else
a fact of consciousness in finite Spirit -in some man;
He knows nothing till it is shown Him. That is a fatal
error with Hegel and his followers in England and
America.
Mr. Babbage, a most ingenious Englishman, invented
a calculating engine. He builded wiser than he knew;
for by and by he found that his engine calculated con



156            SPECULATIVE THEISM.
clusions which had never entered into the thought of
1Mr. Babbage himself. The mathematical engine outciphered its inventor. And these men represent God
as being in just that predicament: the world is constantly revealing things unknown before, and which
God had not conceived of. As there is a Progressive
Development of the powers of the Universe as a whole,
and of each man, so there is a Progressive Development
of God. He is therefore not so much a Being, as a
Becoming.
This idea of an Improvable and Progressive Deity is
not wholly a new thing. The doctrine was obscurely
held by some of the ancient philosophers in the time of
Plato.
If God be Infinite, then he must be immanent, perfectly and totally present, in Nature and in Spirit. Thus
there is no point of space, no atom of matter, but God
is there; no point of spirit, and no atom of soul, but God
is there. And yet finite matter and finite spirit do not
exhaust God. He transcends the world of matter and
of spirit; and in virtue of that transcendence continually makes the world of matter fairer, and the
world of spirit wiser. So there is really a progress in
the Manifestation of God, not a progress in God the
manifesting. In thought you may annihilate the world
of matter and of man; but you do not thereby in
thought annihilate the infinite God, or subtract any
thing from the Existence of God. In thought you may
double the world of matter and of man; but in so
doing you do not in thought double the Being of the
Infinite God; that remains the same as before.
That is what I mean when I say that God is infinite
and transcends matter and spirit, and is different in kind
from the finite universe. This is the great point in




SPECULATIVE THEISM.            157
which I differ most widely from those philosophers. I
find no fault with them; I differ from their conclusion.
III. As a third thing, the Infinite God must have all
the Qualities of a perfect and complete Being; must
be complete in the qualities of a perfect being, perfect
in the qualities of a complete one. To state that by
analysis which I have just stated by synthesis: iHe
must have the perfection of Being, self-existence; the
perfection of Power, almightiness; the perfection of
Mind, all-knowingness; the perfection of Conscience,
all-righteousness; of Affection, all-lovingness; of Soul,
all-holiness, perfect self-fidelity. Hence, as the result
of all these: He must have the perfection of Will, absolute freedom. I mean to say, according to this idea
of God, there must be no limitation to his existence, his
power, his wisdom, his justice, his love, his holiness,
and his freedom; none from any outward cause, or any
inward cause whatsoever. The classic, or Greek and
Roman Idea of God, represented him as finite, limited
subjectively by elements of his own character, objectively limited by the elements of the material world;
the popular theological idea in fact represents him as
finite, limited subjectively by selfishness, wrath, and
various evil passions, objectively by elements in the
world of men which continually prove refractory, and
turn out as he did not intend. In this matter of the
Infinity of God, I differ from the popular theology, as
well as from the common scheme of philosophy.
So much for the Idea of God considered as Infinite;
so much for its diversity from the common schemes.
Now look at this philosophical Theism, with its Idea
14




158            SPECULATIVE THEISM.
of the Infinite God, as a Theory of the Universe. Let
me divide the universe into two great parts. One I
will call the World of Matter, and the other the World
of Spirit. By the world of matter I mean every thing,
except the Deity, known to us that is not man; and by
the world of spirit I mean what is man, - both man in
his material substance, and in his spiritual substance.
Let me say a word of each. For shortness' sake, I will
call the world of matter Nature. I begin with this, as
it is the least difficult.
In Nature God must be both a perfect Cause, and a
perfect Providence.
I. Of God as perfect Cause. Creation itself, the
non-existent coming into existence, is something unintelligible to us. But this we know, that the Infinite
God must be a perfect Creator, the sole and undisturbed
author of all that is in Nature. So there must be a
complete and perfect harmony and concord between
God and the Nature which he creates, God and his
works must be at one; and Nature, so far as it goes,
must represent the Will and Purpose of God, and nothing but the will and purpose of God. So, there can be
nothing in Nature which God did not put in Nature
from himself.
Well, God must have made Nature first, from a perfect Motive; next, of perfect Material; third, for a perfect Purpose or end; fourth, as perfect Means to achieve
that purpose. That is - the motive for creation, the
purpose of creation, must be in perfect harmony with
the infinity of God; in harmony with his infinite power,
wisdom, justice, love, and holiness; the material of
Nature, and the means therein, with the constant modes
of operation thereof- the Laws of Nature, must be




SPECULATIVE THEISM.          159
perfectly adequate to the perfect purpose, and so must
be in complete harmony with the Infinite God; with
his infinite power, infinite wisdom, justice, love, and
holiness. That is very plain, following unavoidably
from the Idea of God as Infinite.
Now a perfect Motive for creation, — what will that
be? It must be absolute Love producing a desire to
bless every thing which he creates; that is, a desire to
confer such a form and degree of welfare on each thing
which he makes as is perfectly consistent with the
character and nature of that thing made; that is, with
its highest form and degree of welfare. Absolute Love
is a perfect motive.
A perfect Purpose or end of creation is the achievement of that bliss; not the achievement thereof to-day,
but ultimately. Perfect Material and Means are those
which perfectly achieve that purpose; not to-day, or
when I will, or when the thing created wills, but when
the infinite wisdom and love of God wills.
The Infinite God must create all from a perfect
motive, for a perfect purpose of perfect material, as
perfect means; for you cannot conceive of a God infinitely powerful, wise, just, loving, and holy, creating
any thing from an evil motive, for an evil purpose, from
evil material, or as evil means. No more can you conceive of the Infinite God creating any thing from an
imperfect motive, for an imperfect purpose, of imperfect
material, or as imperfect means. Each of these suppositions is wholly inconsistent with the idea of the
Infinite God; for He can have only perfect motives,
perfect purposes, perfect material, and perfect means to
create out of, and to create by. This being so, you see
that the selfishness and destructiveness ascribed to God
in the popular theology are at once struck out of exist



160           SPECULATIVE THEISM.
ence. For such selfishness and destructiveness are
absolutely impossible to the Infinite God.
II. Next, of God as perfect Providence. Creation
and Providence are but modifications of the same function. Creation is momentary providence; providence,
perpetual creation: one is described by a point; the
other by a line. Now God is just as much present in
a blade of grass, or an atom of mahogany, this day
and in every moment of its existence, as he was at the
instant of its creation. Men say, " When God created
matter he was present therein." Very true! but he is
just as present therein, with all his powers, and just as
active with all his perfections, at every moment while
that matter exists, as he was when it was first created.
Men tell us, when they read the Bible, " How grand it
must have been to have stood in the presence of God
when Moses miraculously smote the rock, which gushed
with miraculous water." But every drop of water,
which falls from my roof in a shower, or from my
finger, thus, as I lift it in this cup, — has as much the
presence of God in it as when, in Biblical phrase,
"the morning stars sang together, and the Sons of God
shouted for joy," at the creation of water itself. It
cannot be created without God; it cannot subsist
without God.
Here, too, in his Providence, the motive, the end, the
material and means, must be infinitely perfect. Let
me develop this a moment.
God at the creation must have known the action and
history of each thing which he called into being just as
well as he knows it now; for God's knowledge is not
a becoming wiser by experience, but a being wise by
nature. The Infinite God must know every movement




SPECULATIVE THEISM.           161
of every particle of matter. We generally assent to
that in the gross, and reject it in the detail. Let me
give an example.
All the powers, and consequently all the action,
movements, and history of the whole Universe of matter, whereof this solar system is a part, a single" Branch of Stars we see,
Hung in the golden galaxy;"
all the powers, actions, movements, and history of the
solar system itself, of its primaries and secondaries, must
have been completely and perfectly known to God before the universe, or any single "branch of stars," had
its existence. So the powers and consequent history
and movement of every particular thing on each of these
orbs must have been known. The action and history
of the mineral matter on the earth in its inorganic form,
in the form of crystal, liquid, gas; - the action and
history of vegetable matter in the fucus, the lichen, and
the tree; — and so of animal matter, in the mollusk, the
eagle, and the elephant, -all must have been completely
and perfectly known by God before their creation; eternally known to him. The powers, and so the history,
of each atom in Nature must have been as thoroughly
known to the Mind of the Universe a million million
years ago, as at this day; in their cause as well as by
their effects.
For example, God must have known, at the moment
of creation, the present position of this crescent moon
which beautifies the early evening hour; and he must
have known, too, the history of these molecules of carbon that make up the cotton thread which binds the
sheets of this sermon together.
To say it short, the statics and dynamics of the
14




1.62           SPECULATIVE THEISM.
universe, and of each atom thereof5 must have been
eternally and thoroughly known to God. And each
atom with its statical and dynamical powers,-the
mineral, vegetable, and animal forces of the universe -
must have been created by him, from perfect motives, of
perfect material, for a perfect purpose, and as perfect
means; they must be continually sustained by him, and
he must be just as present and just as active in each
moment of the existence of any one of these things as
at the creation thereof, or at the creation of the all
of things. So, then, each of these must have been
created with a perfect knowledge of its powers, actions, movements, and history, and created from love
as motive, for ultimate good as purpose, of materials
proportionate to the motive, and so adequate to the
end, and accordingly provided with the means of accomplishing that purpose; for the infinite perfection
of God would allow no absolute evil, no absolute
imperfection, in his motive, or his material, in his purpose, or his means. If there were any such absolute
evil or imperfection in the created, it could only have
come from an absolute evil or imperfection in the Creator; that is, from a lack of infinite power, wisdom,
justice, or love - because God has not love enough to
wish all things well; or justice enough to will them
well; or wisdom enough to contrive them well; or
power enough to make them well.
Each thing which God has made has a Right to be
created from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, from
perfect material, and as perfect means; and a right,
also, to be perfectly provided for. I know, to some men
it will sound irreverent to speak of the Right of the
created in relation to the Creator, and of the consequent
Duty and Obligation of the Creator in relation to the




SPECULATIVE THEISM.            163
created. But the Infinite God is infinitely just, and it
is with the highest reverence that I ask, " Shall not the
God of all the earth do right?" It is the highest reverence for the Creator to say that " He gives his creatures a Right to him, to him as infinite Cause, to him
as infinite Providence;" and I count it impious to say
that God has a right to create even a worm from imperfect motives, for an imperfect purpose, of imperfect
material, as imperfect means. This right of the creature depends on the nature of the thing, on its quality
as a creation of the infinite God; not on the quantity
of being it has received from Him. So of course it is
equal in all; the same in the smallest "motes that people the sunbeams," and the greatest man; all have a
birthright to the perfect Providence of the Infinite God;
an unalienable right to protection by his infinite power,
wisdom, justice, love, and holiness. This lien on the
Infinity of God vests in the substance of their finite
nature, and is not to be voided by any accident of their
history, for that accident must have been known and
provided for as one of the consequences of their powers.
Each thing has the infinite perfection of God as guarantee to that right. God is security for the universe,
and his hand is indorsed on every great and little thing
which he has made. Then, if am sure of God and his
infinity, I am sure beforehand of the ultimate welfare of
every thing which God has made, for the Infinite Father is the pledge and collateral security, the indorser
therefor.
We cannot comprehend the details of this Providence,
more than of creating, nor fully understand the mode of
attaining the end; the mode of terminating, originating,
and sustaining are equally unintelligible to us; but the
fact we know from the idea of God as Infinite. As we




164           SPECULATIVE THEISM.
cannot with a Gunter's chain measure the distance between the sun and the earth, but as by calculation,
starting from facts of internal consciousness and external observation, we can measure it with greater proportionate exactness than a carpenter could measure the
desk under my hand:- so we cannot understand God's
mode of operation as Cause or Providence, more than
an Indian baby, newly born, in Shawneetown, could
understand the astronomer's mode of operation in calculating the distance between the earth and the sun;
but as we have this idea of God, though we know not
the mode of operation, the middle terms which intervene
betwixt the purpose and the achievement, we are yet
sure of the fact that the motive, purpose, material, and
means are all proportionate to the nature of the Creator,
and adequate for the welfare of the created.
In Nature God is the only Cause, the only Providence, the only Power; ihe law of Nature, - that is, the
constant mode of action of the forces of the material
world — represents the modes of action of God Himself, his thought made visible; and as he is infinite,
unchangeably perfect, and perfectly unchangeable, his
mode of action is therefore constant and universal,
so that there can be no such thing as a violation
of God's constant mode of action; for there is no
power to violate it except God himself, and the infinitely perfect God could not violate his own perfect
modes of action.  And accordingly there can be no
chance, no evil, no imperfection, in motive or purpose,
in material or means, or in the modes of action thereof.
Everywhere is calculated order, nowhere chance and
confusion; everywhere regular, constant modes of action of the forces in the material world, unvarying and
eternal laws, nowhere is there an extemporaneous mir



SPECULATIVE THEISM.           165
acle. Men have their precarious makeshifts; the Infinite has no tricks and subterfuges,- -not a Whim in
God, and so not a lMiracle in Nature. Seeming chance
is real direction; what looks like evil in Nature is real
good. The sparrow that falls to-day does not fall to
ruin, but to ultimate welfare. Though we know not
the mode of operation, there must be another world for
the sparrow as for man.
So much for this Theism as a Theory of the World
of Matter.  Now a word for it as a Theory of the
World of Spirit, of the World of Man. This shall include man so far as he is matter; and so far as he is
matter and something more.
Look at this first in the most general way, in relation
to Human Nature, —to Mankind as a whole; then I
will come down to particulars. Here the same thing is
to be said as of Nature; namely, the Infinite God must
be a perfect Cause thereof, and have created the world
of man from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, of
perfect material, as perfect means. God has no other
motive, purpose, material, or means. The perfect motive must be Absolute Love - producing the desire to
bless the world of man, that is, the desire to confer
thereon a form and degree of welfare which is perfectly
consistent with the entire nature of man. The perfect
purpose must be the attainment of that bliss; the ultimate attainment not to-day, or when man wills, but
when the Infinite God wills. Perfect material is that
which is capable of this welfare; and perfect means are
such as achieve it.
So much for God considered as a perfect Cause in




166           SPECULATIVE THEISM.
the world of man. I need not here further repeat what
I just said of creation in the world of matter.
But God must be also perfect Providence for the
world of man; He must be perpetually present therein,
in each portion thereof. Men think that God was present in some moment of time, at the creation of mankind. Very true! but in each moment of mankind's
existence since, God is just as present; for providence
is a continuous line of creations, and God is as much
present, and as much active, at every point of that line
as at the beginning or end thereof. I know men speak
of yielding up the spirit and going out of the body,
going to God. Is not God about, within, and around
us, while we are in the body, just as much as when we
shake off the known and enter on that untried being?
God must have known at the creation all the action
and history of the world of man as well as of Nature.
It is not to be supposed that ten thousand years ago
God knew less of human history than he knows today. That would be to make God imperfect in his
wisdom, growing wiser by experience.  Napoleon's
coup d' etat was a surprise to mankind ten months ago.
Do you think it was an astonishment to God ten
months ago? was it not infinitely known hundreds of
millions of years ago; eternally known? It must have
been so.
I know the question is here more complicated than
in Nature, for in Nature there is only one force, the
direct statical and dynamical action of matter; and accordingly it is easy to calculate the action and result of
mechanical, vegetable, electrical, and vital forces. But
in the world of man there is a certain amount of free



SPECULATIVE THEISM.           167
dom, which seems to make the question difficult. In
that part of the world of Nature not endowed with
animal life, there is no margin of oscillation; and you
may know just where the moon will be to-night, and
where it will be a thousand years hence. The constant
forces, with their compensations, may all be known;
and so every nutation of the moon is calculable with
entire certainty. The modes of action there are as little variable as the maxims of geometry. The moon's
node is an invariable consequent of material necessity.
When a star with fiery hair came splendoring through
the night, it filled mediaeval astronomers with amazement; and celibate priests, divorced from Nature, shook
with superstitious fear as it wrote its hieroglyphic of
God over Byzantium or Rome: was God astonished at
his wandering and hairy star?
In the world of animals there is a small margin of
oscillation; but you are pretty sure to know what the
animals will do, that the beaver will build his dam and
the wren her nest just as their fathers built; that every
bee next summer will make her six-sided cell with the
same precision and geometric economy of material and
space wherewith her ancestors wrought ten thousand
years ago, solving the problem of isoperimetrical
figures.
But man has a certain amount of freedom; a larger
margin of oscillation, wherein he vibrates from side to
side. The nod of Lord Burleigh is a variable contingent of human caprice. Hence it is thought that God
could not foreknow the oscillations of caprice in the
human race, in the Adamitic Cain of ancient poetry, or
the Napoleonic Cain of contemporaneous history, till
after they took place. But that conclusion comes only
from putting our limitations on God. It is difficult for




168             SPECULATIVE THEISM.
the astronomer's little boy to measure the cradle he
sleeps in, or to tell what time it is by the nursery clock;
but the astronomer can measure the vast orbit of Leverrier's star before seeing it, and correct his nursery
clock by the great dial hung up in heaven itself: yet
the difference between the mind of the astronomer's boy
and the mind of the astronomer is nothing compared
to the odds between finite intellect and the infinite understanding of God. So though the greater complication makes it more difficult for you and me to understand the consciousness of free men, whose feelings,
thoughts, and consequent actions are such manifold
contingents, it is not at all more difficult for God.
Before the creation the Infinite God, as perfect Cause
and Providence, must have known all the powers and
consequent actions, movements, and history of the collective world of men, and each individual thereof. For,
either man has no freedom at all, or he has some freedom of will.
In the first case, if he has no freedom, no margin of
oscillation, the fore-knowableness of his actions does
not differ from that of the world of matter; and the
nutation of the moon and the nod of Lord Burleigh are
equally the invariable consequent of material or human
necessity. Then God is the only force in the human
world, and of course, without difficulty, knows all its
action, for a knowledge of the world is only part of his
consciousness of himself; the treachery of Judas and
the faithfulness of Jesus are then but facts of the divine
self-consciousness.
If there be freedom, then God, as the perfect Cause
of man's freedom of will, must have perfectly understood the powers of that freedom; and understanding
perfectly the powers, he knew perfectly all the actions,




SPECULATIVE THEISM.            169
movements, and history thereof, at the moment of creation as well as to-day. The perfect Cause must know
the consequence of his perfect creation; and knowing
the cause and the effects thereof, as perfect Providence,
and working from a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, with perfect material and by perfect means, he
must so arrange all things, that the material shall be
capable of ultimate welfare; and must use means proportionate to the nature and adequate to the purpose.
So the quantity of human oscillation with all the consequences thereof must of course be perfectly known to
God before the creation as well as after the special
events come to pass; for to God contingents of caprice
and consequents of necessity must be equally clear,
both before and after the event. Little boys, under a
capricious schoolmaster, learn the constants of his
anger's ebb or flow;
" Full well the boding tremblers learn to trace
The day's disaster in his morning face."
And do you think the infinite God is astonished at
revolutions in Italy, or the discovery of ether? because
a hyena, stealthily and at night, kills a girl in an Abyssinian town, or a kidnapper, as stealthily and also by
night, destroys a man in Boston? The hyaena crouching in his den, the kidnapper lurking in his office, are
both known to God.
Though human caprice and freedom be a contingent
force, yet God knows human caprice when he makes it,
knows exactly the amount of that contingent force, all
its actions, movements, and history, and what it will
bring about. And as he is an infinitely wise, just, and
loving Cause and Providence, so there can be no abso15




170            SPECULATIVE THEISM.
lute evil or imperfection in the world of man, more than
in the world of matter, or in God himself.
So much for this Theism as a Theory of the World
of Man as a Whole, in its most general form.
Now see the concrete application thereof in the General Human Life- in the life of nations. In creating
mankind God must have known there would come the
great races of men, - Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, American, Caucasian. He must have known there would
come such families of the Caucasian as the Slavic,
Classic, Celtic, Teutonic; such stocks of the Teutonic
as the Scandinavian, the German, the Saxon; of the
Saxon such nations as England and America; in their
history such events as the American Revolution, the
Mexican War, and the like. I mean that God as perfect Cause must have perfectly known all these things
from eternity as well as now. History is a surprise to
us, not to God. The breaking out of the Mexican
War, the capture of Mexico, the failure or success of a
general, might be an astonishment to men; God was
not wiser afterwards than before. As perfect Cause
and Providence, he must have arranged all things so
that mankind as a whole shall attain that bliss which
his perfect motive and perfect purpose require, which is
indispensable to his perfect material and his perfect
means. All the powers and consequent actions, movements, and history of mankind must therefore have
been known and provided for. The savage, the barbarous, the half-civilized, and the civilized - the feudal
and commercial periods, - and others yet in store,
must have been known and provided for. The whole
religious history of man, Atheism, Fetichism, Polytheism, Monotheism, - the Monotheism of the Hebrews




SPECULATIVE THEISM.          171
and of the Christians, -must have been known. The
rise, decline, and fall, of Egypt, India, Persia, Judea,
Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, must have been as well
understood by God at creation as now; and as perfect
Providence he must have provided for the rise, decline,
and fall, thereof, so that they should be steps forward,
towards ultimate bliss, and not from it. He must have
given man his power of freewill as all other powers,
from a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, of perfect
material, and as perfect means; and of course it must
achieve that purpose for mankind as a whole, for those
great races,- Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, American,
Caucasian; for those families,- Slavic, Classic, Celtic,
Teutonic; for those tribes, — Scandinavian, German,
Saxon; for every nation, - England, America. The
great events of their history, - the American Revolution, the Mexican War, - and every other, must
be so overruled and balanced that they shall not
contribute to the achievement of the purpose of God.
And what is true of the whole must be true of each;
God must be perfect Providence for one as well as
for another, and so arrange these that they all shall
come to ultimate bliss.
Therefore as you look on the sad aspect of the world
at present, — on Italy, ridden by the Pope and priest;
on Austria, Hungary, Germany, the spark of freedom
trodden out by the imperial or royal hoof; on France,
crushed by her own armies at the command of a cunning voluptuary; on Ireland, trodden down by the capitalists of Britain; on the American slave, manacled by
State and Church,- you know, first, that God foresaw
all this at the creation, as a consequence of the forces
which he put into human nature; next, you know that
he provides for it all, so that it shall not interfere with




172            SPECULATIVE THEISM.
the ultimate bliss of the Italian, Pope-ridden and priestridden; of the Austrian, Hungarian, German, from
whose heart the imperial or royal hoof has trod the
spark of liberty; of the Frenchman, the victim of a
voluptuous tyrant; of the Irishman, trodden down by
the British capitalist; and of the American slave, fettered by the American Church and manacled by the
American State. God made the world in such a manner that these partial evils would take place; and they
take place with his infinite knowledge, and under his
infinite Providence. So when we see these evils, we
know that though immense they are partial evils compensated by constants somewhere, and provided for in
the infinite engineering of God, so that they shall be
the cause of some ultimate good. For mankind has a
Right to be perfectly created; each race, family, tribe,
nation, has a Right to be created from perfect motives
for a perfect purpose, of perfect material, and with the
means to achieve that purpose; not at the time, when
Russia and Montenegro will, or when you and I will,
but when infinite wisdom, justice, love, knows that it
is best. And sad as the world looks, God knew it all,
provided for it all; and its welfare, its ultimate triumph
is insured at the office of the Infinite God. His hand
is indorsed on each race, each family, each tribe, each
nation of mankind. You cannot suppose - as writers
of the Old Testament do - that the affairs of the
world look desperate to God, and he repents having
made mankind, or any fraction of the human race.
See this Theism in its application to Individual Human Life; your life and -mine. God is perfect Cause
and perfect Providence for me and you. Before the
creation he knew every thing that I shall do, every




SPECULATIVE THEISM.           173
thing that I shall suffer, every thing that I shall be;
provided for it all, so that absolute bliss must be the
welfare of each of us at last. The evils - that is, the
suffering in mind, body, and estate, the imperfect bliss,
my failing to attain the outward or inward condition of
this welfare, - these must come either from my nature,
my human nature as man, my individual nature as the
son of John and Hannah; or from my circumstances
that are about me; or, as a third thing, from the j6int
action of these two.
God as perfect Cause must have known my nature,
my circumstances, the effect of their joint action; as
perfect Providence, he must have arranged things so
that nature and circumstances shall work out for me,
and for everybody, all this ultimate bliss which the perfect motive can desire as a perfect purpose, which perfect materials can achieve as perfect means.  My
individual suffering, error, sin, must have been equally
foreseen, fore-cared for, and used in the great housekeeping of the Eternal Mother as a means to accomplish the purpose of ultimate welfare.
This must be true of Jesus of Nazareth crucified,
and of Judas Iscariot who betrayed him to the cross;
of the St. Domingo hero who rotted in his dungeon,
and of Napoleon the Great, who locked his dungeon
door -himself one day to be jailed on a rock, with
Ocean mounting guard over this Prometheus of historic times; of theistic John Huss who blazed in his
fire, and of the Twenty-third John, the perjured pope
of Rome, who lit that fire five hundred miles from
home.
As at the creation of the world of matter God knew
where the solar system would be in space, where the
molecules of carbon which form the tie that binds my
15 *




174            SPECULATIVE THEISM.
sermon together, would be on this seventeenth of October, eighteen hundred and fifty-two years after the
cradling of Jesus of Nazareth; —as He arranged the
universe so that the solar system and these molecules of
carbon should harmonize together, - as he knew of the
rise, decline, and fall of states, and arranged all these
things so as to harmonize with the march of man towards greater bliss; — so he must have known where
this little atom of spirit which I call Me would be this
day, -— what thoughts, feelings, will, and suffering I
should have, and he must make all these harmonize
with my march towards that ultimate bliss, which my
finite human nature needs to take, and which his
infinite divine nature needs to give.
God is responsible for his own creation, his world of
matter, and his world of man; for mankind in general;
for you and me. God's work is all warranted. Each
man has a right to perfect creation,- creation from
perfect motives, of perfect material, as perfect means
for a perfect purpose. God has no other purpose, no
other means, no other material, no other motive. He is
the infinite power, wisdom, justice, love, and is security
for the ultimate welfare of the sparrow that falls; for
mankind groping its dim and perilous way; for you and
me darkly feeling our way along, often falling into pain,
want, misery, and sin. God as Cause, and God as
Providence has still means to bring us back and lead
us home. I have a natural, unalienable Right to the
Providence of the Infinite God; this Providence is the
Duty of God, inseparable from his Infinity. If I am
sure that God is infinite, then all else that is good I am
sure of, for every thing which God makes is stamped by
his hand with an unalienable Right to Him as infinite
Cause and infinite Providence.




SPECULATIVE THEISM.             175
As God was present at the creation of matter and of
mankind, present with all his infinite perfection, and
active therewith, - so is he present and active with me
to-day with all his infinite perfections; then as Cause,
so now as Providence. And do you think the universe
will fail of its purpose with Infinite God as its Providence and its Cause?  Do you think any nation, any
single human soul can ever fail of achieving this ultimate bliss, with Infinite God as its Cause and Infinite
God as its Providence? Why, so long as God is God
it is impossible that his motive and purpose should
fail to design good for all and each — or his material
and means fail to achieve that ultimate good.
Well, since these things are so, how beautiful appears
the Material World! There is no fortuitous concourse
of atoms, which the atheist talks of; there is no universe of selfishness, no grim despot who grinds the world
under his heels and then spurns it off to hell, as the
popular theology scares us withal. Every thing is a
thought of Infinite God, and in studying the movements of the solar system, or the composition of an ultimate cell arrested in a crystal, developed in a plant;
in tracing the grains of phosphorus in the brain of man;
or in studying the atoms which compose the fusil-oil in
a drop of ether, or the powers and action thereof,- I
am studying the Thought of the Infinite God. The
Universe is his Scripture; Nature the prose, and Man
the poetry of God. The world is a volume holier than
the Bible, old as creation. What history, what psalms,
what prophecy therein! what canticles of love to beast
and man! not the " Wisdom of Solomon" as in this




176           SPECULATIVE THEISM.
Apocrypha, but the Wisdom of God, written out in the
great Canon of the Universe.
Then, when I see the suffering of animals, — the
father-alligator eating up his sons and daughters, and
the Mother-alligator seeking to keep them from  his
jaws, -when I see the sparrow falling at a dandy's
shot, I know that these things have been provided for
by the God of the alligator and the sparrow, and that
the universe is lodged as collateral security to insure
bliss to every sparrow that falls.
From this point of view how beautiful appears the
World of Man! When I look on the whole history of
man, - man as a savage, as a barbarian, as half-civilized, or as civilized, - feudal or commercial - fighting
with all the forces which chemistry and mechanical
science can offer, and suffering from want, war, ignorance, from sin in all its thousand forms, — from despotic oppression in Russia, democratic oppression in
America; when I see the tyranny of the feudal baron
in other times, with his acres and his armies, of the
feudal capitalist, now-a-days, - the commercial baron,
with notes at cent per cent.; when I see the hymna of
the desert stealing his prey in an Abyssinian town, and
the hyena of the city kidnapping a man in Boston, —
when I see all this, I say the thing is not hopeless. 0
no! it is hopeful. God knew it all at the beginning, as
perfect Cause; cared for it all, as perfect Providence,
with perfect motive, purpose, material, means —will
achieve at last ultimate welfare for the oppressor and
the oppressed.
I see the individual suffering, from want, ignorance,
and oppression; the public woe which blackens the




SPECULATIVE THEISM.              177
countenance of men, the sorrow which with private
tooth gnaws the heart of African Ellen or William, the
sin which puts out the eyes of Caucasian Cain or
George. Can I fear? O no! though the worm of sorrow bore into my own heart, I cannot fear. The Infinite God with infinite power, wisdom, justice, holiness,
and love, knew it all, and made the nature of Ellen and
William, of Cain and George, and controls their circumstances, so that by their action and the action of the
world of man and the world of matter, the perfect motive and the perfect means shall achieve the perfect purpose of the infinite loving-kindness of God.
Then how grand is human destination! Ay, your
destination and mine! There is no chance; it is direction which we did not see. There is no fate, but a
Mother's Providence holding the universe in her lap,
warming each soul with her own breath, and feeding it
from her own bosom with everlasting life.
In times past there is evil which I cannot understand;
in times present evil which I cannot solve; suffering —
for mankind, for each nation, for you and me; sufferings, follies, sins. I know they were all foreseen by the
infinite wisdom of God, all provided for by his infinite
power and justice, and his infinite love shall bring us
all to bliss, not a soul left behind, not a sparrow lost.
The means I know not; the end I am sure of.
"Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust,
Thy hands made both, and I am there;
Thy power and love, my love and trust,
Make one place everywhere."
In the world of matter there is the greatest economy
of force. The rain-drop is wooed for a moment into
bridal loveliness by some enamoured ray of light, then




178                SPECULATIVE THEISM.
feeds the gardener's violet, or moves the grindstone in
the farmer's mill, - serving alike the turn of Beauty
and of Use. Nothing is in vain; all things are manifold in use.
" A rose, beside his beauty, is a cure."
The ocean is but the chemist's sink which holds the
rinsings of the world, and every thing washed off from
earth was what the land needed to void, the sea to take.
All things are twofold; matter is doubly winged, with
Use and Beauty.
" Nothing hath got so far,
But man hath caught and kept it as his prey;
His eyes dismount the highest star;
He is in little all the sphere.
Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.
"For us the winds do blow,
The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow;
Nothing we see but means our good,
As our delight, or as our treasure;
The whole is either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.
"The stars have us to bed;
Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws.
Music and light attend our head:
All things unto our flesh are kind
In their descent and being; to our mind
In their ascent and cause."
And do you then believe that the great God, whose
motto, " waste not, want not," is pictured and practised
on earth and sea and sky, is prodigal of human suffering,
human woe? Every tear-drop which sorrow has wrung
from some poor negro's eye, every sigh, every prayer of




SPECULATIVE THEISM.           179
grief. each groan the exile puts up in our own land,
and the groan which the American exile puts up in
Canada, — while his tears shed for his wife and child
smarting in the tropics, are turned to ice before they
touch the wintry ground, —has its function in the
great chemistry of our Father's world. These things
were known by God, and he will bring every exile, every
wanderer in his arms, the great men not forgot, the little
not less blest, and bear them rounding home from bale
to bliss, to give to each the welfare which his nature
needs to give and ours to take.
The atheist looks out on a here without a Hereafter,
a body without a Soul, a world without a Heaven, a
universe with no God; and he must needs fold his
arms in despair, and dwindle down into the material
selfishness of a cold and sullen heart. The popular
theologian looks out on the world and sees a body
blasted by a Soul, a here undermined by a Hereafter of
hell, arched over with a little paltry sounding-board of
Heaven, whence the elect may look over the edge and
rejoice in the writhings of the worms unpitied beneath
their feet. He looks out and sees a grim and revengeful and evil God. Such is his sad whim. But the
man with pure theism in his heart looks out on the
world, and there is the Infinite God everywhere as perfect Cause, everywhere as perfect Providence, transcending all, yet immanent in each, with perfect power, wisdom, justice, holiness, and love, securing perfect welfare
unto each and all.
On the shore of Time where Atheism sat in despair,
and where Theology howled with delight, at its Dream
of Hell all crowded with torment at the end, - there
sits Theism. Before it passes on the stream of Human
History, rolling its volumed waters gathered from all




180             SPECULATIVE THEISM.
lands, - Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, Caucasian, American, -from  each nation, tribe, and family of men;
and it comes from the Infinite God, its perfect Cause;
it rolls on its waters by the Infinite Providence, its perfect Protector; he knew at Creation the history of
empires, these lesser dimples on the stream; of Ellen
and William, Cain and George, the bubbles on the
water's face; he provided for them all, so that not a
dimple deepens and whirls away, not a bubble breaks,
but the perfect Providence foresaw and fore-cared for it
all. God is on the shore of the stream of Human History, infinite power, wisdom, justice, love; God is in
the air over it, where floats the sparrow that fell, falling
to its bliss, — in the waters, in every dimple, in each
bubble, in each atom of every drop; and at the end the
stream falls into the sea, - that Amazon of human history, under the line of Providence, on the Equator of
the world, falls into the great Ocean of Eternity, and
not a dimple that deepens and whirls away, not a bubble that breaks, not a single atom of a drop, is lost. All
fall into the Ocean of Blessedness, which is the bosom
of love, and then the rush of many waters sings out
this psalm from human nature and from human history, - " If God is for us, who can be against us? "




SERMON  VI.
OF THEISM AS ETHICS.
16             (181)




PSALM XXV. 21.
LET INTEGRITY AND UPRIcHTNESS PRESERVE ME.
(182)




VI.
OF PRACTICAL THEISM, REGARDED AS THE
PRINCIPLE OF ETHICS.
LAST Sunday I spoke of Speculative Theism as a
Theory of the Universe. To-day I ask your attention
to a Sermon of Practical Theism; of Theism considered as a Principle of Ethics.
You start with the Idea of God as Infinite in power,
wisdom, justice, love, holiness; you consider him in
his relation to the universe, as perfect Cause and perfect
Providence; you see that from his nature he must have
made the world, and all things therein, from a perfect
motive, for a perfect purpose, of perfect material, as
perfect means thereto; and therefore that Human
Nature must be adequate to the end which God designed; that it must be provided with means adequate
to the development of men; that all the faculties in
their normal activity must be the natural means for
achieving the purposes of God. You see that as he
gave Nature, the material world, its present amount of
necessitated forces, knowing exactly how to proportion
the means to the end, the forces to the result which
they were to produce; —in like manner he gave to
(183)




184             PRACTICAL THEISM.
man his present amount of contingent forces, knowing
perfectly well what use men would make thereof, what
abuses would ensue, what results would come to pass,
and ordered and balanced these things, compensating
one constant by another, caprice by necessity, so that
our human forces should become the means of achieving his divine purpose, and the freewill of men should
ultimately work in the same line with the infinite perfection of God, and so the result which God designed
should be achieved by human freedom: therefore, that
this perfect Cause and perfect Providence has provided
human freedom as part of the perfect means whereby
human destination is to be wrought out; - which destination is not fate, but providence.
Well, this Idea of God, the consequent idea of the
Universe and of the Relation between the two, cannot
remain merely a theory; it will affect human life in all
its most important details.
It will appear in the Form of Religion. Man must
always work with such intellectual apparatus - faculties and ideas - as he has. With the Idea of the Infinite God, he must progressively construct a form of
religion corresponding to that idea.  That form of
religion will comprise the subjective worship, and the
objective service of God; and so it will become the
Theoretic Ideal of Human Life.
Then that form of religion will appear in the Actual
Life of men, and in all the modes and modifications
thereof:- for no human force is so subtle as the religious; it extends, and multiplies, and goes into every
department of human affairs;
" Spreads undivided, operates unspent."




