? THE 
 
 UNiVERSltY 
 OF 
 
MY PATH TO ATHEISM. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE BESANT 
 
 [THIRD EDITION.] 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 63, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
 1 885. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHAELE8 BRADLAtJGH, 
 63, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
TO 
 
 THOMAS SCOTT, 
 
 WHOSE NAME IS HONORED AND REVERED WHEREVER 
 
 FREETHOUGHT HAS SPREAD; 
 
 WHOSE WIDE HEART AND GENEROUS KINDNESS WELCOME 
 ALL FORMS OF THOUGHT, PROVIDED THE THOUGHT 
 
 BE EARNEST AND HONEST; 
 WHO KNOWS NO ORTHODOXY SAVE THAT OF HONESTY, AND 
 
 NO RELIGION SAVE THAT OF GOODNESS; 
 
 TO WHOM I OWE MOST GRATEFUL THANKS, 
 
 AS ONE OF THE EARLIEST OF MY FREETHOUGHT FRIENDS, 
 
 AND AS THE FIRST WHO AIDED ME .IN MY NEED ; 
 
 TO HIM 
 
 I DEDICATE THESE PAGES, 
 KNOWING THAT, ALTHOUGH WE OFTEN DIFFER IN OUR 
 
 THOUGHT, 
 WE ARE ONE 
 IN OUR DESIRE FOR TRUTH. 
 
 ANNIE BESANT. 
 
 M813845 
 
PKEFACE TO FIKST EDITION. 
 
 THE Essays which, form the present book have been written 
 at intervals during the last five years, and are now issued 
 in a single volume without alterations of any kind. I 
 have thought it more useful as marking the gradual 
 growth of thought to reprint them as they were originally 
 published, so as not to allow the later development to 
 mould the earlier forms. The essay on "Inspiration " is, 
 in part, the oldest of all ; it was partially composed some 
 seven years ago, and re-written later as it now stands. 
 
 The first essay on the " Deity of Jesus of Nazareth " 
 was written just before I left the Church of England, 
 and marks the point where I broke finally with Chris- 
 tianity. I thought then, and think still, that to cling to 
 the name of Christian after one has ceased to be the thing is 
 neither bold nor straightforward, and surely the name ought, 
 in all fairness, to belong to those historical bodies who have 
 made it their own during many hundred years. A Chris- 
 tianity without a Divine Christ appears to me to resemble 
 a republican army marching under a royal banner it 
 misleads both friends and foes. Believing that in giving 
 up the deity of Christ I renounced Christianity, I place 
 this essay as the starting-point of my travels outside the 
 Christian pale. The essays that follow it deal with some 
 of the leading Christian dogmas, and are printed in the 
 order in which they were written. But in the gradual 
 thought- development they really precede the essay on the 
 " Deity of Christ". Most inquirers who begin to study 
 by themselves, before they have read any heretical works, 
 or heard any heretical controversies, will have been 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 awakened to thought by the discrepancies and inconsis- 
 tencies of the Bible itself. A thorough knowledge of the 
 Bible is the groundwork of heresy. Many who think 
 they read their Bibles never read them at all. They go 
 through a chapter every day as a matter of duty, and 
 forget what is said in Matthew before they read what is 
 said in John ; hence they never mark the contradictions 
 and never see the discrepancies. But those who study the 
 Bible are in a fair way to become heretics. It was the 
 careful compilation of a harmony of the last chapters of 
 the four Gospels a harmony intended for devotional use 
 that gave the first blow to my own faith ; although I 
 put the doubt away and refused even to look at the ques- 
 tion again, yet the effect remained the tiny seed, which 
 was slowly to germinate and to grow up, later, into the 
 full-blown flower of Atheism. _. ^ 
 
 The trial of Mr. Charles Yoysey for heresy made me 1 
 remember my own puzzle, and I gradually grew very un- 
 easy, though trying not to think, until the almost fatal 
 illness of my little daughter brought a sharper questioning 
 as to the reason of suffering and the reality of the love 
 of God. From that time I began to study the doctrines 
 \ of Christianity from a critical point of view ; hitherto I 
 had confined my theological reading to devotional and 
 historical treatises, and the only controversies with which I 
 was familiar were the controversies which had divided Chris- 
 tians ; the writings of the Fathers of the Church and of the 
 modern school which is founded on them had been carefully 
 studied, and I had weighed the points of difference between 
 the Greek, Roman, Anglican, and Lutheran communions, as 
 well as the views of orthodox dissenting schools of thought ; 
 only from Pusey's " Daniel ", and Liddon's " Bampton Lec- 
 tures", had I gathered anything of wider controversies and 
 issues of more vital interest. But now all was changed, and 
 it was to the leaders of the Broad Church school that I first 
 turned in the new path. The shock of pain had been so 
 rude when real doubts assailed and shook me, that I had 
 steadily made up my mind to investigate, one by one, every 
 Christian dogma, and never again to say " I believe " until 
 I had tested the object of faith ; the dogmas which revolted 
 me most were those of the Atonement and of Eternal 
 Punishment, while the doctrine of Inspiration of Scripture 
 underlay everything, and was the very foundation of Chris- 
 
PREFACE. 711 
 
 tianity ; these, then, were the first that I dropped into the 
 crucible of investigation. Maurice, Robertson, Stopford 
 Brooke, McLeod, Campbell, and others, were studied ; and 
 while I recognised the charm of their writings, I failed to 
 find any firm ground whereon they could rest : it was a 
 many-colored beautiful mist a cloud landscape, very fair, 
 but very unsubstantial. Still they served as stepping- 
 stones away from the old hard dogmas, and month by 
 month I grew more sceptical as to the possibility of finding 
 certainty in religion. Hansel's Bampton lectures on "The 
 Limits of Religious Thought " did much to increase the 
 feeling ; the works of F. Newman, Arnold, and Greg car- 
 ried on the same work; some efforts to understand the 
 creeds of other nations, to investigate Mahommedanism, 
 Buddhism, and Hinduism, all led in the same direction, 
 until I concluded that inspiration belonged to all people 
 alike, and there could be no necessity of atonement, and 
 no eternal hell prepared for the unbeliever in Christianity. 
 Thus, step by step, I renounced the dogmas of Christianity 
 until there remained only, as distinctively Christian, the 
 Deity of Jesus which had not yet been analysed. The 
 whole tendency of the Broad Church stream of thought 
 was to increase the manhood at the expense of the deity of 
 Christ ; and with hell and atonement gone, and inspiration 
 everywhere, there appeared no raison (Tetre for the Incar- 
 nation. Besides, there were so many incarnations, and 
 the Buddhist absorption seemed a grander idea. I now 
 first met with Charles Yoysey's works, and those of Theo- 
 dore Parker and Channing, and the belief in the Deity of 
 Jesus followed the other dead creeds. Eenan I had read 
 much earlier, but did not care for him ; Strauss I did not 
 meet with until afterwards; Scott's "English Life of 
 Jesus ", which I read at this period, is as useful a book 
 on this subject as could be put into the hands of an in- 
 quirer. From Christianity into simple Theism I had found 
 my way ; step by step the Theism melted into Atheism ; 
 prayer was gradually discontinued, as utterly at variance 
 with any dignified idea of God, and as in contradiction to 
 all the results of scientific investigation. I had taken a 
 keen interest in the later scientific discoveries, and Darwin 
 had done much towards freeing me from my old bonds. 
 Of John Stuart Mill I had read much, and I now took him 
 up again ; I studied Spinoza, and re-read Mansel, together 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 with many other writers on the Deity, until the result came 
 which is found in the essay entitled " The Nature and 
 Existence of God ". It was just before this was written 
 that I read Charles Bradlaugh's " Plea for Atheism " and 
 his "Is there a God?". The essay on "Constructive 
 Eationalism" shows how we replace the old faith and 
 build our house anew with stronger materials. 
 
 The path from Christianity to Atheism is a long one, 
 and its first steps are very rough and very painful ; the 
 feet tread on the ruins of the broken faith, and the sharp 
 edges cut into the bleeding flesh ; but further on the path 
 grows smoother, and presently at its side begins to peep 
 forth the humble daisy of hope that heralds the spring- 
 tide, and further on the roadside is fragrant with all the 
 flowers of summer, sweet and brilliant and gorgeous, and 
 in the distance we see the promise of the autumn, the har- 
 vest that shall be reaped for the feeding of man. 
 
 ANNIE BESANT. 
 1878. 
 
ON THE 
 
 DEITY OF JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 WHAT think ye of Christ, whose son is he ?" Human ^ 
 child of human parents, or divine Son of the 
 Almighty God? When we consider his purity, his faith in ^ 
 the Father, his forgiving patience, his devoted work among 
 the offscourings of society, his brotherly love to sinners and/' 
 outcasts when our minds dwell on these alone, we all 
 feel the marvellous fascination which has drawn millions to 
 the feet of this " son of man," and the needle of our faith 
 begins to tremble towards the Christian pole. If we would 
 keep unsullied the purity of our faith in God alone, we are 
 
 obliged to turn our eyes some times however unwillingly 
 
 towards the other side of the picture and to mark the human 
 weaknesses which remind us that he is but one of our race. 
 His harshness to his mother, his bitterness towards some of 
 his opponents, the marked failure of one or two of his rare- 
 prophecies, the palpable limitation of his knowledge little 
 enough, indeed, when all are told, are more than enough 
 to show us that, however great as man, he is not the All- 
 righteous, the All-seeing, the All-knowing, God. 
 
 No one, however, whom Christian exaggeration has not 
 goaded into unfair detraction, or who is not blinded by 
 theological hostility, can fail to revere portions of the character- 
 sketched out in the three synoptic gospels. I shall not 
 dwell here on the Christ of the fourth Evangelist ; we can. 
 scarcely trace in that figure the lineaments of the Jesus of 
 Nazareth whom we have learnt to love. 
 
 I propose, in this essay, to examine the claims of Jesus 
 to be more than the man he appeared to be during his life- 
 time : claims be it noted which are put forward on his. 
 
 B 
 
2 ON THE DEITY OF 
 
 behalf by others rather than by himself. His own assertions 
 of his divinity are to be found only in the unreliable fourth 
 gospel, and in it they are destroyed by the sentence there 
 put into his mouth with strange inconsistency : " If I bear 
 witness of myself, my witness is not true." 
 
 It is evident that by his contemporaries Jesus was not 
 regarded as God incarnate. The people in general appear 
 to have looked upon him as a great prophet, and to have 
 often debated among themselves whether he were their 
 expected Messiah or not. The band of men who accepted 
 him as their teacher were as far from worshipping him as 
 God as were their fellow-countrymen : their prompt desertion 
 of him when attacked by his enemies, their complete hope- 
 lessness when they saw him overcome and put to death, are 
 sufficient proofs that though they regarded him to quote 
 their own words as a " prophet mighty in word and deed," 
 they never guessed that the teacher they followed, and the 
 friend they lived with in the intimacy of social life was 
 Almighty God Himself. As has been well pointed out, if 
 they believed their Master to be God, surely when they were 
 attacked they would have fled to him for protection, instead 
 of endeavouring to save themselves by deserting him : we 
 may add that this would have been their natural instinct, 
 since they could never have imagined beforehand that the 
 Creator Himself could really be taken captive by His creatures 
 and suffer death at their hands. The third class of his con- 
 temporaries, the learned Pharisees and Scribes, were as far 
 from regarding him as divine as were the people or his 
 disciples. They seem to have viewed the new teacher 
 somewhat contemptuously at first, as one who unwisely 
 persisted in expounding the highest doctrines to the many, 
 instead of a second Hillel adding to the stores of their 
 own learned circle. As his influence spread and appeared 
 to be undermining their own, still more, when he placed 
 himself in direct opposition, warning the people against 
 them, they were roused to a course of active hostility, 
 and at length determined to save themselves by destroying 
 him. But all through their passive contempt and direct 
 antagonism, there is never a trace of their deeming him to 
 be anything more than a religious enthusiast who finally 
 became dangerous : we never for a moment see them 
 assuming the manifestly absurd position of men knowingly 
 measuring their strength against God, and endeavouring to 
 silence and destroy their Maker. So much for the opinions 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 3 
 
 of those who had the best opportunities of observing his 
 ordinary life. A " good man," a " deceiver," a " mighty 
 prophet," such are the recorded opinions of his contem- 
 poraries : not one is found to step forward and proclaim him 
 to be Jehovah, the God of Israel. 
 
 One of the most trusted strongholds of Christians, in 
 defending their Lord's Divinity, is the evidence of prophecy. 
 They gather from the sacred books of the Jewish nation the 
 predictions of the longed-for Messiah, and claim them as 
 prophecies fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. But there is one 
 stubborn fact which destroys the force of this argument : 
 the Jews, to whom these writings belong, and who from 
 tradition and national peculiarities may reasonably be 
 supposed to be the best exponents of their own prophets, 
 emphatically deny that these prophecies are fulfilled in 
 Jesus at all. Indeed, one main reason for their rejection of 
 Jesus is precisely this, that he does not resemble in any way 
 the predicted Messiah. There is no doubt that the Jewish 
 nation were eagerly looking for their Deliverer when Jesus 
 was born : these very longings produced several pseudo- 
 Messiahs, who each gained in turn a considerable following, 
 because each bore some resemblance to the expected Prince. 
 Much of the popular rage which swept Jesus to his death 
 was the re-action of disappointment after the hopes raised 
 by the position of authority he assumed. The sudden 
 burst of anger against one so benevolent and inoffensive 
 can only be explained by the intense hopes excited by his 
 regal entry into Jerusalem, and the utter destruction of 
 those hopes by his failing to ascend the throne of David. 
 Proclaimed as David's son, he came riding on an ass as 
 king of Zion, and allowed himself to be welcomed as the 
 king of Israel : there his short fulfilling of the prophecies 
 ended, and the people, furious at his failing them, rose and 
 clamoured for his death. Because he did not fulfil the 
 ancient Jewish oracles, he died : he was too noble for the 
 role laid down in them for the Messiah, his ideal was far 
 other than that of a conqueror, with " garments rolled in 
 blood." But even if, against all evidence, Jesus was one 
 with the Messiah of the prophets, this would destroy, instead 
 of implying, his Divine claims. For the Jews were pure 
 monotheists; their Messiah was a prince of David's line, 
 the favoured servant, the anointed Jehovah, the king who 
 should rule in His name : a Jew would shrink with horror 
 from the blasphemy of seating Messiah on Jehovah's throne 
 
 B 2 
 
>4 ON THE DEITY OF 
 
 remembering how their propkets had taught them that their 
 
 -God " would not give His honour to another." So that, 
 
 -as to prophecy, the case stands thus: If Jesus be the 
 
 -Messiah prophesied of in the old Jewish books, then he is 
 
 not God : if he be not the Messiah, Jewish prophecy is 
 
 silent as regards him altogether, and an appeal to prophecy 
 
 is absolutely useless. 
 
 After the evidence of prophecy Christians generally rely 
 
 on that furnished by miracles. It is remarkable that Jesus 
 
 himself laid but little stress on his miracles ; in fact, he 
 
 refused to appeal to them as credentials of his authority, 
 
 and either could not or would not work them when met 
 
 with determined unbelief. We must notice also that the 
 
 people, while " glorifying God, who had given such power 
 
 . unto men" were not inclined to admit his miracles as proofs 
 
 of his right to claim absolute obedience : his miracles did not 
 
 ^ even invest him with such sacredness as to protect him from 
 
 arrest and death. Herod, on his trial, was simply anxious to 
 see him work a miracle, as a matter of curiosity. This 
 stolid indifference to marvels as attestations of authority is 
 natural enough, when we remember that Jewish history was 
 -crowded with miracles, wrought for and against the favoured 
 people, and also that they had been specially warned against 
 being misled by signs and wonders. Without entering into 
 the question whether miracles are possible, let us, for argu- 
 ment's sake, take them for granted, and see what they are 
 worth as proofs of Divinity. If Jesus fed a multitude with 
 a few loaves, so did Elisha : if he raised the dead, so did 
 Elijah and Elisha ; if he healed lepers, so did Moses and Elisha ; 
 if he opened the eyes of the blind, Elisha smote a whole 
 
 - army with blindness and afterwards restored their sight : if 
 he cast out devils, his contemporaries, by his own testimony, 
 did the same. If miracles prove Deity, what miracle of 
 Jesus can stand comparison with the divided Red Sea of 
 Moses, the stoppage of the earth's motion by Joshua, the 
 
 -check of the rushing waters of the Jordan by Elijah's cloak? 
 If we are told that these men worked by conferred power and 
 Jesus by inherent, we can only answer that this is a gratuitous 
 assumption, and begs the whole question. The Bible 
 records the miracles in equivalent terms : no diAerence 
 is drawn between the manner of working of Elisha or Jesus; 
 of each it is sometimes said they prayed ; of each it is some- 
 times said they spake. Miracles indeed must not be relied 
 on as proofs of divinity, unless believers in them are pre 
 
JEUS OF NAZARETH. 5 
 
 pared to pay divine honours r^ot to Jesus only, but also ta 
 a crowd of others, and to build a Christian Pantheon to the 
 new found gods. 
 
 So far we have only seen the insufficiency of the usual 
 Christian arguments to establish a doctrine so stupendous 
 and so prima facie improbable as the incarnation of the 
 Divine Being : this kind of negitive testimony, this insuf- 
 ficient evidence, is not however the principle reason which 
 compels Theists to protest against the central dogma of 
 Christianity. The stronger proofs of the simple manhood 
 of Jesus remain, and we now proceed to positive evidence 
 of his not being God. I propose to draw attention to the 
 traces of human infirmity in his noble character, to his 
 absolute mistakes in prophecy, and to his evidently limited 
 knowledge. In accepting as substantially true the account 
 of Jesus given by the evangelists, we are taking his character 
 as it appeared to his devoted followers. We have not to do 
 with slight blemishes, inserted by envious detractors of his 
 greatness ; the history of Jesus was written when his disciples 
 worshipped him as God, and his manhood, in their eyes, 
 reached ideal perfection. We are not forced to believe that, 
 in the gospels, the life of Jesus is given at its highest, and 
 that he was, at least, not more spotless than he appears in 
 these records of his friends. But here again, in order not to- 
 do a gross injustice, we must put aside the fourth gospel : 
 to study his character " according to S. John " would need a 
 separate essay, so different is it from that drawn by the 
 three ; and by all rules of history we should judge him by 
 the earlier records, more especially as they corroborate each 
 other in the main. 
 
 The first thing which jars upon an attentive reader 
 of the gospels is the want of affection and respect 
 shown by Jesus to his mother. When only a child 
 of twelve he lets his parents leave Jerusalem to return 
 home, while he repairs alone to the temple. The 
 fascination of the ancient city and the gorgeous temple 
 services was doubtless almost overpowering to a thoughtful 
 Jewish boy, more especially on his first visit : but the 
 careless forgetfulness of his parents' anxiety must be con- 
 sidered as a grave childish fault, the more so as its character 
 is darkened by the indifference shown by his answer to his 
 mother's grieved repioof. That no high, though mistaken, 
 sense of duty kept him in Jerusalem is evident from his 
 return home with his parents ; for had he felt that " his 
 
6 ON THE DEITY OF 
 
 Father's business " detained him in Jerusalem at all, it is 
 evident that this sense of duty would not have been satisfied 
 by a three days' delay. But the Christian advocate would 
 bar criticism by an appeal to the Deity of Jesus : he asks 
 us therefore to believe that Jesus, being God, saw with in- 
 difference his parents' anguish at discovering his absence ; 
 knew all about that three days' agonised search (for they,, 
 ignorant of his divinity, felt the terrible anxiety as to his- 
 safety, natural to country people losing a child in a crowded 
 city) ; did not, in spite of the tremendous powers at his- 
 command, take any steps to re-assure them; and finally, 
 met them again with no words of sympathy, only with a;, 
 mysterious allusion, incomprehensible to them, to some 
 higher claim than theirs, which, however, he promptly set 
 aside to obey them. If God was incarnate in a boy, we may 
 trust that example as a model of childhood : yet, are 
 Christians prepared to set this " early piety and desire for 
 religious instruction " before their young children as ant 
 example they are to follow ? Are boys and girls of twelve 
 to be free to absent themselves for days from their parents* 
 guardianship under the plea that a higher business claims 
 their attention ? This episode of the childhood of Jesus- 
 should be relegated to those " gospels of the infancy " full 
 of most unchildlike acts, which the wise discretion of 
 Christendom has stamped with disapproval. The same 
 want of filial reverence appears later in his life : on one 
 occasion he was teaching, and his mother sent in, desiring 
 to speak to him : the sole reply recorded to the message is 
 the harsh remark: "Who is my mother?" The most 
 practical proof that Christian morality has, on this head, 
 outstripped the example of Jesus, is the prompt disapproval 
 which similar conduct would meet with in the present day. 
 By the strange warping of morality cften caused by con- 
 troversial exigencies, this want of filial reverence has been 
 triumphantly pointed out by Christian divines ; the indif- 
 ference shown by Jesus to family ties is accepted as a proof 
 that he was more than man !- Thus, conduct which they 
 implicitly acknowledge to be unseemly in a son to his 
 mother, they claim as natural and right in the Son of God r 
 to His ! In the present day, if a person is driven by con- 
 science to a course painful to those who have claims on his 
 respect, his recognised duty, as well as his natural instinct, 
 is to try and make up by added affection and more courteous 
 deference for the pain he is forced to inflict : above all, he 
 
JESUS OF NAZ VRETH. 7 
 
 would not wantonly add to that pain by public and uncalled- 
 for disrespect. 
 
 The attitude of Jesus towards his opponents in high 
 places was marked with unwarrantable bitterness. Here 
 also the lofty and gentle spirit of his whole life has moulded 
 Christian opinion in favour of a course different on this 
 head to his own, so that abuse of an opponent is now com- 
 monly called ////"Christian. Wearied with three years' 
 calumny and contempt, sore at the little apparent success 
 which rewarded his labour, full of a sad foreboding that his 
 enemies would shortly crush him, Jesus was goaded into 
 passionate denunciations : " Woe unto you, Scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites ... ye fools and blind ... ye make 
 a proselyte twofold more the child of hell than yourselves 
 .... ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape 
 the damnation of hell !" Surely this is not the spirit which 
 breathed in, " If ye love them which love you, what thanks 
 shave ye? . . . Love your ere. nies, bless them that curse 
 you, pray for them that persecute you." Had he not even 
 .specially forbidden the very expression, "Thou fool !" Was 
 not this rendering " evil for evil, railing for railing ? " 
 
 It is painful to point out these blemishes : reverence for 
 the great leaders of humanity is a duty dear to all human 
 hearts ; but when homage turns into idolatry, then men 
 must rise up to point out faults which otherwise they would 
 pass over in respectful silence, mindful only of the work so 
 nobly done. 
 
 I turn then, with a sense of glad relief, to the evidence of 
 the limited knowledge of Jesus, for here no blame attaches 
 to him, although one proved mistake is fatal to belief in his 
 Godhead. First as to prophecy : " The Son of man shall 
 come in the glory of his Father with his angels : and then 
 shall he reward every man according to his works. Verily I 
 say unto you, There be some standing here which shall not 
 taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his 
 kingdom." Later, he amplifies the same idea: he speaks of 
 a coming tribulation, succeeded by his own return, and then 
 adds the emphatic declaration: " Verily I say unto you, 
 This generation shall not pass till all these things be done." 
 The non-fulfilment of these prophecies is simply a question 
 of fact : let men explain away the words now as they may, 
 yet, if the record is true, Jesus did believe in his own speedy 
 return, and impressd the same belief on his followers. It is 
 plain, indeed, that he succeeded in impressing it on them, 
 
8 ON THE DEITY OF 
 
 from the references to his return scattered through the 
 epistles. The latest writings show an anxiety to remove the 
 doubts which were disturbing the converts consequent on 
 the non-appearance of Jesus, and the fourth gospel omits, 
 any reference to his coming. It is worth remarking, in the 
 latter, the spiritual sense which is hinted at either purposely 
 or unintentionally in the words, "The hour . . . now is 
 when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and 
 they that hear shall live." These words may be the popular 
 feeling on the advent of the resurrection, forced on the 
 Christians by the failure of their Lord's prophecies in any 
 literal sense. He could not be mistaken, ergo they must 
 spiritualise his words. The limited knowledge of Jesus is 
 further evident from his confusing Zacharias the son of 
 Jehoiada with Zacharias the son of Barachias : the former, a 
 priest, was slain in the temple court, as Jesus states ; but the 
 son of Barachias was Zacharias, or Zachariah, the prophet.* 
 He himself owned a limitation of his knowledge, when he 
 confessed his ignorance of the. day of his own return, and 
 said it was known to the " Father only." Of the same class 
 of sayings is his answer to the mother of James and John, 
 that the high seats of the coming kingdom " are not mine to 
 give." That Jesus believed in the fearful doctrine of eternal 
 punishment is evident, in spite of the ingenious attempts to 
 prove that the doctrine is not scriptural : that he, in common 
 with his countrymen, ascribed many diseases to the imme- 
 diate power of Satan, which we should now probably refer to 
 natural causes, as epilepsy, mania, and the like, is also 
 self-evident. But on such points as these it is useless to 
 dwell, for the Christian believes them on the authority of 
 Jesus, and the subjects, from their nature, cannot be brought 
 to the test of ascertained facts. Of the same character are 
 some of his sayings : his discouraging " Strive to enter in at 
 the strait gate, for many," etc. ; his using in defence of 
 partiality Isaiah's awful prophecy, "that seeing they may 
 "see and not perceive," etc. ; his using Scripture at one time 
 as binding, while he, at another, depreciates it ; his fondness 
 for silencing an opponent by an ingenious retort : all these 
 things are blameworthy to those who regard him as man, 
 while they are shielded from criticism by his divinity to 
 those who worship him as God. There morality is a question 
 of opinion, and it is wasted time to dwell on them when 
 
 * See Appendix, page 12. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 9 
 
 arguing with Christians, whose moral sense is for the time 
 "held in check by their mental prostration at his feet. But 
 the truth of the quoted prophecies, and the historical fact of 
 the parentage of Zachariah, can be tested, and on these Jesus 
 made palpable mistakes. The obvious corollary is, that 
 "oeing mistaken as he was his knowledge was limited, and 
 was therefore human, not divine. 
 
 In turning to the teaching of Jesus (I still confine myself 
 to the three gospels), we find no support of the Christian 
 theory. If we take his didactic teaching, we can discover 
 -no trace of his offering himself as an object of either faith or 
 worship. His life's work, as teacher, was to speak of the 
 Father. In the sermon on the Mount he is always striking 
 ithe keynote, "your heavenly Father;" in teaching his dis- 
 ciples to pray, it is to " Our Father," and the Christian idea 
 of ending a prayer " through Jesus Christ " is quite foreign 
 to the simple filial spirit of their master. Indeed, when we 
 think of the position Jesus holds in Christian theology, it 
 seems strange to notice the utter absence of any suggestion 
 of duty to himself throughout this whole code of so-called 
 Christian morality. In strict accordance with his more 
 formal teaching is his treatment of inquirers : when a young 
 man comes kneeling, and, addressing him as " Good Master," 
 asks what he shall do to inherit eternal life, the loyal heart of 
 Jesus first rejects the homage, before he proceeds to answer 
 the all-important question : " Why callest thou me good : 
 there is none good but one, that is, God." He then directs 
 the youth on the way to eternal life, and he sends that young 
 man home without one word of the doctrine on which, accord- 
 ing to Christians, his salvation rested. If the " Gospel " 
 came to that man later, he would reject it on the authority 
 of Jesus, who had told him a different " way of salvation ;" 
 and if Christianity is true, the perdition of that young man's 
 soul is owing to the defective teaching of Jesus himself. 
 Another time, he tells a Scribe that the first commandment 
 is that God is one, and that all a man's love is due to Him ; 
 then adding the duty of neighbourly love, he says : " There 
 is none other commandment greater than these :" so that 
 belief in Jesus, if incumbent at all, must come after love to 
 God and man, and is not necessary, by his own testimony, 
 to " entering into life." On Jesus himself then rests the 
 primary responsibility of affirming that belief in him is a 
 matter of secondary importance, at most, letting alone the 
 fact that he never inculcated belief in his Deity as an article 
 
10 ON THE DEITY OF 
 
 of faith at all. In the same spirit of frank loyalty to God. 
 are his words on the unpardonable sin : in answer to a gross- 
 personal affront, he tells his insulters that they shall be for- 
 given for speaking against him, a simple son of man, but 
 warns them of the danger of confounding the work of God's 
 Spirit with that of Satan, " because they said " that works, 
 done by God, using Jesus as His instrument, were done by 
 Beelzebub. 
 
 There remains yet one argument of tremendous force r 
 which can only be appreciated by personal meditation. We 
 find Jesus praying to God, relying on God, in his greatest 
 need crying in agony to God for deliverance, in his last: 
 struggle, deserted by his friends, asking why God, his God,, 
 had also forsaken him. We feel how natural, how true to 
 life, this whole account is : in our heart's reverence for that 
 noble life, that " faithfulness unto death," we can scarcely 
 bear to think of the insult offered to it by Christian lips r 
 they take every beauty out of it by telling us that through 
 all that struggle Jesus was the Eternal, the Almighty, God r 
 it is all apparent, not real : in his temptation he could not 
 fall : in his prayers he needed no support : in his cry that 
 the cup might pass away he foresaw it was inevitable : in 
 his agony of desertion and loneliness he was present every- 
 where with God. In all that life, then, there is no hope 
 for man, no pledge of man's victory, no promise for humanity. 
 This is no man's life at all, it is only a wonderful drama 
 enacted on earth. What God could do is no measure of 
 man's powers : what have we in common with this " God- 
 man?" This Jesus, whom we had thought our brother, is r 
 after all, removed from us by the immeasurable distance 
 which separates the feebleness of man from the omnipotence 
 of God. Nothing can compensate us for such a loss as 
 this. We had rejoiced in that many-sided nobleness, and 
 its very blemishes were dear, because they assured us of 
 his brotherhood to ourselves : we are given an ideal picture 
 where we had studied a history, another Deity where we 
 had hoped to emulate a life. Instead of the encouragement 
 we had found, what does Christianity offer us ? a perfect 
 life ? But we knew before that God was perfect : an ex- 
 ample ? it starts from a different level : a Saviour ? we cannot 
 be safer than we are with God : an Advocate ? we need 
 none with our Father : a Substitute to endure God's wrath 
 for us ? we had rather trust God's justice to punish us as 
 we deserve, and his wisdom to do what is best for us. As 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. II 
 
 God, Jesus can give us nothing that we have not already 
 in his Father and ours : as man, he gives us all the encou- 
 ragement and support which we derive from every noble 
 soul which God sends into this world, " a burning and a 
 shining light " : 
 
 " Through such souls alone 
 God stooping shows sufficient of His light 
 For us in the dark to rise by." 
 
 As God, he confuses our perceptions of God's unity, be- 
 "wilders our reason with endless contradictions, and turns 
 away from the Supreme all those emotions of love and 
 .adoration which can only flow towards a single object, and 
 which are the due of our Creator alone : as man, he gives 
 us an example to strive after, a beacon to steer by ; he is 
 one more leader for humanity, one more star in our dark- 
 ness. As God, all his words would be truth, and but few 
 would enter into heaven, while hell would overflow with 
 victims : as man, we may refuse to believe such a slander 
 on our Father, and take all the comfort pledged to us by 
 that name. Thank God, then, that Jesus is only man, 
 human child of human parents; that we need not dwarf 
 <our conceptions of God to fit human faculties, or envelope 
 the illimitable spirit in a baby's feeble frame. But though 
 -only man, he has reached a standard of human greatness 
 which no other man, so far as we know, has touched : the 
 very height of his character is almost a pledge of the truth- 
 fulness of the records in the main : his life had to be lived 
 before its conception became possible, at that period and 
 among such a people. They could recognise his great- 
 ness when it was before their eyes : they would scarcely 
 have imagined it for themselves, more especially that, as 
 we have seen, he was so different from the Jewish ideal. 
 His code of morality stands unrivalled, and he was the first 
 who taught the universal Fatherhood of God publicly and to 
 the common people. Many of his loftiest precepts may be 
 found in the books of the Rabbis, but it is the glorious 
 prerogative of Jesus that he spread abroad among the 
 many the wise and holy maxims that had hitherto been 
 the sacred treasures of the few. With him none were too 
 degraded to be called the children of the Father : none too 
 simple to be worthy of the highest teaching. By example, 
 as well as by precept, he taught that all men were brothers, 
 and all the good he had he showered at their feet. " Pure 
 in heart," he saw God, and what he saw he called all to see : 
 
12 ON THE DEITY OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 he longed that all might share in his own joyous trust in. 
 the Father, rnd seemed to be always seeking for fresh 
 i nages to describe the freedom and fulness of the universal 
 lovj of God. In his unwavering love of truth, but his 
 patience with doubters in his personal purity, but his" 
 tenderness to the fallen in his hatred of evil, but his 
 friendliness to the sinner we see splendid virtues rarely 
 met in combination. His brotherliness, his yearning to 
 raise the degraded, his lofty piety, his unswerving morality,, 
 his perfect self-sacrifice, are his indefeasible titles to human 
 love and reverence. Of the world's benefactors he is the 
 chief, not only by his own life, but by the enthusiasm he has 
 known to inspire in others: "Our plummet has not sounded 
 his depth : " words fail to tell what humanity owes to the 
 Prophet of Nazareth. On his example the great Christian 
 heroes have based their lives : from the foundation laid by 
 his teaching the world is slowly rising to a purer faith irr 
 God. We need now such a leader as he was one who 
 would dare to follow the Father's will as he did, casting a 
 long-prized revelation aside when it conflicts with the higher 
 voice of conscience. It is the teaching of Jesus that The- 
 ism gladly makes its own, purifying it from the inconsis- 
 tencies which mar its perfection. It is the example of 
 Jesus which Theists are following, though they correct- 
 that example in some points by his loftiest sayings. It is 
 the work of Jesus which Theists are carrying on, by worship- 
 ping, as he did, the Father, and the Father alone, and by 
 endeavouring to turn all men's love, all men's hopes, anc? 
 all men's adoration, to that " God and Father of all, who 
 is above all, and through all, and," not in Jesus only, but 
 "in us all" 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Josephus mentions a Zacharias, a son of Baruch ('Wars- 
 of the Jews,' Book iv., sec. 4), who was slain under the cir- 
 cumstances described by Jesus. His name would be more: 
 suitable at the close of the long list of Jewish crimes, as it 
 occurred just before the destruction of Jerusalem. But, as 
 it took place about thirty-four years after the death of Jesus, 
 it is clear that he could not have referred to it ; therefore, 
 if we admit that he made no mistake, we strike a serious- 
 blow at the credibility of his historian, who then puts inte- 
 rns mouth a remark never uttered." 
 
A COMPARISON 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS... 
 
 EVERY one, at least in the educated classes, knows that 
 the authenticity of the fourth gospel has been long 
 and widely disputed. The most careless reader is struck 
 by the difference of tone between the simple histories 
 ascribed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the theological 
 and philosophical treatise which bears the name of John. 
 After following the three narratives, so simple in their 
 structure, so natural in their style, so unadorned by 
 rhetoric, so free from philosophic terms, after reading 
 these, it is with a feeling of surprise that we find ourselves-, 
 plunged into the bewildering mazes of the Alexandrine 
 philosophy, and open our fourth gospel to be told that, " In 
 the beginning was the word, and the word was with God r 
 and the word was God." We ask instinctively, "How did 
 John, the fisherman of Galilee, learn these phrases of the 
 Greek schools, and why does he mix up the simple story of 
 his master with the philosophy of that 'world which by 
 wisdom knew not God ? ' " 
 
 The general Christian tradition is as follows : The spread: 1 
 of " heretical " views about the person of Jesus alarmed the 
 " orthodox " Christians, and they appealed to John, the last 
 aged relic of the apostolic band, to write a history of Jesus 
 which should confute their opponents, and establish the 
 essential deity of the founder of their religion. At their 
 repeated solicitations, John wrote the gospel which bears 
 his name, and the doctrinal tone of it is due to its original 
 intention, a treatise written against Cerinthus, and designed 
 to crush, with the authority of an apostle, the rising doubts 
 as to the pre-existence and absolute deity of Jesus of" 
 Nazareth. So far non-Christians and Christians including 
 
14 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 the writer of the gospel are agreed. This fourth gospel is 
 not say Theists a simple biography of Jesus written by a 
 loving disciple as a memorial of a departed and cherished 
 friend, but a history written with a special object and to 
 prove a certain doctrine. " St. John's gospel is a polemical 
 treatise," echoes Dr. Liddon. " These are written that ye 
 may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," con- 
 fesses the writer himself. Now, in examining the credibility 
 of any history, one of the first points to determine is whether 
 the historian is perfectly unbiassed in his judgment and is 
 therefore likely give facts exactly as they occurred, un- 
 coloured by views of his own. Thus we do not turn to the 
 pages of a Roman Catholic historian to gain a fair idea of 
 Luther, or of William the Silent, or expect to find in the 
 volumes of Clarendon a thoroughly faithful portraiture of 
 the vices of the Stuart kings ; rather, in reading the history 
 of a partisan, do we instinctively make allowances for the 
 recognised bias of his mind and heart. That the fourth 
 gospel comes to us prefaced by the announcement that it is 
 written, not to give us a history, but to prove a certain pre- 
 determined opinion, is, then, so much doubt cast at starting 
 on its probable accuracy ; and, by the constitution of our 
 minds, we at once guard ourselves against a too ready 
 acquiescence in its assertions, and become anxious to test 
 its statements by comparing them with some independent 
 and more impartial authority. The history may be most 
 accurate, but we require proof that the writer is never seduced 
 into slightly perhaps unconsciously colouring an incident 
 so as to favour the object he has at heart. For instance, 
 Matthew, an honest writer enough, is often betrayed into 
 most non-natural quotation of prophecy by his anxiety to 
 connect Jesus with the Messiah expected by his countrymen. 
 This latent wish of his leads him to insert various quotations 
 from the Jewish Scriptures which, severed from their context, 
 have a verbal similarity with the events he narrates. Thus, 
 he refers to Hosea's mention of the Exodus : " When Israel 
 was a child then I loved him and called my -son out of 
 Egypt," and by quoting only the last six words gives this as 
 a " prophecy" of an alleged journey of Jesus into Egypt. 
 Such an instance as this shows us how a man may allow 
 himself to be blinded by a pre-conceived determination to 
 prove a certain fact, and warns us to sift carefully any 
 history that comes to us with the announcement that it is 
 written to prove such and such a truth. 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 15 
 
 Unfortunately we have no independent contemporary 
 history except a sentence of Josephus whereby to test the 
 accuracy of the Christian records ; we are therefore forced 
 into the somewhat unsatisfactory task of comparing them 
 one with another, and in cases of diverging testimony we 
 must strike the balance of probability between them. 
 
 On examining, then, these four biographies of Jesus, we 
 find a remarkable similarity between three of them, amid 
 many divergencies of detail ; some regard them, there- 
 fore, as the condensation into writing of the oral teaching of 
 the apostles, preserved in the various Churches they severally 
 founded, and so, naturally, the same radically, although 
 diverse in detail. " The synoptic Gospels contain the sub- 
 stance of the Apostles' testimony, collected principally from 
 their oral teaching current in the Church, partly also from 
 written documents embodying portions of that teaching."* 
 Others think that the gospels which we possess, and which 
 are ascribed severally to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are all 
 three derived from an original gospel now lost, which was 
 probably written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and variously trans- 
 lated into Greek. However this may be, the fact that such 
 a statement as this has been put forward proves the striking 
 similarity, the root identity, of the three " synoptical gospels," 
 as they are called. We gather from them an idea of Jesus 
 which is substantially the same : a figure, calm, noble, 
 simple, generous ; pure in life, eager to draw men to that 
 love of the Father and devotion to the Father which were 
 his own distinguishing characteristics ; finally, a teacher of 
 a simple and high-toned morality, perfectly unfettered by 
 dogmatism. The effect produced by the sketch of the 
 Fourth Evangelist is totally different. The friend of sinners 
 has disappeared (except in the narrative of the woman taken 
 in adultery, which is generally admitted to be an interpola- 
 tion), for his whole time is occupied in arguing about his 
 own position ; " the common people " who followed and 
 " heard him gladly " and his enemies, the Scribes and 
 Pharisees, are all massed together as " the Jews," with whom 
 he is in constant collision ; his simple style of teaching 
 parabolic indeed, as was the custom of the East, but consisting 
 of parables intelligible to a child is exchanged for mystical 
 discourses, causing perpetual misunderstandings, the true 
 meaning of which is still wrangled about by Christian theo- 
 
 * Alford. 
 
'l6 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 logians ; his earnest testimony to " your heavenly Father " is 
 replaced by a constant self-assertion ; while his command 
 '*' do this and ye shall live," is exchanged for "believe on 
 me or perish." " How great is the contrast between that 
 discourse and the Sermon on the Mount. ... In the last 
 discourse it is His Person rather than his teaching which is 
 especially prominent. His subject in that discourse is Him- 
 self. Certainly he preaches himself in His relationship to 
 His redeemed ; but still he preaches above all, and in all, 
 Himself. All radiates from Himself, all converges towards 
 Himself. ... in those matchless words all centres so con- 
 sistently in Jesus, that it might seem that Jesus Alone is 
 before us."* These and similar differences, both of direct 
 teaching and of the more subtle animating spirit, I propose 
 to examine in detail ; but before entering on these it seems 
 necessary to glance at the disputed question of the author- 
 ship of our history, and determine whether, if it prove 
 apostolic, it must therefore be binding on us. 
 
 I leave to more learned pens than mine the task of criti- 
 cising and drawing conclusions from the Greek or the 
 precise dogma of the evangelist, and of weighing the con- 
 flicting testimony of mighty names. From the account 
 contained in the English Bible of John the Apostle, I 
 gather the following points of his character : He was warm- 
 -hearted to his friends, bitter against his enemies, filled with 
 a fiery and unbridled zeal against theological opponents ; he 
 was ambitious, egotistical, pharisaical. I confess that I 
 'trace these characteristics through all the writings ascribed 
 'to him, and that they seem to be only softened by age in 
 the fourth gospel. That John was a warm friend is proved 
 by his first epistle ; that he was bitter against his enemies 
 appears in his mention of Diotrephes, "I will remember his 
 deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious 
 words ;" his unbridled zeal was rebuked by his master; the 
 same cruel spirit is intensified in his " Revelation ; " his 
 ambition is apparent in his anxiety for a chief seat in 
 Messiah's kingdom ; his egotism appears in the fearful curse 
 he imprecates on those who alter his revelation ; his pharisaism 
 is marked in such a feeling as, " we know we are of God, 
 and the whole world lieth in wickedness." Many of these 
 qualities appear to me to mark the gospel which bears his 
 name ; the same restricted tenderness, the same bitterness 
 
 * Liddon. 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 17 
 
 against opponents, the same fiery zeal for " the truth," /*<?., a 
 special theological dogma, are everywhere apparent. The 
 -same egotism is most noticeable, for in the other gospels 
 John shares his master's chief regard with two others, while 
 here he is " the disciple whom Jesus loved," and he is 
 specially prominent in the closing scenes of Jesus' life as 
 the only faithful follower. We should also notice the re- 
 markable similarity of expression and tone between the 
 fourth gospel and the first epistle of John, a similarity the 
 more striking as the language is peculiar to the writings 
 attributed to John. It is, however, with the utmost diffi- 
 dence that I offer these suggestions, well knowing that the 
 greatest authorities are divided on this point of authorship, 
 and that the balance is rather against the apostolic origin of 
 the gospel than for it. I am, however, anxious to show that, 
 even taking it as apostolic, it is untrustworthy and utterly 
 unworthy of credit. If John be the writer, we must suppose 
 that his long residence in Ephesus had gradually obliterated 
 his Jewish memories, so that he speaks of "the Jews" as a 
 foreigner would. The stern Jewish monotheism would have 
 grown feebler by contact with the subtle influence of the 
 Alexandrine tone of thought ; and he would have caught 
 the expressions' of that school from living in a city which 
 was its second home. To use the Greek philosophy as a 
 vehicle for Christian teaching would recommend itself to 
 him as the easiest way of approaching minds imbued with 
 these mystic ideas. Regarding the master of his youth 
 through the glorifying medium of years, he gradually began 
 to imagine him to be one of the emanations from the 
 Supreme, of which he heard so much. Accustomed to the 
 deification of Roman emperors, men of infamous lives, he 
 must have been almost driven to claim divine honours for 
 his leader. If his hearers regarded them as divine, what 
 could he say to exalt him except that he was ever with God, 
 nay, was himself God ? If John be the writer of this gospel, 
 some such change as this must have passed over him, and 
 in his old age the gradual accretions of years must have 
 crystallised themselves into a formal Christian theology. 
 But if we find, during our examination, that the history and 
 the teaching of this gospel is utterly irreconcilable with the 
 undoubtedly earlier synoptic gospels, we must then conclude 
 that, apostolic or not, it must give place to them, and be 
 itself rejected as a trustworthy account of the life and teach- 
 ing of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 c 
 
1 8 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 The first striking peculiarity of this gospel is that all the 
 people in it talk in exactly the same style and use the same 
 markedly peculiar phraseology, (a) " The Father loveth 
 the Son and hath given all things into his hand." (b) "For 
 the Father loveth the Son and showeth him all things that 
 Himself doeth." (c) "Jesus, knowing that the Father had 
 given all things into his hand." These sentences are evi- 
 dently the outcome of the same mind, and no one, unac- 
 quainted with our gospel, would guess that (a) was spoken 
 by John the Baptist, (b) by Jesus, (c) by the writer of the 
 gos'pel. When the Jews speak, the words still run in the 
 same groove : " If any man be a worshipper of God, and 
 doeth His will, him He heareth," is not said, as might be 
 supposed, by Jesus, but by the man who was born blind. 
 Indeed, commentators are sometimes puzzled, as in John 
 iii. 10-21, to know where, if at all, the words of Jesus stop 
 and are succeeded by the commentary of the narrator. In 
 an accurate history different characters stand out in striking 
 individuality, so that we come to recognise them as distinct 
 personalities, and can even guess beforehand how they will 
 probably speak and act under certain conditions. But here 
 we have one figure in various disguises, one voice from dif- 
 ferent speakers, one mind in opposing characters. We 
 hive here no beings of flesh and blood, but airy phantoms, 
 behind whomwe see clearly the solitary preacher. For Jesus 
 and John the Baptist are two characters as distinct as can well 
 be imagined, yet their speeches are absolutely indistinguish- 
 able, and their thoughts run in the same groove. Jesus 
 tells Nicodemus: "We speak that we do know and testify 
 that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness ; and no 
 man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came dowa 
 from heaven." John says to his disciples : " He that 
 cometh from heaven is above all, and what he hath seen and 
 heard that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testi- 
 mony." But it is wasting time to prove so self-evident a 
 fact : let us rather see how a Christian advocate meets an 
 argument whose force he cannot deny. "The character 
 and diction of our Lord's discourses entirely penetrated 
 and assimilated the habits of thought of His beloved 
 Apostle ; so that in his first epistle he writes in the very 
 tone and spirit of those discourses ; and when reporting 
 the sayings of his former teacher, the Baptist, he gives 
 them, consistently with the deepest inner truth (!) of narra- 
 tion, the forms and cadences so familiar and habitual to 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 19 
 
 "himself."* It must be left to each individual to judge if a 
 -careful and accurate historian thus tampers with the words 
 he pretends to narrate, and thus makes them accord with 
 some mysterious inner truth ; each too must decide as to 
 the amount of reliance it is wise to place on a historian who 
 is guided by so remarkable a rule of truth. But further, 
 that the "character and diction" of this gospel are moulded 
 on that of Jesus, seems a most unwarrantable assertion. 
 Through all the recorded sayings of Jesus in the three 
 gospels, there is no trace of this very peculiar style, except 
 in one case (Matt. xi. 2y)/a passage which comes in abruptly 
 and unconnectedly, and stands absolutely alone in style in 
 the three synoptics, a position which throws much doubt on 
 its authenticity. It has been suggested that this marked 
 difference of style arises from the different auditories ad- 
 dressed in the three gospels and in the fourth ; on this we 
 remark that (a), we intuitively recognise such discourses as 
 that in Matt x. as perfectly consistent with the usual style 
 of Jesus, although this is addressed to " his own ;" (/), 
 In this fourth gospel the discourses addressed to " his 
 own " and to the Jews are in exactly the same style ; so 
 that, neither in this gospel, nor in the synoptics do we find 
 any difference more than might be reasonably expected 
 between the style of the discourses addressed to the disciples 
 and those addressed to the multitudes. But we do find a 
 very marked difference between the style attributed to Jesus 
 ~by the three synoptics and that put into his mouth by the 
 fourth evangelist; this last being a style so remarkable that, 
 if usual to Jesus, it is impossible that its traces should not 
 appear through all his recorded speeches. From which 
 fact we may, I think, boldly deduce the conclusion that the 
 style in question is not that of Jesus, the simple carpenter's 
 son, but is one caught from the dignified and stately march 
 of the oratory of Ephesian philosophers, and is put into his 
 mouth by the writer of his life. And this conclusion is 
 rendered indubitable by the fact above-mentioned, that all 
 the characters adopt this poetically and musically-rounded 
 phraseology. 
 
 Thus our first objection against the trustworthiness of our 
 historian is that all the persons he introduces, however dif- 
 ferent in character, speak exactly alike, and that this style, 
 \vhen put into the mouth of Jesus, is totally different from 
 
 * Alford. 
 
 C 2 
 
2O A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 that attributed to him by the three synoptics. We con- 
 clude, therefore, that the style belongs wholly to the writer, 
 and that he cannot, consequently, be trusted in his reports, 
 of speeches. The major part, by far the most important 
 part, of this gospel is thus at once stamped as untrust- 
 worthy. 
 
 Let us next remark the partiality attributed by this gospel- 
 to Him Who has said according to the Bible " all souls> 
 are Mine." We find the doctrine of predestination, i.e., of 
 favouritism, constantly put forward. " All that the Father 
 giveth me shall come to me." "No man can come to me 
 except the Father drawhim." " That of all which He hath given 
 me I should lose nothing." " Ye believe not, because ye are 
 not of my sheep." "Though he had done so many miracles- 
 before them, yet they believed not on him : that the saying 
 of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled" " Therefore, they 
 could not believe because that Esaias said,''' &c. " I have 
 chosen you out of the world." " Thou hast given him 
 power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as 
 many as Thou hast given him." "Those that thou gavest 
 me I have kept and none of them is lost, but the son of 
 perdition, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled " These are 
 the most striking of the passages which teach that doctrine 
 which has been the most prolific parent of immorality and 
 the bringer of despair to the sinner. Frightfully immoral 
 as it is, this doctrine is taught in all its awful hopelessness 
 and plainness by this gospel : some " could not believe " 
 because an old prophet prophesied that they should not 
 So, " according to St. John," these unbelieving Jews were 
 pre-ordained to eternal damnation and the abiding wrath of 
 God. They were cast into an endless hell, which " they 
 could not" avoid. We reject this gospel, secondly, for the 
 partiality it dares to attribute to Almighty God. 
 
 We will now pass to the historical discrepancies between 
 this gospel and the three synoptics, following the order of 
 the former. 
 
 It tells us (ch. i) that at the beginning of his ministry 
 Jesus was at Bethabara, a town near the junction of the Jor- 
 dan with the Dead Sea ; here he gains three disciples, An- 
 drew and another, and then Simon Peter : the next day he 
 goes into Galilee and finds Philip and Nathanael, and on 
 the following day somewhat rapid travelling he is present, 
 with these disciples, at Cana, where he performs his first 
 miracle, going afterwards with them to Capernaum and 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 21 
 
 Jerusalem. At Jerusalem, whither he goes for " the Jews' 
 passover/' he drives out the traders from the temple, and 
 remarks, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will 
 raise it up :" which remark causes the first of the strange 
 misunderstandings between Jesus and the Jews, peculiar 
 to this Gospel, simple misconceptions which Jesus never 
 troubles himself to set right Jesus and his disciples then 
 go to the Jordan, baptising, whence Jesus departs into 
 Galilee with them, because he hears that the Pharisees know 
 he is becoming more popular than the Baptist (ch. iv. 1-3). 
 All this happens before John is cast into prison, an occur- 
 rence which is a convenient note of time. We turn to the 
 beginning of the ministry of Jesus as related by the three. 
 Jesus is in the south of Palestine, but, hearing that John is 
 cast into prison, he departs into Galilee, and re- ides at 
 Capernaum. There is no mention of any ministry in Gali- 
 lee and Judaea before this ; on the contrary, it is only "from 
 that time" that " Jesus began to preach." He is alone, 
 without disciples, but, walking by the sea, he comes upon 
 Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and calls them. Now if 
 the fourth gospel is true, these men had joined him in 
 Judaea, followed him to Galilee, south again to Jerusalem, 
 and back to Galilee, had seen his miracles and acknow- 
 ledged him as Christ, so it seems strange that they had 
 deserted him and needed a second call, and yet more 
 strange is it that Peter (Luke v. i-n) was so astonished and 
 amazed at the miracle of the fishes. The driving out of the 
 traders from the temple is placed by the synoptics at the' 
 very end of his ministry, and the remark following it is used 
 against him at his trial : so was probably made just before 
 it. The next point of contact is the history of the 5000 
 fed by five loaves (ch. vi.), the preceding chapter relates to 
 a visit to Jerusalem unnoticed by the three : indeed, the 
 histories seem written of two men, one the " prophet of 
 Galilee " teaching in its cities, the other concentrating his 
 energies on Jerusalem. The account of the miraculous, 
 feeding is alike in all : not so the succeeding account of the 
 conduct of the multitude. In the fourth gospel, Jesus and 
 the crowd fall to disputing, as usual, and he loses many dis- 
 ciples : among the three, Luke says nothing of the immedi- 
 ately following events, while Matthew and Mark tell us that 
 the multitudes as would be natural crowded round him 
 to touch even the hem of his garment. This is the same as 
 always : in the three the crowd loves him ; in the fourth it 
 
22 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 carps at and argues with him. We must again miss the 
 sojourn of Jesus in Galilee, according to the three, and his 
 visit to Jerusalem, according to the one, and pass to his entry 
 into Jerusalem in triumph. Here we notice a most remark- 
 able divergence : the synoptics tell us that he was going up 
 to Jerusalem from Galilee, and, arriving on his way at Beth- 
 phage, he sent for an ass and rode thereon into Jerusalem : 
 the fourth gospel relates that he was dwelling at Jerusalem, 
 and leaving it, for fear of the Jews, he retired, not into Gali- 
 lee, but " beyond Jordan, into the place where John at first 
 baptised," i.e., Bethabara, " and there he abode" From there 
 Iva went to Bethany and raised to life a putrefying corpse : 
 this stupendous miracle is never appealed to by the earlier 
 historians in proof of their master's greatness, though "much 
 people of the Jews " are said to have seen Lazarus after his 
 resurrection : this miracle is also given as the reason for the 
 active hostility of the priests, "from that day forward.'' 
 Jesus then retires to Ephraim near the wilderness, from which 
 town he goes to Bethany, and thence in triumph to Jeru- 
 salem, being met by the people " for that they heard that he 
 had done this miracle." The two accounts have absolutely 
 nothing in common except the entry into Jerusalem, and 
 the preceding events of the synoptics exclude those of the 
 fourth gospel, as does the latter theirs. If Jesus abode in 
 Bethabara and Ephraim, he could not have come from Gali- 
 lee ; if he started from Galilee, he was not abiding in the 
 south. John xiii.-xvii. stand alone, with the exception of 
 the mention of the traitor. On the arrest of Jesus, he is led 
 (ch. xviii. 13) to Annas, who sends him to Caiaphas, while 
 the others send him direct to Caiaphas, but this is im- 
 material. He is then taken to Pilate : the Jews do not 
 enter the judgment-hall, lest, being defiled, they could not 
 eat the passover, a feast which, according to the synoptics, 
 was over, Jesus and his disciples having eaten it the night 
 before. Jesus is exposed to the people at the sixth hour 
 (ch. xix. 14), while Mark tells us he was crucified three hours 
 before at the third hour a note of time which agrees with 
 the others, since they all relate that there was darkness from 
 the sixth to the ninth hour, /.<;., there was thick darkness at 
 the time when, "according to St. John," Jesus was exposed. 
 Here our evangelist is in hopeless conflict with the three. 
 The accounts about the resurrection are irreconcilable in all 
 the gospels, and mutually destructive. It remains to notice, 
 among these discrepancies, one or two points which did not 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 23. 
 
 come in conveniently in the course of the narrative. During 
 the whole of the fourth gospel, we find Jesus constantly 
 arguing for his right to the title of Messiah. Andrew speaks- 
 of him as such (i. 41); the Samaritans acknowledge him 
 (iv. 42) Peter owns him (vi. 69) ; the people call him so 
 (vii. 26, 31, 41); Jesus claims it (viii. 24); it is the subject 
 of a law (ix. 22); Jesus speaks of it as already claimed by 
 him (x. 24, 25); Martha recognises it (xi. 27). We thus 
 find that, from the very first, this title is openly claimed by 
 Jesus, and his right to it openly canvassed by the Jews. But 
 in the three the disciples acknowledge him as Christ, 
 and he charges them to "tell no man that he was Jesus the 
 Christ" (Matt. xvi. 20; Mark viii. 29, 30; Luke ix. 20, 21); 
 and this in the same year that he blames the Jews for not 
 owning this Messiahship, since he had told them who he was. 
 "from the beginning" (ch. viii. 24, 25) ; so that, if "John "' 
 was right, we fail to see the object of all the mystery about 
 it, related by the synoptics. We mark, too, how Peter is, in 
 their account, praised for confessing him, for flesh and blood 
 had not revealed it to him, while in the fourth gospel, " flesh 
 and blood," in the person of Andrew, reveal to Peter that 
 the Christ is found ; and there seems little praise due to> 
 Peter for a confession which had been made two or three 
 years earlier by Andrew, Nathanael, John Baptist, and the 
 Samaritans. Contradiction can scarcely be more direct. 
 In John vii. Jesus owns that the Jews know his birthplace 
 (28), and they state (41, 42) that he comes from Galilee, 
 while Christ should be born at Bethlehem. Matthew and 
 Luke distinctly say Jesus was born at Bethlehem ; but here 
 Jesus confesses the right knowledge of those who attribute 
 his birthplace to Galilee, instead of setting their difficulty at 
 rest by explaining that though brought up at Nazareth, he 
 w r as born in Bethlehem. But our writer was apparently 
 ignorant of their accounts. We reject this gospel, thirdly,, 
 because its historical statements are in direct contradiction 
 to the history of the synoptics. 
 