PRACTICAL THEISM.            185
Let us now look at the theoretic Form of religion which belongs to this idea, and at the Realization
thereof in human life. Treating of a theme so vast I
must pass over much which I would gladly say, and
only briefly touch where I would fain pause long and
dwell.
I. First, then, of the Form of Religion. Of Religion there are always two parts; namely, the subjective
portion, which is Piety, consisting of emotions that are
purely internal; and next the objective portion, which
is Morality, internal in part, and external also; rooted
in our consciousness of God, and branched abroad into
practical action in our houses and farms and shops, our
warehouses, our libraries, and our banks. Let me
speak of each of these, going over things very much at
large, in the sketchiest way.
First of the subjective portion. When fully grown
this subjective part must be pure Piety; I mean to say
piety not mixed with any other emotion.
There will be no Fear or Distrust of God, because it
is known that there is nothing in him to fear: I fear
what hurts; never what helps.
Distrust of God rests on the idea that he is something
not perfect; imperfect in power, wisdom, justice, love,
or holiness: and with that idea of him God may seem
good so far as he goes; but not going infinitely, he does
not go far enough to warrant infinite trust; and so there
is a partial distrust.
Fear of God is worse yet. That rests on the supposition that there is not only in God something not perfect, but that there is in him something which is not
good, not kind.
But you cannot fear infinite Love; you cannot fear
16'




183             PRACTICAL THEISM.
infinite Justice, nor infinite Holiness; nor yet infinite
Wisdom and infinite Power, when they are directed by
infinite justice and animate with infinite love. With
the idea of God as infinitely perfect I may indeed have
doubts of to-morrow, doubts of my own or another's
temporary welfare, for I know not what result the contingent forces of human freedom will produce to-morrowT:
but I can have no doubt of eternity, no doubts of my
own or another's ultimate welfare, because I do know
that the absolute forces of God will so control the conditional and contingent forces of men which his plan
arranged and provided for, that ultimately the perfect
purpose of God shall be achieved for all and each. A
silversmith makes a watch, knowing the powers and
consequent necessitated action of the materials he puts
therein, so that it will keep time corresponding with the
dial of the heavens. But he does not know how the
purchasers of the watch will use it, whether or no they
mill fulfil the conditions essential to its action; and so
he cannot absolutely foretell and provide for all its action and history; it will be subject to conditions which
he cannot control or even foresee. Now the Infinite
God, at the creation of man, knew all the powers He
put therein; he knew all the conditions into which the
necessitated forces of material nature, and the contingent forces of human nature, shall bring mankind and
each special person.  Accordingly  God absolutely
knows not only the primitive powers of each man, but
the action, movements, and complete history thereof
under any and all the conditions of existence. And the
Infinite God working with motives proportionate to his
nature, and means adequate to his purpose, must needs
make man capable of achieving that ultimate welfare
which the finite needs to have and the Infinite needs to




PRACTICAL THEISM.            187
give. If God be infinite, a perfect Cause and perfect
Providence, this conclusion follows as plain as the
farmer's road to mill. So I say I can have no distrust
and no fear of God; no fear of ultimate failure or future
torment. Suffering I may have in another life: I will
meet it gladly, and thank God; it is medical, and not
malicious. In the popular theology God is represented
as a Jesuitical Inquisitor; but the Infinite God is a
protector, a Father and Mother.
Then there will be Absolute Love of God, — to the
mind God will be the Beauty of Truth; to the conscience the Beauty of Justice, to the affections the
Beauty of Love, to the soul the Beauty of Holiness, and
to the whole consciousness of man he will appear as
the total Infinite Beauty; the perfect and absolute object of every hungering faculty of man; the Cause that
creates from perfect love as motive, for perfect love as
purpose, and by perfect love as means; the perfect
Providence that provides from the same motive for the
same purpose, and by the same means. So he will appear as the Father and the Mother of all; operating by
necessitated forces in the dew-drop, and in the all of
material things; operating, also, by contingent forces in
the soul of a little girl, or in the great aggregate of
spirit which we call the world of man; operating so
perfectly as Cause and so perfectly as Providence that
he is Father and Mother to every soul. I say this Idea
of God is infinitely lovely, and awakens in the heart of
a man, who draws near thereto, the deepest and tenderest love. There is no doubt, no fear.
With this Idea of God, and this Love of Him, there
comes a Perfect Trust in God, as Cause and Providence: - not only a trust in the daylight of science,
where we see, but in the twilight, even in the darkness




188             PRACTICAL THEISM.
of ignorance, where we see not:- an absolute trust in
his motive, his purpose, and his means; so that we
shall not desire any other motive but the motive of God,
nor any other purpose but the purpose of God, nor any
other means but the means he has provided thereto.
With that trust there must come a perpetual Hope,
for yourself, for all mankind; for as dark as the world
may be, dark as my own condition may be, my outward
lot, my inward state, still I know assuredly that God
foresaw it all, provided for it all, and that he cannot
fail in motive, in purpose, or means thereto; and thus
light will spring out of darkness and bliss come forth
out of bale.
With this there will come Tranquillity and Rest for
the soul; that Peace spoken of in the fourth canonical
Gospel, which the world cannot give nor take away.
Then there will come a real Joy in God. I mean the
happiness which the Mystics call the "sense of sweetness " that comes when the conditions of the soul are
completely met; when the true Idea of God and the
appropriate Feeling towards him furnish the personal,
human, inward condition of religious delight, and there
is nothing between us and the Infinite Father. That is
the highest joy and the highest delight of human consciousness. The natural desires of the body may fail
of satisfaction, -their hunger shortening my days on
earth,-and I may be poor and cold and naked; I may
be a prisoner in a dungeon of Austria, or a slave on a
plantation of Carolina; I may be sick and feeble, and
the conditions of domestic and of social welfare may
not be complied with; —but if the soul's conditions
are fairly met within on the side that is turned towards
the Infinite, then through the clouds the Beauty of God
shines on me and I am at peace.




PRACTICAL THEISM.            189
So there will come a Beauty of Soul, I mean a harmonious spiritual whole of well-proportioned spiritual
parts, and there will be a continual and constant growth
in all the noble qualities of man. God will not be
thought afar off, separated from Nature, separated from
man, but dwelling therein, immanent in each, though
yet transcending all. Nature will be seen as a revelation
of God; and the march of man will reveal also the same
Providence, as the world of matter -human consciousness disclosing higher characteristics of the Infinite
God. Communion with him will be direct, my spirit
meeting his, with nothing betwixt me and the Godhead
of God. I shall not pray by attorney, but face to face.
Inspiration will be a fact now, not merely a history of
times gone by. Worship, the subjective service of God,
will be not by conventional forms of belief, of speech,
or of posture; not by a sacramental addition of an
excrescence where nature suffered no lack, nor by mutilation of the body, or mutilation of the spirit, the sacramental cutting off Mwhere God made nothing redundant: but by conscious noble emotions shall I subjectively worship God; by gratitude for my right to the
Father, and in his universe the thanksgiving of an upright heart; by aspiration after a higher ideal of my
own daily life; by the sense of Duty to be done, which
comes with the sense of Right to be enjoyed; by penitence where I fall short; by resolutions, that in my
" proper motion," I may ascend, and not by adverse fall
come down; by the calm joy of the soul, its delight in
Nature, in Man, and in God; by the hope, the faith, and
the love, which the large soul sends out of itself in its
religious life; and by the growing beauty of character,
which constantly increases in love of wisdom, in love
of justice, in love of benevolence —in love of Man,




190             PRACTICAL THEISM.
in love of God. That will be the real worship, the
internal service of the Father.
So much for the subjective part of this form of
religion.
Of the Objective Part also a word. God, who is
thus subjectively served in the natural forms of Piety,
must be objectively served or worshipped in the natural
forms of Morality; that is, by keeping all the laws of
God. In Nature, the material world, the law of God
is the actual constant mode of operation of the forces
thereof, - the way it does not act. There all is necessitated, and we know of the law by seeing the fact that
it is always kept; for the ideal law of matter is the
actual fact of matter, learned by observation, not by
consciousness. So the material universe and God, in
every point of space and time are continually at one.
If law is a constant of God, obedience thereto is a constant of matter. But in man, the law of God for man
is the ideal constant mode of operation of the human
force, - the way it should act. This is not always a
fact in any man; and we learn it not merely by observation of our history, but by consciousness of our
nature. Morality is the making of the ideal of human
nature into the actual of human history. Herein the
ideal of God's purpose becomes the actual of man's
achievement; and so far man and God are at one, as
everywhere God and matter are at one. Then for every
point of Right we seek to enjoy, there is a point of
Duty which we will to do.
Thus in general, morality will be the objective service of God, as piety is the subjective worship of God.
These two make up the whole of Religion. They are
the only "divine service:" Piety is the great inward




PRACTICAL THEISM.            191
sacrament and act of worship; Morality the great outward sacrament and act of service- other things are
but helps. Piety will be free piety, such as the spirit
of man demands: Morality will be free morality, such
as the spirit of man demands; both perfectly conformable to the nature which God put into man, to the body
and the spirit,- the mind and conscience, heart and
soul.
This morality will consist partly in keeping the Law
of the Body; in giving it its due use, development,
enjoyment, and discipline, in the world of matter.
The popular theology, in its ascetic rules, goes to an
extreme, and does great injustice. It counts the body
mean, calls it vile, says that therein dwells no good
thing.  It mortifies the flesh, crucifies the affections
thereof. But the body is not vile. Did not the infinite
Father make it, - not a limb too much, not a passion
too many? God make any thing vile! and least of all
this, which is the consummation of his outward workmanship, -the frame of man! Far from us be the
thought.
The Atheistic philosophy goes to the other extreme,
and clamors for the " rehabilitation of the flesh," and
would have a paradise of the senses, as the sole and
earthly heaven of man. Theology turns the flesh out
of doors, and the soul has cold housekeeping, living
alone; Atheism turns the soul out of doors, and the
flesh has no better time of it; no, has a worse time,
with its scarlet women "tinging the pavement with
proud wine too good for the tables of pontiffs." Absolute Religion demands the use of every limb of the body,
every faculty of the soul, all after their own kind, each
performing its proper function in the housekeeping of
man, Then there will be freedom of the body, freedom




192              PRACTICAL THEISM.
for every limb to perform its function, and to perform
no more. That is the morality of the body.
This morality will consist also in keeping the Law
of the Spirit; that is, in giving the spirit its natural
empire over the material part of us, and in giving each
spiritual faculty its natural place in the housekeeping of
the spirit; so that each, the intellectual, the moral, the
affectional, and the purely religious faculty, shall have
its due development, use, enjoyment, and discipline in
life. Then there will be spiritual freedom; that is, the
liberty of every spiritual faculty to perform its own
work, and no more. This is the morality of the
spirit.
The popular Theology restrains each spiritual faculty.
It hedges you in with the limitation of some great or
little man; it calls a man's fence the limit to God's
revelation: it does not give the mind room, nor conscience room, nor the affections room, nor yet the soul
sufficient space to serve God, each by its natural function.
One of the good things of Atheism has been this: it
offers freedom to the human spirit. That is its only
good, and its only charm. In a Church of the Popular
Theology the great mind cannot draw a long breath,
lest it should wake up the "wrath of God," — which,
we are told, never sleeps very sound, nor long at a time.
In the free air of Atheism the largest mind is told to
breathe as deep as he can, and make as much noise as
he will; there is no God to molest and make him
afraid. That is the only charm which Atheism ever
had to any man. It raises men from fear, and it bids
them be true to that part of their nature which they
know.




PRACTICAL THEISM.             193
Well, such will be the form of Religion coming from
Theism; such its Piety and Morality. You see it will
be a form of religion which fits well upon the finite
side, - on man; for it is derived from his nature, and
represents all parts thereof, doing justice to the body, to
its every limb, to all its senses, functions, passions;
doing justice to the spirit, every faculty thereof, intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious. It fits just as
well on the infinite side — on God; for it is drawn,
from human nature on the supposition that God made
human nature from perfect motives, of perfect material,
for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereto.
This form of religion, then, is the application of God's
means to the purpose of God.
As "Christian" Theology professes to be derived
from a verbal revelation of God, - represented by the
Church, as the Catholics say, by the Scriptures as the
Protestants teach, - so the Absolute Religion is derived
from the real revelation of God, which is contained in
the universe; this outward universe of matter, this
inward universe of man; and I take it we do not require the learned and conscientious labors of a Lardner,
a Paley, or a Norton, to convince us that the universe is
genuine and authentic, and is the work of God without
interpolation; we all know that. I call this the Absolute Religion, because it is drawn from the absolute
and ultimate source; because it gives us the absolute
Idea of God, -God as Infinite; and because it guarantees to man his natural rights, and demands the performance of the absolute duties of human nature.
So much for this Form of Religion in itself.
II. Now see how this Form of Religion will ap17




194              PRACTICAL THEISM.
pear in the Actual Life of Man, and the subjective
religious thought become an objective religious thing.
See it first in the form of Individual Human Life;
in a Person.
He will be the most religious man who most conforms to his nature; who has most of this natural piety
and of this natural morality. There will be various
degrees thereof, only one kind. He will worship God
the best, or subjectively serve him, who has the most
love of truth, the most love of justice, of benevolence,
of holiness; the greatest love of Man, and the greatest
love of God; who most desires and strongest wills to
possess these great qualities; in short, he who has the
most natural piety.
He will serve God the best, objectively worship him,
who has the most of truth, of righteousness, of friendship, of philanthropy, of holiness - fidelity to himself;
he who best uses the great or the little talent and opportunity which God has given; in a word, he who
has the most Morality. He will be the most completely
religious man who most keeps the law of God, for his
body and for his soul; and of course who coordinates
the flesh and the spirit, and duly subordinates the low
qualities of the spirit to the higher;- for a very little
activity of the higher faculties of man is worth a great
deal of activity of the lower; even as an ounce of gold
can any day purchase some tons of sand.
This it seems to me, is the true scale of man's spiritual faculties: -Intellect is the lowest of them, dealing
with truth, use, and beauty in their abstract and concrete forms; next comes Conscience, aiming at justice
and eternal right; next the Affections, loving persons,
and sacrificing my personal joy to the delight of another




PRACTICAL THEISM.            195
person; and highest of all comes the religious faculty,
which I call the Soul, that seeks the infinite Being,
Father and Mother of the Universe, and loves him with
perfect love and serves him with perfect trust. So in
the individual the soul, taking cognizance of the infinite being, and his Relation to us, is thereby our natural master. Is not this true which I state?  It is not
merely my psychological knowledge of man which tells
me this; it is the world's history which tells it; it is the
consciousness of your heart, and my heart, which cry
out for the living God, and assure us that we must subordinate every thing to him.
What a difference there will be between the saint
of Absolute Religion and the saint of the popular Theology. The real saint is a man who aims to have a
whole body, and a whole mind, and a whole conscience,
and a whole heart, and a whole soul; and to live a
whole, brave, manly life, at work in the daily calling of
grocer, or mason, or legislator, or cabinet-maker, or historian, or seamstress, or preacher, or farmer, or king,
or whatsoever it may be: that will be the aim of the
saint of natural religion. But the popular saint is an exceedingly different thing; a meagre, church-rid mope,
" a-dust and thin," a ghost of humanity that haunts the
aisles of the church; for the popular saint is dyspeptic
in body, dyspeptic in mind and conscience, in heart and
soul: you see by his face that his spiritual digestion is
poor, his stomach is weak, and his religion does not agree
with him. IIe must send off to the Jordan to get water
to christen his baby, before that baby is thought safe from
the damnation of hell; baptism with the spirit of God
and the spirit of Man is not enough. But the real saint
of absolute religion must be a free spiritual individual.
His Piety must represent him, and his Morality must




196             PRACTICAL THEISM.
represent him, and he will carry them both into all his
work. Knowing that God gave him faculties as God
meant him to have them, each containing its law in itself;
knowing that God provided them as a perfect means
for a perfect purpose, and that that purpose is one which
cannot fail, -he will use these faculties in the true service of God; and he will work as no other man, — with
a strength, and a vigor, and a perseverance; ay, and a
beauty of character too, which nothing but Absolute
Religion can ever give. So there will be the greatest
strength to do, to be, and to suffer, sure to conquer at
the last. He will sail the more carefully, for he knows
that careful sailing is the service which God requires
of him; he will sail the more confident, because he
knows that his voyage is laid out, and his craft is insured by the Power who holds the waters in the hollow
of his hand; yes, that it is insured against ultimate
shipwreck at the great office of the infinite God. Will
he not work therefore with greater earnestness and zeal
because he knows that God gave him these talents as
perfect means for a perfect end; with more confidence
because he knows the end is made sure of; and with
more caution, because he knows that the true use of the
means is the only service God asks of him?
See this same thing in its Domestic Form, -that of
Human Life in the Family. The family must represent the free spiritual individuality of man and woman,
regarded as equal, and equally joining by connubial love
- passion and affection — for mutual self-denial and
mutual delight; — for there is no marriage without mutual self-denial as means, for mutual delight as end.
Marriage between a perfect man and a perfect woman,
would be mutual surrender and mutual sacrifice.




PRACTICAL THEISM.            197
In all forms of religion that I know, from the book of
Moses to the book of Mormon, from  Confucius to
Calvin, woman is degraded before man; for in all forms
of religion hitherto Force has been preferred above all
things, and the great quality which has been ascribed
to God is an Omnipotence of Force. That is the thing
which Christendom has worshipped these many hundred years, not love; a mighty head, a mighty arm, not
a mighty heart. As force is preferred before all things
in God, so in man; hence in religion; thence in all
human affairs. And as woman has less force than man,
less force of muscle, less force of mind, has more fineness
of body, superior fineness of intellect, has eminence of
conscience, eminence of affection, eminence of the religious power, eminence of soul; as she is inferior to man in
his lower elements, and superior in his higher, - so she
has been prostrated before him. Her Right of nature
has been trodden underfoot by his Might of nature.
This degradation of woman is obvious in all forms of
religion; it is terribly apparent in the Christian Church.
The first three Gospels, - the last is an exception -the
writings of Paul and Peter, the book of Revelation,
have small respect for woman, little regard for marriage.
The Bible makes woman the inferior of man; his instrument of comfort, his medium of posterity; created
as an after-thought, for an " helpmeet" to man, because
"it was not good for man to be alone."  Marriage in
the New Testament- in the first three Gospels at least
— is only for time: "in the kingdom of Heaven they
neither marry nor are given in marriage." It is a low
condition here; celibacy is the better of the two; " it is
not good to marry;" - only " all men cannot receive
this saying."  The Christ was represented as born with
no human father, — his very birth a fling at wedlock.
17'




198            PRACTICAL THEISM.
The Christian Church has long taught that marriage
was a little unholy; and woman was bid to be ashamed
of that part of her nature which made her a daughter
first, and afterwards a wife and mother. What do
Jerome, Augustine, and Aquinas, and the Popes say of
connubial love? They have Paul as warrant for their
unnatural creed. All this depreciation of woman comes
from the idea of a God with whom might is more than
right; the idea of a God that is mighty in his head, in
his outstretched arm, but is feeble in his conscience,. and
feeble in his heart; a most unmotherly God.
But the Absolute Religion will give woman her true
place in the family, as the equivalent of man; and
when the family is of two free spiritual individualities,
grouped together by mutual love, for mutual self-denial
and mutual delight, then we shall have a family religion such as the world never saw before.  And that
will not be deemed the most religious family, which has
the most of psalm-singing and of prayers, - excellent
things, I deny not, - but that wherein every law of the
body and every law of the spirit are most completely
kept; where man is joined to woman, and woman joined
to man in passional and affectional love, with mutual
sacrifice and mutual surrender; the wedlock of equals,
not the huddling together of a superior and an inferior.
See this in its Social Form, —that of Human Life
in Communities. All men will be regarded as equal in
nature, equal in rights, equally entitled to take a just
and natural delight in the world of matter, on the same
just and natural conditions which God has laid down.
The Absolute Religion of the individual must be " professed" in the institutions of society, and be made life
in the world of men. Then Morality will take the form




PRACTICAL THEISM.            199
of Industry in all its million modes; of Natural Enjoyment of the products of industry; of Justice, regulating
the intercourse of men by the golden rule, which is alike
the standard measure in the mind of Man and in the
mind of God; the form of Friendship with a few, from
whom we ask delight in return for the joy we give; the
form of Philanthropy to all, asking no return. Industry
will be deemed a divine service; and a man's shop,
library, bank, office, warehouse, farm, his station in
church or state, - all will be deemed the special temple
wherein he is to worship the Father by natural Morality, — service with every limb of his body, every
faculty of his spirit, every power over matter or man
which he has gained. Friendship, with its mutual
triumph and reciprocal surrender, Philanthropy, which
comes as charity to palliate the effects of ill, or as justice
to remove the cause of ill, - these will be deemed the
noble factors in the religion of society, to work out "a
far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory."
Then the tools of a man's work, the farmer's plough,
the mason's trowel, the griddle of the cook, the needle
of the seamstress, and the scholar's pen, will be reckoned
the consecrated vessels of our divine service, and of
man's daily communion with man.
There will be a Church, doubtless, for gathering the
multitudes from the cold air, to warm their faces where
one great man lights the fire with sentiments and ideas
which he has caught from God. There will be a Sabbath for rest, for thought, for ideas, for sentiments;
hours of self-communion, of penitence, of weeping;
aspirations, hours of highest communion and life with
God; but the whole world will be a temple, every spot
holy ground, every bush burning with the Infinite, all
time the Lord's day, and every moral act worship and




200             PRACTICAL THEISM.
a sacrament. Then men will see that voluntary idleness is a sin; that profligacy is a sin; that deceit is a
sin; that fraud in work and in trade is a sin; that no
orthodoxy of belief, no multitude of prayers, no bodily
presence in a meeting-house, no acceptance of an artificial sacrament, can ever atone for neglect of the great
natural sacrament which God demands of every man.
Will not that be a change in society?  Now, the
man of the popular theology sneaks into Church on the
first day of the week, and hopes thereby to atone for an
abnegation of God on the other six; communes with
God through bread and wine, and refuses to commune
with him in buying and selling; is a liar, a usurer, a
kidnapper before men, while he professes to be a saint
before God. What is taught to him as " revealed religion," does not rebuke his pride, nor correct his conduct.
Then, with the teaching of the true Absolute Religion, it will be seen that the great man is only the great
Servant of Mankind. He that is powerful by money,
office, culture, genius, owes mankind an eminence of
industry, justice, and love, as pay to God for the opportunities, the station, the strength, which he has received.
God gave him greatness by nature; society gave him
greatness of culture, of wealth, of station; - Why?
That he might do the more service, not take the more
ease. The man of genius is born to be eyes for the
public. If he looks out only for himself he has denied
the faith, and is an Infidel.
Then it will be seen that the true function of the
powerful class, -men strong by Money, wherein New
England is so rich, men strong by Culture, whereof
New England is even now so poor — is to do mankind
an eminent service; to protect the needy, the defenceless,




PRACTICAL THEISM.            201
the ignorant, and the wretched. Riches are valuable as
they fertilize the soil for human excellence to grow on,
not for some lazy weed to rise and rot. If wealth impoverish him that gets, or those from whom it was won,
there is a twofold curse, blasting him that takes, and
those who aid therein. If superior culture only shuts
out the scholar from common men, he had better have
spent his years in a coal pit than a college. True religion, true manhood, teaches that if you receive genius
and talent from God, or culture at the cost of men —
you owe the use of all to men, to the poor, the ignorant,
the feeble-minded. Science is moral when it opens the
eyes of the blind, and teaches the foolish to understand
wisdom; Wealth is pious when it helps Charity palliate
the ills she cannot cure, and aids Justice to extirpate
the wrongs which curse mankind; Strength is religious
when it bears the burdens of the weak.
When the knowledge of the infinite God is spread
abroad in Society, social honors will not be given to
a man for the accident of famous birth, or merely for
gathered gold; not for the station to which some human
chance has blown the man; not for his culture of intellect alone, nor for the dear gift of genius which God
gave him at his birth; but for the use he makes of his
native gifts or labored acquisitions; for his faithfulness
to himself, to man, and God; for his justice, his love,
and his piety, shown by the use of one talent or ten.
There will always be diversities in natural powers
and in the use thereof, and so diversities of culture, of
property, of social station and social power. God is
democratic and loves all, but the odds between the
natural gifts of John and James may be greater than
the difference betwixt the plains of Lombardy and the
Alps which look down thereon. Men may try to forget




202              PRACTICAL THEISM.
this fact; America may put little, mean men with mediocrity of intellect, into her president's chair; may put
little mean men with ordinary mind and with feeble
conscience, with inferior affections and a paltry soul,
into their pulpits; but God still goes on creating his
great masterly men, with immense intellect and commensurate moral, affectional, and religious powers,
who while they come to bless, perforce, must overawe
and terrify the littleness which burrows in state and
church; men who receive the earliest salutation of newrising truth, and shed it down, reflecting from far up
the Higher Law's intolerable day on president and
priest. Alas, great minds have hitherto been commonly
the tyrants of the times, oppressors in the state, and worse
oppressors in the church: and humble men believed
that God was only Might, not also Right and Love;
so they paid a base and servile homage to the great
oppressor, and trod down justice, mercy, love, in their
haste to kneel before a Pope or King: Jesus of Nazareth is still exceptional in the world's long life; Napoleon is instantial. But if selfish popes and kings are
common history, the self-denying Christ is prophecy of
what one day shall be. For as God made the mountains stony, huge, and tall, that they, screening the vale
below, might wrestle with the storm, and clothe their
shoulders with ice and snow -garments woven for
them and carefully put on by each wayfaring cloud,and therewith robe the plains beneath in green and
vari-colored dress; so has he made great, mountainousminded men as forts of defence for all the rest, and
treasuries of help. Great men shall not always misuse
their five talents, nor little men hide their one piece of
the Lord's small money in the ground; mankind long
stumbling will one day learn to walk.




PRACTICAL THEISM.           203
Then men will see that that is the most religious
community where, proportionately, the most pains is
taken to secure the welfare of all, to speed Genius on
its triumphant way, to help the poor, the feeble, men
of imperfect body and imperfect brain, and those sad
wrecks of circumstance we now pile up in jails to
moulder and to rot. A Steeple and a Gallows will not
always be the signs significant of a Christian land. Men
will not measure the religion of society by the number
of the temples and priests, but by the colleges and
school-houses, the hospitals, the asylums for the old,
the sick, the deaf, the blind, the foolish, the crazy, and
the criminal; nay, they will measure it by the honest
Industry in business; by Truth in science; by Beauty
in literature; by Justice in the state; by the Comfort,
the Health, the Manhood of the men.
Look at this in its Ecclesiastical form, that of Human
Life in Churches. Men will combine about some able
man for these three purposes - to kindle their religious
Feelings by social communion; to learn the true Idea
of God, of Man, and of the Relation between the two,
the idea of duty to be done and rights to be possessed;
to make the idea a Fact, so that what at first was but
subjective feeling, then a thought, shall next be translated into deed, done into Men, Families, Communities,
States, and a World, and so the Ideal of God become
the Achievement of Mankind.
Then the function of the Church will be to keep
all the old which is good, and get all possible good
which is new. No creed, no history, or Bible shall
interpose a cloud betwixt Man and God; reverence for
Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed shall be no more a stone
between our eyes and truth, but a glass telescopic,




204             PRACTICAL THEISM.
microscopic, to bring the thought of God yet nearer to
our heart. The Bible's letter shall no longer kill; but
the spirit which "touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with
fire," and flamed in the life of a Nazarene Carpenter
till its light shone round the world, will dwell also in
many a new-born soul. No man shall be master, to
rule with authority over our necks; but whoso can
teach shall be our friend and guide to help us on the
heavenly road.
Then the minister must be a man selected for his
human power, —for his power of mind, of conscience,
and of heart and soul; with well-born genius if we can
find it, wilh well-developed talents at the least. His
function will be to help awaken the feeling of Piety in
all men's hearts; to bring to light the ideas of Absolute
Religion which human nature travails with, longing to
bear; and to make the inward worship, also, outward
act. He must help apply this idea to life. Negatively
-this will be criticism, exposure of the false, the ugly,
and the wrong, the painful part of preaching, the surgery of the church. Positively - it will be creation,
making application of religion to the individual, the
family, community, state, and world. So the minister
will not aim to appease an offended God, grim, revengeful, and full of paltry resentment; nor to communicate a purchased salvation from the fabled torments
of hell; nor to add the imputed righteousness of a good
man to help us to an unreal heaven. But with the
consciousness of God in his heart, with the certain
knowledge of God's infinite perfection, sure of the perfect motive, purpose, means of God and conscious of
eternal life, he is to preach the natural laws of man.
He is to lead in science, if it be possible, - in physics,
ethics, metaphysics; to lead in justice, applying its ab



PRACTICAL THEISM.           205
stract laws to concrete life - not to hinder them by institutions, or by books, by the Vedas, the Koran, or the
Testament; to lead in love, connubial, friendly, philanthropic; ay, to lead in holiness, - the subjective service
of God which is worship in spirit and in truth, the objective worship, which is service by the normal use, development, and enjoyment of every limb of the body,
every faculty of the spirit, every power acquired over
matter or man. He will be more anxious to understand
truth, beauty, and justice, to have love and faith; more
anxious to communicate these to man, and organize
them into individual, domestic, social, national, human
life, than to baptize men in water from the Jordan,
the Ganges, or the Irrawaddy. He will be accounted
the most valuable minister who most helps forward
the highest development of mankind; and that will be
held as the most religious Church whose members live
the manliest life of the body and the spirit - with the
most of normal use, development, and enjoyment of all
their nature, - do the most of human duty, enjoy the
most of human rights, and so have the most and the
manliest delight in themselves, in Nature, in Man and
God.
See this religion in the Political Form, that of Human
Life in Nations. Here the aim will be to take the
Constitution of the Universe for the foundation of political institutions, making absolute Justice the standard
measure in all political affairs, and reinacting the
Higher Law of God into all the statutes of the people's
code. Men of Genius, in all its many modes, will be
the nation's telescopic eye to discover the Eternal Right.
The highest thought of the most gifted and best cultured men will become the ideal which the nation seeks
18




206            PRACTICAL THEISM.
to incorporate in its code, to administer in its courts,
and revive in its daily life. That will be thought the
most religious nation whose institutions, constitutions,
statutes, and decisions, conform the most to abstract
right, applying this to its action abroad and at home;
where the whole people are the best and the best
off; and the higher law of God is carried out in the action of the nation with other states, of the government
with the people, of class with class, and of man with
man. As proofs of the national religion you will bring
forward the character of the people —their conduct
abroad and at home, their institutions and their men.
This religion must take a Cosmic, or General Human
Form, in the Life of Mankind. It will unite all nations
into one great bond of brotherhood. As the members
and various faculties of Thomas or Edward are conjoined in a man, with personal unity for all, but individual freedom for each; as several persons are joined
together in a family, with domestic unity for all, but
individual freedom for each; as the families form a
community, and the communities a state, with social
and national unity of action, but yet with domestic and
social individuality of action; so the nations of the
world will join together, all working with cosmic human
unity of action, but each having its own national individuality of action. This would realize the dim ideal
of Pagan Zeno- who counted men, "not as Athenians
and Persians, but as joint-tenants of a common field to
be tilled for the advantage of all and each," - and ot
Christian Paul — who taught that the God whom the
Athenians ignorantly worshipped " made of one blood
all nations of men."
Then law would be justice, loyalty righteousness, and