 The next point to which I wish to direct attention is the 
 relative position of faith and morals in the three synoptics 
 and the fourth gospel. It is not tco muc h isay that on 
 this point their teaching is absolutely irreconcilable, and one 
 or the other must be fatally in the wrong. Here the fourth 
 gospel clasps hands with Paul, while the others take the side 
 of James. The opposition may be most plainly shown by 
 parallel columns of quotations : 
 
4 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 "Except your righteousness ex- "He that bdievetk on the Son 
 
 ceed that of the scribes and Pha- hath everlasting life." iii. 36. 
 risees, ye shall in no case enter. . 
 Heaven." Matt. v. 20. 
 
 "Have we not prophesied in " He that believeth on Him is 
 
 ihy name and in thy name done not condemned, " iii. 1 8. 
 .many wonderful works ?" 
 
 " Then will I profess unto them 
 , . . Depart . . .ye that 
 \vork iniquity." Matt. vii. 22, 23. 
 
 " If thou wilt enter into life, " He that believeth not the Son 
 
 keep the commandments." Mark shall not see life." iii. 36. 
 x. 17-28. 
 
 " Her sins, which are many, are " If ye believe not that I am h<> t 
 
 forgiven, for she loved much." ye shall die in your sins." via. 
 Luke vii. 47. 24. 
 
 These few quotations, which might be indefinitely multi- 
 plied, are enough to show that, while in the three gospels 
 doing is the test of religion, and no profession of discipleship 
 is worth anything unless shown by " its fruits," in the fourth 
 Relieving is the cardinal matter : in the three we hear abso- 
 lutely nothing of faith in Jesus as requisite^ but in the fourth 
 we hear of little else : works are thrown completely into the 
 background and salvation rests on believing not even in 
 God but in Jesus. We reject this gospel, fourthly, for set- 
 ting faith above works, and so contradicting the general 
 teaching of Jesus himself. 
 
 The relative positions of the Father and Jesus are re- 
 versed by the fourth evangelist, and the teaching of Jesus 
 on this head in the three gospels is directly contradicted. 
 Throughout them Jesus preaches the Father only : he is 
 .always reiterating "your heavenly Father;" "that ye may 
 "be the children of your Father," is his argument for forgiv- 
 ing others ; " your Father is perfect," is his spur to a higher 
 'life ; " your Father knoweth," is his anodyne in anxiety ; " it 
 is the Father's good pleasure," is his certainty of coming 
 "happiness ; " one is your Father, which is in heaven," is, by 
 an even extravagant loyalty, made a reason for denying the 
 very name to any other. But in the fourth gospel all is 
 changed : if the Father is mentioned at all, it is only as the 
 sender of Jesus, as his Witness and his Glorifier. All love, 
 .all devotion, all homage, is directed to Jesus and to Jesus 
 only : even " on the Christian hypothesis the Father is 
 eclipsed by His only begotten Son."* "All judgment" is 
 in the hands of the Son : he has "life in himself ;" " the 
 
 * Voysey. 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 25 
 
 work of God " is to believe on him ; he gives " life unto the 
 world ;" he will " raise " us " up at the last day ;" except by 
 eating him there is " no life ;" he is " the light of the 
 world ;" he gives true freedom ; he is the " one shepherd : 
 none can pluck " us out of his hand ; he will " draw all men 
 unto " himself : he is the " Lord and Master," " the truth 
 and the life ;" what is even asked of the -Father, he will do - 
 he will come to his disciples and abide in them ; his peace 
 and joy are their reward. Verily, we need no more : he 
 who gives us eternal life, who raises us from the dead, who- 
 is our judge, who hears our prayers, and gives us light, free- 
 dom, and truth, He, He only, is our God ; none can do 
 more for us than he : in Him only will we trust in life and 
 death. So, consistently, the Son is no longer the drawer of 
 believers to the Father, but the Father is degraded into, 
 becoming the way to the Son, and none can come to Jesus 
 unless Almighty God draws them to him. Jesus is no longer 
 the way into the Holiest, but the Eternal Father is made the 
 means to an end beyond himself. 
 
 For this fifth reason, more than for anything else, we re- 
 ject this gospel with the most passionate earnestness, with 
 the most burning indignation, as an insult to the One Father 
 of spirits, the ultimate Object of all faith and hope and love. 
 
 And who is this who thus dethrones our heavenly Father ? 
 It is not even the Jesus whose fair moral beauty has exacted 
 our hearty admiration. To worship him would be an ido- 
 latry, but to worship him were he such as " John " de- 
 scribes him would be an idolatry as degrading as it would 
 be baseless. For let us mark the character pourtrayed in 
 this fourth gospel. His public career begins with an un- 
 dignified miracle : at a marriage, where the wine runs short, 
 he turns water into wine, in order to supply men who have 
 already " well drunk " (ch. ii. 10). [We may ask, in passing, 
 what led Mary to expect a miracle, when we are told that 
 this was the first, and she could not, therefore, know of her 
 son's gifts.] The next important point is the conversation 
 with Nicodemus, where we scarcely knew which to marvel 
 at most, the stolid stupidity of a " Master in Israel" mis- 
 understanding a metaphor that must have been familiar to 
 him, or the aggressive way in which Jesus speaks as to 
 the non-reception of his message before he had been in 
 public many months, and as to non-belief in his person 
 before belief had become possible. We then come to the 
 series of discourses related in ch. v. 10. Perfect egotism 
 
-26 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 -pervades them all ; in all appear the same strange mis- 
 understandings on the part of the people, the same strange 
 persistence in puzzling them on the part of the speaker. In 
 one of them the people honestly wonder at his mysterious 
 words : " How is it that he saith, I come down from 
 heaven," and, instead of any explanation, Jesus retorts that 
 they should not murmur, since no man can come to him 
 unless the Father draw him : so that, when he puts forward 
 .a statement apparently contrary to fact "his father and 
 mother we know," say the puzzled Jews he refuses to ex- 
 plain it, and falls back on his favourite doctrine : "Unless 
 you are of those favoured ones whom God enlightens, you 
 -cannot expect to understand me." Little wonder indeed that 
 " many of his disciples walked no more with " a teacher so 
 perplexing and so discouraging ; with one who presented for 
 their belief a mysterious doctrine, contrary to their experi- 
 ence, and then, in answer to their prayer for enlightenment, 
 taunts them with an ignorance he admits was unavoidable. 
 'The next important conversation occurs in the temple, and 
 here Jesus, the friend of sinners, the bringer of hope to the 
 despairing this Jesus has no tenderness for some who 
 " believed on him ;" he ruthlessly tramples on the bruised 
 reed and quenches the smoking flax. First he irritates their 
 Jewish pride with accusations of slavery and low descent ; 
 then, groping after his meaning, they exclaim, " We have 
 one Father, even God," and he whom we know as the ten- 
 derest preacher of that Father's universal love surely he 
 gladly catches at their struggling appreciation of his favourite 
 topic, and fans the hopeful spark into a flame ? Yes ! Jesus 
 of Nazareth would have done so. But Jesus, " according to 
 St. John," turns fiercely on them, denying the sonship he 
 elsewhere proclaims, and retorts, " Ye are of your father, the 
 devil." And this to men who "believed on him;" this 
 from lips which said, " One is your Father," and He, in 
 heaven. He argues next with the Pharisees, and we find 
 him arrogantly exclaiming : " all that ever came before 
 me were thieves and robbers." What, all ? Moses and 
 Elijah, Isaiah and all the prophets ? At length, after 
 he has once more repulsed some inquirers, the Jews 
 take up stones to stone him, as Moses commanded, because 
 " thou makest thyself God." He escapes by a clever 
 ^evasion, which neutralises all his apparent assertions of 
 Divinity. " Other men have been called gods, so surely I 
 do not blaspheme by calling myself God's son." Never let 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 2? 
 
 us forget that in this gospel, the stronghold of the Divinity 
 of Jesus, Jesus himself explains his strongest assertion " I 
 and my Father are one " in a manner which can only be 
 honest in the mouth of a man.* We pass to the celebrated 
 " last discourse." In this we find the same peculiar style, 
 the same self-assertion, but we must note, in addition, the 
 distinct tri-theism which pervades it. There are three 
 distinct Beings, each necessarily deprived of some attribute 
 of Divinity : thus, the Deity is Infinite, but if He is divided 
 He becomes finite, since two Infinites are an impossible 
 absurdity, and unless they are identical they must bound 
 each other, so becoming finite. Accordingly "the Com- 
 forter" cannot be present till Jesus departs, therefore 
 neither Jesus nor the Comforter can be God, since God is 
 omnipresent. Since, then, prayer is to be addressed to 
 Jesus as God, the low theory of tri-theism, of a plurality of 
 Gods, none of whom is a perfect God, is here taught. In 
 .this discourse, also, the Christian horizon is bounded by 
 the figure of Jesus, the office of the Comforter is sub- 
 servient to this one worship, "he shall glorify me." Jesus, 
 at last, prays for his disciples, markedly excluding from his 
 intercession " the world " he was said to have come to save,, 
 and, as throughout this gospel, restricting all his love, all his 
 care, all his tenderness to " these, whom Thou hast given me." 
 Here we come to the essence of the spirit which pervades 
 this whole gospel. " I pray for them ; I pray not for the- 
 world : not for them who are of their father the devil, nor 
 for my betrayer, the son of perdition. " This is the spirit 
 which Christians dare to ascribe to Jesus of Nazareth, the 
 tenderest, gentlest, widest-hearted man who has yet graced 
 humanity. This is the spirit, they tell us, which dwelt in 
 his bosom, who gave us the parables of the lost sheep and 
 the prodigal son. " No," we answer, " this is not the spirit 
 of the Prophet of Nazareth, but " (Dr. Liddon will pardon 
 the appropriation) " this is the temper of a man who will 
 not enter the public baths along with the heretic who has 
 dishonoured his Lord." This is the spirit of the writer of 
 
 * For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy ; and 
 because that thou being a man makest thyself God." Jesus answered: 
 them, "Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods ? If he called 
 them gods unto whom the word of God came (and the scripture cannot 
 be broken), say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent 
 into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the son of 
 God ?" 
 
28 A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 
 
 the gospel, not of Jesus : the egotism of the writer is 
 reflected in the words put into the mouth of his master ; 
 and thus the preacher of the Father's love is degraded into 
 the seeker of his own glory, and bearing witness of himself, 
 his witness becomes untrue. I must also draw attention to 
 one or two cases of unreality attributed to Jesus by this 
 .gospel. He prays, on one occasion, "because of the people 
 who stand by :'' he cries on .his cross, " I thirst/' not 
 .because of the burning agony of crucifixion, but in order 
 " that the Scriptures might be fulfilled :" a voice answers 
 "his prayer, "not because of me, but for your sakes." This 
 calculation of effect is very foreign to the sincere and open 
 spirit of Jesus. Akin to this is the prevarication attributed 
 to him, when he declines to accompany his brethren to 
 Judsea, but " when his brethren were gone up then went he 
 also up to the feast, not openly but as it were in secret." 
 All this strikes us strangely as part of that simple, fearless 
 life. 
 
 We reject this gospel, sixthly, for the cruel spirit, the 
 arrogance, the self-assertion, the bigotry, the unreality, 
 attributed by it to Jesus, and we denounce it as a slander 
 on his memory and an insult to his noble life. 
 
 We may, perhaps, note, as another peculiarity of this 
 gospel although I do not enter here into the argument of 
 the divinity of Jesus, that when Dr. Liddon, in his cele- 
 brated Bampton Lectures, is anxious to prove the Deity of 
 Jesus from his own mouth, he is compelled to quote exclu- 
 sively from this gospel. Such a fact as this cannot be 
 overlooked, when we remember that " St. John's gospel is a 
 polemical treatise" written to prove this special point. We 
 cannot avoid noting the coincidence. 
 
 We have now gone through this remarkable record and 
 examined it in various lights. At the outset we conceded 
 to our opponents all the advantage which comes from 
 admitting that the gospel may be written by the Apostle 
 John ; we have left the authorship a moot point, and based 
 our argument on a different ground. Apostolic or non- 
 apostolic, Johannine or Corinthian, we accept it or reject it 
 for itself, and not for its writer. We have found that all its 
 characters speak alike in a marked and peculiar style a 
 style savouring of the study rather than the street, of 
 Alexandria rather than Jerusalem or Galilee. We have 
 glanced at its immoral partiality. We have noted the 
 numerous discrepancies between the history of this gospel 
 
FOURTH GOSPEL AND THE THREE SYNOPTICS. 29 
 
 and that of the three synoptics. We have discovered it to 
 be equally opposed to them in morals as in history : in 
 doctrine as in morals. We have seen that, while it 
 -degrades God to enthrone Jesus in His stead, it also 
 degrades Jesus, and so lowers his character that it defies 
 recognition. Finally, we have found it stands alone in 
 -supporting the Deity of Jesus from his own mouth. 
 
 1 know not how all this may strike others ; to me these 
 arguments are simply overwhelming in their force. I tear 
 out the " Gospel according to St. John " from the writings 
 which " are profitable ;> "for instruction in righteousness." 
 I reject it from beginning to end, as fatally destructive of 
 all true faith towards God, as perilously subversive of all 
 true morality in man, as an outrage on the sacred memory 
 of Jesus of Nazareth, and as an insult to the Justice, the 
 Supremacy, and the Unity of Almighty God. 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Atonement may be regarded as the central doctrine- 
 of Christianity, the very raison d'etre of the Christian 
 faith. Take this away, and there would remain indeed a 
 faith and a morality, but both would have lost their dis- 
 tinctive features : it would be a faith without its centre, and 
 a morality without its foundation. Christianity would be 
 unrecognisable without its angry God, its dying Saviour, its 
 covenant signed with " the blood of the Lamb :" the blotting 
 out of the Atonement would deprive millions of all hope 
 towards God, and would cast them from satisfaction into 
 anxiety, from comfort into despair. The warmest feelings 
 of Christendom cluster round the Crucifix, and he, the 
 crucified one, is adored with passionate devotion, not as 
 martyr for truth, not as witness for God, not as faithful to 
 death, but as the substitute for his worshippers, as he who 
 bears in their stead the wrath of God, and the punishment 
 due to sin. The Christian is taught to see in the bleeding 
 Christ the victim slain in his own place ; he himself should 
 be hanging on that cross, agonised and dying ; those nail- 
 pierced hands ought to be his ; the anguish on that face 
 should be furrowed on his own ; the weight of suffering 
 resting on that bowed head should be crushing himself into 
 the dust. In the simplest meaning of the words, Christ is 
 the sinner's substitute, and on him the sin of the world is 
 laid : as Luther expressed it, he " is the greatest and only 
 sinner;" literally "made sin" for mankind, and expiating 
 the guilt which, in very deed, was transferred from man to 
 him. 
 
 I wish at the outset, for the sake of justice and candour, 
 to acknowledge frankly the good which has been drawn 
 forth by the preaching of the Cross. This good has been, 
 however, the indirect rather than the direct result of a 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 31 
 
 belief in the Atonement. The doctrine, in itself, has 
 nothing elevating about it, but the teaching closely con- 
 nected with the doctrine has its ennobling and purifying 
 side. All the enthusiasm aroused in the human breast by 
 the thought of one who sacrificed himself to save his 
 brethren, all the consequent longing to emulate that love 
 by sacrificing all for Jesus and for those for whom he died, 
 .all the moral gain caused by the contemplation of a sublime 
 self-devotion, all these are the fruits of the nobler side of 
 the Atonement That the sinless should stoop to the 
 sinful, that holiness should embrace the guilty in order to 
 raise them to its own level, has struck a chord in men's 
 bosoms which has responded to the touch by a harmonious 
 melody of gratitude to the divine and sinless sufferer, and 
 loving labour for suffering and sinful man. The Cross has 
 been at once the apotheosis and the source of self-sacrificing 
 love. " Love ye one another as I have loved you : not in 
 word but in deed, with a deep self-sacrificing love :" such is 
 the lesson which, according to one of the most orthodox 
 Anglican divines, " Christ preaches to us from His Cross." 
 In believing in the Atonement, man's heart has, as usual, 
 been better than his head ; he has passed over the dark 
 side of the idea, and has seized on the divine truth that the 
 strong should gladly devote themselves to shield the weak, 
 that labour, even unto death, is the right of humanity from 
 every son of man. It is often said that no doctrine long 
 retains its hold on men's hearts which is not founded on 
 some great truth ; this divine idea of self-sacrifice has been 
 the truth contained in the doctrine of the Atonement, 
 which has made it so dear to many loving and noble souls, 
 and which has hidden its " multitude of sins " sins against 
 love and against justice, against God and against man. 
 Love and self-sacrifice have floated the great error over the 
 storms of centuries, and these cords still bind to it many 
 hearts of which love and self-sacrifice are the glory and the 
 crown. 
 
 This said, in candi dhomage to the good which has drawn 
 its inspiration from Jesus crucified, we turn to the examina- 
 tion of the doctrine itself: if we find that it is as dishonour- 
 ing to God as it is injurious to man, a crime against justice, 
 a blasphemy against love, we must forget all the sentiments 
 which cluster round it, and reject it utterly. It is well to 
 speak respectfully of that which is dear to any religious 
 soul, and to avoid jarring harshly on the strings of religious 
 
32 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 feeling, even though the soul be misled and the feeling be 
 misdirected ; but a time comes when false charity is cruelty, 
 and tenderness to error is treason to truth. For long, men 
 who know its emptiness pass by in silence the shrine conse- 
 crated by human hopes and fears, by love and worship, and 
 the " times of this ignorance God (in the bold figure of 
 Paul) also winks at ; " but when " the fulness of the time is 
 come," God sends forth some true son of his to dash the 
 idol to the ground, and to trample it into dust. We need 
 not be afraid that the good wrought by the lessons derived 
 from the Atonement in time past will disappear with the 
 doctrine itself; the mark of the Cross is too deeply ploughed 
 into humanity ever to be erased, and those who no longer 
 call themselves by the name of Christ are not the most 
 backward scholars in the school of love and sacrifice. 
 
 The history of this doctrine has been a curious one. In 
 the New Testament the Atonement is, as its name implies, 
 a simply making at one God and man : how this is done is 
 but vaguely hinted at, and in order to deduce the modern 
 doctrine from the Bible, we must import into the books of 
 the New Testament all the ideas derived from theological 
 disputations. Words used in all simplicity by the ancient 
 writers must have attached to them the definite polemical 
 meaning they hold in the quarrels of theologians, before 
 they can be strained into supporting a substitutionary atone- 
 ment. The idea, however, of " ransom " is connected with 
 the work of Jesus, and the question arose, " to whom is this 
 ransom paid ? " They who lived in those first centuries of 
 Christianity were still too much within the illumination of 
 the tender halo thrown by Jesus round the Father's name, 
 to dream for a moment that their redeemer had ransomed 
 them from the beloved hands of God. No, the ransom was 
 paid to the devil, whose thrall they believed mankind to be, 
 and Jesus, by sacrificing himself, had purchased them from 
 the devil and made them sons of God. It is not worth 
 while to enter on the quaint details of this scheme, how the 
 devil thought he had conquered and could hold Jesus 
 captive, and was tricked by finding that his imagined gain 
 could not be retained by him, and so on. Those who wish 
 to become acquainted with this ingenious device can study 
 it in the pages of the Christian fathers : it has at least one 
 advantage over the modern plan, namely, that we are not so 
 shocked at hearing of pain and suffering as acceptable to 
 the supposed incarnate evil, as at hearing of them being 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 33 
 
 offered as a sacrifice to the supreme good. As the teaching 
 of Jesus lost its power, and became more and more polluted 
 by the cruel thoughts of savage and bigoted men, the doc- 
 trine of the atonement gradually changed its character. 
 Men thought the Almighty to be such a one as themselves, 
 and being fierce and unforgiving and revengeful, they pro- 
 jected their own shadows on to the clouds which surrounded 
 the Deity, and then, like the shepherd who meets his own 
 form reflected and magnified on the mountain mist, they 
 recoiled before the image they themselves had made. The 
 loving Father who sent his son to rescue his perishing chil- 
 dren by sacrificing himself, fades away from the hearts of 
 the Christian world, and there looms darkly in his place an 
 awful form, the inexorable judge who exacts a debt man is 
 too poor to pay, and who, in default of payment, casts the 
 debtor into a hopeless prison, hopeless unless another pays 
 to the uttermost farthing the fine demanded by the law. So, 
 in this strange transformation-scene God actually takes the 
 place of the devil, and the ransom once paid to redeem men 
 from Satan becomes the ransom paid to redeem men from 
 God. It reminds one of the quarrels over the text which 
 bids us " fear him who is able to destroy both body and 
 soul in hell," when we remain in doubt whom he is we are 
 to fear, since half the Christian commentators assure us that 
 it refers to our Father in heaven, while the other half asseve- 
 rate that the devil is the individual we are to dread. The 
 seal was set on the " redemption scheme " by Anselm in his 
 great work, " Cur Dens Homo" and the doctrine which had 
 been slowly growing into the theology of Christendom was 
 thenceforward stamped with the signet of the Church. 
 Roman Catholics and Protestants, at the time of the Refor 
 mation, alike believed in the vicarious and substitutionary 
 character of the atonement wrought by Christ. There is no 
 dispute between them on this point. I prefer to allow the 
 Christian divines to speak for themselves as to the character 
 of the atonement : no one can accuse me of exaggerating 
 their views, if their views are given in their own words. 
 Luther teaches that " Christ did truly and effectually feel 
 for all mankind, the wrath of God, malediction and death." 
 Flavel says that " to wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God 
 without mixture, to the very torments of hell, was Christ 
 delivered, and that by the hand of his own father." The 
 Anglican homily preaches that " sin did pluck God out of 
 heaven to make him feel the horrors and pains of death," 
 
 D 
 
34 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 and that man, being a firebrand of hell and a bondsman of 
 the devil, "was ransomed by the death of his own only 
 and well-beloved son;" the " heat of his wrath," " his burn- 
 ing wrath," could only be " pacified " by Jesus, "so pleasant 
 was this sacrifice and oblation of his son's death." Edwards, 
 being logical, saw that there was a gross injustice in sin 
 being twice punished, and in the pains of hell, the penalty 
 of sin, being twice inflicted, first on Christ, the substitute 
 of mankind, and then on the lost, a portion of mankind. 
 So he, in common with most Calvinists, finds himself com- 
 pelled to restrict the atonement to the elect, and declared 
 that Christ bore the sins, not of the world, but of the chosen 
 out of the world; he suffers "not for the world, but for 
 them whom Thou hast given me." But Edwards adheres 
 firmly to the belief in substitution, and rejects the universal 
 atonement for the very reason that " to believe Christ died 
 for all is the surest way of proving that he died for none in 
 the sense Christians have hitherto believed." He declares 
 that " Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins ; " 
 that " God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ under- 
 went the pains of hell for," sin. Owen regards Christ's 
 sufferings as " a full valuable compensation to the justice of 
 God for all the sins " of the elect, and says that he under- 
 went " that same punishment which ..... they themselves 
 were bound to undergo." 
 
 The doctrine of the Christian Church in the widest 
 sense of that much-fought-over term was then as follows, 
 and I will state it in language which is studiously moderate, 
 as compared with the orthodox teaching of the great Christian 
 divines. If any one doubts this assertion, let him study their 
 writings for himself. I really dare not transfer some of their 
 expressions to my own pages. God the Father having cursed 
 mankind and condemned them to eternal damnation, because 
 of Adam's disobedience in eating an apple or some other 
 fruit, for the species is only preserved by tradition, and 
 is not definitely settled by the inspired writings and having 
 further cursed each man for his own individual transgres- 
 sions, man lay under the fierce wrath of God, unable to 
 escape, and unable to pacify it, for he could not even atone 
 for his own private sins, much less for his share of the guilt 
 incurred by his forefather in Paradise. Man's debt was 
 hopelessly large, and he had " nothing to pay ; " so all that 
 remained to him was to suffer an eternity of torture, which 
 sad fate he had merited by the crime of being born into an 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 35 
 
 accursed world. The second person of the Trinity 
 moved to pity by the helpless and miserable state of man- 
 kind, interposed between the first person of the Trinity and 
 the wretched sinners ; he received into his own breast the fire- 
 tipped arrows of divine wrath, and by suffering inconceiv- 
 able tortures, equal in amount to an eternity of the torments 
 of hell, he wrung from God's hands the pardon of man- 
 kind, or of a portion thereof. God, pacified by witnessing 
 this awful agony of one who had from all eternity been 
 " lying in his bosom " co-equal sharer of his Majesty and 
 glory, and the object of his tenderest love, relents from his 
 fierce wrath, and consents to accept the pain of Jesus as a 
 substitute for the pain of mankind. In plain terms, then, 
 God is represented as a Being so awfully cruel, so im- 
 placably revengeful, that pain as pain, and death as death, 
 are what he demands as a propitiatory sacrifice, and with 
 nothing less than extremest agony can his fierce claims on 
 mankind be bought off. The due weight of suffering he 
 must have, but it is a matter of indifference whether it is 
 undergone by Jesus or by mankind. Did not the old 
 Fathers do well in making the awful ransom a matter 
 between Jesus and the devil ? 
 
 When this point is pressed on Christians, and one urges 
 the dishonour done to God by painting him in colours from 
 which heart and soul recoil in shuddering horror, by ascrib- 
 ing to him a revengefulness and pitiless cruelty in com- 
 parison with which the worst efforts of human malignity 
 appear but childish mischief, they are quick to retort that 
 we are caricaturing Christian doctrine; they will allow, 
 when overwhelmed with evidence, that " strong language " 
 has been used in past centuries, but will say that such views 
 are not now held, and that they do not ascribe such harsh 
 dealing to God the Father. Theists are therefore com- 
 pelled to prove each step of their accusation, and to quote 
 from Christian writers the words which embody the views 
 they assail. Were I simply to state that Christians in these 
 days ascribe to Almighty God a fierce wrath against the 
 whole human race, that this wrath can only be soothed by 
 suffering and death, that he vents this wrath on an innocent 
 head, and that he is well pleased by the sight of the agony 
 of his beloved Son, a shout of indignation would rise from 
 a thousand lips, and I should be accused of exaggeration, of 
 false witness, of blasphemy. So once more I write down the 
 doctrine from Christian dictation, and, be it remembered, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the sentences I quote are from published works, and are 
 therefore, the outcome of serious deliberation ; they are not. 
 overdrawn pictures taken from the fervid eloquence of ex- 
 cited oratory, when the speaker may perhaps be carried 
 further than he would, in cold blood, consent to. 
 
 Stroud makes Christ drink " the cup of the wrath of God.'* 
 Jenkyn says, " he suffered as one disowned and reprobated 
 and forsaken of God." Dwight considers that he endured 
 God's " hatred and contempt." Bishop Jeune tells us that 
 " after man had done his worst, worse remained for Christ 
 to bear. He had fallen into his father's hands." Archbishop 
 Thomson preaches that " the clouds of God's wrath gathered 
 thick over the whole human race : they discharged them- 
 selves on Jesus only ;" he "becomes a curse for us, and a 
 vessel of wrath." Liddon echoes the same sentiment: "the 
 apostles teach that mankind are slaves, and that Christ on 
 the Cross is paying their ransom. Christ crucified is volun- 
 tarily devoted and accursed :" he even speaks of " the pre- 
 cise amount of ignominy and pain needed for the redemp- 
 tion," and says that the " divine victim " paid more than was 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 These quotations seem sufficient to prove that the Chris- 
 tians of the present day are worthy followers of the elder 
 believers. The theologians first quoted are indeed coarser 
 in their expressions, and are less afraid of speaking out 
 exactly what they believe, but there is no real difference of 
 creed between the awful doctrine of Flavel and the polished 
 dogma of Canon Liddon. The older and the modern Chris- 
 tians alike believe in the bitter wrath of God against "the 
 whole human race." Both alike regard the Atonement as so 
 much pain tendered by Jesus to the Almighty Father in pay- 
 ment of a debt of pain owed to God by humanity. They 
 alike represent God as only to be pacified by the sight of 
 suffering. Man has insulted and injured God, and God 
 must be revenged by inflicting suffering on the sinner in 
 return. The "hatred and contempt" God launched at 
 Jesus were due to the fact that Jesus was the sinner's sub- 
 stitute, and are therefore the feelings which animate the 
 Divine heart towards the sinner himself. God hates and 
 despises the world. He would have "consumed it in a 
 moment " in the fire of his burning wrath, had not Jesus, 
 " his chosen, stood before him in the gap to turn away his 
 wrathful indignation." 
 
 Now, how far is all this consistent with justice ? Is the 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 37 
 
 wrath of God against humanity justified by the circumstances 
 of the case, so that we may be obliged to own that some 
 sacrifice was due from sinful man to his Creator, to pro- 
 pitiate a justly incensed and holy God ? I trow not. On 
 this first count, the Atonement is a fearful injustice. For 
 God has allowed men to be brought into the world with sin- 
 ful inclinations, and to be surrounded with many tempta- 
 tions and much evil. He has made man imperfect, and the 
 child is born into the world with an imperfect nature. It is 
 radically unjust, then, that God should curse the work of His 
 hands for being what He made them, and condemn them to 
 endless misery for failing to do the impossible. Allowing 
 that Christians are right in believing that Adam was sinless 
 when he came from his Maker's hands, these remarks apply 
 to every other living soul since born into the world ; the 
 Genesis myth will not extricate Christians from the diffi- 
 culty. Christians are quite right and are justified by facts 
 when they say that man is born into the world frail, imper- 
 fect, prone to sin and error ; but who, we ask them, made 
 men so? Does not their own Bible tell them that tke 
 " potter hath power over the clay," and, further, that " we 
 are the clay and thou art the potter?" To curse men for 
 being men, i.e., imperfect moral beings, is the height of 
 cruelty and injustice ; to condemn the morally weak to hell 
 for sin, i.e., for failing in moral strength, is about as fair as 
 sentencing a sick man to death because he cannot stand 
 upright. Christians try and avoid the force of this by saying 
 that men should rely on God's grace to uphold them, but 
 they fail to see that this very want of reliance is part of man's 
 natural weakness. The sick man might be blamed for fall- 
 ing because he did not lean on a stronger arm, but suppose 
 he was too weak to grasp-it ? Further, few Christians believe 
 that it is impossible in practice, however possible in theory, 
 to lead a perfect life ; and as to " offend in one point is to be 
 guilty of all," one failure is sufficient to send the generally 
 righteous man to hell. Besides, they forget that infants are 
 included under the curse, although necessarily incapable of 
 grasping the idea either of sin or of God ; all babies born 
 into the world and dying before becoming capable of acting 
 for themselves would, we are taught, have been inevitably 
 consigned to hell, had it not been for the Atonement of 
 Jesus. Some Christians actually believe that unbaptized 
 babies are not admitted into heaven, and in a Roman 
 Catholic book descriptive of hell, a poor little baby writhes 
 and screams in a red-hot oven. 
 
38 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 This side of the Atonement, this unjust demand on men 
 for a righteousness they could not render, necessitating a 
 sacrifice to propitiate God for non-compliance with his ex- 
 action, has had its due effect on men's minds, and has 
 alienated their hearts from God. No wonder that men 
 turned away from a God who, like a passionate but unskilful 
 workman, dashes to pieces the instrument he has made 
 because it fails in its purpose, and, instead of blaming his 
 own want of skill, vents his anger on the helpless thing that 
 is only what he made it. Most naturally, also, have men 
 shrunk from the God who " avengeth and is furious " to the 
 tender, pitiful, human Jesus, who loved sinners so deeply as 
 to choose to suffer for their sakes. They could owe no 
 gratitude to an Almighty Being who created them and cursed 
 them, and only consented to allow them to be happy on 
 condition that another paid for them the misery he demanded 
 as his due; but what gratitude could be enough for him who 
 rescued them from the fearful hands of the living God, at 
 the cost of almost intolerable suffering to himself? Let us 
 remember that Christ is said to suffer the very torments of 
 hell, and that his worst sufferings were when " fallen into 
 his father's hands," out of which he has rescued us, and 
 then can we wonder that the crucified is adored with a very 
 ecstasy of gratitude ? Imagine what it is to be saved from 
 the hands of him who inflicted an agony admitted to be un- 
 limited, and who took advantage of an infinite capacity in 
 order to inflict an infinite pain. It is well for the men before 
 whose eyes this awful spectre has flitted that the fair 
 humanity of Jesus gives them a refuge to fly to, else what 
 but despair and madness could have been the doom of those 
 who, without Jesus, would have seen enthroned above the 
 wailing universe naught but an infinite cruelty and an 
 Almighty foe. 
 
 We see, then, that the necessity for an atonement makes 
 the Eternal Father both unjust in his demands on men and 
 cruel in his punishment of inevitable failure ; but there is 
 another injustice which is of the very essence of the Atone- 
 ment itself. This consists in the vicarious character of the 
 sacrifice : a new element of injustice is introduced when we 
 consider that the person sacrificed is not even the guilty 
 party. If a man offends against law, justice requires that he 
 should be punished : the punishment becomes unjust if it is 
 excessive, as in the case we have been considering above ; 
 but it is equally unjust to allow him to go free without punish- 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 39 
 
 ment. Christians are right in affirming that moral govern- 
 ment would be at an end were men allowed to sin with 
 impunity, and did an easy forgiveness succeed to each 
 offence. They appeal to our instinctive sense of justice to* 
 approve the sentiment that punishment should follow sin : 
 we acquiesce, and hope that we have now reached a firm 
 standing-ground from which to proceed further in our investi- 
 gation. But, no; they promptly outrage that same sense of 
 justice which they have called as a witness on their side, by 
 asking us to believe that its ends are attained provided that 
 somebody or other is punished. When we reply that this is 
 not justice, we are promptly bidden not to be presumptuous 
 and argue from our human ideas of justice as to the course 
 that ought to be pursued by the absolute justice of God. 
 " Then why appeal to it at all ? " we urge ; " why talk of 
 justice in the matter if we are totally unable to judge as to 
 the rights and wrongs of the case ?" At this point we are 
 commonly overwhelmed with Paul's notable argument 
 " Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? ;; 
 But if Christians value the simplicity and straightforwardness 
 of their own minds, they should not use words which convey 
 a certain accepted meaning in this shuffling, double sense. 
 When we speak of "justice," we speak of a certain well- 
 understood quality, and we do not speak of a mysterious 
 divine attribute, which has not only nothing in common with 
 human justice, but which is in direct opposition to that which 
 we understand by that name. Suppose a man condemned 
 to death for murder : the judge is about to sentence him, 
 when a bystander as it chances, the judge's own son 
 interposes : "My Lord, the prisoner is guilty and deserves to 
 be hanged; but if you will let him go, I will die in his place." 
 The offer is accepted, the prisoner is set free, the judge's 
 son is hanged in his stead. What is all this ? Self-sacri- 
 fice (however misdirected), love, enthusiasm what you will; 
 but certainly n.Q\. justice nay, the grossest injustice, a second 
 murder, an ineffaceable stain on the ermine of the outraged 
 law. I imagine that, in this supposed case, no Christian 
 will be found to assert that justice was done ; yet call the 
 judge God, the prisoner mankind, the substitute Jesus, and 
 the trial scene is exactly reproduced. Then, in the name 
 of candour and common sense, why call that just in God 
 which we see would be so unjust and immoral in man ? This 
 vicarious nature of the Atonement also degrades the divine 
 name, by making him utterly careless in the matter of 
 
-40 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 punishment : all he is anxious for, according to this detest- 
 able theory, is that he should strike a blow somewhenf. Like 
 a child in a passion, he only feels the desire to hurt some- 
 body, and strikes out vaguely and at random. There is no 
 discrimination used; the thunderbolt is launched into a 
 crowd : it falls on the head of the "sinless son, "and crushes 
 the innocent, while the sinner goes free. What matter ? It 
 has fallen somewhere, and the " burning fire of his wrath " 
 is cooled. This is what men call the vindication of the 
 justice of the Moral Governor of the universe : this is " the 
 act of God's awful holiness," which marks his hatred of sin, 
 and his immovable determination to punish it. But when 
 we reflect that this justice is consistent with letting off the 
 guilty and punishing the innocent person, we feel dread mis- 
 givings steal into our minds. The justice of our Moral 
 Governor has nothing in common with our justice indeed, 
 it violates all our notions of right and wrong. What if, as 
 Mr. Vance Smith suggests, this strange justice be consistent 
 also with a double punishment of sin ; and what if the 
 Moral Governor should bethink himself that, having con- 
 fused morality by an unjust humanly speaking, of course 
 punishment, it would be well to set things straight again by 
 punishing the guilty after all ? We can never dare to feel 
 safe in the hands of this unjust humanly speaking Moral 
 Governor, or predicate from our instinctive notions of right 
 and wrong what his requirements may be. One is lost in 
 astonishment that men should believe such things of God, 
 -and not have manhood enough to rise up rebellious against 
 such injustice should, instead, crouch at his feet, and 
 while trying to hide themselves from his wrath should force 
 their trembling lips to murmer some incoherent acknow- 
 ledgment of his mercy. Ah ! they do not believe it ; they 
 assert it in words, but, thank God, it makes no impression 
 on their hearts ; and they would die a thousand deaths 
 rather than imitate, in their dealings with their fellow-men, 
 the fearful cruelty which the Church has taught them to call 
 the justice of the Judge of all the earth. 
 
 The Atonement is not only doubly unjust, but it is per- 
 fectly futile. We are told that Christ took away the sins of 
 the world ; we have a right to ask, " how ? " So far as 
 we can judge, we bear our sins in our own bodies still, and 
 the Atonement helps us not at all. Has he borne the 
 physical consequences of sin, such as the less of health 
 caused by intemperance of all kinds? Not at all, this 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 4! 
 
 penalty remains, and, from the nature of things, cannot be 
 transferred. Has he borne the social consequences, shame, 
 loss of credit, and so on ? They remain still to hinder us as- 
 we strive to rise after our fall. Has he at least borne the 
 pangs of remorse for us, the stings of conscience ? By no 
 means ; the tears of sorrow are no less bitter, the prickings 
 of repentance no less keen. Perhaps he has struck at the 
 root of evil, and has put away sin itself out of a redeemed 
 world ? Alas ! the wailing that goes up to heaven from a 
 world oppressed with sin weeps out a sorrowfully emphatic^ 
 " no, this he has not done." What has he then borne for us? 
 Nothing, save the phantom wrath of a phantom tyrant j all 
 that is real exists the same as before. We turn away, then, 
 from the offered atonement with a feeling that would be im- 
 patience at such trifling, were it not all too sorrowful, and 
 leave the Christians to impose on their imagined sacrifice, 
 the imagined burden of the guilt of the accursed race. 
 
 Further, the Atonement is, from the nature of things, 
 entirely impossible : we have seen how Christ fails to bear 
 our sins in any intelligible sense, but can he, in any way, 
 bear the " punishment " of sin ? The idea that the punish- 
 ment of sin can be transferred from one person to another 
 is radically false, and arises from a wrong conception of the 
 punishment consequent on sin, and from the ecclesiastical 
 guilt, so to speak, thought to be incurred thereby. The 
 only true punishment of sin is the injury caused by it to our 
 moral nature : all the indirect punishments, we have seen, 
 Christ has not taken away, and the true punishment can 
 fall only on ourselves. For sin is nothing more than the 
 transgression of law. All law, when broken, entails of 
 necessity an appropriate penalty, and recoils, as it were, on 
 the transgressor. A natural law, when broken, avenges 
 itself by consequent suffering, and so does a spiritual law : 
 the injury wrought by the latter is not less real, although 
 less obvious. Physical sin brings physical suffering; spiri- 
 tual, moral, mental sin brings each its own appropriate 
 punishment. " Sin" has become such a cant term that we 
 lose sight, in using it, of its real simple meaning, a breaking 
 of law. Imagine any sane man coming and saying, " My 
 dear friend, if you like to put your hand into the fire I will 
 bear the punishment of being burnt, and you shall not 
 suffer." It is quite as absurd to imagine that if I sin Jesus 
 can bear my consequent suffering. If a man lies habitually, 
 for instance, he grows thoroughly untrue : let him repent 
 
42 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ever so vigorously, he must bear the consequences of his 
 past deeds, and fight his way back slowly to truthfulness of 
 word and thought : no atonement, nothing in heaven or 
 earth save his own labour, will restore to him the forfeited 
 jewel of instinctive candour. Thus the " punishment " of 
 untruthfulness is the loss of the power of being true, just as 
 the punishment of putting the hand into the fire is the loss 
 of the" power of grasping. But in addition to this simple 
 and most just and natural " retribution," theologians have 
 invented certain arbitrary penalties as a punishment of sin, 
 the wrath of God and hell fire. These imaginary penalties 
 are discharged by an equally imaginary atonement, the 
 natural punishment remaining as before ; so after all we 
 only reject the two sets of inventions which balance each 
 other, and find ourselves just in the same position as they 
 are, having gained infinitely in simplicity and naturalness. 
 The punishment of sin is not an arbitrary penalty, but an 
 inevitable sequence : Jesus may bear, if his worshippers will 
 have it so, the theological fiction of the " guilt of sin," an 
 idea derived from the ceremonial uncleanness of the Le- 
 vitical law, but let him leave alone the solemn realities con- 
 nected with 'the sacred and immutable laws of God. 
 
 Doubly unjust, useless, and impossible, it might be 
 dee-med a work of supererogation to argue yet further 
 against the Atonement ; but its hold on men's minds 
 is too firm to allow us to lay down a single weapon which 
 can be turned against it. So, in addition to these defects, I 
 remark that, viewed as a propitiatory sacrifice to Almighty 
 God, it is thoroughly inadequate. If God, being righteous, 
 as we believe Him to be, regarded man with anger because 
 of man's sinfulness, what is obviously the required propitia- 
 tion ? Surely the removal of the cause of anger, i.e., of sin 
 itself, and the seeking by man of righteousness. The old 
 Hebrew prophet saw this plainly, and his idea of atonement 
 is the true one : " wherewith shall I come before the Lord," 
 he is asked, with burnt-offerings or choicer still parental 
 anguish over a first-born's corpse ? " What doth the Lord 
 require of thee," is the reproving answer, " but to do justly 
 and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 
 But what is the propitiatory element in the Christian Atone- 
 ment ? let Canon Liddon answer : " the ignominy and pain 
 needed for the redemption." Ignominy, agony, blood, death, 
 these are what Christians offer up as an acceptable sacrifice 
 to the Spirit of Love. But what have all these in common 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 4J 
 
 with the demands of the Eternal Righteousness, and how 
 can pain atone for sin ? they have no relation to each other ; 
 there is no appropriateness in the offered exchange. 
 These terrible offerings are in keeping with' the barbarous 
 ideas of uncivilized nations, and we understand the feelings 
 which prompt the savage to immolate tortured victims on 
 the altars of his gloomy gods; they are appropriate sacrifices 
 to the foes of mankind, who are to be bought off from 
 injuring us by our offering them an equivalent pain to that 
 they desire to inflict, but they are offensive when given to Him 
 who is the Friend and Lover of Humanity. An Atonement 
 which offers suffering as a propitiation can have nothing in 
 common with God's will for man, and must be utterly beside 
 the mark, perfectly inadequate. If we must have Atone- 
 ment, let it at least consist of something which will suit the 
 Righteousness and Love of God, and be in keeping with 
 his perfection ; let it not borrow the language of ancient 
 savagery, and breathe of blood and dying victims, and 
 tortured human frames, racked with pain. 
 
 Lastly, I impeach the Atonement as injurious in several 
 ways to human morality. It has been extolled as " meeting 
 the needs of the awakened sinner " by soothing his fears of 
 punishment with the gift of a substitute who has already 
 suffered his sentence for him ; but nothing can be more per- 
 nicious than to console a, sinner with the promise that he 
 shall escape the punishment he has justly deserved. The 
 Atonement may meet the first superficial feelings of a man 
 startled into the consciousness of his sinfulness, it may 
 soothe the first vague fears and act as an opiate to the 
 awakened conscience ; but it does not fulfil the cravings of 
 a heart deeply yearning after righteousness; it offers a legal 
 justification to a soul which is longing for purity, it offers 
 freedom from punishment to a soul longing for freedom from 
 sin. The true penitent does not seek to be shielded from 
 the consequences of his past errors : he accepts them 
 meekly, bravely, humbly, learning through pain the lesson 
 of future purity. An atonement which steps in between us 
 and this fatherly discipline ordained by God, would be a 
 curse and not a blessing ; it would rob us of our education 
 and deprive us of a priceless instruction. The force of 
 temptation is fearfully added to by the idea that repentance 
 lays the righteous penalty of transgression on another head ; 
 this doctrine gives a direct encouragement to sin, as even 
 Paul perceived when he said, " shall we continue in sin that 
 
44 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 grace may abound ? " Some one has remarked, I think, 
 that though Paul ejaculates, " God forbid," his fears were 
 well founded and have been widely realised. To the Atone- 
 ment we owe the morbid sentiment which believes in the 
 holy death of a ruffianly murderer, because, goaded by 
 ungovernable terror, he has snatched at the offered 
 safety and been "washed in the blood of the lamb." To it 
 we owe the unwholesome glorying in the pious sentiments 
 of such an one, who ought to go out of this life sadly and 
 silently, without a sickening parade of feelings of love 
 towards the God whose laws, as long as he could, he has 
 broken and despised. But the Christian teachers will extol 
 the " saving grace " which has made the felon die with 
 words of joyful assurance, meet only for the lips of one who 
 crowns a saintly life with a peaceful death. The Atonement 
 has weakened that stern condemnation of sin which is the 
 safeguard of purity ; it has softened down moral differences, 
 and placed the penitent above the saint; it has dulled the 
 feeling of responsibility in the soul; it has taken away the 
 help, such as it is, of fear of punishment for sin; it has 
 confused man's sense of justice, outraged his feeling of 
 right, blunted his conscience, and misdirected his repent- 
 ance. It has chilled his love to God by representing the 
 universal father as a cruel tyrant and a remorseless and un- 
 just judge. It has been the fruitful parent of all asceticism, 
 for, since God was pacified by suffering once, he would, of 
 course, be pleased with suffering at all times, and so men 
 have logically ruined their bodies to save their souls, and 
 crushed their feelings and lacerated their hearts to propi- 
 tiate the awful form frowning behind the cross of Christ. 
 To the Atonement we owe it that God is served by fear in- 
 stead of by love, that monasticism holds its head above the 
 sweet sanctities of love and home, that religion is crowned 
 with thorns and not with roses, that the miserere and not 
 the gloria is the strain from earth to heaven. The Atone- 
 ment teaches men to crouch at the feet of God, instead of 
 raising loving, joyful faces to meet his radiant smile; it shuts 
 put his sunshine from us, and veils us in the night of an im- 
 penetrable dread. What is the sentiment with which Canon 
 Liddon closes a sermon on the death of Christ ? I quote it 
 to show the slavish feeling engendered by this doctrine in a 
 very noble human soul : " In ourselves, indeed, there is 
 nothing that should stay His (God's) arm or invite his mercy. 
 But may he have respect to the acts and the sufferings of 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 45 
 
 his sinless son? Only while contemplating the inestimable 
 merits of the Redeemer can we dare to hope that our 
 heavenly Father will overlook the countless provocations 
 which he receives at the hands of the redeemed." Is this 
 a wholesome sentiment, either as regards our feelings towards 
 God or our efforts towards holiness ? Is it well to look to 
 the purity of another as a makewight for our personal short- 
 comings? All these injuries to morality done by the atone- 
 ment are completed by the crowning one, that it offers to 
 the sinner a veil of "imputed righteousness." Not only 
 does it take from him his saving punishment, but it nulli- 
 fies his strivings after holiness by offering him a righteous- 
 ness which is not his own. It introduces into the solemn 
 region of duty to God the legal fiction of a gift of holiness, 
 which is imputed, not won. We are taught to believe that 
 we can blind the eyes of God and satisfy him with a pre- 
 tended purity. But that every one whose purity we seek to 
 claim as ours, that fair blossom of humanity, Jesus of 
 Nazareth, whose mission we so misconstrue, launched his 
 anathema at whited sepulchres, pure without and foul 
 within. What would he have said of the whitewash of 
 "imputed righteousness?" Stern and sharp would have 
 been his rebuke, methinks, to a device so untrue, and well- 
 deserved would have been his thundered "woe" on a 
 hypocrisy that would fain deceive God as well as man. 
 
 These considerations have carried so great a weight with the 
 most enlightened and progressive minds among Christians 
 themselves, that there has grown up a party in the Church 
 whose repudiation of an atonement of agony and death is as 
 complete as even we could wish. They denounce with the 
 utmost fervour the hideous notion of a " bloody sacrifice," 
 and are urgent in their representations of the dishonour 
 done to God by ascribing to him " pleasure in the death of 
 him that dieth," or satisfaction in the sight of pain. They 
 point out that there is no virtue in blood to wash away sin, 
 not even " in the blood of a God." Maurice eloquently 
 pleads against the idea that the suffering of the " well-beloved 
 Son " was in itself an acceptable sacrifice to the Almighty 
 Father, and he sees the atoning element in the " holiness 
 and graciousness of the Son." Writers of this school per- 
 ceive that a moral and not a physical sacrifice can be the 
 only acceptable offering to the Father of spirits, but the great 
 objection lies against their theory also, that the Atonement is 
 .still vicarious. Christ still suffers for man, in order to make 
 
46 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 men acceptable to God. It is, perhaps, scarcely fair to say 
 this of the school as a whole, since the opinions of Broad 
 Church divines differ widely from each other, ranging from 
 the orthodox to the Socinian standing-point. Yet, roughly 
 speaking, we may say that while they have given up the 
 error of thinking that the death of Christ reconciles God to- 
 us, they yet believe that his death, in some mysterious 
 manner, reconciles us to God. It is a matter of deep 
 thankfulness that they give up the old cruel idea of pro- 
 pitiating God, and so prepare the way for a higher creed. 
 Their more humane teaching reaches hearts which are as 
 yet sealed against us, and they are the John Baptist of the 
 Theistic Chiist. We must still urge on them that an atone- 
 ment at all is superfluous, that all the parade of reconcilia- 
 tion by means of a mediator is perfectly unnecessary as 
 between God and his child, man ; that the notion put for- 
 ward that Christ realised the ideal of humanity and 
 propitiated God by showing what a man could be, is 
 objectionable in that it represents God as needing to be 
 taught what were the capacities of his creatures, and is 
 further untrue, because the powers of God in man are not 
 really the equivalent of the capabilities of a simple man. 
 Broad Churchmen are still hampered by the difficulties 
 surrounding a divine Christ, and are puzzled to find for him 
 a place in their theology which is at once suitable for his 
 dignity, and consistent with a reasonable belief. They feel 
 obliged to acknowledge that some unusual benefit to the 
 race must result from the incarnation and death of a God, 
 and are swayed alternately by their reason, which places the 
 crucifixion of Jesus in the roll of martyrs' deaths, and by 
 their prejudices, which assign to it a position unique and 
 unrivalled in the history of the race. There are, however, 
 many signs that the deity of Jesus is, as an article of faith, 
 tottering from its pedestal in the Broad Church school. The 
 hold on it by such men as the Rev. J. S. Brooke is very 
 slight, and his interpretation of the incarnation is regarded 
 by orthodox divines with unmingled horror. Their moral 
 atonement, in turn, is as the dawn before the sunrise, and 
 we may hope that it will soon develop into the real truth : 
 namely, that the dealings of Jesus with the Father were a 
 purely private matter between his own soul and God> and 
 that his value to mankind consists in his being one of the 
 teachers of the race, one " with a genius for religion," one of 
 the schoolmasters appointed to lead humanity to God. 
 
ON THE ATONEMENT. 47 
 
 The theory of M'Leod Campbell stands alone, and is 
 highly interesting and ingenious it is the more valuable 
 and hopeful as coming from Scotland, the home of the 
 dreariest belief as to the relations existing between man and 
 God. He rejects the penal character of the Atonement, and 
 makes it consist, so to speak, in leading God and man to 
 understand one another. He considers that Christ wit- 
 nessed to men on behalf of God, and vindicated the father's 
 heart by showing what he could be to the son who trusted 
 in him. He witnessed to God on behalf of men and this 
 is the weakest point in the book, verging, as it does, on 
 substitution showing in humanity a perfect sympathy with 
 God's feelings towards sin, and offering to God for man a 
 perfect repentance for human transgression. I purposely 
 say " verging," because Campbell does not intend substitu- 
 tion ; he represents this sorrow of Jesus as what he must 
 inevitably feel at seeing his brother-men unconscious of 
 their sin and danger, so no fiction is supposed as between 
 God and Christ. But he considers that God, having seen 
 the perfection of repentance in Jesus, accepts the repentance 
 of man, imperfect as it is, because it is in kind the same as 
 that of Jesus, and is the germ of that feeling of which his 
 is the perfect flower ; in this sense, and only in this sense, is 
 the repentance of man accepted "for Christ's sake." He 
 considers that men must share in the mind of Christ as 
 towards God and towards sin, in order to be benefited by 
 the work of Christ, and that each man must thus actually 
 take part in the work of atonement. The sufferings of 
 Jesus he regards as necessary in order to test the reality of the 
 life of sonship towards God, and brotherhood towards men, 
 which he came to earth to exemplify. I trust I have done 
 no injustice in this short summary to a very able and 
 thoughtful book, which presents, perhaps, the only view of 
 the Atonement compatible with the love and the justice of 
 God ; and this only, of course, if the idea of any atonement 
 can fairly be said to be consistent with justice. The merits 
 of this view are practically that this work of Jesus is not an 
 " atonement " in the theological sense at all. The defects 
 of Campbell's book are inseparable from his creed, as he 
 argues from a belief in the deity of Jesus, from an uncon- 
 scious limitation of God's knowledge (as though God did 
 not understand man till he was revealed to him by Jesus) 
 and from a wrong conception of the punishment due to sin. 
 