PRACTICAL THEISM.             207
patriotism  humanity.  Men conscious of the same
human nature, and consciously serving the infinite God,
must needs find their religion transcending the bounds
of their Family, Community, Church and Nation, and
reaching out to every human soul. But hitherto forms
of religion have been a wedge to sever men, and not a
tie to bind. The popular theologies of the world in this
life aim to separate the " Christian" from the " Heathen,"
the Protestant from the Catholic, the Unitarian from the
Trinitarian, the new school from the old school; and in
the next life, the " reprobate" from the " elect," the sinner from the saint.
On the last five Sundays, I have spoken of Atheism
and of the Popular Theology. I hope I did no injustice to Atheism, none to the Atheist.  It is a sad
thought, his world without a God; his here, but no
Hereafter; his body, and no Soul. I hope I did him
no injustice. One thing he surely has that the popular
theologian has not: he has Freedom; freedom from
fear, freedom to use his faculties. This freedom will
last forever. But the theory of the atheist abuts in
selfishness, and in darkness his little light goes out.
I hope I did no injustice to the Popular Theology.
It is grim, it is awful. It bears great truths in its
bosom, and those truths will last forever; but the popular theology as a system must fall. It rests on two
columns.
One is the Idea of an Angry God, imperfect in wisdom, in power, in justice, love, and holiness; a finite,
and jealous, and revengeful God; creating man from
mean motives, for a mean purpose, and of a mean
material,- God with a hell under his feet, "paved




208              PRACTICAL THEISM.
with skulls of infants not a span long," and swarming
full of horrid, writhing life, that chokes it to the brim.
The other pillar is the Idea of a Supernatural Christ,
a God and yet a man, with a supernatural birth, supernatural works, resurrection, and ascension - a supernatural atoning sacrifice to take away the sins of the
world. These are the Jachin and Boaz of this theology.
Philosophy strikes down the first column, and there
is no angry God, no infinite hell " paved with skulls of
infants not a span long," and full of horrid, writhing
life; and so Theology swings in the air at one end.
Criticism strikes away the other pillar, the supernatural Christ: there is no supernatural Christ, a God
and yet a man, with a supernatural birth, supernatural
works, resurrection, ascension, -an atoning sacrifice to
take away the sins of the world. And so Theology
swings in the air at the other end. It lacks a philosophical basis and historical foundation; false in its
idea, and false also in its historic fact.
The scientific atheist mocks at the God of the popular theology. Lalande says, I have looked far off
through my telescope, and there is no God betwixt me
and the furthest star, for I have seen all the way
through. Ehrenberg, with his microscope, finds a million million of creatures in a single cubic inch of polishing slate from Germany; but he finds no theological
God therein. The chemist analyzes the materials of
the world into their elements, and he finds oxygen, carbon, and the rest, but he finds no theologic (God therein.
The scientific atheist mocks at the Church's God.
The popular idea of God is inadequate for Science;
ay, yet worse, it is inadequate for Philanthropy; for the
philanthropist loves the poor, the beggar, loves the




PRACTICAL THEISM.            209
Indian, the slave, the outcast, the atheist, and the
criminal; and Theology says " The slave is the posterity of Ham, whom God cursed by Noah and spurned
from his feet; and sinners are to have an everlasting
hell in the world to come."  The atheists turn off with
scorn from the theologic idea of a God who knows less
than Alphonso of Castile; and the philanthropist, with
a tear, turns from the damning deity of the popular
Church.
Hence comes the position of Religion to-day. Look
at Boston: how small is the Church and how poor;
how big is the tavern and how rich! Why, the keeper
of the tavern in Boston is more influential than "the
minister of Christ:" the consecrated preacher in his
pulpit trembles before Felix in his bar. The Holy
Ghost of the Church, with the other two persons of
the Trinity, yields to the Spirit of the Tavern; there is
" no room for them in the inn;" happy if they can find
a manger with the oxen, and a swaddling garment for
their new-born piety in the cattle's crib. Look at Boston, with its hundred clergymen, — religion is no restraint in business, no restraint in politics; not at all;
and in our literature of mediocrity,- that is the only
literature which America yet possesses - religion is a
force infinitesimally small, and not felt. It dares not
speak against drunkenness and prostitution; it is dumb
religion, and dares not even oppose the stealing of men
out of their houses in this town. The minister's " king.
dom is not of this world;" no, verily, it belongs to a
world that is dead and gone. Respectable gentlemen
do not ask Morality in a lawyer; they expect it not in
a politician; they ask it of the minister. God be
thanked, they do ask some little of it there. But it is
only moral decency, - compliance with easy-mannered
18 -




210             PRACTICAL THEISM.
virtue, not the morality of a Paul whose spirit was
stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to
idolatry; no, it is only the Ephesian morality of Demetrius! But a lawyer whose life is corrupt, who is unscrupulous and unprincipled, or a politician who is rotten,
will not find that he is less trusted by the great cities
of this country. Tell men that slavery is wicked; that
to play the pirate in Cuba is sin, - what do they say?
They quote the constitution.  " Politics is national
housekeeping, not national morality," say they. " Talk
of the Higher Law, do you?  You are a fanatic! We
disposed of that long ago."
I say the Popular Theology is not a " finality," - to
use the language of the day. It is doomed to perish.
Let me do it no injustice. Mankind is very serious; a
very honest mankind; and its great works are done
with sweat and watching and sore travail. Down on
its knees went mankind to pray for this theology; and
we have it. With many faults it has great truths. The
truths will never perish; they will last while God is
God. Even its faults have done mankind no small
service. War has taught us activity, and discipline of
body and mind; has helped the organization of men;
shown the power of thousands when molten to a single
mass, and wielded by a single will. But the popular
theology has taught greater things than that: it has
shown the omnipotent obligation of Duty; to sacrifice
every thing for God - the body and the spirit, the intellect, with its pride of reasoning, the conscience with
its righteousness; the affections, with their love of
father and mother and wife and child. The warrior
all stained with blood and sweating with his lust, it
taught to subordinate the flesh to the spirit, to scorn
the joys of the sense, to practise self-denial of ease and




PRACTICAL THEISM.           211
honor and health and riches and life, for the good that
is purely spiritual. This is the lesson which ascetic
Protestantism has so grimly taught to you and me, and
ascetic Catholicism to the Christian world. The monks
and nuns, the martyrs of the Inquisition, the saints who
went hungry and naked and cold; the infidels and
atheists who turned off from all religion frighted by
this bugbear of the Church; the dreadful doubts and
fears and madness and despair of the world, - these are
the tuition fees which mankind has paid for this great
lesson.
Let this theology pass. Science hates it. Every
Cyrena from the London clay —a leaf gathered from
the Book of God now newly unfolded from the flinty
keeping of a pebble on a subterranean beach, myriads
of years older than Moses — confutes Moses and turns
the popular Theology upside down. Philanthropy hates
it; hates its jealous God, its narrow love, its pitiless
torment, and its bottomless and hopeless hell. Let it
pass. It can do little for us now; little for the mind
and the conscience of the world; nothing for the affections, nothing for the soul. It can only drive men by
fear, not charm by love. Let it pass; and its ministers tremble before the bank, the shop, and the tavern.
Let the churchling crouch down before the worldling
if he will.
But will Atheism aid us any more? It will do nothing, cheer nothing. It has only this to perform, — to
rid men of fear and bondage to ancient creeds. It
never was a spring of action, and never can be. No!
We must root into the soil of God, else we perish for
lack of earth. An earth without a Heaven, a here
with no Hereafter, a body without a Soul, and a world
without a God - will that content the science and




212              PRACTICAL THEISM.
satisfy the philosophy of these times? Fill your mouth
with the east wind!  Atheism  can never teach man
that solemn, beautiful word,- I oug'ht; only I mnust,
which is Fatalism; or I will, which is Libertinism;
never I oughlt, which is the mark of perfect obedience,
and perfect freedom too. Atheism knows not the word
Duty which marries UMpight with Right.
Well, shall we be without religion, - this Caucasian
race, which has outgrown the worship of Nature, Polytheism, the Hebrew form of faith, classic Deism, and is
fast outgrowing this popular Theology? I smile at
the dreadful thought. Shall the great forces of modern
civilization be wielded only for material ends? Here is
America, a young nation, yet giant strong, with twenty
million souls all cradled in her lap; and three million
souls spurned as dust beneath her cruel feet. She has
set her heart on this continent, "I will have all this
goodly land," quoth she. She has set her affections on
money, vulgar fame, and power. Every mountain gives
us coal, iron, lead, water for our mill; California delights to tempt us with her gold. And America, speaking with the new and brazen trumpet of the State, says,
"There is no Higher Law forbidding me to plunder
Spain and Mexico, or crush the Black as I slew the
Red." Says America, through the other trumpet, the
old and brazen trumpet of the Church, " There is no
Higher Law! Plunder and crush! "
Is that to be so? Is modern civilization, with
science that formulates the heavens and reads the
hieroglyphics of the sky, with mechanical skill which
surpasses all the dreams of faery, -modern civilization,
with such riches, such material power, such science, such
physics, ethics, metaphysics, with Berlins of scientific
lore, with London, Paris, and New York, affluent with




PRACTICAL THEISM.             213
energy -is this to be an irreligious civilization; genius
without justice, riches without love, organization for
the strong, the rich, and the noble-born, an organization
to oppress, a civilization without God? No! You say
no, and I say no; human history says no; human
nature says no!
What shall hinder?  The popular Theology?  The
usurer, the politician, the kidnapper, in their selfishness,
laugh at your Old and New Testament, and spurn
at your hell. The Christian churches are on the side
of sin; oppression is favored by them the old world
through, and oppression is favored by them the new
world through. "Renounce the world!" says the
priest, and means "Renounce the Higher Law of God."
Soon as sin is popular the church christens it, and reannexes the sin to itself. Did the American Church
do aught against the Mexican war? Will it do aught
against the Cuban war? It will put Cuban gold into
its treasury to evangelize the heathen. What does it
do against the awful sin of America at this day? It
has strengthened the arm of the oppressor; it has
riveted chains on the bondman's neck. But just now
— thanks to the Almighty God! —the churches of
New England and the West, met in solemn convocation at Albany, have protested against this mighty sin;
and have charged their clergymen who went to those
corners of the land where the sin is practised, to bear
their testimony against it; and if men would not hear
them, then to depart out of their city. This is the first
time; and it marks the turning of the tide which erelong will leave this old theology all high and dry upon
the sand, a Tadmor in the desert.
The religion which we want must be of another
stamp. It must recognize the Infinite God, who is not




214             PRACTICAL THEISM.
to be feared, but loved; not God who thunders out of
Sinai in miraculous wrath, but who shines out of the
sun on evil and on good, in never-ending love. It must
respect the universe, matter, and man; and worship
God by natural Piety and serve Him with the Morality
of nature.
Then what a force Religion will be! There will be
a religion for the body, to serve God with every limb
thereof; a religion for the intellect, and we shall hear
no more of " atheistic science," but Lalande shall find
God all the world through, in every scintillation of the
furthest star he looks at, and Ehrenberg confront the
Infinite in each animated dot or cell of life his glass
brings out to light; yea, the chemist will meet the
Omnipresent in every atom of every gas. Then there
shall be a religion for Conscience, the great Justice; a
religion for the Affections, the great Love; a religion
for the Soul, perfect Absolute Trust in God, Joy in God,
Delight in this Father and Mother too.
Then what Men shall we have! not dwarfed and
crippled, but giant men, Christlike as Christ. What
Families! woman emancipated and lifted up. What
Communities! a society without a slave, without a
pauper; society without ignorance, wealth without
crime. What Churches! Think of the eight and
twenty thousand Protestant churches of America, with
their eight and twenty thousand Protestant ministers,
with a free press, and a free pulpit, and think of their
influence if every man of them believed in the Infinite
God, and taught that the service of God was by natural
Piety within and natural Morality without; that there
was no such thing as imputed righteousness, or salvation by Christ; but that real righteousness was honored
before God, and salvation by character, by effort, by




PRACTICAL THEISM.                     215
prayer, and by toil, was the work! Then what a nation
should we have! ay, what a world!
We shall have it; it is in your heart and in my heart;
for God, when he put this idea into human nature,
meant that it should only go before the fact, —the
John the Baptist that heralds the coming of the great
Messiah.
"Eternal Truth shines on o'er errors' cloud,
Which from our darkness hides the living light;
Wherefore, when the true Bard hath sung aloud
His soul-song to the unreceptive night,
His words, like fiery arrows must alight,
Or soon, or late, and kindle through the earth,
Till Falsehood from his lair be frighted forth.
"Work on, oh fainting Heart, speak out thy Truth;
Somewhere thy winged heart-seeds will be blown,
And be a grove of Pines; from mouth to mouth,
O'er oceans, into speech and lands unknown,
E'en till the long-foreseen result be grown
To ripeness, filled like fruit, with other seed,
Which Time shall plant anew, and gather when men need."








SERMON VII.
OF IMMORTAL LIFE.
19           (217)




I CORINTHIANS XV. 49
WE SHALL ALSO BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY.
(218)




VII.
OF THE FUNCTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE IDEA
OF IMMORTAL LIFE.
I ASK your attention this morning to a sermon of the
true Function and legitimate Influence of the Idea of
Immortality. The subject is most intimately connected
with the Theism lately spoken of.
The boy stolen from his mother by wolves in Hindostan, and brought up by them with their own young,
becomes like a wolf. He seems to have no thought
except for the day; his motives are gathered only from
his present wants; no more. He satisfies his animal
appetites, and then sleeps. Behold the sum of his consciousness! He knows no past, cares for no future, and
has nothing within him which checks any instinctive
desire. There is man reduced to his lowest terms,
living from the lowest motives, animal selfishness; for
the lowest ends, animal existence, brute enjoyment; by
the lowest means, the instinct of brute desire. In that
case human nature is as poor as it can live.
The cultivated citizen of Boston extends his thought
in the present, to all the corners of the earth, takes in
all the countries of the globe; the doings in Europe
(219)




220              IMMORTAL LIFE.
and in Asia affect, his daily consciousness. He embraces the stars of heaven; his telescopic thought
sweeps the horizon of the universe. The discovery of
a new planet is a joy to him, though his eye shall never
taste its light. He connects himself with the past; he
remembers his father and his mother, loving to trace
his branch of the family-tree far down, — now to a
New England sachem, now to a Norman king, or till
it touches the ground in some Teutonic savage three
thousand years ago. He loves to follow its roots underground to Noah, or Adam, or Deucalion, or Thoth, or
some other imaginary character in the Heathen or
Hebrew mythology. Thus he enlarges his present consciousness by recollecting or imagining the past, and is
richer for every step he takes in history or fantasy. Not
satisfied with this, he reaches forth to the future, with
one hand building genealogies and tombs for his grandsires, and with the other houses for his grandchildren.
Thus our cultivated man enlarges his consciousness
by the thought of men that are about him, behind him,
and before him; all of these lay their hands, as it were,
upon his shoulders, to magnetize him with their manhood, present, past, or to come; for as there is a long
train of men, our brothers, reaching out from you and
me to the furthest verge of the green earth, so there is
another long train, six hundred or six thousand generations deep, standing behind us, each laying its hands
on its forerunner's shoulders, and all communicating
their blood and their civilization unto us who inherit
the result of their bodily and spiritual toil.
It is a delight thus to extend our personality in
Space, by knowledge of matter and man, and control
over both; and in Time, by our connection with the
family, reaching both ways, by our relation to the




IMMORTAL LIFE.             221
human race, in its indefinite extent backwards and
around us on either hand. Human motives are gathered from the whole range of human consciousness and
human knowledge, and our inward life is enlarged and
enriched by the sweep of our intellect.
So the daily life of a civilized man in Boston comes
to be consciously influenced by his wider knowledge of
the present, by his acquaintance with the past, by his
anticipations of the future. This man is checked from
wrong and encouraged to good, by the character of his
acquaintances about him; some men by recollecting
their father and their mother, whose names we would
not sully with our daily sin. Almost every parent is
animated by the desire to bless his children in generations that are to come.  Thus the generations are
bound together, and the personality of John and Jane
in actual history is carried back to the first man, and
in fancy is carried forward to the last. A grandfather
in the house, a baby in the cradle, a mother at hand or
afar off in the hills of Berkshire, remembering us in her
evening prayer, -each of these is a hostage for the
good conduct of mortal men. This young man will
not dice or drink lest he wound the bosom which bore
him. That young woman denies herself for her child,
forbears the enormities of life lest she should poison the
blood in the veins of one not yet born, or now drinking
life from her breast. The wider is the circle of human
observation, without or within, the more plenteous is
the harvest of motive and delight gleaned up therefrom.
But men go further than that, and extend their individuality beyond the grave. The belief in the future
life is at first a dim sentiment, an instinctive feeling,
then a conscious desire, a dreaming of immortality;
19*




222              IMMORTAL LIFE.
then the hope and fear thereof; and at last it is a certain confidence in eternal life, an absolute delight in
immortality.
Thus successively the human landscape widens out
from the wolf's den of that savage boy till it takes in
family, neighborhood, nation, mankind, all ages past
on earth, all generations yet to come; yes, till our
horizon of consciousness in its sweep includes God and
Eternity.
There is a God of Infinite Perfection: the Soul of
each man is destined to Eternal Life. These are the
two greatest truths which human consciousness as yet
has ever entertained. They are the most important;
and if the human treasures of thought were to go to
the ground and perish, all save what some few men
grasped in their hands and fled off with, escaping from
a new deluge, should clutch these two truths as the
most priceless treasure which the human race had won,
and journey off with them to pitch my tent anew, and
with these treasures build up a fresh and glorious civilization. When a man is influenced by hope and fear
for the Future World, he is a higher being, much
higher, than when this life was the limit to his thought.
But the influence of the Idea of Immortality has by
no means proved an unmixed good. It has brought
much evil on the world. It has been connected with
the idea that God was malignant; and then the prospect of future life has been the culprit's anticipation of
trial, torture, and damnation without end. Men have
believed that the other side of the grave the Devil
waited, armed with his torments, to seize poor Dives,
who had his " good things in this life," and in the next
stage make him smart for the purple and fine linen he
wore in this. So the consciousness of immortality has




IMMORTAL LIFE.             223
often clouded over the future life with fear.  Thus
there is a popular ballad of the Middle Ages which describes a boy suffering bereavement, disease, poverty,
and many a grief; and he says,
"I would fain lie down and die,
But for the curse of immortality."
I have heard ministers preach whose notions of the
future life were of the grimmest sort, -so that with
their belief, I would not have sent a rat or a mouse beyond the grave; nor wished my worst enemy to cross
over, —and yet they said the common notion of immortal life was " too good to be true! "  It was too bad
to be true. I knew it was so bad that God would blot
it out as a contradiction which could not be, and would
never allow it to be a divine fact, only a human folly,
which those men dreamed of.
In virtue of this fear, the belief in immortality has
secured to the priesthood an immense amount of power,
and excessive dominion over mankind; an authority
wellnigh irresponsible, and which has led to great
cruelty on their part. The priest taught men, " It is a
terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
He is angry with the wicked every day, and keeps his
anger forever."  "Alas," groaned the believer, "what
shall I do to be saved?" Then the priest replied, " I,
and I alone, can appease the wrath of God. O selfish
Baron Rackrent, full of sin, and waiting to die, give me
thy money, give the Church thy broad lands, or else
forever suffer and rot in hell!"  And the Baron, extending his selfishness beyond the tomb, frightened at
the picture of the "Last Judgment" painted on the
walls of the Church, or the "Dance of Death " sculptured in the graveyard, where Death and the Devil




224              IMMORTAL LIFE.
waltz and saraband mankind to Hell, gave to the priests
the riches which they set their celibate hearts upon, and
robbed his own heirs of many a fair rood of upland
and of meadow under the influence of this fear and
of the priesthood who fanned its dreadful flame.
The thought of immortality has turned men away
from natural Piety and natural Morality. The priest
declared, " That will do very well to live with, it is good
for nothing to die by." So this belief, thus distorted,
has led to unnatural modes of life; has crushed the delight out of many a heart, and has hindered the human
race in their progress. Even now the fear of death and
of torment sicklies over the countenance of men when
their mortal hour draws nigh; tears, alarm, and whimpering and snivelling on a death-bed, are commonly
thought by ecclesiastical persons to be better evidence
of religion in the heart than a life forty or fifty years
long, adorned every day by the beauty of holiness
within and the beauty of righteousness without.
All these evils come from the idea that God is malignant and loves to torture the children of men; and
that idea itself has come from the infancy of mankind,
and like other poor follies is one day to be outgrown
and left behind us with the childish things of our boyhood.
These evils continue at the present day; for God,
though called a Father, is commonly thought a tyrant.
So his government of this world is represented as a tyrannical despotism, and his Heavenly Kingdom is commonly painted so that it is the last thing which one
would think of with pleasure. I never saw a picture of
the "Last Judgment," which did not make me shiver
with horror at the thought that any man could be so savage as to paint it. I never read a "Judgment Hymn"




IMMORTAL LIFE.             225
in a Psalmbook, from Origen of Alexandria to Lyman
Beecher of Boston, - even Luther's, modified by three
hundred years of civilization since his death - which
was not fit to make a man's blood curdle in his veins.
Only one sect has taught the doctrine of immortality in
such a guise that any man need wish it to be true —
the Universalists; and that sect is only a small fraction
of the Christian world. If the common notions of eternal life were true, then we ought to call it Eternal
Death; immortality would be the greatest curse God
could inflict upon mankind. It is too bad to be true.
Annihilation would be better:" Feelingly sweet were stillness after storm,
Though under covert of the wormy ground."
In the popular mythology, God is represented as
turning Adam and Eve out of Paradise, with bitter
exeerations, —" Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee."  Fortunately that part of the popular mythology was writ by
a man who makes no mention of immortality. Probably he had never heard of it. If he had he might have
added that God knit his brows at mankind, baring his
red right arm, and then said, "' Eat also of the tree of
life and live forever, and I will torture you for all eternity." The Hebrew writer probably had not heard of
immortality; he did not add that; he left it for Christian doctors to do. So in the popular theology the Fall
was the first misfortune of mankind, and Immortality
the last. To die bodily was looked upon as the first
curse, but to be unable to die in the soul is looked upon
as the last curse. Read sermons - and they are of the
commonest - on the fate of the wicked in the next life,




226              IMMORTAL LIFE.
and they shall tell you, almost all of them, that the
wicked, the reprobate, the damned, will call out for
the hills to fall on us, on the mountains to cover us;
and the remorseless hills will not stir; the unpitying
mountains will not start an inch; man shall ask for
annihilation and have Hell for answer.
Yet spite of this horrible doom prepared for mankind,
as it is alleged, which makes immortality a curse and
the thought of it a mildew, - the doctrine is so dear to
the human heart, to the reflective head of mankind, that
it is clung to, loved, believed in, and cherished by the
mass of men all over the world. Even the Churches'
fabled hell cannot frighten mankind out of their love
for eternal life, " This longing after immortality."
"' For who would lose
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
These thoughts that wander through eternity? "
The doctrine of eternal life is always popular. If
you were to poll the world to-day and get the ayes and
noes of all mankind, nine hundred and ninety-nine out
of every thousand would give their vote for immortality.
Yet few have ever reasoned about it much, and demonstrated their immortality. Most men think that they
take it on trust from the mouth of their priest, or from
" revelation," — the  Christians from  the Bible, the
Mahometans from the Koran. But it is not so; we do
not take it on trust from a man. Like what else comes
from the primitive instincts of the human heart, we
take it on trust from the Father; from no less authority.
I mention these things to show first, how deep is the
instinct of immortality in our heart, for all nations
above the nakedness of the most savage have fastened




IMMORTAL LIFE.            227
their hopes on this; they have dug down to this primitive rock, never very far from the surface; and next to
show how strong it is, which even the fear of the future
eternal torment cannot annihilate.  For sixteen or
eighteen hundred years the Christian Church has
preached the docrine of immortality in such a form that
it is only another name for the wrath of God and eternal torment to the mass of men; but with all this
preaching it has not scared the belief thereof out of the
heart of man, and it cannot.
And yet dear as this doctrine is to the heart of mankind, for many hundred years you find powerful men
of great ability aiming to destroy the belief in it.
These philosophers have had a bad name in human
history because they denied what the heart of man
loved to believe, what the analogy of Nature plainly
taught, and what also the noblest philosophy proves
as its very highest affirmation. It is a strange thing
that men who have preached eternal damnation for the
vast majority of mankind, have a good name in every
Church, —St. Augustine, Gregory, -half a dozen of
that name; — St. Bernard, a mighty preacher of eternal
ruin; and in our own country, Edwards, Hopkins, and
Emmons, among the most venerable names of our
American Church. But on the other hand, men who
have declared that God was too good to persecute his
children beyond the tomb, - they have everywhere
received a bad name.
If a man denies the immortality of the soul, his oath
is not allowed in the courts of Christendom. Even in
Massachusetts he is an " outlaw,'  and can prove
nothing in a Court of " Justice," except by the testimony of some " believer." His account-books are no




228             IMMORTAL LIFE.
" evidence" in court, his testimony of no value. But a
man who teaches that the God of the Christians is a
thousand times more cruel than any idol-deity of Scandinavia or Hindostan, who will " torture with fire and
redhot plates of iron," all but ten in the million, has
his oath allowed him in every court!
But we ought to look at the reason which has led
the philosophers to deny the doctrine. Some of them
have doubtless been low and vulgar men, - as mean as
their theological opponents,- and from lowness and
vulgarity denied what their lowness and vulgarity hindered them from comprehending. But that is a very
small class amongst philosophic men; and it is a rare
thing to find a low and vulgar man flying in the face
of popular opinion for the sake of an idea. Such men
preach the popular doctrine, not the opposite. But it is
a fact of history that in old time, from Epicurus to
Seneca, some of the ablest heads and best hearts of
Greece and Rome sought to destroy the idea of immortality. This was the reason: they saw it was a torment
to mankind, that the popular notion thereof was too
bad to be true; and so they took pains to break down
the Heathen mythology, though with it they destroyed
the notion of immortal life. They did a great service
to mankind in ridding us from this yoke of fear. The
Pagan philosopher and scoffer was a "forerunner" of
Jesus, — quite as much so as John the Baptist. Be
assured of this;-t is a great thing to destroy an
organized tyrann~ even if at first you set up no government in its place; for such is the creative power of the
human spirit that, if it have a free chance to work, it
will soon raise up new Romes out of the dust, and
leaving the monarchies of the old continent will build
up republics in the new. After you have hewn down




IMMORTAL LIFE.             229
the forest and driven off the catamount and the wolf,
it is not a hard thing to raise corn and sheep in the
new soil.
But soon as Christianity became established in the
State, the old tyranny of fear got set up anew; and
as the doctrine of immortality appeared in a more distinct form and became more apparent in the Christian
than in the Hebrew or Heathen Church, so this fear of
future torment became more distinct and more powerful; yes, it became absolute. It was connected with
the doctrine of the Fall; with " foreordination by the
divine decrees," which is the Fatalism of the Christian
Church, -the same thing which had taken a form
slightly different in the Greek and Roman theologies,
and was again to appear, modified a little further, in
the Mahometan theology; — with the idea of "total
depravity," and the " infinite evil" of sin; and in such
bad company, what wonder is it that the doctrine of
immortality became what it did become? It was fear
of God, not love of him. It was fear of future torment
which brought down the knee and the neck of Christian
Europe under its priestly tyrants. It was not love of
God which built the costly domes of Italy, and the
cathedrals of the North. No, it was fear of hell. An
atheistic pope wished to build up a costly church in
Rome. He wanted money, — he had rack-rented all
Italy, — and so he sent round his apostles, first to
preach the wrath of God, the torments of the future
world; next that the priesthood had power to appease
that wrath and abate those torments; then, as a third
thing, that they would do all this for money. Monk
Tetzel went about to sell his indulgences, — pardons
for sins past, present, and to come. He offered to ticket
men all the way through to Heaven; and they might
20




230              IMMORTAL LIFE.
take any quantity of luggage of sin with them, by paying a small additional fare. He had a drum beat; and
when men assembled he mounted his stand, opened his
ticket-office and began hawking and peddling his ecclesiastical wares. Luther said, " I will make a hole in
Tetzel's drum!" - So he did.  "The pope," said
Luther, "cannot save men from Purgatory; his tickets
vill not be taken anywhere on the road. Keep your
money and renounce your sin!"  The sale of indulgences went down all at once; the market stopped.
But the tyranny of fear was not broken: there was
only one mode less of escaping it. You could no
longer buy off the wrath of God. There lay the bottomless pit, and there was none to ticket men across.
Other men undertook to make a larger hole in that
same drum; to smite in both heads of it. They said,
" The soul is not immortal: death is the end of you! "
These men labored to destroy the Christian mythology,
just as the old scoffers and philosophers had sought to
make way with the Heathen mythology. Did that
denial satisfy the world? Quite far from it.
The Human Race is under great obligation to these
deniers. These "atheists" have done mankind great
service. Epicurus, Pyrrho, Lucretius, Bruno, Voltaire,
Paine, Hume, are among the benefactors of the race.
It is a great thing to destroy a superstition which rides
men as a nightmare. But some of them were among
the most miserable of all this earth's martyrs that I have
ever read of. There they sat, surrounded by jollity and
elegance, wine and scarlet women, the victims of circumstances which they could not control. Their fate
was far more pitiful than that of St. Sebastian or St.
Catharine. Who would not rather be shot through and
through with arrows, or broken for once on a wheel of




IMMORTAL LIFE.             231
iron and wood, than be shot at with doubts of imnmortality and broken constantly with dread of annihilation?
Believing men who build up a new religion are always
harshly treated, scourged in the market, beaten, let down
out of windows in the wall of the city, shipwrecked,
persecuted, leaving their heads in a charger, or their
bodies on a cross. They have our sympathy, and deserve it, -brave souls in hardy iron flesh. But the unbelieving men who broke down the old religions, and
saw no other light in the dusky ruin they made, - they
are sadder martyrs in the world's great story! IDrop a
tear then on the grave of Voltaire, on the tomb of Pomponatius, and on the fires which consumed Jordano
Bruno. You and I are made free by their sufferings;
by their sorrows are our joys made more certain. In a
better age Voltaire might have been as devout and religious as Gerson or Luther, and Bruno have been
burned not as a heretic, but as a Christian.
The work of theological destruction is not yet over;
far enough from it. The popular mythology must go
the same way with the old Greek and Roman mythology, and other martyrs are doubtless demanded for that.
No Emperor Julian, apostatizing from the progress of
mankind, can save what is false, or destroy the true.
The leading philosophers of Europe seem to have
small faith in immortality; some positively deny it; a
few mock at it. Many of the enlightened Germans,
whom oppression drives to America, deny the immortality of the soul, some openly scoff at the hope of eternal life; and say all belief therein is a misfortune, for it
clouds over men's happiness now with fear of future
torment, hinders their progress, and makes them believe
that Virtue and Justice are not good for their own sake,
but only as means to another end. There is a good




232              IMMORTAL LIFE.
deal of truth in their objections no doubt; but they all
apply only to a false idea of immortality and a wrong
use of it; not at all against the true doctrine itself. It
seems to me these philosophers wholly overlook the
deep desire of mankind for personal immortality; — the
natural belief which is so general that it is universal, except in those who have cultivated their intellect at the
expense of the conscience, the affections, or the soul; or
in whom, in early life, some prejudice has hindered the
natural instincts of mankind. They forget what a powerful motive to good it is, what a present enjoyment it
affords to the human race; and their denial, it seems to
me, is most unphilosophic. And yet they are doing the
same service now that Zeno and Lucretius and Lucian
did for Christianity.'They are the forerunners of some
better " dispensation " that is to come.
I know some men fear that these bold deniers of immortal life will destroy the belief of mankind therein. I
have no fear of that. Spite of the Catholic Church, for
sixteen hundred years preaching immortality as a curse,
and the Protestant Church for three hundred years proclaiming it as a mildew and blight, — men have still
entertained the belief; and if all the learned clergy of
the Protestant world, if all the Catholic clergy of the
dark ages, could not make any considerable number of
men doubt of immortality, I do not believe that a handful of philosophers speaking in the name of philosophy
or mockery, can ever put down that which has held
mankind so strongly for two or three thousand years.
Immortality has kept the field against Augustine and
Jerome, the Basils, the Gregories, and Bernard; has
held its own spite of Aquinas and Calvin and Edwards
and Hopkins and Emmons, and I think it can laugh at
Strauss and Comte and Feuerbach. Has it not in its




IMMORTAL LIFE.             233
time heard devils roar, and yet held its own against the
HIell of the Church?  Do you think, then, it has any
thing to fear from the Earth of the material philosophers?
We know little of the next life; nothing of the details thereof. In all the accounts of the future world
which are commonly thought by Christians and Mahometans to come from miraculous revelation, you see
how poor is the invention of mankind: the basis of the
future heaven is always human, earthly. The Mahometan heaven is only what the Mahometan wishes to
make earth, a paradise of the senses; all the passions,
littleness, and vulgarity of the Mussulman are carried
thither and repeated on a great scale. It was so in the
Greek heaven; in the heaven of the ancient Germans.
The Book of Revelation in our Bible is the work of
some bigoted Jew, apparently not at all improved by,
the Christianity of his time; and its heaven is only a
New Jerusalem, a most uncomfortable place for anybody but male and unmarried Jews. With the Puritans, Heaven was a New Plymouth or a New Boston,
where the " Elect" had the monopoly which they
wanted to get in the old Plymouth or old Boston, but
could not quite accomplish; where all the time was
Sunday, and the chief business was going to meeting;
the chief joy was psalm-singing and listening to Calvinistic explanations of the Scripture, now and then delighting their eyes with the sight of their former opponents writhing in the pains of damnation. It was the
Puritans' earthly life, idealized a little, and made eternal; they hoped to see their enemy tortured in hell
whom they could not whip at the tail of a cart on earth.
The ancient ghosts, who used to be seen, and the mod20*




234              IMMORTAL LIFE.
ern ghosts, who are now only heard, in their "News
from Heaven" only reveal things taken from our daily
life. The theological details of the future life are
chiefly imaginary, and drawn from our daily intercourse
with common things.
It seems to me, however, that we may for a certainty
know this, -that man is immortal; that I consider as
fixed as the proposition that one and one make two.
Then that God is infinitely perfect, a perfect Cause and
a perfect Providence; that I consider equally certain as
that one and one make two. Of course his infinite
care must extend over the whole existence of mankind;
must make the future life an infinite blessing for mankind on the whole, an infinite blessing for every human
soul. This follows from what has already been said
of the nature of God; for the infinite God must create
his work from perfect motives and for a perfect purpose,
form it of perfect material and provide it with perfect
means to attain the perfect end he has proposed. Accordingly, his scheme of things must be so contrived
as at last to achieve perfect welfareI for the whole of
mankind, and for each particular person.
The Form of the future life we know nothing ofwhether man shall have a body or no body; and if a
body, what shape of body; whether it shall resemble
the human shape or any other shape that we can imagine. Man can know nothing of that; no more than
the unborn babe can dream of the exploits which it
shall perform in after years, in science, art, and daily
life.
I am glad that we do not and cannot know this, I do
not wish to know; and if it were possible for me to
receive a "miraculous" knowledge of what should
take place the other side of the grave, I would say to




IMMORTAL LIFE.              235
the being who brought the tidings, " Stand back! I do
not wish to know."  Time is the best fortune-teller.
What God has put out of man's power to reach, it is
not man's need to have, and it is not his wisdom to
grasp after.
The notion of eternal misery, of punishment for the
sake of punishment, the doctrine that God exploiters
the human race and that men are " tortured for the glory
of God,9"-that notion deserves all the scorn, all the hate,
all the ribaldry, all the mockery which it ever met with
from Lucian and Lucretius, from Pomponatius and Voltaire, from Thomas Paine and Richter and Feuerbach:
their hammer is not at all too heavy for their hard
work.
But the idea of immortality as it belongs to the
Absolute Religion, consistent with the Infinite Perfection of God, the philosopher need not hate that; for the
belief therein is true to the spontaneous consciousness
of human nature, to the reflective consciousness of philosophy, and it is of the greatest value to man as a hope,
encouragement, and reward. Let me be sure of two
things, - first, of Thine Infinite Perfection, O Father
in Heaven! then of my own Immortality, - and I am
safe, I fear nothing; I am not a transient bubble on
the sea of Time, I shall outlast the " everlasting hills,"
I am immortal as the monads of matter, immortal as
its laws! I may rely on myself, respect myself, feel
within me the yearnings after immortality, and I know
there is an Infinite Heart which yearns infinitely for
me and will take me to itself and bless me at the last.
Then I can rely on something better than I see with
my eyes - on the Ideal Excellence which I think in my
heart. I can make a sacrifice for it; I can postpone
my Now for an immortal Then; I can labor for noble




236                 IMMORTAL LIFE.
things which it will take a thousand years to accomplish. Things about me may fail, the mountain may
fall and come to nought and the rock be removed out
of its place, be exhaled a vapor to the sky - I shall not
fail. I see
"The Soul is builded far from accident:
It suffers not in smiling pomps, nor falls
Under the brow of thralling discontent;
It fears not Policy, - that heretic
That works on leases of short-numbered hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic."
If to-morrow I am to perish utterly, then I shall only
take counsel for to-day, and ask for qualities which last
no longer. My fathers will be to me only as the ground
out of which my bread-corn is grown; dead, they are
like the rotten mould of earth, their memory of small
concern to me. Posterity, —I shall care nothing for
the future generations of mankind. I am one atom in
the trunk of a tree, and care nothing for the roots below, or the branch above. I shall sow such seed as will
bear harvest at once. I shall know no Higher Law:
Passion enacts my statutes to-day; to-morrow Ambition revises the statutes, and these are my sole legislators. Morality will vanish, Expediency take its place.
Heroism will be gone, and instead of it there will be
the brute valor of the he-wolf, the brute cunning of the
she-fox, the rapacity of the vulture, and the headlong
daring of the wild bull; -but the cool, calm courage
which, for truth's sake, and for love's sake, looks death
firmly in the face and then wheels into line ready
to be slain, that will be a thing no longer heard of.
Affection will be a momentary delight in other men.
The friendship which lays down its life for father,




IMMORTAL LIFE.             237
mother, wife, or child, for dear ones tenderly beloved,
which sucks the poison from their wounds, - the philanthropy which toils and provides for the friendless,
the loveless, the unlovely, and the wicked,- that will
only be a story of old time, to be laughed at as men
laugh at the tale of the Grecian boy who loved the
New Moon as his heavenly bride.
But if I know that I am to live forever, and when
yonder sun has seen the whole host of heaven circle
about the centre of the universe a million million times,
that I still live on, malting a greater progress in every
forty years than what I have grown to since first I left
my mother's arms; -if I know that Mankind will still
survive with ever-greatening faculties in some other life,
directed by the same Infinite Mind and Conscience, and
Heart and Soul that made us first, and guides us in our
heavenward march; if I know that each beggar in the
street, that every culprit in the jail, or out of it, or haling
men thither, has an immortal soul, and will go on
greatening and beautifying more and more, —then I
shall take the highest qualities which I know, or feel,
and work with them; and I shall feel that my personality is one of the permanent forces of the universe,
and shall toil with conscious dignity and loving awe.
I shall respect myself, and so respect each brother
man.
In a hostile country the enemy builds his house of
tent-poles and cloth, to last a single night; pillages the
neighborhood, hews down the tree to eat its half-ripe
fruit, careless of the toil which planted and the hope
that waits therefor; and to-morrow he marches away,
his city of a night reduced to tent-poles and canvas,
packed up in his cart: a bit of vari-colored bunting on
a stick, is the symbol of his nomadic havoc. But the




238               IMMORTAL LIFE.
resident farmer carefully gathers and providentially
plants the seed, and painstakingly rears up the tree,
prunes it, grafts it, waits his score of years, and then,
apple by apple, he gathers its fruit, the soft for present
use, the sound for future store; and his broad barn of
limestone, his house of brick, and his marble church, —
these are the symbols of the resident.  So, under the
stimulus of immortality, we shall cultivate those plants
of the soul which take deep root, which require years,
even ages, to grow, and slowly bear their fruit, a blessing for generations yet to come.
If I know that I am to live forever, in the heat of
sensual passion, I shall not set my heart on lust and
mere bodily delight; I know something more delightful. In the period of ambition, I shall not set my heart
on gold only, or the praise of men; I know what is
richer, I know a fame better than fame. I shall remnember that I am more than passion's slave, or the madman of ambition; I shall give both their due, - passion its own, and ambition what belongs thereto.
Riches and honor, - I shall give them both their
own. Then I shall go deeper down, and bring to
light the brighter diamonds which I quarry in the human mine.
Consciousness of immortality will not lead to contempt of this life, to weariness of it, to neglect of its
duties. Looking up, I shall wish to set my foot on
every round of the human ladder. In the dark places
of the earth the candle of the Infinite will shine on the
habitations of cruelty; and I shall see the way to stave
them to the ground, and in their place build up fairfaced dwellings for the sons of men.
To the mortal eye this is a sad world. What a his



IMMORTAL LIFE.              239
tory it is before me,- looking out of these four or five
thousand eyes! What daydreams of yours and mine
have broke into nothing! What toils unrequited, what
sorrows which the world did not know, - all laid away
in our consciousness, stratum over stratum, deposited
under tranquil or troubled seas!
Look at'the world;- at Boston, with all the sorrow
which festers in her heart; at happy America, with her
dreadful evils; at Europe, with her France, so high,
and then so low; with her Germany, full of contemplation,- and a chain on her neck; with Italy and
Spain ground under a tyrant's foot; look at Asia,
"' the cradle of the human race," the cradle turned over
and the child spilled out; — at Africa, the nursery of
the slaves of the world; — at the Islands of the Sea;and consider that man is only mortal, and what a spectacle it is! I should die outright at the thought of
that! But as I know that I shall live forever, and that
the Infinite God loves you and me, each man that walks
the ground, - I can look on these evils of the world,
on America, Europe, with her France, Germany, Italy,
Spain; —I can look on Asia, Africa, and the Islands
of the Sea; — and it is all only the hour before sunrise,
the light is coming; yes, I am also to light a little torch
to illuminate the darkness, while it lasts, and help until
the dayspring come.
How heavy are the griefs of personal mortal life!
Health decays into sickness, hope into disappointment;
death draws near to our little troop of pilgrims, and
when we pitch our tent he takes away some beloved
head, -a baby now, then an old man, then a father or
a mother, a husband or a wife, a relative or a friend, -
and at last we sit there, near the end of our pilgrimage, solitary, over our night fire, a few embers only left,




240              IMMORTAL LIFE.
and they burning low, while the enemy draws near
to quench them, then clutches us and we vanish also
into night.
"Alas for love, if this were all,
And nought beyond the earth!"
The Atheist sits down beside the coffin of his only
child - a rose-bud daughter whose heart death slowly
eat away; the pale lilies of the valley which droop with
fragrance above that lifeless heart, are flowers of mockery to him; their beauty is a cheat. They give not
back his child for whom the sepulchral monster opens
its remorseless jaws. The hopeless father looks down
on the face of his girl, silent, not sleeping, cold, dead.
The " effacing fingers " have put out the eye, yet marble beauty still lingers there, and love, a father's love,
continually haunts the disenchanted house. Atheism
cannot speed it away; affection has its law, which no
impiety of thought annuls.  He looks beyond, - the
poor sad man, -it is only solid darkness he stares upon.
No rainbow beautifies that cloud; there is thunder in
it, not light. Night is behind —without a star. His
dear one has vanished, her light put out by thunderous
death, not a sparklet left. There is no daughter for
him- but alas, he is a father still; yet no father to her.
For her whose life the blameless baby took, long years
gone by, there is no mortal husband, no immortal
mother. Child and mother are equal now; each is
nothing, both nothing. " I also shall soon vanish,"' exclaims the man, " blotted out by darkness, and become
nothing - my bubble broke, my life all gone, with its
bitter tears for the child and the mother who bore her,
its bridal and birthday joys, which glittered a moment
- how bright they were, then slipped away, - my sor



IMMORTAL LIFE.              241
rows all unrequited, my hopes a cruel cheat. Ah me!
the stars slowly gathering into one flock, are a sorry
sight — each a sphere tenanted perhaps by the same
bubbles, the same cheats, the same despair - for it is a
here with no Hereafter, a body with no Soul, a world
without a God! "
Hard by in the same village, the selfsame night, a
thoughtful man, born, baptized, and bred a theological
Christian, full of faith in the popular mythology of the
churches, accepting its grimmest ghastliness, sits down
by the bedside of his prodigal son, his only child, -
life's substance squandered on harlots, wasted in riotous living. Death knocks at the profligate's oft battered door: no syren shakes the wanton windows now.
The last hour of the impenitent has come. The father
looks on that face so like its mortal mother once, now
stained by riot, and scarred by lust, the mother's image
broke and crushed: so in the sack of a city, a statue
of Mary is whelmed over a church portal, and thrown
down, and the fragments of shattered loveliness are
crunched to dust beneath the lumbering cannon wheels
and vulgar drays, while from the street the artist eyes
the shards of beauty wrought from his dreams and
prayers. The father feels the breath of the vampyre of
the tomb as it slowly numbs the youthful limbs, -joint
by joint, finger by finger, hand by hand: he sees the
mist cloud over the inanimate and soulless eye. Life
slowly ripples out from that once manly heart. Telescopic memory sweeps the horizon of the father's consciousness. He remembers the cradle, — bought with
such triumph; the birth-night; the little garments previously made ready for the expected guest; the prayer
of gratitude for the given and the spared when first he
saw his first-born son; he recalls the day of his mar21




242              IMMORTAL LIFE.
riage, when he stood on the world's top and Heaven
gave him that angel - it seemed so then - to be loved,
a real angel now, long since gone home to Heaven, her
heart broken by the son's precocious waywardness.
The father watches the ebb of mortal life, it is the flood
of hell, bitter, remorseless, endless hell; his son sinks
into damnation -joint by joint, and limb by limb.
Now he has sunk all over! The mortal father turns to
religion for comfort. Theology tells him of the fire that
is never quenched, of the worm which dieth not, the torments of his child — the smoke ascending up forever
and ever, and bidding him be glad at the eternal anguish of his only son. His Bible becomes a torment;
- in the " many mansions " of its Heaven he knows
none for the impenitent prodigal whom Death drives
from husks and swine. He looks up after God; a grisly
King makes the earth tremble at his frown - angry
with the wicked every day, and keeping anger forever;
there is no Father. He turns to the "Man of Sorrows
and acquainted with grief," asking " will not Mary's
Son help me in peril for mine? for a sword pierces
through my own soul also." But the Crucified thunders "Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire
prepared for the devil and his angels;" and all the host
of theological " Christians " respond -" I-Ie shall go
into everlasting punishment! Amen! "  For him there
is no Christ - nor never shall be one. Religion is a
torment, immortality a Curse, and God a Devil! " Is
there no Mother for my son?" he cries. The finger
of Theology, hiding the morning star, points down to
Hell, and the voice of Night with cold breath whispers
"Forever."
At the grave the " Atheist" and the theological
" Christian" look each other in the face; one has laid




IMMORTAL LIFE.               243
away his daughter for annihilation- he is the father
of nothing; the other has buried his son in eternal torment, the father of a devil's victim, of a soul forever
damned! What comfort has the one from Nothing, the
other from  Hell?  Human Nature tells both, "it is a
lie. Atheism is here a lie; the popular theology is
there another lie."
Yes, it is a lie. Eternal morning follows the night;
a rainbow scarfs the shoulders of every cloud weeping
its rain away to become flowers on land and pearls at
sea; Life rises out of the grave, the Soul cannot be
held by festering flesh. Absolute Religion puts this
ghastly theology to everlasting rest; the Infinite Mother
will mercifully chasten, heal, and bless even the prodigal
whom death surprised impenitent; Love shall cast out
fear.
But conscious of the infinite perfection of God, with
the consciousness of immortality in my heart, all this
time I smile through my tears, as Death conveys in his
arms, one by one, the dear ones from my side. I see
them go up like fabled Elijah in his car of flame. I
see their track of light across the sky, and I am contented; I am glad; I also shall presently journey in
the same chariot of fire, and sit down again beside the
dear ones who have gone before;" Nightly I pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home." —
I smile on it all, and am a conqueror over Death.
My friends, I look at things as they are, at least strive
to do so, and if I had come to the conclusion that man




244                  IMMORTAL LIFE.
was mortal only, I should proclaim my conscientious
conclusion, strongly, and clearly, and right out. If I
thought in my heart that there was no God, why, then
I should proclaim that odious conviction. Nay, if I
believed in the God of the popular theology, the God
who retails agony and damns babies, paving his
spacious  hell with  "skulls of infants not a span
long," - that he made religion a torment, immortality
a curse, and was himself a devil, why I should tell that
too, - and would never hold back from mortal men
what I thought Truth, howsoever much it might tear
my own heart to get it, or my lip to proclaim it. But,
looking with what philosophy I have, with what nature
God has given me, I come to the other conclusion, and
wish only that I had poetic eloquence to set it forth till
it went into every man's heart, and drove fear out therefrom, and planted everlasting life therein.
I see not how any man can be content with blank
annihilation, to have no consciousness of immortality,
no consciousness of God. -Chance! Fate! Annihilation!
" Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim,
Lights of the world, and demi-gods of fame?
Is this your triumph - this your proud applause,
Children of Truth, and champions of her cause?
For this hath Science searched, on weary wing,
By shore and sea- each mute and living thing?
Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep,
To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep;
Or round the cope her living chariot driven,
And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven?
Oh! star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there
To waft us home the message of despair?Then bind the palm, thy sage's brow to suit
Of blasted leaf and death-distilling fruit! "




IMMORTAL LIFE.                     245
" What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain?
I smile on Death, if heavenward Hope remain!
But if the warring winds of Nature's strife
Be all the faithless charter of my life;
If Chance awaked, - inexorable power!This frail and feverish being of an hour;
Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep,
Swift as the tempest travels on the deep;
To know Delight but by her parting smile,
And toil, and wish, and weep, a little while; —
Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain
This troubled pulse and visionary brain!
Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom!
And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb!"
But with the consciousness of immortality, with a
certain knowledge of the Infinite Perfection of God,
the perfect Cause, the perfect Providence, I can do all
things: no doom is hopeless; disaster is the threshold
of delight.
"Nearer, my God, to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!"
21 *








SERMON VIII.
OF PROVIDENCE IN GENERAL.
(247)




GENESIS XXII. 8.
GOD WILL PROVIDE.
(248)




VIII.
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE.
IN a previous sermon I have already spoken of the
Infinite God as Cause, and as Providence. But the
constant Relation of God to the world which He
creates and animates, is a theme too important to be
left with the merely general treatment I have bestowed
upon it. Atheism and the Popular Theology are both
so unphilosophical in their Theory of the Universe; the
function ascribed to finite Chance, the Supreme of the
Atheist, in the one case, and to the Finite God, the
Supreme of the theologian, in the other, is so at
variance with the primitive spiritual instincts of human
nature, and so unsatisfactory to the enlightened consciousness of cultivated and religious men, that the
subject demands a distinct and detailed investigation
by itself. It will require three sermons:- the first
going over the matter very much at large and treating
of Providence in its universal forms, the others relating
to the application thereof to the various Phenomena of
Evil- to Pain and Sin. I shall not hesitate to repeat
the same thoughts and even the same forms of expression, previously made use of in these sermons. I do
this purposely, both to avoid the needless multiplication
(249)




250                PROVIDENCE.
of terms, and the better to connect this whole series of
discourses together.
The notion that God continually watches over the
world and all of its contents is one very dear to mankind. It appears in all forms of conscious religion.
The worshipper of a fetiche regards his bit of wood, or
amulet, as a special Providence working magically and
exceptionally for his good alone. Polytheism is only
the splitting up of the idea of God into a multitude of
special Providences -each one a sliver of deity. Thus
man has
"Parcelled out the glorious name."
The Catholic invokes his Patron Saint, who is only
a rude symbol and mind-mark of that Providence which
is always at hand. Pantheism puts a Providence in
every blade of grass, in each atom of matter. The
Epicureans of old time denied the Providence of God
and dreamed of lazy deities all heedless of the Universe. But their theory is eminently exceptional in the
theological world, yet performing a service and correcting the extravagance of men who run too far, in devout
exaggeration attributing all to God's act.
In virtue of the functions of Providence ascribed to
God, he is called by various names: Lord, or King,
means providential Master ruling the world and exploitering its inhabitants for his good, not theirs. That
is the favorite Old Testament notion and title of God:
he is King, men are subjects, or even slaves. Yet other
names therein appear, for the Old Testament is not
unitary. In the New Testament, from his providential
function God is often called Father, indicating the




PROVIDENCE.                251
affection which controls his power: he is not merely
King over subjects, and Lord over slaves, but a Father
who rules his children for their good, restrains that he
may develop, and seemingly hinders that he may really
help. Hence in the Old Testament, slaves are bid to
fear God; in the New Testament, children are told to
love him. However, the New Testament is not more
unitary in this respect than the Old, and the cruel God
appears often in the Gospels, the Epistles, and the
Apocalypse, not a Father but only a Lord and King,
exploitering a portion of the human race with merciless
rapacity.
A King is bound politically to provide for his subjects, inasmuch as he is king; political providence is the
royal function. A father is affectionally and paternally
bound to provide for his children, inasmuch as he is
father; affectional providence is the paternal function.
But as the father, or the king, is limited in his powers,
so the paternal or political function is limited; for duty
does not transcend the power to do. Their providence
is necessarily imperfect, not reaching to all persons in
the kingdom, or to all actions of their subject. A good
king and a good father, both, wish to do more for their
charge than their ability can reach. Their desirable is
limited by their possible.
The Infinite God is infinitely bound to provide for
his creatures, inasmuch as he is infinite God; Infinite
Providence is the divine function, his function as God.
A Duty involves reciprocal obligation; a Right is the
correlative of a Duty. There is a human Duty to obey,
reverence, and love God, with our finite nature; but
also, and just as much, is there a human Right to the
protection of God. So there is a divine Duty on God's




252                PROVIDENCE.
part, of Providence toward man, as well as a divine
Right of obedience from man. I mean to say, as it
belongs to the finite constitution of man to obey, reverence, and love God -the duty of the finite toward the
Infinite; so it belongs to the Infinite constitution of
God to provide for man- the duty of the Infinite toward the finite. Obedience belongs to man's nature,
Providence to God's nature. We have an unalienable
lien upon his Infinite Perfection.
I know men often talk as if God were not amenable
to his own Justice, and could with equal right care for
his creatures or neglect them; that his Almighty power
makes him capable of immeasurable caprice and liberates him from all relation to Eternal Right. Hence
it is often taught that God may consistently make a
vessel of honor or of dishonor out of this human clay,
as the potter does; or may consistently jest with his
material, waste it, throw it away, destroy it, as the
potter's apprentice does for sport in some moment of
caprice; or may break the finished vessels as the potter
himself does when drunk, or angry. In virtue of this
general notion, it is popularly taught in all Christendom
that God will thus waste some of his human clay, casting human souls into endless misery; and in the
greater part of Christendom it is taught that he will
destroy the majority of mankind in this way; that he
has a natural Right to do. so, and man has no Right to
any thing but the caprice of God.
This doctrine is odious to me; and I see not how
men can entertain such an idea of God, and still call
him good. This doctrine is equally detestable whether
you consider it in relation to the condition of men consequent thereon, or to the character of God which
causes that condition. This false idea tends to unsettle




PROVIDENCE.               253
men's moral convictions. The consequence appears in
various forms. The State teaches in practice that national Might is national right; that so far as the state is
concerned there is no right and no wrong; whatever it
may will is justice, the nation not amenable to moral
law. The Church theoretically teaches that Infinite
Might is infinite right; that God repudiates his own
Justice; that so far as God is concerned there is no
right, no svrong; with him caprice stands for reason.
The atheist agrees with the theologians in this, only he,
rejects the ecclesiastical phraseology, knowing no God.
I will not speak of Mercy, commonly conceived of as
the limitation of Right, strong manly Justice obstructed
by womanly sentiment and wsek-....-.  But speaking
of bare Justice I say, that from the idea of God as Infinite it follows that he has no right to call into being a
single soul and make that soul miserable for its whole
life; or to inflict upon it any absolute and unrecompensed evil; no right to call into life a single worm and
make that worm's life a curse to itself. It is irreverent
and impious to teach that he could do this. It is a
plain contradiction to the idea of God. It is as impossible for him to create any thing from an imperfect motive, for an imperfect purpose, of imperfect material, or
as imperfect means, as it would be for him to make
Right, wrong, the same thing to be and not to be, or
one and one, not two, but two thousand. I as finite
man am amenable to the laws of my finite, human nature; he as Infinite God to the laws of his infinite, divine nature. To say that God has a right, or a desire,
to repudiate his Infinite Justice, that he will do it, or
that as God he can, is as absurd as to say that he will
and can make one and one two thousand and not two.
And to me it seems as impious as to say there is no
22




254                PROVIDENCE.
God. Indeed it is a denial of God, not merely a negation of his phenomenal existence, but of the very Substance of his Being.
Now from the Infinite Perfection of God it follows
that his Providence is Infinite, that is, completely perfect
and perfectly complete; that as Cause and Providence
he works continually to bless his creatures, and only to
bless them.
This must be so: for the opposite could only come
from a defect of Wisdom -he did not know how to
bring about their welfare; from a defect of Justice —
he did not will their welfare; from a defect of Love —
he did not desire it; from a defect of Power -he could
not bring it to pass; or a defect of Holiness -he would
not use the power, love, justice, and wisdom for his
creatures' sake. This might be said of conceptions of
God as finite, -of Baal, Melkarth, Jupiter, Odin, Jehovah; never of the Infinite God; he, inasmuch as he
is God, must exercise an infinite Providence over each
and all his works. The universe, that is, the sum total
of created matter and created mind, must be perfectly
fitted to achieve the purpose which God designs; that
must be a benevolent purpose, involving the greatest
possible bliss for each and all, for the Infinite God could
desire no other end.
From this it follows that the material part of the
universe, and its spiritual part also, must be perfectly
adapted to this end. A perfect whole, material or spiritual, consists of perfect parts, each answering its several
purpose, and so the whole fulfilling the purpose of the
whole. No part must be lost; no part absolutely sacrificed to the good of another, or of all others, and to its
own harm and ruin.
All this follows unavoidably from the idea of God as




PROVIDENCE.               255
infinitely perfect. Starting from this point all is plain.
But concrete things often seem imperfect because they
do not completely serve our transient purpose, while
we know not the eternal purposes of God. We look
at the immediate and transient result, not at the ultimate and permanent. Thus the mariner cannot come
to port by reason of the storm and rocks which obstruct
his course; he thinks the weather imperfect, the world
not well made, and you often hear men say, " How
beautiful the world would be if there were no storms,
no hurricanes, no thunder and lightning." While if we
could overlook the cosmic forces which make up the
material world, we should see that every actual storm
and every rock was needful; and the world would not
be perfect and accomplish its function had not each
been put there in its proper time and place.
An oak-tree in the woods appears quite imperfect.
The leaves are coiled up and spoiled by the leaf-roller;
cut to pieces by the tailor-beetle; devoured by the hagmoth and the polyphemus, the slug caterpillar and her
numerous kindred; the twigs are sucked by the whitelined tree-hopper, or cut off by the oak-pruner; large
limbs are broken down by the seventeen-year-locust;
the horn-bug, the curculio, and the timber-beetle eat up
its wood; the gad-fly punctures leaf and bark, converting the forces of the tree to that insect's use; the grub
lives in the young acorn; fly-catchers are on its leaves;
a spider weaves its web from twig to twig; caterpillars
of various denominations gnaw its tender shoots; the
creeper and the woodpecker bore through the bark;
squirrels - striped, flying, red, and gray - have gnawed
into its limbs and made their nests; the toad has a hole
in a flaw of its base; the fox has cut asunder its fibrous
roots in digging his burrow; the bear dwells in its




256               PROVIDENCE.
trunk which worms, emmets, bees, and countless insects
have helped to hollow; ice and the winds of winter
have broken off full many a bough. How imperfect
and incomplete the oak-tree looks, so broken, crooked,
cragged, gnarled, and grim! The carpenter cannot get
a beam, the millwright a shaft, or the ship-builder a
solid knee for his purpose; even the common woodman spares that tree as not worth felling; it only cumbers the ground. But it has served its complicated
purpose; given board and lodging to all these creatures,
from the ephemeral fly, joying in his transient summer,
to the brawny bear for many a winter hibernating in
its trunk. It has been a great woodland caravansary,
even a tavern and chateau, to all that heterogeneous
swarm; and though no man but a painter thinks it a
perfect tree,- and he only because the picturesque
thing serves his special purpose,- no doubt the good
God is quite contented with his oak, and says, " Well
done, good and faithful servant." He designed it to
serve these manifold uses, and also to furnish beauty
for the painter's picture and meaning for the preacher's
speech. Doubtless it enters into the joy of its Lord,
having completely served his purpose; he wanted a
caravansary and chateau for these uncounted citizens.
To judge of it we must look at all these ends, and also
at the condition of the soil that had a superabundance
of the matter whereof oak-trees are made.
We commonly look on the world as the carpenter
and millwright on that crooked oak, and because it
does not serve our turn completely we think it an imperfect world. Thus men grumble at the rocky shores
of New England, its sterile soil, its winters long and
hard, its cold and biting spring, its summers brief and
burning, and seem to think the world is badly put to



PROVIDENCE.              257
gether. They complain of wild beasts in the forests,
of monsters in the sea, of toads and snakes, vipers and
many a loathsome thing —hideous to our imperfect
eye. How little do we know! a world without an
alligator, or a rattlesnake, a hymna, or a shark, would
doubtless be a very imperfect world. The good God
has something for each of these to do; a place for them
all at his table, and a pillow for every one of them in
Nature's bed.
Though Theologians talk of the infinite goodness of
God and the perfection of his Providence, they have yet
a certain belief in a Devil; even if it is not always a
personal devil, at any rate it is a Principle of Absolute
Evil, which they fear will, somehow, outwit and override God, getting possession of the world; will throw
sand into the delicate watch-work of the Universe and
completely thwart the Providence of the Eternal.
This comes from that dark notion of God which
haunts the theology of Christendom; yea, of the Hebrew,
the Mahometan, and Hindoo world. It is painful to
see how this notion prevails amongst intelligent and
religious men. They tell you of the greater activity of
the Evil Principle; they see it in the insects which infect the grain and fruit-trees of New England, forgetting that God takes care of these insects as well as of
man. When we study deeper, we see that there is no
evil principle, but a good principle, so often misunderstood by men. If we start with the idea of the infinite
God we know the purpose is good before we comprehend the means thereto.
There are two ways in which men assert the doctrine
22 *




258                PROVIDENCE.
of God's Providence, two philosophical and antagonistic doctrines thereof.
I. One makes God the only Will in creation; animals are mere machines, wholly subordinate to their
organization; man is also a mere machine, wholly subordinate to his organization. Thus all the action in the
world, material and spiritual, is the action of God.
The universe consists of two parts, one real, the other
phenomenal. First, there is God the Actor; next, a
parcel of Tools or Puppets, wholly passive, having no
will or life of their own; and with these God works, or
plays. On this supposition his Providence has a clean
sweep of the universe; every sentiment, good or bad;
every thought, true or false; every deed, blessing or
baneful, is his work. The sun is an unconscious instrument of God; I am a conscious instrument, but still a
bare tool in God's hand, not a free agent.
This comprehensive scheme, reducing life to mechanism, appears in many forms. It belongs to the gross
philosophy of the materialist; it is the cardinal doctrine
of the pantheist, material or spiritual, the most offensive
and dangerous of his doctrines. It is the great idea
with the fatalists of all Classes. But it appears in the
theological sects also, as well as in philosophic parties;
for man cannot escape from his first principle, neither in
philosophy nor in theology. It lies at the basis of the
Catholic and Protestant theology. Calvin and d'Holbach agree in this. The contradiction it leads to is
plain in the preaching and writings of almost every Calvinistic or Catholic Theologian who tries to reconcile
his theology with the common facts of consciousness.
Now he says you must do for yourself and then God




PROVIDENCE.                   259
will help you; but adds you can do nothing till God
begins it for you. The popular hymn contains the
same contradiction,
" Bound on a voyage of awful length,
Through dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.
" But oars alone will not prevail
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the work is lost."
But in Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Emmons and their fol.
lowers and predecessors, as well Protestant as Catholic,
this doctrine is logically carried out to its natural resuits: in defiance of consciousness; they boldly and
simply declare that God is the direct author of every
thought and feeling, will and deed. It is curious to see
how men reach the same result, starting from opposite
points; curious to see how Antinomianism - Catholic
or Protestant - arrives at the most objectionable characteristic of Pantheism, which it yet so abhors.
On this hypothesis the function of Providence appears quite simple: all action is God's action.  The
phenomenal actor may be human, but the only real
agent is God. For example: Cain kills Abel with a
club, the spite of his heart flashing from his angry eye.
That is the phenomenon.  But the fact is, God killed
Abel with Cain's arm; Cain and the club were equally
passive instruments in the hand of God.  Here the intervention of Cain, with his malicious feeling and flashing eye, is only a part of the stage machinery, for theatrical effect, but the contriver and worker of it all is God.




260               PROVIDENCE.
His ways are simple: matter and man have really
nought to do. This doctrine shocks common sense
and is at war with the consciousness of every man. It is
eminently at war with religious feeling; for on this supposition actual suffering and sin are of no human value;
they lead to nothing; it is in vain for the grass to grow,
the human hay is cut and dried by foreordination.
II. The other doctrine of Providence makes man s
will free, absolutely free, not at all conditioned by circumstances, bodily organization, and the like. The philosophical question of freedom and necessity I do not
design to enter upon. It is one of the most difficult
questions in metaphysics, and I certainly am not able
to solve the riddle. There are difficulties in either hypothesis, and I have not psychological science enough
to explain them in the court of intellect. Philosophy
is intellect working in the mode of art; Common Sense
is intellect working after its natural instinct, not in the
technical mode of art. Philosophy demonstrates; common sense convinces without demonstration. In default of philosophy, we must follow common sense; that
does not settle the matter scientifically and ultimately,
but practically and provisionally, subject to revision in
another court. But common sense decides in favor of
Freedom. Every man acts on that supposition; and
supposes that other men are likewise free. Courts of law
proceed on this hypothesis; public opinion distributes
praise or blame; my own conscience commends, or else
cries out against me. I am conscious of freedom.
But a little experience shows that this freedom has
its limitations and is not absolute. It is conditioned
on every side, — by my outward circumstances, the




PROVIDENCE.               261
events of my history, the accidents of education, the
character of my parents and daily associates; by the
constitution of my body - its varying health, hunger
and thirst, youth, manhood, and old age. In comparison with a shad-fish, or a blackbird, Socrates has a good
deal of freedom, and is not so much subordinate to his
organization, or his circumstances, as they; but in
comparison with the infinite freedom of God his volitiveness is little. To speak figuratively, it seems as if
man was tied by two tethers - the one of historic circumstance, the other of his physical organization —
fastened at opposite points, but the cord is elastic and
may be lengthened by use, or shortened by abuse and
neglect; and within the variable limit of his tether man
has freedom, but cannot go beyond it. Still further, to
carry out the figure, one man gets entangled in his confining line and does not use half the freedom he might
have; another continually extends it and becomes more
free.
It is plain that however these circumstances may or
may not limit our ideas, or will, they must determine
the form of our conceptions and our power to execute
them in works.
On the hypothesis that man is absolutely, or partially free, the function of Providence is much more complicated. There are primary and secondary powers;
there are other agents beside God, using the power
derived from him to work with after their own caprice: so God acts in part by means of the freewill
of men. This theory seems to me conformable to
common sense and common consciousness, and is perhaps the most philosophic of any that has yet been
arrived at.