 I said, at starting, that the Atonement was the raison tfctre 
 
48 ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 of Christianity, and, in conclusion, I would challenge all 
 thoughtful men and women to say whether good cause has. 
 or has not been shown for rejecting this pillar "of the 
 faith." The Atonement has but to be studied in order to 
 be rejected. The difficulty is to persuade people to think 
 about their creed, Yet the question of this doctrine must 
 be faced and answered. " I have too much faith in the 
 common sense and justice of Englishmen when once 
 awakened to face any question fairly, to doubt what that 
 answer will be." 
 
ON THE 
 
 MEDIATION AND SALVATION OF 
 ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 THE whole Christian scheme turns on the assumption of 
 the inherent necessity of some one standing between 
 the Creator and the creature, and shielding the all-weak 
 from the power of the All-mighty. " It is a fearful thing to- 
 fall into the hands of the living God ; " such is the key-note 
 of the strain which is chanted alike by Roman Catholicism, 
 with its thousand intercessors, and by Protestantism, with its 
 "one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus." "Speak thou for 
 me," cries man to his favourite mouthpiece, whoever it may 
 be ; " go thou near, but let me not see the face of God, lest 
 I die." The heroes, the saints, the idols of humanity, have 
 been the men who have dared to search into the Unseen,, 
 and to gaze straight up into the awful Face of God. They 
 have dashed aside all that intervened between their souls 
 and the Eternal Soul, and have found it, as one of them 
 quaintly phrases it, " a profitable sweet necessity to fall on 
 the naked arm of Jehovah." Then, because they dared to 
 trust Him who had called them into existence, and to stretch 
 out beseeching hands to the Everlasting Father, they have- 
 been forced into a position they would have been the very 
 first to protest against, and have been made into mediators 
 for men less bold, for children less confiding. Those who 
 dared not seek God for themselves have clung to the 
 garments of the braver souls, who have thus become, 
 involuntarily, veils between their brother-men and the 
 Supreme. There is, perhaps, no better way of demonstrat- 
 ing the radical errors from which spring all the so-called 
 "schemes of redemption" and "economies of Divine 
 grace" than by starting from the Christian hypothesis. 
 
 We will admit, for argument's sake, the Deity of Jesus r 
 in order that we may thus see the more distinctly that a 
 mediator of any kind between God and man is utterly un- 
 
50 ON THE MEDIATION AND SALVATION 
 
 called for. It is mediation, in itself, that is wrong in 
 principle ; we object to it as a whole, not to any special 
 manifestation of it. Divine or human mediators, Jesus or 
 his mother, saint, angel, or priest, we reject them each and 
 all ; our birthright as human beings is to be the offspring ot 
 the Universal Father, and we refuse to have any interloper 
 pressing in between our hearts and His. 
 
 We will take mediation first in its highest form, and speak 
 of it as if Jesus were really God as well as man. All 
 Christians agree in asserting that the coming of the Son 
 into the world to save sinners was the result of the love of 
 the Father for these sinners ; i.e., " God so loved the world 
 that He sent His Son." The motive-power of the redemp- 
 tion of the world is, then, according to Christians, the deep 
 love of the Creator for the work of His hands. This it was 
 that exiled the Son from the bosom of the Father, and 
 caused the Eternal to be born into time. But now a 
 startling change occurs in the aspect of affairs. Jesus has 
 " atoned for the sins of the world;" he "has made peace 
 through the blood of his cross; and having done so, he 
 suddenly appears as the mediator for men. What does this 
 pleading of the Son on behalf of sinners imply? Only this 
 a complete change in the Father's mind towards the world. 
 After the yearning love of which we have heard, after this 
 absolute sacrifice to win His children's hearts, He at last 
 succeeds. He sees His children at His feet, repentant for 
 the past, eager to make amends in the future ; human hands 
 appealing to Him, human eyes streaming with tears. He 
 turns His back on the souls He has been labouring to win; 
 He refuses to clasp around His penitents the arms out- 
 stretched to them so long, unless they are presented to Him 
 by an accredited intercessor, and come armed with a formal 
 recommendation. The inconsistency of such a procedure 
 must be palpable to all minds ; and in order to account for 
 one absurdity, theologians have invented another ; having 
 created one difficulty, they are forced to make a second, in 
 order to escape from the first. So they represent God as 
 loving sinners, and desiring to forgive and welcome them. 
 This feeling is the Mercy of God ; but, in opposition to the 
 dictates of Mercy, Justice starts up, and forbids any favour 
 to the sinner unless its own claims are first satisfied to the 
 utmost. A Christian writer has represented Mercy and 
 Justice as standing before the Eternal : Mercy pleads for 
 forgiveness and pity, Justice clamours for punishment. Two 
 
OF ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 51 
 
 attributes of the Godhead are personified and placed in 
 opposition to each other, and require to be reconciled. 
 But when we remember that each personified quality is 
 really but a portion, so to speak, of the Divine character, 
 we find that God is divided against Himself. Thus, this 
 theory introduces discord into the harmonious mind which 
 inspires the perfect melodies of the universe. It sees 
 warring elements in the Serenity of the Infinite One ; it 
 pictures successive waves of love and anger ruffling that 
 ineffable Calm; it imagines clouds of changing motives 
 sweeping across the sun of that unchanging Will. Such a 
 theory as this must be rejected as soon as realised by the 
 thoughtful mind. God is not a man, to be swayed first by 
 one motive and then by another. His mercy and justice 
 ever point unwaveringly in the same direction : perfect 
 justice requires the same as perfect mercy. If God's justice 
 could fail, the whole moral universe would be in confusion,, 
 and that would be the greatest cruelty that could be inflicted 
 on intelligent beings. The weak pliability, miscalled mercy,, 
 which is supposed to be worked upon by a mediator, is a 
 human infirmity which men have transferred to their idea 
 of God. 
 
 A man who has announced his intention to punish may 
 be persuaded out of his resolution. New arguments may 
 be adduced for the condemned one's innocence, new 
 reasons for clemency may be suggested ; or the judge may 
 have been over-strict, or have been swayed by prejudice. 
 Here a mediator may indeed step in, and find good work 
 to do ; but, in the name of the Eternal Perfection, what 
 has all this to do with the judgment of God ? Can His- 
 knowledge be imperfect, His mercy increased ? Can His 
 sentence be swayed by prejudice, or made harsh by over- 
 severity ? But if His judgment is already perfect, any 
 change implies imperfection, and all left for the mediator 
 to do is to persuade God to make a change, i.e., to become 
 imperfect ; or, God having decided that sin shall be 
 punished, the mediator steps in, and actually so works 
 upon God's feelings that He revokes His decision, and 
 most cruel of mercies lets it go unnoticed. Like an 
 unwise parent, God is persuaded not to punish the erring 
 child. But such is not the case. God is just, and because 
 He is just He is most truly merciful : in that justice rests 
 the certainty of the due punishment of sin, and, therefore 
 of the purification of the sinner ! and no mediator thanks 
 
52 ON THE MEDIATION AND SALVATION 
 
 be to God for it ! shall ever cause to waver for one instant 
 that Rock of Justice on which reposes the hope of 
 Humanity. 
 
 But the theory we are considering has another fatal 
 -error in it : it ascribes imperfection to Almighty God. For 
 God is represented as desiring to forgive sinners, and this 
 desire must be either right or wrong. If it be right, it can 
 at once be gratified ; but if Justice opposes this forgiveness, 
 then the desire to forgive is not wholly right. Theologians 
 -are thus placed in this dilemma : if God is perfect as He 
 is any desire of His must likewise be flawlessly perfect, 
 and its fulfilment must be the very best thing that could 
 happen to His whole creation ; on the other hand, if there 
 is any barrier of right and Justice is right interposed 
 between God and His desire, then His Will is not the most 
 perfect Good. Theologians must then choose between 
 admitting that the desire of God to welcome sinners is just, 
 or detracting from the Eternal Perfection. 
 
 It is obvious that we do not weaken our case by admit- 
 ting, for the moment, the Deity of Jesus ; for we are 
 striking at the root-idea of mediation. That the mediator 
 should be God is totally beside the question, and in no way 
 strengthens our adversaries' hands. His Deity does 
 nothing more than introduce a new element of confusion 
 into the affair ; for we become entangled in a maze of con- 
 tradictions. God, who is One, even according to Christians, 
 is at one and the same time estranged from sinners, pleading 
 for sinners, and admitting the pleading. God pleads to 
 Himself but we are confounding the persons : one God 
 pleads to another but we are dividing the substance. 
 Alas and alas for the creed which compels its votaries to 
 -deny their reason, and degrade their Maker ! which babbles 
 of a Nature it cannot comprehend, and forces its foolish 
 contradictions on indignant souls ! If Jesus be God, his 
 mediation is at once impossible and unnecessary ; if he be 
 God, his will is the will of God ; and if he wills to welcome 
 sinners, it is God who wills to welcome them. If he, who 
 is God, is content to pardon and embrace, what further do 
 sinners require ? Christians tell us that Jesus is one with 
 God : it is well, we reply ; for you say he is the Friend of 
 sinners, and the Redeemer of the lost. If he be God, we 
 both agree as to the friendliness of God to sinners. You 
 need no mediator between you and Jesus ; and, since he is 
 God, you need no mediator with God. This reasoning is 
 
OF ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 53 
 
 irrefragable, unless Christians are content to assign to their 
 mediator some" place which is less than divine ; for they 
 certainly derogate from his dignity when they imagine him 
 iis content to receive those whom Almighty God chases 
 from before His face. And in making this difference 
 between Jesus and the Father they make a fatal admission 
 that he is distinct in feeling from God, and therefore cannot 
 be the One God. It is the proper perception of this fact 
 which has introduced into the Roman Church the humr.n 
 mediators whose intercession is constantly implored. Jesus, 
 being God, is too awful to be approached : his mother, his 
 apostles, some saint or martyr, must come between. I have 
 read a Roman Catholic paper about the mediation of Mary 
 which would be accepted by the most orthodox Protestant 
 were Mary replaced by Jesus, and Jesus by the Father. 
 For Jesus is there painted, as the Father is painted by the 
 orthodox, in stern majesty, hard, implacable, exacting the 
 uttermost farthing ; and Mary is represented as standing 
 between him and the sinners for whom she pleads. It is 
 only a further development of the idea which makes the 
 man Jesus the Mediator between God and man. As the 
 deification of Mary progresses, following in slow but certain 
 steps the deification of Jesus, a mediator will be required 
 through whom to approach her ; and then Jesus, too, will 
 fade out of the hearts of men, as the Father has faded out 
 of the hearts of Christians, and this superstition of media- 
 tion will sink lower and lower, till it is rejected by all 
 earnest hearts, and is loathed by human souls which are 
 aching for the living God. 
 
 We see, then, that mediation implies an absurd and 
 inexplicable change in the supposed attitude of God towards 
 man, and destroys all confidence in the justice of the 
 Supreme Ruler. We should further take into consideration 
 the strange feeling towards the Universal Heart implied in 
 man's endeavour to push some one in between himself and 
 the Eternal Father. As we study Nature and try to 
 discover from its workings something of the characteristics 
 of the Worker therein, we find not only a ruling Intelligence 
 a Supreme Reason, before which we bow our heads in an 
 adoration too deep for words but we catch also beautiful 
 glimpses of a ruling Love a Supreme Heart, to which our 
 hearts turn with a glad relief from the dark mysteries of 
 pain and evil which press us in on every side. Simple 
 belief in God at all, that is to say, in a Power which works 
 
54 ON THE MEDIATION AND SALVATION 
 
 in the Universe, is quite sufficient to disperse any of that 
 feeling of fear which finds its fit expression in the longing 
 for a mediator. For being placed here without our request, 
 and even without our consent, we have surely, as a simple 
 matter of justice, a right to demand that the Power which 
 placed us here shall provide us with means by which we 
 can secure our happiness. I speak, of course, as of a 
 conscious Power, because a blind Force is necessarily irre- 
 sponsible ; but those who believe in a God are bound to 
 acknowledge that He is responsible for their well-being. If 
 any one should suggest that to say thus is to criticise God's 
 dealings and to speak with presumptuous irreverence, I 
 retort that the irreverence lies with those who ascribe to the- 
 Supreme a course of action towards His creatures that they 
 themselves would be ashamed to pursue towards their own 
 children, and that they who fling at us the reproach ot 
 blasphemy because we will not bow the knee before their 
 idol, would themselves lie open to the charge, were it not 
 that their ignorance shields them from the sterner censure. 
 All good in man poor shallow streamlet though it be 
 flows down from the pure depths of the Fountain of Good, 
 and any throb of Love on earth is a pulsation caused by 
 the ceaseless beating of the Universal Father-Heart. Yet 
 men fear to trust that Heart, lest it should cease beating ; 
 they fear to rest on God, lest He should play them false. 
 When will they catch even a glimpse of that great ocean of 
 love which encircles the universe as the atmosphere the 
 earth, which is infinite because God is infinite ? If there is 
 no spot in the universe of which it can be said, " God is 
 not here," then is there also no spot where love does not 
 rule ; if there is no life existing without the support of the 
 Life-Giver and the Life-Sustainer, then is there also no life 
 which is not cradled in the arms of Love. Who then will 
 dare to push himself in between man and a God like this ? 
 In the light of the Universal Reason and the Universal 
 Heart mediation stands confessed as an impertinent 
 absurdity. Away with any and all of those who interfere 
 in the most sacred concerns of the soul, who press in 
 between the Creator and His offspring ; between the heart 
 of man and the parent Heart of God. Whoever it may be, 
 saint or martyr, or the king of saints and martyrs, Jesus of 
 Nazareth, let him come down from a position which none 
 can rightly hold. To elevate the noblest son of man into 
 this place of mediator is to make him into an offence to 
 
OF ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 55 
 
 his brethren, and to cause their love to turn into anger, and 
 their reverence into indignation. If men persist in talking 
 about the need of a mediator before they dare to approach 
 God, we must remind them that, if there be a God at all, 
 He must be just, and that, therefore, they are perfectly safe 
 In His hands ; if they begin to babble about forgiveness 
 " for the sake of Jesus Christ" we must ask them what in 
 the world they mean by the " forgiveness of sin ?" Surely 
 they do not think that God is like man, quick to revenge 
 affront and jealous of His dignity ; even were it possible for 
 man to injure, in any sense, the Majesty of God, do they 
 conceive that God is an irascible and revengeful Potentate ? 
 Those who think thus of God can never I assert boldly 
 have caught the smallest glimpse of God. They may have 
 seen a " magnified man," but they have seen nothing more ; 
 they have never prostrated themselves before that Universal 
 Spirit who dwells in this vast universe ; they have never felt 
 their own littleness in a place so great. How can sin be for- 
 given ? can a past act be undone, or the hands go back on 
 the sun-dial of Time ? All God's so-called chastisements 
 are but the natural and inevitable results of broken laws 
 laws invariable in their action, neither to be escaped or 
 defied. Obedience to law results in happiness, and the suf- 
 fering consequent on the transgression of law is not inflicted 
 by an angry God, but is the simple natural outcome of the 
 broken law itself. Put your hand in the fire, and no media- 
 tor can save you from burning ; cry earnestly to God to save 
 you, and then cast yourself from a precipice, and will a 
 mediator come between you and the doom you have pro- 
 voked ? We should do more wisely if we studied laws and 
 tried to conform ourselves to them, instead of going blunder- 
 ing about with our eyes shut, trusting that some one will in- 
 terpose to shield us from the effects of our own folly and 
 stupidity. Happily for mankind, mediation is impossible in 
 that beautiful realm of law in which we are placed : when 
 men have quite made up their minds that their happiness 
 depends entirely on their own exertions, there will at last be 
 some chance for the advancement of Humanity, for then 
 they will work for things instead of praying for them. It is 
 of real practical importance that this Christian notion of 
 mediation should be destroyed, because on it hang all the 
 ideas about trusting to some one else to do our own work. 
 This plan has not answered: we judge it by results, and it 
 has failed. Surely we may hope that as men get to see that 
 
56 ON THE MEDIATION AND SALVATION 
 
 prayer has not succeeded in its efforts to " move the arm 
 which moves the world, to bring salvation down," they may 
 turn to the more difficult, but also the more hopeful task, of 
 moving their own arms to work out their own salvation. 
 For the past, it is past, and none can reverse it ; none can 
 stay the action of the eternal law which links sorrow with 
 transgression, and joy and peace with obedience. When 
 we slip back on our path upward, we may repent and call 
 on God or man for forgiveness as we list, but only through 
 toil and suffering can the lost way be recovered, and the 
 rugged path must be trodden with bleeding feet ; for there 
 is none who can lift the sinner over the hindrances he has 
 built up for himself, or carry him over the rocks with which 
 he has strewed his road. 
 
 Does the sentimental weakness of our age shrink from this 
 doctrine, and whimper out that it is cold and stern ? Ay, it 
 is cold with the cold of the bracing sea-breeze, stringing to 
 action the nerves enfeebled by hot-houses and soft-living m f 
 ay, it is stern with the blessed sternness of changeless law, 
 of law which never fails us, never varies a hair's breadth. 
 But in that law is strength ; man's arm is feeble, but let him 
 submit to the laws of steam, and his arm becomes dowered 
 with a giant's force ; conform to a law, and the mighty power 
 of that law is on your side ; " humble yourself under the 
 mighty hand of God," who is the Universal Law, " and He 
 shall lift you up" 
 
 So much for mediation. We turn with a still deeper re- 
 pugnance to study the Christian idea of " Salvation." Media- 
 tion at least leaves us God, however it degrades and blas- 
 phemes Him, but salvation takes us altogether out of His 
 Hands. Not content with placing a mediator between them- 
 selves and God, Christians cry out that He is still too near 
 them ; they must push Him yet further back, they must have 
 a Saviour too, through whom all His benefits shall filter. 
 
 " Saviour," is an expression often found in the Old Testa- 
 ment, where it bears a very definite and noble meaning. 
 God is the Saviour of men from the power of sin, and 
 although we may consider that God does not save from sin 
 in this direct manner, we are yet bound to acknowledge that 
 there is nothing in this idea which is either dishonouring or 
 repulsive. But the word "Saviour" has been degraded by 
 Christianity, and the salvation He brings is not a salvation 
 from sin. "The Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ" is the 
 Saviour of men, not because he delivers them from sin, but 
 
OF ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 57 
 
 "because he saves them from hell, and from the fiery wrath 
 of God. Salvation is no longer the equivalent of righteous- 
 ness, the antithesis of sin ; in Christian life it means nothing 
 more than the antithesis of damnation. It is true that Chris- 
 tians may retort that Jesus " saves his people from their 
 sins;" we gladly acknowledge the nobleness and the beauty of 
 many a Christian life, but nevertheless this is not the primary 
 idea attached by popular Christianity to the word " salva- 
 tion." " Being saved" is to be delivered out of '''those 
 hands of the living God," into which, as they are taught by 
 their Bible, it is so fearful a thing to fall. " Being saved is 
 the immediate result of conversion, and is the opposite of 
 " being lost." " Being saved " is being hidden " in the riven 
 side of Jesus," and so preserved from the awful flames of the 
 destroying wrath of God. Against all this we, believers in an 
 Almighty Love, in a Universal Father, enter our solemn and 
 deliberate protest, with a depth of abhorrence, with a pas- 
 sion of indignation which is far too intense to find any ade- 
 quate expression in words. There is no language strong 
 enough to show our deeply-rooted repugnance to the idea 
 that we can be safer anywhere or at any time than we are 
 already here ; we cannot repell with sufficient warmth the 
 officious interference which offers to take us out of the hands 
 of God. To push some one in between our souls and Him 
 was bad enough ; but to go further and to offer us salvation 
 from our Maker, to try and threaten us away from the arms 
 of His Love, to suggest that another's hands are more tender, 
 another's heart more loving than the Supreme Heart, these 
 are blasphemies to which we will not listen in silence. It is 
 true that to us these suggestions are only matters of laughter; 
 dimly as we guess at the Deity, we know enough not to be 
 afraid of Him, and these crude and childish conceptions 
 about Him are among ourselves too contemptible to refute. 
 
 "Non ragione di lor, mai guardo e passo." 
 
 But we see how these ideas colour men's thoughts and lives, 
 how they cripple their intellect and outrage their hearts, and 
 \ve rise to trample down these superstitions, not because they 
 are in themselves worth refuting, but simply because they 
 degrade our brother-men. We believe in no wisdom that 
 improves on Nature's laws, and one of those laws, written on 
 our hearts, is that sorrow shall tread on the heels of sin. 
 We are conscious that men should learn to welcome this 
 law, and not to shrink from it. To fly from the suffering 
 
58 ON THE MEDIATION AND SALVATION 
 
 following on broken law is the last thing we should do ; 
 we ought to have no gratitude for a " Saviour " who should 
 bear our punishment, and so cheat us out of our neces- 
 sary lesson, turn us into spoiled children, and check our 
 moral growth ; such an offer as this, could it really be made, 
 ought to be met with stern refusal. We should trust the 
 Supreme so utterly, and adore His wisdom with a humility 
 so profound, that if we could change His laws we should 
 not dare to interfere ; nor ought we, even when our lot is 
 saddest, to complain of it, or do anything more than labour 
 to improve it in steadfast obedience to law. We should ask 
 for no salvation ; we should desire to fall were it possible 
 that we could be out of them into the hands of God. 
 
 Further, is it impossible to make Christians understand 
 that were Jesus all they say he is, we should still reject him; 
 that were God all they say He is, we would, in that case, 
 throw back His salvation. For were this awful picture of 
 a soul-destroying Jehovah, of a blood-craving Moloch, en- 
 dowed with a cruelty beyond human imagination, a true 
 description of the Supreme Being, then would we take 
 the advice of Job's wife, we would " curse God and die f 
 we would hide in the burning depths of His hell rather 
 than dwell within sight of Him whose brightness would 
 mock at the gloom of His creatures, and whose bliss 
 would be a sneer at their despair. Were it thus indeed 
 
 " O King of our salvation, 
 Many would curse to thee, and I for one ! 
 Fling Thee Thy bliss, and snatch at Thy damnation, 
 Scorn and abhor the rising of Thy sun." 
 
 " Is it not worth while to believe," blandly urges a Chris- 
 tian writer, " if it is true, as it is true, that they who deny 
 will surfer everlasting torments?" No! we thunder back 
 at him, // is not worth while ; it is not worth while to believe 
 a lie, or to acknowledge as true that which our hearts and 
 intellects alike reject as false ; it is not worth while to sell 
 our souls for a heaven, or to defile our honesty to escape a 
 hell ; it is not worth while to bow our knee to a Satan or 
 bend our heads before a spectre. Better, far better, to 
 "dwell with everlasting burnings" than to degrade our 
 humanity by calling a lie, truth, and cruelty, love, and 
 unreasonableness, justice ; better to surfer in hell, than to 
 have our hearts so hard that we could enjoy while others 
 suffer ; could rejoice while others are tormented, could sing 
 alleluias to the music of golden harps, while our lyrics 
 
OF ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 are echoed by the anguished wailing of the lost. God 
 Himself were He such as Christians paint Him could 
 not blot out of our souls our love of truth, of righteousness, 
 of justice. While we have these we are ourselves > and we 
 can suffer and be happy ; but we cannot afford to pay down 
 these as the price of our admission to heaven. We should 
 be miserable even as we paced the golden streets, and 
 should sit in tears beside the river of the water of life. Yet 
 this is salvation ; this is what Christians offer us in the name 
 of Jesus ; this is the glad tidings brought to us as the 
 gospel of the Saviour, as the "good news of God;" and 
 this we reject, wholly and utterly, laughing it to scorn from 
 the depths of our glad hearts which the Truth has made 
 free ; this we denounce, with a stern and bitter determina- 
 tion, in the name of the Universal Father, in the name of 
 the self-reliance of humanity, in the name of all that is holy, 
 and just, and loving. 
 
 But happily many, even among Christians, are beginning 
 to shrink from this idea of salvation from the God in whom 
 they say they place all their hopes. They put aside the 
 doctrine, they gloss it over, they prefer not to speak of it. 
 Free thought is leavening Christianity, and- is moulding the 
 old faith against its will. Christianity now hides its own 
 cruel side, and only where the bold opponents of its creeds 
 have not yet spread, does it dare to show itself in its real 
 colours ; in Spain, in Mexico, we see Christianity unveiled ; 
 here, in England, liberty is too strong for it, and it is forced 
 into a semblance of liberality. The old wine is being 
 poured into new bottles ; what will be the result ? We may, 
 however, rejoice that nobler thoughts about God are begin- 
 ning to prevail, and are driving out the old wicked notions 
 about Him and His revenge. The Face of the Father is 
 beginning, however dimly, to shine out from His world, and 
 before the Beauty of that Face all hard thoughts about Him 
 are fading away. Nature is too fair to be slandered for 
 ever, and when men perceive that God and Nature are'One, 
 all that is ghastly and horrible must die and drop into for- 
 getfulness. The popular Christian ideas of mediation and 
 salvation must soon pass away into the limbo of rejected 
 creeds which is being filled so fast ; they are already dead, 
 and their pale ghosts shall soon flit no longer to vex and 
 harass the souls of living men. 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 SOME time ago a Clergyman was proving to me. by 
 arguments many and strong that hell was right, neces- 
 sary and just ; that it brought glory to God and good to 
 man ; that the holiness of God required it as a preventive, 
 and the justice of God exacted it as a penalty, of sin. I 
 listened quietly till all was over and silence fell on the 
 reverend denunciator ; he ceased, satisfied with his argu- 
 ments, triumphant in the consciousness that they were 
 crushing and unassailable. But my eyes were fixed on the 
 fair scene without the library window, on the sacrament 01 
 earth, the visible sign of the invisible beauty, and the con- 
 trast between God's works and the Church's speech came 
 strongly upon me. And all I found to say in answer came 
 in a few words : " If I had not heard you mention the 
 name of God, I should have thought you were speaking of 
 the Devil." The words, dropped softly and meditatively, 
 had a startling effect. Horror at the blasphemy, indigna- 
 tion at the unexpected result of laboured argument, strug- 
 gled against a dawning feeling that there must be something 
 wrong in a conception which laid itself open to such a blow ; 
 the short answer told more powerfully than half an hour's 
 reasoning. 
 
 The various classes of orthodox Christian doctrines 
 should be attacked in very different styles by the champions 
 of the great army of free-thinkers, who are at the present 
 day besieging the venerable superstitions of the past. Around 
 the Deity of Jesus cluster many hallowed memories and 
 fond associations ; the worship of centuries has shed 
 around his figure a halo of light, and he has been made into 
 the ideal of Humanity ; the noblest conceptions of morality, 
 the highest flights of enlightened minds, have been en- 
 shrined in a human personality and called by the name of 
 Christ ; the Christ-idea has risen and expanded with every 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 6 1 
 
 development of human progress, and the Christ of the 
 highest Christianity of the day is far other than the Christ 
 of Augustine, of Thomas a Kempis, of Luther, or Knox ; 
 the strivings after light, after knowledge, after holiness, of 
 the noblest sons of men have been called by them a follow- 
 ing of Jesus ; Jesus is baptized in human tears, crucified in 
 human pains, glorified in human hopes. Because of all 
 this, because he is dear to human hearts and identified with 
 human struggles, therefore he should be gently spoken of 
 by all who feel the bonds of the brotherhood of man ; the 
 dogma of his Deity must be assailed, must be overthrown,, 
 because it is false, because it destroys the unity of God, 
 because it veils from us the Eternal Spirit, the source of all 
 things, but he himself should be reverently spoken of, so far 
 as truthfulness permits, and this dogma, although persist 
 ently battled against, should be attacked without anger and 
 without scorn. 
 
 There are other doctrines which, while degrading in 
 regard to man's conception of God, and therefore deserving 
 of reprobation, yet enshrine great moral truths and have 
 become bound up with ennobling lessons ; such is the doc- 
 trine of the Atonement, which enshrines the idea of selfless 
 love and of self-sacrifice for the good of humanity. There 
 are others again against which ridicule and indignation may 
 rightly be brought to bear, which are concessions to human 
 infirmity, and which belong to the childhood of the race ; 
 man may be laughed out of his sacraments and out of his 
 devils, and indignantly reminded that he insults God and 
 degrades himself by placing a priesthood or mediator 
 between God and his own soul. But there is one dogma 
 of Orthodox Christianity which stands alone in its atrocity, 
 which is thoroughly and essentially bad, which is without 
 one redeeming feature, which is as blasphemous towards 
 God as it is injurious to man ; on it therefore should be 
 poured out unsparingly the bitterest scorn and the sharpest 
 indignation. There is no good human emotion enlisted on 
 the side of an Eternal Hell ; it is not hallowed by human 
 love or human longings, it does not enshrine human aspira- 
 tions, nor is it the outcome of human hopes. In support 
 of this no appeal can be made to any feeling of the nobler 
 side of our nature, nor does eternal fire stimulate our higher 
 faculties : it acts only on the lower, baser, part of man ; it 
 excites fear, distrust of God, terror of his presence ; it may 
 scare from evil occasionally, but can never teach good ; it 
 
62 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 sees God in the lightning-flash that slays, but not in the 
 sunshine which invigorates ; in the avalanche which buries 
 a village in its fall, but not in the rich promise of the vine- 
 yard and the joyous beauty of the summer day. Hell has 
 driven thousands half-mad with terror, it has driven monks 
 to the solitary deserts, nuns to the sepulchre of the nunnery, 
 but has it ever caused one soul of man to rejoice in the 
 Father of all, and pant, " as the hart panteth after the water- 
 springs, for the presence of God" ? 
 
 It is only just to state, in attacking this as a Christian 
 doctrine, that, though believed in by the vast majority of 
 Christians, the most enlightened of that very indefinite body 
 repudiate it with one voice. It is well known how the great 
 Broad-Church leader, Frederick Denison Maurice, endea- 
 voured to harmonize, on this point, his Bible and his strong 
 moral sense, and failed in so doing, as all must fail who 
 would reconcile two contradictories. How he fought with 
 that word " eternal," struggled to prove that whatever else it 
 might mean it did not mean everlasting in our modern sense 
 of the word : that " eternal death " being the antithesis to 
 " eternal life " must mean a state of ignorance of the Eternal 
 One, even as its opposite was the knowledge of God : that 
 therefore men could rise from eternal death, aye, did so rise 
 every day in this life, and might so rise in the life to come. 
 Noble was his protest against this awful doctrine, fettered as 
 he was by undue reverence for, and clinging to, the Bible. 
 His appeal to the moral sense in man as the arbiter of all 
 doctrine has borne good fruit, and his labours have opened 
 a road to free thought greater than he expected or even 
 hoped. Many other clergymen have followed in his steps. 
 The word " eternal " has been wrangled over continually, 
 but, however they arrive there, all Broad Churchmen unite 
 in the conclusion that it does not, cannot, shall not, mean 
 literally lasting for ever. This school of thought has laid 
 much stress on the fondness of Orientals for imagery ; they 
 have pointed out that the Jewish word Gehenna is the same 
 as Ge Hinnom, or valley of Hinnom, and have seen in the 
 state of that valley the materials for " the worm that dieth 
 not and the fire that is not quenched : " they show how by a 
 natural transition the place into which were thrown the 
 bodies of the worst criminals became the type of punishment 
 in the next world, and the valley where children were sacri- 
 ficed to Moloch gave its name to the infernal abode of 
 devils. From that valley Jesus drew his awful picture, sug- 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 63 
 
 gested by the pale lurid fires ever creeping there, mingling 
 their ghastly flames with the decaying bodies of the dis- 
 honoured dead. In all this there is probably much truth, 
 and many Broad Churchmen are content to accept this ex- 
 planation, and so retain their belief in the supernatural 
 character of the Bible, while satisfying their moral sense by 
 rejecting its most immoral dogma. 
 
 Among the evangelicals, only one voice, so far as I know, 
 is heard to protest against eternal torture ; and all honour 
 is due to the Rev. Samuel Minton, for his rare courage in 
 defying on this point the opinion of his " world," and 
 braving the censure which has been duly inflicted on him. 
 He seems to make " eternal " the equivalent of " irreme- 
 diable " in some cases and of " everlasting " in others. He 
 believes that the wicked will be literally destroyed, burnt up, 
 consumed; the fact that the fire is eternal by no means 
 implies, he remarks, that that which is cast into the fire 
 should be likewise eternal, and that the fire is unquench- 
 able does not prove that the chaff is unconsumable. 
 " Eternal destruction " he explains as irreparable destruc- 
 tion, final and irreversible extinction. This theory should 
 have more to recommend it to all who believe in the super- 
 natural inspiration of the Bible, than the Broad Church 
 explanation ; it uses far less violence towards the words of 
 Scripture, and, indeed, a very fair case may be made out for 
 it from the Bible itself. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add to this small list of dis- 
 sentients from orthodox Christianity, the Unitarian body ; I 
 do not suppose that there is such a phenomenon in exist- 
 ence as a Unitarian Christian who believes in an eternal 
 hell. 
 
 With these small exceptions the mass of Christians hold 
 this dogma, but for the most part carelessly and uncompre- 
 hendingly. Many are ashamed of it even while duteously 
 confessing it, and gabble over the sentences in their creed 
 which acknowledge it in a very perfunctory manner. People 
 of this kind "do not like to talk about hell, it is better to think 
 of heaven." Some Christians, however, hold it strongly, 
 and proclaim their belief boldly ; the members of the Evange- 
 lical Alliance actually make the profession of it a condition 
 of admittance into their body, while many High Church 
 divines think that a sharp declaration of their belief in it is 
 needed by loyalty towards God and " charity to the souls of 
 men." I wish I could believe that all who profess this 
 
64 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 dogma did not realize it, and only accepted it because their 
 fathers and mothers taught it to them. But what can one 
 .say to such statements as the following, quoted from Father 
 Furniss by W. R. Greg in his splendid " Enigmas of Life :" 
 I take it as a specimen of Roman Catholic authorized teach- 
 ing. Children are asked : " How will your body be when the 
 devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred million 
 years without stopping ?'" A girl of eighteen is described 
 as dressed in fire ; " she wears a bonnet of fire. It is 
 pressed down all over her head ; it burns her head ; it burns 
 into the skull ; it scorches the bone of the skull and makes 
 it smoke." A boy is boiled : " Listen ! there is a sound 
 just like titat of a kettle boiling. . . . The blood is boiling 
 in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and 
 bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones." 
 Nay, even the poor little babies are not exempt from torture : 
 one is in a red hot oven, " hear how it screams to come out ; 
 see how it turns and twists about in the fire. . . . You can 
 see on the face of this little child " the fair pure innocent 
 baby-face " what you see on the faces of all in hell 
 despair, desperate and horrible." Surely this man realized 
 what he taught, but then he was that half-human being a 
 priest. 
 
 Dr. Pusey, too, has a word to say about hell : " Gather 
 in mind all that is most loathsome, most revolting the most 
 treacherous, malicious, coarse, brutal, inventive, fiendish 
 -cruelty, unsoftened by any remains of human feeling, such 
 as thou couldst not. endure for a single hour. . . . hear 
 those yells of blaspheming, concentrated hate as they echo 
 along the lurid vault of hell." 
 
 Protestantism chimes in, and Spurgeon speaks of hell : 
 " Wilt thou think it is easy to lie down in hell, with the 
 bieath of the Eternal fanning the flames ? Wilt thou 
 delight thyself to think that God will invent torments for 
 thee, sinner ?" " When the damned jingle the burning irons 
 of their torment, they shall say, 'for ever;' when they howl, 
 cho cries, ' for ever.' " 
 
 I may allude, to conclude my quotations, to a description 
 of hell which I myself heard from an eminent prelate of the 
 English Church, one who is a scholar and a gentleman, a 
 man of moderate views in Church matters, by no means a 
 zealot in an ordinary way. In preaching to a country 
 congregation composed mainly of young men and girls, he 
 warned them specially against sins of the flesh, and threat- 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 65 
 
 ened them with the consequent punishment in hell. Then, 
 in language which I cannot reproduce, for I should not dare 
 to sully my pages by repeating what I then listened to in 
 horrified amazement, there ensued a description drawn out 
 in careful particulars of the state of the suffering body in 
 hell, so sickening in its details that it must suffice to say of 
 it that it was a description founded on the condition of a 
 corpse flung out on a dungheap and left there to putrefy, 
 with the additional horror of creeping, slowly-burning flames ; 
 and this state of things was to go on, as he impressed on 
 them with terrible energy, for ever and ever, " decaying but 
 ever renewing." 
 
 I should almost ask pardon of tender-hearted men and 
 women for laying before them language so abominable ; but 
 I urge on all who are offended by it that this is the teaching 
 given to our sons and daughters in the present day. Father 
 Furniss, Dr. Pusey, Mr. Spurgeon, an English Bishop, 
 surely thi2se are honoured names, and in quoting them I 
 quote from the teaching of Christendom. Not" mine the 
 fault if the language be unfit for printing. I quote, because 
 if we only assert, Christians are quick to say, " you are mis- 
 representing our beliefs," and I quote from writers of the 
 present day only, that none may accuse me of hurling at 
 Christians reproaches for a doctrine they have outgrown or 
 softened down. Still, I own that it seems scarcely credible 
 that a man should believe this and remain sane ; nay, should 
 preach this, and walk calmly home from his Church with 
 God's sunshine smiling on the beautiful world, and after 
 preaching it should sit down to a comfortable dinner and 
 very likely a quiet pipe, as though hell did not exist, and its 
 awful misery and fierce despair. 
 
 It is said that there is no reason that we should not be 
 contented in heaven while others suffer in hell, since we 
 know how much misery there is in this world and yet enjoy 
 ourselves in spite of the knowledge. I say, deliberately, of 
 every one who does realise the misery of this world and 
 remains indifferent to it, who enjoys his own share of the 
 good things of this life, without helping his brother, who 
 does not stretch out his hand to lift the fallen, or raise his 
 voice on behalf of the down-trodden and oppressed, that that 
 man is living a life which is the very antithesis of a Divine 
 life a life which has in it no beauty and no nobility, but is 
 selfish, despicable, and mean. And is this the life which 
 we are to regard as the model of heavenly beauty? Is the 
 
66 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 power to lead this life for ever to be our reward for self- 
 devotion and self-sacrifice here on earth? Is a supreme 
 selfishness to crown unselfishness at last ? But this is the 
 life which is to be the lot of the righteous in heaven. 
 Snatched from a world in flames, caught up in the air to 
 meet their descending Lord, his saints are to return with 
 him to the heaven whence he came ; there, crowned with 
 golden crowns, they are to spend eternity, hymning the 
 Lamb who saved them to the music of golden harps, harps 
 whose melody is echoed by the curses and the wailings of 
 the lost; for below is a far different scene, for there the 
 sinners are "tormented with fire and brimstone in the 
 presence of the holy angels and the presence of the Lamb ; 
 and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and 
 ever, and they have no rest day nor night." 
 
 It is worth while to gaze for a moment at the scene of 
 future felicity ; there is the throne of God and rejoicing 
 crowds : " Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy 
 apostles and prophets," so goes out the command, and they 
 rejoice because " God has avenged them on her," and again 
 they said Alleluia, and her smoke rose up for ever and ever," 
 Truly God must harden the hearts of his saints in heaven 
 as of old he hardened Pharaoh's heart, if they are to rejoice 
 over the anguished multitude below, and to bear to live 
 amid the lurid smoke ascending from the burning bodies of 
 the lost. To me the idea is so unutterably loathsome that 
 I marvel how Christians endure to retain such language in 
 their sacred books, for I would note that the awful picture 
 drawn above is not of my doing ; it is not the scoffing cari- 
 cature of an unbeliever, /'/ is heaven as described by St. John 
 the divine. If this heaven is true I do not hesitate to say 
 that it is the duty of every human being to reject it utterly 
 and to refuse to enter it. We might even appeal to Chris- 
 tians by the example of their own Jesus, who could not be 
 content to remain in heaven himself while men went to hell, 
 but came down to redeem them from endless suffering. 
 Yet they, who ought to imitate him, who do, many of them, 
 lead beautiful lives of self-devotion and compassion, are 
 suddenly, on death, to lose all this which makes them " par- 
 takers of the Divine Nature," and are to be content to win 
 happiness for themselves, careless that millions of their 
 brethren are in woe unspeakable. They are to reverse the 
 aim of their past lives, they are to become selfish instead of 
 loving, hard instead of selfless, indifferent instead of loving, 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 67 
 
 hard instead of tender. Which is the better reproduction 
 of the " mind of Christ," the good Samaritan tending the 
 wounded man, or the stern Inquisitor gloating over the fire 
 which consumes heretics to the greater glory of God ? Yet 
 the latter is the ideal of heavenly virtue. Never will they 
 who truly love man be content to snatch at bliss for them- 
 selves while others suffer, or endure to be crowned with 
 glory while they are crowned with thorns. Better, far better, 
 to suffer in hell and share the pains of the lost, than to have 
 a heart so hard, a nature so degraded, as to enjoy the bliss 
 of heaven, rejoicing over, or even disregarding, the woes of 
 hell. 
 
 But there is worse than physical torture in the picture of 
 hell ; pain is not its darkest aspect. .Of all the thoughts 
 with which the heart of man has outraged the Eternal 
 Righteousness, there is none so appalling, none so blas- 
 phemous, as that which declares that even one soul, made 
 by the Supreme Good, shall remain during all eternity, under 
 the power of sin. Divines have wearied themselves in 
 describing the horrors of the Christian hell ; but it is not the 
 furnace of flames, not the undying worm, not the fire which 
 never may be quenched, that revolt us most ; hideous as 
 are these images, they are not the worst terror of hell. Who 
 does not know how St. Francis, believing himself ordained 
 to be lost everlastingly, fell on his knees and cried, "O my God, 
 if I am indeed doomed to hate thee during eternity, at least 
 suffer me to love thee while I live here." To the righteous 
 heart the agony of hell is a far worse one than physical 
 torture could inflict : it is the existence of men and women 
 who might have been saints, shut out from hope of holiness 
 for evermore; God's children, the work of his hands, 
 gnashing their teeth at a Father who has cast them down 
 for ever from the life he might have given ; it is Love ever- 
 lastingly hated ; good everlastingly trampled under foot ; 
 God everlastingly baffled and defied ; worst of all, it is a 
 room in the Father's house where his children may hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness, but never, never, can be 
 filled. 
 
 "Depart, O sinner, to the chain ! 
 
 Enter the eternal cell ; 
 To all that's good and true and right, 
 
 To all that's fair and fond and bright, 
 To all of holiness and right, 
 
 Bid thou thy last farewell." 
 
 Would to God that Christian men and women would ponder 
 
 E 2 
 
<>8 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 it well and think it out for themselves, and when they go 
 into the worst parts of our great cities and their hearts almost 
 break with the misery there, then let them remember how 
 that misery is but a faint picture of the endless, hopeless, 
 misery, to which the vast majority of their fellow-men are 
 doomed. 
 
 Christian reader, do not be afraid to realise the future in 
 which you say you believe, and which the God of Love has 
 prepared for the home of some of his children. Imagine 
 yourself, or any dear to you, plunged into guilt from which 
 there is no redeemer, and where the voice cannot penetrate 
 of him that speaks in righteousness, mighty to save. In the 
 well-weighed words of a champion of Christian orthodoxy, 
 ihink there is no reason to believe that hell is only a punish- 
 ment for past offences ; in that dark world sin and misery 
 reproduce each other in infinite succession. " What if the 
 sin perpetuates itself, if the prolonged misery may be the 
 -offspring of the prolonged guilt ? " Ponder it well, and, if 
 you find it true, then cast out from your creed the belief 
 in a Jesus who loved the lost ; blot out from your Bible 
 every verse that speaks of a Father's heart ; tear from your 
 Prayer-books every page that prays to a Father in heaven. If 
 the lowest of God's creatures is to be left in the foul embraces 
 of sin for ever, God cannot be the Eternal Righteousness, 
 the unconquerable Love. For what sort of Righteousness 
 ris that which rests idly contented in a heaven of bliss, 
 while millions of souls capable of righteousness are bound 
 by it in helpless sin ; what sort of love is that which is 
 satisfied to be repulsed, and is willing to be hated ? As 
 long as God is righteous, as long as God is love, so long is 
 it impossible that men and women shall be left by him for 
 .ever in a state to which our worst dens of earth are a very 
 paradise of beauty and purity. Bible writers may have erred, 
 but "Thou continuest holy, O Thou worship of Israel!" 
 There is one revelation that cannot err, and that is written 
 by God's finger on every human heart. What man recoils 
 from doing, even at his lowest, can never be done by his 
 Creator, from whose inspiration he draws every righteous 
 thought. Is there one father, however brutalized, who would 
 deliberately keep his child in sin because of a childish fault ? 
 one mother who would aimlessly torture her son, keeping 
 him alive but to torment ? Yet this, nothing less, nay, a 
 thousand times more, for it is this multiplied infinitely by 
 infinite power of torture, this is what Christians ask us to 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 69 
 
 Relieve about our Father and our God, a glimmer from the 
 radiance of whose throne falls on to our earth, when men 
 love their enemies and forgive freely those who wrong them 
 If this so-called orthodox belief is right, then is their gospel 
 of the Love of God to the world a delusion and a lie ; if this 
 Is true, the teaching of Jesus to publicans and harlots of the 
 Fatherhood of God is a cruel mockery of our divinest in- 
 stincts ; the tale of the good Shepherd who could not rest 
 while one sheep was lost is the bitterest irony. But this 
 awful dogma is not true, and the Love of God cradles his 
 creation ; not one son of the Father's family shall be left 
 under the power of sin, to be an eternal blot on God's crea- 
 tion, an endless reproach to his Maker's wisdom, an ever- 
 lasting and irreparable mistake. 
 
 No amount of argument, however powerful, should make 
 us believe a doctrine from which our hearts recoil with such 
 shuddering horror as they do from this doctrine of eternal 
 torture and eternal sin. There is a divine instinct in the 
 human heart which may be trusted as an arbiter between 
 right and wrong ; no supernatural revelation, no miracle, no 
 angel from heaven, should have power to make us accept as 
 divine that which our hearts proclaim as vile and devilish. 
 It is not true faith to crush down our moral sense beneath 
 the hoof of credulity ; true faith believes in God only as a 
 " Power which makes for Righteousness? and recks little of 
 threats or curses which would force her to accept that which 
 conscience disapproves. And what is more, if it were pos- 
 sible that God were not what we dream, if he were not 
 " righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works," then 
 were it craven cowardice to worship him at all. It has been 
 well said, " that to worship simple power, without virtue, is 
 nothing but devil-worship ; " in that case it were nobler to 
 refuse to praise him and to take what he might send. Then 
 indeed we must say, with John Stuart Mill, in that burst of 
 passion which reads so strangely in the midst of his passion- 
 less logic, that if I am told that this is justice and love, and 
 that if I do not call it so, God will send me to hell, then " to 
 hell I'll go." 
 
 I have purposely put first my strong reprobation of eternal 
 hell, because of its own essential hideousness, and because, 
 were it ever so true, I should deem myself disgraced by 
 acknowledging it as either loving or good. But it is, how- 
 ever, a satisfaction to note the feebleness of the arguments 
 advanced in support of this dogma, and to find that justice 
 
70 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 and holiness, as well as love, frown on the idea of an eternal 
 hell. 
 
 The first argument put forth is this: " Godhas made a 
 law which man breaks ; man must therefore in justice suffer 
 the penalty of his transgression." This, like so many of the 
 orthodox arguments, sounds just and right, and at first we 
 perfectly agree with it. The instinct of justice in our own 
 breasts confirms the statement, and looking abroad into the 
 world we see its truth proved by facts. Law is around us 
 on every side ; man is placed in a realm of law ; he may- 
 strive against the laws which encircle him, but he will only 
 dash himself to pieces against a rock ; he is under a code 
 which he breaks at his peril. Here is perfect justice, a jus- 
 tice absolutely unwavering, deaf to cries, unseducible by 
 flatteries, unalloyed by favouritism : a law exists, break it r 
 and you suffer the inevitable consequences. So far, then, 
 the orthodox argument is sound and strong, but now it takes 
 a sudden leap. " The penalty of the broken law is hell." 
 Why ? What common factor is there between a lie, and the 
 " lake of fire in which all liars shall have their part?" 
 Nature is absolutely against the orthodox corollary, because 
 hell as a punishment of sin is purely arbitrary, the punish- 
 ment might quite as well have been something else ; but in 
 nature .the penalty of a broken law is always strictly in cha- 
 racter with the law itself, and is derived from it. Men 
 imagine the most extraordinary "judgment." A nation is 
 given to excessive drinking, and is punished with cattle- 
 plague ; or shows leanings towards popery, and is chastised 
 with cholera. It is as reasonable to believe this as it would 
 be to expect that if a child fell down stairs he would be 
 picked up covered with blisters from burning, instead of his 
 receiving his natural punishment of being bruised. Why, 
 because I lie and forget God, should I be punished witih, fire 
 and brimstone ? Fire is not derivable from truth, nor is 
 brimstone a stimulus to memory. There is also a strange 
 confusion in many minds about the punishment of sin. A 
 child is told not to put his hand into the fire, he does so, 
 and is burnt ; the burning is a punishment, he is told ; for 
 what ? Not for disobedience to the parent, as is generally 
 said, but for disregarding the law of nature which says that 
 fire burns. One often hears it said : " God's punishments 
 for sin are not equal : one man sins once and suffers for it 
 all his life, while another sins twenty times and is not 
 punished at all." By no means : the two men both break a 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 7 1 
 
 moral law, and suffer a moral degradation ; one of them 
 breaks in addition some physical law, and suffers a physical 
 injury. People see injustice where none exists, because they 
 will not take the trouble to distinguish what laws are broken 
 when material punishments follow. There is nothing arbi- 
 trary in nature : cause and effect rule in her realm. Hell is 
 then unjust, in the first place, because physical torture has 
 nothing in common with moral guilt. 
 
 It is unjust, secondly, because it is excessive. Sin, say 
 theologians, is to be punished infinitely, because sin is an 
 offence committed against an infinite being. Of course, 
 then, good must logically be rewarded infinitely, because it 
 is duty offered to an infinite being. There is no man who 
 has never done a single good act, so every man deserves an 
 infinite reward. There is no man who has never done a 
 single bad act, so every man deserves an infinite punish- 
 ment. Therefore every man deserves both an infinite reward 
 and an infinite punishment, " which," as Euclid says, " is 
 .absurd." And this is quite enough answer to the proposi- 
 tion. But I must protest, in passing, against this notion of 
 * l sin against God " as properly understood. If by this ex- 
 pression is only meant that every sin committed is a sin 
 against God, because every sin is done against man's higher 
 nature, which is God in man, then indeed there is no objec- 
 tion to be made to it. But this is not what is generally 
 meant by the phrase. It usually means that we are able, as 
 it were, to injure God in some way, to dishonour him, to 
 .affront him, to trouble him. By sin we make him " angry," 
 we " provoke him to wrath ;" because of this feeling on his 
 own part he punishes us, and demands "satisfaction." Surely 
 a moment's reflection must prove to any reasonable being 
 that sin against God in this sense is perfectly impossible. 
 What can the littleness of man do against the greatness of 
 the Eternal ! Imagine a speck of dust troubling the depths 
 of the ocean, an aphis burdening an oak-tree with its weight : 
 each is far more probable than that a man could ruffle the 
 perfect serenity of God. Suppose I stand on a lawn watch- 
 ing an ant-heap, an ant twinkles his feelers at me scornfully; 
 do I fly into a passion and rush on the insect to destroy it, 
 or seize it and slowly torture it ? Yet I am far less above 
 the level of the ant than God is above mine. 
 
 But I must add a word here to guard against the mis- 
 apprehension that in saying this I am depriving man of the 
 strength he finds in believing that he is personally known to 
 
72 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 God and an object of his care. Were I the ant's creator, 
 familiar with all the workings of its mind, I might regret, 
 for its sake, the pride and scorn of its maker shown by its- 
 action, because it was not rising to the perfection of nature 
 of which it was capable. So, in that nature in which we 
 live and move, which is too great to regard anything as- 
 little, which is around all and in all, and which we believe 
 to be conscious of all, there is- I cannot but think some 
 feeling which, for want of a better term, we must call a 
 desire for the growth of his creatures (because in this growth 
 lies their own happiness), and a corresponding feeling of 
 regret when they injure themselves. But I say this in fear 
 and reverence, knowing that human language has no terms 
 in which to describe the nature we adore, and conscious 
 that in the very act of putting ideas about him into words, 
 I degrade the ideas and they no longer fully answer to the 
 thought in my own mind. Silent adoration befits man best 
 in the presence of his maker, only it is right to protest 
 against the more degrading conceptions of him, although 
 the higher conceptions are themselves far below what he 
 really is. Sin then, being done against oneself only, cannot 
 deserve an eternity of torture. Sin injures man already, 
 why should he be further injured by endless agony ? The 
 infliction of pain is only justifiable when it is the means of 
 conveying to the sufferer himself a gain greater than the 
 suffering inflicted ; therefore punishment is only righteous 
 when reformatory. But endless torture cannot aim at refor- 
 mation ; it has no aim beyond itself, and can only arise, 
 therefore, from vengeance and vindictiveness, which we have 
 shown to be impossible with God. Hell is unjust, secondly, 
 ecause its punishment is excessive and aimless. 
 
 It is also unjust, because to avoid it needs an impossible 
 perfection. It is no answer to this to say that there is an 
 escape offered to us through the Atonement made by Jesus 
 Christ. Why should I be called on to escape like a criminal 
 from that which I do not deserve ? God makes man imper- 
 fect, frail, sinful, utterly unable to keep perfectly a perfect b.w : 
 he therefore fails, and is what ? To be strengthened ? by no 
 means ; he is to go to hell. The statement of this suffices to 
 show its injustice. W T e cavil not at the wisdom which made 
 us what we are, but we protest against the idea which makes 
 God so cruelly unjust as to torture babies because they are 
 unable to walk as steadily as full-grown men. Hell is unjust, 
 in the third place, because man does not deserve it. 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 73 
 
 To all this it will probably be retorted, " you are arguing 
 as though God's justice were the same as man's, and you 
 were therefore capable of judging it, an assumption which is 
 unwarrantable, and is grossly presumptuous." To which I 
 reply : " If by God's justice you do not mean justice at all, 
 but refer to some Divine attribute of which we know 
 nothing, all my strictures on it fall to the ground ; only, do 
 not commit the inconsistency of arguing that hell is just, 
 when by 'just' you mean some unknown quality, and then 
 propping up your theories with proofs drawn from human 
 justice. It would perhaps tend to clearness in argument if 
 you gave this Divine attribute some other name, instead 
 of using for it an expression which has already a definite 
 meaning." 
 
 The justice of hell disposed of, we turn to the love of 
 God. I have never heard it stated that hell is a proof of his 
 great love to the world, but I take the liberty myself of 
 drawing attention to it in this light. God, we are told, 
 existed alone before ought was created ; there perfect in 
 himself, in happiness, in glory, he might have remained, say 
 orthodox theologians. Then, we have a right to ask in the 
 name of charity, why did he, happy himself, create a race of 
 beings of whom the vast majority were to be endlessly and 
 hopelessly miserable ? Was this love ? " He created man to 
 glorify him." But was it loving to create those who would 
 only surfer for his glory ? Was it not rather a gigantic, an 
 inconceivable selfishness ? 
 
 " Man may be saved if he will." That is not to the 
 point ; God foreknew that some would be lost, and yet he 
 made them. With all reverence I say it, God had no right 
 to create sentient beings, if of one of them it can ever be 
 truly said, "good were it for that man that he had never 
 been born." He who creates, imposes on himself, by the 
 very act of creation, duties towards his creatures. If God be 
 self-conscious and moral, it is an absolute certainty that the 
 whole creation is moving towards the final good of every 
 creature in it. We did not ask to be made ; we suffered not 
 when we existed not ; God, who has laid existence on us 
 without our consent, is responsible for our final good, and 
 is bound by every tie of righteousness and justice, not to 
 speak of love, to make the existence he gave us, unasked, a 
 blessing and not a curse to us. Parents feel this responsi- 
 bility towards the children they bring into the world, and 
 feel themselves bound to protect and to make happy those 
 
74 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 who, without them, had not been born. But, if hell be true,, 
 then every man and woman is bound not to fulfil the Divine- 
 command of multiplying the race, since by so doing they 
 are aiding to fill the dungeons of hell, and they will, here- 
 after, have their sons and their daughters cursing the day of 
 their birth, and overwhelming their parents with reproaches 
 for having brought into the world a body, which God was 
 thus enabled to curse with the awful gift of an immortal soul. 
 