262               PROVIDENCE.
So much for these two theories of Providence.
There are two modes in which God's providence is
commonly supposed to act, namely, the General and
the Special.
God's general providence, it is said, takes in the
greater part of cases in the material and spiritual world,
and provides for them. In this way he is thought to
accomplish his function by general laws, which are a
constant mode of operation, representing the continual
and inferior activity of God; but this does not extend
to all cases. God's special providence attends to particular cases, not otherwise provided for, and disposes
of them. One is a court of common or statute law, the
other a court of equity. In special providence God is
supposed not to act by general laws, but without them,
or against them. All normal action in Nature comes
from general providence; all Miracles from special
providence. Thus a freshet in the Connecticut, and
the annual rising of the Nile, belong under the general
providence of God and come by the action of steadfast
laws; but the miraculous Flood in the time of Noah
came of God's special providence, having no cause in
Nature, only in the caprice of God. This form of special providence in Nature is known only to the theologian, not to the man of science.
To take examples from human affairs, it is maintained that God's general providence waited on the
whole human race, but the Hebrews were under his
special providence, and he went so far in their case as
to make a contract with Abraham, which St. Paul
thought God was under an obligation to keep, and
could not invalidate.




PROVIDENCE.                263
All men in general are under the general providence,
but Christians enjoy the special providence of God, or
as Dr. Watts has it,' The whole creation is thy charge,
But Saints are thy peculiar care."
It is said that the forms of religion in China, India,
Egypt, Greece, and Mexico, came by the general providence of God, growing out of the nature of man, or
coming at the instigation of the devil, having their root
in the human or the infernal nature; while the Hebrew
and the Christian forms of religion came by his special
providence, started in God, and were miraculously
tranrsplanted to human soil.
Certain Christians are thought still more eminently
under God's special providence. They are the " elect,"
and the world was made for them. The Mahometan
thinks the same of his form of religion and of the elect
Mussulmans. Christian theologians say that saints,
the elect, share the " covenanted mercies " of God and
are favorites, enjoying his special providence, while the
rest of men are left to his "' uncovenanted mercies," and
have need to tremble. The governor of Massachusetts
a few years ago, in his proclamation for a day of fasting, invited men to pray God to bless the whole United
States in general, but to have " a special care of the
good State of Massachusetts."  The Hebrews, thinking
God cared nothing for the Gentiles, praised him saying,
"Thou didst march through the land in indignation.
Thou didst thrash the heathen in anger; thou wentest
forth for the salvation of thy people;" "Thou didst
drive out the heathen with thine hand."
So Christians think God has his favorites amongst
men, and, like a partial father, takes better care of some




264                PROVIDENCE.
of his children than of the rest: you and I share his
common concern and are under his general laws; Jesus
of Nazareth had his special care and was under special
laws. It would be thought a great impiety to suppose
that God felt as much concern for Judas as for Jesus,
and would no more suffer the son of Simon to be ultimately lost, than the son of Mary. Yet if you think
twice you will see that the impiety is on the other side;
for if God does not care as much for Iscariot as for
Christ, as much desiring and insuring the ultimate
triumph of the one as the other, then he is not the Infinite Father whose ways are equal to all his children,
but partial, unjust, cruel, wicked, and oppressive. You
do not think so well of the British government because
it neglects its feeblest subjects, the laboring millions,
making England the paradise of the rich and strong,
the purgatory of the wise and good, and the hell of the
poor and weak. You condemn the government of the
United States because it has its favorites, and oppresses
and enslaves the feeblest of its citizens to increase the
riches of indolent and cruel men. You would not
employ a schoolmaster who turned off the dull boys and
beat the bad ones, disposed to truancy and mischief,
driving them out into the streets to swelter in crime,
to fester in jail, or rot on the gallows. What indignation would suffice towards a mother who neglects a
backward boy, takes no pains with the girl that is a
cripple, or with a son who has an organic and hereditary
tendency to dissipation and licentiousness? I do not
like to say a man is impious without proof that he
means it; but to attribute so base a character and such
unjust conduct to God as you would not respect in a
government, allow in a schoolmaster, or endure in a
mother, is thoughtless, to say the least of it. But that




PROVIDENCE.               265
is the common idea of God in the Christian churches,
and the common idea of his providence.
The modern notion of a special providence, wherein
God acts without law or against law, is the most spiritual and attenuated form of the doctrine of miracles, the
last glimmering of the candle before it goes out. Men
who give up the miraculous birth of Jesus still claim
that he was under the special providence of God. As
the State has general laws which apply well enough to
the majority of cases, but has special legislation for
the exceptional cases which were not provided for by
the general statutes; and as it has a jury whose function is to determine if the law shall punish this or the
other man who has violated it, so the popular theology
teaches that God's providence has its general legislation, which applies well enough to the majority of cases,
and its special legislation, which applies only to the exceptional cases, with its particular mercy, which like the
jury refuses to execute the law when it seems too hard.
For it is tacitly taken for granted by the popular theology that God did not foresee and provide for all the
wants of the Universe, material or spiritual, but is sometimes taken by surprise, things not turning out as he
designed or expected, and so he must interfere by special
miracles, mend his work, set up makeshifts and provisional expedients. Thus it is represented that the
loneliness of Adam in Paradise, his seduction and fall,
the subsequent wickedness of his descendants, the transgressions of the Hebrews, and the general sinfulness of
mankind at a later day, were all a surprise to the Creator, things not turning out according to his thought.
New expedients must accordingly be devised to meet
the unexpected emergency.
In like manner it is taught that Jesus of Nazareth
23




266               PROVIDENCE.
was under the special providence of God; that all history prepared for him and pointed to him; that he had
a special mission; while you and I are only under the
general providence, history has not prepared for us, does
not point to us, and we have no special mission; —in
short, that Jesus is a providential man, with a providential function and history, while you and I are not
providential men and have no providential history or
function.
This common theological notion of the limited general providence and limited special providence of God
belongs to the very substance of the popular theology,
and springs from its idea of God as finite in power, in
wisdom, in justice, and in love. Some ancient and some
modern philosophers, seeing the change and progress in
manifestation, believe there is a corresponding change
in the manifestor, and declare that God is not a Being
but a Becoming. The popular theology has the same
vice,- though the theologians are not conscious thereof,
and denounce it, believing that God grows wiser by
experiment, and must alter his plans. Yet in contradiction of their own statements, they declare him
without variableness and shadow of turning; while according to the popular theology the history of God is
a history of revolutions, even in his dealing with his
chosen people, the revelation through the Messiah being
flat opposite to the revelation through Moses which it
annuls. Pantheism and the popular theology, hostile
as they are, agree in this strange conclusion - the
negation of the Infinite, and the affirmation of a variable God. The pantheist consciously denies the one
and affirms the other, in laying down his premises; the
theologian does it unconsciously, in developing his conclusiolL




PROVIDENCE.                267
From the Nature of God as Infinite, from the relation he sustains to the creation, as perfect and perpetual Cause thereof, it follows that his Providence must
be not barely special —eminently providing for certain
things, - or general - taking care of the great mass but
letting exceptional particulars slip through his fingers;
- it must be universal. It must extend to each thing
he has created, to all parts of its existence and to every
action thereof. If it be not so, then either some parts
of creation are entirely derelict of God, destitute of his
Providence, without his care, neglected by him and outlaws from God, put to the ban of the Universe; or else
destitute of his Providence during some portions of their
existence, or in some acts of their lives. Either case is
at variance with the Infinite nature and function of God.
For when the Infinite God created the universe, it must
have been from a perfect motive, of a perfect material,
for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereto;
and he must therefore have understood it all completely
- in each of its parts, and perfectly - in all the details
of each part; and, knowing all the powers, he foreknows all the actions, necessitated or contingent, and
provides for each. This must be true of the Universe
as a whole; and of each part thereof. All its actions
must be thus provided for. The laws of the Universe,
the constant modes of operation of the material or
human forces, must be founded on this complete and
perfect knowledge, and coextensive therewith, and be
exponents of that motive and servants of that purpose.
This is what is meant, when it is said the laws of
matter and of mind, belong to the nature and constitution of matter and of mind. These laws are formed
after a complete knowledge of all the properties, functions, and consequences of matter and mind. Before




268               PROVIDENCE.
there were two particles of matter in existence, the Infinite God must have understood the law of attraction,
in its larger form as gravitation, its smaller as cohesion,
and have known that thereby the tower of Siloam would
one day fall and slay eighteen men; that many a beetling crag would tumble to the ground, and Alpine landslips bring thousands of men to premature destruction.
But all those laws, thus made, must coincide with the
motive of God and be means for his purpose; they
must suit the welfare of the whole creation and of each
part thereof. This must be true of the material world
which is unconscious and not free; of the animal world
which is not free yet partially conscious; of the human
world which is conscious and partially free; and of all
superhuman worlds with higher degrees of consciousness and freedom.
To this universal extent must all things be under the
Providence of God; to this extent his constant modes
of operation must needs reach out.
Then if you look at the relation of God to any one
thing, say the grub of a Buprestian beetle boring into
the bough of the oak I just now spoke of, it seems as if
God made the bough of the tree expressly for that little
incipient insect; and the oak for the bough; and the
soil for the oak: the globe, with all its ups and downs,
which Geology relates, seems made for the soil; and
the Universe for the globe. So it appears that that
little larva of a beetle is the end, or final cause, of the
universe, stands on the top of the world, and has all
creation to wait on him, with the God thereof as providential overseer. Then regarding this grub as the one
thing the Universe was designed to serve, theologians
might say, "Behold God's providence is special; He




PROVIDENCE.                269
has special legislation to suit this Buprestian grub, and
has aimed the whole world at this mark. See how all
things prepare for that; the sun and moon are only its
forerunners, and in the fulness of time behold a grub!"
But when the theologian studies the condition of the
next grub in an oak-apple, or a gall-nut, or in the nearest bough, he finds them all as well conditioned, and
sees that God takes care of the Lymexylon, the Hylecaetus, and the Brenthus as well as of the Buprestian;
that each of them stands just as much on the top of the
world, with the universe to wait thereon and God as
overseer. You may study all the inhabitants of the
oak-tree - the toad, the squirrel, the fox, the bear, it is
true of them all. Yes, it is true of every special thing
in the world, when you fully understand that special
thing in all its existence, in each act of its life. We
cannot by experiment and observation prove this so
clearly in every instance as in some special case, but
starting with the Idea of God as infinite, the conclusion
follows at once, - that his Providence in reference to
each particular thing is a perfect Providence.
Then if you look at the relation of God to the Universe, you see that, as far as you understand it, the
whole is as well taken care of and provided for as the
most contented grub who lives on the bounty of the
oak; and you say, "Here is general providence, God
acting by general laws for general purposes; things
work well on the whole, and'if now a bubble bursts,
and now a world,' it is only a small exception. The
attraction of gravitation is a good thing, it keeps the
world together; and if the tower of Siloam, thereby
falling to the ground, slays eighteen men of Jerusalem,
23*




270               PROVIDENCE.
that number is too small to think of, considering the
myriad millions who are upheld by this same law."
A law that is perfectly special, providing for each,
is also completely general, providing for all. In other
words, it is universal. God's Providence must be infinite, like his nature. Special and general are only
forms in which we conceive of that providence; — in its
relation to a single thing men name it special, to many
things, general, while it extends to all and is universal.
Accordingly it neither requires nor admits of miraculous
makeshifts and provisional expedients, which theologians think indispensable to their finite God.
When God created mankind he must have given
thereto the powers which are requisite to accomplish all
his purpose. This must be true of mankind as a whole,
and of Amos and Habakkuk, of each man, as a part
thereof; of each man considered individually as an
integer, and considered socially, or humanly as a fraction of the community, or race, and so a factor in the
social, or general human result of the life of mankind.
Of course God must foreknow what use or abuse
would be made of these powers, given in their present
proportion, just as well as he knows it now, after all the
experience of centuries. Knowing human nature, he
must foreknow human history. For example, God
must have foreknown that young children would stumble bodily in getting command of their limbs, in learning to walk, and suffer pain in consequence thereof;
that older children would stumble spiritually in getting
command of their spirits, in learning to think and to
will, and suffer in consequence of that; that mankind




PROVIDENCE.              271
as a whole would stumble in getting command of the
material world, and the development of their human
powers; and accordingly there would be suffering from
that cause.
Now God, inasmuch as he is God, acts providentially in Nature not by miraculous and spasmodic fits
and starts, but by regular and universal laws, by constant modes of operation; and so takes care of material
things without violating their constitution, acting always according to the nature of the things which he
has made. It is a fact of observation that in the material and unconscious world he works by its materiality
and unconsciousness, not against them; in the animal
world by its animality and partial consciousness, not
against them. Judging from the nature of God and
of man, it must be concluded that in the providential
government of the human world, he acts also by regular
and universal laws, by constant modes of operation;
and so takes care of human things without violating
their constitution, acting always according to the human nature of man, not against it, working in the human world by means of man's consciousness and partial freedom, not against them.
Here in the human world God's providence must
be as complete and as perfect as there in the material
or animal world, in each department acting by the natural laws thereof, not without or against them. As by
the very constitution of material or animal things God's
providence acts by the natural laws thereof — statical,
dynamical, and vital laws - so from the very constitution of man it appears that his perfect Providence must
work according to the spiritual laws thereof; for it is
not conceivable either that God should devise laws not
adequate for his purpose, or capriciously depart from




272                PROVIDENCE.
them if made adequate. Call this Providence special
as it applies to Hophni and Phineas, or general as it
applies to all the children of Jacob, it is plain that it
must be universal, applying to all material, animal, and
human things.
If these things are so, if God be Infinite, then the
Hebrew nation is under his universal Providence; but
the Amalekites whom the Hebrews overthrew, and the
Romans who captured the conquerors, and the Goths
who vanquished the Romans, are all and equally under
the universal Providence of God who cares equally for
t: em all. Not only are the nations under his Providence
in their great acts, but in their little every-day transactions. Theologians love to think that God was present
with the Hebrews in their march out of Egypt, at
Mount Sinai; that their exodus and legislation were
providential. It is all true; but the same Providence
watched equally over the English Pilgrims in their exodus; over the British Parliament making laws at Westminster, the American Congress at Philadelphia and
Washington. It is well to see this fact in Hebrew history; well also to go further forward and see it in all
human history, and to know that human nature is
divine Providence.
The common theological notion of a special Providence, with its special favorites, is full of mischief.
Some intensely national writer in the HIebrew Old Testament tells us that Noah cursed the descendants of
Hamr for their father's folly; theologians inform us that
in consequence thereof his descendants are cast-off, outlaws from God. But there are no outlaws from the
Infinite Father: to say he casts off any child of his,




PROVIDENCE.              273
Hebrew or Canaanite, is as absurd as to say he alters
the axioms of mathematics, or the truths of the multiplication table. It is inconsistent with the nature and
constitution of the Infinite God; it is as impossible as
that one and one should be two thousand, and not
two. The African nations, whom the Caucasians enslave, must be as dear to God as the pale tyrants who
exploiter them, just as much under his infinite Providence, which will not suffer any ultimate and unrecompensed evil to befall the black or white.
All individuals then must be equally under the same
providential care of the Infinite God; not merely great
men, the Charlemagnes, the Cromwells, the Napoleons,
"' men of destiny " as they are called, but the little men;
not merely the good men, the heroes of religion, the
Mosesess and the Jesuses, but the ordinary men, and
wicked men, not barely in their great moments, when
they feel conscious of God, but in their daily work and
humble consciousness. Then it is plain that not only
Moses and Jesus are providential men intrusted with a
special mission, but you and I and each man are just
as much providential men, equally intrusted with a
mission, not the less special because it is humble and
and our powers are weak. The unnatural Spartan
father rejects and disdains his idiot girl, leaving her to
perish on Mount Taygetus; the theologian casts off his
son, grown up wicked and a public criminal, leaving
him to perish unpitied in his jail. But the loving-kindness of the Infinite Father watches over the fool; the
tender mercy of the Infinite Mother takes up the criminal when mortal parents let him fall. There is no child
of perdition before the Infinite God.
Now God, as the infinitely perfect, must accomplish




274                PROVIDENCE.
his providential function by the laws which belong to
the nature and constitution of things; that is, by the
normal and constant mode of operation of the natural
powers resident in those things themselves; in material
and animal nature by the forces and laws thereof; in
human nature by its forces and its laws. For as Providence is the divine execution in time of the eternal
divine purpose, it is absurd to say that God supersedes
or annuls the means which he primarily designed for
that purpose. The classic deist supposed the material
world was the work of one God; and the arrangement
of human affairs the work of another. Between the
two there was a collision and a quarrel, the world-governor must interfere with the work of the world-maker;
Causality and Providence were antagonistic. But
with the idea of the Infinite God this antithetic dualism vanishes at once away.
The creative Causality of the Infinite God is likewise conservative and administrative Providence.
So from the nature of the infinitely perfect God and
the consequent perfection of his motive, material, purpose, and means thereto, it follows that he will not destroy as infinite Providence what he created as infinite
Cause; that He will not violate the laws and break the
constitution which he himself has made. Accordingly,
in the midst of God's Providence working from a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, and by means of the
constitution and nature of man, a Providence extending
to all men and to their every act, it is plain that Human Freedom is safe, and the Ultimate Welfare of each
man is made sure of, as certain as the existence of God,
or of man.
Atheism tells you of a world without a God, a great
going, but a going with none to direct: the popular




PROVIDENCE.               275
Theology declares that this going is directed by a finite
and changeable God, jealous, revengeful, loving Jacob
and hating Esau, working by fits and starts, even in
wrath destroying what he made imperfect, beginning
anew and designing to torment the great mass of mankind in everlasting woe -"miserable to have eternal
being."
But with the absolute Religion, a knowledge of God
as Infinite how different do all things appear! We
have confidence, absolute trust in the motive and Purpose of God, absolute trust also in the Means which he
has provided in the nature and constitution of things.
The human faculties become then the instruments of
Providence. Every man is under the protection of
God - and all fear of the final result for you, or me, or
for mankind, quite vanishes away. The details we
know not; experience reveals them a day-full at a time;
the result we are sure of.
Timid men who think that God is miserly and the
great Hunker of the Universe, sometimes fear the material world will not hold out; some little " perturbations " are discovered, now the Earth approaches the
Sun for many years, perhaps never twice has described
exactly the same track; so they fear the earth will fall
into the fire and the world be burned up. But by and
by we find that these "perturbations" only disturbed
the astronomer, doubtful of God; that to the Cause
and Providence of the world they were eternally known,
fore-cared for; that they are normal acts of faithful
matter, and so all undisturbed the world rolls on. Constant is balanced by constant. Variable holds variable
in check. In her cyclic rotation round the earth the
Moon nods; the Earth oscillates in her rythmic round,
while the Sun nods also, as the centre of gravity of the




276                PROVIDENCE.
solar system shifts now a little this way, then a little
that; nay the whole Solar System, it is likely, swings
a little from side to side: but all this has been foreseen,
provided for, balanced by forces which never sleep, and
one thing set over against another in such a sort that all
work together for good, and the great Chariot of Matter sweeps on through starry space keeping its Godappointed track. Such is the Providence of God in the
Universe, not an atom of star-dust is lost out of the sky,
not an atom,of flower-dust is lost from off this dirty
globe; such are the laws by which God works his functions out in Nature. Ignorance is full of dread and
starts at terrors in the dark, trembles at the earthquake
and the storm. But science justifies the ways of God
to matter, knowing all and loving all, discloses everywhere the immanent and ever active force. Where
Science does not understand the mode of action, nor
read the details of perfection clearly in the Work - it
points to Infinite Perfection in the Author, and we
fear no more.




SERMON IX.
OF PROVIDENCE -THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.
24              (277)




ECCLESIASTICUS XLII. 24.
HE HATH MADE NOTHING IMPERFECT
(278)




IX.
OF THE ECONOMY OF PAIN AND MISERY UNDER
THE UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
LAST Sunday I spoke of Providence in its most general form, as the universal execution of the perfect purposes of God by the perfect means He had originally
devised. Closely connected with this are two things
which demand attention, namely, the phenomena
which are called Evil and Sin, and the relation thereof to the causal and providential function of the Infinite God.
To understand this matter of Evil, to know its mode
of origin and of operation, and the purpose it serves,
considerable nicety of thought is necessary; and of
course considerable precision in the terms which express and define thought.
The word Evil is ambiguous in its meaning, and has
both a wide and a narrow signification. Sometimes it
means something painful for which there is no adequate compensation to the sufferer.  Sometimes it
means something painful for which there is an adequate compensation to the sufferer. In this Sermon I
will use the word Evil in its general and ambiguous
(279)




280                 PROVIDENCE.
sense, while the two special forms thereof, — the uncompensated and the compensated, - I will call Absolute Evil and Partial Evil.
So much for the definition of these terms.
The phenomena called Evil may for convenience, be
distributed into two general forms, or modes:I. Evil which does not come from a conscious and
voluntary transgression of a natural law of the Body or
the Spirit; that is, Pain and Misery. This may be
more minutely designated and distinguished by reference to the part through which we suffer - as physical
pain, suffering by the body; spiritual pain, suffering by
what is not body.
II. Evil which comes from a conscious and voluntary transgression of a natural law of the body or the
spirit; that is Sin, meaning thereby the transgression
with all its subjective and objective consequences.
So much also for the definition of these terms.
To-day I shall speak only of Pain and Misery; and
of them chiefly in the form of Physical Evil.
In the world of mere Matter, there is no consciousness, no freedom, no will. It is subject wholly to statical and dynamical laws in their various forms; and
there is therefore no Pleasure and no Pain. That
department of creation seems designed merely for a
theatre on which animated beings are to find scope
for action, and whence they may obtain their means
of livelihood. I think no man pretends to find any evil
there.
But there is the world of Animals and of Man conscious in higher or lower degrees, and with more or less
of freedom, gifted with partial power of will. Here is




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.            281
the field for Pleasure and Pain -the elements of Hlappiness and of Misery, the two poles of life. Here occur
the phenomena of Evil.
By Pleasure I mean the state which comes from the
fulfilment of the natural conditions of animate existence; from the normal satisfaction of natural desires.
By Pain I mean the state which comes from non-fulfilment of those natural conditions; from the absence of
the normal satisfaction of those desires. Of course I
include in that state not only the negative form of evil
- lack of the desirable, but the positive form of evil —
presence of the hateful. Happiness is prolonged pleasure; Misery is prolonged pain.
Happiness is great in proportion to the greatness of
the faculties which seek their natural satisfaction; and
in proportion likewise to the completeness of the satisfaction itself. So there is a qualitative distinction, of
the specific modes of Happiness - as it comes from satisfying high or low desires; and a quantitative distinction of the particular degrees thereof- the satisfaction
being partial or total. On the other hand Misery is
great or little in proportion to the faculties and their
satisfaction; and there is the same qualitative and quantitative distinction - of modes and degrees thereof.
Let us now look at some of the phenomena of
Physical Evil. And for clearness' sake let us attend
first to the simplest forms thereof, and thence ascend
up to the more complex and difficult.
In the Animal world happiness usually preponderates
over misery. The two most powerful groups of instincts
in the animal world are those which relate to the pres24 *




282                PROVIDENCE.
ervation of the individual and the perpetuation of the
race. Those instincts are commonly satisfied. Hence
comes the general aspect of happiness throughout this
department of the universe. Not one mosquito in a
million, it is probable, ever tastes of blood; and not one
in a million ever suffers from hunger. You never saw
a melancholy fly, or a wild squirrel that was unhappy;
the elephant, the lion, the monkey, and the crocodile
seem to have a good time in the world. Happiness is
obvious in the young of animals; but it is just as actual in the old, only it assumes a graver form, and so
is not so apparent to the careless, or inexperienced eye:
"Thy creatures leap not, but express a feast,
WVhere all the guests sit close, and nothing wants."
Still some animals, it is obvious, suffer pain; all are
capable of it; perhaps all the higher animals, some time
in their lives, are made to suffer. It may be asked, " Is
it possible that there shall be pain in the animal world
which the Infinite God has created from perfect motives,
of perfect material, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereto?'" I answer, Yes.
I do not pretend that I can clear up all the difficulties
in this matter by the inductive mode — of studying
the details, and thereby learning their law and showing
how each particular form of evil turns into good; - I
shall be obliged to refer to the idea of God as Infinite,
and from that deduce the value of the function of the
special forms of pain and misery. This will often
happen. The wisest man is only a child as yet. Philosophy has read but few pages of this great book of
Nature, whereof all must be known fully to understand
a part. When I know there is an Infinite God, I am
sure that his purpose is good and his means adequate




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          283
I spontaneously trust therein. This instinctive trust
outruns the reflective demonstration of science. Still
it is both pleasant and satisfactory to learn the use
and function of things by themselves, by an inductive
study of the facts, and not be constrained to deduce the
conclusion merely from the idea of God. In some instances this is not difficult; nay, in the present condition
of science, it is not hard to learn the general tendency
of things in Nature, and thence get the analogy of the
whole to help explain particular parts. But no man I
think as yet has been able to explain all these cases
by the purely inductive process. To do that he must
know all the powers and consequent actions and history
of each thing in the universe.
All finite things must needs be conditioned; the Infinite alone is absolutely self-conditioned. Thus the
bodies of animals must needs depend on the world
about them; wherein are things helpful — meant for
the animals they serve, and things harmful - not meant
for the animals they hurt. Continued use of the harmful things would destroy the individual and so the race.
Accordingly the animal frame is made susceptible
of Pain from the use of the harmful Substances, and
of Delight from the use of the helpful.
Sometimes this pain comes before the consummation
of the use: thus poisonous plants are commonly odious
to the eye, or nauseous to the smell, or hateful to the
taste of the creature they would injure. Here the
momentary pain, the transient disgust, comes as a forewarning against a foe. Poisonous plants, it is said,
have somewhat in their structure which warns off the
animals they would else destroy, some special ugliness
telegraphing to the senses, the unfitness of the thing




284                PROVIDENCE.
for use. " The Devil," says a chemist, "is always
chained." If not he is painted black, to scare away
the creatures he would molest. How nicely the sheep
and horses avoid all noxious things. Lobelia would
kill horses; the pungent plant reads the riot-act of Nature as soon as it is tasted and warns the offenders of
their transgression. The benevolent motive and purpose of this form of pain is obvious at once.
Then there are Modes of Action which are possible
to an animal, but which would be fatal if persisted in:
these also are attended by pain. A young rabbit heedlessly running through briars tears his tender skin and
smarts; and so avoids this rending of his coat. If the
pain did not warn him, he would tear his skin to pieces
and lose his -life in seeking to save it. A dog running
over sharp stones would soon wear out his feet; the
pain warns him of the peril before it is too late. If he
were to lose a limb he must go limp and lame all his
life, for another leg will not shoot out to take the place
of the one he has wasted and used up. The suffering
makes him careful; he keeps his feet, and goes fourlegged all his days.
The lobster and the crab have a thick and nearly insensible shell, for protection against ravenous enemies;
but such is the nature of their covering that their limbs
are brittle and easily rent off, another soon taking the
place of that which is lost. The animal suffers but little
pain from that injury. With him it is no great hardship to lose a limb which is so easily supplied anew.
But the lobster cannot bear any great change of temperature, such is his constitution; it would destroy his
life. So his shell is a good conductor of heat, and he
is keenly sensitive to the alternations of heat and cold.




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           285
This sensitiveness and the pain it brings if he goes out
of his proper temperature, keep him always in such
places as suit his organization, in a temperature congenial to his nature, in waters which also supply his
food. The dog can bear a great range of temperature,
clad in his non-conducting coat, which also accommodates itself to the changes of climate. Variations of
heat and cold are not painful to him. The dog's sensitiveness of touch, and the lobster's sensitiveness to
heat and cold bring pain to both; but the suffering
keeps the lobster in his place, and preserves the limbs of
the dog safe and sound. Give the dog the lobster's insensibility to pain from the sense of touch, he would run,
or fight till he wore his legs off of his body; give the lobster the dog's sensitiveness to this form of pain, and
living as he does in the ceaseless wash of the waters,
with brittle limbs, his life would be a torment while it
lasted, and in torment would it soon end. Give the
dog the lobster's sensitiveness to heat and cold, he
would be miserable most of the time and soon die;
give the lobster the dog's indifference to temperature,
the currents of the sea would soon sweep him away
from his food, from his natural position, and he and his
race would speedily perish. The pain of both is only
adequate to keep each in his proper place: it is the
tether by which they are bound out and kept from
harm.
Such is the general use of this form of pain in the
animal world; it is a natural warning against ruin, a
sentinel for ever mounting guard over the natives of the
earth, the sea, and air, giving early admonition when
danger draws nigh.
If you look widely and carefully, you will find there
is always the most nice and cunning adaptation of the




286                 PROVIDENCE.
pain to the end it is to answer. Is a condition of existence neglected, an instinct left without its satisfaction; is a wrong mode of action resorted to, or irnproper food eaten, uneasiness and pain warn the offender of his mistake, and drive him from it. This
pain is so effectual that the master-instincts of an animal become irresistible: only external violence can
check the rush of Nature, and if driven out she soon
comes back. How uneasy are the birds of passage at
the time of their annual migrations! Their pain warns
them against the ruin which a northern winter, or a
southern summer, would bring upon the Swallow, or the
Stork.
The pain which comes from Fear is of the same remedial character. The Hare has a feeble body; a rude
touch drives her life out of the thin walls of its habitation. She is the natural prey of the hawk, the fox, and
the wild-cat; even the mink and the weasel easily
master her. See how she is furnished with quick, capacious, and variable ears, with prominent and ready
eyes; nimble to start and swift to run. She is cautious,
timid, and fearful to a remarkable degree; she runs
from any danger, facing nothing that is formidable.
She has no power to resist any of her natural enemies.
Fear is her sentinel. When her last hour comes, she
dies almost at a touch from her enemy, apparently with
little pain. Her chief suffering is from fear, and that is
only adequate to attach her life to her.
So far as I have seen, or read, this is true in all departments of animal life- the ordinary mode of death,
though often a violent one, is attended with very little
pain; and the suffering from fear is only sufficient to
keep the creatures on their guard. The bull is strong




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          287
and tough, able to endure a severe contest with a powerful enemy. He is constitutionally courageous, and
marches forth to meet the danger which threatens him.
The timidity of the hare would be ridiculous in the bull,
and his fearlessness fatal to her.
Then there is the pain which animals suffer at the
Loss of their Mates, or their Young. You see examples of this in all animals that match in pairs, and guard
and protect their little ones. The monogamous robin
mourns at the loss of his mate, or at the plunder of his
nest. The ferocious white bear, it is said, moans like
a human mother at the loss of her cubs. The suffering
of sheep and cows when their children are torn from
them, is too well known and very sad. But this pain,
with the attendant fear of the loss, is only sufficient to
lead the mates to protect each other, the parents to
watch over and defend their child. This fear often
creates a certain heroism in the bosoms of animals
which are otherwise cowardly. The hen is commonly
a garrulous and restless busybody, bustling about all
day, a weak and timid animal, fleeing from every trifling danger. When the maternal instinct moves her to
brood over the eggs which contain her unseen progeny,
how all is changed! The restless busybody sits silent
and patient as a stone, all day incumbent on her nest.
An extraordinary amount of heat is developed in her
body. Her timidity vanishes; she becomes courageous,
and rushes out to defend her nest, and still more to protect her new-born brood. She defies danger, and will
sacrifice her life rather than desert her little flock. If
the brood is lost, her torment is exceeding great. After
her fledglings are grown up they become strangers to
her; her anxiety and her courage vanish out of sight, or




288                  PROVIDENCE.
sleep as a reserved power, till another occasion calls
them forth. Here pain is the ally of affection, the family girdle to keep her little household together. In animals which require no parental care, there is no fear of
this sort, no affection for it to guard. The salmon and
the herring drop their embryo in the appropriate spot,
leaving it to the care of Nature. After the young calf
has outgrown the need of its mother's care, to her it is
but one of the common herd; the feeling of kindred is
extinct.
In all these cases the conservative function of these
four forms of pain is evident at once, as soon as the
facts are made known.  And the balance between the
provisional pain and the final purpose it is to serve is
so exactly sustained, that it is a delight to the thinking man to see the ways of Providence with these
little children of the common Father.
"Each creature hath a wisdom for his good:
The pigeons feed their tender offspring, crying,
When they are callow; but withdraw their food
When they are fledge, that Need may teach them flying."
Still there are sufferings in the animal world for
which I can see no present recompense. Some lose a
limb in youth and suffer all their life; others are scantily
fed. Those in the hands of man are often maimed, illtreated, and hindered from developing their nature as
animals, and so made to suffer.  Man "improves" the
breeds of cattle. He does not always improve them as
horses, cows, or swine, but only as animated tools for
his service. Sometimes he only exploiters them. His
"racers"  and  "'draft horses," his "Ayrshires," and'" North-Devons," his " Merinoes" and " Saxonies,"' are




THiE ECONOMY OF PAIN.         289
as much works of human invention as the spinning-jenny
and the printing-press. Very useful contrivances for
man's purpose, they are less horses, oxen, and sheep, it
seems to me, than were their savage progenitors thousands of years ago. They have suffered a change.
They cannot defend themselves if turned out in the
forests, nor find their food in the wild where the Aurochs
rejoices to live. But I doubt that this change is attended with any necessary unhappiness. The domestic
dog seems to me quite as happy an animal as the wild
dog. If we take into the account all the animals connected with man, with or without his consent, they have
fair more happiness than misery. The horse and the
cow seem in part designed for the use and service of
man, and may perform that service with no unnatural
harm to themselves. Their nature is exceeding pliant
under the plastic hand of man; the artificial forms of
the cow-kind seem to me as happy as the wild forms.
But still there is pain and misery in the animal
world. Now howsoever Paul may interpret the Hebrew Bible, it is plain the Infinite God " doth take care
for oxen." The injuries of a whale that in his childhood
gets his jaw broken, and goes all his life with a twisted
mouth, a deformed and most unlucky whale; the misfortunes of a horse owned by some master more beastly
than the brute, must have all been known by God at
the creation, provided for and compensated in some
way. The use of animal pain in the majority of cases,
it is easy to discern, and to see that it has a benevolent
function to accomplish. The general analogy of Nature
leads to the inference - it is no more, - that it must
likewise be so in these exceptional cases. But from
the Idea of the Infinite God we know it must be so;
that this exceptional pain must not be absolute evil to
25




290                PROVIDENCE.
the individual sufferer, but disciplinary - leading to
some good else not attainable; and so compensated by
the ultimate welfare which it helps attain. I do not
pretend to know how this is brought about; I know not
the middle terms which intermediate between the misery I see and the blessedness I imagine. I only know
that the ultimate welfare must come to the mutilated
beast overtasked by some brutal man. If it be not so
then the universe is not a perfect world; it is imperfect
in this particular, that it does not serve the natural purpose of these creatures, who go incomplete and suffering. If God be Infinite then he must make and administer the world from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means, - all tending to the ultimate and absolute blessedness of each thing he directly
or mediately creates; the world must be administered
so as to achieve that purpose for each thing. Else God
has made some things from a motive and for a purpose
not benevolent, or as a means not adequate to the benevolent purpose. These suppositions are at variance
with the nature of the Infinite God.
I do not see how this benevolent purpose can be accomplished unless all animals are immortal and find
retribution in another life. I know many will think it
foolish, and some impious, to speak of the Immortality
of Animals. But without this supposition I cannot
" vindicate the ways of God " to the horse and the ox.
To me the immortality of all animals appears in harmony with the analogy of Nature, rational, benevolent,
and beautiful. Many of the arguments for human immortality apply as well to the case of the bee and the
elephant as to John and Paul. The argument from
consciousness is here out of place —as man knows
nothing of the consciousness of the sheep and swine.