 We must notice also that God, who is said to love 
 righteousness, can never crush out righteousness in any- 
 human soul. There is no one so utterly degraded as to be 
 without one sign of good. Among the lowest and vilest of 
 our population, we find beautiful instances of kindly feeling 
 and generous help. Can any woman be more degraded 
 than she who only values her womanhood as a means of 
 gain, who drinks, fights, and steals ? Let those who have 
 been among such women say if they have not been cheered 
 sometimes by a very ray of the light of God, when the most 
 degraded has shown kindness to an equally degraded sister, 
 and when the very gains of sin have been purified by being 
 poured into the lap of a suffering and dying companion. 
 Shall love and devotion, however feeble, unselfishness and 
 sympathy, however transitory in their action, shall these 
 stars of heaven be quenched in the blackness of the pit of 
 hell ? If it be so, then, verily, God is not the " righteous. 
 Lord who loveth righteousness." 
 
 But we cannot leave out of our impeachment of hell that 
 it injures man, as much as it degrades his conceptions of 
 God. It cultivates selfishness and fear, two of his basest 
 passions. There has scarcely perhaps been born into the 
 world this century a purer and more loving soul than that 
 of the late John Keble, the author of the " Christian Year." 
 Yet what a terrible effect this belief had on him ; he must 
 cling to his belief in hell, because otherwise he would have 
 no certainty of heaven : 
 
 " But where is then the stay of contrite hearts ? 
 Of old they leaned on Thy eternal word ; 
 But with the sinner's fear their hope departs, 
 Fast linked as Thy great name to Thee, O Lord ; 
 
 That Name by which Thy faithful hope is past, 
 That we should endless be, for joy or woe ; 
 And if the treasures of Thy wrath could waste, 
 Thy lovers must their promised heaven forego" 
 
 That is to say in plain English : " I cannot give up the 
 
ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 75 
 
 certainty of hell for others, because if I do I shall have no 
 certainty of heaven for myself; and I would rather know 
 that millions of my brethren should be tormented for ever, 
 than remain doubtful about my own everlasting enjoyment." 
 Surely a loving heart would say, instead, " O God, let us all 
 die and remain unconscious for ever, rather than that one 
 soul should suffer everlastingly. " The terrible selfishness of 
 the Christian belief degrades the noblest soul ; the horror of 
 hell makes men lose their self-control, and think only of 
 their personal safety, just as we see men run wild sometimes 
 -at a shipwreck, when the gain of a minute means life. The 
 belief in hell fosters religious pride and hatred, for all reli- 
 gious people think that they themselves at least are sure of 
 heaven. If then they are going to rejoice through all eternity 
 over the sufferings of the lost, why should they treat them 
 with kindness or consideration here ? Thus hell becomes 
 the mother of persecution ; for the heretic, the enemy of the 
 Lord, there is no mercy and no forgiveness. Then the 
 saints persuade themselves that true charity obliges them to 
 persecute, for suffering may either save the heretic himself 
 by forcing him to believe, or may at least scare others from 
 sharing his heresy, and so preserve them from eternal fire. 
 And they are right, if hell is true. Any means are justifiable 
 which may save man from that horrible doom ; surely we 
 .should not hesitate to knock a man down, if by so doing we 
 preserved him from throwing himself over a precipice. 
 
 Belief in hell takes all beauty from virtue ; who cares for 
 -obedience only rendered through fear ? No true love of 
 good is wrought in man by the fear of hell, and outward re- 
 spectability is of little worth when the heart and the desires 
 are unpurified. We may add that the fear of hell is a very 
 slight practical restraint ; no man thinks himself really bad 
 enough for hell, and it is so far off that every one intends to 
 repent at the last and so escape it. Far more restraining is 
 the proclamation of the stern truth that, in the popular sense 
 of the word, there is no such thing as the " forgiveness of 
 sins ;" that as a man sows, so shall he reap, and that broken 
 laws avenge themselves without exception. 
 
 Belief in hell stifles -all inquiry into truth by setting a 
 premium on one form of belief, and by forbidding another 
 under frightful penalties. " If it be true, as it is true, that 
 all Who do not believe this shall perish everlastingly, then, I 
 ask, is it not worth while to believe ?" So says a clergyman 
 of the Church of England. Thus he presses his people to 
 
76 ON ETERNAL TORTURE. 
 
 accept the dogma of the Deity of Jesus, not because it is- 
 true, but because it is dangerous to deny it. And this- 
 difficulty meets us every day. If we urge inquiry, we are 
 told "it is dangerous;" if we suggest a difficulty, we are 
 told "it is safer to believe;" and so this doctrine of hell 
 chains down men's faculties and palsies their intellects, 
 and they dare not seek for truth at all, lest he who is Truth 
 should cast them into hell for it. 
 
 It may perhaps be said by many that I have attacked this 
 dogma with undue vehemence, and with excessive warmth. 
 I attack it thus, because I know the harm that it is doing, 
 because it saddens the righteous heart and clouds the face of 
 God. Only those who have realised hell, and realising it, have 
 believed in it, know the awful shadow with which it darkens 
 the world. There are many who laugh at it, but they have 
 not felt its power, and they forget that a dogma which is only 
 ludicrous to them is weighing heavily on many a tender 
 heart aud sensitive brain. Hell drives many mad : to others- 
 it is a life-long horror. It pales the sunlight with its lurid 
 flames ; it blackens the earth with the smoke of its torment ; 
 it makes the Devil an actual presence ; it transforms God 
 into an enemy, eternity into an awful doom. It takes the 
 spring out of all pleasures ; it poisons all enjoyments ; it 
 spreads gloom over life, and enshrouds the tomb in horror 
 unspeakable. Only those who have felt the anguish of this 
 nightmare know what it is to wake up into the sunlight, and 
 find it is only a disordered dream of the darkness ; they only 
 know the glorious liberty of heart and soul, with which they 
 lift up smiling faces to meet the smile of God, when they can 
 say fi-om the depths of their glad hearts, " I believe that 
 God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all ; I believe 
 that all mankind is safe, cradled in the everlasting arms." 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 THERE is a certain amount of difficulty in defining the 
 word Inspiration : it is used in so many different senses 
 by the various schools of religious thought, that it is almost 
 necessary to know the theological opinions of the speaker 
 before being quite sure of his meaning when he talks of a 
 book as being inspired. In the halcyon days of the Church, 
 when faith was strong and reason weak, when priests had 
 but to proclaim and laymen but to assent, Inspiration had a 
 distinct and a very definite meaning. An inspired man 
 spoke the very words of God : the Bible was perfect from 
 the " In the beginning " of Genesis to the " Amen " of 
 Revelation : it was perfect in science, perfect in history, per- 
 fect in doctrine, perfect in morals. In that diamond no flaw 
 was to be seen ; it sparkled with a spotless purity, reflecting 
 back in many-coloured radiance the pure white light of God. 
 But when the chemistry of modern science came forward 
 to test this diamond, a murmuring arose, low at first, but 
 irrepressible. It was scrutinised through the microscope of 
 criticism, and cracks and flaws were discovered in every 
 direction ; then, instead of being enshrined on the altar, 
 encircled by candles, it was brought out into the searching 
 sunlight, and the naked eye could see its imperfections. 
 Then it was tested anew, and some bold men were heard to 
 whisper, " It is no diamond at all, God formed in ages past ; 
 it is nothing but paste, manufactured by man ;" and the 
 news passed from mouth to mouth, until the whisper swelled 
 into a cry, and many voices echoed, " This is no diamond 
 at all." And so things are to-day ; the battle rages still ; 
 some maintain their jewel is perfect as ever, and that the 
 flaws are in the eyes that look at it ; some reluctantly allow 
 that it is imperfect, but still consider it a diamond ; others 
 resolutely assert that, though valuable for its antiquity and 
 its beauty, it is really nothing but paste. 
 
78 ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 To take first the really orthodox theory of inspiration, 
 generally styled the "plenary" or " verbal " inspiration of 
 the Bible. It was well defined centuries since by Athena- 
 goras ; according to him the inspired writers " uttered the 
 things that were wrought in them when the Divine Spirit 
 moved them, the Spirit using them as a flute-player would 
 blow into the flute." The same idea has been uttered in 
 powerful poetry by a writer of our own day : 
 
 " Then thro' the mid complaint of my confession, 
 Then thro' the pang and passion of my prayer, 
 Leaps with a start the shock of His possession, 
 Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there. 
 
 Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing, 
 Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand ; 
 Only the power that is within me pealing, 
 Lives on my lips and beckons to my hand." 
 
 The idea is exactly the same as that of the Pagan pro- 
 phetesses : they became literally possesssed by a spirit, who 
 used their lips to declare his own thoughts ; so orthodox 
 Christians believe that it is no longer Moses or Isaiah or 
 Paul that speaks, but the Spirit of the Father that speaks in 
 them. This theory is held by all strictly orthodox believers ; 
 this and this only is from their lips, inspiration; hard 
 pressed on the subject they will allow that the Spirit inspires 
 all good thoughts " in a sense," but they will be very care- 
 ful in declaring that this is only inspiration in a secondary 
 sense, an inspiration which differs in kind as well as in 
 degree from the inspiration of the writers of the Bible. By 
 this mechanical theory, so to speak, it is manifest that all 
 possibility of error is excluded ; thus, when Matthew quotes 
 from the Old Testament an utterly irrelevant historical 
 reference " when Israel was a child, then I loved him and 
 called my son cut of Egypt" as a prophecy of the alleged 
 flight of Jesus into Egypt, and his subsequent return from 
 that country into Palestine we find Dr. Wordsworth, Right 
 Reverend Father in God, and Bishop of Lincoln, gravely 
 telling us that " the Holy Spirit here declares what had 
 been in His own mind when He uttered these words by 
 Hosea. And who shall venture to say that he knows the 
 mind of the Spirit better than the Spirit Himself?" Dr. 
 Pusey again, standing valiantly, after the manner of the 
 man, to every Church dogma, however it may be against 
 logic, against common sense, against reason, or against 
 charity, makes a very reasonable inquiry of those who 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 79 
 
 believe in an outward and supernatural inspiration, and yet 
 object to the term verbal. " How," he asks, " can thought 
 be conveyed to a man's mind except through words ?" The 
 learned doctor's remark is indeed a very pertinent one, as 
 addressed to all those who believe in an exterior revelation. 
 Thoughts which are communicated from without can only 
 become known to man through the medium of words : even 
 his own thoughts only become appreciable to him when 
 they are sufficiently distinct to be clothed in words (of 
 course not necessarily spoken words) ; and we can only ex- 
 clude from this rule such thoughts as may be presented to 
 the mind through mental sight or hearing : e.g., music 
 might probably be composed mentally by imagining the 
 sounds, or mechanical contrivances invented by imagining 
 the objects ; but any argument, any story, which is capable 
 of reproduction in writing, must be thought out in words. 
 A moment's thought renders this obvious ; if a man is 
 arguing with a Frenchman in his own language, he must, to 
 render his arguments clear and powerful, think in French. 
 Now, if the Bible be inspired so as to insure accuracy, how 
 can this be done except through words ; for many of the 
 facts recorded must, from the necessity of the case, have 
 been unknown to the writers. Suppose for a moment that 
 the Biblical account of the creation of the world were true, 
 no man in that case could possibly have thought it out for 
 himself. Only two theories can reasonably be held regard- 
 ing this record : one, that it is true, which implies necessa- 
 rily that it is literally true and verbally inspired, since the 
 knowledge could only have come from the Creator, and, 
 being communicated must have come in the form of words, 
 which words being God's, must be literally true ; the other, 
 that it ranks with other ancient cosmogonies, and is simply 
 the thought of some old writer, giving his idea as to the 
 origin of the world around him. I select the account of 
 the Creation as a crucial test of the verbal theory of inspira- 
 tion, because any other account in the Bible that I can 
 think of has a human actor in it, and it might be main- 
 tained however unlikely the hypothesis that a report was 
 related or written down by one who had been present at the 
 incident reported, and the inspiration of the final writer 
 may be said to consist in re-writing the previous record 
 which he may be directed to incorporate in his own work. 
 But no one witnessed the creation of the world, save the 
 Creator, or, at the most, He and His angels, and the account 
 
-80 ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 given of it must, if true, be word for word divine ; or, if 
 false as it is must be nothing more than human fancy. 
 We must push this argument one step further. If the 
 account was communicated only to the man's mind, in 
 words rising internally to the inward ear alone, how could 
 the man distinguish between these divine thoughts rising in 
 his mind, and his own human thoughts rising in exactly the 
 same manner ? Thoughts rise in our minds, we know not 
 how ; we only become conscious of them when they are 
 there, and, as far as we can judge, they are produced quite 
 naturally according to certain laws. But how is it possible 
 for us to distinguish whence these thoughts come ? There 
 they are, ours, not another's ours as the child is the father's 
 and mother's, the product of their own beings. If my 
 thought is not mine, but God's, how am I to know this? it 
 is produced within me as my own, and the source of one 
 thought is not distinguishable from that of another. Thus, 
 those who believe in the accuracy of the Bible are step by- 
 step driven to allow that not only are words necessary, but 
 spoken words ; if the Bible be supernaturally inspired at all, 
 then must God have spoken not only in human words but 
 also in human voice ; if the Bible be supernaturally inspired 
 at all, it must be verbally inspired, and be literally accurate 
 about every subject on which it treats. 
 
 Unfortunately for the maintainers of verbal inspiration, 
 their theory is splendidly adapted for being brought before 
 the bar of inexorable fact. It is worth while to remark, in 
 passing, that the infallibility of the Bible has only remained 
 unchallenged where ignorance has reigned supreme ; as soon 
 as men began to read history and to study nature, they also 
 began to question scriptural accuracy, and to defy scriptural 
 authority. Infallibility can only live in twilight : so far, 
 every infallibility has fallen before advancing knowledge, 
 save only the infallibility of Nature, which is the infallibility 
 of God Himself. Protestants consider Roman Catholics 
 fools, in that they are not able to see that the Pope cannot 
 be infallible, because one Pope has cursed what another 
 Pops has blessed. They can see in the case of others that 
 contradiction destroys infallibility, but they cannot see the 
 force of the same argument when applied to their own 
 pope, the Bible. Strong in their "invincible ignorance," 
 they bring us a divinely-inspired book; "good,'"' we answer ; 
 "then is your book absolutely true, and it will square with 
 all known truth in science and history, and will, of course, 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 8 1 
 
 never be self-contradictory." The first important question 
 which arises in our minds as we open so instructive a book 
 as a revelation from on high, refers naturally to the Great 
 Inspirer. The Bible contains, as might indeed be reason- 
 ably expected, many statements as to the nature of God, 
 and we inquire of it, in the first place, the character of its 
 Author. May we hope to see Him in this world ? " Yes," 
 answers Exodus. " Moses in days gone by spoke to God 
 face to face, and seventy-four Israelites saw Him, and eat 
 and drank in His presence." We have scarcely taken in 
 this answer when we hear the same voice proceed : " No ; 
 for God said thou canst not see my face, for there shall no 
 man see me and live ; while John declares that no man hath 
 seen Him, and Paul, that no man neither hath nor can see 
 Him." Is He Almighty ? " Yes," says Jesus. "With God 
 all things are possible." "No," "retorts Judges; "for He 
 could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because 
 they had chariots of iron." Is He just? "Yes," answers 
 Ezekiel. " The son shall not bear the iniquity of the 
 father; the soul that sinneth // shall die." "No," says 
 Exodus. " The Lord declares that He visits the iniquity 
 of the fathers upon the children." Is He impartial? 
 "Yes," answers Peter. "God is no respecter of persons." 
 " No ;" says Romans, " for God loved Jacob and hated 
 Esau before they were born, that His purpose of election 
 might stand." Is He truthful ? " Yes ; it is impossible for 
 God to lie," says Hebrews. " No," says God of Himself, 
 in Ezekiel. " I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet." Is 
 He loving ? " Yes," sings the Psalmist. " He is loving 
 unto every man, and His tender mercy is over all His 
 works." " No," growls Jeremiah. " He will not pity, nor 
 spare, nor have mercy on them." Is he easily pacified 
 when offended ? " Yes," says the Psalmist. " His wrath 
 endureth but the twinkling of an eye." " No," says Jere- 
 miah. " Ye have kindled a fire in His anger that shall 
 burn for ever." Unable to discover anything reliable about 
 God, doubtful whether he be just or unjust, partial or im- 
 partial, true or false, loving or fierce, placable or implacable, 
 we come to the conclusion that at all events we had better 
 be friends with Him, and surely the book which reveals His 
 will to us will at least tell us in what way He desires us to 
 approach Him. Does He accept sacrifice? "Yes," says 
 Genesis : " Noah sacrificed and God smelled a sweet savour;" 
 and Samuel tells us how God was prevailed on to take away 
 
82 ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 a famine by the sacrifice of seven men, hanged up before the 
 Lord. In our fear we long to escape from Him altogether, 
 and ask if this be possible ? " Yes," says Genesis. " Adam 
 and his wife hid from Him in the trees, and He had to go- 
 down from His heaven to see if some evil deeds were rightly 
 reported to Him." " No," says Solomon. " You cannot 
 hide from Him, for His eyes are in every place." So we 
 throw up in despair all hope of finding out anything reliable 
 about Him, and proceed to search for some trustworthy his- 
 tory. We try to find out how man was made. One account 
 tells us that he was made male and female, even in the image 
 of God Himself; another that God made man alone, and 
 subsequently formed a woman for him out of one of his own 
 ribs. Then we find in one chapter that the beasts were all 
 made, and, lastly, that God made " His masterpiece, man."" 
 In another chapter we are told that God having made man 
 thought it not good to leave him by himself, and proceeded 
 to make every beast and fowl, saying that he would make 
 Adam a help-meet for him ; on bringing them to Adam, 
 however, none was found worthy to mate with him, so woman 
 was tried as a last experiment. As we read on we find evi- 
 dent marks of confusion ; double, or even treble, accounts 
 of the same incident, as, for instance, the denying a wife 
 and its consequences. Then we see Moses fearing Pharaoh's 
 wrath, and flying out of Egypt to avoid the king's wrath, 
 and not venturing to return until after his death, and are 
 therefore surprised to learn from Hebrews that he forsook 
 Egypt by faith, not fearing the wrath of the king. Then 
 we come across numberless contradictions in Kings and 
 Chronicles, in prophecy and history. Ezekiel prophecies 
 that Nebuchadnezzar shall conquer Tyrus, and destroy it and 
 take all its riches; and a few chapters afterwards it is recorded 
 that he did accordingly attack Tyrus but failed, and that as 
 he got no wages for this attack he should have Egypt for his 
 failure. In the New Testament the contradictions are end- 
 less ; Joseph, the husband of Mary, had two fathers, Jacob 
 and Heli ; Salah is in the same predicament, for although 
 the son of Canaan, Arphaxad begat him. When John was 
 cast into prison, Jesus began to preach, although He had 
 been preaching and gaining disciples while John was still at 
 large. Jesus sent the Twelve to preach, telling them to take 
 a staff, and yet bidding them to take none. He eat the 
 Passover with His disciples, although He was crucified 
 before that feast. He had one title on his cross, but it is 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 83 
 
 verbally inspired in four different ways. He rose with many 
 variations of date and time, and ascended the same even- 
 ing, although He subsequently went into Galilee and re- 
 mained on earth for forty days. He sent word to His dis- 
 ciples to meet Him in Galilee, and yet suddenly appeared 
 among them as they sat quietly together the same evening 
 at Jerusalem. Stephen's history contradicts our Old Testa- 
 ment. When Paul is converted, his companions hear a 
 voice, although another account says that they heard none 
 at all. After his conversion he goes in and out at Jerusalem 
 with the Apostles, although, strangely enough, he sees none 
 of them, except Peter and James. But one might spend 
 pages in noting these inconsistencies, while even one of 
 them destroys the verbal inspiration theory. From these 
 contradictions I maintain that one of two things must fol- 
 low, either the Bible is not an inspired book, or else in- 
 spiration is consistent with much error, as I shall presently 
 show. 
 
 I am quite ready to allow that the Bible is inspired, and I 
 therefore lay down as my first canon of inspiration, that : 
 " Inspiration does not prevent inaccuracy." 
 I turn to the second class of orthodox inspirationists, who, 
 while allowing that verbal inspiration is proved impossible 
 by many trivial inconsistencies, yet affirm that God's over- 
 ruling power ensures substantial accuracy, and that its 
 history and science are perfectly true and are to be relied 
 on. To test this assertion, we after noting that Bible 
 history is, as has been remarked above, continually self-con- 
 tradictory turn to other histories and compare the Bible 
 with them. We notice first that many important Biblical 
 occurrences are quite ignored by " profane " historians. We 
 are surprised to see that while the Babylonish captivity left 
 marks on Israel which are plainly seen, Egypt left no trace 
 on Israel's names or customs, and Israel no trace on Egypt's 
 monuments. The doctrine of angels comes not from 
 heaven, but slips into Jewish theology from the Persian ; 
 while immortality is brought to light neither by Hebrew 
 prophet nor by the Gospel of Jesus, but by the people among 
 whom the Jews resided during the Babylonish captivity. 
 The Jewish Scriptures which precede the captivity know of 
 nothing beyond the grave ; the Jewish Scriptures after the 
 captivity are radient with the light of a life to come ; to these 
 Jesus adds nothing of joy or hope. The very central doctrine 
 of Christianity the Godhead of Jesus is nothing but a 
 
84 ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 repetition of an idea of Greek philosophy borrowed by early 
 Christian writers, and is to be found in Plato and Philo as 
 clearly as in the fourth Gospel. Science contradicts the 
 Bible as much as does history ; geology laughs at its puny 
 periods of creation astronomy destroys its heavens, and 
 asks why this little world took a week in making, while the 
 sun and moon and the countless stars were rapidly turned 
 out in twelve hours ; natural history wonders why the 
 kangaroos did not stay in Asia after the Deluge, instead of 
 undertaking the long sea voyage to far Australia, and en- 
 quires how the Mexicans, and Peruvians, and others, crossed 
 the wide ocean to settle in America ; archceology presents 
 its human bones from ancient caves, and asks how they got 
 there, if only six thousand years have passed since Adam and 
 Eve stood alone in Eden, gazing out on the unpeopled 
 earth ; the Pyramids point at the negro type distinct and 
 clear, and ask how it comes that it was so rapidly developed 
 at first, and yet has remained stationary ever since. At last, 
 science gets weary of slaying a foe so puny, and goes on its 
 way with a smile on its grand, still face, leaving the Bible to 
 teach its science to whom it lists. Evidence so weighty 
 crushes all life out of this second theory of inspiration, and 
 gives us a second rule to guide us in our search : 
 " Inspiration does not prevent ignorance and error." 
 We may pass on to the third class of inspirationists, those 
 who believe that the Bible is not given to man to teach him 
 either history or science, but only to reveal to him what he 
 could not discover by the use of his natural faculties e.g., the 
 duties of morality and the nature of God. I must note here 
 the subtilty of this retreat. Driven by inexorable fact to allow 
 the Bible to be fallible in everything in which we can test its 
 assertions, they, by a clever strategic movement, remove 
 their defence to a post more difficult to attack. They main 
 tain that the Bible is infallible in points where no cannonade 
 of facts can be brought to bear on it. What is this but to 
 say, that although we can prove the Bible to be fallible on 
 every point capable of proof, we are still blindly to believe it 
 to be infallible where demonstrated error is, from the nature 
 of the case, impossible ? As regards the nature of God, we 
 have already seen that the Bible ascribes to him virtue and 
 vice indifferently. We turn to morality, and here our first 
 great difficulty meets us, for when we point to a thing and 
 say, " that is profoundly immoral," our opponents retort, "it 
 is perfectly moral." Only the progress of humanity can 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 85 
 
 prove which of us is in the right, though here, too, we have 
 one great fact on our side, and that is, the conscience in 
 man ; already men would rather die than imitate the actions 
 of Old Testament saints who did that which was " right in 
 the eyes of Jehovah;" and presently they will be bold 
 enough to reject in words that which they already reject in 
 deeds, Few would put the Bible freely into the hands of a 
 child, any more than they would give freely to the young 
 the unpurged editions of Swift and Sterne ; and I imagine 
 that the most pious parents would scarcely see with un- 
 mingled pleasure their son and daughter of fifteen and 
 sixteen studying together the histories and laws of the 
 Pentateuch. ' But taking the Bible as a rule of life, are we 
 to copy its saints and its laws ? For instance, is it right for 
 a man to marry his half-sister, as did the great ancestor of 
 the Jews, Abraham, the friend of God ? a union, by the way, 
 which is forbidden by Jewish law, although said to be the 
 source of their race. Is the lie of the Egyptian midwives 
 right, because Jehovah blessed them for it, even as Jael is 
 pronounced blessed by Deborah, the prophetess, for her 
 accursed treachery and murder ? Is the robbery of the 
 Egyptians right, because commanded by Jehovah ? Are 
 the old cruel laws of witchcraft right, because Jehovah 
 doomed the witch to death ? Are the ordeals of the Middle 
 Ages right, because derived from the laws of Jehovah ? Is 
 human sacrifice right, because attempted by Abraham, 
 enjoined by Moses, practised by Jephthah, efficacious in 
 turning away God's wrath when Saul's seven sons \.-ere 
 offered up? Is murder right because Phineas wrought 
 atonement by it, and Moses sent his murderers throughout 
 the camp to stay God's anger by slaying their brethren ? Is 
 it right that the persons of women captives should be the 
 prey of the conquerors, because the Jews were commanded 
 by Jehovah to save alive the virgins and keep them for 
 themselves, except the sixty-four reserved for himself? Is 
 the man after God's own heart a worthy model for imita- 
 tion ? Are Jehu's lying and slaughter right, because right in 
 the eyes of Jehovah ? Is Hosea's marriage commendable, 
 because commanded by Jehovah? or are the signs of 
 Jeremiah and Ezekiel the less childish and indecent 
 because they are prefaced with, " thus saith Jehovah?" Far 
 be it from me to detract from the glorious morality of 
 portions of the Bible ; but if the whole book be inspired 
 and infallible in its moral teaching, then, of course, one 
 
S6 ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 moral lesson is as important as another, and we have no 
 right to pick and choose where the whole is divine. The 
 harsher part of the Old Testament morality has burnt its 
 mark into the world, and may be traced through history by 
 the groans of suffering men and women, by burning witches 
 .and tortured enemies of the Lord, by naming cities and 
 blood-stained fields. If murder and rapine, treachery and 
 lies, robbery and violence, were commanded long ago by 
 Almighty God ; if things are right and wrong only by virtue 
 of His command, then who can say that they may not be 
 right once more, when used in the cause of the Church, and 
 how are we to know that Moses speaks in God's name when 
 he commands them, and Torquemada only in his own ? 
 But even Christians are beginning to feel ashamed of some 
 of the exploits of the " Old Testament Saints," and to try 
 and explain away some of the harsher features ; we even 
 hear sometimes a wicked whisper about "imperfect light," 
 <&c. Good heavens ! what blasphemy ! Imperfect light can 
 mean nothing less than imperfect God, if He is responsible 
 for the morality of these writings. 
 
 So, from our study of the Bible we deduce another canon 
 by which we may judge of inspiration : 
 
 " Inspiration does not prevent moral error." 
 There is a fourth class of inspirationists, the last which 
 clings to the skirts of orthodoxy, which is always endeavour- 
 ing to plant one foot on the rocks of science, while it 
 balances the other over the quicksands of orthodox super- 
 naturalism. The Broad Church school here takes one wide 
 .step away from orthodoxy, by allowing that the inspiration 
 of the Bible differs only in degree and not in kind from the 
 inspiration common to all mankind. They recognise the 
 .great fact that the inspiring Spirit of God is the source 
 whence flow all good and noble deeds, and they point out 
 that the Bible itself refers all good and all knowledge to 
 that one Spirit, and that He breathes mechanical skill into 
 Bezaleel and Aholiab, strength into Samson's arms, wisdom 
 into Solomon, as much as He breathes the ecstacy of the 
 prophet into Isaiah, faith into Paul, and love into John. 
 They recognise the old legends as authentic, but would 
 maintain as stoutly that He spoke to Newton through the 
 falling of an apple, as that He spoke of old to Elijah by fire, 
 or to the wise men by a star. This school try and remove 
 the moral difficulties of the Old Testament by regarding the 
 history recorded in it as a history which is specially intended 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 87 
 
 to unveil the working of God through all history, and so to 
 gradually reveal God as He makes Himself known to the 
 world ; thus the grosser parts are regarded as wholly attri- 
 butable to the ignorance of men, and they delight to see the 
 divine light breaking slowly through the thick clouds of 
 human error and prejudice, and to trace in the Bible the 
 gradual evolution of a nobler faith and a purer morality. 
 They regard the miracles of Jesus as a manifestation that 
 God underlies Nature and works ever therein : they be- 
 lieve God to be specially manifested in Jewish history,, 
 in order that men may understand that He presides over 
 all nations and rules over all peoples. To Maurice the 
 Bible is the explainer of all earth's problems, the unveiler 
 of God, the Bread of Life. There is, on the whole, little to 
 object to in the Broad Church view of inspiration, although 
 liberal thinkers regret that, as a party, they stop half way, 
 and are still trammelled by the half-broken chains of ortho- 
 doxy. For instance, they usually regard the direct revela- 
 tion of morality as closed by Jesus and His immediate fol- 
 lowers, although they allow that God has not deserted His- 
 world, nor confined His inspiration within the covers of a 
 book. To them, however, the Bible is still the inspired book, 
 standing apart by itself, differing from all other sacred books. 
 From their views of inspiration, which contains so much that 
 is true, we deduce a fourth rule : 
 
 " Inspiration is not confined to written words about God." 
 From a criticism of the book, which is held by orthodox 
 Christians, to be specially inspired, we have then gained 
 some idea of what inspiration does not do. It does not 
 prevent inaccuracy, ignorance, error, nor is it confined to 
 any written book. Inspiration, then, cannot be an over- 
 whelming influence, crushing the human faculties and bear- 
 ing along the subject of it on a flood which he can 
 neither direct nor resist. It is a breathing gentle and 
 gradual of pure thoughts into impure hearts, tender 
 thoughts into fierce hearts, forgiving thoughts into re- 
 vengeful hearts. David calls home his banished son, and 
 he learns that, " even as a father pitieth his children, so is- 
 the Lord merciful unto them that fear Him." Paul wishes- 
 himself accursed if it may save his brethren, and from his. 
 own self-sacrificing love he learns that " God will have all 
 men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the 
 truth." Thus inspiration is breathed into the man's heart. 
 " I love and forgive, weak as I am ; what must be the depth 
 
88 ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 of the love and forgiveness of God ?" David's fierce revenge 
 finds an echo in his writings ; for man writes, and not God : 
 he defaces God by ascribing to Him the passions surging 
 only in his own burning Eastern heart : then, as the Spirit 
 moves him to forgiveness, his song is of mercy ; for he feels 
 that his Maker must be better than himself. That part of 
 the Bible is inspired, I do not deny, in the sense that all 
 good thoughts are the result of inspiration, but only as we 
 share the inspiration of the Bible can we distinguish between 
 the noble and the base in it, between the eternal and that 
 which is fast passing away. But as we do not expect to find 
 that inspiration, now-a-days, guards men from much error, 
 both of word and deed, so we should npt expect to find it 
 otherwise in days gone by ; nor should we wonder that the 
 man who spoke of God as showing His tender fatherhood 
 by punishing and correcting, could so sink down into hard 
 thoughts of that loving Father as to say that it was a fearful 
 thing to fall into His hands. These contradictions meet us 
 in every man ; they are the highest and the lowest moments 
 of the human soul. Only as we are inspired to love and 
 patience in our conduct towards men will our words be 
 inspired when we speak of God. 
 
 Having thus seen what inspiration does not do, we must 
 glance at what it really is. It is, perhaps, natural that we, 
 rejecting, as we do, with somewhat of vehemence, the idea 
 of supernatural revelation, should oftentimes be accused of 
 denying all revelation and disbelieving all inspiration. But 
 even as we are not atheists, although we deny the Godhead 
 of Jesus, so are we not unbelievers in inspiration because we 
 refuse to bend our necks beneath the yoke of an inspired 
 Bible. For we believe in a God too mighty and too uni- 
 versal to be wrapped in swaddling clothes or buried in a 
 cave, and we believe in an inspiration too mighty and too 
 universal to belong only to one nation and to one age. As 
 the air is as free and as refreshing to us as it was to Isaiah, 
 to Jesus, or to Paul, so does the spiritual air of God's Spirit 
 breathe so softly and as refreshingly on our brows as on 
 theirs. We have eyes to see and ears to hear quite as much 
 as they had in Judea long ago. " If God be omnipresent 
 and omniactive, this inspiration is no miracle, but a regular 
 mode of God's action on conscious Spirit, as gravitation on 
 unconscious matter. It is not a rare condescension of God, 
 but a universal uplifting of man. To obtain a knowledge of 
 duty, a man is not sent away outside of himself to ancient 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 89 
 
 documents for the only rule of faith and practice ; the Word 
 is very nigh him, even in his heart, and by this word he is 
 to try all documents whatever. . . . Wisdom, Righteous- 
 ness, and Love are the Spirit of God in the soul of man ; 
 wherever these are, and just in proportion to their power, 
 there is inspiration from God. . . . Inspiration 
 is ... the in-come of God to the soul, in the 
 form of Truth through the Reason, of Right through the 
 Conscience, of Love and Faith through the Affections and 
 Religious Element. ... A man would be looked 
 on as mad who should claim miraculous inspiration for 
 Newton, as they have been who denied it in the c^se of 
 Moses. But no candid man will doubt that, humanly speak- 
 ing, it was a more difficult thing to write the Principia than 
 to write the Decalogue. Man must have a nature most 
 sadly anomalous if, unassisted, he is able to accomplish all 
 the triumphs of modern science, and yet cannot discover the 
 plainest and most important principles of Religion and 
 Morality without a miraculous inspiration ; and still more so 
 if, being able to discover by God's natural aid these chief 
 and most important principles, he needs a miraculous inspi- 
 ration to disclose minor details."* Thus we believe that 
 inspiration from God is the birthright of humanity, and to be 
 an heir of God it needs only to be a son of man. Earth's 
 treasures are highly priced and hard to win, but God's 
 blessings are, like the rain and the sunshine, showered on 
 all-comers. 
 
 " 'Tis only heaven is given away ; 
 'Tis only God may be had for the asking ; 
 No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
 June may be had by the poorest comer." 
 
 If inspiration were indeed that which it is thought to be 
 by the orthodox Christians, surely we ought to be able to 
 distinguish its sayings from those of the uninspired. If 
 inspiration be confined to the Christian Bible, how is it 
 that the inspired thoughts were in many cases spoken out 
 to the world hundreds of years before they fell from the lips 
 of an inspired Jew ? It seems a somewhat uncalled for 
 miraculous interference for a man to be supernaturally 
 inspired to inform the world of some moral truth which had 
 been well known for hundreds of years to a large portion of 
 the race. Or is it that a great moral truth bears within 
 
 Theodore Parker. 
 
<)0 ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 itself so little evidence of its royal birth, that it cannot be 
 accepted as ruler by divine right over men until its procla- 
 mation is signed by some duly accredited messenger of the 
 Most High ? Then, indeed, must God be " more cogniz- 
 able by the senses than by the soul;" and then "the eye 
 or the ear is a truer and quicker percipient of Deity than 
 the Spirit which came forth from Him."* Was Paul in- 
 spired when he wished himself accursed for his brethren's 
 sake, but Kwan-yin uninspired, when she said, " Never will 
 I seek nor receive private individual salvation ; never enter 
 into final peace alone ?" If Jesus and the prophets were 
 inspired when they placed mercy above sacrifice, was Manu 
 uninspired in saying that a man " will fall very low if he 
 performs ceremonial acts only, and fails to discharge his 
 moral duties " ? Was Jesus inspired when he taught that 
 the whole law was comprehended in one saying, namely, 
 "Thoushalt love thy neighbour as thyself?" and yet was 
 Confucius uninspired when, in answer to the question, 
 4i What one word would serve as a rule to one's whole life ?" 
 he said, " Reciprocity ; what you do not wish done to your - 
 self, do not to others." Or take the Talmud and study it, 
 -and then judge from what uninspired source Jesus drew 
 much of His highest teaching. " Whoso looketh on the 
 wife of another with a lustful eye, is considered as if he had 
 committed adultery." (Kalah.) "With what measure we 
 mete, we shall be measured again." (Johanan.) " What 
 thou wouldst not like to be done to thyself, do not to others ; 
 this is the fundamental law." (Hillel.) "If he be ad- 
 monished to take the splinter out of his eye, he would 
 answer, Take the beam out of thine own." (Tarphon.) 
 "Imitate God in His goodness. Be towards thy fellow - 
 creatures as He is towards the whole creation. Clothe the 
 naked ; heal the sick ; comfort the afflicted ; be a brother 
 to the children of thy Father." The whole parable of the 
 houses built on the rock and on the sand is taken out of 
 the Talmud, and such instances of quotation might be in- 
 definitely multiplied. What do they all prove ? That there 
 is no inspiration in the Bible ? by no means. But surely 
 that inspiration is not confined to the Bible, but is spread 
 over the world ; that much in all " sacred books " is the 
 outcome of inspired minds at their highest, although we 
 find the same books containing gross and low thoughts. 
 We should always remember that although the Bible is more 
 * W. R. Greg. 
 
ON INSPIRATION. 91 
 
 specially a revelation to us of the Western nations than are 
 the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta, that it is only so because it 
 is better suited to our modes of thought, and because it has 
 been one of the agents in our education. The reverence 
 with which we may regard the Bible as bound up with many- 
 sacred memories, and as the chosen teacher of many of our 
 greatest minds and purest characters, is rightly directed in 
 other nations to their own sacred books. The books are 
 really all on a level, with much good and much bad in them 
 all ; but as the Hebrew was inspired to proclaim that " the 
 Lord thy God is one Lord" to the Hebrews, so was the 
 Hindoo inspired to proclaim to Hindoos, " There is only 
 one Deity, the great Soul." Either 'all are inspired, or none 
 are. They stand on the same footing. And we rejoice to 
 believe that one Spirit breathes in all, and that His inspiration 
 is ours to-day. " The Father worketh hitherto," although 
 men fancy He is resting in an eternal Sabbath. The ortho- 
 dox tells us that, in rejecting the rule of morality laid down 
 for us in the Bible, and in trusting ourselves to this inspira- 
 tion of the free Spirit of God, our faith and our morality 
 will alike be shifting and unstable. But we reck not of 
 their warnings ; our faith and our morality are only shifting 
 in this sense, that, as we grow holier, and purer, and wiser, 
 our conception of God and of righteousness will rise and 
 expand with our growth. It was a golden saying of one of 
 God's noblest sons that " no man knoweth the Father save 
 the Son : " to know God we must resemble Him, as we see 
 in the child the likeness of the parent. But in trusting our- 
 selves to the guidance of the Spirit of God, we are not 
 building the house of our faith on the shifting sand ; rather 
 are we " dwelling in a city that hath foundations, whose 
 builder and maker is God." Wisely was it sung of old, 
 " Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost 
 that build it." Vain are all efforts of priestly coercion; 
 vain all toils of inspired books ; vain the utter sacrifice of 
 reason and conscience ; their labour is but lost when they 
 strive to build a temple of human faith, strong enough to 
 bear the long strain of time, or the earthquake-shock of 
 grief. God only, by the patient guiding of His love, by the 
 direct inspiration of His Spirit, can lay, stone by stone, and 
 timber by timber, that priceless fabric of trust and love, 
 which shall outlive all attacks and all changes, and shall 
 stand in the human soul as long as His own Eternity 
 endures. 
 
ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 OF CHILDREN. 
 
 IN every transition-stage of the world's history the ques- 
 tion of education naturally comes to the front. So 
 much depends on the first impressions of childhood, on the 
 first training of the tender shoot, that it has always been 
 acknowledged, from Solomon to Forster, that to " train up 
 a child in the way he should go " is among the most im- 
 portant duties of fathers and citizens. To the individual, 
 to the family, to the State, the education of the rising gene- 
 ration is a question of primary importance. Plato began 
 the education of the citizens of his ideal Republic from the 
 very hour of their birth ; the nursing child was taken from 
 the mother le.st injudicious treatment should mar, in the 
 slightest degree, the perfection of the future warrior. On 
 this point modern and ancient wisdom clasp hands, and 
 place the education of the child among the most important 
 duties of the State. The battle at present raging between 
 the advocates of " secular " and "religious" education to 
 use the cant of the day is a most natural and righteous 
 recognition of the vast interests at stake when Church or 
 State claims the right of training the sons and daughters of 
 England. No one has yet attempted to explain why it 
 should be " irreligious " to teach writing, or history, or geo- 
 graphy ; or why it should " destroy a child's soul " to im- 
 prove his mental faculties. It is among the " mysteries " of 
 the faith, why it is better for our poor to leave' them to grow 
 up in both moral and intellectual darkness, than to dissipate 
 the intellectual darkness by some few rays of knowledge, 
 and to leave the moral training to other hands. If we left 
 a starving man to die because we could only give him bread, 
 and were unable to afford cheese in addition, all would unite 
 in declaiming at our folly : but "religious" people would 
 
ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 93 
 
 rather that our street Arabs grew up both heathens and 
 t>rutes, than that we should improve their minds without 
 Christianizing their souls. Better let a lad grow up a thief 
 and a drunkard, than turn him into an artizan and a free- 
 thinker. There can scarcely be a better proof of the unrea- 
 sonableness of Christian doctrine, than the Christian fear of 
 sharpening mental faculties, without binding them down, at 
 the same time, in the chains of dogma. Only a religion 
 founded on reason can dare to train children's minds to the 
 utmost, and then leave them free to use all the power and 
 keenness acquired by that training on the investigation of 
 any religious doctrine presented to them. We, who have 
 written Tekel on the Christian faith, share in the opinion of 
 the Christian clergy, that man's carnal reason is a terrib'e 
 foe to the Christian revelation ; but here we begin to differ 
 from them, for while they regard this reason as a child of 
 the devil, to be scourged and chained down, we do homage 
 to it as to the fairest offspring of the Divine Spirit, the 
 brightest earthly reflection of His glory, and the nearest 
 image of His "Person"; we would cherish it, tend it, 
 nourish it, as our Father's noblest gift to humanity, as our 
 surest guide and best counsellor, as the ear which hears His 
 voice, and the -eye which sees Him, as the sharpest weapon 
 against superstition, the ultimate arbiter on earth between 
 right and wrong. To us, then, education is ranged on the 
 side of God ; we welcome it freely and gladly, because all 
 truth, all light, all knowledge, are foes of falsehood, of dark- 
 ness, of ignorance. If we mistake error for truth a brighter 
 light will set us right, and we only wish to be taught truth, 
 not to be proved right. 
 
 Most liberal thinkers agree in recognizing the fact that 
 the duties of the State in the matter of education must, in 
 the nature of things, be purely " secular : " that is to say, 
 that while the State insists that the future citizen shall be 
 taught at least the elements of learning, so as to fit him or 
 her for fulfilling the duties of that citizenship, it has no right 
 to insist on impressing on the mind of its pupil any set of 
 religious dogmas or any form of religious creed. The abdi- 
 cation by the State of the pretended right of enforcing on 
 its citizens any special form of religion, is not at all iden- 
 tical with the opposition by the State to religious teaching ; 
 It is merely a development of the very wise maxim of the 
 .great Jewish Teacher, to render the things of C?esar to 
 Caesar, and the things of God to God. To teach reading, 
 
94 ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 
 
 writing, honesty, regard for law, these things are Caesar's 
 duties ; to teach religious dogma, creed, or article, is en- 
 tirely the province of the teachers who claim to hold the 
 truth of God. 
 
 But my object now is not to draw the line between the 
 duties of Church and State, of school and home ; nor do I 
 wish to enter the lists of sectarian controversy, to break a 
 lance in favour of a new religious dogma. The question is 
 rather this : " What are the limits of the religious education 
 which it is wise to impose on the young ? Is any dogmatic 
 teaching to be a part of their moral training, and is the dog- 
 matism against which we have rebelled to be revived in a 
 new form ? Are the fetters which we are breaking for our- 
 selves to be welded together again for the young limbs of 
 our children ? Are they to be fed on the husks which have 
 starved our own religious aspirations, and which we have 
 analysed, and rejected as unfit to sustain our moral and 
 mental vigour ? On the other hand, are our children to 
 grow up without any religious teaching at all, without a ray of 
 that sunshine which is to most of us the very source of our 
 gladness, and the renewal of our strength ? " 
 
 I think the best way of deciding this question is to notice 
 the gradual development of the childish body and mind. 
 Nature's indications are a sure guide-post, and we cannot go 
 very far wrong in following her hints. I am now on ground 
 with which mothers are familiar, though perhaps few men 
 have watched young children with sufficient attention to be 
 able to note their gradual development. The first instincts 
 of a baby are purely personal : the " not-I " is for it non- 
 existent : food, warmth, cleanliness, comprise all its needs 
 and all our duties to it. The next stage is when the infant 
 becomes conscious of the existence of something outside 
 itself : when, vaguely and indistinctly, but yet decidedly, it 
 shows signs of observing the things around it : to cultivate 
 observation, to attract attention, slowly to guide it into dis- 
 tinguishing one object from another, are the next steps in its 
 education. The child soon succeeds in distinguishing forms, 
 and learns to attach different sounds to different shapes : it 
 is also taught to avoid some things and to play with others : 
 it awakes to the knowledge that while some objects give 
 pleasure, others give pain : so far as material things go, it 
 learns to choose the good and to avoid the evil. This 
 power is only gained by experience, and is therefore acquired 
 but gradually 3 and after a time, side by side with it, runs 
 
ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 95 
 
 another lesson ; slowly and gradually there appears a dawn- 
 ing appreciation of " right" and " wrong." This appreciation 
 is not, however, at first an appreciation of any intrinsic 
 lightness or wrongness in any given action ; it is simply 
 xi recognition on the child's part that some of its acts 
 meet with approval, others with disapproval, from 
 its elders. The standard of its seniors is unquestion- 
 ingly accepted by the child. The moral sense awakes, 
 but is completely guided in its first efforts by the hand of 
 the child's teacher, as completely as the first efforts to walk 
 are directed by the mother. Thus it comes to pass that the 
 conscience of the child is but the reflex of the conscience of 
 its parents or guardians : " right " and " wrong " in a child's 
 vocabulary are in the earliest stages equivalent to " reward " 
 and " punishment ;" its final court of appeal in cases of 
 morality is the judgment of the parent* It is perhaps 
 scarcely accurate to call this motive power in the child a 
 moral sense at all ; still, this recognition of some thing 
 which is immaterial and intangible, and which is yet to be 
 the guide of its actions, is a great step forward from the 
 simple consciousness of outer and material objects, and is 
 truly the dawn of that moral sense which becomes in men 
 and women the test of right and wrong. So far we have 
 considered the growing faculties of the child as regards 
 physical and moral development, and I particularly wish to 
 remark that the moral sense appears long before any " reli- 
 gious " tendency can be noted. There is, however, another 
 
 * The moral sense does show itself, however, in very young children, 
 in a higher form than this ; for we may often observe in a young child 
 an instinctive sense of shame at having clone wrong. But the moral 
 sense is awakened and educated by the parents' approval and disap- 
 proval. This may be proved, I think, by the fact that a child brought 
 up among thieves and evil-livers will accept their morality as a matter 
 of course, and will steal and lie habitually, without attaching to either 
 iict any idea of wrong. The moral sense is inherent in man, and is in 
 no way given by the parent ; but I think that it is first aroused and put 
 into action by the parent ; the parent accustoms the child to regard 
 certain actions as right and wrong ; this appeals to the moral sense in 
 the child, and the child very rapidly is ashamed of wrong, as wrong, 
 and not simply from dread of punishment. I would be understood to 
 mean, in the text, that the wish for reward is the first response of the 
 child to the idea of an inherent distinction between different actions ; 
 this feeling rapidly developes into the true moral sense, which regards 
 right as right, and wrong as wrong. 
 
 I append this note at the suggestion of a valued friend, who feared 
 that the inference might be drawn from the text that the moral sense 
 was implanted by the parent instead of being, as it is, the gift of God. 
 
g ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 
 
 side of the complete human character which is very impor- 
 tant, but which is slow in showing itself in any healthy child ; 
 I mean what may be called the spiritual sense, in distinction 
 from the moral ; the sense which is the crowning grace of 
 humanity, the sense which belongs wholly to the immortal 
 part of> man : the outstretched hands of the human spirit 
 groping after the Eternal Spirit ; the yearning after that 
 all-pervading Power which men call God. I know well that 
 in many precociously-pious children this spiritual sense is- 
 forced into a premature and unwholesome maturity ; by 
 means of a spiritual hot-house the summer-fruit of piety 
 may be obtained in the spring-time of the childish heart. 
 The imitative instinct of childhood quickly reproduces the 
 sentiments around it, and set phrases which meet with 
 admiration flow glibly from baby-lips. But this strongly 
 developed religious feeling in a child is both unnatural and 
 harmful, and can never, because it is unreal, produce any 
 lasting good effect. Yet is it none the less true that, at an 
 early age, differing much in different children, the " spiritual 
 sense " does show signs of awakening ; that children soon 
 begin to wonder about things around them, and to ask 
 questions which can only find their true answer in the name 
 of God. How to meet these questions, how to train this 
 growing sentiment without crushing it on the one hand, and 
 without unduly stimulating it on the other, is a source of deep 
 anxiety to many a mother's heart in the present day. They 
 are unable to tell their children the stories which satisfied their 
 own childish cravings : no longer can they hold up before the 
 eager faces the picture of the manger at Bethlehem, or dim 
 the bright eyes with the story of the cross on Calvary ; no longer 
 can they fold the little hands in prayer to the child of Nazareth, 
 or hush the hasty tongue with the reminder of the obedience 
 of the Virgin's son. To a certain extent this is a loss. A 
 child quickly seizes the concrete ; the idea of the child 
 Jesus or the man Jesus is readily grasped by a child's intel- 
 lect ; the God of the Old Testament, the "magnified man," 
 is also, though more dimly, understood. These conceptions 
 of the childhood of humanity suit the childhood of the in- 
 dividual, and it, is far more difficult for the child to realize 
 the idea of God when he is divested of these materialistic 
 garments. Yet I speak from experience when I say that it 
 is by no means impossible to train a child into the simplest 
 and happiest feelings as regards the Supreme Being, without 
 degrading the Divine into the human, By one name we 
 
ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 97 
 
 can speak of God by which He will be readily welcomed to 
 the child's heart, and that is the name of the Father. Most 
 children are keenly alive to natural beauties, and are quick 
 to observe birds, and flowers, and sunshine ; at times 
 they will ask how these things come there, and then 
 it is well to tell them that they are the works of God 
 Thus the child's first notions of the existence of a Power 
 he cannot see or feel will come to him clothed in the 
 things he loves, and will be free from any suggestion of fear.* 
 Even those who regard God from the stand-point of Pan- 
 theism may use natural objects so as to train the child into 
 a fearless and happy recognition of the constant working of 
 the Spirit of Nature, and so guard the young mind against 
 that shrinking from, and terror of God, which popular Chris- 
 tianity is so apt to induce. The lad or girl who grows up 
 with even the habit of regarding God as the calm and 
 mighty motive-power of the forces of Nature, changeless, 
 infinite, absolutely trustworthy, will be slow to accept in 
 later life the crude conceptions which incarnate the creative 
 power in a virgin's womb, and ascribe caprice, injustice, and 
 cruelty to the mighty Spirit of the Universe. 
 
 There is a deep truth in the idea of Pantheism, that 
 " Nature is an apparition of the Deity, God in a mask ;" 
 that " He is the light of the morning, the beauty of the 
 noon, and the strength of the sun. . . He is the One, the 
 All. . . The soul of all; more moving than motion, more 
 stable than rest ; fairer than beauty, and stronger than 
 strength. The power of Nature is God. . . He is the All ; 
 the Reality of all phenomena." The child fed on this food 
 will have scarcely anything to unlearn, even when he begins 
 to believe that God is something more than Nature ; " the 
 created All is the symbol of God," and he will pass easily and 
 naturally on from seeing God in Nature to see Him in a 
 higher form. 
 
 Of course, as a Theist, I should myself go much further 
 than this : I should speak of all natural glory as but the 
 reflection of the Deity, or as the robe in which He veils 
 His infinite beauty ; I should bid my children rejoice in all 
 
 * The ordinary shrinking of a child from the idea of a Presence whicb. 
 he cannot see, but which sees him, will not be felt by children whose 
 only ideas about God are that He is the Father from whose hand come 
 all beautiful things. In any home where the parents' thoughts of God 
 are free from doubt and mistrust, the children's thoughts will be the 
 same ; religion, in their eyes, will be synonymous with happiness, foe 
 God and good will be convertible terms. 
 
 F 
 
98 ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 
 
 happiness as in the gift of a Father who delights in sharing 
 His joy with His creatures ; I should point out that the 
 pain caused by ignorance of, or by breaking natural laws, is 
 God's way of teaching men obedience for their own ultimate 
 good : in the freedom and fulness of Nature's gifts I should 
 teach them to see the equal love of God for all ; through 
 marking that in Nature's visible kingdom no end can be 
 gained without labour and without using certain laws, they 
 should learn that in the invisible kingdom they need not 
 expect to find favouritism, nor think to share the fruits of 
 victory without patient toil. To all who believe in a God 
 who is also the Father of Spirits such teaching as this comes 
 easily ; as they themselves learn of God only through His 
 works, so they naturally teach their children to seek Him in 
 the same way. 
 
 The questions, so familiar to every mother, " Can God see 
 me?" "Where is God?" can only be met with the simple 
 assertion that God sees all, and is everywhere. For there 
 are many childish questions which it is wisest to meet with 
 statements which are above the grasp of the childish mind. 
 These statements may be simply given to the child as state- 
 ments which it is too young either to question or to under- 
 stand. Nothing is gained by trying to smooth down spiritual 
 subjects to the level of a child's capacity ; the time will come 
 later when the child must meet and answer for itself all great 
 spiritual questions ; the parent's care should be to remove all 
 hindrances from the child's path of inquiry, but not to give 
 it cut-and-dried answers to every possible question ; religion, 
 to be worth anything, must be a personal matter, and each 
 must find it out for himself; the wise parent will endeavour 
 to save the child from the pain of unlearning, by giving but 
 little formal religious teaching ; he cannot fight the battle for 
 his child, but he can prevent his being crippled by a fancied 
 armour which will stifle rather than protect him ; he can 
 give a few wide principles to direct him, without weighing 
 him down with guide-books. 
 
 But even the most general ideas of God should not be 
 forced on a childish mind ; they should come, so to speak, 
 by chance ; they should be presented in answer to some 
 demand of the child's heart ; they should be inculcated by 
 stray words and passing remarks ; they should form the 
 atmosphere surrounding the child habitually, and not be a 
 sudden " wind of doctrine." Of course all this is far more 
 troublesome than to teach a child a catechism or a creed, 
 
ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 99 
 
 but it is a far higher training. Dogma, i.e., conviction 
 petrified by authority, should be utterly excluded from the 
 religious education of children ; a few great axiomatic truths 
 may be laid down, but even in these primary truths dog- 
 matism should be avoided. The parent should always take 
 care to make it' apparent that he is stating his own convic- 
 tions, but is not enforcing them on the child by his authority. 
 So far as the child is capable of appreciating them, the reasons 
 for the religious conviction should be presented along with 
 the conviction itself. Thus the child will see, as he grows 
 older, that religion cannot be learned by rote, that it is not 
 shut up in a book, or contained in creeds ; he will appre- 
 ciate the all-important fact that free inquiry is the only air 
 in which truth can breathe ; that one man's faith cannot 
 justly be imposed on another, and that every individual 
 soul has the privilege and the responsibility of forming his 
 own religion, and must either hear God with his own ears, 
 or else not hear Him at all. 
 
 We have noticed that the moral sense awakes before the 
 religious (I must state my repugnance to these terms, 
 although I use them for the sake of clearness ; but morality 
 &' religion, although religion is more than morality, and the 
 so-called religion which is not morality is worthless and hate- 
 ful). There remains then to consider what we will call the 
 second side of religion, although it is by far its most im- 
 portant side. True religion consists not only in feelings 
 towards God, but also in duties towards men : the first, 
 noble and blessed as they are, should, in every healthy 
 religion, give place to the second ; for a morally good man 
 who does not believe in God at all, is in a far higher state 
 of being than the man who believes in God and is selfish, 
 cruel or unjust. Error in faith is forgiveable ; error in life 
 is fatal. The good man shall surely see God, although, for 
 a time, his eyes be holden ; the evil man, though he hold 
 the noblest faith yet known, shall never taste the joy of God, 
 until he turns from sin, and struggles after holiness. Faith 
 first, and then morality, is the war-cry of the churches ; 
 morality above all, and let faith follow in good time, is the 
 watch-word of Theism ; so, among us, the principal part of 
 the religious training of our children should be morality ; 
 religious feeling may be over-strained, or give rise to self- 
 deception ; religious talk may be morbid and unreal ; 
 religious faith may be erring, and must be imperfect ; but 
 morality is a rock which can never be shaken, a guide which 
 
 F 2 
 
IfftfO ON TME RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 
 
 can never mislead. Whether we are right or wrong in our 
 belief about God, whether we are immortal spirits or perish- 
 able organizations, yet purity is nobler than vice, courage 
 than cowardice, truth than falsehood, love than hate. Let 
 us, then, teach our children morality above all things. Let 
 us teach them to love good for its own sake, without thought 
 0f reward, and they will remain good, even if, in after life, 
 they should, alas ! lose all hope of immortality and all faith 
 m God. A child's natural instinct is towards good ; a tale 
 of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of generosity, will bring the 
 eager blood flushing up to a child's face and wake a quick 
 response and a desire of emulation. It is therefore well to 
 place in children's hands tales of noble deeds in days gone 
 by. Nothing is easier than to train a child into feeling a 
 desire to be good for the sake of being so. There is some- 
 thing so attractive in goodness, that I have found it more 
 effectual to hold up the nobility of courage and unselfishness 
 before the child's eyes, than to descend to punishment for 
 the corresponding faults. If a child is in the habit of regard- 
 ing all wrong as something low and degrading, he quickly 
 shrinks from it ; all mothers know the instinctive ambition 
 of children to be something superior and admirable, and 
 this instinct is most useful in inculcating virtue. Later in 
 1'ife nothing ruins a young man like discovering that morality 
 and religion are often divorced, and that the foremost pro- 
 fessors of religion are less delicately honourable and trust- 
 worthy than high-minded "worldly men;" on the other 
 hand, nothing will have so beneficial an effect on men and 
 women entering life, as to see that those who are most joyful 
 }n their faith towards God, lead the purest and most blame- 
 iess lives. "Do good, be good "is, as has been well said, 
 the golden rule of life ; " do good, be good " must be the 
 law impressed on our children's hearts. Whatever " eclipse 
 f faith " may await England, whatever darkness of most 
 hopeless scepticism, whatever depth of uttermost despair of 
 God, there is not only the hope, but the certainty of the 
 resurrection of religion, if we all hold fast through the 
 driving storm to the sheet-anchor of pure morality, to most 
 faithful discharge of all duty towards man, to love, and 
 tenderness, and charity, and patience. Morality never 
 faileth; but, whether there be dogmas, they shall fail; 
 whether there be creeds, they shall cease; whether there be 
 churches, they shall crumble away ; but morality shall abide 
 for evermore and endure as long as the endless circle of 
 Nature revolves around the Eternal Throne. 
 
NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 VERSUS 
 
 REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 ONE is almost ashamed to repeat so trite an aphorism as 
 the well-worn saying that " history repeats itself." But 
 in studying the course taken by the advocates of what is 
 called " revealed religion," in seeing their disdain of " mere 
 nature," their scornful repudiation of the idea that any poor 
 natural product can come into competition with their special 
 article, hall-stamped by heaven itself, I feel irresistibly com- 
 pelled to glance backwards down the long vista of history, 
 and there I see the conflict of the present day raging fierce 
 and long. I see the same serried ranks of orthodoxy mar- 
 shalled by bishops and priests, arrayed in all the splendour 
 of prescriptive right, armed with mighty weapons of autho- 
 rity and thunderbolts of Church anathemas. Their war- 
 cry is the same as that which rings in our ears to-day ; <% re- 
 velation " is inscribed on their banners and " infallible 
 authority " is the watchword of their camp. The Church 
 is facing nature for the first time, and is setting her revealed 
 science against natural science. " Mere Nature " is tem- 
 porarily getting the worst of it, and Galileo, Nature's cham- 
 pion, is sorely pressed by " revealed truth." I hear scornful 
 taunts at his presumption in attacking revealed science by 
 his pretended natural facts. Had they not God's Own ac- 
 count of His creation, and did he pretend to know more 
 about the matter than God Himself? Was he present when 
 God created the world, that he spoke so positively about its 
 shape ? Could he declare, of his own personal knowledge, 
 that it was sent hurtling through space in the ridiculous 
 manner he talked about, and could he, by the evidence of 
 
102 NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 his own eye-sight, declare that God was mistaken when He 
 revealed to man how He " laid the foundation of the earth 
 that it never should move at anytime?" But if he was only 
 reasoning from the wee bit of earth he knew, was he not 
 speaking of things he had not seen, being vainly puffed-up 
 in his fleshly mind ? Was it probable, a priori, that God 
 would allow mankind to be deceived for thousands of years 
 on so important a matter ; would in fact God forgive it !: 
 deceive man Himself by revealing through His holy 
 prophets an account of His creation which was utterly 
 untrue ; nay, further, would carry on the delusion for cen- 
 tury after century, by working miracles in support of it for 
 what but a miracle could make men unconscious of the fact 
 that they were being hurried through space at so tremendous 
 a rate ? Surely very little reverence, or rather no reverence 
 at all, \vas needed to allow that God the Holy Ghost, who* 
 inspired the Bible, knew better than we did how He made 
 the world. But, the theologian proceeds, he must remind 
 his audience that, under the specious pretext of investigating 
 the creation, this man, this pseudo-scientist, was in reality 
 blaspheming the Creator, by contradicting His revealed 
 word, and thus " making Him a liar." It was all very well 
 to talk about natural science ; but he would ask this pre- 
 suming speculator, what was the use of God revealing science 
 to us if man's natural faculties were sufficient to discover it 
 for himself? They had sufficient proofs of the absurdities 
 of science into which reason, unenlightened by revelation,. 
 had betrayed men in past ages. The idea of the Hindoo, 
 that the world rested on an elephant and the elephant on a 
 tortoise, was a sad proof of the incapacity of the acutesfc 
 natural intellect to discover scientific truth without the aid 
 of revelation. Reason had its place, and a very noble place,, 
 in science ; but it must always bow before revelation, and 
 not presume to set its puny guesses against a " thus saith 
 the Lord." Let reason, then, pursue its way with belief, not 
 unbelief, for its guide. What could reason, with all its 
 vaunted powers, tell us of the long-past creation of the 
 world ? Eye hath not seen those things of ages past, but 
 God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit. A darkness 
 that might be felt would enshroud the origin of the world 
 were it not for the magnificent revelation of Moses, that " in 
 six days God created the heaven and the earth." He might 
 urge how our conceptions of God were enlarged and ele- 
 vated, and what a deep awe filled the adoring heart on con- 
 
versus REVEALED RELIGION. 103 
 
 templating the revealed truth, that this wonderful earth 
 with its varied beauty, and the heavens above with their 
 countless stars, were all called forth out of nothing within 
 the space of one short week by the creative fiat of 
 the Almighty. What could this pseudo-science give 
 them in exchange for such a revelation as that ? Was it 
 probable, further, that God would have become incarnate 
 for the sake of a world that was only one out of many 
 revolving round the sun? How irreverent to regard the 
 theatre of that awful sacrifice as aught less than the centre 
 of the universe, the cynosure of angelic eyes, gazing from 
 their thrones in the heaven above ! Galileo might say that 
 his heresy does not affect the primary truths of our holy 
 faith ; but this is only one of the evasions natural to evil- 
 doers and it is unnecessary to remark that intellectual 
 error is invariably the offspring of moral guilt for consider 
 how much is involved in his theory. The inspiration of 
 Scripture receives its death-blow ; for if fallible in one point, 
 we have no reason to conclude it to be infallible in others. 
 If there is one fact revealed to us more clearly than another 
 in Holy Scripture, it is this one of the steadfastness of our 
 world, which we are distinctly told, " cannot be moved." 
 It is plainly revealed to us that the earth was created and 
 fixed firmly on its foundations ; that then there was formed 
 over it the vast vault of heaven, in which were set the stars, 
 and in this vault was prepared " the course " for the sun, 
 spoken of, as you will remember, in the i9th Psalm, where 
 holy David reveals to us that in the heavens God has made 
 a tabernacle for the sun, which " goeth forth from the utter- 
 most part of the heaven, and runneth about unto the end of 
 it again." Language has no definiteness of meaning if this 
 inspired declaration can be translated into a statement that 
 the sun remains stationary and is encircled by a revolving 
 earth. This great revealed truth cannot be contradicted by 
 any true science. God's works cannot contradict His word; 
 and if for a moment they appear mutually irreconcileable, 
 we may be sure that our ignorance is to blame, and that a 
 deeper knowledge will ultimately remove the apparent in- 
 consistency. But it is yet more important to observe that 
 some of the cardinal doctrines of the Church are assailed by 
 this novel teaching. How could our blessed Redeemer, 
 after accomplishing the work of our salvation, ascend from 
 a revolving earth? Whither did He go? North, south, 
 east, or west ? For, if I understand aright this new heresy, 
 
1O4 NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 the space above us at one time is below us at another, and 
 thus Jesus might be actually descending at His glorious 
 Ascension. Where, too, is that Right Hand of God to which 
 He went, in this new universe without top or bottom ? How 
 can we hope to rise and meet Him in the air at His return, 
 according to the most sure promise given to us through the 
 blessed Paul, if He comes we know not from what direction ? 
 How can the lightning of His coming shine at once all 
 round a globe to herald His approach, or how can the 
 people at the other side of the world see the sign of the Son 
 of Man in the heavens ? But I cannot bring myself to accu- 
 mulate these blasphemies; all must see that the most 
 glorious truths of the Bible are bound up with its science, 
 and must stand or fall together. And if this is so, and this 
 so-called natural science is to be allowed to undermine the 
 revealed science, what have we got to rely upon in this world 
 or in the next ? With the absolute truth of the Bible stands 
 or falls our faith in God and our hope of immortality ; on 
 the truth of revelation hinges all morality, and they who 
 deny to-day the truth of revealed science will tamper to- 
 morrow with the truth of revealed history, of revealed 
 morality, of revealed religion. Shall we, then, condescend 
 to accept natural science instead of revealed ; shall we, the 
 teachers of revelation, condescend to abandon revealed 
 science, and become the mere teachers of nature ? 
 
 Thunders of applause greeted the right reverend theolo- 
 gian as he concluded he happened to be a bishop, the 
 direct ancestor in regular apostolical succession of a late 
 prelate who inherited among other valuable qualities the 
 very argument which closed the speech above quoted and 
 Galileo, the foolish believer in facts and the heretical student 
 of mere nature, turned away with a sigh from trying to con- 
 vince them, and contented himself with the fact he knew, 
 and which must surely announce itself in the long run. E 
 fur si inuove ! Fear not, noble martyr of science : facts 
 alter not to suit theologies : many a one may fall crushed 
 and vanquished before "the Juggernaut-car of the Church, 
 but " God does not die with His children, nor truth with its 
 martyrs ; " the natural is the divine, for Nature is only " God 
 in a mask." So, looking down at that first great battle-field 
 between nature and revelation I see the serried ranks break 
 up and fly, and the excommunicated student become the 
 prophet of the future, Galileo the seer, the revealer of the truth 
 of God. 
 
versus REVEALED RELIGION. 105 
 
 It is eternally true that nature must triumph in the long 
 run. Theories are very imposing, doubtless, but when they 
 Are erected on a misconception the inexorable fact is sure 
 to assert itself sooner or later, and with pitiless serenity level 
 the magnificent fabric with the dust. It is this which gives 
 to scientific men so grave and calm an atiitude ; theologians 
 wrangle fiercely and bitterly because they wrangle about 
 opinions^ and one man's say is as good as another's 
 where both deal in intangibles ; but the man of science, 
 when absolutely sure of his ground, can afford to 
 wait, because the fact he has discovered remains un- 
 shaken, however it be assailed, and it will, in time, assert 
 itself. When nature and revelation then come into con- 
 tact, revelation must go to the wall ; no outcry can save 
 it ; it is doomed ; as well try and dam the rising Thames 
 with a feather, as seek to bolster up a theology whose 
 main dogmas are being slowly undermined by natural 
 science. Of course no one nowadays (at least among edu- 
 cated people, for Zadkiel's Almanac I believe still protests 
 on Biblical grounds against the heresy of the motion of the 
 earth) dreams of maintaining Bible, i.e., revealed, science 
 against natural science ; it is agreed on all hands that on 
 points where science speaks with certainty the words of the 
 Bible must be explained so as to accord with the dictum of 
 nature ; i.e., it is allowed though the admission is wrapped 
 up in thick folds of circumlocution that science must 
 mould revelation, and not revelation science. The desperate 
 attempts to force the first chapter of Genesis into some faint 
 resemblance to the ascertained results of geological in- 
 vestigations are a powerful testimony to the conscious weak- 
 ness of revealed science and to the feeling on the part of all 
 intelligent theologians that the testimony graven with an 
 iron pen on the rocks cannot be contradicted or refuted. 
 In fact so successfully has science asserted its own pre- 
 eminence in its own domain that many defenders of the 
 Bible assert loudly, to cover their strategic movement to the 
 rear, that revelation was not intended to teach science, and 
 that scientific mistakes were only to be expected in a book 
 given to mankind by the great Origin of all scientific law. 
 They are freely welcome to find out any reasons they like 
 for the errors in revealed science ; all that concerns us is 
 that their revelation should get out of the way 'of advancing 
 science, and should no longer interpose its puny anathemas 
 to silence inquiry into facts, or to fetter free research and 
 free discussion. 
 
I06 NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 But I challenge revelation further than this, and assert that 
 when the dictates of natural religion are in opposition to those 
 of revealed religion, then the natural must again triumph 
 over the revealed. Christianity has so long successfully 
 impressed on human hearts the revelation that natural; 
 impulses are in themselves sinful, that in "the flesh 
 dwelleth no good thing," that man is a fallen creature, 
 thoroughly corrupt and instinctively evil, that it has come to- 
 pass that even those who would be liberal if they dared, 
 shrink back when it comes to casting away their revelation- 
 crutches, and ask wildly what they can trust to if they give 
 up the Bible. Their teachers tell them that if they let this 
 go they will wander compassless on the waves of a pathless 
 ocean ; and so determinedly do they fix their eyes on the 
 foaming waters, striving to discern there the trace of a path- 
 way and only seeing the broken reflections of the waving, 
 torches in their hands, that they do not raise their heads and 
 gaze upwards at the everlasting stars, the silent natural 
 guides of the^ewildered mariner. " Trust to mere nature !"" 
 exclaim the priesthood, and their flocks fall back aghast, 
 clutching their revelation to their bosom and crying out : 
 "What indeed is there to rely on if this be taken from 
 us?" Only God. "Mere" God indeed, who is a very 
 feeble support after the bolstering up of creeds and dogmas,, 
 of Churches and Bibles. As the sunshine dazzles eyes- 
 accustomed to the darkness, as the fresh wind makes shiver 
 an invalid from a heated room, so does the light of God 
 dazzle those who live amid the candles of the Churches, and 
 the breath of His inspiration blows cold on feeble souls. But 
 the light and the air invigorate and strengthen, and nature 
 is a surer medicine than the nostrums of the quack physi- 
 cian. 
 
 " Mere " God is, in very truth, all that we Theists have 
 to offer the world in exchange for the certainties of its: 
 Bibles, Korans, Vedas, and all other revelations whatso- 
 ever. On points where they each speak with certainty, our 
 lips are dumb. About much they assert, we confess our 
 ignorance. Where they know, we only think or hope. 
 W 7 here they possess all the clearness of a sign-post, our eyes 
 can only study the mistiness of a valley before the rising sun 
 has dispelled the wreathing clouds. They proclaim 
 immortality, and are quite au fait as to the particulars of 
 our future life. They differ in details, it is true, as to whether 
 we live in a jewelled city, where the dust is gold-dust and 
 
versus REVEALED RELIGIDN. 137 
 
 the gates pearls, and spend our time in attending Sacred 
 Harmonic Societies with an archangelic Costa directing 
 perpetual oratorios, or whether we lie in rose-embowered 
 arbours with delights unlimited, albeit unintellectual ; but if 
 we take them one at a time they are most satisfactory in the 
 .absolute information afforded by each. But we, we can 
 only, whisper and the lips of some of us quiver too much 
 to speak " I believe in the life everlasting." We do not 
 pretend to know anything about it ; the belief is intuitive, 
 but is not demonstrable ; it is a hope and a trust, not an 
 absolute knowledge. We entertain a reasonable hope of 
 immortality ; we argue its likelihood from considerations of 
 the justice and the love which, as we believe, rule the 
 universe ; we, many of us as I freely confess I do myself 
 Relieve in it with a firmness of conviction absolutely im- 
 movable ; but challenged to prove it, we cannot answer. 
 "Here," the revelationists triumphantly exclaim, "is our 
 advantage ; we foretell with absolute certainty a future life, 
 and can give you all particulars about it." Then follows a 
 confused jumble of harps and houris, of pasture-field and 
 hunting-grounds ; we seek for certainty and find none. All 
 that they agree in, i.e., a future life, we find imprinted on our 
 own hearts, a dictate of natural religion ; all they differ in is 
 contained in their several revelations, and as they all con- 
 tradict each other about the revealed details, we gain nothing 
 from them. Nature whispers to us that there is a life to 
 come ; revelation babbles a number of contradictory par- 
 ticulars, marring the majesty of the simple promise, and 
 adding nothing reliable to the sum of human knowledge. 
 And the subject of immortality is a fair specimen of what is 
 taught respectively by nature and by revelation; what is 
 common to all creeds is natural, what is different in each is 
 revealed. It is so with respect to God. The idea of God 
 belongs to all creeds alike ; it is the foundation-stone of 
 natural religion ; confusion begins when revelation steps in 
 to change the musical whisper of Nature into a categorical 
 description worthy of " Hangnail's Questions." Triune, 
 solitary, dual, numberless, whatever He is revealed to be in 
 the world's varied sacred books, His nature is understood, 
 catalogued, dogmatised on ; each revelation claims to be 
 His own account of Himself; but each contradicts its 
 fellows ; on one point only they all agree, and that is the 
 point confessed by natural religion "God is." 
 
 From these facts I deduce two conclusions: first, that 
 
I08 NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 revelation does not come to us with such a certainty of its 
 truth as to enable us to trust it fearlessly and without 
 reserve ; second, that revelation is quite superfluous, since 
 natural religion gives us every thing we need. 
 
 I. Revelation gives an uncertain sound. There are 
 certain books in the world which claim to stand on a higher 
 ground than all others. They claim to be special revelations 
 of the will of God and the destiny of man. Now surely 
 one of the first requisites of a Divine revelation is that it 
 should be undoubtedly of Divine origin. But about all 
 these books, except the Koran of Mahomet, hangs much 
 obscurity both as regards their origin and their authorship. 
 "Believers" urge that were the proofs undoubted there 
 would be no room for faith and no merit in believing. 
 They conceive it, then, to be a worthy employment for the 
 Supreme Intelligence to set traps for His creatures ; and, 
 there being certain facts of the greatest importance, undis- 
 coverable by their natural faculties, He proceeds to reveal 
 these facts, but envelopes them in such wrappings of 
 mystery, such garments of absurdity, that those of His 
 creatures whom he has dowered with intellects and gifted 
 with subtle brains, are forced to reject the whole as 
 incredible and unreasonable. That God should give a 
 revelation, but should not substantiate it, that He should 
 speak, but in tones unintelligible, that His noblest gifts of 
 reason should prove an insuperable bar to accepting his 
 manifestation, are surely statements incredible, are surely 
 statements utterly irreconcileable with all reverent ideas 
 of the love and wisdom of Almighty God. Further, 
 the believers in the various revelations all claim for their 
 several oracles the supreme position of the exponent 
 of the Will of God, and each rejects the sacred books 
 of other nations as spurious productions, without any 
 Divine authority. As these revelations are mutually des- 
 tructive, it is evident that only one of them, at the most^ 
 can be Divine, and the next point of the inquiry is to 
 distinguish which this is. We, of the Western nations, at 
 once put aside the Hindoo Vedas, or the Zendavesta, on 
 certain solid grounds ; we reject their claims to be inspired 
 books because they contain error; their mistaken science, 
 their legendary history, their miraculous stories, stamp them, 
 in our impartial eyes, as the work of fallible men ; the nine- 
 teenth century looks down on thc-e ancient writings as the 
 instructed and cultured man smiles at the crude fancies and 
 
versus REVEALED RELIGION. 109 
 
 imaginative conceits of the child. But when the generality 
 of Christians turn to the Bible they lay aside all ordinary 
 criticism and all common-sense. Its science may be absurd" 
 but excuses are found for it. Its history may be false, 
 but it is twisted into truth. Its supernatural marvels may 
 be flagrantly absurd ; but they are nevertheless believed in. 
 Men who laugh at the visions of the "blessed Margaret" osf 
 Paray-le-Monial assent to the devil-drowning of the swine 
 of Gadara ; and those who would scorn to investigate the 
 tale of the miraculous spring at Lourdes, find no difficulty 
 in believing the story of the angel-moved waters of 
 Bethesda's pool. A book which contains miracles is usually 
 put aside as unreliable. There is no good reason for 
 excepting the Bible from this general rule. Miracles are 
 absolutely incredible, and discredit at once any book in 
 which they occur. They are found in all revelations, but 
 never in nature, they are plentiful in man's writings, but 
 they never deface the orderly pages of the great book of 
 God, written by His own Hand on the earth, and the stars, 
 and the sun. Powers ? Yes. beyond our grasping, but 
 Powers moving in stately order and changeless consistency. 
 Marvels ? Yes, beyond our imagining, but marvels evolved 
 by immutable laws. Revelation is incredible, not only 
 because it fails to bring proof of its truth, but because the 
 proofs abound of its falsehood ; it claims to be Divine, and 
 we reject it because we test it by what we know of His un- 
 doubted works, for men can write books of Him and call 
 them His revelations, but the frame of nature can only be 
 the work of that mighty Power which man calls God. 
 Revelation depicts Him as changeable, nature as immutable :; 
 revelation tells us of perfection marred, nature of imperfec- 
 tion improving ; revelation speaks of a Trinity, nature of one 
 mighty central Force ; revelation relates interferences, 
 miracles, nature unbroken sequences, inviolable law. If we 
 accept revelation we must believe in a God Who made man 
 upright but could not keep him so ; Who heard in his far- 
 off heaven the wailing of His earth and came down to see 
 if things were as bad as was reported; Who had a face which 
 brought death, but Whose hinder parts were visible to man:; 
 Who commanded and accepted human sacrifice ; Who was 
 jealous, revengeful, capricious, vain ; Who tempted one king 
 and then punished him for yielding, hardened the heart of 
 another and then punished him for not yielding, deceived a 
 third and thereby drew him to his death. But nature does 
 
IIO NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 not so outrage our morality and trample on our hearts ; only 
 we learn of a power and wisdom unspeakable, " mightily and 
 sweetly ordering all things," and our hearts tell of a Father 
 and a Friend, infinitely loving, and trustworthy, and good. 
 The God of Nature and the God of Revelation are as 
 opposed as Ormuzd and Ahriman, as darkness and light ; 
 the Bible and the universe are not writ by the same hand. 
 
 II. Revelation then being so utterly untrustworthy, it is 
 satisfactory to discover, secondly, that it is perfectly super- 
 fluous. 
 
 All man needs for his guidance in this world he can gain 
 through the use of his natural faculties, and the right guid- 
 ance of his conduct in this world must, in all reasonable- 
 ness, be the best preparation for whatever lies beyond the 
 grave. Revelationists assure us that without their books we 
 should have no rules of morality, and that without the Bible 
 man's moral obligations would be unknown. Their theory 
 is that only through revelation can man know right from 
 wrong. Using the word " revelation " in a different sense 
 most Theists would agree with them, and would allow that 
 man's perception of duty is a ray which falls on him from 
 the Righteousness of God, and that man's morality is due to 
 the illumination of the inspiring Father of Light. Person- 
 ally, I believe that God does teach morality to man, and is, 
 in very deed, the Inspirer of all gracious and noble thoughts 
 and acts. I believe that the source of all morality in man 
 is the Universal Spirit dwelling in the spirits He has formed, 
 and moving them to righteousness, and, as they answer to 
 His whispers by active well-doing speaking ever in louder 
 and clearer accents. I believe also that the most obedient 
 followers of that inner voice gain clearer and loftier views of 
 duty and of the Holiest, and thus become true prophets of 
 God, revealers of His will to their fellows. And this is 
 revelation in a very real sense ; it is God revealing Himself 
 by the natural working of moral laws, even as all science is 
 a true revelation, and is God revealing Himself by the 
 natural working of physical laws. For laws are modes of 
 action, and modes of action reveal the nature and character 
 of the actor, so that every law, physical and moral, which is 
 discovered by truth-seekers and proclaimed to the world is a 
 direct and trustworthy revelation of God Himself. But 
 when Theists speak thus of " revelation " using the word as 
 rightfully applicable to all discoveries and all nobly written 
 religious or scientific books, it is manifest that the word has 
 
versus REVEALED RELIGION. m 
 
 entirely changed its signification, and is applied to " natural "" 
 and not " supernatural " results. We believe in God work- 
 ing through natural faculties in a natural way, while the 
 revelationists believe in some non-natural communication, 
 made no one knows how, no one knows where, no one knows 
 to whom. 
 
 Where opposing theories are concerned an ounce of fact 
 outweighs pounds of assertion ; and so against the statement 
 of Christians, that morality is derived only from the Bible 
 and is undiscoverable by " man's natural faculties," I quote 
 the morality of natural religion, unassisted by what they 
 claim as their special "revelation." 
 
 Buddha, as he lived 700 years before Christ, can hardly be 
 said to have drawn his morality from that of Jesus or even 
 to have derived any indirect benefit from Christian teaching, 
 and yet I have been gravely told by a Church of England 
 clergyman who ought to have known better that forgive- 
 ness of injuries and charity were purely Christian virtues. 
 This heathen Buddha, lighted only by natural reason and a 
 pure heart, teaches : " a man who foolishly does me wrong 
 I will return to him the protection of my ungrudging love ; 
 the more evil comes from him the more good shall go from 
 me ; " among principal virtues are : " to repress lust and 
 banish desire ; to be strong without being rash ; to bear 
 insult without anger ; to move in the world without setting 
 the heart on it ; to investigate a matter to the very bottom ; 
 to save men by converting them ; to be the same in heart 
 and life." " Let a man overcome evil by good, anger by 
 love, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth. For hatred 
 does not cease by hatred at any time ; hatred ceases by love ; 
 this is an old rule." He inculcates purity, charity, self- 
 sacrifice, courtesy, and earnestly recommends personal 
 search after truth : " do not believe in guesses in assuming - 
 something at hap-hazard as a starting-point reckoning your 
 two and your three and your four before you have fixed your 
 number one. Do not believe in the truth of that to which 
 you have become attached by habit, as every nation believes 
 in the superiority of its own dress and ornaments and lan- 
 guage. Do not believe merely because you have heard, but 
 when of your own consciousness you know a thing to be 
 evil abstain from it. Methinks these sayings of Buddha are 
 unsurpassed by any revealed teaching, and contain quite as 
 noble and lofty a morality as the Sermon on the Mount, 
 " natural " as they are. 
 
112 NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 Plato, also, teaches a noble morality and soars into ideas 
 about the Divine Nature as pure and elevated as any which 
 are to be found in the Bible. The summary of his teach- 
 ing, quoted by Mr. Lake in a pamphlet of Mr. Scott's 
 series, is a glorious testimony to the worth of natural religion. 
 " It is better to die than to sin. It is better to suffer wrong 
 than to do it. The true happiness of man consists in 
 being united to God, and his only misery in being sepa- 
 rated from Him. There is one God, and we ought to 
 love and serve Him, and to endeavour to resemble Him in 
 holiness and righteousness." Plato saw also the great truth 
 that suffering is not the result of an evil power, but is a 
 necessary training to good, and he anticipates the very words 
 of Paul if indeed Paul does not quote from Plato- that 
 " to the just man all things work together for good, whether 
 in life or death." Plato lived 400 years before Christ, and 
 yet in the face of such teaching as his and Buddha's, and 
 they are only two out of many Christians fling at us the 
 taunt that we, rejectors of the Bible, draw r all our morality 
 from it, and that without this one revelation the world would 
 lie in moral darkness, ignorant of truth and righteousness 
 and God. But the light of God's revealing shines still upon 
 the world, even as the sunlight streams upon it steadfastly as 
 of old ; " it is not given to a few men in the infancy of man- 
 kind to monopolise inspiration and to bar God out of the 
 soul. . . . Wherever a heart beats with love, where Faith 
 and Reason utter their oracles, there also is God, as formerly 
 in the heart of seers and prophets."* 
 
 It is a favourite threat of the' priesthood to any inquiring 
 spirit: "If you give up Christianity you give up all cer- 
 tainty ; rationalism speaks with no certain sound ; no two 
 rationalists think alike ; the word rationalism covers every- 
 thing outside Christianity, from Unitarianism to the blankest 
 atheism ;" and many a timid soul starts back, feeling that if 
 this is true it is better to rest where it is, and inquire no 
 more. To such and I meet many such I would suggest 
 oxe very simple thought : does " Christianity " give any 
 more certainty than rationalism ? Just try asking your 
 mentor, '''whose Christianity am I to accept?" He will 
 stammer out, " Oh, the teaching of the Bible, of course." 
 But persevere : " As explained by whom ? for all claim to 
 found their Christianity on the Bible : am I to accept the 
 
 * Thecclcre Parker. 
 
versus REVEALED RELIGION. 113 
 
 defined logical Christianity of Pius IX., defiant of history, 
 of science, of common sense, or shall I sit under Spurgeon, 
 the denunciator, and flee from the scarlet woman and the 
 cup of her fascinations : shall I believe the Christianity of 
 Dean Stanley, instinct with his own gracious, kindly spirit, 
 cultured and polished, pure and loving, or shall I fly from 
 it as a sweet but insidious poison, as I am exhorted to do 
 by Dr. Pusey, who rails at his ' variegated language which 
 destroys all definiteness of meaning.' For pity's sake, good 
 father, label for me the various bottles of Christian medicine, 
 that I may know which is healing to the soul, which may be 
 touched with caution, as for external application, and which are 
 rank poison." All the priest will find to answer is, that "un- 
 der sad diversities of opinion there are certain saving truths 
 common to all forms of Christianity," but he will object to 
 particularise what they are, and at this stage will wax angry 
 and refuse to argue with anyone who shows a spirit so carping 
 and so conceited. There is the same diversity in rationalism 
 as in Christianity, because human nature is diverse, but 
 there is also one bond between all freethinkers, one " great 
 saving truth " of rationalism, one article of faith, and that 
 is, that "free inquiry is the right of every human soul;" 
 diverse in much, we all agree in this, and so strong is this 
 bond that we readily welcome any thinker, however we 
 disagree with his thoughts, provided only that he think 
 themhonestly and allow to all the liberty of holding their 
 own opinions also. We are bound together in one com- 
 mon hatred of Dogmatism, one common love of liberty of 
 thought and speech. 
 
 It is probably a puzzle to good and unlearned Christians 
 whence men, unenlightened by revelation, drew and still 
 draw their morality. We answer, " from mere Nature, and 
 that because Nature and not revelation is the true basis of 
 all morality." We have seen the untrustworthiness of all so- 
 called revelations ; but when we fall back on Nature we are 
 on firm ground. Theists start in their search after God from 
 their well-known axiom : " If there be a God at all He must 
 be at least as good as His highest creature ; " and they argue 
 that what is highest and noblest and most lovable in man 
 must be below, but cannot be above, the height and the 
 nobleness and the loveableness of God. " Of all impossible 
 thing, the most impossible must surely be that a man should 
 dream something of the Good and the Noble, and that it 
 sruyild prove at last that his Creator was less good and less 
 
114 NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 noble than he had dreamed.''* " The ground on which our 
 belief in God rests is Man. Man, parent of Bibles and 
 Churches, inspirer of all good thoughts and good deeds. 
 Man, the master-piece of God's work on earth. Man, the 
 text-book of all spiritual knowledge. Neither miraculous or 
 infallible, Man is nevertheless the only trustworthy record of 
 the Divine mind in things pertaining to God. Man's reason, 
 conscience, and affections are the only true revelation of his 
 Maker, "f And as we believe that we may glean some hints 
 of the Glory and Beauty of our Creator from the glory and 
 beauty of human excellence, so we believe that to each man, 
 as he lives up to the highest he can perceive, will surely be 
 unveiled fresh heights of righteousness, fresh possibilities of 
 moral growth. To all men alike, good and evil, is laid open 
 Nature's revelation of morality, as exemplified in the highest 
 human lives ; and these noble lives receive ever the heavenly 
 hall-mark by the instinctive response from every human 
 breast that they " are very good." To those only who live 
 up to the good they see, does God give the further inner 
 revelation, which leads them higher and higher in morality, 
 quickening their moral faculties, and making more sensitive 
 and delicate their moral susceptibilities. We cannot, as 
 revelationists do, chalk out all the whole range of moral 
 perfection: we "walk by faith and not by sight:" step by 
 step only is the path unveiled to us, and only as we surmount 
 one peak do we gain sight of the peak beyond : the distant 
 prospect is shrouded from our gaze, and we are too fully 
 occupied in doing the work which is given us to do in this 
 world, to be for ever peering into and brooding over the 
 world beyond the grave. We have light enough to do our 
 Father's work here ; when he calls us yonder it will be time 
 enough to ask Him to unveil our new sphere of labour and 
 to cause His sun to rise on it. Wayward children fret after 
 some fancied happiness and miss the work and. the pleasure 
 lying at their feet, and so petulant men and women cry out 
 that "man that is born of woman ... is full of misery," 
 and wail for a revelation to ensure some happier life : they 
 seem to forget that if this world is full of misery they are put 
 here to mend it and not to cry over it, and that it is our 
 shame and our condemnation that in God's fair world so 
 much sin and unhappiness are found. If men would try to 
 read nature instead of revelation, if they would study natural 
 
 * Frances Power Cobbe. t Rev. Charles Voysey. 
 
versus REVEALED RELIGION. 115 
 
 laws and leave revealed laws, if they would follow human 
 morality instead of ecclesiastical morality, then there might 
 be some chance of real improvement for the race, and some 
 hope that the Divine Voice in Nature might be heard above 
 the babble of the Churches. 
 
 And Nature is enough for us, gives us all the light we 
 want and all that we, as yet, are fitted to receive. Were it 
 possible that God should now reveal Himself to us as He is, 
 the Being of Whose Nature we can form no conception, I 
 believe that we should remain as ignorant as we are at 
 present, from the want of faculties to receive that revelation : 
 the Divine language might sound in our ears, but it would 
 be as unintelligible as the roar of the thunder-clap, or 
 the moan of the earthquake, or the whisper of the wind to 
 the leaves of the cedar-tree. God is slowly revealing Himself 
 by His works, by the course of events, by the progress of 
 Humanity : if He has never spoken from Heaven in human 
 language, He is daily speaking in the world around us to all 
 who have ears to hear, and as Nature in its varied forms is 
 His only revelation of Himself, so the mind and the heart 
 alone can perceive His presence and catch the whispers ot 
 His mysterious voice. 
 
 Never yet has been broken 
 
 The silence eternal : 
 Never yet has been spoken 
 
 In accents supernal 
 
 God's Thought of Himself. 
 
 We are groping in blindness 
 Who yearn to behold Him : 
 
 But in wisdom and kindness 
 In darkness He folds Him 
 Till the soul learns to see. 
 
 So the veil is unriven 
 That hides the All-Holy, 
 
 And no token is given 
 That satisfies wholly 
 The cravings of man. 
 
 But, unhasting, advances 
 
 The march of the ages, 
 To truth-seekers' glances 
 
 Unrolling the pages 
 
 Of God's revelation. 
 
Il6 NATURAL RELIGION VerSUS REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 Impatience unheeding, 
 
 Time, slowly revolving, 
 Unresting, unspeeding, 
 
 Is ever evolving 
 
 Fresh truths about God. 
 
 Human speech has not broken 
 
 The stillness supernal : 
 Vet ever is spoken 
 
 Through silence eternal, 
 
 With growing distinctness 
 God's Thought of Himself. 
 
ON THE NATURE AND THE 
 EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 IT is impossible for those who study the deeper religious 
 problems of our time to stave off much longer the ques- 
 tion which lies at the root of them all, " What do you believe 
 in regard to God?" We may controvert Christian doc- 
 trines, one after another ; point by point we may be driver* 
 from the various beliefs of our churches ; reason may force 
 us to see contradictions where we had imagined harmony,, 
 and may open our eyes to flaws where we had dreamed of 
 perfection ; we resign all idea of a revelation ; we seek for 
 God in Nature only ; we renounce for ever the hope (which 
 glorified our former creed into such alluring beauty) that at 
 some future time we should verily " see " God, that " our 
 eyes should behold the King in his beauty " in that fairy 
 " land which is very far off." But evc^ r step we take 
 onwards towards a more reasonable faith and a surer light 
 of Truth leads us nearer and nearer to the problem of 
 problems, " \Vhat is THAT which men call God?" Not tili 
 theologians have thoroughly grappled with this question have 
 they any just claim to be called religious guides ; from each 
 of those whom we honour as our leading thinkers we have 
 a right to a distinct answer to this question, and the very 
 object of the present paper is to provoke discussion on this 
 point. 
 
 Men are apt to turn aside somewhat impatiently from an 
 argument about the Nature and Existence of the Deity, 
 because they consider that the question is a metaphysical 
 one which leads nowhere ; a problem the resolution of 
 which is beyond our faculties, and the study of which is at 
 once useless and dangerous ; they forget that act'on is 
 ruled by thought, and that our ideas about God are there- 
 fore of vast practical importance. On our answer to the 
 question propounded above depends our whole conception 
 
IlS ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 of the nature and origin of evil, and of the sanctions of 
 morality ; on our idea of God turns our opinion on the 
 much-disputed question of prayer, and, in fact, our whole 
 attitude of mind towards life, here and hereafter. Does 
 morality consist in obedience to the will of a perfectly moral 
 Being, and are we to aim at righteousness of life because in 
 .so doing we please God ? Or are we to lead noble lives 
 because nobility of life is desirable for itself alone, and 
 because it spreads happiness around us and satisfies the 
 desires of our own nature ? Is our mental attitude to be 
 that of kneeling or standing ? Are our eyes to be fixed on 
 heaven or on earth ? Is prayer to God reasonable and 
 helpful, the natural cry of a child for help from a Father in 
 Heaven ? Or is it, on the other hand, a useless appeal to 
 an unknown and irresponsible force ? Is the mainspring of 
 our actions to be the idea of duty to God, or a sense of the 
 necessity of bringing our being into harmony with the laws 
 of the universe ? It appears to me that these questions are 
 of such grave and vital moment that no apology is needed 
 for drawing attention to them ; and because of their import- 
 ance to mankind I challenge the leaders of the religious and 
 non-religious world alike, the Christians, Theists, Pantheists, 
 and those who take no specific name, duly to test the views 
 they severally hold. In this battle the simple foot soldier 
 may touch with his lance the shield of the knight, and the 
 insignificance of the challenger does not exempt the general 
 from the duty of lifting the gauntlet flung down at his feet. 
 Little care I for personal' defeat, if the issue of the conflict 
 should enthrone more firmly the radiant figure of Truth. 
 One fault, however, I am anxious to avoid, and that is the 
 fault of ambiguity. The orthodox and the free-thinking 
 alike do a good deal of useless fighting from sheer misun- 
 derstanding of each other's standpoint in the controversy. 
 It appears, then, to be indispensable in the prosecution of 
 the following inquiry that the meaning of the terms used 
 should be unmistakably distinct. I begin, therefore, by 
 defining the technical forms of expression to be employed 
 in my argument ; the definitions may be good or bad, that 
 is not material ; all that is needed is that the sense in which 
 the various terms are used should be clearly understood. 
 When men fight only for the sake of discovering truth, 
 definiteness of expression is specially incumbent on them ; 
 and, as has been eloquently said, " the strugglers being 
 sincere, truth may give laurels to the victor and the van- 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 119 
 
 quished : laurels to the victor in that he hath upheld the 
 truth, laurels still welcome to the vanquished, whose defeat 
 crowns him with a truth he knew not of before. 
 
 The definitions that appear to me to be absolutely neces- 
 sary are as follows : 
 
 Matter is used to express that which is tangible. Spirit 
 (or spiritual} is used to express those intangible forces 
 whose existence we become aware of only through the 
 effects they produce. 
 
 Substance is used to express that which exists in itself and 
 by itself, and the conception of which does not imply the 
 conception of anything preceding it. 
 
 God is used to represent exclusively that Being invested 
 by the orthodox with certain physical, intellectual, and moral 
 attributes. 
 
 Particular attention must be paid to this last definition,, 
 because the term "atheist "is often flung unjustly at any 
 thinker who ventures to criticise -the popular and traditional 
 idea of God ; and different schools, Theistic and non- 
 Theistic, with but too much facility, bandy about this vague 
 epithet in mutual reproach. 
 
 As an instance of this uncharitable and unfair use of ugly 
 names, all schools agree in calling the late Mr. Austin 
 Holyoake an " atheist," and he accepted the name himself, 
 although he distinctly stated (as we find in a printed report 
 of a discussion held at the Victoria Institute) that he did 
 not deny the possibility of the existence of God, but only 
 denied the possibility of the existence of that God in whom 
 the orthodox exhorted him to believe. It is well thus to 
 protest beforehand against this name being bandied about, 
 because it carries with it, at present, so much popular pre- 
 judice, that it prevents all possibility of candid and free dis- 
 cussion. It is simply a convenient stone to fling at the 
 head of an opponent whose arguments one cannot meet, a 
 certain way of raising a tumult which will drown his voice ; 
 and, if it have any serious meaning at all, it might fairly be 
 used, as I shall presently show, against the most orthodox 
 pillar of the orthodox faith. 
 
 It is manifest to all who will take the trouble to think 
 steadily, that there can be only one eternal and underived 
 substance, and that matter and spirit must therefore only be 
 varying manifestations of this one substance. The distinc- 
 tion made between matter and spirit is then simply made 
 for the sake of convenience and clearness, just as we may 
 
I2O ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 distinguish perception from judgment, both of which, how- 
 ever, are alike processes of thought. Matter is, in its con- 
 stituent elements, the same as spirit ; existence is one, how- 
 ever manifold in its phenomena ; life is one, however multi- 
 form in its evolution. As the heat of the coal differs from 
 the coal itself, so do memory, perception, judgment, emotion, 
 and will, differ from the brain which is the instrument of 
 thought. But nevertheless they are all equally products of the 
 one sole substance, varying only in their conditions. It may 
 be taken for granted that against this preliminary point of 
 ihe argument will be raised the party-cry of " rank mate- 
 rialism," because " materialism" is a doctrine of which the 
 general public has an undefined horror. But I am bold to 
 say that if by matter is meant that which is above defined 
 as substance, then no reasoning person can help being a 
 materialist. The orthodox are very fond of arguing back 
 to what they call the Great First Cause. " God is a spirit," 
 they say, " and from him is derived the spiritual part of 
 man." Well and good ; they have traced back a part of the 
 universe to a point at which they conceive that only one 
 universal essence is possible, that which they call God, and 
 which is spirit only. But I then invite their consideration 
 to the presence of something which they do not regard as 
 spirit, i.e., matter. I follow their own pkn of argument step by 
 .step : I trace matter, as they traced spirit, back and back, till 
 I reach a point beyond which I cannot go, one only existence, 
 substance or essence ; am I therefore to believe that God is 
 matter only? But we have already found it asserted by 
 Theists that he is spirit only, and we cannot believe two 
 contradictories, however logical the road which led us to 
 them ; so we must acknowledge two substances, eternally 
 existent side by side ; if existence be dual, then, however 
 absurd the hypothesis, there must be two First Causes. It 
 is not I who am responsible for an idea so anomalous. The 
 orthodox escape from this dilemma by an assumption, thus : 
 " God, to whom is to be traced back all spirit, created mat- 
 ter." Why, am I not equally justified in assuming, if I 
 please, that matter created spirit ? Why should I be logical 
 in one argument and illogical in another? If we come to 
 assumptions, have not I as much right to my assumption as 
 my neighbour has to his ? Why may he predicate creation 
 of one half of the universe, and I not predicate it of the 
 other half? If the assumptions be taken into consideration 
 at all, then I contend that mine is the more reasonable of 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 121 
 
 the two, since it is possible to imagine matter as existing 
 without mind, while it is utterly impossible to conceive of 
 mind existing without matter. We all know how a stone 
 looks, and we are in the habit of regarding that as lifeless mat- 
 ter but who has any distinct idea of a mind/wr et simple? 
 No clear conception of it is possible to human faculties ; 
 we can only conceive of mind as it is found /';/ an organisa- 
 tion ; intelligence has no appreciable existence except as- 
 residing in the brain and as manifested in results. The 
 lines of spirit and matter are not one, say the orthodox; they 
 run backwards side by side ; why then, in following the 
 course of these two parallel lines, should I suddenly bend 
 one into the other ? and on what principle of selection 
 shall I choose the one I am to curve ? I must really decline 
 to use logic just as far as it supports the orthodox idea of God, 
 and arbitrarily throw it down the moment it conflicts with 
 that idea. I find myself then compelled to believe that one 
 only substance exists in all around me ; that the universe is 
 eternal, or at least eternal so far as our faculties are con- 
 cerned, since we cannot, as some one has quaintly put it, 
 "get to the outside of everywhere ;" that a Deity cannot 
 be conceived of as apart from the universe, pre-existent to 
 the universe, post-existent to the universe ; that the Worker 
 and the Work are inextricably interwoven, and in some sense 
 eternally and indissolubly combined. Having got so far, 
 we will proceed to examine into the possibility of proving 
 the existence of that one essence popularly called by the 
 name of God, under the conditions strictly defined by the 
 orthodox. Having demonstrated, as I hope to do, that the 
 orthodox idea of God is unreasonable and absurd, we will 
 endeavour to discover whether any idea of God, worthy to 
 be called an idea, is attainable in the present state of our 
 faculties. 
 
 The orthodox believers in God are divided into two 
 camps, one of which maintains that the existence of God is 
 as demonstrable as any mathematical proposition, while the 
 other asserts that his existence is not demonstrable to the 
 intellect. I select Dr. McCann, a man of considerable 
 reputation, as the representative of the former of these two 
 opposing schools of thought, and give the Doctor's position 
 in his own words : " The purpose of the following paper is 
 to prove the fallacy of all such assumptions" (i.e., that the 
 existence of God is an insoluble problem), "by showing that 
 we are no more at liberty to deny His being, than we are to 
 
122 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 deny any demonstration of Euclid. He would be thought 
 unworthy of refutation who should assert that any two angles 
 of a triangle are together greater than two right angles. We 
 would content ourselves by saying, ' The man is mad ' 
 mathematically, at least and pass on. If it can be shown 
 that we affirm the existence of Deity for the very same 
 reasons as we affirm the truth of any geometric proposition ; 
 if it can be shown that the former is as capable of demon- 
 stration as the latter then it necessarily follows that if we 
 are justified in calling the man a fool who denies the latter, 
 we are also justified in calling him a fool who says there is 
 no God, and in refusing to answer him according to his 
 folly." Which course is a very convenient one when you 
 meet with an awkward opponent whom you cannot silence 
 by sentiment and declamation. Again : " In conclusion, 
 we believe it to be very important to be able to prove that if 
 the mathematician be justified in asserting that the three 
 angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, the Chris- 
 tian is equally justified in asserting, not only that he is com- 
 pelled to believe in God, but that he knows Him (sic). And 
 that he who denies the existence of the Deity is as unworthy 
 of serious refutation as is he who denies a mathematical 
 demonstration." (' A Demonstration of the Existence of 
 God,' a lecture delivered at the Victoria Institute, 1870, pp. 
 i and ii.) Dr. McCann proves his very startling thesis by 
 laying down as axioms six statements, which, however lumi- 
 nous to the Christian traditionalist, are obscure to the scep- 
 tical intellect. He seems to be conscious of this defect in 
 his so-called axioms, for he proceeds to prove each of them 
 elaborately, forgetting that the simple statement of an axiom 
 should carry direct conviction that it needs only to be un- 
 derstood in order to be accepted. However, let this pass : 
 our teacher, having stated and "proved" his axioms, pro- 
 ceeds to draw his conclusions from them ; and as his foun- 
 dations are unsound, it is scarcely to be wondered at that 
 his superstructure should be insecure. I know of no way so 
 effectual to defeat an adversary as to beg all the questions 
 raised, assume every point in dispute, call assumptions 
 axioms, and then proceed to reason from them. It is really 
 not worth while to criticise Dr. McCann in detail, his lec- 
 ture being nothing but a mass of fallacies and unproved 
 assertions. Christian courtesy allows him to call those who 
 dissent from his assumptions " fools ;" and as these terms of 
 abuse are not considered admissible by those whom he 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. I2J. 
 
 assails as unbelievers, there is a slight difficulty in " answer- 
 ing" Dr. McCann "according to his" deserts. I content 
 myself with suggesting that they who wish to learn how pre- 
 tended reasoning may pass for solid argument, how incon- 
 sequent statements may pass for logic, had better study this 
 lecture. For my own part, I confess that my " folly " is 
 not, as yet, of a sufficiently pronounced type to enable me 
 to accept Dr. McCann's conclusions. 
 
 The best representation I can select of the second 
 orthodox party, those who admit that the existence of God 
 is not demonstrable, is the late Dean Mansel. In his. 
 ' Limits of Religious Thought,' the Bampton Lectures for 
 1867, he takes up a perfectly unassailable position. The 
 peculiarity of this position, however, is that he, the pillar of 
 orthodoxy, the famed defender of the faith against German 
 infidelity and all forms of rationalism, regards God from 
 exactly the same point as does a well-known modern 
 " atheist." I have almost hesitated sometimes which writer 
 to quote from, so identical are they in thought. Probably 
 neither Dean Mansel nor Mr. Bradlaugh would thank me 
 for bracketing their names ; but I am forced to confess that 
 the arguments used by the one to prove the endless absur- 
 dities into which we fall when we try to comprehend the 
 nature of God, are exactly the same arguments that are used 
 by the other to prove that God, as believed in by the ortho- 
 dox, cannot exist. I quote, however, exclusively from the 
 Dean, because it is at once novel and agreeable to find one- 
 self sheltered by Mother Church at the exact moment when 
 one is questioning her very foundations ; and also because 
 the Dean's name carries with it so orthodox an odour that 
 his authority will tell where the same words from any of 
 those who are outside the pale of orthodoxy would be re- 
 garded with suspicion. Nevertheless, I wish to state plainly 
 that a more " atheistical " book than these Bampton Lec- 
 tures at least, in the earlier part of it I have never read ; 
 and had its title-page borne the name of any well-known 
 Free-thinker, it would have been received in the religious 
 world with a storm of indignation. 
 
 The first definition laid down by the orthodox as a cha- 
 racteristic of God is that he is an Infinite Being. " There 
 is but one living and true God ... of infinite power, &c." 
 (Article of Religion, i.) It has been said that infinite 
 only means indefinite, but I must protest against this 
 weakening of a well-defined theological term. The term 
 
ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 Infinite has always been understood to mean far more than 
 indefinite ; it means literally boundless : the infinite has no 
 limitations, no possible restrictions, no " circumference." 
 People who do not think about the meaning of the words 
 they use speak very freely and familiarly of the " infinitude " 
 of God, as though the term implied no inconsistency. 
 Deny that God is infinite and you are at once called an 
 atheist, but press your opponent into a definition of the 
 term and you will generally find that he does not know 
 what he is talking about. Dean Mansel points out, with 
 Iris accurate habit of mind, all that this attribute of God 
 implies, and it would be well if those who "believe in an 
 infinite God" would try and realise what they express. 
 Half the battle of freethought will be won when people 
 .attach a definite meaning to the terms they use. The 
 Infinite has no bounds ; then the finite cannot exist. Why ? 
 Because in the very act of acknowledging any existence 
 Reside the Infinite One you limit the Infinite. By saying, 
 *" This is not God " you at once make him finite, because 
 you set a bound to his nature ; you distinguish between him 
 and something else, and by the very act you limit him ; 
 that which is not he is as a rock which checks the waves of 
 the ocean ; in that spot a limit is found, and in finding a 
 limit the Infinite is destroyed. The orthodox may retort, 
 " this is only a matter of terms ;" but it is well to force 
 them into realising the dogmas which they thrust on our 
 acceptance under such awful penalties for rejection. / 
 know what " an infinite God " implies, and, as apart from 
 the universe, I feel compelled to deny the possibility of his 
 existence ; surely it is fair that the orthodox should also 
 know what the words they use mean on this head, and give 
 up the term if they cling to a " personal " God, distinct 
 from " creation." Further and here I quote Dean Mansel 
 the " Infinite " must be conceived as containing within 
 itself the sum, not only of all actual, but of all possible 
 modes of being. ... If any possible mode can be denied 
 of it . . . it is capable of becoming more than it now is, 
 and such a capability is a limitation." (The hiatus refers to 
 the " absolute " being of God, which it is better to consider 
 separately.) " An unrealised possibility is necessarily (a 
 relation and) a limit." Thus is orthodoxy crushed by the 
 powerful logic of its own champion. God is infinite ; then, 
 in that case, everything that exists is God ; all phenomena 
 are modes of the Divine Being; there is literally nothing 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 125 
 
 which is not God. Will the orthodox accept this position ? 
 It lands them, it is true, in the most extreme Pantheism, 
 but what of that ? They believe in an " infinite God " and 
 they are therefore necessarily Pantheists. If they object to 
 this, they must give up the idea that their God is infinite at 
 all : there is no half-way position open to them ; he is 
 infinite or finite, which ? 
 
 Again, God is " before all things," he is the only Absolute 
 Being, dependent on nothing outside himself; all that is 
 not God is relative ; that is to say, that God exists alone 
 and is not necessarily related to anything else. The 
 orthodox even believe that God did, at some former period 
 (which is not a period, they say, because time then was not 
 however, at that hazy " time" he did), exist alone, i.e., as 
 what is called an Absolute Being : this conception is neces- 
 sary for all who, in any sense, believe in a Creator. 
 
 " Thou, in Thy far eternity, 
 Didst live and love alone." 
 
 So sings a Christian minstrel ; and one of the arguments 
 put forward for a Trinity is that a plurality of persons is 
 necessary in order that God may be able to love at the 
 " time " when he was alone. Into this point, however, I do 
 not now enter. But what does this " Absolute " imply ? A 
 simple impossibility of creation, just as does the Infinite ; 
 for creation implies that the relative is brought into exist- 
 ence, and thus the Absolute is destroyed. " Here again 
 the Pantheistic hypothesis seems forced upon us. We can 
 think of creation only as a change in the condition of that 
 which already exists, and thus the creature is conceivable 
 only as a phenomenal mode of the being of the Creator." 
 Thus once more looms up the dreaded spectre of Pan- 
 theism, " the dreary desolation of a Pantheistic wilderness ;" 
 and who is the Moses who has led us into this desert ? It 
 is a leader of orthodoxy, a dignitary of the Church ; it is 
 Dean Mansel who stretches out his hand to the universe 
 and says, "This is thy God, O Israel." 
 