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           291
There are but two arguments which I have ever heard
brought against the immortality of animals — one is
drawn from the selfishness of man, who wants a monopoly of all desirable things, and so would shut beast
and bird out of heaven; the other comes from the
common notion of the Deity, that he is a mean and
stingy God, making heaven little and hell large. Let
both pass for what they are worth. If the Spanish Inquisitor and the American Kidnapper can be thought
immortal and capable of eternal happiness, I see not
how we can deny eternal life to any Abyssinian Hyeena, or to a Rattlesnake from Kentucky, far less ugly
and venomous. It seems to me that philosophical
theology confirms the instinctive nature of the "poor
Indian,"
" Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company."
If this be so, then pain or misery in the animal world
is not an Absolute Evil; in the majority of cases it is
a beneficent sentinel to warn creation of the approach
of ruin, and in the exceptional cases is a servant that
by some unknown way conducts to bliss,
"Making a chiming of a passing-bell."
In the World of Man the affair is much more complicated; but if the animal world be rightly understood,
this other is not difficult to comprehend. The amount
of individual freedom is so much greater with men than
with animals, that we commonly say, man is free -
self-ruled, —while beasts are bound, ruled wholly by
some objective force, tools and not agents.  Man's




292               PROVIDENCE.
tether is indeed much longer than theirs; and his margin of possible oscillation is much greater. For man
having powers so much more various, and consequently
an immediate destination so much nobler, stands, in
general, in more complicated relations with Nature,
and the individual with his species, and is subject to a
greater variety of conditions.  Accordingly there is
with him so much the more room for generic and
individual caprice, for violating the conditions of welfare and of material existence; so much more room for
pain and misery. This is so with mankind, and with
each man, at every particular stage of his conscious
existence.
But in addition to this statical complication of his
nature, man has other dynamical complications which
take place in his historical development. Man is progressive; each man advancing not only from babyhood
to manhood, - for that is so with the lion and the lobster, -but also from manhood till death. Not only is
each man thus progressive as an individual, but each
nation as a people, and mankind as a race. Amid the
fluctuations of individuals the nation rolls on from its
babyhood to its manhood; and amid the fluctuations
of states and families, of nations, the mighty Stream
of Humanity sweeps on to its destination, bearing in
its eternal bosom every human excellence which any
individual or any people, has developed and brought to
light.
At every step the individual, the nation, and the race
are subject to the natural conditions of personal, social,
and general human welfare; conditions which are rigorous and unavoidable. All this development of the
individual and the race is progress by experiment; for
while the crystal is formed, and the tree grows, by pro



THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           293
cesses which have their origin solely in the Infinite
Cause; while each individual lion and the whole lionkind grow up with little conscious thought, or personal
will, the individual man, and the man-kind do to a considerable extent shape their own forms of being. This
progression by experiment involves both experiments
that fail and experiments that succeed. The failure
brings pain; if long continued, misery. This is so
with the merely speculative experiment, with thought:
the faulty demonstration, "the sum which will not
come out right," pains the boy at school; the halting
tragedy racks the feeble-minded poet; nay the imperfections in the works of Homer and lEschylus, of Dante
and Shakspeare, tortured those mighty bards.  Still
more is this the case with practical experiments, with
deeds: the little girl, learning the limits between the
Me and Not-me, mistakes and burns her fingers in the
candle's flame; the great nation learning the limits
between the Just and the Unjust, or the Expedient
and Unprofitable, mistakes and loses millions of men
Necessity confines the beasts within a narrow road
where instinct impels them on; they cannot wander
much. Freedom opens for us a long and wide field,
with opportunity for pain and misery.  The child
makes unsuccessful experiments in becoming a man;
the man in reaching after more manhood; mankind,
in all our history makes experiments that fail; all are
painful. Such are the conditions of our human lot,
conditions which to the nature of a finite, progressive, and free being seem as much indispensable as
gravitation to atoms of matter representing the primary law.
The actual amount of pain and misery is far greater
in the human world than in the animal world. It
25




294                 PROVIDENCE.
seems to me greater in proportion to their respective
quantity of being. The Caucasian baby is a grief to
her mother before she rejoices that a child is born; he
is a torment to himself before he has his first teeth; a
trouble to his father in growing up. Man has all the
animal sources of pain, and many more peculiar to
hi mself, springing from his more mountainous quantity
of being, its nicer quality, and the greater complication
thereof. The grown animal is not capable of progressive development; has no experiments to make, no
failures to mourn over, nor suffer from. The race of
animals makes no failures, no progress, no experiment.
No lion in Africa weeps for his prodigal son. The
tigress is not crossed in love. No patrician game-laws
hinder the fox from "free warren" everywhere. The
hippopotamus has no feudal superior; the wild-cat has
eminent domain in the woods, "free fishing and fowling."  There is no despotic Nicholas or Ferdinand to
torture the race of wild swine, with unreasonable institutes hedging in the liberty of Nature. No revolutionists, no red-republicans jostle the rulers of the woods
and seas; no progressive Kossuths and Mazzinis overturn the oligarchy of white or black elephants, and form
a democracy among the cattle. There is no pain from
bad institutions, -no failure to have good ones. No
timid owl or monkey is ever alarmed at the " Spread
of Infidelity." The ravens that wander crying for lack
of meat and finding it as they fly, have no fear of
eternal damnation, no " Adam's fall " to make their
faces gather blackness; the "federal head" of the crows
never " fell." There is no popular theology, no atheism,
with the pigeons and blackbirds.
The aspect of the world of animals is one of happiness. aWhat a contrast between that and the condition




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           295
of man! The bob-o'-link in the grass under my window
seeking food for her little nest-full of promises, is happy
as a bird can be; her joy runs over in delightful song.
Her beauty of sound meets the morning beauty of
light, and what a psalm they sing, the sunrise and the
bird, to eye and ear! Compare her with the mothers
in the houses all about me, and in the great cities of
the world, the mothers who groan in labor —of beggary, of prostitution, of drunkenness, of many-liveried
sin! Not one mosquito in a million suffers from
hunger; of the thousand million men how many will
die outright of starvation; how many go stooping and
feeble for want, and will at last be thereby shuffled
off the stage of life! How contentedly this caterpillar
makes ready for her transfiguration, one day to come
out fair as the light with more than mythical resplendence. How sadly the seamstresses of Boston, New
York, and London, prepare their garments of transfiguration - the shroud which painful fingers are so
long in making ready for death, who is always in sight,
yet so slow in coming! What an odds between the
Song of a Cocoon and "the Song of a Shirt!"  This
grasshopper,
" Green little loiterer in the sunny grass,
Catching his heart up at the feel of June,"
is never to seek for his daily bread. Yonder cow takes
no thought for raiment; the beaver is not afraid of being warned out of his lodgings and turned upon the
world, his wife and children brought to the side-walk;
the pains of parturition and dentition, with that troop
of diseases which crowd about the cradle of human
infancy, are all unknown to the wild camel, the bear,
and the elephant. The buffalo is never concerned for




296                PROVIDENCE.
the raiment of his sons and daughters, clad and shod in
Nature's best. No wild-cat has any difficulty in training up her sons; the horse-leech has no concern for
the marriage of his two proverbial daughters. Every
oyster is contented with his own "bank."  There are
no changes of tariff to perplex the free-traders of sea,
and land, and sky. No protective system is repealed
to the damage of the insect-manufacturers - of the bee,
or the spider, or the silk-worm. The Providence of God
is the great Protective-system for all these children of
the world. The universal laws- they never change.
The aristocracy of the ant-hill does not exploiter the
common people; not a queen bee feared a crisis in
" the year of revolutions." Compare a hive of bees -
in woods or garden,-or a family of beavers, with
Boston or Lowell, with Paris or Lyons; and what an
odds betwixt the welfare of the two!  Consider the
poverty, the want, the ignorance, the disease, the drunkenness, and vice, and crime, and shortened life, which
make up the misery of the poor; consider the anxiety
and servility, the disappointed ambition and defeated
affections, which so mar the welfare of the thriving and
the rich; and what a difference there is between this
human misery and the contentment of the beast; — a
difference which, at first sight, seems out of proportion
to the different degrees of power and of freedom —
misery increasing as the square of the amount of freedom! The whole world of Nature does not furnish
a St. Giles parish for the beasts; not a human city is
without one!
Still omitting nothing and extenuating nothing, it
seems to me the proportion of misery in the world is
overrated by benevolent men. Happiness, contentment
of the actual wants, surpasses unhappiness, that discon



THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           297
tented hunger after what cannot be reached. It is so in
convents and asylums, with the poor in large towns
like London and New York, — such is the human
power of accommodation to circumstances. Plastic
man is pliant also. Take any settlement of men, Esquimaux, Pawnees, Turks, Chinese, Gaboons, Bushmans, Britons, happiness far surpasses misery. Go into
the lowest parts of Boston, or London, to the abodes of
want and crime, it is so there. True it is a low form
of happiness, and you mourn at so much contentment
with so little welfare.
Yet there is pain and misery of the saddest sort. It
comes from non-fulfilment of the conditions of animal
life - from want of food, of fire, air, and water, of shelter and raiment; from sickness, fear, grief; from the
lack, or the loss, of objects of passion and affection;
from defeated ambition, defeated love; from want of
culture -of one or all the faculties.
All this must have been foreseen; it is a part of the
scheme of things -the calculated consequence of man's
ignorance, or want of self-adaptation to the wvorld of
matter. It can be no astonishment to God. Yet at
first sight it appears as if there was an imperfection in
God's work. This misery, which haunts mankind,
seems a disgrace to the world and a standing impeachment of the Providence of God. "Call this a perfect
world," says some kind-hearted man, " a perfect means
for a perfect purpose? Under the Providence of the
Infinite God is it! - Then whence this vermin pain
which bores into every house and every heart? The
world is full of Evil, Absolute Evil; this toad, ugly and
venomous, squats, full of poison, in every garden which
man plants. Could not God make a world without
Misery?"




298                PROVIDENCE.
Well, the finite must needs be conditioned — its existence one of limitation. The question is whether the
present condition contains any absolute, or any needless partial Evil. As it was shown before, pain is incidental to the development of a finite being with even a
small amount of freedom. But as man is more free,
and individually and generically progressive, a larger
amount of pain is incidental to his existence. But look
at some conjectural schemes of human life.
Suppose man had been made with no capability of
progress either of the individual, from manhood to old
age, or of the race, from the beginning to the end; and
put in the rudest condition of the lowest tribe of men -
of the Bushmans, or the Patagonians; but had all his
wants as completely and as easily met as the oysters in
the waters of Virginia, so that the whole world was a
perpetual Point Comfort to each man; that there was
no pain, no possibility of suffering; so that he had no
desire which could lead him astray at all, no freedomn
to go astray, but by his organization was bound fast to
the actual, - would be a better state of things? Ncbody thinks so.
Suppose this unprogressive and painless creature
elevated to the highest degree of our present civilization
- to the intellectual condition of the philosophers who
make up the Academies of Paris, of Berlin, and of
London; surrounded with all the circumstances which
suit that stage of development; as fully satisfied as the
oyster, and as incapable of any progress - individual or
generic; — incapable of pain; without freedom of further development; by his organization bound fast to the
actual, no ideal beauty - intellectual, moral, affectional,
or religious, -hovering about his head; and that an
undisturbed satisfaction filled up the consciousness of




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.         299
man. Would that be a better state of things than the
present condition of Germany, France, and England —
better as a finality than the present as a stage of progress in the ever unfolding growth of man? No
thinker will think so. For those philosophers are as
far from a full enjoyment of all the powers of their
human nature almost as the Bushmans.
We are made with a nature which demands continual progress; the instinct of development is amazingly
powerful in the race. Mankind is not content to stand
still, stopping at the Bushman's elevation, or at the
stage where the modern philosopher gathers into his
comprehensive mind the riches of present human consciousness. The Ideal haunts the human race and
through eminent tongues calls out to man continually,
"Onward, onward." All advance is progression by
experiment; many an attempt fails of its end — the
human child is borne with pain. But who is there that
does not see that man has a higher, nobler destiny than
the creatures which have no freedom, —bound to the
present?
Suppose man made capable of progress, and —as
finite - of experiments that fail, and yet incapable of
pain. Would that be a good exchange? Look at
some examples. A man will not eat when he is hungry: suppose God by a transient miracle, or a permanent law forbid the pain which now comes from lack of
food; the man would die of inanition, die without
warning. Suppose he would eat when not hungry, or
in excessive quantity, and no pain followed this violation of the natural rule of temperance; he would die of
repletion, die unwarned of his peril. Suppose he would
eat what was harmful, things not meant for human
food; would it be well if there were no disgust of any




300                PROVIDENCE.
sense, to notify the man before the mistake, no torture
in any member to warn him of the error? Would it be
well to have an amount of pain not adequate to remind
him of the peril?
What if a man would not work even for the most
needful things; and God, like a foolish mother, to spare
him the present consequences of laziness, either by
special fleeting miracles, or by general and permanent
law, gave him all the desirable outward things which
now come from the long-continued toil of men. What
if all things came at his desire; he
"-need but wish and instantly obeyed,
Fair ranged the dishes rose and thick the glasses played!"
Why what a world it would be, where " wishes were
horses and beggars might ride; " a universal lubberland, peopled by beggars on horseback riding after their
proverbial wont! If man lived he would be a suckll'ng
for ever, never attaining the dignity of stripling.' But
he would not live, thus conditioned only by his wishes.
This suckling of caprice, like a kite without a string,
would soon come to the ground, unwarned by any pain
till death finished him. A child not conditioned by its
parents, is a spoiled child, father and mother only special providences of ruin. A school of children with no
schoolmaster to regulate them with " Thou shalt," and
" Thou shalt not," what a hurly-burly is it of most unprofitable going which yet goes nowhere! A young
man suddenly made master of an unexpected fortune,
and so presented with the freedom of riches he had
never won, is always brought thereby in great peril,
and commonly finds the excessive fortune a misfortune.
Imagine men so active that they will toil all the




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.         301
time, and neither rest nor sleep; would it be wise and
well to leave them with no possibility of pain to warn
them before the frame lay there worn out and dead?
Suppose they wrought by night and not by day, would
it be an improvement on the present state of things if
no inconvenience and no pain attended the capricious
violation of Nature's law, until death ended the mistake?
Suppose a man worked at the right time and in the
right proportion, but worked wrong, against the nature
of things; that he planted his pear-trees with the roots
up and the branches down; or set the roots in husks of
corn, in straw, in dried moss, in the feathers of birds, or
the hair of beasts; and made his own bed out of moist
rich earth, every night covering up his limbs in that.
Suppose God should alter the constitution of things to
suit our man, so that his accommodating pear-tree grew
and bore fruit, the roots up, the branches down, or grew
out of husks and hay, hair and feathers; and that his
body did not suffer from sleeping wrapped up in garden
mould; that the pear and the man changed beds capriciously and God made the world accommodate the
silly whim: would that be an improvement, better than
the present rule -  as you make your bed so you must
lie? "
What if a man put things to the wrong use - making wheaten bricks of the corn he grew, piling them
into walls for his house, and roofing over this pasteboard palace with tiles of bread; would it be a misfortune if the next storm soaked through his roof and
walls, and brought this whole mass of unleavened
bread upon the head of its maker?
What if he made his bread of wood and sand and
clay, not of corn, and God interfered with our booby
and allowed him to suffer no pain for his stupidity?
26




302                PROVIDENCE.
Would that be a good plan? What a school the world
would be with no regulation but the finite caprice of
each John and Jane!
If a man provides the proper articles for food and
shelter, but gets them in insufficient quantity, or of a
quality which will soon perish, or lives in a spot which
is unhealthy; would it be well for God to twist the
material world so as to accommodate the human folly
and let him off with a whole skin? Should you think
the world well made if it altered to suit the caprice of
each man in it; and if every whimsey had a universal
right of way over all the world - Nature a " servitude "
to nonsense! If a man makes a cart to carry himself
and his chattels from place to place, and makes it ill, or
drives it badly, if it breaks down when overloaded, or
turns over when one wheel is driven into a ditch and
the other into the air, and if the man be hurt and his
goods spilled out, is there a flaw in the world, think you,
because he suffers chagrin at the failure, and pain by
the bruise? When his carriage, ill made, overladen,
driven badly, was about to overturn, suppose its owner
prayed to all the saints in heaven, you would not think
it a kindness in the Infinite God to alter the laws of
Nature to suit this ill conduct of a cart. Would you
have the man turn out for gravitation, or have God
push the planet to the wall to let our lubber's cart
go by?
A boy makes a kite with a frame of iron, and planks
it over with live-oak. The thing would sink in water;
shall God alter the constitution of the world and make
it float in air? or leave the boy to profit by his chagrin,
and try till he learns the laws of Nature and makes a
kite to correspond? If a man gets displeased with this
planet and wishes to ride round the sun in his own gig,




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           303
is God to pave the road and furnish him a horse?
Shall God give the new moon to every baby who cries
for it? The girl pricks her fingers in learning to sewshall God make the hand as senseless as the needle to
spare little miss the use of her wits?
A man sails the sea, he gets a poor and leaky ship,
ill moulded, ill built, ill rigged, and overloaded too,
manned and mastered badly; he takes no pains to learn
the coast he sails from, or to; little care to look out for
rocks, or shoals, but drives up towards land, all heedless, in a storm; then, when his crazy hulk is in imminent peril, he and his miserable crew- all ignorant and
half drunk —for safety pray lustily to God. Is it a
hard thing that he gets the ocean for answer; that his
planks go to pieces and he is strangled in the deep; or
if with much ado he treads the waters under him and
comes alive to land, has he a right to complain of hard
usage because the fatherly Providence did not empty
the waters out of the sea to save a foolish man the
trouble of thinking?
In making the world, what if God had fashioned it
so that shipwreck was impossible; that when a vessel
approached a rock, of her own accord she wore off, or
tacked and stood away; that it was needless for the
mariner to study navigation, or seamanship, or the art
of building ships, but every tub would sail perfectly,
with any requisite speed and burthen, and find its own
way to any destined haven; so that you need only write
thereon, " Bound for London,9' and put off from land,
and the craft found its way there as surely as a stone
to the bottom of a well when dropped in at the top;
that a mariner need take no thought at all, for God
tempered the wind to the sailor self-shorn of his wits!
Would that be so good a scheme as the present one




304                PROVIDENCE.
which demands stout ships — built with all the art of
human science to correspond with the Nature which
God has made, - prudent masters, careful men, a compass in the binnacle, a chart and chronometer in the
cabin, light-houses along the coast, scrutinizing surveyors to scan the heavens, to search the bosom of the sea
and learn to trace the footsteps of the storm and so be
served by wind and tide, by star and sea and land?
The shipwreck brings loss of goods and loss of life, pain
to full many a heart; but you see what all this suffering
means. If I, standing on the shore, saw a vessel about
to go to pieces in a storm, dashed on a rock, had I the
power, doubtless in my human weakness and ignorance,
I should rend the rock in sunder, or should chide the
sea, and hold it back e'er it should swTallow down the
ship, strangling such hopeful life. But at the creation
the Infinite God knew all the powers of the sea, the
storm, the future ship, the men therein; foreknew their
history, and doubtless arranged all well. For answer
to our special prayers comes the eternal action of the
universal law. Thus we learn by the elements; the
winds are our ministers, the sea not only a constant
ferryman, that huge St. Christopher, fetching and carrying from land to land, but a teacher also. Yea all
Nature is a "Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ."
What sufferings have we seen of late years on emigrant ships, crowded with passengers without fire, water,
or even air, heedless, ill-fed, unclean?  What if God
"interposed " at the prayer of some mortal and allowed
no man to suffer from cold, hunger, or ship-fever!
Would that be better than to leave man to suffer till
the nations learned the laws of Nature, and enforced
them by statutes of their own, and then came safe
across the sea, not sick, not cold, not wet? God makes




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          305
the elements as perfect Cause, administers them as
perfect Providence, and made the mind of man one
element whereby to work out human welfare. Shall
not that factor perform its function?
Men build iron roads, and put thereon a train of iron
cars, drawn by the iron horse. The axles are iron, the
wheels iron; the friction is great, the draught is difficult, the metal wears out. What chagrin of engineers,
what complaint of shareholders! Shall God, by permanent law, or fleeting miracle, alter the constitution
of things to abate the friction; or leave men to study
the structure of their own limbs, and make an artificial
cartilage of compounded metals, and moisten it with
such synovial liquor as science can devise, and so save
the wear and tear of their machine? If a stone gets
in the boy's shoe, shall God all at once soften the stone,
or harden the foot; or shall he leave the boy to suffer
till he shakes the annoyance from his own shoe and
walks off erect and easy? JIf God give adequate intellect at first, is he to supersede the necessity of using
it? What a Providence that would be, at cross purposes with itself!
Here is a lazy young man, yet very exorbitant; he
wants the power of riches, the honor of office, the enjoyment of high culture - the distinction of all the
three; but he devotes himself only to his moustache, his
cigar, and his dress. Is it the fault of Providence that
he continues a most uncomfortable dunce, neither respected nor respectable; that he is full of pain and
chagrin, and walks the street with the air of a dyspeptic pirate, complaining of "the ingratitude of republics" and talking of suicide? Would it be a good
thing if God made money to drop miraculously into
his idle hands, crowned him with office, and gave him
26 *




306               PROVIDENCE.
the culture which earnest men elaborate so slow by painful thought! Would it be kind in fact to the grumbler
himself? A foolish mother would give him all these
things, unconditioned; the dear God says, "What
would you have? Pay for it and take it." No spoiled
children with the Infinite Mother! If Themistocles feels
chagrin, and cannot sleep a-nights for thinking of the
trophies of Miltiades, shall God come and rock the
cradle of this great Athenian baby; or let him lie awake
till he grows up a great Athenian man!
Some men add to their family more than they can
feed, shall God turn stones to bread to stop their
mouths? It rains pottage; Esau will not hold up his
dish. Shall God make rain come the other way, to
please the lout? What a world it would soon be,
each hairy Esau turning out a whining clown, not a
valiant hunter, the world a fool's paradise, where betwixt man and God it was always " Hail fellow! well
met."
If a nation does not work, or works wrong, - brewing its corn into beer, not baking it into bread, producing
rum and tobacco, not houses and cloth; if it applies to
a wrong purpose its sea-chariots, or land-chariots; will
build forts and not cities, breed soldiers and " nobles,"
not farmers and mechanics, - loaf-consumers, or destroyers of loaves, not loaf-makers - has the nation a
right to complain against God for its want of bread?
Or when complaining with many prayers, shall God
send a miracle to feed the men, not leave them to hunger till their own hands stop their mouth? If half the
people are left uncared for by the powerful class and
turn out badly, steal, rob, and murder, knowing no better, have the men who have been careless a right to
complain at the result? Nay when all African Hayti




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.         307
rises "in blackest insurrection," what right has the
master to complain?
Not long ago there was a famine in Ireland. It was
thought a most hideous famine even in that land where
hunger is the constant condition. England kept a day
of fasting and prayer, asking God to " interpose, and
withdraw his hand! "  Ah me! The prayer was sadly
unwise and sounded irreverent. Had the Father meddled unwisely with his world? The good God had
done no wrong; his hand is never out of place. The
famine came in mercy to man; England had oppressed Ireland, pushed the Irish to the brink of ruin,
and did not seem to care much how soon they went
over. The Irish had not planted corn, nothing but the
potatoe. And that would decay; not all at once, but
little by little. Long years ago the potatoe prophesied,
rising early and warning men whether they would hear
or forbear: " I am not fit to be a nation's bread. If you
do not learn the lesson, why I shall rot in the ground,
and you will starve above it! "  That was the word of
the Lord by the mouth of his servant Potatoe. No
prophet ever spoke plainer, neither Trojan Cassandra,
nor Elias the Tishbite. He spoke to deaf ears. The
many were too ignorant, or feeble; the few too idle, or
selfish, to heed the word. So after the oracle came the
history, and then the lamentation, the fasting and the
prayer. In other lands, here in America, the potato
also failed, but men died not in consequence; they had
bread to eat and lived on. What did the famine mean?
It spoke plainly as tongue could tell, " Grow more and
better food; eat and live, Oh ye Irishmen! for why will
ye die? "
Not many centuries ago there was a famine every
ten or twenty years in the most refined nation of Eu



308               PROVIDENCE.
rope, -there were ten dreadful famines in France in a
single century. The priests prayed, and said " the
world is coming to an end. God is angry because you
do not come to mass, you unbelievers, you! He will
starve you to death; and then torture you in hell." But
the prayer brought no bread. Shall the prophet wait for
the crow to feed him? The feeding will be of ravens,
not prophets. Whence came the famine? Men had
fought each other instead of conquering the forces of
Nature; had raised soldiers, not farmers and clothiers.
The famine warned them of their error, - a painful
warning, but the misery not excessive. It sowed
wheat.
A little while ago there came the cholera, scaring the
world. Men attributed it to the " wrath of God; " begged that dear Father " to withdraw his hand," thinking
him meddlesome and ill-tempered! Men had been
ignorantly violating some of the natural conditions of
bodily well-being, nay of bodily existence. If we went
on so we should all perish and the race die out. The
disease brought pain and death, plainly telling us of
our mistake and our consequent danger; bidding us
avoid the special cause of that mischief. Would it
have been well for the Infinite Providence to alter for
our caprice the Constitution of the Universe and the
preestablished harmony between Nature and the frame
of man? The public prayers changed not the purposes of God, nor his motive, nor his means. But
the board of health swept the cholera out of many a
town.
Man is sick, he prays for health. Shall God abolish
the pain, or leave man to find out and remove the
causes of his body's grief and seek medicine to palliate
the disorder- while




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.               309
"In every path
He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan!"
All these forms of pain and misery are clearly of a
remedial character, and come to warn us of a mistake,
to drive us from  error before we are ruined.  Without
the pain, we should have been yet more pained. If
our request could be granted without the fulfilment of
the natural condition thereof, it would send leanness
into our souls.
" To have my aim; and yet, to be
Further from it, than when I bent my bow
To make my hopes, my torture; and the fee
Of all my woes another woe
Is in the midst of delicates to need,
And e'en in Paradise to be a weed."
The pain we feel at the premature death of our associates is of the same character. Old age, I take it, is
the only natural death for man. That we never mourn
at, nor regard as evil. My father, a hale man of threescore, laid in the ground his own mother, fourscore and
twelve years old. She went thither gladly, with no anguish, no fear, with little pain; went as a tall pine tree
in the woods comes to the ground at the touch of a
winter wind, its branches heavy with snow, its trunk
feeble, its root sapless, worn-out, and old. He shed no
tears, he was not sorry that the shock of corn fully
ripened on earth was, in due time, gathered to Heaven.
He need not mourn; he should not mourn. It was the
course of Nature; and the child piously buried the venerable, hoary head of his mother, long knocking at the
gate, and asking to be let through. But if he lost a
child it was a sad day, a dark year; for the child




310                PROVIDENCE.
perished immature. Sadly in June or July the gardener
sees his unripe apples scattered on the ground, disappointing his hopes of harvest. But when
" An apple, waxing over mellow,
Drops in some autumn night,"
he only rejoices that Nature's ways come rounding to
their appropriate end. When the father buries the
child, the mourning Rachel, refusing to be comforted,
shows there is a mistake somewhere; the pain warns
us thereof before we all perish.
This seems to be the meaning and the merciful use
of the grief we feel at laying down our dear ones immature, when these leaves of our tree are shattered
"before the mellowing year."  At the present day such
is the state of medical science that the Doctors of Medicine know almost as little of man's body as the Doctors of Divinity know of his spirit. Between disease
and the doctor there is a wall, thick and high, with here
and there a loophole which some scientific man has
made. Men look through and see dimly in spots; and
pass through some medicines and advice, to palliate
the mischief a little. The pain we feel when our friends
die an unnatural death; our own reluctance to depart
- life's duties not half done, nor half its joys possessed;
-the sympathy which all men feel with those that
suffer thus, making another's misery our own, — these
drive us to break down that wall, to cure the disease, to
learn the law of health, that all may ride in sound
bodies the stage of mortal life, check the steeds at the
proper bound, dismount from the flesh, and continue
our journey in such other chariot as God provides for
the ascension.
A child plays on the edge of a rock; the mother




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           311
creeps up stealthily, and suddenly plucks away the romantic boy loving to look down into the deep darkness.
Pain comes on the same motherly errand. Shall God
let us fall in, not warned of the pit?
The terrible diseases which sweep off half the human
race before they count three summers and those which
decimate the ranks of adult men, are a warning to mankind showing that we live unwisely yet. The result
of the pain we suffer is a continual effort to live wiser,
better, longer, and so the term of human life continially grows more and more.
All the pain and misery of the character thus far
spoken of, are plainly medical and benevolent. If it
did not hurt the hands to burn, or freeze them, who of
us would grow up with a finger? If feet did not smart
with abuse, they would be treated as shoes, worn out in
childhood, and no hardy boy would have a foot left.
If broken teeth did not ache, so long as walnuts have a
shell, no child would be safe; the world would be full
of toothless striplings. The pain of poverty and want,
of ignorance, of disappointed ambition, of affections
bereaved or disappointed in a sadder sort; of the accidents to individuals by flood and field, to nations by
war; of the diseases which prey upon mankind — the
rats and mice of the world's housekeeping, —it all has
this meaning and this use. See with what scorpion
whips Poverty drives the Irishmen out of Ireland; and
pursues them in America, forcing them to work and
think. The American beggar hears the lash which
once he felt, and avoids the blow. In half a century we
shall see the result - the Irishmen will be also industrious, thoughtful, well-fed, well-clad. Men run trains
of railroad cars together, or attempt to pass a river




312                PROVIDENCE.
when the drawbridge is up; and there is the wreck of
matter and the crush of men. The remedy for the pain
is at hand. The great annual destruction of human
life in America, by the carelessness of men who control
the land and water carriages wherein the public ride, is
a warning against our folly; the evil perfectly within
our own control. All these things must needs have
been foreseen. The attendant pain is the perpetual
check on human caprice, the constant of Nature which
controls our variable whim.
See how pain occasioned by loss of friends, with the
wide sympathy it calls out, forces us to study the laws
of health, to cure the sick, to keep men sound. Famine
makes men creative to produce, and prudent to spare.
The cholera teaches temperance and cleanliness, which
once the plague bid mankind learn. Every case of
typhoid warns us of broken law; a shipwreck rings the
bell to notify us to have stouter vessels, or have them
better sailed, with fitter apparatus on board, and better
beacons on the coast. If men are too indolent, and
will not rule themselves, the tyrant binds on his burdens,
which grow more and more ~difficult to be borne. The
suffering from bad political institutions in Naples, Spain,.Hungary, and all the world, is not more than sufficient
to warn mankind, to make them seek out and avoid the
cause of smart. A nation like a man, shivers long at
night, before it gets courage to rise, to hew wood, to
build a fire and so be warm again. Is the pain of
Europe at this day too great for this end? The frost
does not yet bite sharp enough to wake mankind from
savage sleep. Before us Pain, a flitting messenger,
hurries to warn us; behind stands Misery to drive.
But the one warms us from our bale; the other drives
us to our bliss.