 The two highest attributes of God land us, then, in the 
 most thorough Pantheism ; further, before remarking en 
 the other divine attributes, I would challenge the reader to 
 pause and try to realise this infinite and absolute being. 
 "That a man can be conscious of the infinite is, then, a 
 supposition which, in the very terms in which it is ex- 
 pressed, annihilates itself. . . . The infinite, if it is to be 
 
126 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 conceived at all, must be conceived as potentially everything 
 and actually nothing ; for if there is anything in general 
 which it cannot become, it is thereby limited ; and if there 
 is anything in particular which it actually is, it is thereby 
 excluded from being any other thing. But again, it must 
 also be conceived as actually everything and potentially 
 nothing ; for an unrealised potentiality is likewise a limita- 
 tion. If the infinite can be " (in the future) " that which it 
 is not" (in the present) "it is by that very possibility 
 marked out as incomplete and capable of a higher perfec- 
 tion. If it is actually everything, it possesses no charac- 
 teristic feature by which it can be distinguished from 
 anything else and discerned as an object of consciousness. " 
 I think, then, that we must be content, on the showing of 
 Dr. Hansel, to allow that God is, in his own nature from 
 this point of view quite beyond the grasp of our faculties ; 
 as regards us he does not exist ', since he is indistinguishable 
 and undiscernable. Well might the Church exclaim " Save 
 me from my friends !" when a dean acknowledges that her 
 God is a self-contradictory phantom ; oddly enough, how- 
 ever, the Church likes it, and accepts this fatal champion- 
 ship. I might have put this argument wholly in my own 
 words, for the subject is familiar to every one who has tried 
 to gain a distinct idea of the Being who is called " God," 
 but I have preferred to back my own opinions with the 
 authority of so orthodox a man as Dean Mansel, trusting 
 that by so doing the orthodox may be forced to see where 
 logic carries them. All who are interested in this subject 
 should study his lectures carefully ; there is really no difficulty 
 in following them, if the student will take the trouble of mas- 
 tering once for all the terms he employs. The book was lent to 
 me years ago by a clergyman, and did more than any other 
 book I know to make me what is called an "infidel;" it 
 proves to demonstration the impossibility of our having 
 any logical, reasonable, and definite idea of God, and 
 the utter hopelessness of trying to realise his existence. It 
 seems necessary here to make a short digression to explain, 
 for the benefit of those who have not read the book from 
 which I have been quoting, how Dean Hansel escaped be- 
 coming an " atheist." It is a curious fact that the last part 
 of this book is as remarkable for its assumptions, as is the 
 earlier portion for its pitiless logic. When he ought in all 
 reason to say, "we can know nothing and therefore can 
 believe nothing," he says instead, " we can know nothing 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 127 
 
 and therefore let us take Revelation for granted." An 
 atheistic reasoner suddenly startles us by becoming a devout 
 Christian ; the apparent enemy of the faithful is " trans- 
 formed into an angel of light." The existence of God "is 
 inconceivable by the reason," and, therefore, "the only 
 ground that can be taken for accepting one representation 
 of it rather than another is, that one is revealed and the 
 other not revealed." It is the acknowledgment of a pre- 
 viously formed determination to believe at any cost ; it is a 
 wail of helplessness; the very apotheosis of despair. We 
 cannot have history, so let us believe a fairy-tale ; we can 
 discover nothing, so let us assume anything ; we cannot find 
 truth, so let us take the first myth that comes to hand. 
 Here I feel compelled to part company with the Dean, and 
 to leave him to believe in, to adore, and to love that which 
 he has himself designated as indistinguishable and undis- 
 cernable ; it may be an act of faith but it is a crucifixion of 
 intellect ; it may be a satisfaction to the yearnings of the 
 heart, but it dethrones reason and tramples it in the dust. 
 
 We proceed in our study of the attributes of God. He is 
 represented as the Supreme Will, the Supreme Intelligence, 
 the Supreme Love. 
 
 As the Supreme Will. What do we mean by "will?" 
 Surely, in the usual sense of the word, a will implies the 
 power and the act of choosing. Two paths are open to us, 
 and we will to walk in one rather than in the other. But 
 can we think of power of choice in connection with God? 
 Of two courses open to us one must needs be better than 
 the other, else they would be indistinguishable and be only 
 one ; perfection implies that the higher course will always 
 be taken ; what then becomes of the power of choice ? We 
 choose because we are imperfect ; we do not know every- 
 thing which bears on the matter on which we are about to 
 exercise our will ; if we knew everything we should inevi- 
 tably be driven in one direction, that which is the best 
 possible course. The greater the knowledge, the more 
 circumscribed the will ; the nobler the nature, the more 
 impossible the lower course. Spinoza points out most 
 clearly that the Divinity could not have made things other- 
 wise than they are made, because any change in his action 
 would imply a change in his nature ; God, above all, must 
 be bound by necessity. If we believe in a God at all we 
 must surely ascribe to him perfection of wisdom and perfec- 
 tion of goodness ; we are then forced to conceive of him 
 
128 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 however strange it may sound to those who believe, not only 
 without seeing but also without thinking as without will, 
 because he must always necessarily pursue the course which 
 is wisest and best. 
 
 As the Supreme Intelligence. Again, the first question is, 
 what do we mean by intelligence ? In the usual sense of the 
 word intelligence implies the exercise of the various 
 intellectual faculties, and gathers up into one word the ideas 
 of perception, comparison, memory, judgment, and so on. 
 The very enumeration of these faculties is sufficient to show 
 how utterly inappropriate they are when thought of in con- 
 nection with God. Does God perceive what he did not 
 know before? Does he compare one fact with another? 
 Does he draw conclusions from this correlation of percep- 
 tions, and thus judge what is best ? Does he remember, as 
 we remember, long past events ? Perfect wisdom excludes 
 from the idea of God all that is called intelligence in man ; 
 it involves unchangeableness, complete stillness ; it implies 
 a knowledge of all that is knowable ; it includes an ac- 
 quaintance with every fact, an acquaintance which has never 
 been less in the past, and can never be more in the future. 
 The reception at any time of a new thought or a new 
 idea is impossible to perfection, for if it could ever be added 
 to in the future it is necessarily something less than perfect 
 in the past. 
 
 As the Supreme Lore. We come here to the darkest pro- 
 blem of existence. Love, Ruler of the world permeated 
 through and through with pain, and sorrow, and sin? Love, 
 mainspring of a nature whose cruelty is sometimes appal- 
 ling? Love? Think of the "martyrdom of man !" Love? 
 Follow the History of the Church ! Love? Study the 
 annals of the slave-trade ! Love ? Walk the courts and 
 alleys of our towns ! It is of no use to try and explain 
 away these things, or cover them up with a veil of silence ; 
 it is better to look them fairly in the face, and test our 
 creeds by inexorable facts. It is foolish to keep a tender 
 spot which may not be handled ; for a spot which gives pain 
 when it is touched implies the presence of disease : wiser 
 far is it to press firmly against it, and, if danger lurk there, 
 to use the probe or the knife. We have no right to pick 
 out all that is noblest and fairest in man, to project these 
 qualities into space, and to call them God. We only thus 
 create an ideal figure, a purified, ennobled, " magnified " 
 Man. We have no right to shut our eyes to the sad revers 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 129- 
 
 de la medaille, and leave out of our conceptions of the 
 Creator the larger half of his creation. If we are to dis- 
 cover the Worker from his works we must not pick and 
 choose amid those works; we must take them as they are, 
 " good " and "bad." If we only want an ideal, let us by all 
 means make one, and call it God, if thus we can reach it 
 better, but if we want a true induction we must take all facts 
 into account. If God is to be considered as the author of 
 the universe, and we are to learn of him through his works, 
 then we must make room in our conceptions of him for the 
 avalanche and the earthquake, for the tiger's tooth and the 
 serpent's fang, as well as for the tenderness of woman and 
 the strength of man, the radiant glory of the sunshine on 
 the golden harvest, and the gentle lapping of the summer 
 waves on the gleaming shingled beach.* 
 
 The Nature of God, what is it? Infinite and Absolute,, 
 he evades our touch ; without human will, without human 
 intelligence, without human love, where can his faculties 
 the very word is a misnomer find a meeting-place with 
 ours ? Is he everything or nothing ? one or many ? We 
 know not. We know nothing. Such is the conclusion into 
 which we are driven by orthodoxy, with its pretended faith, 
 which is credulity, with its pretended proofs, which are pre- 
 sumptions. It defines and maps out the perfections of 
 Deity, and they dissolve when we try to grasp them nc- 
 where do these ideas hold water for a moment ; nowhere is 
 this position defensible. Orthodoxy drives thinkers into 
 atheism ; weary of its contradictions they cry, "there is no 
 God " ; orthodoxy's leading thinker lands us himself in: 
 
 " " I know it is usual for the orthodox when vindicating the moral 
 character of their God to say : 'All the Evil that exists is of man ; All 
 that God has done is only good, ' But granting (which facts do not sub- 
 stantiate) that man is the only author of the sorrow and the wrong that 
 abound in the world, it is difficult to see how the Creator can be free 
 from imputation. Did not God, according to orthodoxy, plan all things 
 with an infallible perception that the events foreseen must occur ? Was 
 not this accurate prescience based upon the inflexibility of God's 
 Eternal purposes ? As, then, the purposes, in the order of nature, at 
 least preceded the prescience and formed the groundwork of it, man 
 has become extensively the instrument of doing mischief in the world 
 simply because the God of the Christian Church did not choose to pre- 
 vent man from being bad. In other words, man is as he is by the 
 ordained design of God, and, therefore, God is responsible for all the 
 suffering, shame, and error, spread by human agency. So that the 
 Christian apology for God in connection with the spectacle of evil falls 
 to pieces." Note by the Editor. 
 
 F 
 
130 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 atheism. No logical, impartial mind can escape from im- 
 balief through the trap-door opened by Dean Mansel : he 
 has taught us reason, and we cannot suppress reason. The 
 "serpent intellect" as the Bishop of Peterborough calls it 
 has twined itself firmly round the tree of knowledge, and 
 in that type we do not see, with the Hebrew, the face of 
 -death, but, with the older faiths, we reverence it as the 
 symbol of life. 
 
 There is another fact, an historical one, still on the de- 
 structive side, which appears to me to be of the gravest 
 importance, and that is the gradual attenuation of the idea 
 of God before the growing light of true knowledge. To the 
 .savage everything is divine ; he hears one God's voice in 
 the clap of the thunder, another's in the roar of the earth- 
 quake, he sees a divinity in the trees, a deity smiles at him 
 from the clear depths of the river and the lake ; every 
 natural phenomenon is the abode of a god ; every event is 
 -controlled by a god ; divine volition is at the root of every 
 incident. To him the rule of the gods is a stern reality ; if 
 he offends them they turn the forces of nature against him ; 
 the flood, the famine, the pestilence, are the ministers of 
 the avenging anger of the gods. As civilisation advances, 
 the deities lessen in number, the divine powers become con- 
 centrated more and more in one Being, and God rules over 
 the whole earth, maketh the clouds his chariot, and reigns 
 above the waterfloods as a king. Physical phenomena are 
 istill his agents, working his will among the children of men ; 
 he rains great hailstones out of heaven on his enemies, he 
 slays their flocks and desolates their lands, but his chosen 
 .are safe under his protection, even although danger hem 
 them in on every side ; " thou shalt not be afraid for any 
 terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day ; for the 
 pestilence that walketh in darkness nor for the sickness 
 that destroy eth in the noon-day. A thousand shall fall 
 besides thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it 
 shall not come nigh thee. ... He shall defend thee 
 under his wings, and thou shalt be safe under his feathers." 
 {Ps. xci., Prayer-Book.) Experience contradicted this theory 
 rather roughly, and it gave way slowly before the logic of 
 facts ; it is, however, still more or less prevalent among our- 
 selves, as we see when the siege of Paris is proclaimed as a 
 judgment on Parisian irreligion, and when the whole nation 
 falls on its knees to acknowledge the cattle-plague as the 
 deserved punishment of its sins ! The next step forward 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 131 
 
 was to separate the physical from the moral, and to allow 
 that physical suffering came independently of moral guilt or 
 righteousness : the men crushed under the fallen tower of 
 Siloam were not thereby proved to be more sinful than their 
 countrymen. The birth of science rang the death-knell of 
 an arbitrary and constantly interposing Supreme Power, 
 The theory of God as a miracle worker was dissipated ;. 
 henceforth if God ruled at all it must be as in nature and 
 not from outside of nature ; he no longer imposed laws on 
 something exterior to himself, the laws could only be the 
 necessary expression of his own being. Laws were, further, 
 found to be immutable in their working, changing not in 
 accordance with prayer, but ever true to a hair's breadth in 
 their action. Slowly, but surely, prayer to God for the alte- 
 ration of physical phenomena is being found to be simply a 
 well-meant superstition ; nature swerves not for our plead- 
 ing, nor falters in her path for our most passionate suppli- 
 cation. The " reign of law " in physical matters is becoming 
 acknowledged even by theologians. As step by step the 
 knowledge of the natural advances, so step by step does the 
 belief in the supernatural recede ; as the kingdom of science 
 extends, so the kingdom of miraculous interference gradually 
 disappears. The effects which of old were thought to be 
 caused by the direct action of God are now seen to be caused 
 by the uniform and calculable working of certain laws laws 
 which, when discovered, it is the part of wisdom implicitly 
 to obey. Things which we used to pray for, we now work 
 and wait for, and if we fail we do not ask God to add his 
 strength to ours, but we sit down and lay our plans more 
 carefully . How is this to end ? Is the future to be like 
 the past, and is science finally to obliterate the conception of 
 a personal God ? It is a question which ought to be 
 pondered in the light of history. Hitherto the supernatural 
 has always been the makeweight of human ignorance ; is it, 
 in truth, this and nothing else ? 
 
 I am forced, with some reluctance, to apply the whole of 
 the above reasoning to every school of thought, whether 
 nominally Christian or non-Christian, which regards God as 
 a "magnified man." The same stern logic cuts every way 
 and destroys alike the Trinitarian and the Unitarian hypo- 
 thesis, wherever the idea of God is that of a Creator, stand- 
 ing, as it were, outside his creation. The liberal thinker, 
 whatever his present position, seems driven infallibly to the 
 above conclusions, as soon as he sets himself to realise his 
 
 F 2 
 
132 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 idea of his God. The Deity must of necessity be that one 
 and only substance out of which all things are evolved under 
 the uncreated conditions and eternal laws of the universe ; 
 he must be, as Theodore Parker somewhat oddly puts it, 
 " the materiality of matter, as well as the spirituality of 
 spirit;" i.e., these must both be products of this one sub- 
 stance : a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit 
 and matter are seen to be but different modes of one 
 essence. Thus we identify substance with the all-compre- 
 hending and vivifying force of nature, and in so doing we 
 simply reduce to a physical impossibility the existence of the 
 Being described by the orthodox as a God possessing the 
 attributes of personality. The Deity becomes identified 
 with nature, co-extensive with the universe ; but the God of 
 the orthodox no longer exists ; we may change the significa- 
 tion of God, and use the word to express a different idea, 
 but we can no longer mean by it a Personal Being in the 
 orthodox sense, possessing an individuality which divides 
 him from the rest of the universe. I say that I use these 
 arguments " with some reluctance," because many who have 
 fought and are fighting nobly and bravely in the army of 
 freethought, and to whom all free-thinkers owe much honour, 
 seem to cling to an idea of the Deity, which, however beauti- 
 ful and poetical, is not logically defensible, and in striking 
 at the orthodox notion of God, one necessarily strikes also 
 at all idea of a " Personal " Deity. There are some Theists 
 who have only cut out the Son and the Holy Ghost from the 
 Triune Jehovah, and have concentrated the Deity in the 
 Person of the Father ; they have returned to the old Hebrew 
 idea of God, the Creator, the Sustainer, only widening it into 
 regarding God as the Friend and Father of all his creatures, 
 and not of the Jewish nation only. There is much that is 
 noble and attractive in this idea, and it will possibly serve 
 as a religion of transition to break the shock of the change 
 from the supernatural to the natural. It is reached entirely 
 by a process of giving up ; Christian notions are dropped 
 one after another, and the God who is believed in is the 
 residuum. This Theistic school has not gained its idea of 
 God from any general survey of nature or from any philoso- 
 phical induction from facts ; it has gained it only by stripping 
 off from an idea already in the mind everything which is 
 degrading and revolting in the dogmas of Trinitarianism. It 
 starts, as I have noticed elsewhere, from a very noble axiom : 
 " If there be a God at all he must be at least as good as his 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 133 
 
 highest creatures," and thus is instantly swept away the 
 Augustinian idea of a God, that monster invented by 
 theological dialectics ; but still the same axiom makes God in 
 the image of man, and never succeeds in getting outside a 
 human representation of the Divinity. It starts from this 
 axiom, and the axiom is prefaced by an "if." It assumes 
 God, and then argues fairly enough what his character must 
 be. And this " if" is the very point on which the argument 
 of this paper turns. 
 
 " If there be a God " all the rest follows, but is there a 
 God at all in the sense in which the word is generally used ? 
 And thus I come to the second part of my problem ; having 
 seen that the orthodox " idea of God is unreasonable and 
 absurd, is there any idea of God, worthy to be called an 
 idea, which is attainable in the present state of our faculties ?" 
 
 {P. 10.) 
 
 The argument from design does not seem to me to be a 
 satisfactory one ; it either goes too far or not far enough. 
 Why in arguing from the evidences of adaptation should we 
 assume that they are planned by a mind ? It is quite as 
 easy to conceive of matter as self-existent, with inherent vital 
 laws moulding it into varying phenomena, as to conceive of 
 any intelligent mind directly modelling matter, so that the 
 " heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
 showeth his handy- work." It is, I know, customary to sneer 
 at the idea of beautiful forms existing without a conscious 
 designer, to parallel the adaptations of this world to the 
 adaptations in machinery, and then triumphantly to inquire, 
 " if skill be inferred from the one, why ascribe the other to 
 chance?" We do not believe in chance ; the steady action 
 of law is not chance ; the exquisite crystals which form 
 themselves under certain conditions are not a "fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms :" the only question is whether the laws 
 which we all allow to govern nature are immanent in nature, 
 or the outcome of an intelligent mind. If there be a law- 
 maker, is he self-existent, or does he, in turn, as has been 
 asked again and again by Positivist, Secularist, and Atheist, 
 require a maker ? If we think for a moment of the vast 
 mind implied in the existence of a Creator of the universe, 
 is it possible to believe that such a mind is the result of 
 chance ? If man's mind imply a master-mind, how much 
 more that of God ? Of course the question seems an absurd 
 one, but it is quite as pertinent as the question about a 
 world-maker. We must co.ne to a stop somewhere, and it is 
 
134 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 quite as logical to stop at one point as at another. The 
 argument from design would be valuable if we could prove, 
 a priori, as Mr. .Gillespie attempted to do,* the existence of 
 a Deity ; this being proved we might then fairly argue 
 deductively to the various apparent signs of mind in the 
 universe. Again, if we allow design we must ask, " how far- 
 does design extend?" If some phenomena are designed, 
 why not all? And if not all, on what principle can we 
 separate that which is designed from that which is not ? If 
 intellect and love reveal a design, what is revealed by 
 brutality and hate? If the latter are not the result of 
 design, how did they become introduced into the universe ?' 
 I repeat that this argument implies either too much or too 
 little. 
 
 There is but one argument that appears to me to have 
 any real weight, and that is the argument from instinct. 
 Man has faculties which appear, at present, as though they 
 were not born of the intellect, and it seems to me to be 
 unphilosophical to exclude this class of facts from our survey 
 of nature. The nature of man has in it certain sentiments 
 and emotions which, reasonably or unreasonably, sway him 
 powerfully and continually ; they are, in fact, his strongest 
 motive powers, overwhelming the reasoning faculties with 
 resistless strength ; true, they need discipline and controlling, 
 but they do not need to be, and they cannot be, destroyed. 
 The sentiments of love, of reverence, of worship, are not, as 
 yet, reducible to logical processes ; they are intuitions, 
 spontaneous emotions, incomprehensible to the keen and 
 cold intellect. They may be laughed at or denied, but they 
 still exist in spite of all ; they avenge themselves, when they 
 are not taken into account, by ruining the best laid plans, 
 and they are continually bursting the cords with which 
 reason strives to tie them down. I do not for a moment 
 pretend to deny that these " intuitions " will, as our know- 
 ledge of psychology increases, be reducible to strict laws ; 
 we call them instincts and intuitions simply because we 
 are unable to trace them to their source, and this vague 
 expression covers the vagueness of our ideas. Therefore, 
 intuition is not to be accepted as a trustworthy guide, but it 
 may suggest an hypothesis, and this hypothesis must then be 
 submitted to the stern verification of observed facts. We 
 are not as yet able to say to what the instinct in 
 
 * "The Necessary Existence of Deity. " 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 135 
 
 man to worship points, or what reality answers to his 
 yearning. Increased knowledge will, we may hope, reveal 
 to us* where there lies the true satisfaction of this instinct : 
 so long as the yearning is only an " instinct " it cannot pre- 
 tend to be logically defensible, or claim to lay down any rule 
 of faith. But still I think it well to point out that this 
 instinct exists in man, and exists most strongly in some of 
 the noblest souls. 
 
 Of all the various sentiments which are thus at present 
 "" intuitional," none is so powerful, none so overmastering 
 as this instinct to worship, this sentiment of religion. It is 
 as natural for man to worship as to eat. He will do it, be 
 it reasonable or unreasonable. Just as the baby crams 
 everything into his mouth, so does man persist in worship- 
 ping something. It may be said that the baby's instinct 
 does not prove that he is right in trying to devour a match- 
 box ; true, but it proves the existence of something eatable; 
 so fetish-worship, polytheism, theism, do not prove that man 
 has worshipped rightly, but do they not prove the existence 
 of something warshipabkl The argument does not, of 
 course, pretend to amount to a demonstration ; it is nothing 
 more than the suggestion of an analogy. Are we to find 
 that the supply is correlated to the demand throughout 
 nature, and yet believe that this hitherto invariable system 
 Is suddenly altered when we reach the spiritual part of 
 man ? I do not deny that this instinct is hereditary, and 
 that it is fostered by habit. The idea of reverence for God 
 is transmitted from parent to child ; it is educated into an 
 abnormal development, and thus almost indefinitely strength- 
 ened ; but yet it does appear to me that the bent to worship 
 is an integral part of man's nature. This instinct has also 
 sometimes been considered to have its root in the feeling 
 that one's individual self is but a " part of a stupendous 
 
 * "Is there in man any such Instinct? May not the general 
 tendency to worship a Deity, everywhere be the result of the influence 
 gained by Priests over the mind by the play of the mysterious Unknown 
 and Hereafter upon susceptible imaginations ? Besides, what are we to 
 say of the immense number of philosophical Buddhists and Brahmins, 
 for whose comfort or moral guidance the idea of a God or a hereafter is 
 felt to be quite unnecessary ? They cannot comprehend it, and conse- 
 quently acts of worship to God would be deemed by them fanatical. 
 It is traditionalists who either do not think at all, or think only within 
 a narrow, creed-bound circle, that are most devoted to worshipping 
 Deity ; and if so, may not the whole history of worship have its origin 
 in superstition and priestcraft ! In that case, the theory of an instinct 
 of worship falls to the ground." Note by the Editor. 
 
136 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 whole ;" that the so-called religious feeling which is evoked 
 by a grand view or a bright starlight night is only the realisa- 
 tion of personal insignificance, and the reverence which 
 rises in the soul in the presence of the mighty universe of 
 which we form a part. Whatever the root and the signifi- 
 cance of this instinct, there can be no doubt of its strength- 
 there is nothing rouses men's passions as does theology ; for 
 religion men rush on death more readily and joyfully than> 
 for any other cause ; religious fanaticism is the most fatal, 
 the most terrible power in the world. In studying history I 
 also see the upward tendency of the race, and note that 
 current which Mr. Matthew Arnold has called " that stream* 
 of tendency, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." 
 Of course, if there be a conscious God, this tendency is a 
 proof of his moral character, since it would be the outcome 
 of his laws; but here again an argument which would be 
 valuable were the existence of God already proved, falls 
 blunted from the iron wall of the unknown. The same ten- 
 dency upwards would naturally exist in any "realm of law,'* 
 although the law were an unconscious force. For righteous- 
 ness is nothing more than obedience to law, and where 
 there is obedience to law, Nature's mighty forces lend their 
 strength to man, and progress is secured. Only by obedi- 
 ence to law can advance be made, and this rule applies, of 
 course, to morality as well as to physics. Physical righteous- 
 ness is obedience to physical laws ; moral righteousness is 
 obedience to moral laws : just as physical laws are dis- 
 covered by the observation of natural phenomena, so must 
 moral laws be discovered by the observation of social phe- 
 nomena. That which increases the general happiness is 
 right; that which tends to destroy the general happiness is 
 wrong. Utility is the test of morality. But a law must not 
 be drawn from a single fact or phenomenon ; facts must be 
 carefully collated, and the general laws of morality drawn 
 from a generalisation of facts. But this subject is too large 
 to enter upon here, and it is only hinted at in order to note 
 that, although there is a moral tendency apparent in the 
 course of events, it is rather a rash assumption to take it for 
 granted that the power in question is a conscious one : it 
 may be, and that, I think, is all we can justly and reasonably 
 say. 
 
 Again, as regards Love. I have protested above against 
 the easiness which talks glibly of the Supreme Love while 
 shutting its eyes to the supreme agony of the world._ But 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 137 
 
 here, in putting forward what may be said on the other side 
 of the question, I must remark that there is a possible ex- 
 planation for sorrow and sin which is consistent with love. 
 Given immortality of man and beast, and the future gain 
 may then outweigh the present loss. But we are bound to 
 remember that we can only have a hope of immortality ; we 
 have no demonstration of it, and this is, therefore, only an 
 assumption by which we escape from a difficulty. We ought 
 to be ready to acknowledge, also, that there is love in nature, 
 although there is cruelty too ; there is the sunshine as well 
 as the storm, and we must not fix our eyes on the darkness 
 alone and deny the light. In mother-love, in the love of 
 friends, loyal through all doubt, true in spite of danger and 
 difficulty, strongest when most sorely tried, we see gleams of 
 so divine, so unearthly a beauty, that our hearts whisper to 
 us of an universal heart pulsating throughout nature, which, 
 at these rare moments, we cannot believe to be a dream. 
 But there seems, also, to be a vague idea that love and 
 -other virtues could not exist unless derived from the Love, 
 &c. It is true that we do conceive certain ideals of virtue 
 which we personify, and to which we apply various terms 
 implying affection ; we speak of a love of Truth, devotion to 
 Freedom, and so on. These ideals have, however, a purely 
 subjective existence ; they are not objective realities ; there 
 is nothing answering to these conceptions in the outside 
 world, nor do we pretend to believe in their individuality. 
 But when we gather up all our ideals, our noblest longings, 
 .and bind them into one vast ideal figure, which we call by 
 the name of God, then we at once attribute to it an objec- 
 tive existence, and complain of coldness and hardness if its 
 reality is questioned, and we demand to know if we can love 
 an abstraction ? The noblest souls do love abstractions, 
 and live in their beauty and die for their sake. 
 
 There appears, also, to be a possibility of a mind in 
 Nature, although we have seen that intelligence is, strictly 
 speaking, impossible. There cannot be perception, memory, 
 comparison, or judgment ; but may there not be a perfect 
 mind, unchanging, calm, and still? Our faculties fail us 
 when we try to estimate the Deity, and we are betrayed into 
 contradictions and absurdities ; but does it therefore follow 
 that He is not ? It seems to me that to deny his existence 
 is to overstep the boundaries of our thought-power almost as 
 much as to try and define it. We pretend to know the Un- 
 known if we declare Him to be the Unknowable. Un- 
 
138 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 knowable to us at present, yes ! Unknowable for ever, im 
 other possible stages of existence ? We have reached a 
 region into which we cannot penetrate ; here all human 
 faculties fail us; we bow our heads on "the threshold of the- 
 unknown." 
 
 And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see ; 
 But if we could see and hear, this Vision were it not He ? 
 
 Thus sings Alfred Tennyson, the poet of metaphysics : " if 
 we could see and hear " ; alas ! it is always an " if." 
 
 We come back to the opening of this essay : what is the- 
 practical result of our ideas about the Divinity, and how do- 
 these ideas affect the daily working life ? What conclusions; 
 are we to draw from the undeniable fact that, even if there- 
 be a " personal God," his nature and existence are beyond 
 our faculties, that " clouds and darkness are round about 
 him," that he is veiled in eternal silence and reveals himself 
 not to men ? Surely the obvious inference is that, if he does 
 really exist, he desires to conceal himself from the inhabit- 
 ants of our world. I repeat, that if the Deity exist, he does 
 not wish us to know of his existence. There may be, in the 
 very nature of things, an impossibility of his revealing him- 
 self to men ; we may have no faculties with which to appre- 
 hend him ; can we reveal the stars and the rippling expanse 
 of ocean to the sightless limpet on the rock ? Whether this- 
 be so or not, certain is it that the Deity does not reveal him- 
 self; either he cannot or he will not. And the reason I 
 am granting for the moment, for argument's sake, his personal 
 existence is not far to seek ; it is blazed upon the face of 
 history. For what has been the result of theology upon the 
 whole ? It has turned men's eyes from earth, to fix them 
 on heaven ; it has bid them be careless of the temporal,, 
 while luring them to grasp at the eternal ; it has induced 
 multitudes to lavish fervent sentiment upon a conception 
 framed by Priests of an incomprehensible God, while divert- 
 ing their strength from the plain duties which Humanity 
 has before it ; it has taught them to live for the world to 
 come, when they should live for the world around them ; 
 it has made earth's wrongs endurable with the hope of the 
 glory to be revealed. Wisely indeed would the Deity hide 
 himself, when even a phantom of him has wrought such 
 fatal mischief; and never will real and steady progress be 
 secured until men acquiesce in this beneficent law of their 
 nature, which draws a stern circle of the " limits of Religious 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. IJ9 
 
 Thought " and bids them concentrate their attention on the 
 ivork they have to do in this world, instead of being " for ever 
 peering into and brooding over the world beyond the grave." 
 " What is to be our conception of morality, is it to base itself 
 <cn obedience to God, or is it to be sought for itself and its 
 effects ? " When we admit that God is beyond our knowing, 
 morality becomes at once necessarily grounded on utility, 
 or the natural adaptation of certain feelings and actions to 
 promote the general welfare of society. As no revelation is 
 given to us as one " infallible standard of right and wrong," 
 we must form our morality for ourselves from thought and 
 from experience. For example, our moral nature, as edu- 
 cated under the highest civilisation, tells us that lying is 
 wrong ;* with this hypothesis in our minds ,we study facts, 
 ' .and discover that lying causes mistrust, anarchy, and ruin ; 
 thence we lay down as a moral law, " Lie not at all." The 
 .science of morality must be content to grow like other 
 ^sciences ; first an hypothesis, round which to group our 
 facts, then from the collected and collated facts reasoning 
 up to a solid law. Scientific morality has this great advan- 
 tage over revealed, that it stands on firm, unassailable 
 ground ; new facts will alter its details, but can never 
 touch its method ; like all other sciences, it is at once posi- 
 tive and progressive. 
 
 " fs our mental attitude to be kneeling or standing ?" When 
 we admit that the Deity is veiled from us, how can we pray? 
 When we see that that law is inexorable, of what use to pro- 
 test against its absolute sway ? When we feel that all, in- 
 cluding ourselves, are but modes Of Being which is one and 
 universal, and in which we " live and move," how shall we 
 pray to that which is close to us as our own souls, part of 
 our very selves, inseparable from our thoughts, sharing our 
 consciousness ? As well talk aloud to ourselves as pray to 
 the universal Essence. Children cry for what they want ; 
 men and women work for it. There are two points of view 
 from which we may regard prayer : from the one it is a piece 
 of childishness only, from the other it is sheer impertinence. 
 Regarding Nature's mighty order, her grand, silent, unvary- 
 ing march, the importunity which frets against her change- 
 less progress is a mark of the most extreme childishness of 
 
 * All men do not think lying wrong, e.g., Thugs and old Spartans. 
 Therefore it is not our moral nature that intuitively tells us thus, but 
 our moral nature as instructed by the moral ideas prevailing in the 
 society in which we happen to be living. Note by the Editor. 
 
140 ON THE NATURE AND 
 
 mind; it shows that complete irreverence of spirit which 
 cannot conceive the idea of a greatness before which the 
 individual existence is as nothing, and that infantile conceit 
 which imagines that its own plans and playthings rival in 
 importance the struggles of nations and the interests of dis- 
 tant worlds. Regarding Nature's laws as wiser than our 
 own whims, the idea which finds its outlet in prayer is a 
 gross impertinence ; who are we that we should take it on 
 ourselves to remind Nature of her work, God of his duty ? 
 Is there any impertinence so extreme as the prayer which 
 " pleads " with the Deity ? There is only one kind of 
 " prayer " which is reasonable, and that is the deep, silent,, 
 adoration of the greatness and beauty and order around us r 
 as revealed in the realms of non-rational life and in , 
 Humanity ; as we bow our heads before the laws of the 
 universe and mould our lives into obedience to their voice, 
 we find a strong, calm peace steal over our hearts, a perfect 
 trust in the ultimate triumph of the right, a quiet determi- 
 nation to " make our lives sublime." Before our own high 
 ideals, before those lives which show us " how high the tides 
 of divine life have risen in the human world," we stand 
 with hushed voice and veiled face ; from them we draw 
 strength to emulate, and even dare struggle to excel. The 
 contemplation of the ideal is true prayer ; it inspires, it 
 strengthens, it ennobles. The other part of prayer is work : 
 from contemplation to labour, from the forest to the street. 
 Study Nature's laws, conform to them, work in harmony 
 with them, and work becomes a prayer and a thanksgiving, 
 an adoration of the universal wisdom, and a true obedience 
 to the universal law. 
 
 Is the mainspring of our actions to be the idea of ditty to 
 God, or the of loyalty to law and to man's well-being ?" We 
 cannot serve God in any real sense ; we are awed before the 
 Unknown, but we cannot serve it. For the Mighty, for the 
 Incomprehensible, what can we do? But we can serve man,, 
 ay, and he needs our service ; service of brain and hand, 
 service untiring and unceasing, service through life and unto* 
 death. The race to which we belong (our own familes and 
 kinsfolk, and then the community at large) has the first claim 
 on our allegiance, a claim from which nothing can release 
 us until death drops a veil over our work. 
 
 Surely I may claim that my subject is not an unpractical 
 one, and that our ideas of the Nature and Existence of God 
 influence our lives in a very real way. If I have substituted 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 141 
 
 a different basis of morality for that on which it now stands, 
 if I have suggested a different theory of prayer, and offered 
 a different motive for duty, surely these changes affect the 
 whole of human life And if one by one these theories ate 
 denied by the orthodox, and they reject them because they 
 sever human life from that which is called revealed religion, 
 is not my position justified, that the ideas we hold of God 
 are the ruling forces of our lives? that it is of primary 
 importance to the welfare of mankind that a false theory on 
 this point should be destroyed and a more reasonable faith 
 accepted ? 
 
 Will any one exclaim, " You are taking all beauty out of 
 human life, all hope, all warmth, all inspiration ; you 
 give us cold duty for filial obedience, and inexorable 
 law in the place of God?" All beauty from life ? Is there, 
 then, no beauty in the idea of forming part of the great life 
 of the universe, no beauty in conscious harmony with 
 Nature, no beauty in faithful service, no beauty in ideals of 
 every virtue ? " All hope ?" Why, I give you more than hope, 
 I give you certainty : if I bid you labour for this world, it is 
 with the knowledge that this world will repay you a thousand- 
 fold, because society will grow purer, freedom more settled, 
 law more honoured, life more full and glad. What is your 
 hope ? A heaven in the clouds. I point to a heaven attain- 
 able on earth. " All warmth?" What ! You serve warmly a 
 God unknown and invisible, in a sense the projected shadow 
 of your own imaginings, and can only serve coldly your 
 brother whom you see at your side ? There is no warmth in 
 brightening the lot of the sad, in reforming abuses, in 
 establishing equal justice for rich and poor? You find warmth 
 in the church, but none in the home? Warmth in imagining 
 the cloud-glories of heaven, but none in creating substantial 
 glories on earth ? " All inspiration ?" If you want inspiration 
 to feeling, to sentiment, perhaps you had better keep to your 
 Bible and your creeds ; if you want inspiration to work, go 
 and walk through the east of London, or the back streets of 
 Manchester. You are inspired to tenderness as you gaze 
 at the wounds of Jesus, dead in Judaea long ago, and find 
 no inspiration in the wounds of men and women dying in 
 the England of to-day ? You " have tears to shed for him," 
 but none for the sufferer at your doors ? His passion arouses 
 your sympathies, but you see no pathos in the passion of 
 the poor? Duty is colder than "filial obedience ?" What do 
 you mean by filial obedience ? Obedience to your ideal of 
 
142 ON THE NATURE AND THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 goodness and love, is it not so ? Then how is duty cold ? I 
 offer you ideals for your homage : here is Truth for your 
 Mistress, to whose exaltation you shall devote your intellect ; 
 here is Freedom for your General, for whose triumph you 
 shall fight ; here is Love for your Inspirer, who shall influ- 
 ence your every thought ; here is Man for your Master not 
 in heaven but on earth to whose service you shall conse- 
 crate every faculty of your being. Inexorable law in the 
 place of God ? Yes : a stern certainty that you shall not 
 waste your life, yet gather a rich reward at the close ; that 
 you shall not sow misery, yet reap gladness ; that you shall 
 not ba selfish, yet be crowned with love, nor shall you sin, 
 yet find safety in repentance. True, our creed is a stern 
 one, stern with the beautiful sternness of Nature. But if we 
 be in the right, look to yourselves : laws do not check their 
 .action for your ignorance ; fire will not cease to scorch, 
 because " you did not know." 
 
 We know nothing beyond Nature ; we judge of the future 
 by the present and the past ; we are content to work now, 
 and let the work to come wait until it appears as the work to 
 do ; we find that our faculties are sufficient for fulfilling the 
 tasks within our reach, and we cannot waste time and 
 strength in gazing into impenetrable darkness. We must 
 needs fight against superstitions, because they hinder the 
 advancement of the race, but we will not fall into the error 
 of opponents and try to define the ^Indefinable. 
 
EUTHANASIA. 
 
 " T HAVE already related to you with what care they look 
 J[ after their sick, so that nothing is left undone which 
 may contribute either to their health or ease. And as for 
 those who are afflicted with incurable disorders, they use all 
 possible means of cherishing them, and of making their 
 lives as comfortable as possible ; they visit them often, and 
 take great pains to make their time pass easily. But if any 
 have torturing, lingering pain, without hope of recovery or 
 ease, the priests and magistrates repair to them and exhort 
 them, since they are unable to proceed with the business of 
 life, are become a burden to themselves and all about them, 
 and have in reality outlived themselves, they should no 
 longer cherish a rooted disease, but choose to die since they 
 cannot but live in great misery ; being persuaded, if they 
 thus deliver themselves from torture, or allow others to do it, 
 they shall be happy after death. Since they forfeit none of 
 the pleasures, but only the troubles of life by this, they 
 think they not only act reasonably, but consistently with 
 religion ; for they follow the advice of their priests, the 
 expounders of God's will. Those who are wrought upon by 
 these persuasions, either starve themselves or take laudanum. 
 But no one is compelled to end his life thus ; and if they 
 cannot be persuaded to it, the former care and attendance 
 on it is continued. And though they esteem a voluntary 
 death, when chosen on such authority, to be very honour- 
 able, on the contrary, if any one commit suicide without 
 the concurrence of the priest and senate, they honour not 
 the body with a decent funeral, but throw into a ditch.* 
 
 In pleading for the morality of Euthanasia, it seems not 
 unwise to show that so thoroughly religious a man as Sir 
 
 * Memoirs. A translation of the Utopia, c., of Sir Thomas Moore, 
 Lord High Chancellor of England. By A. Cayley the Younger, pp. 
 102, 103. (Edition of 1808.) 
 
144 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 Thomas Moore deemed that practice so consonant with a 
 sound morality as to make it one of the customs of his ideal 
 state, and to place it under the sanction of the priesthood. 
 As a devout Roman Catholic, the great Chancellor would 
 naturally imagine that any beneficial innovation would be 
 sure to obtain the support of the priesthood ; and although 
 we may differ from him on this head, since our daily expe- 
 rience teaches us that the priest may be counted upon as the 
 steady opponent of all reform, it is yet not uninstructive to 
 note that the deep religious feeling which distinguished this 
 truly good man, did not shrink from this idea of euthanasia 
 as from a breach of morality, nor did he apparently dream 
 that any opposition would (or could) be offered to it on 
 religious grounds. The last sentence of the extract is 
 specially important ; in discussiug the morality of eutha- 
 nasia we are not discussing the moral lawfulness or un- 
 lawfulness of suicide in general ; we may protest against 
 suicide, and yet uphold euthanasia, and we may even pro- 
 test against the one and uphold the other, on exactly the 
 same principle, as we shall see further on. As the greater 
 includes the less, those who consider that a man has a right 
 to choose whether he will live or not, and who therefore 
 regard all suicide as lawful, will, of course, approve of 
 euthanasia ; but it is by no means necessary to hold this 
 doctrine because we contend for the other. On the general 
 question of the morality of suicide^ this paper expresses no 
 opinion whatever. This is not the point, and we do not deal 
 with it here. This essay is simply and solely directed to prove 
 that there are circumstances under which a human being 
 has a moral right to hasten the inevitable approach of death. 
 The subject is one which is surrounded by a thick fog of 
 popular prejudice, and the arguments in its favour are gene- 
 rally dismissed unheard. I would therefore crave the 
 reader's generous patience, while laying before him the 
 reasons which dispose many religious and social reformers 
 to regard it as of importance that euthanasia should be 
 legalised. 
 
 In the fourth Edition of an essay on Euthanasia, by P. 
 D. Williams, jun., an essay which powerfully sums up 
 what is to be said for and against the practice in question, 
 and which treats the whole subject exhaustively we find 
 the proposition for which we contend laid down in the fol- 
 lowing explicit terms : 
 
 " That in all cases of hopeless and painful illness, it 
 
EUTHANASIA. 145 
 
 should be the recognised duty of the medical attendant, 
 whenever so desired hy the patient, to administer chloroform, 
 or such other anaesthetic as may by-and-by supersede chloro- 
 form, so as to destroy consciousness at once, and to put the 
 sufferer to a quick and painless death; all needful precau- 
 tions being adopted to prevent any abuse of such duty ; and 
 means being taken to establish, beyond the possibility of 
 doubt or question, that the remedy was applied at the 
 express wish of the patient." 
 
 It is very important, at the outset, to lay down clearly the 
 limitations of the proposed medical reform. It is, some- 
 times, thoughtlessly stated that the supporters of euthanasia 
 propose to put to death all persons suffering from incurable 
 disorders ; no assertion can be more inaccurate or more 
 calculated to mislead. We propose only, that where an 
 incurable disorder is accompanied with extreme pain pain, 
 which nothing can alleviate except death pain, which only 
 grows worse as the inevitable doom approaches pain, 
 which drives almost to madness, and which must end in the 
 intensified torture in the death agony that pain should be 
 at once soothed by the administration of an anaesthetic, 
 which should not only produce unconsciousness, but should 
 be sufficiently powerful to end a life, in which the renewal of 
 consciousness can only be simultaneous with the renewal of 
 pain. So long as life has some sweetness left in it, so long the 
 offered mercy is not needed ; euthanasia is a relief from un- 
 endurable agony, not an enforced extinguisher of a still 
 desired existence. Besides, no one proposes to make it 
 obligatory on anybody ; it is only urged that where the 
 patient asks for the mercy of a speedy death, instead of a 
 protracted one, his prayer may be granted without any 
 danger of the penalties of murder or manslaughter being 
 inflicted on the doctors and nurses in attendance. I will 
 lay before the reader a case which is within my own know- 
 ledge, and which can be probably supplemented by the sad 
 experience of almost every individual, in which the legality 
 of euthanasia would have been a boon equally to the 
 sufferer and to her family. A widow lady was suffering 
 from cancer in the breast, and as the case was too far 
 advanced for the ordinary remedy of the knife, and as the 
 leading London surgeons refused to risk an operation which 
 might hasten, but could not retard, death, she resolved, for 
 the sake of her orphan children, to allow a medical 
 practitioner to perform a terrible operation, whereby he 
 
146 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 hoped to prolong her life for some years. Its details are too- 
 painful to enter into unnecessarily ; it will suffice to say that 
 it was performed by means of quick-lime, and that the use 
 of chloroform was impossible. When the operation, which 
 extended over days, was but half over, the sufferer's strength 
 gave way, and the doctor was compelled to acknowledge 
 that even a prolongation of life was impossible, and that to 
 complete the operation could only hasten death. So the 
 patient had to linger on in almost unimaginable torture, 
 knowing that the pain could only end in death, seeing her 
 relatives worn out by watching, and agonised at the sight of 
 her sufferings, and yet compelled to live on from hour to 
 hour, till at last the anguish culminated in death. Is it 
 possible for any one to believe that it would have been 
 wrong to have hastened the inevitable end, and thus to have 
 shortened the agony of the sufferer herself, and to have also- 
 spared her nurses months of subsequent ill-health. It is in 
 such cases as this that euthanasia would be useful. It is, 
 however, probable that all will agree that the benefit con- 
 ferred by the legalisation of euthanasia would, in many 
 instances, be very great ; but many feel that the objections 
 to it, on moral grounds, are so weighty, that no physical 
 benefit could countervail the moral wrong. These objections,, 
 so far as I can gather them, are as follows : 
 
 Life is the gift of God, and is therefore sacred, and must 
 only be taken back by the giver of life.* 
 
 Euthanasia is an interference with the course of nature, 
 and is therefore an act of rebellion against God. 
 
 Pain is a spiritual remedial agent inflicted by God, and 
 should therefore be patiently endured. 
 
 Life is the gift of God, and is therefore sacred, and must 
 only be taken back by the Giver of life. This objection is 
 one of those high-sounding phrases which impose on the 
 careless and thoughtless hearer, by catching up a form of 
 words which is generally accepted as an unquestionable 
 axiom, and by hanging thereupon an unfair corollary. The 
 ordinary man or woman, on hearing this assertion, would 
 probably answer " Life sacred ? Yes, of course ; on the 
 sacredness of life depends the safety of society ; anything 
 which tampers with this principle must be both wrong and 
 dangerous." And yet, such is the inconsistency of the 
 
 * We, of course, here, have no concern with theological questions 
 touching the existence or non-existence of Deity, and express no opinion 
 about them. 
 
EUTHANASIA. 147 
 
 thoughtless, that, five minutes afterwards, the same person 
 will glow with passionate admiration at some noble deed, in 
 which the sacredness of life has been cast to the winds at 
 the call of honour or of humanity, or will utter words ot 
 indignant contempt at the baseness which counted life more 
 .sacred than duty or principle. That life is sacred is an un- 
 deniable proposition ; every natural gift is sacred, i.e., is 
 valuable, and is not to be lightly destroyed ; life, as summing 
 up all natural gifts, and as containing within itself all pos- 
 sibilities of usefulness and happiness, is the most sacred 
 physical possession which we own. But it is not the most 
 sacred thing on earth. Martyrs slain for the sake of 
 principles which they could not truthfully deny ; patriots 
 who have died for their country ; heroes who have sacrificed 
 themselves for others' good ; the very flower and glory of 
 humanity rise up in a vast crowd to protest that con- 
 science, honour, love, self-devotion, are more precious to 
 the race than is the life of the individual. Life is sacred, 
 but it may be laid down in a noble cause ; life is sacred, but 
 it must bend before the holier sacredness of principle ; life 
 which, though sacred, can be destroyed, is as nothing before 
 the indestructable ideals which claim from every noble soul 
 the sacrifice of personal happiness, of personal greatness, yea, 
 of personal life.* 
 
 It will be conceded, then, on all hands, that the proposi- 
 tion that life is sacred must be accepted with many limita- 
 tions : the proposition, in fact, amounts only to this, that 
 life must not be voluntarily laid down without grave and 
 sufficient cause. What we have to consider is, whether 
 there are present, in any proposed euthanasia, such condi- 
 tions as overbear considerations for the acknowledged 
 sanctity of life. We contend that in the cases in which it 
 is proposed that death should be hastened, these conditions 
 do exist. 
 
 We will not touch here on the question of the endurance 
 of pain as a duty, for we will examine that further on. But 
 is it a matter of no importance that a sufferer should con- 
 demn his attendants to a prolonged drain on their health 
 
 * The word "life" is here used in the sense of " personal existence 
 in this world." It is, of course, not intended to be asserted that life is 
 really destructible, but only that personal existence, or identity, may be 
 destroyed. And further, no opinion is given on the possibility of life 
 otherwhere than on this globe ; nothing is spoken of except life on 
 earth, under the conditions of human existence. 
 
148 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 and strength, in order to cling to a life which is useless to 
 others, and a burden to himself? The nurse who tends, 
 perhaps for weeks, a bed of agony, for which there is no 
 cure but death whose senses are strained by intense watch- 
 fulness whose nerves are racked by witnessing torture 
 which she is powerless to alleviate is, by her self-devotion, 
 sowing in her own constitution the seeds of ill-health that 
 is to say, she is deliberately shortening her own life. We 
 have seen that we have a right to shorten life in obedience 
 to a call of duty, and it will at once be said that the nurse 
 is obeying such a call. But has the nurse a right to sacrifice 
 her own life and an injury to health is a sacrifice of life 
 for an obviously unequivalent advantage ? We are apt to 
 forget, because the injury is partially veiled to us, that we 
 touch the sacredness of life whenever we touch health : 
 every case of over-work, of over-strain, of over-exertion, is, 
 so to speak, a modified case of euthanasia. To poison the 
 spring of life is as real a tampering with the sacredness of 
 life as it is to check its course. The nurse is really commit- 
 ting a slow euthanasia. Either the patient or the nurse 
 must commit an heroic suicide for the sake of the other 
 which shall it be ? Shall the life be sacrificed, which is tor- 
 ture to its possessor, useless to society, and whose bounds are 
 already clearly marked? or shall a strong and healthy life, with 
 all its future possibilities, be undermined and sacrificed in 
 addition to that which is already doomed? But, granting that 
 the sublime generosity of the nurse stays not to balance the 
 gain with the loss, but counts herself as nothing in the face 
 of a human need, then surely it is time to urge then to per- 
 mit this self-sacrifice is an error, and that to accept it is a 
 crime. If it be granted that the throwing away of life for a 
 manifestly unequivalent gain is wrong, that we ought not to 
 blind ourselves to the fact, that to sacrifice a healthy life in 
 order to lengthen by a few short weeks a doomed life, is a 
 grave moral error, however much it may be redeemed in the 
 individual by the glory of a noble self-devotion. Allowing 
 to the full the honour due to the heroism of the nurse, what 
 are we to say to the patient who accepts the sacrifice ? What 
 are we to think of the morality of a human being who, in 
 order to preserve the miserable remnant of life left to him, 
 allows another to shorten life ? If we honour the man who 
 sacrifices himself to defend his family, or risks his own life to 
 save theirs, we must surely blame him who, on the contrary, 
 sacrifices those he ought to value most, in order to prolong 
 
EUTHANASIA. 1 49 
 
 his own now useless existence. The measure of our admira- 
 tion for the one, must be the measure of our pity for the 
 weakness and selfishness of the other. If it be true that the 
 man who dies for his dear ones on the battlefield is a hero, 
 he who voluntarily dies for them on his bed of sickness is a 
 hero no less brave. But it is urged that life is the gift of 
 God, and must only be taken back by the Giver of life. I sup- 
 pose that in any sense in which it can be supposed true that 
 life is the gift of God, it can only be taken back by the giver 
 that is to say, that just as life is produced in accordance 
 with certain laws, so it can only be destroyed in accordance 
 with certain other laws. Life is not the direct gift of a 
 superior power : it is the gift of man to man and animal to 
 animal, produced by the voluntary agent, and not by God, 
 under physical conditions, on the fulfilment of which alone 
 the production of life depends. The physical conditions 
 must be observed if we desire to produce life, and so must they 
 be if we desire to destroy life. In both cases man is the volun- 
 tary agent, in both law is the means of his action. If life- 
 giving is God's doing, then life-destroying is his doing too. 
 But this is not what is intended by the proposers of this 
 aphorism. If they will pardon me for translating their 
 somewhat vague proposition into more precise language, 
 they say that they find themselves in possession of a certain 
 thing called life, which must have come from somewhere ; 
 and as in popular language the unknown is always the 
 divine, it must have come from God : therefore this life 
 must only be taken from them by a cause that also proceeds 
 from somewhere i.e., from an unknown cause i.e. } from the 
 Divine will. Chloroform comes from a visible agent, from 
 the doctor or nurse, or at least from a bottle, which can be 
 taken up or left alone at our own choice. If we swallow 
 this, the cause of death is known, and is evidently not 
 divine ; but if we go into a house where scarlet fever is 
 raging, although we are in that case voluntarily running the 
 chance of taking poison quite as truly as if we swallow a 
 dose of chloroform, yet if we die from the infection, we can 
 imagine the illness to be sent from God. Wherever we 
 think the element of chance comes in, there we are able to 
 imagine that God rules directly. We quite overlook the 
 fact that there is no such thing as chance. There is only 
 our ignorance of law, not a break in natural order. If our 
 constitution be susceptible of the particular poison to which 
 we expose it, we take the disease. If we knew the laws of 
 
150 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 Infection as accurately as we know the laws affecting chloro- 
 form, we should be able to foresee with like certainty the 
 inevitable consequence ; and our ignorance does not make 
 the action of either set of laws less unchangeable or more 
 divine. But in the "happy-go-lucky" style of thought 
 peculiar to ignorance, the Christian disregards the fact that 
 infection is ruled by definite laws, and believes that health 
 .and sickness are the direct expressions of the will of his 
 God, and not the invariable consequence of obscure but pro- 
 bably discoverable antecedents ; so he boldly goes into the 
 back slums of London to nurse a family stricken down with 
 fever, and knowingly and deliberately runs " the chance " 
 of infection i.e., knowingly and deliberately runs the chance 
 of taking poison, or rather of having poison poured into his 
 frame. This he does, trusting that the nobility of his 
 motive will make the act right in God's sight. Is it more 
 noble to relieve the sufferings of strangers, than to relieve 
 the sufferings of his family ? or is it more heroic to die 
 of voluntarily-contracted fever, than of voluntarily-taken 
 chloroform ? 
 
 The argument that life must only be taken back by the life- 
 giver, would, if thoroughly carried out, entirely prevent all 
 dangerous operations. In the treatment of some diseases 
 there are operations that will either kill or cure : the disease 
 must certainly be fatal if left alone ; while the proposed 
 operation may save life, it may equally destroy it, and thus 
 may take life some time before the giver of life wanted to 
 take it back. Evidently, then, such operations should not 
 be performed, since there is risked so grave an interference 
 with the desires of the life-giver. Again, doctors act very 
 wrongly when they allow certain soothing medicines to be 
 taken when all hope is gone, which they refuse so long as a 
 chance of recovery remains : what right have they to com- 
 pel the life-giver to follow out his apparent intentions ? 
 In some cases of painful disease, it is now usual to produce 
 partial or total unconsciousness by the injection of mor- 
 phia, or by the use of some other anaesthetic. Thus, I have 
 known a patient subjected to this kind of treatment, when 
 dying from a tumour in the aesophagus ; he was consequently 
 for some weeks before his death, kept in a state of almost 
 complete unconsciousness, for if he were allowed to become 
 conscious, his agony was so unendurable as to drive him 
 wild. He was thus, although breathing, practically dead 
 for weeks before his death. We cannot but wonder, in view 
 
EUTHANASIA. 151 
 
 of such a case as his, what it is that people mean when they 
 talk of "life." Life includes, surely, not only the involun- 
 tary animal functions, such as the movements of heart and 
 lungs ; but consciousness, thought, feeling, emotion. Of 
 the various constituents of human life, surely those are not 
 the most " sacred " which we share with the brute, however 
 necessary these may be as the basis on which the rest are 
 built. It is thought, then, that we may rightfully destroy 
 all that constitutes the beauty and nobility of human life,. 
 we may kill thought, slay consciousness, deaden emotion, 
 stop feeling, we may do all this, and leave lying on the bed 
 before us a breathing figure, from which we have taken all 
 the nobler possibilities of life ; but we may not touch the 
 purely animal existence ; we may rightly check the action 
 of the nerves and the brain, but we must not dare to outrage 
 the Deity by checking the action of the heart and the 
 lungs. 
 