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           313
If we pursue the inductive course as far as we can
see, and then follow the way of deduction from the
Idea of the Infinite God, to this conclusion must we
come at last —that the present physical pain and
misery in the world of animals and men is not an
Absolute Evil; quite far from it, it is a partial Good;
that it is disciplinary, preparing us for the Ultimate and
Absolute Good.
But after all this is clearly made out, it must still be
confessed that there are millions of men who from no
conscious evil of their own suffer a great deal of misery, and pass out of life apparently unrecompensed; -
the men who are cut off in early life, tortured by disease, stung by poverty, sacrificed to the purposes of the
race, and leave their lesson to others; men disappointed
in their tenderest affections; those whose hearts are so
sadly bereaved that they go mourning all their days.
For the negative, or positive, evil they suffer here, the
only adequate compensation must come in another
state of being, beyond the grave. I know not the
means, no man knows; perhaps no man can ever know
in this life. But as God is Infinite; and creates all
from a perfect motive, of perfect material, for a perfect
purpose, and as a perfect means thereto, it is absolutely
certain that the ultimate welfare of each animal or
human creature must at last be made sure. This does
not follow from any of the finite conceptions of Deityfrom Jupiter or Zeus, from the Jehovah of the Old
Testament, or the God of the popular theology; but it
follows unavoidably from the idea of the Infinite God.
As a fluent point generates a line, so the Infinite God
generates blessedness, and ever blessedness, and only
blessedness. So all the pain and misery God's crea27




314                PROVIDENCE.
tures suffer, must one day be abundantly repaid. It
was all foreseen and provided for by him
"Who is of all Creator and Defence,"
as a part of his scheme, here a resultant of necessitated force, there the contingent of individual freedom
acting in contact with other forces. But in both cases
must it be perfectly provided for. This is as certain as
that one and one make two. For as the last conclusion
of a geometric demonstration follows unavoidably from
the axioms of mathematic science and the data of the
problem, so ultimate, complete, and perfect Welfare follows from  the Infinite Perfection of God. He has
made pain and misery part of the discipline of this life;
it must have been in infinite benevolence that he did so.
Mankind is doubtless saved by present suffering from
suffering worse. Not by the pains of Jesus, but its
own is mankind saved. Our own pain and misery are
educational discipline; if the roots of culture be bitter,
doubtless the blossom will be fair and fragrant, and the
final fruit sweet to our soul. The pain and misery
which others suffer from ignorance, and causes beyond
their own control, help teach us charity; the time, the
means, the effort we expend in their behalf is often
so much devoted to our highest culture, —the education of Conscience, of the Affections, yea, of the Soul
which by nature turns to God.
Now then where is the Absolute Evil of Pain and
Misery of this character?  There is none such! Two
angels, archangels if men will name them such —
Gabriel and Michael, -come to warn us; not exceptions to God's Providence, ministers thereof, they come




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           315
to man and bird and beast, on the same errand of benevolence - to warn us of a mistake; not angels with
a flaming sword turning every way to keep us from the
Tree of Life; angels they are who walk between us
and the Tree of Death to keep man from the Upas of
ruin.
If the universe were to end to-day, it would seem a
failure, for now only the spring-time of the world's long
year is present, and man goes forth, ignorant and weeping, and with pain scatters seeds which one day, all and
each, are to bear manifold the bounteous harvest of immortal joy. But all around us seems made for stable
duration, and is auspicious of a glorious future for
mankind on earth. The coldest of men feel deeply
and by instinctive nature, that the misery of the world
is only a pain, of growth not of decay.
"Slight symptoms these; but shepherds know
How hot the mid-day sun shall glow
From the mists of morning sky."
I have often asked you to notice how the material
forces of Nature work together, how wisely they are
distributed; how beautiful are its statical and dynamical laws; how wonderfully Centripetal and Centrifugal,
those two strong horses of the Almighty, sweep this
earthly chariot through the sky; how chemical and vital
forces serve the economy of the Universe, and how the
minimum of means produces the maximum of end
therein. Yet even there, in Nature, we see but little of
the whole, and know but little of what we see. Things
yet uncomprehended continually appear. It is but
a single page in Nature's book we have learned to
read.
So far as human science reaches it is plain that the




316                PROVIDENCE.
sensibility to suffering is distributed with the same wisdom as the organic forces of the world; that Pain and
Pleasure have each their calculated work to do, both
foreknown at creation, and eternally provided for. In
this vast and much entangled labyrinth of living things
it is more difficult to see our way than among the
material elements,
"  the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix
And nourish all things."
But when we see the whole we recognize the bountiful
benevolence of God. Bacon devised his New Instrument for human thought, the Novum Org'anum of physical science; Newton wrote out in mathematic poetry
the Principia of the Universe, the laws that govern
quantity in space; La Place yet more magnificently set
forth the fair Mechanics of the Sky, the mathematic
laws of the heavenly machine, of whose composite
forces Beauty and Harmony are the perpetual result;
Von Humboldt - laborious still, grown old in being
taught and teaching, his mind youthful with all the
scientific riches of the world swept into the German
Ocean of his long living consciousness,- groups into a
harmonious whole this Kosmos of material force, painting in words the Universe, this majestic, Amazonian
Flower of God floating upon the sea of space. And
what a world of harmonious beauty it is, as seen by
the material eye and then reflected in the educated
mind of these philosophers!
But when some man, with mind greater than the
greatest of these, shall gather into his more affluent
consciousness a corresponding knowledge of the world




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.         317
of animals and men; shall devise the New Instrument
of a higher science; write in more than mathematic
poetry the Principia of this sensitive universe, the Laws
that govern Life in time and space, magnificently setting forth the fair Mechanics of the Vital World, its
Metaphysic Laws, whose ultimate resultant is lovelier
Beauty and Harmony of a yet more sweet accord; and
grouping to a harmonious whole this other Kosmos of
vital and personal forces, painting in words this white,
Amazonian Lily of Human Life floating on the river
of God - why, what a wealth of wisdom, of justice, of
love and holiness will it not reveal in the Infinite Father
and Mother of all that are! Then by the inductive
mode alone, without deduction from the idea of God,
but only by the study of facts and history, shall men
prove, what I can only postulate, the perfect workmanship of God.
In the pain and suffering of mankind, and of our
feebler attendants, I see the promise of a glorious future
for mankind. I know there is a recompense for every
sparrow robbed of her young, or prematurely falling to
the ground; that the infinite Herdsman of the universe
takes thought for oxen, and is a perfect Providence for
the individual and for all mankind. The history of the
world is indeed the judgment thereof, but not the final;
and what it bears off unrewarded it carries to the great
ocean of Eternity, where exact justice shall be done in
love to every creature of the dear, eternal God.
27*








SERJM ON  X.
OF PROVIDENCE- THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR.
(319)




ECCLESIASTICUS XLII. 24.
HE HATH MADE NOTHING IMPERFECT.
(320)




x.
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR UNDER THE
UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
LAST Sunday I spoke of one form of Evil, of the
physical Pain and Misery in the World of Animals
and Men, which come from violating the physical conditions of welfare; designing to show the Function
and Economy thereof in the Providence of God. Today I wish to speak of the other form of Evil, of the
Pain and Misery which comes from violating other conditions of welfare; of Moral Error and Sin, with their
consequences; designing to show the Function and
Economy thereof in the Providence of God. The two
departments of inquiry are lands, lying side by side, indistinctly separated, locking into each other by many
plies and folds, so that the stream which rises in one
runs into the other, and it is difficult, perhaps impossible, in all cases to say where one begins and the other
ends, so indistinct are the boundaries. In both these
sermons I often cross the lines.
In Theological Ethics there are some broad distinctions of things, marked by corresponding distinctions
of language, which ought to be borne in mind. Here
(321)




8342               PROVIDENCE.
are solme of the terms I shall use in a technical sense in
this sermon.
A mistake is the violation of some Rule of Correctness, or of Expediency. To do inexpediently is a mistake. It produces an experiment which fails, because
the calculation on which it is founded is incorrect. Jehu
would go from Bethany to Jerusalem; he misconceives
the way, takes the wrong road, comes out at Bethlehem
instead and loses his journey.
A mistake has its origin in an intellectual deficiency,
a lack of knowledge. It may be a lack of knowledge
in general - Jehu never knew the way from Bethany to
Jerusalem; or a lack of knowledge at that special
time —he had forgotten, he had not his wits about
him, he did not take heed to his ways, and so he lost
his journey. It may come from a lack of general intellectual power. Thus a fool mistakes stones for bread.
There are men of weak minds, who do not discern
clearly by their intellect; or whose intellectual perceptions do not much influence their will and their conduct, - simpletons, idiots, fools, in respect to power of
mind, they often make mistakes through lack of wit.
Mistakes of this sort are often called Errors; and so
men speak of "errors of the press," " errors of longitude,"" errors of calculation," and the like. In such
cases in this sermon, I will use the word Mistake, to
reserve the term " Error " for another and strictly technical use.
An Error is the unconscious and involuntary violation of some Rule of Right, of the Moral Law of God.
It is to the Conscience what a mistake is to the intellect —it is a moral mistake, as a mistake is art intellectual error. To do unjustly is an Error, as to do in



THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          323
expediently is a Mistake. One violates the Rule of
Right, the other the Rule of Expediency. Every Error
is also a mistake, for what is really wrong is always partially and ultimately inexpedient; but every Mistake is
not also an Error. Jehu did no moral wrong by mistaking the high road to Bethlehem for that to Jerusalem.
Here is an example of Error: the ill-bred boys steal
apples from Ahab's garden; to correct them he shuts
the offenders up in jail with old and accomplished
rogues, where they grow worse by their confinement;
the well-meant correction wrongs and worsens the boys.
He has violated a moral law of God, the natural rule of
right, seeking to overcome the evil in them by another
evil out of them, setting his vengeance against their
trespass. But he did this unconsciously and involuntarily: he did not know there was such a natural law;
he had no intention of doing wrong; he knew no better
way to guard his orchard and correct the young marauders.
Error comes from deficiency of moral power- general, or special, from a lack of moral knowledge: Ahab
never knew the Rule of Right which applies to such
cases, that justice is the medicine for injustice, love for
hate, and good for evil; or he had forgotten, and did
not recollect it at the time; or, if he did, his general
human conscience was borne down by his special and
particular sense of the loss; and for a time it seemed as
if he had never known any better. There are men of
weak conscience —such as do not discern morally, or
whose moral perceptions do not much influence their
will, — moral simpletons, moral idiots, moral fools.
They often commit Errors, as feeble children stumble,
and mouths ill-formed stammer and cannot talk.




324               PROVIDENCE.
A Crime is a Violation of some Human Statute
some positive rule of conduct laid down by the government. To do illegally is a crime. Thus it is a crime
in Boston to drive a wagon on the left hand side of the
street, in Berlin on the right hand side. In the District
of Columbia it is a crime to harbor or conceal a slave
who has run away from one of the Barbary States of
America; in the District of Tunis it is a crime not to
harbor and conceal a slave who has run away from one
of the Barbary States of Africa. In Boston it is a
crime to take a white dollar which is not yours and appropriate it to your use, and the man who does this is
put in jail; while it is no crime, but a legal service, to
take this black man, who belongs not to you, but to
himself, and appropriate him to your use. The man
who does such deeds is held in social and ecclesiastical
honor. Christianity is a crime at Constantinople, Mohammedanism at Rome, and effective humanity shown
to a black woman escaping from her " owner " in Carolina, is a crime in Boston. To help Shadrach out of
the hands of the man-stealers of Boston was the highest
crime known to American law; it was "levying war,"
treason, liable to be punished with death; in Halifax it
would be the fulfilment of the golden rule and rendering
a service unto Jesus Christ. To protect Ellen Craft
while kidnappers were clutching at her life, was a crime
in New England; in old England it is an honor. If a
man in this city should seize and force into bondage
Cuban negroes escaping hither from a monarchic fetter,
he would commit a crime: but there are persons here
whose official and legal function it is to seize and force
into bondage American negroes, escaping hither from a
democratic fetter; commissioned for that very purpose.




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           325
To kill an unoffending man for your own personal pleasure or profit in Massachusetts, is a crime; in New
Zealand it is a matter of common practice. The professional man-butcher has a legal existence in New
Zealand, I am told, as much as the professional manstealer in Boston. It is a crime to resist either in his
local function.
A Crime may be a mistake; or it may be an error,
for the human statute violated may represent the natural rule of expediency, or of right: or it may be neither an error, nor a mistake; for the human statute violated, may itself be both inexpedient and unjust as in
the acts establishing the man-butcher at New Zealand
and the man-stealer at Boston. It is no function of the
official executors of the statute to inquire whether it
corresponds to the Rule of Right. The judge and the
hangman are to be just as active in punishing a man
for rescuing Shadrach from the kidnappers, as in punishing the worst of pirates, red all over with human
blood; for such officers are of law, not Justice, and a
crime is an Offence against Law whether just or unjust.
A Sin is a conscious and voluntary or wilful violation
of a known law of God. To do wickedly is a Sin.
This does not come from lack of intellectual perception,
nor from lack of moral perception; but from an unwillingness to do the known Right, and a willingness to do
the known Wrong. It comes from some other deficiency, a compound deficiency — from lack of affectional power, or of religious power, or from a perverse
will.
Here is an example: Henry honestly owes John a
talent of gold, and can pay him, but will not, though
28




326                PRovIDENCE.
John needs the money. The Non-payment is a negative Sin. William knows it is naturally wrong to steal,
he is rich and has no material occasion to make stealing
excusable, but he robs Dorcas, a poor unprotected seamstress. The Theft is a positive Sin.
Sin is a violation of the Rule of Right; and so is
distinguished from a Mistake. It is conscious and voluntary; and so is distinguished from an Error. It is a
violation of a Natural Law of God; and is thus distinguished from a Crime.
I might discriminate a little more nicely and make a
distinction between a Subjective Sin - which is a conscious violation of what is thought to be a natural law,
but is not; and an Objective Sin, a conscious violation
of what is a natural law. In each case the integrity of
consciousness is disturbed.
So much for the definition of terms.
There may be various Degrees of Error and of Sin.
It is not easy to say where one begins and the other
ends; for in ethics as in all science, it is not easy to
distinguish things by their circumferences, where they
blend, but only by their centres, where the difference is
most clearly marked.
It is sometimes said there can be no such Error, or
Sin, as I speak of. This is one doctrine of that pantheistic scheme, before mentioned, which appears in so
many forms and under such antagonistic names. A
natural law of God, it is asserted, can no more be violated, consciously or unconsciously, by man than by
matter. A Sin, therefore - in the meaning just affixed
to that word- is as impossible as a solar eclipse at the
time of full moon; or as a straight line which is not the




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          327
shortest distance between two points; it is the law of
God, and so the will of God that William should rob
the seamstress, Henry neglect to pay John, and Ahab
clap the boys into jail for pilfering his apples.
The distinction between the normality of matter and
the normality of man, if not obvious, is yet clear
enough. In physical science we learn the law of mat.
ter by seeing what is done; it is derived from facts of
observation; by a natural intellectual process, from all
the facts we know we gather the Law of the Facts, that
is, the Natural Mode of Operation of the material forces
we study. Thus we know the law by seeing its observance; know it to be binding by seeing things bound
by it, as far as we see at all. It is found solely by the
inductive process, by observation and demonstration.
It is an Idea which, so to say, rests always on two pillars of fact, - Facts of Observation, Facts of Demonstration. There is no actual exception to the general
law; a single contrary fact would show us there was
no such law as we supposed. In Nature the ideal and
the actual are the same, - the ideal law and the actual
fact. This is true in mathematics, true also in physics.
Theory and practice are identical.
In ethical science, we learn the law of human nature
- that is the Natural Mode of Operation of the human
forces in Thomas, or in mankind - not by observation
and demonstration, but by an intuition of consciousness. The law is not a fact of observation or demonstration, but of consciousness. It is just as much a
law of human nature if Ahab, Henry, and William
have violated it all their lives, as if they had consciously
complied therewith. If we merely take all the facts of
observation made upon man and thence induce a law,
we can only see what has worked well hitherto, and get




328               PROVIDENCE.
an empirical knowledge of the expedient in time past;
the conclusion represents the facts of human history,
not the facts of human nature; it applies, at best, only
to those faculties already developed and enjoyed, not
to those others yet undeveloped. And of course our
scheme of ethics will have the imperfections which belong to the persons or actions, who furnish us the facts.
The Ideal will not transcend the Actual, but be identical with it. Man has uniformly exploitered woman;
the government, the people; the strong, the weak; "it
is the natural ethical law of human nature that this
should be so." That would be a fair conclusion from
this mode of procedure.  Indeed the atheist-who
studies man in this way,- tells us it is so; the consistent popular theologian, who follows the same course,
assures us that we can get nothing better from " the
light of Nature;" that all higher ethics come only of
6 miraculous revelation."
But by attending to the facts of consciousness, to the
moral instincts; and by the direct action of the moral
faculties which do not follow, but anticipate, experience, we learn from human nature, not merely from human history. Thus we get knowledge of a law of human nature which is an Ideal of Consciousness, though
not yet the actual of experience. It is in a great measure a matter of will whether we follow this law and
realize this ideal or not. It is our duty to obey this
ideal law when we know it; consciously and wilfully
to violate it is Sin.
Philosophically to deny the possibility of this kind of
Error and of Sin, you must deny either that there is
any difference between Right and Wrong; or else that
man has any Freedom to choose between them. Some
men have denied each; but it appears to me that both




TIHE ECONOMY OF PAIN.         329
are facts of consciousness. I feel conscious of a difference and antagonism between Right and Wrong; that
is an ultimate fact of consciousness. The greater part
of mankind feel the same thing, and have words to express that fact. I feel conscious of freedom, to a certain extent; that also is an ultimate fact of consciousness. The greater part of mankind feel the same thing.
In a matter of this sort my own consciousness is of the
utmost value to me; the opinion of the human race has
much weight, for this is one of the cases in which mankind is a good judge.
Now, much of the Pain and Misery in the world of
man comes from a violation of the moral laws of Nature, from Error and Sin. Can this evil be reconciled
with the Providence of the Infinite God; or is it an
Absolute Evil? Let us first look at Error, then at Sin,
at each with its consequences.
In treating of the misery which comes therefrom, I
will speak of it first, on a large scale —in* its Political
Form, of the Errors men make in their Civil Government.
The natural moral law, in its political operation,
requires that in the State there shall be complete and
perfect National Unity of Action, —the nation being
as complete a whole as a man's body, -that is necessary for all, that there may be a complete Whole; and
a complete and perfect Individual Variety of Action -
each man doing just what he is fittest to do and can
do best, — that is necessary for each man, that he may
be a complete person, with free spiritual individuality,
as free and independent in the State, as my hand and
28 *




330               PROVIDENCE.
feet are in the body, and as much in his proper place
and about his proper function. By this means there
will be a combination of efforts, but a distribution of
functions; national unity of end and design with personal diversity of means thereto. The centripetal power,
the Government, and the centrifugal power, the Individual, will be combined into a cosmic harmony like
that " which doth preserve the stars from wrong."
This is the ethic ideal of a State, the political tool
necessary to the welfare of mankind. Nothing short
of that with its industrial and economical contrivances,
will allow the individual all his natural and unalienable
rights, and enable him to have the normal use, development, and enjoyment of every limb of his body and
every faculty of his spirit. It is the political condition
to complete human welfare. But there is not a nation
in the world which has attained it yet. It is the ethic
ideal of a State which the foremost men of the world
are striving to set up. It can only be reached by the
gradual development of human nature, which can take
place only through progression by experiment. Some
of the experiments will fail, through Mistakes - a violation of the rule of expediency; through Errors - a violation of the rule of right, will fail in consequence of
man's intellectual or moral weakness. If the failure is
persisted in misery follows, and at length destruction;
the pain warns us of the blunder.
Now I have not heard enough to show in all cases
how this suffering proves remedial, and to demonstrate
the perfect Providence of God in the history of man.
For, to do that it would be necessary to have an amount
of knowledge, both of human nature and of human
history, which no man possesses as yet; which perhaps
it is not possible for mortal man ever to possess. But




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          331
I can see the beneficent effect and tendency of this in
so many cases, that the general analogy is clearly
made out, even without recurring to the Idea of God
as Infinite to "vindicate the ways of God to man."
Yet without that Idea I confess I should feel little general confidence in such a vindication.
Look at some of the examples of this kind of suffering. Here are nations which eminently lack National
Unity of Action. That is the case with all the governments in Spanish America. The Hispano-Amcricans
have not yet made a national harness which will hold
all the people. Their political experiments have not
succeeded very well. Their civil instrument is a poor
tool, which works rather badly and hurts the nation's
hand. As a consequence there follows a great deal
of suffering; the nations, each taken as a whole, are
poor and weak; the individuals, taken separately, are
also poor, ill-educated, oppressed, or oppressing, and not
enjoying high modes of happiness. Their suffering is
the consequence of their economical Mistakes and moral
Errors.
But how shall they ever get a better form of government? Only by making the trial. And if they suffered
no pain from the present failure they would make no
effort for future success. The pain urges them continually to alter and mend. They cannot be rich, happy,
well educated, nor even tranquil, until they have this
national Unity of Action. Hence they are in a state of
continual disturbance and fermentation. - Mexico alone
has had twenty-seven revolutions in less than thirty
years. Would it be a good thing if God were by miracle to remove this power to suffer on account of these
causes? Shall he miraculously give them a constitution




332                PROVIDENCE.
and frame of government; and miraculously dispose
all men to accept it? That would be to treat those
creoles like mules and oxen, not like men. A woman
wishes to walk cool in the summer's heat; shall God
miraculously give her the great shadow of a peculiar
cloud, or leave her to make her own umbrella, and walk
rejoicing in its shade?
Here are other nations which as eminently lack Individual Variety of Action - Spain, Italy, Austria, Turkey, Russia, not to mention others. A great amount
of force must be misdirected by the nation, as a whole,
to keep the individuals in their unnatural condition:
as a consequence there is a diminution of the productive
power of the people as a whole - soldiers and policemen so numerous, mechanics, merchants, farmers, so
rare,- and accordingly the nations are poor, and the
government unstable and corrupt.  Individual men
suffer from the unnatural restriction. This twofold
misery is the unavoidable consequence of their political
Error, it notifies men of the failure of their experiment.
But the mischief can only be got rid of by making
new political experiments. The national tool works
badly, it hurts the hands of the People; they must take
it again to the forge, heat and warm it over anew in
some other revolution and make a political instrument
better suited to the work they wish to accomplish.
Shall God alter the nature of man to accommodate the
Spaniard, the Neapolitan, and the Turk, making human
welfare to come from tyranny and ignorant exploitation
of the People as well as from a wise and just frame of
government? Shall he miraculously prevent the anxiety
of a tyrant, or the misery of his victim? A woodman's
axe is dull; shall God alter the constitution of the




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           333
trees, and increase the toughness of the woodman's
arms; or leave him to sharpen his axe, and then hew
down the trees with more comfort?
Look at the human race as one person: from the
beginning till now man has been devising an instrument to produce welfare. Every experiment has been
a partial success, each also a partial failure. So far as
the attempt succeeded the result has been delightful; so
far as it failed, painful. Suffering follows Error; man
abandons the Error, abolishes the mischief, tries again,
making out better next time. The pain has only been
adequate to sharpen his wits, like hunger and thirst to
make him work in other forms. Thus man gets his political education and political enjoyment. He tries despotism -that tool does not please him; then a monarchy, then an aristocracy, then a republic, and improves
continually in his constitutions as in his agricultural
and military tools. Man in his political development
hitherto has not suffered proportionately more than a
little girl, under ordinary circumstances, in growing up
to womanhood. But no one complains and thinks it an
Absolute Evil that the wind sometimes blows off the
hat of the little maiden; that she now and then falls
down and soils her frock; that her hoop runs off the
side-walk; or that she fails to get the right conjunction
in her French exercise and cries with chagrin at the
recitations. Mankind, like little Miss, suffers from corresponding evils, has the diseases of childhood, in a political form. Anarchy, despotism, revolutions, -these
are the measles and whooping-cough of the human race,
one day to be outgrown. The present political condition of mankind as much belongs to the present age of
mankind and comes as naturally in the process of human
development, I take it, as the greenness of apples be



334                PROVIDENCE.
longs to the month of June, and the immaturity of boyhood to early years. Shall we complain that the boy is
not born a man grown; that the apple is not mature in
June instead of October?
Political Oppression in its many forms is one of the
worst evils which now afflict the enlightened nations.
But it comes unavoidably from the nature of manfinite and progressive in his social as well as his individual condition. For human development it is necessary that men should gather in large masses, in nations;
to accomplish that political experiments are necessary;
the first attempt of a finite and free creature is not likely
to succeed and produce the effect which is ultimately
desirable; the experiment may fail, and its failure must
bring pain. Besides, man is politically progressive, and
outgrows his institutions as the individual his babyclothes.  Those which pleased him  once become a
source of pain, no longer suiting the altered condition
of the race. Here, as elsewhere, the pain is a warning.
Sometimes we can see the particular good results
brought about by some special evil. The Boston PortBill, the Stamp Act, with the other oppressive legislations of England, hastened the separation of the American child from her mother - to the lasting gain of both
and also of the human race. A thinking man sees manifold examples of this sort in all the history of mankind,
God
"From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still
In infinite Progression."
Suppose man had been made incapable of suffering
from political Errors, when they came in the experiments of the race. The Hebrews would have been con



THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           335
tent under the taskmasters of Egypt, and so have continued slaves until they were degraded beyond possibility of elevation on earth: till they perished outright.
If the Puritan had not smarted from the oppression he
suffered, he would have borne it patiently till now; and
have become what despots love — a passive tool of
tyranny; the world would have lost the brave development of manhood which has come from that hardy
stock. The horse and the ass are the servants of man;
they do not suffer from that state of subordination;
they take it
"With a patient shrug, -
For sufferance is the badge of all the tribe," -
and are content. Treat them kindly, give them enough
to eat, do not overwork them, and you have done the
beast no wrong. The dog is the only animal perhaps,
who voluntarily puts himself under the protection of
man. He does not suffer by human subordination; it
does not necessarily debase him, or prevent his development and his canine welfare. If his pliant nature yields
to man's plastic hand, and takes new forms, his happiness has also new forms. " What a generosity and
courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who is to him instead of a God, or
Melior Natura!"  But man is debased by such subordination; and if he did not suffer and smart when
another's will was imposed on him, the degradation
would be ruin before he was aware of the peril. If he
did not smart with pain under analogous thraldom,
when treated well, well fed, well clad, and not overworked, the nations had been slaves this day to a few
men with minds full of mastery.
The ruder a nation is, the less developed in the




336               PROVIDENCE.
higher faculties, the more external force is necessary to
keep individuals together and in order.'But the less is
such force debasing or painful to the sufferer. It requires more external force to establish national Unity
of Action in Russia than in America; the constraint
which a Russian needs and bears without pain, would
be intolerable to a New Englander, or a Briton.
Much misery appears in a Social Form, the consequence of Errors made in organizing men into communities. The ethic ideal of society is an organization of
men and women so skilfully constructed that each man
shall do the normal work which he can do best, with
the most advantage to himself and to all his fellows;
that he shall develop harmoniously all his faculties
with entire natural freedom, and at the same time have
the advantage of the aid and companionship of other
men, all likewise doing their best thing. Here there
will be a perfect Social Unity of Action and at the
same time perfect Individual Variety of Action - normal personal freedom. On the one hand, there will
appear the Solidarity of Mankind, at least of the special community; on the other the Sacredness of the
Individual. Each man will be deemed a Fraction of
society and so a factor in its product, but also an Integer; and both the functions, that of the fraction and
the integer will be sacredly respected. In this case the
social usages, and the public opinion they rest on, will
correspond exactly with the faculties of man in their
actual state of development; and with the natural
moral laws of God. There will be the same blending
of the centripetal power of the whole and the centrifugal power of the individual into that cosmic harmony
which I spoke of before, whereby "the most ancient




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           337
Heavens are fresh and strong." Then the various persons of the community will work together with as little
friction as the Planets in their course; with as little
waste as the forces which form a rose or a lily. The
laws, customs, and habits of society will be just and
natural. There will be no crime, - no man sacrificed
to another man, or to the mass of men. There will be
no pauperism because no laziness, no waste, and no
rapacity: a diversity of functions, but concentric unity
of purpose and a combination of efforts to achieve it.
Every man will be in perfect harmony with himself,
with his fellow men, and with Nature, —in perfect circumstances. So he will be in perfect health both of
body and spirit. Labor will be as delightful to men as
to emmets, beavers, and robins building their nests:
birth, life, death, all will be natural, all beautiful. Such
is the ethic ideal of a community. Nothing less will
correspond to the nature of man and the normal mode
of action of the human powers; nothing less to the
social moral law of God.
But there is no such community in the world; there
never has been. Behold what pain and misery come
of our attempts to organize men! A community is at
present a jumble of human forces; not a concord, but
a discord. How many men are out of their natural
sphere! This man was born a hunter, but he sits uneasily on a shoemaker's bench all his life, dyspeptic and
ill tempered. How many an idle profligate is cursed
by the money which his ancestors gathered together,
his riches hindering his manly development! How
many are covetous and grasping! Think of the want
and the crime; think of the licentiousness and intemperance; of the sickness which cuts off such hosts of
men in childhood, while only here and there one dies a
29




338                PROVIDENCE.
natural death. Consider all the ghastly forms of irregul:ar action which you find in a great city, in Boston,
NoIecv  York, London. Think of the indispensable attendants of a great town - hospitals, asylums for the
crazy and the old, for orphan babes, almshouses, jails of
manifold denominations — the moral sewerage of the
town, -of the police, swarming like buzzards in the
streets to remove the refuse of mankind. The constable never sleeps. The jail-van is always in motion.
Law and crime jostle each other in all the street. Gluttony and beggary meet at every corner. St. James and
St. Giles glower at each other in Christian London.
The angel of mercy follows the footsteps of the prostitutes, and watches over the bedside of her brother
who made them such. What pain and misery in
modern society! Boston is one of the most favorable specimens of a modern town, almost equally charitable and rich, but even here a good man can hardly walk
the public streets and then repeat his private prayers
without a shudder, -his heart making great leaps as
he remembers the ignorance and misery about him.
This suffering is an "abomination to the Lord," as
much as the older heathen form of making children
" pass through the fire unto Moloch;" it is against the
ideal of human nature. But if you look a moment you
see the cause of the misery and its function. Man is
finite, social, gifted with partial freedom, progressive
also. Sociality on a large scale is indispensable to his
development; great cities are as necessary for mankind
as a garment for a boy. They have ever been the fireplaces of human education - intellectual, moral, and
religious development. Man's advance in general development must take place by the aid, in part, of large
combinations of men. To for!m them, nay, to group a




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          339
hundred men together, he must make experiments.
They may fail through Errors or Mistakes. All human advance, social or individual, is progression by experiment. If men do not suffer from the failure they
will not know it is a failure; will continue it and
perish.
Suppose men made a social experiment and it failed
in consequence of the intellectual or moral deficiency
of the projectors, because it did not fulfil the economical, or moral conditions of social well-being; suppose
we did not suffer pain from the consequences of this
LIistake and Error, and consequently continued in it and
never rectified what was amiss in our experiment;
would that be a better scheme than the present one?
It is as idle to grumble at Providence because men suffer from social Mistakes and Errors, as to find fault
with God because a mill does not grind corn when its
wheels are placed on the wrong side of the dam. I
wish to write, but have put no ink in my pen. Shall
God fill it for me miraculously; or enable me to write
with a dry quill? He gave me the head and hand to
furnish ink withal; mankind the head and hand to
organize communities aright. My disappointment and
the world's misery notify us to take heed.
When the social machine is so constructed that it
provides shelter, food, raiment, education deficient in
quality or in quantity, or distributes these needful
things in an unnatural and therefore unsatisfactory
manner, is it not a wise and benevolent contrivance
that pain should warn us of the Mistake and Error?
If the bodies of the neglected poor did not shiver with
cold and damp and wet; if they did not ache with hunger, with fear, and the troop of ghastly diseases which
invade the rearward ranks of men in all our human




340                PROVIDENCE.
march; if ennui and the multiform maladies of body
and spirit did not attack and disturb the class of men
whose natural social burdens are borne by others; if
crime did not rise up and cry with its inarticulate mowings against the social waste and wrong; if the exploitered servant did not take his revenge by unfaithfulness; if the neglected, the poor, the outcast, did not
steal and rob, burn houses, and murder men; if the
slave did not run away, did not waste his employers'
goods, and slay their children; if the spoiled child did
not turn out a profligate, and gnaw the bosom which
bore him, - men would persevere in their social folly
and perish. Animals are unconsciously taught by instinct- gregarious not social. Their organization into
packs and flocks and herds is made ready for them like
the pattern of their nests, and the garment which grows
on their shoulders. Man is consciously teachable, selfinstructive; he learns by experiment; not merely gregarious but social, he is to construct his own social
organization, as his garments and his house. There is
always power enough, intellectual and moral, in each
generation of men to construct the social or political
organizations which that generations needs, which correspond to its state of development at that time. This
is ideally demonstrable - for it follows by unavoidable
deduction from the infinite perfection of God; and historically demonstrable from all the past ages of human progress and the present condition of men. But
as men have a partial freedom, they may use or neglect
this power of social organization. If they neglect the
means which God has provided as adequate for his
purpose and their social welfare, is it not benevolent
in him to make things so that pain shall ring an
alarm bell, as it were, and warn us of the Error? If




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          341
I will not put my cloak about me when the north
air bites, shall God abolish winter to save me the trouble of thought? If I have sense enough, and yet will
eat green apples and not ripe ones, is it not well that I
suffer?
Suppose that men not only suffered no pain in consequence of their social folly in violating the natural
law of the universe, but they did not die in consequence
of the error. Then the first experiment would be the
last; there would be an end of progress. We should
advance no more than the beavers, or the bees. So
there would be no continued growth of the faculties of
mankind, no consequent increase of happiness, no qualitative advance in mode, no quantitative in degree.
Man would have stopped long ago in some low stage
of development; perhaps never have advanced beyond
the culture of the men who have grown up amongst
wolves in Hindostan,- a barking, a ferocious, and a
stupid pack.
I know how terrible this suffering is, how much in
quantity, of a quality how sad; how many innocent
men suffer from the average folly of mankind, through
no Mistake or Error of their own. But take the whole
world together this pain is not in excess, and its function is plainly benevolent. Before us marches the attractive Idea of better things, a pillar of fire continually
advancing towards the promised land which flows with
milk and honey; behind us, the Egyptian host of
ignorance, and fear, and tyranny, and wanlt, drive us on.
Both are ministers of God's Providence.
See what evil comes in the Domestic Form. The
ethic ideal of a family demands the marriage of loving
men and women to their loving mates, two equivalent
29*