 We ask, then, for the legalisation of euthanasia, because 
 it is in accordance with the highest morality yet known, that 
 which teaches the duty of self sacrifice for the greater good 
 of others, because it is sanctioned in principle by every ser- 
 vice performed at personal danger and injury, and because- 
 it is already partially practised by modern improvements in 
 medical science. 
 
 Euthanasia is an interference with the course of nature, and' 
 its here/ore an act of rebellion against God. In considering 
 this objection, we are placed in difficulty by not being told 
 what sense our opponents attach to the word " nature ; ' ; and 
 we are obliged once more to ask pardon for forcing these 
 vague and high-flown arguments into a humiliating precision, 
 of meaning. Nature, in the widest sense of the word, in- 
 cludes all natural laws : and in this sense it is of course im- 
 possible to interfere with nature at all. We live, and move,, 
 and have our being in nature ; and we can no more get 
 outside it than we can get outside everything. With this 
 nature we cannot interfere : we can study its laws, and learn 
 how to balance one law against another, so as to modify re- 
 sults ; but this can only be done by and through nature itself. 
 The " interference with the course of nature " which is in- 
 tended in the above objection does not of course mean this 
 impossible proceeding ; and it can then only mean an inter- 
 ference with things which would proceed in one course with- 
 out human agency meddling with them, but which are sus- 
 ceptible of being turned into another course by human 
 
152 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 agency. If interference with nature's course be a rebellion 
 against Gcd, we are rebelling against God every day of our 
 lives. Every achievement of civilisation is an interference 
 with nature. Every artificial comfort we enjoy is an im- 
 provement on nature. " Everybody professes to approve 
 and admire many great triumphs of art over nature : the 
 junction by bridges of shores which nature had made sepa- 
 rate, the draining of nature's marshes, the excavation of her 
 wells, the dragging to light of what she has buried at im- 
 mense depths in the earth, the turning away of her thunder- 
 bolts by lightning-rods, of her inundations by embankments, 
 of her ocean by breakwaters. But to commend these and 
 similar feats, is to acknowledge that the ways of nature are 
 to be conquered, not obeyed; that her powers are often 
 towards man in the position of enemies, from whom he must 
 wrest, by force and ingenuity, what little he can for his own 
 use, and deserves to be applauded when that little is rather 
 more than might be expected from his physical weakness 
 in comparison to those gigantic powers. All praise of civili- 
 sation, or art, or contrivance, is so much dispraise of nature; 
 an admission of imperfection, which it is man's business, 
 and merit, to be always endeavouring to correct or mitigate.* 
 It is difficult to understand how anyone, contemplating the 
 course of nature, can regard it as the expression of a 
 Divine will, which man has no right to improve upon. 
 Natural law is essentially unreasoning and unmoral : gigantic 
 forces clash around us on every side unintelligent, and un- 
 varying in their action. With equal impassiveness these 
 blind forces produce vast benefits and work vast catastrophes. 
 The benefits are ours, if we are able to grasp them ; but 
 nature troubles itself not, whether we take them or leave 
 them alone. The catastrophes may rightly be averted, if 
 we can avert them; but nature stays not its grinding 
 wheel for our moans. Even allowing that a Supreme 
 Intelligence gave these forces their being, it is manifest 
 that he never intended man to be their plaything, or 
 to do them homage ; for man is dowered with reason to 
 calculate, and with genius to foresee ; and into man's hands 
 is given the realm of nature (in this world) to cultivate, to 
 govern, to improve. So long as men believed that a god 
 wielded the thunderbolt, so long would a lightning-conductor 
 be an outrage on Jove ; so long as a god guided each force 
 
 * " Essay on Nature," by John Stuart Mill. 
 
EUTHANASIA. 153 
 
 of nature, so long would it be impiety to resist, or to endea- 
 vour to regulate the divine volitions. Only as experience 
 gradually proved that no evil consequences followed each 
 amendment of nature, were natural forces withdrawn, one 
 by one, from the sphere of the unknown and the divine. 
 Now, even pain, that used to be God's scourge, is soothed 
 by chloroform, and death alone is left for nature to inflict, 
 with what lingering agony it may. But why should death, 
 any more than other ills, be left entirely to the clumsy, 
 unassisted processes of nature? why, after struggling against 
 nature all our lives, should we let it reign unopposed in 
 death ? There are some natural evils that we cannot avert. 
 Pain and death are of these ; but we can dull pain by dulling 
 feeling, and we can ease by shortening its pangs. Nature 
 kills by slow and protracted torture ; we can defy it by 
 choosing a rapid and painless end. It is only the remains 
 of the old superstition that makes men think that to take 
 life is the special prerogative of the gods. With marvellous 
 inconsistency, however, the opponents of euthanasia do not 
 scruple to "interfere with the course of nature" on the one 
 hand, while they forbid us to interfere on the other. It is 
 right to prolong pain by art, although it is wrong to shorten 
 it. When a person is smitten down with some fearful and 
 incurable disease, they do not leave him to nature ; on the 
 contrary, they check and thwart nature in every possible 
 way ; they cherish the life that nature has blasted ; they 
 nourish the strength that nature is undermining ; they delay 
 each process of decay which nature sows in the disordered 
 frame ; they contest every inch of ground with nature to 
 preserve life ; and then, when life means torture, and we ask 
 permission to step in and quench it, they cry out that we are 
 interfering with nature. If they would leave nature to 
 itself, the disease would generally kill with tolerable 
 rapidity ; but they will not do this. They will only admit 
 the force of their own argument when it tells on the side 
 of what they choose to consider right. "Against nature'' is 
 the cry with which many a modern improvement has been 
 howled at ; and it will continue to be raised, until it is gene- 
 rally acknowledged that happiness, and not nature, is the 
 true guide to morality, and until men recognises that nature 
 is to be harnessed to his car of triumph, and to bend its 
 mighty forces to fulfil the human will. 
 
 Pain is a spiritual remedial agent, inflicted by God, and 
 should therefore be patiently endured. Does anyone, except a 
 
154 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 :self-torturing ascetic, endure any pain which he can get rid of? 
 This might be deemed a sufficient answer to this objection, 
 for common sense always bids us avoid all possible pain, 
 and daily experience tells us that people invariably evade 
 pain, wherever such evasion is possible. The objection 
 ought to run : " pain is a spiritual remedial agent, inflicted 
 by God, which is to be got rid of as soon as possible, but 
 ought to be patiently endured when unavoidable." Pain as 
 pain has no recommendations, spiritual or otherwise ; nor is 
 there the smallest merit in a voluntary and needless sub- 
 mission to pain. As to its remedial and educational advan- 
 tages, it as often as not sours the temper and hardens the 
 heart ; if a person endures great physical or mental pain 
 with unruffled patience, and comes out of it with uninjured 
 tenderness and sweetness, we may rest assured that we have 
 come across a rare and beautiful nature of exceptional 
 .strength. As a general rule, pain, especially if it be mental, 
 hardens and roughens the character. The use of anaesthetics 
 is utterly indefensible, if physical pain is to be regarded as a 
 special tool whereby God culti/ates the human soul. If 
 God is directly acting on the sufferer's body, and is educating 
 his soul by racking his nerves, by what right does the doctor 
 step between with his impious anaesthetic, and by reducing 
 the patient to unconsciousness, deprive God of his pupil, 
 and man of his lesson ? If pain be a sacred ark, over which 
 hovers the divine glory, surely it must be a sinful act to touch 
 the holy thing. We may be inflicting incalculable spiritual 
 damage by frustrating the divine plan of education, which 
 was corporeal agony as a spiritual agent. Therefore, if this 
 argument be good for anything at all, we must from hence- 
 forth eschew all anaesthetics, we must take no steps to 
 alleviate human agony, we must not venture to interfere with 
 this beneficent agent, but must leave nature to torture us 
 it will. But we utterly deny that the unneccessary endurance 
 of pain is even a merit, much less a duty ; on the contrary, 
 we believe that it is our duty to war against pain as much as 
 possible, to alleviate it wherever we cannot stop it entirely ; 
 and, where continuous and frightful agony can only end in 
 death, then to give to the sufferer the relief he craves for, 
 in the sleep which is mercy. " It is a mercy God has taken 
 him," is an expression often heard when the racked frame at 
 last lies quiet, and the writhed features settle slowly into the 
 peaceful smile of the dead. That mercy we plead that man 
 should be allowed to give to man, when human skill and 
 
EUTHANASIA. 155 
 
 human tenderness have done their best, and when they have 
 left within their reach no greater boon than a speedy and 
 painless death. 
 
 We are not aware that any objection, which may not be 
 classed under one or other of these three heads, has been 
 levelled against the proposition that euthanasia should be 
 legalised. It has, indeed, been suggested that to put into 
 a doctor's hands this " power of life and death," would be to- 
 offer a dangerous temptation to those who have any special 
 object to gain by putting a troublesome person quietly out 
 of the way. But this objection overlooks the fact that the 
 patient himself must ask for the draught, that stringent pre- 
 cautions can be taken to render euthanasia impossible except 
 at the patient's earnestly, or even repeatedly, expressed wish,, 
 that any doctor or attendant, neglecting to take these pre- 
 cautions, would then, as now, be liable to all the penalties 
 for murder or for manslaughter ; and that an ordinary doctor 
 would no more be ready to face these penalties then, than 
 he is now, although he undoubtedly has now the power of 
 putting the patient to death with but little chance of dis- 
 covery. Euthanasia would not render murder less danger- 
 ous than it is at present, since no one asks that a nurse may 
 be empowered to give a patient a dose which would ensure 
 death, or that she might be allowed to shield herself from 
 punishment on the plea that the patient desired it. If our 
 opponents would take the trouble to find out what we da 
 ask, before they condemn our propositions, it would greatly 
 simplify public discussion, not alone in this case, but in 
 many proposed reforms. 
 
 It may be well, also, to point out the wide line of demar- 
 cation which separated euthanasia from what is ordinarily 
 called suicide. Euthanasia, like suicide, is a voluntarily 
 chosen death, but there is a radical difference between the 
 motives which prompt the similar act. Those who commit 
 suicide thereby render themselves useless to society for the 
 future ; they deprive society of their services, and selfishly 
 evade the duties which ought to fall to their share ; there- 
 fore, the social feelings rightly condemn suicide as a crime 
 against society. I do not say that under no stress of cir- 
 cumstances is suicide justifiable ; that is not the question ; 
 but I wish to point out that it is justly regarded as a social 
 offence. But the very motive which restrains from suicide, 
 prompts to euthanasia. The sufferer who knows that he is 
 lost to society, that he can never again serve his fellow- 
 
156 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 men ; who knows, also, that he is depriving society of the 
 services of those who uselessly exhaust themselves for him, 
 and is further injuring it by undermining the health of its 
 healthy members, feels urged by the very social instincts 
 which would prevent him from committing suicide while in 
 health, to yield a last service to society by relieving it from 
 a useless burden. Hence it is that Sir Thomas Moore, in the 
 quotation with which he began this essay, makes the social 
 authorities of his ideal state urge euthanasia as the duty of a 
 faithful citizen, while they yet consistently reprobate ordi- 
 nary suicide as a lhe-majest$, a crime against the State. 
 The life of the individual is, in a sense, the property of 
 society. The infant is nurtured, the child is educated, the 
 man is protected by others ; and, in return for the life thus 
 given, developed, preserved, society has a right to demand 
 from its members a loyal, self-forgetting devotion to the 
 common weal. To serve humanity, to raise the race from 
 which we spring, to dedicate every talent, every power, every 
 energy, to the improvement of, and to the increase of happi- 
 ness in, society, this is the duty of each individual man and 
 woman. And, when we have given all we can, when strength 
 is sinking, and life is failing, when pain racks our bodies, and 
 the worse agony of seeing our dear ones suffer in our anguish 
 tortures our enfeebled minds, when the only service we can 
 render man is to relieve him of a useless and injurious 
 burden, then we ask that we may be permitted to die volun- 
 tarily and painlessly, and so to crown a noble life with the 
 laurel wreath of a self-sacrificing death. 
 
T 
 
 ON PRAYER. 
 
 HE mania for Prayer-meetings has lately been largely on 
 the increase, and the continual efforts being made to 
 
 "Move the arm that moves the world," 
 
 naturally draw one's attention strongly to the subject of 
 Prayer ; to its reasonableness, propriety, and prospect of 
 success. If Prayer to God be reverent as towards the 
 Deity, if it be consistent with his immutability, with his fore- 
 knowledge, with his wisdom, and with every kind of trust 
 in his goodness if it be also, as regards man, permissible 
 by science, and approved by experience, then there can be 
 no doubt at all that it should be sedulously practised, and 
 should be of universal obligation. But if it be at once use- 
 less and absurd, if it be forbidden by reason and frowned at 
 by common sense, if it weaken man and be irreverent 
 towards the Being to whom it is said to be addressed, then 
 it will be well for all who practise it to reconsider their posi- 
 tion, and at least to endeavour to give some solid reason for 
 persisting in a course which is condemned by the intellect 
 and is unneeded by the heart. 
 
 The practice of Prayer is generally founded upon the 
 supposed position held by man first, as a creature towards 
 his Creator, and secondly, as a child towards his Father in 
 heaven. In its first aspect, it is a simple act of homage 
 from the inferior to the superior, parallel to the courtesy 
 shown by the subject to the monarch ; it is an acknowledg- 
 ment of dependence, and a sign of gratitude for the gifts 
 which are supposed to be freely given by God to man 
 gifts which man has done nothing to deserve, but which 
 come from the free bounty of the giver. Putting aside the 
 whole question of God as Creator, which is not the point at 
 issue, we might argue that, since he brought us into this 
 world without our request, and even without our consent, 
 
158 ON PRAYER. 
 
 he is in duty bound to see that we have all things necessary 
 for our life and happiness in the world in which he has thus 
 placed us. We might argue that the " blessings " said to be 
 bestowed upon us, such as food, clothing, &c., can only be 
 called " given " by a fiction, for that they are won by our 
 own hard toil, and are never " gifts from God " in any real 
 sense at all. Further, we might plead that we find " be- 
 stowed " upon us many things which are decidedly the 
 reverse of blessings, and that if gratitude be due to God 
 for some things, the contrary of gratitude is due to him for 
 others ; and that if praise be his right for the one, blame 
 must be his desert for the second. We should be thus 
 forced into the logical, but somewhat peculiar, frame of 
 mind of the savage, who caresses his fetish when it hears 
 his prayers, and belabours it heartily when it fails to help 
 him. But, taking the position that Prayer is due from man 
 by reason of his creaturehood, it must surely be clear that 
 it cannot be a proper way of manifesting a sense of infe- 
 riority to degrade the Being to whom the homage is offered. 
 Yet Prayer is essentially degrading to God, and the cha- 
 racter ascribed to him of "a hearer and answerer of 
 Prayer " is a most lowering conception of Deity. For God 
 to hear and to answer Prayer means that Prayer changes his 
 action, making him do that which he would otherwise have 
 abstained from doing ; it means that man is wiser than God r 
 and is able to instruct him in his duty; and it means that 
 God is less loving than he ought to be, and will not bestow 
 upon his creature that which is good for him, unless he be 
 importuned into giving it. We are told that God is immu- 
 table, " the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever;" " God is 
 not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he 
 should repent." If this be true and surely immutability of 
 purpose must be a necessary characteristic of an all-wise and 
 all-good Being how can Prayer be anything more than a 
 childish fretting against the inevitable ? The Changeless 
 One has planned a certain course of action, and is steadily 
 carrying it out; in passionless serenity he goes upon his 
 way ; then man breaks in with his feeble cries and petulant 
 upbraidings, and actually turns God from his purpose, and 
 changes the course of his providence. If Prayer does not 
 do this it does nothing at all ; either it changes the mind of 
 God or it does not. If it does, God is at the disposal of 
 man's whim; if it does not, it is perfectly useless, and 
 might just as well be left undone. The parable told by 
 
ON PRAYER. 159 
 
 Christ about the unjust judge (Luke xviii. i-S) is a most ex- 
 traordinary representation of God : " Because this widow 
 troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming 
 she weary me. . . . And shall not God avenge his own 
 elect, which cry day and night unto him ?" Verily, the 
 picture of the divine justice is not an attractive one ! The 
 judge does his duty, not because it is his duty, not because 
 the widow needs his aid, not because her cause is a just 
 -one, but " lest by her continual coming she weary " him. 
 There is only one moral to be drawn from this, namely, that 
 God will not care for his " elect," because they are " his 
 own ;" that he will not guard them, because it is his duty ; 
 but that, if they cry day and night to him, he will attend to 
 them, because the continual cry wearies him, and he desires 
 to silence it. In the same way God the immutable changes 
 .at the sound of Prayer, not because the change will be 
 better or wiser, but because man's cry "wearies " him, and 
 he will be quiet if he obtains his petition. Surely the idea 
 is as degrading as it can be ; it puts God on a level with the 
 unwise human parent, who allows himself to be governed by 
 the clamour of his children, and gives any favour to the 
 spoilt child, if only the child be tiresome enough in its 
 petulant persistence. 
 
 Is Prayer consistent with the foreknowledge of God ? It 
 is one of the attributes ascribed to God that he knows all 
 before it happens, and that the future lies mapped out be- 
 fore him as clearly as does the past. If this be so, is it 
 more reasonable to pray about things in the future than 
 things in the past ? No one is so utterly irrational as to pray 
 to God, in so many words, to change the things that are 
 gone, or to alter the record of the past. Yet, is it more 
 rational to ask him to change the things that are coming, 
 and to alter the already-written chart of the future? In reality, 
 man's own eyes being blinded, he deems his God such an 
 one as himself, and where he cannot see, he can allow him- 
 self to hope. But there is no excuse from the inexorable 
 logic which pierces us with one horn or the other of this 
 dilemma, however we may writhe in our efforts to escape 
 them ; either God knows the future or he knows it not ; if 
 he knows it, it cannot be altered, so it is of no use to pray 
 about it, everything being already fixed ; if he knows it 
 not, he is not God, he is no wiser than man. But, then, 
 some Christians argue, he has pre-arranged that he will 
 give this blessing in answer to Prayer, and he foreknows 
 
l6o ON PRAYER. 
 
 the Prayer as well as its answer. Then, after all, it is 
 pre-determined whether we shall pray or not in any given 
 case, and we have only to follow the course along which we 
 are impelled by an irresistible destiny ; so the matter is 
 beyond all discussion, and the power to pray, or not to pray, 
 does not reside in us ; if there is a blessing in store for us 
 which needs the arm of Prayer to pluck it from the tree on 
 which it hangs, we shall inevitably pray for it at the right 
 moment, and thus in his effort to escape from one difficulty 
 the praying Christian has landed himself in a worse one, 
 for absolute foreknowledge implies complete determinism, 
 and prevents all human responsibility of any kind. 
 
 Is Prayer consistent with the wisdom of God? After 
 all, what does Prayer mean, boldly stated ? It means that 
 man thinks that he knows better than God, and so he tells 
 God that which ought to happen. Is there any self-conceit so 
 intolerable as that which pretends to bow itself in the dust 
 before him who created and who upholds the infinite worlds 
 which make up the universe, and which then sets itself to 
 correct the ordering of him who traced the orbits of the 
 planets, and who measured the rule of suns ? Finite 
 wisdom instructing infinite wisdom ; mortal reason laying 
 down the course of immortal reason ; low intelligence 
 guiding supreme intelligence ; man instructing God. All 
 this is implied in the fact of Prayer, and every man who has 
 prayed, and who believes in God, ought to cast himself 
 down in passionate humiliation before the wisdom he has 
 insulted and impugned, and ask pardon for the insolent 
 presumption which dared to lay hands on the helm of the 
 Supreme, and to dream that man could be more wise than 
 God. At least, those who believe in God might be humble 
 enough to acknowledge his superiority to themselves, and if 
 they demand that homage should be paid to him by their 
 brethren, they should also confess him to be wiser and 
 higher than they are themselves. 
 
 Is Prayer consistent with trust in the goodness of God ? 
 Surely Prayer is a distinct refusal to trust, and is a proclama- 
 tion that we think that we could do better for ourselves than 
 God will do for us. If God be " good and loving to every 
 man," it is manifest that, without any pressure being put 
 upon him, he will do for each the best thing that can possibly 
 be done. The people of Madagascar are wiser, in this 
 matter than the people who throng our churches and our 
 chapels, for they say, addressing the good Spirit, " We need 
 
ON PRAYER. r6r 
 
 not pray to thee, for thou, without our prayers, wilt give us 
 all things that be good for us;" and then they turn to the evil 
 Spirit, saying, that they must pray to him, lest, if they do 
 not, he should work them harm, and send troubles in their 
 way. Prayer implies that God judges all good gifts, and will 
 withhold them unless they are wrung from his reluctant 
 hands ; it denies that he loves his creatures, and is good to 
 all. In addition to this, it also implies that we will not 
 trust him to judge what is best for us ; on the contrary, we 
 prefer to judge for ourselves, and to have our own way. If 
 a trouble comes, it is prayed against, and God is besought 
 "to remove his heavy hand." What does this mean, except 
 that when God sends sorrow, man clamours for joy, and 
 when God deems it best that his child should weep, the 
 child demands cause for smiles ? If people trusted God, as - 
 they pretend to trust him if the phrases of the Sunday were 
 the practice of the week if men believed that God's ways 
 were higher than man's ways, and his thoughts than their 
 thoughts then no Prayer would ever ascend from earth to the 
 " Throne of grace," and man would welcome joy and sorrow, 
 peace and care, wealth and poverty, as wise men welcome 
 nature's order, when the rain comes down to swell the seed 
 for the harvest, and the sunshine glows down upon earth to 
 burnish the golden grain. 
 
 But, say the praying Christians, even if Prayer be not 
 defensible as homage from the creature to the Creator, in 
 that it lowers our idea of God, it must surely yet be natural 
 as the instinctive cry from the child to the Father in 
 heaven ; and then follow arguments drawn from the family 
 and the home, and the need of communion between parent 
 and child. As a matter of fact, taking the analogy, imper- 
 fect as it is do we find much Prayer, as from child to 
 parent, in the best and the happiest homes; is not the 
 amou?it of asking the exact measure of the imperfection of the 
 relationship ? The wiser and the kinder the parent, the less 
 will the child ask for ; rather, it learns from experience to 
 trust the older wisdom, and to be contented with the love 
 which is ever giving, unsolicited, all good things. At the 
 most, the simple expression of the child's wish is all that is- 
 needed, if the child desire anything of which the parent have 
 not thought ; and even this mere statement of a wish is still 
 the result of imperfection, i.e., the want of knowledge on the 
 parent's part of the child's mind and heart. In this case 
 there is no pleading, no urging ; the single request and single 
 
 G 
 
1 62 ON PRAYER. 
 
 answer suffice ; there is nothing which corresponds with the 
 idea of the prophet to pray to God and to " give him no 
 rest " until he grant the petition. In a well-ordered home, 
 the child who persisted in pressing his request would receive 
 a rebuke for his want of trust, and for his conceited self- 
 sufficiency ; and yet this is the analogy on which Prayer to 
 God is built up, and in this fashion "natural instincts" are 
 dragged in, in order to support supernatural and artificial 
 cravings. 
 
 Leaving Prayer, as it affects man's relationship to God, 
 let us look at it as it regards man's relationship to things 
 around him, and ask if it be permitted by our scientific 
 knowledge, and approved by experience and by history. The 
 chief lesson of science is that all things work by law, that we 
 dwell in a realm of law, and that nothing goes by chance. 
 All science is built up upon this idea ; science is not possible 
 unless this primary rule be correct ; science is only the codified 
 experience of the race, the observed sequence of to-day marked 
 down for the guidance of to-morrow, the teaching of the past 
 hived up for the improvement of the future. But all this 
 accumulation and correlation of facts becomes useless if laws 
 can be broken i.e., if this observed sequence of phenomena 
 can be suddenly broken by the interposition of an unknown 
 and incalculable force, acting spasmodically and guided by 
 no discoverable order of action. Science is impossible if 
 these " providential occurrences " may take place at any 
 moment. A physician, in writing his prescription, selects 
 the drugs which experience has pointed out as the suitable 
 remedy for the disease under which his patient is labouring. 
 These drugs have a certain effect upon the tissues of the 
 human frame, and the physician calculates on this effect 
 being produced ; but if Prayer is to come in as a factor, of 
 what use the physician's science ? Here is suddenly intro- 
 duced to speak figuratively a new drug of unknown power, 
 and the effect of medicine plus Prayer can in no way be 
 calculated upon. The prescription is either efficient or 
 non-efficient; if it be efficient, Prayer is unnecessary, as 
 the cure would take place without it; if it be non- 
 efficient, and Prayer makes up the deficiency, then medical 
 science is not needed, for the impotency of the drugs can 
 always be balanced by the potency of the Prayer. This 
 argument may be used as regards every science. Prayer is 
 put up for a ship which goes to sea. The ship is fitted for 
 ihe perils it encounters, or it is unfit. If fitted, it arrives 
 
ON PRAYER. 163: 
 
 safely without Prayer; if, though unfit, it arrives, being 
 guarded by Prayer, then Prayer becomes a factor in the ship- 
 builder's calculations, and sound timbers and strong rivets 
 sink into minor importance. If it be argued that to speak 
 thus is to use Prayer unfairly, because it is our duty to take 
 every proper means to ensure safety, what, is this except to 
 say that, after all, Prayer is only a fiction, and that while we 
 bow our knees to God, and pretend to look to him for safety, 
 we are really looking to the strong timbers of the ship-builder, 
 and to the skill of the captain ? 
 
 Science teaches, also, that all phenomena are the results 
 of preceding phenomena, and that an unbroken sequence 
 of cause and effect stretches back further than our poor 
 thoughts can reach. In stately harmony all Nature moves, 
 evolving link after link of the endless chain, each link 
 bound firmly to its predecessor, and affording, in its turn, 
 the same support to its successor. Prayer is put up in the 
 churches for fair weather ; but rain and sunshine do not 
 follow each other by chance, they obey a changeless law. 
 To alter the weather of to-day means to alter the weather 
 of countless yesterdays, which have faded away, one after 
 another, " into the infinite azure of the past." The weather 
 of to-day is the result of all those long-past phases of tem- 
 perature, and, unless they were altered, no change is pos 
 sible to-day. The Prayer that goes up in English churches 
 should really run : " O God, we pray thee to change all 
 that thou hast wrought in the past ; we, to-day, in this petty 
 corner of thy world, are discontented with thy ordering ; we 
 desire of thee, then, that, to pleasure our fancy, thou wilt 
 unroll the record of the past, and change all its order, re- 
 moulding its history to suit our convenience here to-day." 
 It is difficult to say which is the worse, the self-conceit 
 which deems its own petty needs worthy of such com- 
 plaisance of Deity, or the ignorance which forgets the 
 absurdities implied in the request it makes. But, after all, 
 it is the ignorance which is to blame : these Prayers were 
 written when science was scarcely born ; in those days God 
 was the immediate cause of each phenomena, sending rain 
 from heaven when it pleased him, thundering from heaven 
 against his enemies, pouring hailstones from heaven to slay 
 his foes, opening and closing the windows of heaven to 
 punish a wicked king or to pleasure an angry prophet. In 
 those days heaven was very close to earth : so near that 
 when it opened, the dying Stephen could see and recognise 
 
164 ON PRAYER. 
 
 the form and features of the Son of Man ; so near that, lest 
 man should build a tower which should reach it, God had 
 himself to descend and discomfit the builders. All these 
 things were true to the writers whose words are repeated 
 in English churches in the nineteenth century, and they 
 naturally believed that what God wrought in days of old he 
 could work also among themselves. But knowledge has 
 shattered the fairy fabric which fancy had raised up ; astro- 
 nomy built towers not of Babel from which men could 
 gauge the heaven, and find that through illimitable ether 
 worlds innumerable rolled, and that where the throne of 
 God should have been seen, suns and planets sped on their 
 ceaseless rounds. Further and further back, the ancient 
 God who dwelt among men was pressed back, till now, at 
 last, no room is found for spasmodic divine solutions, but 
 Nature's mighty order rolls on uninterrupted, in a silence 
 unbroken by voice and undisturbed by miraculous volitions, 
 bound by a golden chain of inviolable law. The most 
 learned and the most thoughtful Christian people now 
 acknowledge that prayer is out of place in dealing with 
 " natural order ;" but surely it is time that they should make 
 their voices heard plainly, so as to erase from the Prayer- 
 book these obsolete notions, born of an ignorance which the 
 world has now outgrown. Few really believe in the power 
 of Prayer over the weather, but people go on from the sheer 
 force of habit, repeating, parrot-like, phrases which have 
 lost their meaning, because they are too indolent to exert 
 thought, or too fettered by habit to test the Prayer of the 
 Sunday by the standard of the week. When people begin 
 to think of what they repeat so glibly, the battle of Free 
 Thought will have been won. 
 
 Many earnest people, however, while recognising the fact 
 that Prayer ought not to be used for rain, fine weather, and 
 the like, yet think that it may be rightly employed to obtain 
 " spiritual benefits." Is not this idea also the product of 
 ignorance? When men knew nothing of natural laws they 
 thought they could gain natural benefits by Prayer ; now that 
 people know nothing of " spiritual" laws, they think they can 
 gain " spiritual" benefits by Prayer. In each case the Prayer 
 springs from ignorance. Is it really more reasonable to 
 expect to gain miraculous spiritual strength from Prayer, 
 than to expect to give vigour, by Prayer, to arms enfeebled 
 "by fever? Growth, slow and steady, is Nature's law; no 
 sudden leaps are possible; and no Prater will give that 
 
ON PRAYER. 165 
 
 spiritual stature which only develops by continual effort, and 
 by " patient continuance in well-doing." The mind which 
 is probably what is generally meant by the word " spirit" 
 has its own laws, according to which it grows and strengthens ; 
 it is moulded, formed, developed, as the body is, by the play 
 of the circumstances around it, and by the organisation with 
 which it comes into the world, and which it has inherited 
 from a long race of ancestors. Here, too, inexorable law 
 surrounds all, and in mind, as in matter, the " reign of law" 
 is all-embracing, all-compelling. 
 
 Is Prayer approved by experience ? It seems necessary 
 here to refer to the experience of some, who say that they 
 have found Prayer strengthen them to meet a trouble which 
 they had dreaded, or to accomplish a duty for which their 
 own ability was insufficient. This appears to be very 
 probable, but the reason is not far to seek, and as the 
 explanation of the increased strength may be. purely natural, 
 it seems unnecessary to search for a supernatural cause. 
 Prayer, when earnest and heartfelt, appears to exert a kind 
 of reflex action on the person praying, the petition not 
 piercing heaven, but falling back upon earth. A duty has 
 to be done or a trouble has to be faced; the person affected 
 prays for help, and by the intense concentration of his 
 thoughts, and by the passion of his desire, he naturally 
 .gains a strength he had not, when he was less deeply and 
 thoroughly in earnest. Again, the interior conviction that a 
 divine strength is on his side, nerves his heart and braces 
 his courage : the soldier fights with a tenfold courage when 
 he is sure that endurance will make victory a certainty. 
 But all this is no proof that God hears and answers 
 Prayer ; if it were so, it would prove also that the Virgin 
 Mother, and all the saints, and Buddha, and Brahma, and 
 Vishnu were alike hearers and answerers of Prayer. In all 
 cases the sincere worshipper gains strength and comfort, 
 and finds the same "answer" to his Prayer. Yet surely 
 no one will contend that all these are " Prayer-hearing 
 and Prayer-answering" Gods ? This fancied answer is not a 
 proof of the truth of the worshipper's belief, but is only a 
 proof of his conviction of its truth ; not the soundness of 
 the belief, but the sincerity of the conviction, is proved by 
 the glow and ardour which succeed the act of Prayer. All 
 the dormant energies are aroused ; the soul's whole strength 
 is put forth ; the worshipper is warmed by the fire struck 
 from his own heart, and is thrilled with the electricity which 
 
I 66 ON PRAYER. 
 
 resides in his own frame. So far, Prayer is found to be 
 answered, just as every strong conviction, however erroneous,, 
 is found to confer increased strength and vigour on him who 
 possesses it. But, excepting this, Prayer is not proved to be 
 efficacious when tested by experience. How many Prayers 
 have gone up to the Father in heaven from his children 
 overwhelmed in the sea, and drowning in floods, and en- 
 circled by fire ? How many passionate appeals of patriots 
 and martyrs, of exiles and of slaves ? How many cries of 
 anguish from beside the beds of the dying, and the fresh 
 graves of the newly-dead ? In vain the wife's wail for the 
 husband, the mother's pleading for the only child ; no voice 
 has answered " Weep not ;" no command has replied, " Rise 
 up;" the Prayers have fallen back on the breaking heart, 
 poor white-winged birds that have tried to fly towards heaven,, 
 but have only sunk back to earth, their breasts bruised and 
 bleeding from striking against the iron bars of a pitiless and 
 relentless fate. So continually has Prayer failed to win an 
 answer, that, in spite of the clearness and the force of the 
 Bible promises in regard to it, Christians have found them- 
 selves obliged to limit their extent, and to say that God 
 judges whether or no it will be beneficial for the worshipper 
 to grant the petition, and if the Prayer be a mistaken one he 
 will, in mercy, withhold the implored-for boon. Of course, 
 this prevents Prayer from being ever tested by experience at 
 all, because whenever a Prayer remains unanswered the 
 reply is ready, that " it was not according to the will of 
 God." This means, that we cannot test the value of Prayer 
 in any way ; we must accept its worth wholly as a matter of 
 faith ; we must pray because we are bidden to do so, and 
 fulfil an useless form which affords no tangible results. In this 
 melancholy position are we landed by an appeal to experience, 
 by which we are challenged to test the value of Prayer. 
 
 The answer of history is even yet more emphatic. The 
 Ages of Prayer are the Dark Ages of the world. When 
 learning was crushed out, and superstition was rampant, 
 when wisdom was called witchcraft, and priests ruled Europe, 
 then Prayer was always rising up to God from the countless 
 monasteries where men dwarfed themselves into monks, and 
 from the convents where women shrivelled up into nuns. 
 The sound of the bell that called to Prayer was never silent, 
 and the time that was needed for work was wasted in Prayer, 
 and in the straining to serve God the service of man was 
 neglected and despised. 
 
ON PRAYER. 167 
 
 There is one obvious fact that throws into bright relief 
 the absurdity of Prayer. Two people pray for exactly 
 opposite things ; whose Prayers are to be answered ? Two 
 armies ask for victory ; which is to be crowned ? Amongst 
 ourselves, now, the Church is divided into two opposing 
 camps, and while the Ritualists appeal to God for protection, 
 the Evangelical clamour also for his aid. To which is he to 
 bend his ear ? which Prayer is he to answer ? Both appeal 
 to his promises ; both urge that his honour is pledged to them 
 by the word he has given ; yet it is simply impossible that 
 he should grant the Prayer of both, because the Prayer of 
 the one is the direct contradiction of the prayer of the other. 
 
 Again, none of the believers in Prayer appear to consider, 
 that, if it were true that Prayer is so powerful a weapon 
 if it were true that by Prayer man can prevail with God it would 
 then be madness ever to pray at all. To pray would be as 
 dangerous a thing as to put a cavalry sword into the hands of 
 a child just strong enough to lift it, but unable to control it, 
 or to understand the danger of its blows. Who can tell all 
 the results to himself and to others which might flow from 
 a granted Prayer, a Prayer made in all honesty of purpose, 
 but in ignorance and short-sightedness ? If Prayers really 
 brought answers it would be most wickedly reckless ever to 
 pray at all, as wickedly reckless as if a man, to quench a 
 moment's thirst, pierced a hole in a reservoir of water which 
 overhung a town. 
 
 But, in spite of all arguments, in spite of all that reason 
 can urge and that logic can prove, it is probable that many 
 will still cling to the practice of Prayer, craving for the 
 relief it gives to the feelings of the heart, however much it 
 may be condemned by the judgment of the intellect. 
 They seem to think that they will lose a great inspiration to 
 work if they give up " communion with God," and that they 
 will miss the glow of ardour which they deem they have 
 caught from Prayer. But surely it may fairly be urged on 
 them that no real good can arise from continuing a practice 
 which it is impossible to defend when it is carefully analysed. 
 Prayer is as the artificial stimulant which excites, but does 
 not strengthen, and lends a factitious brightness, which is 
 followed by deeper depression. Those who have prayed 
 most have otten stated that "seasons of special blessing" 
 are generally followed by "special temptations of Satan." 
 The reaction follows on the unreal excitation, and the soul 
 that has been flying in heaven grovels upon earth. To the 
 
1 68 ON PRAYER. 
 
 patient who is weak and depressed from long illness, the 
 bright air of the morning seems chill and cold, and he 
 yearns for the warmth of the artificial stimulants to which 
 he has grown accustomed ; yet better for him is it to gain 
 health from the morning breezes, and stimulus from the 
 glad clear sunshine, than to yield to the craving which is a 
 relic of his disease. If they who find in communion with 
 God a sweetness which is lacking when they commune with 
 their brethren if they who cultivate dependence on God 
 would learn the true dependence of man on man if they 
 who yearn for the invisible would concentrate their energies on 
 the visible then they would soon find a sweetness in labour 
 which would compensate for the languor of Prayer, and they 
 would learn to draw from the joy of serving men, and from 
 the serene strength of an earnest life, a warmth of inspira- 
 tion, a passion of fervour, an exhaustless fount of energy, 
 beside which all Prayer-given ardour would seem dull and 
 nerveless, in the glow of which the fancied warmth of God- 
 communion would seem as the pale cold moonshine in the 
 glory of the rising sun. 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 
 
 IT is a common complaint against the Rationalistic school 
 of thought that they can destroy but cannot construct ; 
 that they tear down, but do not build up ; that they are 
 armed only with the axe and with the sword, and not with 
 the trowel and the mason's line. " We have had enough of 
 negations," is a common cry ; " give us something positive." 
 Much of this feeling is foolish and unreasonable ; the nega- 
 tion of error, where error is supreme, is necessary before the 
 assertion of truth can become possible. Before a piece of 
 ground can be sown with wheat, it must be cleared of the 
 weeds which infest it ; before a solid house can be built in 
 the place of a crumbling ruin, the ancient rubbish must be 
 carried off, and the rotten walls must be thoroughly pulled 
 down. Destructive criticism is necessary and wholesome ; 
 the heavy battering-ram of science must thunder against the 
 walls of the churches ; the swift arrows of logic must rain on 
 the black-robed army ; the keen lance-points of irony must 
 pierce through the leather jerkin of superstition. But the 
 destruction of orthodox Christianity being accomplished, 
 there remains for the Rationalist much more to do. He 
 has to frame a code which shall rule in the place of the code 
 of Moses and of Jesus ; he has to found a morality which 
 shall replace the morality of the Bible ; he has to construct 
 an ideal which shall be as attractive as the ideal of the 
 Churches ; he has to proclaim laws which shall supersede 
 revelation : in a word, he has to build up the religion of 
 humanity. 
 
 As the Rationalist looks abroad over the contending 
 armies of faith and of reason, he gradually recognises the 
 fact that his new religion, if it is to serve as a bond of union, 
 must stand on stable ground, apart from the warring hosts. 
 Round the idea of God rages the hottest din of the battle. 
 The old, popular, and traditional belief is wounded to the 
 
170 CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 
 
 death, and is slowly breathing out its life. The philosophical 
 subtleties of the metaphysician are beyond the grasp of folk 
 busied chiefly with common work. The new school of 
 Theists, believers in a " spiritual personal God," stands on a 
 slippery incline, whereon is no firm foothold. It simply 
 spreads over the abysses of thought a sentimental veil of 
 poetical imaginings, and bows down before a beatified and 
 celestial man, whose image it has sculptured out of the 
 thought-marble of its sublimest aspirations. If the idea of 
 God be thus warred over, thus changing, thus uncertain, it 
 is plain that the new religion cannot find its foundation on. 
 this shifting and disputed ground. While theologians are 
 wrangling about God, plain men are looking wistfully over the 
 shattered idols to find the ideal to which they can cling. The 
 new religion, then, studying the varying phases of the God- 
 idea, seizes on its one permanent element, its idealised resem- 
 blance to man, its embodiment of the highest humanity ; 
 and, grasping this thought, it turns to men and says, " In 
 loving God you are only loving your own highest selves ; in 
 conforming yourselves to the Divine image you are only 
 conforming yourselves to your own highest ideals ; the un- 
 known God whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I 
 unto you ; in serving your family, your neighbours, your 
 country, you serve this unknown God ; this God is Humanity, 
 the race to which you belong ; this is the veiled God whom 
 all generations have worshipped in heaven, while he trod 
 the world around them in every human form ; this is the 
 only God, the God who is manifest in the flesh : " 
 
 "There is no God, O son, 
 If thou be none." 
 
 The first great constructive effort of the new religion is 
 thus to transform the idea of God, and to turn all men's 
 aspirations, all men's hopes, all men's labours, into this 
 channel of devotion to humanity, that so the practical 
 outcome of the new motive power may be a steady flow 
 of loving and energetic work for man, work that begins in 
 the family, and spreads, in ever-widening circles, over the 
 whole race. 
 
 This transformation of the central figure necessarily trans- 
 forms also the whole idea of religion, which must take its 
 colour from that centre. Revelation from heaven being no 
 longer possible, its place must be supplied by study on 
 earth : revealed laws being no longer attainable, it becomes 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 171 
 
 the duty of the Humanitarian to discover natural laws. 
 This duty is the more cheering from the manifest failure 
 of revealed laws, as exemplified in popular Christianity. 
 " Law," in the mouth of the believer in revelation, means a 
 command issued by God ; the " laws of Nature " are the 
 rules laid down by God, in accordance with which all things 
 move ; they are the behests of the Creator of Nature, the 
 controlling wires of the mechanism, held by the hand of 
 God. But "law" in the mouth of the Rationalist means 
 nothing more than the observed and registered invariable 
 sequence of events. Thus it is said " a stone falls to the 
 .ground in obedience to the law of gravitation." By the "law 
 of gravitation " the Christian would mean that God had 
 ordered that all stones should so fall. The Rationalist would 
 simply mean that all stones do so fall, and that invariable 
 -sequence he calls the "law of gravitation." Obedience to 
 the laws of Nature replaces, in the religion of Humanity, 
 obedience to the laws of God. As there is no inspired reve- 
 lation of these laws the student must carefully and patiently 
 ascertain them, either by direct observation, or most often, 
 In the books of those who have devoted their lives to the 
 elucidation of Nature's code. Scientific books will, in fact, 
 replace the Bible, and by the study of the laws of health, 
 both physical, moral, and mental, the Rationalist will 
 ascertain the conditions which surround him to which 
 he must conform himself if he desires to retain phy- 
 sical, moral, and mental vigour. This difference in 
 the authority which is obeyed leads naturally to the differ- 
 ence of morality between the orthodox Christian and the 
 Rationalist. Christian morality consists of obedience to the 
 will of God, as revealed in the Bible. The grand difficulty 
 regarding this obedience is, that the will of Jehovah, as re- 
 vealed to the Jews at different times, varies so much from 
 age to age that the most zealous Christian must fail to obey 
 all the conflicting behests prefaced by a "Thus saith the 
 Lord." God would, of course, never command any one to 
 do a thing which was directly wrong, yet God distinctly 
 said: " Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live ;" and God 
 sanctioned Slavery, and God commanded Persecution on 
 account of religious convictions : true, Christians plead that 
 all these laws are obsolete, but what is that but to acknow- 
 ledge that revealed morality is obsolete, t.e., that it was 
 never revealed by God at all. For a command to perse- 
 cute must be either right or wrong : if right, it is the duty 
 
172 CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 
 
 of Christians to obey it, and to raise once more the stakes; 
 of Smithfield for heretics and unbelievers ; if wrong, it can 
 never have come from God at all, and must be blasphe- 
 mously attributed to him. In God, Christians tell us there 
 is no changeableness, neither shadow of turning ; then what 
 pleased him in long past ages would please him still, and 
 what he commanded yesterday would be right to-day. Thus 
 fatally does revealed morality fail when tested, and it be- 
 comes impossible to know which particular " will of God " 
 he desires that we should obey. Now, once more, the 
 Rationalist experiences the advantages of his new motive- 
 power ; he has to serve Humanity, and is unencumbered by 
 the difficulties attendant upon " pleasing God." Not the 
 pleasure of God, but the benefit of man, is the basis of his- 
 morality. Revealed morality is as a child's garment, into- 
 which one should try to force the limbs of a full-grown man ; 
 it is the morality of the past stereotyped for the use of to- 
 day, and is clumsy, archaic, half-illegible from age. Rational 
 morality, on the other hand, grows with the growth of those 
 who follow its dictates ; its errors are corrected by wider ex- 
 perience, its omissions are filled up by the irrefragable argu- 
 ments of necessity. It is founded upon the needs of man ; 
 his happiness is its sole object ; not only his physical happi- 
 ness, not only the fulfilment of the desires of the body for 
 ease and comfort, but the satisfaction also of all the cravings, 
 of his intellectual and moral powers, the love of truth, the 
 love of beauty, the love of justice. A morality founded on 
 this basis can never be overthrown ; one sure test it affords, 
 whereby to decide on the morality or the immorality of any 
 given action : " Is it useful to man ? does it tend to the pro- 
 motion of human happiness ? " The will of God is doubtful,, 
 and is always disputable, and therefore it can never form the 
 foundation of a universal system of morality, a code which 
 shall unite all men in obedience. A code which shall unite 
 all men must needs be founded on those human interests, 
 which are common to all men. Such a code is the utilita- 
 rian. For man's happiness is on earth, and can be known 
 and understood ; the promotion of that happiness is an in- 
 telligible aim ; the test of morality may be applied by every 
 one; it is a system which everybody can understand, and 
 which the common sense of each must approve, for by it 
 man lives for man, man labours for man, the efforts of each 
 are directed to the good of all, and only in the happiness of 
 the whole can the happiness of each part be perfected and 
 complete. 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 173' 
 
 There is much popular misconception with regard to 
 utilitarianism : " utility " is supposed to include only those 
 material things which are useful to the body, and which tend 
 to increase physical comfort. But utility includes all art ; 
 for art cultures the taste and refines the nature. It thus, 
 adds a thousand charms to life, deepens, softens, purifies- 
 human happiness. Utility includes all study, for study 
 awakens and trains the intellectual faculties, and therefore 
 increases the sources of happiness possible to man. Utility 
 includes all science ; for science is man's true providence, 
 foreseeing the dangers that threaten him, and shielding him 
 against their shock. Science leads man up to those intel- 
 lectual heights where to stand awhile and breathe in the 
 keen, clear air after dwelling in the turbid atmosphere of 
 daily toils and cares, is as the refreshment of the pure moun- 
 tain wind to the weary inhabitant of the crowded city streets., 
 Utility includes all love and search of truth ; for the dis- 
 covery of a truth is the keenest pleasure of which the 
 noblest mind is susceptible. It includes all sublimest 
 virtue ; for self-sacrifice and devotion yield the purest forms 
 of happiness to be found on earth. In a word, utility in- 
 cludes everything which is useful in building up a grander 
 manhood and womanhood, wiser, purer, truer, tenderer than 
 that we have to-day. 
 
 Such is the basis of the morality which is to supersede the 
 supernatural morality of the Churches ; a morality which is 
 for this life and for this world, since we have this life, and 
 are in this world ; a morality which seeks to ensure human 
 happiness on this side the grave, instead of dreaming of it 
 on the other side; a morality which endeavours to carve 
 solid heavens here, instead of seeing them in distant cloud- 
 lands, white and soft and beautiful, but still only clouds. 
 
 One vast advantage of this humanitarian philosophy is 
 that it endeavours to train men into unselfishness, instead 
 of following the popular Christian plan of making self the 
 central thought. Self is appealed to at every step in the 
 New Testament : if we are bidden to rejoice under persecu- 
 tion, it is because "great is your reward in heaven;" if urged' 
 to pray, it is because "thy Father, which seeth in secret, 
 himself shall reward thee openly ; " if to be charitable, it is 
 because at the judgment it will bring a kingdom as the 
 recompense ; if to resign home or wealth, it is because we 
 shall receive " a hundredfold in this present life, and in the 
 world to come life everlasting;' 7 even the giver of a cup of 
 
174 CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 
 
 cold water "shall in no wise lose his reward." It is one 
 system of bribes, mingling the thought of personal pain 
 with every effort of human improvement and human happi- 
 ness, and thereby directly fostering and encouraging sefish- 
 ness and gilding it over with the name of religion and piety. 
 Humanitarian morality, on the other hand, while utilising 
 the natural and rightful craving for individual happiness as 
 -a motive-power, endeavours to accustom each to look to, 
 and to labour for, the happiness of all, making that general 
 happiness the aim of life. Thus it gradually weakens the 
 selfish tendencies and encourages the social, holding up ever 
 the noble ideal by the very contemplation of its beauty 
 transforming its votaries into its likeness. " Vivre pour au- 
 trui," is the motto of the utilitarian code; and in so living the 
 fullest and happiest life for self is really attained ; so closely 
 drawn are the bands that bind men together that happiness 
 -and unhappiness re-act from one to another, and as the 
 general standard of happiness rises higher and higher, the 
 wheels of social life run more aud more easily, with less of 
 friction, less of jar, and therefore with increased comfort to 
 each individual member. While Christianity developes sel- 
 fishness by its continual cry of "Save thyself," Utilitarianism 
 gradually developes unselfishness by the nobler whisper, 
 " Save others, and in so doing thou shalt thyself be saved. 5 ' 
 Delivered from every debasing fear of an unknowable and 
 inscrutable power, Utilitarianism works with a single heart 
 and a single eye for the happiness of the race, stamping 
 with the brand of " wrong " every act the general repetition 
 of which would be harmful to society, or the tendency of 
 which is injurious, and sealing as "right" every act 
 which brightens human life, and makes the general happi- 
 ness more perfect, and more widely spread. As morality 
 rises higher and higher, human judgment will grow keener 
 and purer, and in the times to come probably many an act 
 now approved on all sides will be seen to be harmful, and 
 will therefore become marked as immoral, while, on the 
 other hand, acts that are now considered wrong, because 
 " offensive to God," will be seen to be beneficial to man, 
 and will therefore be accepted by all as moral. Thus Utili- 
 tarian morality can never be a bar to progress, for it will 
 become higher and nobler as man mounts upwards. Re- 
 vealed morality is as a milestone on the road of the world's 
 onward march : it marks how far the world had travelled 
 when its tables of law were first set up in its place : as a 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 175 
 
 milestone, it is useful, interesting, and instructive, and none 
 would desire to destroy it ; but if the milestone be removed 
 from its post as a mark of distance, and be laid across the 
 road as a barrier which none must overclimb in days to 
 come, then it becomes necessary for the pioneers of pro- 
 gress to hew it to pieces that men may go on their way un- 
 checked, and this revealed morality now lies across the up- 
 ward path of the world, and must be broken in pieces with 
 the hammer of logic and the axe of common sense, so that 
 we may press ever higher up the mountain of progress, whose 
 summit is hid in everlasting cloud. 
 
 And what has constructive Rationalism to say to us, when 
 we stand face to face with the mighty destroyer of all living 
 things ? " Your creed may do well enough to live by," say 
 objectors, " but is it good to die by ? " A creed that is good 
 in life must needs be good in death, and never yet was a 
 hero-life closed by a coward death. What can better smooth 
 the bed of the dying man than the knowledge that the world 
 is the happier for his living, that he leaves it better than he 
 found it, that he has helped to raise and to purify it? What 
 easier pillow to rest the dying head on than the memory of 
 a useful life ? The Rationalist has no fear lurking around 
 his death-bed; no lurid gleams from a hell on the other side 
 lighten around him as his breath begins to fail ; no angry 
 God frowns on him from the great white throne ; no devil 
 stands beside him to drag him down into the bottomless 
 pit ; quietly, peacefully, happily, without fear and without 
 dread, he passes out of life. As calmly as the tired child 
 lies down to sleep in its mother's arms, and passes into 
 dreamless unconsciousness, so calmly does the Rationalist 
 lie down in the arms of the mighty mother, and pass into 
 dreamless unconsciousness on her bosom. 
 
 To the Rationalist, the future of the race replaces in 
 thought the future of the individual ; for that he thinks, for 
 that he plans, for that he labours. A heaven upon earth 
 for those who come after him, such is his inspiration to 
 effort and to self-devotion. He seeks the smile of man 
 instead of the smile of God, and finds in the thought of 
 a happier humanity the spur that Christians seek in the 
 thought of pleasing God. His hopes for the future spread 
 far and wide before him, but it is a future to be inherited by 
 his children in this same world in which he himself lives ; 
 freer and fuller life, wider knowledge, deepened and more 
 polished culture all these are to be the heritage of the 
 
176 CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 
 
 generations to come, and it is his to make that heritage the 
 richer by every grander thought and nobler deed that he can 
 do to-day. 
 
 Let us place side by side the dogmas of Christianity and 
 the motive power of the Rationalist, and see which of these 
 two is the gladder life-moulder of man. Christianity has a 
 God in heaven, all powerful and all-wise, who in ages gone 
 by made the universe and fore-ordained all that should 
 happen in time to come ; who created man and woman with 
 a serpent to tempt them, and made for them the oppor- 
 . tunity of falling ; who, having made the opportunity, forced 
 them to take it. It is said that Adam and Eve were free 
 . agents, but they were nothing of the kind, for the lamb 
 was slain from the foundation of the world : the sacrifice 
 - was offered before the sin was committed ; and the sacrifice 
 being made, the sin was its necessary consequence. If 
 Adam had been free, he might not have sinned, and then there 
 would have been a slain lamb and no sin for which he could 
 : atone ; but God, having provided the Saviour, was obliged 
 to provide the sinner, and therefore he made the tree of 
 knowledge and sent the tempter to entrap the parents of 
 mankind. They fell, according to God's predestination, 
 and thus became accursed, and then the waiting Redeemer 
 ivas revealed, and "the divine scheme" was complete. 
 Accursed for a sin in which they had no part, the children 
 of Adam are born with an evil nature, and being evil they 
 act evilly, and thereby sink lower and lower ; at their feet 
 yawns a bottomless pit, and the road to it is broad, easy, 
 and pleasant ; above their heads shines a luxurious heaven, 
 and the path is narrow, steep, and rugged. Their nature 
 God-given to all drags them downwards ; the Holy Ghost 
 God given to some drags them upwards : immortality is 
 their inheritance, and " few there be that find " immortal 
 happiness, while "many there be that go in" at the gate of 
 hell to immortal woe ; a severance, bitter beyond all earthly 
 bitterness of parting, is in store for all, since, at the great 
 day of judgment, "one shall be taken and the other left," 
 and there will not be a family some of whose members will 
 not be lost for ever. Eternal life, to the vast majority, is to 
 mean eternal torment, and they are to be "salted with fire," 
 burning yet never burnt up, consuming ever but never con- 
 sumed. Towards the gaining of heaven, towards the avoid- 
 ance of hell, all human effort must be turned. " What 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 177 
 
 .-shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his 
 own soul ? " All life must be one striving " to enter in at 
 the strait gate, for many shall seek to enter in and shall 
 not be able ; " poverty, oppression, misery, what matters it ? 
 the " light affliction which is but for a moment worketh a 
 far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Thus 
 this world is forgotten for the sake of another, crushed out 
 of sight beneath the overwhelming grandeur of eternity; 
 the spur to human effort is blunted by the infinitessimal im- 
 portance of time as compared with eternity; bad govern- 
 ment, bad laws, injustice, tyranny, pauperism, misery, all 
 these things need not move us, for " we seek a better 
 country, that is a heavenly ; " we are " strangers and pil- 
 grims ; " " here we have no continuing city, but we seek one 
 to come ;" "our citizenship is in heaven," and there also is 
 our home. True, Christians do not carry out into daily life 
 these phrases and thoughts of their creed, but in so much 
 as they do not they are the less Christian, and the more im- 
 bued with the spirit of Rationalism. Rationalists they are, 
 the vast majority, six days in the week, and are only 
 Christians on the Sunday. To come out of these old world 
 dreams into Rationalism is like coming into the open air 
 after a hothouse. Rationalism clears away the terrible God 
 of orthodoxy, the fall, the serpent, the Saviour, the hell, the 
 devil. " Work, toil, struggle," it cries to man ; " the ills 
 around you are not the appointment of God, not the effects 
 of his curse ; they arise from your own ignorance, and may 
 .all be cleared away by your own study, and your own effort. 
 Salvation ? Yes, you need saviours, but the saviours must 
 save you from earthly woes and not from the wrath of God ; 
 ..save yourselves, by thought, by wisdom, by earnestness. 
 Redemption ? yes, you need redeeming, but the redemption 
 you want is from vice, from ignorance, from poverty, and 
 must be wrought out by human effort. Prayer? yes, you 
 need praying for, but the prayer you want is work compel- 
 ling the result ; not crying out for what you desire, but win- 
 ning it by labour and by toil. The world stretches wide 
 before you, capable of paying you a thousandfold for all you 
 do for it. Life is in your hands, full of all glorious possi- 
 bilities ; throw away your dreams of heaven, and make 
 heaven here ; leave aside visions of the life to come, and 
 make beautiful the life which is." 
 