342                PROVIDENCE.
and free persons uniting in connubial love, manhood
and womanhood combining into humanity. But are
such marriages common? Is the wife thought the
equal, the equivalent of the husband; is the family always based on love, connubial, parental, filial, friendly
love? The masculine element oppresses and enslaves
the feminine.  Man exploiters woman all the world
over. How many live unmarried -against their nature, against their conscious will. Polygamy prevails
"over three quarters of the groaning globe."  In Christendom the marriage of one to one is the ecclesiastic
and legal ideal, the marriage-type. Is it also the fact?
How much is there of involuntary singleness - painful
and against nature; how much vice of many forms,
odious to the thought; what unhappiness from illassorted wedlock begun in haste, repented of at leisure,
but made permanent by statute and public opinion?
What a world of misery comes from the Mistakes and
Errors men have made in the domestic organization of
mankind and womankind!
Here the same reasoning applies - the proximate
cause of the misery is the Mistake; the function
thereof is to warn men and stir them to better experiments. All this matter of love might have been
settled by laws that could not be broke, and like oaks,
with no chance of mistake, men might
"languidly adjust
Their vapid, vegetable loves with anthers and with dust,"
or like the free birds of heaven be mated by instinct,
Does any one think that would be an improvement?
Attracted by the Ideal of a perfect family, driven by
pain from the actual, mankind moves on, each generation of Jacobs and Rachels improving over the family




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           343
of their predecessors, and with a continual increase of
domestic bliss. The pain which comes from married
and unmarried Error is not excessive for its work.
Look the world over, disguising nothing, and you see
how nicely this misery is fitted for its function and one
day it will end. Only the boy cries over his multiplication table.
See the evil which comes of Mistakes and Errors in
Religion- from Errors about Piety its sentimental
part, about Theology its theoretical part, and Morality
its practical part. Absolute Religion is the service of
the Infinite God by the normal use, development, and
enjoyment of every limb of the body, every faculty of
the spirit, every power which we possess over matter or
man. This is a service which is "perfect freedom."
This is the Ideal of religion; nothing short of this
answers to the spiritual nature of man and the natural
law of God. Every thing short of this is an Error, or
a Mistake.
But no considerable body of men has yet attained
this Form of Religion. It is not consciously made the
ideal of any sect of religionists in the world. How
much suffering arises from the common notions of religion in the most enlightened nations! I have spoken
of this so often in previous sermons that it is needless
to say much now. But what fear among " Believers "
of the popular theology, what littleness, what absurd
singleness of the soul which longs for union with God;
what meanness and cowardice is found in men who try
to wring and twist themselves into the spiritual contortions demanded by Hebrew, Mahometan, or Christian
Priests! What spiritual hunger is there of Unbelievers!
The ecclesiastical bodies founded on the popular Mis



344               PROVIDENCE.
takes and Errors - how impotent they are to lead the
nation to any great good work! What manifold evils
come of this cause! Look at the condition of the
Christian world: its general Theology scornfully rejected by scientific men; the Roman Church dead;
the Greek Church for many centuries without life; the
Protestant churches of Europe divided, feeble, ruled
like armies by kings; and in many places what is officially called "Religion," exacted of the people by the
tax-gatherer and the constable; the churches of America divided, wrangling, and all unable to direct in natural ways the immense energies of this great Commonwealth; -nay, not daring to oppose the colossal Errors
and Sins of the nation, or even to rebuke the political
atheism which denies the Higher Law of God! See
what imbecility comes from a theology which calls on
its followers to renounce reason; for the sake of being
spiritual, to give up the exercise of their spirit. What
pain comes from belief in eternal punishment, the priest
tormenting men before their time! What misery comes
from fearing a dreadful God! Look at the oppression
still practised in the name of religion - in Italy men
shut in a Christian jail for reading the Christian Bible;
in almost every Christian state laws forbidding freedom
of speech on matters relating to Christianity, the gallows reaching its arm over the pulpit. See how many
men in America are driven to infidelity, to denial of all
conscious religion, by the absurdities taught in its
name; how many are annually forced to hospitals for
lunatics, incurably crazed by what is called religion.
Acquisitiveness is doubtless the disease of America just
now; but the lust of money is less powerful than the
popular theology in bringing men to public Bedlam.
The theological mistake is incidental to human na



THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           345
ture, — finite, free, progressive; the misery is an unavoidable result of the mistake, and has a benevolent
function under the Providence of God. As perfect
Cause he foreknew the history of mankind, all our Mistakes in religious matters, and wisely put pain as an
unavoidable consequence of avoidable Mistakes and
Errors. If the mass of men in Northern Europe had
not suffered from the false theology, false morality, false
piety, and manifold oppression in the name of God imposed on them by the Roman church, the world had
been under Leos and Juliuses and Adrians to this day.
Had not the unsatisfactory schemes of the Roman,
Grecian, Hebrew theologies given pain to mankind,
Christianity would have perished with Jesus; nay, if
men had not suffered from the mistakes of Egyptian
priests, Moses would never have led Israel out of the
iron house of bondage and the gross darkness which
covered the people. The oxen suffer not from the letters which their master burns upon their horns; the
Roman ass is not pained by the image of St. Anthony
which his superstitious master puts on him with a
priestly blessing; if men suffered no more from false
ideas of religion, we should be as oxen and asses,
driven by other masters, and that to our ruin.
In religion as elsewhere, God has provided for a continual progress; but it is all progression by experiment;
by many experiments which fail we reach the one that
succeeds, and through the Red Sea escape from Egypt
to the land of Promise. How long it took mankind to
invent a machine driven by a river, or a flame of fire,
that could spin and weave cotton! And does it appear
strange that man should err long and wide before he attains a perfect scheme of religion? Fetichism was
once a triumph, and satisfied the aspirations of devout




346                PROVIDENCE.
mankind; next man outgrew it, but cautious and conservative still sought to wear the strait, scant girdle
which' devoured his loins; at length urged by intolerable pain, attracted by a better idea, he threw it away.
Polytheism, Hebraism, Classic IDeism, Romanism, have
the same history, the same fate -once prayed for, then
outgrown, and next prayed against and cast away.
But the good of each is continually preserved. The
Mosaic religion was an advance over the popular service of God in Egypt four thousand years ago; the
Jewish form of Christianity rose far above Moses; the
Pauline form transcended that; Romanism is a compromise between the Christianity of Paul, the Mosaism
of the Hebrews, and the Polytheism of the Greeks and
Romans. The human race went forward as they became Catholic Christians. Luther took a step in advance of Rome; Zuingle, Calvin, his fellow reformers,
great men all of them, helped us still further on. But,
pained by their imperfections, cheered by the Spirit of
God in the soul of man which still tells of lands, of
promise before us, and still sends fire-pillars in every
night to show the way over sands that furnish water,
and through rivers which dry up to let us pass -the
race still journeys on from Thebes to Jerusalem, from
that to Rome, thence to ~Wittenberg, Basle, Geneva,
Westminster; and there is no end. Every step in religion is an experiment; if a wrong step it is painful.
But the pain is medical. The fires of Moloch in Syria;
the harsh mutilations in the name of Astarte, Cybele,
Jehovah; the barbarities of imperial pagan tormentors;
the still grosser torments which Romano-Gothic Christians in Italy and Spain heaped on their brother men,
the fiendish cruelties to which Switzerland, France, the
Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, America have




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           347
been witness, are not too powerful to warn men of the
unspeakable evils which follow from  Mistakes and
Errors in this matter of religion. The present sufferings
from belief and unbelief, it is easy to learn the lesson
which they read. If we misuse the deepest and most
powerfnul force in man, the pain which comes therefrom
must needs be great. To pluck out a hair brings little
pain; but to rend off a limb, to tear out an eye- a
dreadful misery forbids that sacrilege.  Did not pain
warn the Christian nations, the Protestant and the
Catholic, as it ever has warned all loiterers, all wanderers, we should stray further and further from our
God, or else stop in our onward march; and in either
case lose the progressive joy of manly development of
our religious powers.
There is now intellectual and moral power enough
active in the present generation to correct the evils of
the popular theology of Christendom, the defects of its
ecclesiastical machinery, and so to remove the suffering
which comes from that. If we fail to apply these
powers to this work, it is surely wise in the great
Father to have so made the world that pain shall at
length compel us to put off the shoe which pinches, and
not suffer the foot to be spoiled.
This fourfold Error in the formation of the State, the
Community, the Family, and the Church - has brought
a flood of misery upon the world. But it has forced
mankind to a fourfold improvement —political, social,
domestic, religious; to a fourfold increase of human
delight and blessedness. Every age has power to mend
its machinery and to devise better. These Mistakes
and Errors were foreseen by the Infinite God, at the
creation, provided for, and the checks to them all made




348                PROVIDENCE.
ready beforehand. Even here there is nothing imperfect, but the motive, material, purpose, and means continually reveal the infinite perfections of God.
You see how a child makes Mistakes in getting command of his body; how he stumbles in learning to
walk and hurts his limbs by the fall; but his wise
mother cheers and encourages him. How he hurts his
hands and feet before he learns the qualities thereof, and
their normal relation to the things they touch! What
experiments he makes that fail before he learns the
economic conditions which hedge him in! See how
mankind toils and experiments in getting the entire
command of any of our present instruments, living
or inanimate. What pain comes of each Mistake!
The ox gores his master; the horse throws him;
Actmeon's hounds devour their lord - it is more than
fable; the Pine-bender is snatched up in his own tree.
What a useful thing is fire; what a powerful instLrument in the world's civilization! It has been domesticated, I doubt not, some twenty or thirty thousand
years. But even now what Mistakes we make in its
use; what evils it brings! not a venturesome baby in the
best ordered family, but puts his finger to the flame and
starts when that schoolmaster sharply reminds him of
the distinction between the Me and the Not-Me; not a
little village, never so dull, but it loses now and then a
house, or barn, by this unruly servant; not a city but
has its conflagration, its police and engines to quell the
element and keep the fire within its limits. Condense
a thousand million men to one great consciousness;
consider the human race as one man twenty or thirty
thousand years old, all his burnings do not make a
greater proportionate amount of suffering than what
befals our venturesome weanling who puts his disobe



THIE ECONOMY OF PAIN.         349
dient fingers in the candle's flame. WVould it be benevolent in God to take from boy or man the possibility
of a Mistake in the use of fire, the consciousness of pain
from such a Mistake?
Steam will probably work as great a change in the
affairs of man, in domestic, social, political relations,
as fire has done hitherto. But see what havoc it now
makes of human life, with such reckless men in America
tumultuating over land and water so heedless of the unchanging laws of God. What pain we suffer in getting
command of this instrument! It has been so with all
the forces of Nature which man has tamed and domesticated. The entire amount of suffering is always proportionate to our lack of skill to manage the instrument; the more valuable the forces are the longer it
takes to learn all their powers and acquire the full mas
tery over them. It is easy to tame a dove, hard to domesticate thunder and lightning.
In the fifteenth century their were three Magi in Europe, new-comers, looking for One born king of the
world, - Mariner's Compass, Gunpowder, PrintingPress, such were their titles. What a world of mischief they wrought, disturbing everybody, — coasters,
crossbowmen, scribes! What spread of mischievous
falsehoods took place; what slaughter of men; what
shipwreck in mid ocean! How grim  they looked!
But those Magi all three of them came out of the
eternal East of human consciousness; following "the
star which once stood still over a stable," they now fall
down before Democracy, the Desire of all Nations;
while Herod seeks the young child's life to destroy him,
they open their treasuries and present gifts, their gold,
frankincense, and myrrh.
Now to get the full mastery over the spirit of man,
30




350               PROVIDENCE.
to learn all the complicated powers of mind and conscience, heart and soul, so that mankind shall know
all their modes of action, individual and social, as the
chemist and the housewife know the powers and modes
of action of fire, or as the engineer knows the powers
and capabilities of steam; to provide these various
complicated and progressive faculties with their proper
harness and machinery - political, social, domestic, ecclesiastic,- for all their manifold purposes —that is a
task far greater than the taming of cattle, the domestication of fire and steam; far more difficult, requiring
far more time for the work, and demanding innumerable
experiments, continued for thousands of years, each incidentally subject to failure, and that unavoidably attended by pain and misery which can only be removed
by correcting the Error, and mending the Mistake.
But the misery is all along remedial, is never excessive
for its work and function. God achieves the maximum
of effect with the minimum of means; the maximum
of welfare with the minimum of misery. The whole
amount of pain endured by mankind from political,
social, domestic, and religious Mistakes and Errors, in
the whole human history, is of a merciful and educational character; comes from the same cause, for the
same purpose, as the pain of burning the finger when
thrust into a flame, and. bears no greater relation to the
whole consciousness of mankind than the suffering of
an ordinary child in growing up to maturity.
It is true the sufferings are often borne by such as
had no part in producing the cause of suffering; nay,
who sought to remove it, and on earth their misery is
not adequately compensated, -but this life is only a
part of the whole human duration, half a hundred
years out of eternity. The infinite Justice of God



THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          351
foreknowing all, provided for every thing, before the
world, or an atom thereof, was embarked on its endless
voyage -must have provided a compensation somewhere. This retribution to the parts which suffer from
the Errors of the whole must take place somewhere in
the world created by the perfect Cause, controlled by
the perfect Providence; for it is impossible that the
Infinite God should create from an imperfect motive,
of imperfect material, for an imperfect purpose, or as
imperfect means thereto. When I cannot unriddle the
details and see how John the Baptist and Jesus are to
be recompensed for their early and violent death, how a
recompense is to be afforded to the poor daughter of
want, whom the Errors of society force unconscious
into degradation, into crime, and an unnatural grave,
half immature in body and wholly undeveloped in all
the high qualities of womanhood, I am ready to trust
the Infinite God. The warrant of ultimate human welfare is indorsed on every person, on each living thing,
in the handwriting of the infinite God; and though I
could not trust the promise of any of the popular finite
deities, I am as sure of the Infinite God as I am that
one and one make two, or that I myself exist. The
instinctive desire of human nature is God's Promise to
pay; Eternity his time.
Then look at the pain and misery which come from
the intellectual Mistakes and moral Errors of mankind;
leave out nothing, diminish nothing, look St. Giles' in
the face; study the sufferings of all the Irelands of the
earth; confront all the wars of the world; meet eye to
eye that most hideous of living monsters, American
Slavery, the lifeblood of three million men dripping
from the democratic hand;- examine the political,




352                PROVIDENCE.
social, domestic, and religious wretchedness of mankind,
does it amount to Absolute Evil? Is there any reason
to think so? Surely not. Are present pain and misery
excessive for their unavoidable and merciful function?
Scrutinize with the nicest analysis of science, and
you must confess that so far as the facts are known
the benevolence of Providence perpetually appears; and
so far as the analogy reaches the same conclusion follows.
Then comes the scientific idea of the Infinite God to
fill up the chasms which science leaves unfilled. A
church, a family, a community, a State, is each a machine formed of human materials, wherewith to achieve
the religious, domestic, social, and political welfare of
mankind: if the machine be a poor or ineffective tool, is
it plainly wise and merciful, nay, just and loving, that
pain should warn us of the insufficiency of the instrument; and repeat the warning till we have abandoned
it and made a wiser experiment? As the centripetal
and centrifugal forces in the solar system are just sufficient to keep each planet in its orbit, rythmically wheeling about the sun, with no deficiency, and no redundance, so is the pain which follows human Error but
just enough to warn us of the ruin and hold us back.
The astronomical conclusion is mathematically demonstrable from the facts of observation and the intuitions
of consciousness; the human conclusion is not yet
inducible from facts of observation, but deducible with
most rigorous science from the idea of God as Infinite. The amount of misery is a variable quantity,
controlled by the conduct of mankind; we diminish it
just as we learn and keep the natural laws of God, the
original human means he has provided for his divine
purpose.




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          353
So much for the Evil which conies from AMiistakes
and Errors.
Look next at the Evil of Sin - the pain and misery
which come thereof. A man knows the moral law of
God; he has learned it by experiment, or by intuition
which anticipates experience; he knows the true, the
moral beautiful, the just, the affectional, the holy.
Conscience is powerful enough to say " Thou oughtest! " There it stops and leaves us free to obey, or
disobey. It does not say, " Thou must! Thou shalt!"
It does not hold us bound. I know the right; I have
the power to do, or to refuse to do it. That is my freedom, my most subtle, most dangerous gift; it is the
most precious too. Perhaps I shall not do the right I
know I ought; I will not make the ideal of my moral
nature the actual of my daily work. If the moral or
religious faculty compelled me, I should be its slave;
not a free man, only a bare tool of the Almighty. If
conscience compels me to realize the Ideal it reveals, if
the affections force me to live out my ideal love for
man, and the soul constrain me to acts of holiness, then
I only gravitate to my ideal; I cease to be a free spiritual individuality. It is not I that love, but the force
which acts through me, foreign though divine. I obey
it voluntarily, then the will of God becomes my personal act, I am a conscious co-worker with the Infinite.
I am not a moral fossil, not a moral animal, but a
moral man. I feel at one with myself; all my high
faculties consent to the Ideal of my conscience and conform in this act of will. I am- self-balanced; my own
centre of gravity is my centre of motion also; my will
accords with the will of God; he and I are at one;
30 X




354                PROVIDENCE.
his will my work. I have the delight of my freedom
well employed.
If I do not obey my sense of right, straightway there
comes remorse; I gnaw upon myself. My wrong disturbs the integrity of the universe. I am not at ease.
Conscious of violating my own integrity, I feel ashamed
and inwardly tormented because the ideal of my mind
and conscience, heart and soul is not the actual of my
conduct.
This is the first subjective consequence of Sin; it is
a form of pain peculiar, distinct from all other modes
of suffering. I suppose every grown man knows what
it is. I will not speak from observation of others, but
from consciousness and my own inward experience; I
know the remorse which comes from conscious violation of my own integrity, from treason to myself and
my God, from consciousness of sacrificing my universal Ideal of the true, the just, the moral beautiful, the
affectional, the holy, to some private personal caprice.
It transcends all bodily pain, all grief at disappointed
schemes, all anguish which comes from the sickness;
yea, from the death of dear ones prematurely sent
away. To these afflictions I can bow with " Thy will,
not mine, be done." But remorse, the pain of Sin -
that is my work. This comes obviously to warn us of
the ruin which lies before us; for as the violation of
the natural material conditions of bodily life leads to
dissolution of the body, so the wilful, constant violation of the natural conditions of spiritual well-being
leads to the destruction thereof. So the pain of remorse comes wisely and mercifully to warn me from
my ruin. It anticipates the outward consequence; it
comes as the disagreeable smell, or warning look, or
repulsive taste of poison.  A State with no statute




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           355
against high-treason, no punishment therefor, would
be exceedingly imperfect. Remorse is the subjective
consequence, the penal retribution; yea, the medicine
and cure for this high-treason against the soul and
against its God.
The outward consequences of Sin are the same as
those of Error or Mistake, and require no specific description.
Sin is a wrong choice; a preference of the wrong way
to the right one. No man loves the wrong for its own
sake, as an end, but as a means for some actual good it
is thought to lead to. It is one of the incidents of our
attempt to get command over all our faculties. In
learning to walk, how often we stumble; we stammer
in attempts to speak; and babies babble long before
they talk. In learning to read, to write, how children
mistake the letters, miscall the sounds, miswrite the
words! Sin is a corresponding incident - we learn
self-command by experiments, experiments which fail.
I think this evil is rather underrated. Consciously to
violate the integrity of your spirit is a worse evil than
men seem to fancy.. Oh! young man, expect Error of
yourself, expect Mistakes. Your eye deceives you, so
may your mind and conscience, your heart and soul.
Expect also analogous wanderings in getting self-command. But do not tolerate any conscious violations of
your own integrity; the experience of that will torment
you long, till sorrow has washed the maiming brand out
of your memory, and long years of goodness have filled
up the smarting scar. Men grown see the right, see it
plainly; it does not serve their special turn, in trade, in
politics, in the pursuit of pleasure or of power. They
trample their ideal underfoot. The subjective pain and




356               PROVIDENCE.
misery which comes thereof, is a just and merciful contrivance of the eternal Father.
There are men of little excellence but of great conceit, bigoted men, wonted to the machinery of social
and ecclesiastical routine, their wheels deep in the ruts
of custom, omitting the weighty matters of love to men
and God; who tithe mint, anise, and cumin, and
thank God continually that they are not like the publican; to such men a sin, a rousing public sin, will do
good, and in heaven they may thank God for it. I
have known such men, and have thought if they could
commit some great Sin, they might become less sinful.
Jesus told a rich man, - probably one wedded to
wealth, — to sell all he had and give to the poor.
There are men so conceited with their own excellence,
and besotted with custom, that I have sometimes
thought the same Jesus would tell them to do some
monstrous thing and get ashamed of themselves, and
learn how worthless is their self-conceit.  But the
Sin-cure, even for such a man, is like healing rheumatism by burning the afflicted member to the bone.
As we get command over the body only by experiment, learning to run, to walk, to swim only by trial;
as by experiment we learn the rules of expediency and
of right, learning each with many Mistakes and Errors,
with many a pain; so by experiments are we to learn
the proper uses of the will, to keep the law of God
when known. It is only in this way that the individual, the family, the community, the State, the world
mknows the power of the personal, or the accumulated
will, and how to keep the law of God when known.
So there are moral experiments in all these forms, and
Sins of the Family, the Community, the Nation, and the




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.            357
World, which come as incidents of human development.
The pain thereof is an unavoidable consequence of the
transgression, and a warning that the trespass has been
wrought. I am glad it cost me efforts to learn to speak,
to walk, to know the rule of right, else were I less a
man. The pains I have felt from Errors here are joyous pains at last. So too am I glad God gave me
power to go astray even when I know the right; glad
that it costs me hard efforts to learn the uses of my will,
to subject the transient caprice of personal desire to the
eternal true, right, moral beautiful, lovely and holy of
the Infinite God. And though remorse has been my
keenest pain - I know it is my highest birthright which
the pain stands over and guards as watchful sentinel.
At the creation, the perfect Cause knew all the future
wanderings of each man, the Mistakes of the intellect,
the Errors of the conscience, the Sins of the will; and
as the check thereto he mercifully appointed pain to
come to the individual, family, community, the nation,
and the world.
Theologians often talk mythologically about Sin, as
if there was something mysterious in its origin, its cause,
its process, its result, and final end. They tell us that
as it is a transgression against the Infinite God, so it is
an Infinite Evil, meaning an absolute evil, demanding
an eternal punishment. To this scholastic folly it is
enough to reply, that if sin be for this reason an Absolute Evil, then, the smallest suffering coming from an
Infinite God is an Infinite Suffering, and cancels the
Sin.
Sin is said to be a" Fall; " yea, as the child's attempt to walk is a stumble. But the child through
stumbling learns to walk erect; every fall is a fall up



358                PROVIDENCE.
ward. Creeping is an advance over stillness, stumbling
over creeping. In the yearling boy the feet are soft and
tender, the legs feeble, unable to sustain the pulpy
frame. But the instinct of motion stirs the young
master of creation to press forward; not content with
creeping he tries to walk, he falls, and cries with pain.
He dries at length his tears, and tries and falls again,
again to weep. But gradually, by trial, the limbs grow
strong, the eye steady; he walks erect; he runs down
steep places; up and down the snow-clad Alps Hannibal
marches through the winter, leading his army of men
each a stumbling baby once.
Through weakness of mind and conscience we may
err — the Error has its check, and Nature has the cure.
No mistake is eternal. At first the little child pricked
with a pin only feels pained in his general consciousness,
not discriminating the special spot that smarts. By
and by, instructed by experience of pain, and so familiar
with the geography of his little world of flesh, when
hurt he lays his hand on the afflicted spot to localize
the grief; at length he learns to scrutinize the cause and
to apply the cure. Thus is it with mankind. Weakness of the Affections, of the Soul, of the Will, is not
eternal. Sin, with its consequent pain, is transient as
Errors and Mistakes.  Stumblings of the body, the
mind and conscience, heart and soul, belong to babyhood  the early or the late; incidents of our development. If the first step is a fall- the step is still a progress, the fall is forward. In the days of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, how poorly women spun and wove.
But the bungling craft of Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel
does not retard the mill of Manchester, of Lowell and
Lyons. From Sarah to Jacquard what a stride! millions of experiments that failed strew all the way. The




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          359
mistakes of the first farmers nobody copies now; but
the cereal grasses, which, as the story tells, a mythologic queen first brought to Italy, all round the temperate world grow corn for daily bread. What have I
to do with the stammering of my fathers ten thousand
years ago, when the language had but a hundred
words perhaps? Does it bar me from eloquence and
all the nice distinctions of scientific speech? Nay my
own blunders in babyhood, boyhood, manhood —blunders of the body, of the spirit -do they disturb me
now?  They are outgrown and half-forgot. I learned
something by each one. So is it with Sin, the world's
Sin, your Sin and mine. Pain checks all heedless
motion; we learn the lesson but forget the pain.
Men start, in these times, with the idea of a dreadful
God, who made men badly at first, and then set them
a-going; when they stumble he falls on them, brings
them to the ground and crushes them down to endless
hell; only a few he sends his Son to help and lift up -
all the rest lie there and rot in everlasting woe. The
pain of this folly will one day drive us from the greatest
Error of the human race- from the belief in a devilish
God and an eternal Hell. Our successors will forget
it as we the follies of our sires who worshipped stocks
and stones before they dreamed of Odin and of Thor.
See now the obvious use of Pain and Misery, -they
are plainly beneficent. In the State, the Community,
the Family, the Church, the Individual Man, it is not
hard to see their general function. Evil is partial.
There is no Absolute Evil. Man advances forever -
the perfect means goes forward to achieve the perfect
purpose. Man oscillates in his march as the moon




360                PROVIDENCE.
nods in her course. Pain marks the limit of his vibration; the variables of human caprice are perpetually
controlled by the constants of divine Providence. Once
man, prone and mute, was the slave of Nature, the
absolute savage, the wild man of the woods, overmastered by his elementary instincts which so jealously
keep watch over the individual and the race; that comrade of the wolf, with many a painful step has journeyed on —his life a progress, his march triumphal.
See what the past life of mankind has brought aboutfixed habitations, language, letters, arts, science, literature, laws, manners, religion. What a growth from the
time when these ten fingers were the only tools of man,
and all his mightier faculties lay below the horizon of
his consciousness!
Look at the evils of our time —as political oppression, the strong nations ruling the weak with iron rods,
the government exploitering the people; look at war,
at social oppression, the strong laying their burdens on
the weak, in this age of commercial tyranny, at despotism by the dollar which takes the place of the old despotism by the sword; look at slavery — total in Carolina,
partial in all Christendom; domestic oppression, woman
exploitered by man; ecclesiastical oppression - false
Ideas of God, of Man, of the Relation between the
two form a three-pronged spear wherewith Superstition
goads the race of men in all lands. Look at poverty,
ignorance, drunkenness, prostitution, murder, theft, and
every vice. What misery comes of all these evils! But
they were all foreseen and are provided for in the careful housekeeping of God. The- past history shows
what checks there always have been; what powers
come forth equal to each emergency. If the world
were to end to-day  it would seem a failure, man's




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          361
desires not satisfied, the budding promise of the race
not growing into fruit, or even flower. But this is only
the beginning of the history of man on earth,
"A thousand years scarce serve to form a State;"
many a thousand years there must be to form the
great Commonwealth of Man where the perfect State,
Community, Family, and Church shall have their home.
The pain of Sin is the pain of surgery, nay, the pain
of growth. My sin-burnt soul dreads the consuming
fire, its pain a partial good. God provided for it all,
making all things work together for good. My suffering shames me from conscious wrong. stings me into
efforts ever new; and I flee from consuming Sodom
with a swifter flight. The loving-kindness of the Infinite Mother has provided also for this evil, for its cure.
There is retribution everywhere - for I am conditioned
by the moral law of God. In youth Passion tempts
me to violate the integrity of my consciousness with
its excess, I love the pleasure of the flesh; in manhood
Ambition offers the more dangerous temptation, I love
the profit of selfishness. If I yield and sacrifice the
eternal Beauty of the true, the just, the good, the holy
to the riot of debauch, or to the calculated selfishness
of that ambition, there comes the subjective consequence,-a sense of falseness, of shame, a loathing
of myself, the leprous feeling that I am unclean,
the sleepless worm which gnaws the self-condemning
heart; then comes the outward evil, the resultant of my
wrong,-men band against me, to check my wicked
deeds. One wheel is blocked by remorse; and human
opposition holds the other fast. So suffering keeps my
wrong in check. I am thus pained by every evil thing
31




362                PROVIDENCE.
I do. In the next life I hope to suffer till I learn the
mastery of myself, and keep the conditions of my
higher life. Through the Red Sea of pain I will
march to the promised land, the divine Ideal guiding
from before, the Egyptian Actual urging from behind.
Liability to Mistake, to Error and to Sin, is the indispensable condition of human freedom. That is not
absolute but partial, relative. I know the Infinite Father holds the line which tethers me; that He gave to
man this human nature in us all, with just the quality
and quantity of powers needful as means to execute
his perfect purpose and fulfil his perfect motive. I
know that he will draw us back and lead us home at
last, losing none of his flock, dropping no son of perdition by the way; but a great ways off meeting his
prodigals a-coming home, or if they only will to come;
yea he has means which move their will without constraint, for he is Infinite God, the perfect Cause, the
perfect Providence. The world he makes, from a perfect motive, of a perfect material, for a perfect purpose,
and as a perfect means, is the best world which the infinite God could make; the best of all possible Creators must make the best of all possible worlds -with
the minimum of pain securing the maximum of bliss.
Men often exaggerate the amount of Sin -its quantitative evil, not its qualitative. Much which passes by
this name is Mistake, or Error; many depraved deeds
are done with little depravity, perhaps with none. I
see the evils which come of conscious or unconscious
wrong. Here are men who walk the streets self-mutilated
of limb, or feature, by violation of the body's laws; others
maimed, still worse, of limb, or feature, of the spirit. Is
their Error, their Sin, an Absolute Evil? The Infinity
of God forbids. The Man-butcher of New Zealand, the




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.          363
Man-stealer of New England have not fallen beyond
lifting up. One day the better nature of each shall be
wakened. Even such transgression is not absolute.
The high-priests in Jerusalem who paid Judas his thirty
pieces, the price of blood shed by his treachery; the
low priests in Boston who paid the latest kidnapper his
fee, their praises and their prayers, alike the price of
blood shed by his treachery, they are under the Providence of the Infinite Mother who at the beginning provided for all of her children. All these shall one day
measure their lives by the golden rule of Love.
I see the enormous mass of human misery which
comes of Mistakes, Errors, Sins. I see its cause; I
know its prophecy. It tells me of the vast powers of
man - of the individual, and the race. The power of
wrong is but a mistaken power of right. The wicked
Statutes men enact, come as incidents in the nation's
moral growth; the wars, the tyrannies, the slaveries of
old time and modern days, are wanderings from the
path we are to take; local, partial, only for a time.
The devastations wrought by misdirection of the religious faculty reveal its power, and foretell its normal triumph in time to come. I lift my eyes from the present
to the past. What a triumphal progress has been the
march of man!  Still is the human face set forward.
The Cannibal in New Zealand is far above the wolfbred child in Hindostan; far before the merely savage
man. Even the Kidnapper of New England is in advance of the Cannibal of the Pacific. The increase of
crime in all Europe since the revival of letters, marks a
step forward. Immortality is for each man. Eternity
stretches out before the race. And in the protracted
childhood and great Errors of man I foresee his manly
and majestic march in days to come. God bound the




364                 PROVIDENCE.
beasts; it was in mercy to them. Only by change of
body can the adult animal advance. For them there is
no progress of the family, the tribe, or race. Little is
left for their free choice; so as they venture little, they
win no more. The God of oxen provides for them as
Infinite Providence, by his will, not their own. But
the larger venture in man is liable to worse contingencies of ill; destined also to produce a higher resultant
of bliss.
Tell me of war, of slavery, of want, of political, social,
domestic oppression; tell me of the grim terrors of the
Popular theology —its religion a torment, its immortality a curse, its deity a devil; tell me of Atheism, its
doubt, its denial, its despair, —its here and no Hereafter, its body without a Soul, its world without a
God;- tell me what pain and misery come of all these,
and by the greatness of the aberration I measure the
greatness of the orbit and the orb; for in the centre of
the universe, its ever present Cause, its ever active
Providence, I see the Infinite God, I feel him immanent
in every particle of matter, in each atom of Spirit; and
how can I fear? The nodding of a school-boy's top is
not the measure for the oscillations of a world.
The greatest present evil is small compared to what
man has already lived through and so far overpowered,
that most men deem it blasphemy to say they ever were.
Absolute Evil is not in Error, its misery is its check,
points to its cure, helps to its end. Is it in Sin?  Yea,
if Sin were endless; to act wrong, think wrong, feel
wrong, be wrong, - at variance with self, with Nature
and with God — that is misery, absolute evil were it
endless. Not only is all the analogy of the universe
against the monstrous thought, each drop of Science
drained off from the world of space and time corroding




THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.           365
and eating away this ugly thing; but the Idea of God's
Infinite Perfection annihilates the boyish dream. Suppose I am the blackest of sinners, that as Cain I slew
my brother, as Iscariot I betrayed him - and such a
brother - or as a New England kidnapper I sold him to
be a slave- and blackened with such a sin I come to
die - still I am the child of God, of the Infinite God;
he foresaw the consequences of my faculties, of the freedom he gave me, of the circumstances which girt me
round, and do you think he knows not how to bring me
back, that he has not other circumstances in store to
waken other faculties and lead me home, compensating
my variable hate with his own Constant Love!
" Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise."
THE END