 Full of hope, full of joy, strong to labour, patient to 
 
1 78 CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM. 
 
 endure, mighty to conquer, goes forth the new glad creed 
 into the sad grey Christian world ; at her touch men's faces 
 soften and grow purer, and women's eyes smile instead of 
 weeping ; at last, at last, the heir arises to take to himself his 
 own, and the negation of the usurped sovereignty of the 
 popular and traditional God over the world developes into 
 the affirmation of the rightful monarchy of man. 
 
THE 
 
 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 MORNING PRAYER. 
 
 " T T ABIT, is second nature," saith a wise old saw, so it 
 must be from custom that it has become natural to 
 Church people to repeat placidly, week after week, the same 
 palpable self-contradictions and absurdities. A sensible, 
 shrewd man of business puts away his papers on the 
 Saturday night, and apparently locks his mind up with them 
 in his desk ; certain it is that he 
 
 "Goes on Sunday to the church, 
 And sits among his boys ; 
 He hears the parson pray and preach," 
 
 and yet never discovers that his boys are repeating the most 
 contradictory responses, while the parson is enunciating as 
 axioms the most startling propositions. 
 
 When the preliminary silence in church is broken by the 
 " sentences," the first words that fall from the clergyman's 
 lips are a distinct declaration of the conditions of salvation : 
 " When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness 
 that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and 
 right, he shall save his soul alive ; " and we are further in- 
 structed as to our sins, that " if we confess our sins, He is 
 faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us 
 from all unrighteousness." These very plain statements 
 take high and comprehensible ground. God is supposed to 
 desire that man should be righteous, and is, therefore, 
 naturally satisfied when " the wicked forsakes his way and 
 the unrighteous man his path." We proceed, then, to confess 
 our sins, and after Mrs. A., whose eyes are straying after her 
 neighbour's bonnet, has confessed that she is erring and 
 
l8o BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 straying like a lost sheep, and Mrs. B., who is devising a 
 way to make an old dress look new, has owned plaintively 
 that she is following the devices of her own heart ; and 
 Squire C, of the rubicund visage and broad shoulders, has- 
 sonorously remarked that there is no health in him, and his 
 son, with the joyous face, has cheerfully acknowledged that 
 he is a miserable sinner after these very appropriate and 
 reasonable confessions to a Divine Being who "seeth the 
 heart," and may therefore be supposed to take them for 
 what they are worth, have been duly gone through, we are 
 somewhat puzzled to hear the clergyman announce that God 
 " pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and 
 unfeignedly believe His holy Gospel" What is this sudden 
 appendix to the before-declared conditions of salvation ? We 
 had been told that if we confessed our sins God's faithful- 
 ness and justice would cause him to forgive us ; here we 
 have duly done so, and surely the language is sufficiently 
 strong ; we are yet suddenly called upon to believe a " holy 
 Gospel " as a preliminary to forgiveness. But we are not 
 yet, to use a colloquialism, out of the wood ; for while 
 we are moodily meditating on this infraction of our con- 
 tract the time slips on unobserved, and, it being a feast- 
 day, we are startled by a stern voice conveying the cheerful 
 intelligence, " Whosoever will be saved, before all things, it is 
 necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith ex- 
 cept every one do keep whole and undenled, without doubt 
 he shall perish everlastingly." "Before all things?" before 
 repentance ? before turning away from our wickedness ?' 
 before doing that which is lawful and right ? And what is 
 this " Faith " which we must keep whole and undenled 
 if we would save our souls alive ? A bewildering jumble of 
 triplets and units, mingled in inextricable confusion. But 
 as he that " will be saved must thus think of the Trinity," 
 we will try and disentangle the thread of salvation. " The 
 Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God," 
 says the parson. " They are not three Gods, but one God,'* 
 shout out the people. We are compelled "to acknowledge 
 every Person by Himself to be God and Lord," reiterates 
 the parson. " We are forbidden by the Catholic Religion 
 to say there be three Gods or three Lords," obstinately per- 
 sist the people. Then, after some rather intrusive parti- 
 culars about the family (and very intricate) relations of the 
 Father to the Son, and of both to the Holy Ghost, we are 
 told that " so " why so ? " there is one Father, not three 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. l8l 
 
 Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Ghost, not three 
 Holy Ghosts." In so far as we have been able to follow the 
 meaning, or rather the no-meaning, of the preceding sentences, 
 no one said anything about three Fathers, three Sons, or 
 three Holy Ghosts. The definite article the had been used 
 in each case with a singular noun. We 'imagine the clause 
 must have been inserted because all ideas as to the meaning 
 of numerals must have been by this time so hopelessly lost 
 by the congregation, that it became necessary to remark that 
 " the Father " meant one Father, and not three. The list of" 
 necessaries for salvation is not yet complete, for "further- 
 more it is necessary to everlasting salvation, that he also 
 believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 So far, then, from its being true that the wicked man who 
 turns from his sins shall save his soul alive, we find that our 
 sinner must also believe the Gospel, must accept contra- 
 dictory arithmetical assertions, must think of the Trinity in a 
 way which makes thought a ludicrous impossibility, and must 
 believe rightly all the details of the method by which a 
 Divine Being became a human being. If a sinner chances 
 to go out of church after the first sentence, and from being 
 a drunkard becomes temperate, from being a liar becomes 
 truthful, from being a profligate becomes chaste, and 
 foolishly imagines that he is thereby doing God's will, and 
 thus saving his soul alive, he will certainly, according to the 
 Athanasian Creed, wake up from his pleasant delusion to find 
 himself in everlasting fire. As sceptics, we need offer no- 
 opinion as to which is right, the creed or the text we only 
 suggest that both cannot be correct, and that it would be 
 more satisfactory if the Church, in her wisdom, would make 
 up her venerable mind which is the proper path, and then 
 keep in it. After all this, we are in no way surprised to learn 
 from a collect that being saved is dependent on quite a new 
 support, namely, on the knowledge we have of God. How 
 many more things may be necessary to salvation it is impos- 
 sible to say at this point, but the office for Morning Prayer, 
 at any rate, gives us no more. It would be rash to conclude, 
 however, that we have fulfilled all, for the Church has some 
 more scattered up and down her Prayer- Book ; the end of 
 all which double-dealing is, that we can never be sure that 
 we have really fulfilled every condition ; sad experience 
 teaches us that when the Church says, " do so-and-so, and 
 you shall be saved," she is, meanwhile, whispering under her 
 breath, " provided you also do everything else." 
 
1 82 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 We fail also to see the reasonableness of the constant cry, 
 " for the sake of Jesus Christ," or " through Jesus Christ." 
 We ask that we may lead " a godly, righteous, and sober 'life " 
 for His sake ; but this is just what we are told God wishes 
 already, so why should He be asked to grant it for some one 
 else's sake, as though He were unwilling that we should be 
 righteous, and can only be coaxed into allowing us to be so 
 by a favourite son ? In the same way we are to come to 
 God's " eternal joy," through Jesus, which is, by the way, 
 another of these endless conditions of salvation. We ask to 
 be defended from our enemies " through the might of Jesus 
 Christ," as though God Himself was not strong enough for 
 the task ; and God is urged to send down His healthful 
 Spirit for the " honour of our advocate and Mediator," 
 although that very advocate told His disciples that God 
 would always give that spirit to those who asked for it. To 
 the outside critic, these continual references to Jesus, as 
 though God grudged all good gifts, appear very dishonouring 
 to the " Father in Heaven." 
 
 Is it considered necessary to press God vehemently to 
 hurry himself? "O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, 
 make haste to help us." Will not God, of his own accord, do 
 things at the best possible time ? and further, is it possible 
 for a Divine Being to make haste ? 
 
 It will, perhaps, be considered hypercritical to object to 
 the versicles : " Give peace in .our time, O Lord, because there 
 is none other that fighteth for us but only thou, O God." 
 What more do they want than an almighty reinforcement ? 
 " None other ?" Well, we should have fancied that God and 
 somebody else were really more than were needed. At any 
 rate it sounds very insulting to say to God, " please give us 
 peace, since we cannot count on any assistance except 
 yours." 
 
 We have nothing to say about the prayers for the Royal 
 Family, except that they do not show any very attractive 
 results, and that it must have much edified George IV. to 
 hear himself spoken of as a " most religious and gracious 
 king." Never surely was a family so much prayed for, but 
 tui bojw? If the "Bishops, Curates, and all congregations" 
 truly please God, he is about the only person that they 
 succeed in pleasing, for the Bishops abuse the clergy, and 
 the clergy abuse the Bishops, and the congregations abuse 
 both. Of the last prayer, we must note the exceeding 
 failure of the petition to grant the Church knowledge of 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 183 
 
 truth, and we cannot help marvelling why, if they really 
 desire to know the truth, they so invariably frown at and 
 endeavour to crush out every earnest search after truth, 
 every effort for clearer light. Of all things that can happen 
 to the Church, the knowledge of the truth would be the 
 least "expedient for" her, for she would fade away before 
 the sunshine of truth as ghosts are said to fly at the cock- 
 crow which announces the dawn. 
 
 A criticism on the office of Morning Prayer is scarcely 
 complete without a few words upon the canticles appointed 
 to be daily sung by the faithful to the glory of God. Any 
 thing more ludicrously absurd than these from the lips of 
 our congregations it would indeed be difficult to imagine. 
 The Venite (Ps. xcv.) is the first we are called upon to take 
 part in, and the first shock comes when we find ourselves 
 chanting "The Lord is a great God and a great king above 
 all gods " "Above all Gods !" what terrible heresy have we 
 been unwittingly committing ourselves to ? Is there not 
 only one God or, at least, it may be three rput, if three, 
 they are co-equal, and no one is above the other ; who are 
 these "all gods" that "the Lord" is "king above?" We 
 remember for a moment that when this psalm was written 
 the gods of the nations around Israel were believed to have 
 a real existence, and that, therefore, it was no inconsistency 
 in the mouth of the Hebrew to rejoice that his national god 
 was ruler above the gods of other peoples. This explan- 
 ation is reasonable, but then it does not explain why 
 we, who believe not in this multiplicity of deities 
 should pretend that we do. Our equanimity is not 
 restored by the next phrase, " In his hand are all the 
 corners of the earth ;" but the earth is a globe, and has 
 no corners. A misty remembrance floats through our 
 mind of Irseneus stating that there were four gospels be- 
 cause there were four corners to the earth and four winds 
 that blew ; but since his time things have changed, and the 
 corners have been smoothed off. Is it quite honest to say 
 in God's praise a thing which we know to be untrue, and 
 must we be unscientific because we are devotional ? We 
 then hear about our fathers being forty years in the wilder- 
 ness, although we know that they were not there at all, 
 unless the people generally looked upon as amiable lunatics 
 are correct, who assert that the English nation is descended 
 from the ten lost tribes of Israel. Why should we pretend 
 to God that we are Jews, when both He and we know per- 
 
184 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 fectly well that we are nothing of the kind ? We come to 
 the Te Deum, said to have been composed by S. Ambrose 
 for the baptism of S. Augustine : " To thee cherubin and 
 seraphin continually do cry." Putting aside the manifest 
 weariness both to God and to the cryers of the never-ceasing 
 repetition of these words, and the degrading idea of God 
 implied in the thought that it gives Him any pleasure to be 
 perpetually assured of His holiness, as though it were a 
 doubtful matter we cannot help inquiring, " Who are these 
 cherubin and seraphin?" According to the Bible, they are 
 six-winged creatures, who cover their faces with two wings, 
 and their feet with two more, and fly with the remaining 
 pair : they may be seen in pictures of the ark, balancing 
 themselves on their feet-covering wings, and preventing 
 themselves from falling by steadying each other with another 
 pair. " Lord God of Sabaoth," or of " Hosts;" is this a 
 reasonable name for one supposed to be a " God of peace ?" 
 The elder Jewish and the Christian ideas of God here come 
 into direct collision : according to one, " the Lord is a man 
 of war" (Ex. xv.), while the other represents him as "the 
 Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace" (Isai. ix.). The 
 Te Deum midway changes the object of its song, and ad- 
 dresses itself to the Son instead of to the Father. How far 
 this is permissible is much disputed, for certain it is that in 
 the early ages of Christianity prayer was addressed to the 
 Father only, and that one of the Fathers* sharply rebukes 
 those who pray to the Son, since they thereby deprive the 
 Father of the honour due to Him alone. How this can be, 
 when Father and Son are one, we do not pretend to explain. 
 Then ensue those curious details regarding Christ which 
 we shall touch upon in dealing later with the Apostles' 
 Creed. We find ourselves, presently, asking to be kept 
 " this day without sin ;" yet, we are perfectly well aware, all 
 the time, that God will do nothing of the kind, and that all 
 Christians believe that they sin every day. Why does the 
 Church teach her children to sing this in the morning, and 
 then prepare a " confession " for the evening, unless she 
 feels perfectly sure that God will pay no attention to her 
 prayer ? The wearisome reiteration in the Benedicite is so 
 thoroughly recognised that it is very seldom heard in the 
 church, while the Benedictus (Luke i.) is open to the same 
 charge of unreality as is the Venite^ that it is a song for 
 
 * Origen. 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 185. 
 
 Jews only. Many other faults and absurdities might be 
 pointed cut which disfigure Morning Prayer, even if the 
 whole idea of prayer be left untouched. The prayers of the 
 Prayer-Book are dishonouring to God from their childish- 
 ness, their unreality, their folly, their conflict with sound 
 knowledge. Allowing that prayer may be reasonable, 
 these prayers are unreasonable ; allowing that prayer may 
 be reverent, these prayers are irreverent; allowing that 
 prayer may be sincere, these prayers are insincere. They 
 are fragments of an earlier age transplanted into the pre- 
 sent, and they are as ludicrous as would be men walking 
 about in our streets to-day clad in the armour of the Middle 
 Ages, the ages of Darkness and of Prayer. 
 
 EVENING PRAYER. 
 
 The Church, in her wisdom, fearing that the quaint con- 
 ceits and impossibilities which we have referred to, the 
 
 ' ' Jewels which adorn the spouse 
 Of the eternal glorious King," 
 
 should not be sufficiently appreciated and admired by her 
 children, if presented to their adoration once only on every 
 day, has appointed for the use of the faithful an office of 
 Evening Prayer, which, in its main features, is identical 
 with that which is to be " said or sung " each morning. 
 Sentences, address, confession, absolution, Lord's Prayer, 
 and versicles, are all exactly reproduced, and Psalms and 
 Lessons follow in due course, varying from day to day. To 
 take the whole Psalter, and analyse it, would be a task toa 
 long for our own patience, or for that of our readers, so we 
 only pick out a few salient absurdities, and ask why Eng- 
 lish men and women should be found singing sentences 
 which have no beauty to recommend them, and no meaning 
 to dignify them. We will not lay stress on the quaintness 
 of a congregation standing up and gravely singing : " Or ever 
 your pots be made hot with thorns, so let indignation vex 
 him, even as a thing that is raw " (Ps. Iviii.) ; we will not 
 ask what the clergyman means when he reads out to his 
 congregation : " Though ye have lien among the pots, yet 
 shall ye be as the wings of a dove." (Ps. Ixviii.) These 
 are isolated passages, which a pen might erase, retaining the 
 major part of the Psalter : we go further, and challenge it 
 
1 86 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 as a whole, asserting that it is ludicrously inappropriate as 
 a song-book for sensible people, even although those people 
 may be desirous of praying to, or praising God. Our stric- 
 tures are here levelled, not at prayer as prayer, but simply 
 at this particular form of prayer. In the first place the 
 Psalter is written only for a single nation ; it is full of local 
 allusions, and of references of Israelitish history, which are 
 only reasonable in the mouth of a Jew. With what amount 
 of sense can an English congregation every i5th evening of 
 the month sing such a Psalm as the Ixxviii., recounting all 
 the marvels of the plagues and of the exodus, or on the 
 following day plead with God to help them, because "the 
 heathen are come into Thine inheritance ; Thy holy temple 
 have they defiled, and made Jerusalem an heap of stones ? " 
 (Ps. Ixxix.) Is there any respect to God in telling him 
 that " we are become an open shame to our enemies ; a 
 very scorn and derision unto them that are round about 
 us " (v. 4), when, as a matter of simple fact, the speakers 
 are become nothing of the kind ? Can it be thought to be 
 consistent with reverence to God to make these extra- 
 ordinary assertions in praying to Him, and then to base 
 upon them the most urgent pleas for His immediate aid ? 
 for we find the congregation proceeding : " Help us, O God 
 of our salvation, for the glory of Thy Name ; O deliver us 
 and be merciful unto our sins for Thy Name's sake. . . . 
 O let the vengeance of Thy servant's blood which is shed be 
 openly shewed upon the heathen in our sight. O let the 
 sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before T|iee ; ac- 
 cording to the greatness of Thy power, preserve Tho\i those 
 that are appointed to die " (w. 9, 10, n). Now in ail st^er 
 seriousness what does this mean ? Is this addressed to God > 
 or is it not ? If it be, is it right and fit to address to him 
 words that are absolutely untrue, and to cry urgently for aid 
 which is not required, and which He cannot possibly give ? 
 If it be not, is it decent to solemnly sing or read phrases 
 seemingly addressed to God, but really not intended to 
 be noticed by him, phrases which use His name as though 
 an appeal to Him were seriously made ? It cannot be 
 healthy to juggle thus with words, and to make emo- 
 tional prayers which are utterly devoid of all meaning. 
 Some devout persons talk very freely about the wicked- 
 ness of blasphemy, but is not that kind of game with God, 
 in wailings which are devoid of reality, appeals not in- 
 tended to be answered, a far more real blasphemy in the 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 187 
 
 mouth of any one who believes in Him as a hearer of 
 prayer, than the so-called blasphemy of those who distinctly 
 assert that to them the popular and traditional " God " is a 
 phantom, and that they see no reason to believe in His 
 existence ? Passing from this graver aspect of the use of 
 the Psalter as a congregational song-book, we notice how 
 purely comic many of the psalms would appear to us had 
 not the habit-fashion of our lives accustomed us to repeat 
 them in a parrot-like manner, without attaching the smallest 
 meaning to the words so glibly recited. " Every night wash 
 I my bed and water my couch with my tears " (Ps. vi.), is 
 sung innocently by laughing maiden and merry youth, the 
 bright current of whose life is undimmed by the shadow of 
 grief. " Bring unto the Lord, O ye mighty, bring young 
 rams unto the Lord" (Ps. xxix.), is solemnly read out by 
 the country clergyman, who would be beyond measure 
 astonished if his direction were complied with. Then we 
 find the congregation making the certainly untrue assertion: 
 " Moab is my wash-pot ; over Edom will I cast put my shoe; 
 Philistia, be thou glad of me" (Ps. lx.). At another time 
 they cry out, " O, clap your hands together, all ye people " 
 (Ps. xlvii.) ; they speak .of processions which have no exist- 
 ence, " The singers go before, the minstrels follow after, in 
 the midst are the damsels playing on the timbrels " (Ps. 
 Ixviii.). Another phase of this Psalter, which is offensive 
 rather than comic, is the habit of swearing and cursing 
 which pervades it ; we find Christians, who are bidden to 
 love their enemies, and to bless them that curse them, 
 pouring out curses of the most fearful character, and dis- 
 playing the most reckless hatred : " The righteous shall 
 rejoice when he seeth the vengeance ; he shall wash his 
 footsteps in the blood of the ungodly" (Ps. Iviii.). "Let 
 them fall from one wickedness into another, and not come 
 into Thy righteousness " (Ps. Ixix.). A nice prayer, truly, 
 for one man to pray for his brother man, to a holy God who 
 is supposed to desire righteousness in man. Then there is 
 that fearful imprecation in Psalm cix., too long to quote, 
 where the vindictive and cruel anger not only curses the 
 offender himself, but passes on to his children : " Let there 
 be no man to pity him, nor to have compassion upon his 
 fatherless children." Of course, people do not really mean 
 any of these terrible things which they repeat day after day ; 
 humanity is too noble to wish to draw down such curses 
 from heaven ; the people have outgrown the bad spirit of 
 
1 88 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 that cruel age when the Psalter was written, and their hearts 
 have grown more loving ; but surely it is not well that men 
 and women should stand on a lower level in their prayers 
 than in their lives ; surely the moments, which ought to be 
 the noblest, should not be passed in using language which 
 the speakers would be ashamed of in their daily lives ; 
 .surely the worship of the Ideal should not be degraded 
 below the practice of the Real, or the notion of God be 
 less lofty than the life of man. By making their worship an 
 unreality, by being less than true in their religious feelings, 
 by using words they do not mean, and by pretending 
 emotions they do not experience, people become trained 
 into insincerity, and lose that rare and beautiful virtue of 
 instinctive and thorough honesty. When the prayer does 
 not echo the yearning of the heart, then the habit grows of 
 not making the word really the representative of the thought, 
 of not making the feeling the measure of the expression. 
 Much of the cant of the day, much of the social insincerity, 
 much of the prevalent unreality, may be laid at the door of 
 this crime of the Churches, of making men speak words 
 which are meaningless to the speaker, and of teaching them 
 to be untrue in the moments which should be the truest 
 and the purest. At another time, we might impeach prayer 
 as a whole ; we might argue against it, either as opposed to 
 the unchangeableness and the wisdom of God, if a prayer- 
 hearing and prayer-answering God be believed in, or as 
 utterly futile, and proved worthless by experience. But here 
 we only plead for sincerity in prayer, wherever prayer is 
 practised; we only urge that at least the prayer shall be 
 sincere, and that the lips shall obey the heart. 
 
 Exactly the same objection applies to the " Canticles," 
 which, in modern lips, are absolutely devoid of sense. What 
 meaning has the " song of the blessed Virgin Mary " from 
 an ordinary English congregation ; why should English 
 people talk about God promising His mercy " to our fore- 
 fathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever," when Abraham is 
 not their forefather at all ? Why should they ask God to let 
 them " depart in peace," when they have not the smallest 
 desire to depart at all, and why should they assert to Him 
 that they " have seen Thy salvation," when they have seen 
 nothing of the kind ? For the perpetually recurring Gloria, 
 one cannot help wondering what it means; when was "the 
 beginning," and is the " it " which was at that period, the 
 " glory " which is wished to the Father, Son, and Holy 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 189 
 
 Ghost ; further, what is the good of wishing glory to Him 
 or to Them if He or They have always had, and always 
 will have it ? When we have heard a congregation reciting 
 the Creed, we have sometimes wondered what meaning they 
 .attached to it. " The maker of heaven and earth." Do 
 people ever try to carry the mind back to the time before 
 this " making," and realise the period when nothing existed ? 
 Is it possible to imagine things coming into existence, 
 " something" emerging from where before " nothing " was? 
 And then Jesus, the only Son, conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
 who proceeds from Himself, and son, therefore, not of " the 
 Father," but of that spirit which only exists in and through 
 " the Father and the Son." Again, how can a " spirit " con- 
 ceive a material body ? If the whole affair be miraculous, 
 why try to compromise matters with nature, by making this 
 kind of pseudo-father ? Surely it would be simpler to leave 
 it a complete miracle, and let the Virgin remain the solitary 
 parent. Except for making the story match better with the 
 elder Greek mythology, there is no need to introduce a god- 
 parent in the affair ; a child without a father is no more re- 
 markable than a mother who remains a virgin. This attempt 
 at reasonableness only makes the whole more outrageously 
 unnatural, and provokes criticism which would be better 
 avoided. A God, who suffered, was crucified, dead, buried, 
 who rose and ascended, is a complete enigma to us. Could 
 He, the impassive, suffer ? could He, the intangible, be 
 crucified ? could He, the immortal, die ? could He, the 
 omnipresent, be buried in one spot of earth, rise from it, and 
 ascend to some place where he was not the moment before ? 
 What kind of God is this who is to " come again " to a place 
 where He is not now ? If the answer be, that all this refers 
 to the manhood of Jesus, then we inquire, " Is Christ 
 divided?" if He be one God with the Father, then all He 
 did was done by the Father as much as by Himself; if He 
 did it only as man, then God did not come from heaven to 
 save men ; then this is not a divine sacrifice at all ; then, a 
 simple man cannot have made an atonement for the sin of 
 the world. And where is " the right hand " of Almighty 
 God ? Is Jesus sitting at the right hand of a pure spirit, 
 who has neither body nor parts ? and, since He is one with 
 God, is He sitting at his own right hand ? Such questions 
 as these are called blasphemous ; but we fling back the 
 charge of blasphemy on those who try to compel us to 
 recite a creed so absurd. We decline to repeat words which 
 
190 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 convey to us no meaning, and not ours the fault, if any 
 inquiry into the meaning produce dilemmas so inconvenient 
 to the orthodox. We are also required to believe in " the " 
 Holy Catholic Church, but we know of no such body. 
 Catholic means universal, and there is no universal 
 Church : to believe in that which does not exist would, 
 indeed, be faith without sight. There is the Orthodox 
 Church, but that is anathematised by the Roman ; there is 
 the Roman Church, but that is the "scarlet whore of 
 Babylon " in the eyes of the Protestant ; there are the Protes- 
 tant sects, but they are many and not one, a multiformity in 
 disunity. We are asked to acknowledge a " Communion of 
 Saints/' and we see those who severally call themselves saints 
 excommunicating each the other ; in a " forgiveness of sins," 
 but Nature tells us of no forgiveness, and we find suffering 
 invariably following on the disregard of law ; in a " resur- 
 rection of the body," but we know that the body decays, that 
 its gases and its juices are transmuted in the alembic of 
 Nature into new modes of existence ; in a "life everlasting," 
 when the dark veil of ignorance envelopes the " Beyond the 
 tomb." Only the thoughtless can repeat the creed ; only 
 the ignorant cannot see the impossibilities it professes to 
 believe. 
 
 The two Collects, which are different in the evening prayer 
 to those used in the morning office, call for no special re- 
 mark, save that they in common with all prayers make 
 no practical difference in human life. The devout Chris- 
 tian is no more defended from " all perils and dangers of 
 this night," than is 'the most careless atheist ; wisely, also, 
 does the Christian, having prayed his prayer, walk carefully 
 round his house, and examine the bolts and bars, mindful 
 that these commonplace defences are more likely to be 
 efficacious against burglars than the protecting arm of the 
 Most High. 
 
 The remainder of the service is the same as that used in 
 the morning, so calls for no further remark. If only people 
 would take the trouble of thinking about their religion ; if 
 only they could be led, or even provoked, into trying to 
 realise that which they say they believe, then the founda- 
 tions of the popular religion would rapidly be undermined, 
 and the banner of Freethought would soon float proudly 
 over the crumbling ruins of that which was once a 
 Church. 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 191 
 
 THE LITANY. 
 
 The Litany has a fault which runs throughout the Prayer- 
 Book, that " vain repetition " which, according to the Gospel, 
 was denounced by Jesus of Nazareth ; the refrain of " Good 
 Lord, deliver us," and " We beseech Thee to hear us, good 
 Lord," recurs with wearisome reiteration, and is repeated 
 monotonously by the congregation, few of whom, pro- 
 bably, would know from what they were requesting deli- 
 verance, if the clergyman were to stop and ask so un- 
 expected a question. Gods the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost are severally besought to have mercy upon the 
 miserable sinners praying to them, and then the Trinity as a 
 whole is asked to do the same. How far this separation is con- 
 sistent with the unity of the Godhead, and whether in pray- 
 ing to the Son we do, or do not, implicitly pray to the 
 Father, and vice versa, those only can tell us who understand 
 the " mystery of the Holy Trinity." This preamble over, 
 the remainder of the Litany is addressed to "God the Son," 
 who is the " Good Lord " invoked throughout, in spite of 
 His reproof to the young man who knelt to Him, calling 
 Him "Good Master;" "why callest. thou Me good?" 
 Various dogmas are alluded to in the succeeding verses in 
 which few educated people now retain any belief. How 
 many really care to be delivered "from the crafts and assaults 
 of the devil," or believe in the existence of the devil at all? He 
 is one of those phantoms that can only be found in the dark- 
 ness, and which fade away when the sun arises. How many 
 believe in the " everlasting damnation," of the same verse, 
 or really consider themselves in the smallest danger of it ? 
 No one who believed in hell could pray to be delivered from 
 it in careless accents, for the smallest chance of that awful 
 doom would force a wail of terror from the lightest-hearted 
 of the listeners. Is it consistent to ask Christ to deliver 
 us from His wrath ? if He loved men so much as to die for 
 them, it seems as though a great change must have come 
 over His mind since He ascended into heaven, if He really 
 requires to be pressed so urgently not to " take vengeance," 
 and to spare us and deliver us from His wrath. Which is 
 right, the wrath or the love ? for they are not compatible ; 
 and does God really like to see people crouching before 
 Him in this fashion, praising His mercy while they tremble 
 lest He should "break out" upon them? If we were in- 
 
1 92 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 clined to be hypercritical we might suggest that the prayer 
 to be delivered from " all uncharitableness " gives a melan- 
 choly proof of the inadequacy of prayer ; the answer to it 
 may be read weekly in the Church Times and the Rock y 
 more especially in the clerical contributions. The other peti- 
 tions are also curiously ineffectual: "from all false doctrine,, 
 heresy, and schism," is so manifestly accepted at the Throne 
 of Grace in these rationalising days. Jesus is then abjured 
 to deliver His petitioners by the memory of His days upon 
 earth, and we get the ancient idea of an incarnate God, so 
 common to all eastern religions, and the curious picture of 
 a God who is born, circumcised, baptised, fasts, is tempted, 
 suffers, dies, is buried, rises, ascends. How God can do 
 all this remains a mystery, but these suffering, and then con- 
 quering gods are familiar to all readers of mythologies ; 
 we learn further, that God the Holy Ghost can come to a 
 place where He was not previously, although He is the 
 infinite God, and is therefore omnipresent. Verily, it needs, 
 that our faith be great. Being delivered sufficiently, the. 
 congregation proceed to a number of additional petitions,, 
 the first of which is, unfortunately, as great a failure as the 
 preceding ones, for it prays that the Church may be guided. 
 " in the right way ; " and having regard to the multiplicity 
 of Churches, each one of which goes doggedly in her own 
 particular way, it is manifest that they can't all be right, as. 
 they are all different. Then follow prayers for the Royal 
 Family and the Government, and a general request to 
 " bless and keep all Thy people ;" a request which is sys- 
 tematically disregarded. In these days of " bloated arma- 
 ments " it is at least pleasant to dream in church of there 
 being given " to all nations, unity, peace, and concord." 
 The " pure .affection " with which God's Word is received is 
 also perfectly imaginary ; those who do not believe it criticise 
 and cavil ; those who do believe it go to sleep over it. 
 The last part of these verses seems designed simply to pray 
 for everybody all round, and this being satisfactorily accom- 
 plished, we come across another trace of an ancient creed : 
 " Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world ; " 
 this is a fragment of sun-worship, alluding to the sun-god, 
 when, entering the sign of the Lamb, he bears away all the 
 coldness and the darkness of the winter months, and gives 
 life to the world. The remainder of the Litany is of the 
 same painfully servile character as the earlier portions ; God 
 seems to be regarded as a fierce tyrant, longing to wreak 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 193 
 
 His fury on mankind, and only withheld by incessant 
 entreaties. All possible evils seem to be showering down 
 on the congregation, and, if one closed one's eyes, one could 
 imagine a sad-faced, care-worn, haggard group of Cove- 
 nanters, or Huguenots, instead of the fashionable crowd 
 that fills the pews ; and when one hears them ask that they 
 may be " hurt by no persecutions," one is inclined to mutter 
 grimly : " You are all safe, mother Church, and you are the 
 persecutor, not the persecuted." The service concludes 
 with the same unreal cant about afflictions and infirmities, 
 till one could wish almost to hear something of the style of 
 observation made by an angry nurse to a tiresome child : 
 "If you don't stop crying this minute, I will give you 
 something to cry for." If men would only be as real inside, 
 the church as they are outside ; if they would think and 
 mean what they say, this pitiful burlesque would speedily 
 be put an end to, and they would no longer offer up that 
 sacrifice of lying lips, which are said to be " an abomination 
 to the Lord." 
 
 PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS UPON 
 SEVERAL OCCASIONS. 
 
 These special prayers are, perhaps, on the whole, the 
 most childish of all the childish prayers in the Church- 
 book before us. A prayer "for rain;" a prayer "for fair 
 weather:" it is almost too late to argue seriously against 
 prayers like these, except that uneducated people do still 
 believe that God regulates the weather, day by day, and 
 may be influenced in His arrangements by the prayer of 
 some weather-critic below. Yet it is a literal fact that 
 storm-signals fly before the approaching storm, and prepare 
 people for its coming, so that when it sweeps across our 
 seas the vessels are safely in port, which otherwise would 
 have sunk beneath its fury ; meteorology is progressing day 
 by day, and is becoming more and more perfect, but this* 
 science as all other science would be impossible if Goct 
 could be influenced by prayer ; a storm-signal would be need- 
 less if prayer could stay the storm, and would be unreliable 
 if a prayer could suddenly, in mid-ocean, check the course- 
 of the tempest. Science is only possible when it is admitted 
 that " God works by laws," i.e., that His working at all ne^d 
 
 H 
 
194 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 not be taken into account. The laws of weather are as 
 unchangeable as all other natural laws, for laws are nothing 
 more than the ascertained sequence of events ; not until 
 that sequence has been found by long observation to be in- 
 variable, does the sequence receive the title of " a law." 
 As the weather of to-day is the result of the weather of 
 countless yesterdays, the only way in which prayers for 
 change can be effectual is that God should change the 
 whole weather of the past, and so let fresh causes bring 
 about fresh results ; but this seems a rather large prayer, to 
 say the least of it, and might, by the carnal mind, be con- 
 sidered as somewhat presumptuous. In the prayers " in the 
 time of dearth and famine" we find the old barbarous 
 notion that men's moral sins are punished by physical 
 " visitations of God," and that God's blessing will give 
 plenty in the place of dearth : if men work hard they will 
 get more than if they pray hard, and even long ago in 
 Eden God could not make his plants grow, because " there 
 was not a man to till the ground ;" at least, so says the 
 Eible. The prayer " in the time of war," is strikingly beau- 
 tiful, begging the All-Father to abate the pride, assuage the 
 malice, and confound the devices of some of His children 
 for the advantage of the others. The " most religious 
 and gracious " Sovereign recommended to the care of 
 God has been known to be such a king as George IV., 
 but yet clergy and people went on day after day speaking of 
 him thus to a God who " searcheth the hearts." A quaint 
 old Prayer-Book remarks upon this prayer for the High 
 Court of Parliament, that the " right disposing of the hearts 
 of legislators proceeds from God," and that " both disbelief 
 and ignorance must have made fearful progress where this 
 principle is not recognised." In these latter days we fear 
 that disbelief and ignorance of this kind have made very 
 considerable progress. The Thanksgivings run side by side 
 with the prayers in subjects, and are therefore open to the 
 same criticisms. None of these prayers or praises can be 
 defended by reason or by argument ; reason shows us their 
 utter folly, and their complete uselessness. Is it wise to 
 persist in forcing into people's lips words which have lost all 
 their meaning, and which the people, if they trouble them- 
 selves to think about them at all, at once recognise as false ? 
 All danger in progress lies in the obstinate maintenance of 
 things which have outlived their age ; just as a stream which 
 flows peacefully on, spreading plenty and fertility in its 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 195 
 
 course, and growing naturally wider and fuller, will if 
 dammed up too much burst at length through the dam, 
 and rush forward as a torrent, bearing destruction and ruin 
 in its course ; so will gradual and gentle reform in ancient 
 habits change all that needs changing, without abrupt altera- 
 tions, letting the stream of thought grow wider and fuller ; 
 but if all Reform be delayed, if all change be forbidden, if 
 the dam of prejudice, of custom, of habit, bar the stream 
 too long, then thought hurls it down with the crash of revo- 
 lution, and many a thing is lost in the swirling torrent which 
 might have remained long, and might have beautified human 
 life. Few things call more loudly for Reform than our 
 hitherto loudly-boasted Reformation. 
 
 H 2 
 
THE 
 
 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 9 
 
 THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 
 
 A7O doctrine, perhaps, has done so much to cause disunion 
 !\ in the Church as the doctrine of Communion enshrined 
 hi the Lord's Supper. A feast of love in idea, it has been 
 pre-eminently a feast of hate in reality, and the fiercest 
 contests have been waged over this " last legacy of the 
 Redeemer." Down to the time of the Reformation it was 
 the central service of the Church universal, Eastern and 
 Western alike : it was the Liturgy, distinguished from every 
 other office by this distinctive name. Round this rite 
 revolved the whole of the other services, as week-days 
 around the Lord's Day ; on its due performance was 
 lavished everything of beauty and of splendour that wealth 
 could bring; sweetest incense, most harmonious music, 
 richest vestments, rarely jewelled vessels, pomp of proces- 
 sion, stateliness of ceremony, all brought their glory and 
 their beauty to render magnificent the reception of the 
 present God. Among the Reformed Churches the festival 
 was shorn of its grandeur ; it became once more the simple 
 " supper of the Lord," no memorial sacrifice, but only a 
 commemorative rite ; no coming of the Lord to men, but 
 only a sign of the union through faith of the believer with 
 the Saviour. At the present time the old contest rages, 
 even within the bosom of the Reformed Church of Eng- 
 land ; one party still clings to the elder belief of a real 
 presence of Christ in the elements themselves, or in indis- 
 soluble connection with them, and, therefore, celebrates the 
 service with much of the ancient pomp ; while the other 
 furiously rejects this so-called idolatry, and makes the ser- 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER BOOK. IQ7 
 
 vice as bare and as simple as possible. Both parties can 
 claim parts of the Communion Office as upholding their 
 special views, for the English service has passed through 
 much of tinkering from High and Low, and retains the 
 marks of the alterations that have been made by each. 
 
 To those outside the Church this office has particular 
 attraction, as being, in a special manner, a link between the 
 past and the present, and being full of traces of the ancient 
 religion of the world, that catholic sun-worship of which 
 Christianity is a modernised revival. From the Nicene 
 Creed, in which Jesus is described as " God of God, Light 
 of Light, very God of very God, Begotten not made, Being 
 of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were 
 made " from this point we breathe the full atmosphere of 
 the elder world, and find ourselves engaged in the worship 
 of that Light of Light, who, being the image of the invisible 
 God, the first-born of every creature, has for ages and ages 
 been adored as incarnate in Mithra, in Christna, in Osiris, 
 in Christ. We give thanks for " the redemption of the 
 world by the death and passion of ' the Sun-Saviour, who 
 suffered on the Cross for us,' who lay in darkness and in 
 the shadow of death ;" we praise Him who fills heaven and 
 earth with His glory, and who rose as " the Paschal Lamb," 
 .and has " taken away the sin of the world," bearing away in 
 the sign of the Lamb the darkness and dreariness of the 
 winter ; we remember the Holy Ghost, the fresh spring 
 wind, who, " as it had been a mighty wind," came to bring 
 us " out of darkness " into " the clear light " of the sun ; 
 then we see the priest, with his face turned to the sun- 
 rising, take the bread and wine, the symbols of the God, 
 and bless them for the food of men, these symbols being 
 changed into the very substance of the deity, for are they 
 not, in very truth, of him alone? " How naturally does the 
 eternal work of the sun, daily renewed, express itself in such 
 lines as 
 
 ' Into bread his heat is turned, 
 into generous wine his light.' 
 
 And imagining the sun as a person, the change to ' flesh ' 
 and 'blood' becomes inevitable; while the fact that the 
 solar forces are actually changed into food, without forfeit- 
 ing their solar character, finds expression in the doctrines of 
 transubstantiation and the real presence." (" Keys of the 
 Creeds," page 91.) After this union with the Deity, by 
 
198 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 partaking of his very self, we praise once more the " Lamb 
 of God that takest away the sins of the world/' and is- 
 " most high in the glory of God the Father." The resem- 
 blance is made the nearer in the churches where much of 
 ceremony is found (although noticeable in all, since that 
 resemblance is stereotyped in the formulas themselves ; but 
 in the more elaborate performances the old rites are more 
 clearly apparent) in the tonsured head of the priest, in the 
 suns often embroidered on vestment and on altar-cloth, in. 
 the rays that surround the sacred monogram on the vessels, 
 in the cross imprinted on the bread, and marking each 
 utensil, in the lighted candles, in the grape-vine chiselled on 
 the chalice in all these, and in many another symbol, we 
 read the whole story of the Sun-god, written in hieroglyphics 
 as easily decipherable by the initiated as is the testimony of 
 the rocks by the geologian. 
 
 But passing by this antiquarian side of the Office, we will 
 examine it as a service suitable for the use of educated and 
 thoughtful people at the present time. The Rubric which 
 precedes the Office is one of those unfortunate rules which 
 are obsolete as regards their practice, and yet which from 
 their preservation appear to simple-minded parsons to 
 be intended to be enforced, whereby the said parsons fall into- 
 the clutches of the law, and suffer grievously. " An open and 
 notorious evil-liver " must not be permitted to come to the 
 Lord's Table, and this expression seems to be explained in 
 the Exhortation in the Office, wherein we read : " if any of 
 you be a blasphemer of God, an hinderer or slanderer of His 
 word, an adulterer, or be in malice, or envy, or in any other 
 grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to 
 that holy Table ; lest, after the taking of that holy Sacrament,, 
 the devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill 
 you full of all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of 
 body and soul." In a late case, the Sacrament was refused 
 to one who disbelieved in the devil and who slandered God's 
 word, on those very grounds, and it would seem to be an act 
 of Christian charity so to deny it ; for surely to say that part 
 of God's word is " contrary to religion and decency " must 
 be to slander it, if words have any meaning, and people who 
 do not believe in the devil ought hardly to be sharers in a 
 rite after which the devil will enter into them with such 
 melancholy consequences. It would seem more consistent 
 either to alter the formulas or else to carry them out ; true, 
 one clergyman wrote that the responsibility lay with the 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 199 
 
 unworthy recipient who " did nothing else but increase " his 
 " damnation," but it is scarcely a pleasing notion that the 
 clergyman should stand inviting people to the Lord's table 
 and, coolly handing to one of those who accept, the body of 
 Christ, say, " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve 
 thy body and soul unto everlasting life," when he means 
 in the delicate language used by the above-mentioned clergy- 
 man " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ damn thy body 
 .and soul unto everlasting death." No one but a clergyman 
 could dream of so offensive a proceeding, and, to those who 
 believe, one so terribly awful. 
 
 The Ten Commandments which stand in the fore-front of 
 the service are very much out of place as regards some of 
 them, to say nothing of the want of truthfulness in the asser- 
 tion, that " God spake these words," &c. In the second we 
 are forbidden to make any graven image, or any likeness of 
 any thing, a command which would destroy all art, and 
 which no member of the congregation can have the smallest 
 notion of obeying. The Jews, who made the cherubim over 
 the ark, upon which God sat, are popularly supposed not to 
 have disobeyed this command, because the cherubim were 
 not the likeness of anything in heaven, earth, or water : they 
 were, like unicorns, creatures undiscovered and undiscover- 
 "ble. Yet in direct opposition to this command, Solomon 
 2 ~~"^ brazen oxen to support his sea of brass (i Kings vii. 
 _~\ ^' and lions on the steps of his ivory throne (i Kings 
 
 to make a to ^ ave ordered Moses 
 
 r ^ ' , ''.en Serpent. God is described, in this same 
 Commandment ^ jea l O us God "-which is decidedly 
 
 ,Tn h al ^r P?t --nt-who- visits "the sins of the fathers 
 upon the children, unt^ third and f h ation of 
 
 them that hate me;" the >. Mce f ^ fa SQ ob \ [ous h nQ 
 mment on it is necessary. ^ h f h Commandment is 
 another which no one dreams extending t in the first 
 place, we do not keep the seventh -i 
 
 second, our man-servant, our 
 
 all manner of work on the day we kee r . the Sabbath 
 Further, who in the present day believes that m six davs 
 the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in 
 them is, and rested the seventh day;" geology, astronomy, 
 ethnology have taught us otherwise, and, among those who 
 repeat the response to this commandment in a London 
 church, not one could probably be found who believes it to 
 be true. The fifth Commandment is equally out of place, for 
 
200 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 dutiful children do not live any longer than undutiful. The 
 
 remainder touch simple moral duties, enforced by all creeds 
 
 alike, and are noticeable for their omissions and not for their 
 
 commissions : the insertion of the Buddhist Command- 
 
 ment against intoxication, for instance, would be an improve- 
 
 ment, although such a commandment is naturally not to be 
 
 found in the case of so gross and sensual a people as the 
 
 ancient Jews. The alternative prayers for the Queen r 
 
 which follow next, are only worth noting, because the first 
 
 enshrines the doctrine of divine right, which is long since 
 
 dead and buried, except in church ; and the other says 
 
 " that the hearts of Kings are in thy rule and governance," 
 
 and suggests the thought that, if this be so, it is better 
 
 to be out of that "rule and governance/' the effects 
 
 on the hearts of Kings not having been specially attrac- 
 
 tive. The Nicene Creed .comes next, and is open to- 
 
 the objections before made against the Apostles' Creed ; 
 
 the last clauses relating to the Holy Ghost are historically 
 
 interesting, since the " and the Son " forms the Filioquc 
 
 which severed Eastern from Western Christendom ;* " Who 
 
 with the Father and the Son together" ought to be 
 
 "worshipped and glorified," would be more true to fact 
 
 than "is," since the Holy Ghost is sadly ignored bv 
 
 modern Christendom, and has a very small share of 
 
 prayers or hymns : yet he is the husband of the 
 
 Mary, and the Father of Jesus Christ ; he is, 
 
 very important, though puzzling, person in^j~ proceeds ! 
 
 being the Father of him from whom he b^ , fahh> The 
 
 this is a mystery, and can only be under^ ious selection . 
 
 texts that follow are remarkable for/ 1 ' . u Tf w _ ^ _ 
 
 "Who goeth a warfare" ftc ^ ^ " te \X 
 
 sown to. i Cor. ,x 9 ; ' RJ ij 6) Le \ himthat 
 
 & fading selfishness of motive 
 
 which the Fihoor u ^^ e ' first ten or twelve pages of the shilling 
 Creed is to "found mU.em ^ entitled -The 
 
 pamphlet wriwn by Edmum blishe d by J. T. Hnyes, 
 
 (jnd, Pr^parauo ad Missarn, m U^ held tha t the Holy Ghost 
 
 ^^ore'de^fro^ "thcr, as Do m ir,us in it can only refer to 
 the Father. 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 2OI 
 
 is also worth nothing : Give now in order that ye may get 
 hereafter ; " Never turn thy face from any poor man, and 
 then the face of the Lord shall not be turned away from tliez ;" 
 " He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord : 
 and look, what he layeth out, it shall be paid him again ;" "If 
 thou hast much, give plenteously ; if thou hast little, do thy 
 diligence gladly to give of that little ; for so gathered thou 
 thyself a good reward in the day of necessity"* No free, glad 
 giving here ; no willing, joyful aid to a poorer brother, 
 because he needs what I can give ; no ready offer of the cup 
 of cold water, simply because the thirsty is there and wants 
 the refreshment ; ever the hateful whisper comes : " thou 
 shalt in no wise lose thy reward." These time-serving 
 offerings are then presented to God by being placed " upo 
 the Holy Table/' and we then get another prayer for Queen, 
 Christian Kings, authorities, Bishops, and people in genera), 
 concluding with thanks for the dead, not a cheerful subject 
 to bless God for, if there chance to be present any mourner 
 whose heart is sore with the loss of a beloved one. At this 
 point the service is supposed to end, when no celebration of 
 the Holy Communion is intended, and here we find two 
 Exhortations, or notices of celebration, from the first of 
 which we have already quoted : j in the second, we cannot 
 help remarking the undignified position in which God is 
 placed ; it is a " grievous and unkind thing " not to come to a 
 rich feast when invited thereto, wherefore we are to fear lest by 
 withdrawing ourselves from this holy Supper, we " provoke 
 God's indignation against " us. " Consider with yourselves 
 how great injury ye do unto God : " what a very curious 
 expression. Is God thus at the mercy of man ? Surely, 
 then, of all living Beings the lot of God must be the saddest, 
 if his happiness and his glory are in the hands of each man 
 and woman ; the greater his knowledge the greater the 
 misery, and as his knowledge is perfect, and the vast 
 majority of human kind know and care nothing about him, 
 his wretchedness must be complete. All things being ready, 
 
 * As if the clergy, with very few exceptions, are not sufficiently pro- 
 vided for by the tithes, &c., without having to go a-begging like either 
 Buddhist or Roman Catholic monks, to both of whom P.P. and P.M. 
 are not inappropriately applied (Professors of Poverty and Practisers of 
 Mendicancy). 
 
 t It is, however, only just to say that that portion of it contained 
 between " The Way and Means thereto" and "Offences at God's 
 Hands," is one of the best bits in the whole Prayer-Book, and which far 
 surpasses the generality of sermons one hears afterwards. 
 
2O2 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 the clergyman begins by another Exhortation, of somewhat 
 threatening character : " So is the danger great if we receive 
 the same unworthily." For then we are guilty of the Body 
 and Blood of Christ our Saviour ; we eat and drink our own 
 damnation, not considering the Lord's Body; we kindle 
 God's wrath against us ; we provoke him to plague us with 
 divers diseases, and sundry kinds of death." (Surely 
 we cannot be plagued with more than one kind of 
 death at once, and we can't die sundry times, even 
 after the Communion.) One almost wonders why any- 
 one accepts this very threatening invitation, even though 
 there are advantages promised to " meet partakers." The 
 High Church party have indeed the right to talk much of 
 the real presence, since ordinary bread and wine have none 
 of these fearful penalties attached to the eating and drink- 
 ing, and some curious change must have taken place in them 
 before all these terrible consequences can ensue. What 
 would happen if some consecrated bread and wine chanced 
 to be left by mistake, and a stray comer into the vestry eat 
 it unknowingly ? One thinks of Anne Askew, who, told that 
 a mouse eating a crumb fallen from the Host would 
 infallibly be damned, replied, "Alack, poor mouse!" Then 
 follows a Confession of the most cringing kind, fit only for 
 the lips of some coward suppliant crouching at the feet of 
 an Eastern monarch ; it is marvellous that free English men; 
 and women can frame their lips into phrases of such utter- 
 abasement, even to a God ; manliness in religion is sorely 
 needed, unless, indeed, God be something smaller than 
 man, and be pleased with the degradation painful to human 
 eyes. The prayer of consecration is the central point of 
 the ordinance ; of old they prayed for the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost on the elements, " for whatsoever the Holy 
 Ghost toucheth is sanctified and clean" it is not explained 
 how the Holy Ghost, being omnipresent, manages to avoid 
 touching everything and now the priest asks that in 
 receiving the bread and wine we "may be partakers of" 
 Christ's Body and Blood, and repeats the words, " This is 
 my Body," "This is my Blood," laying his hand alternately 
 over the bread and the wine : now if this means anything, 
 if it is not mere mockery, it means that after the consecration 
 the bread and wine are other than they were before ; if it 
 does not mean this, the whole prayer is simply a farce, a 
 piece of acting scarcely decent under the circumstances. 
 But flesh and blood ! Putting aside the extreme repulsive- 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 203 
 
 siess of the idea, the coarseness of the act, the utter 
 unpleasantness of eating flesh and drinking blood, all 
 of which has become non-disgusting by habit and fashion, 
 and the distastefulness of which can scarcely be realised 
 by any believer putting aside all this, is there any change 
 in the bread and wine? Examine it; analyse it; test 
 it in any and every fashion ; still it answers back to the 
 questioner, " bread and wine." Are our senses deceived ? 
 Then try a hundred different persons ; all cannot be deceived 
 alike. Unless every result of experience is untrustworthy, 
 we have here to do with bread and wine, and with nothing 
 more. " But faith is needed." Ah yes ! There is the secret : 
 no flesh and blood without faith ; no miracle without 
 credulity. Miracle- working priests are only successful 
 among credulously-disposed people ; miracles can only be 
 received by those who think it less likely that Nature should 
 .speak falsely than that man should deceive ; those who 
 believe in this change through consecration cannot be 
 touched by argument ; they have closed their eyes that they 
 may not see, their ears that they may not hear; no knowledge 
 can reach them, for they have shut the gateways whereby it 
 could enter, they are literally dead in their superstition, 
 buried beneath the stone of their faith. The reception of 
 the Body and Blood of Christ being over, the people having 
 knelt to eat and drink, as is only right when eating and 
 drinking Christ (John vi. 57), the Lord's Prayer is said for 
 the second time, a prayer and thanksgiving follows, confined 
 to "we and all thy whole Church," for the spirit is the same 
 as that of the prayer of Christ, " I pray not for the world, 
 but for them whom thou hast given me" (John xvii. 9), and 
 then the service winds up with the Gloria in Excelsis and 
 the Benediction. Such is the " bounden duty and service" 
 offered by the Church to God, the service of which the 
 central act must be either a farce or a falsehood, and there- 
 fore insulting to the God to whom it is offered. Regarded 
 as a service to God, the whole Communion Office is 
 objectionable in the highest degree ; regarded as an anti- 
 quarian survival, it is very interesting and instructive ; it is 
 surely time that it should be put in its right place, and that 
 its true origin should be recognised. The day is gone by 
 for these barbarous, though poetic, ceremonials ; the " flesh 
 and blood," which was a bold figure for the heat and light of 
 the sun, becomes coarse when joined in thought to a human 
 being ; ceremonies that fitted the childhood of the world 
 
204 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 are out of place in its manhood, as the play that is graceful 
 in the child would be despicable in the man ; these rites 
 are the baby-clothes of the world, and cannot be stretched 
 to fit the stalwart limbs of its maturer age, cannot add grace 
 to its form, or dignity to its graver walk. 
 
 THE BAPTISMAL OFFICES. 
 
 For all purposes of criticism the Offices for " Public Bap- 
 tism of Infants, to be used in the Church," for " Private 
 Baptism of Children in houses," and " Baptism to such as 
 are of riper years, and able to answer for themselves," may 
 be treated as one and the same, the leading idea of each 
 service being identical ; this idea is put forward clearly and 
 distinctly in the preface to the Office : " Dearly beloved, for- 
 asmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin; and that 
 our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom 
 of God, except he be regenerate and born anew of water 
 and of the Holy Ghost ; I beseech you to call upon God 
 the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of his boun- 
 teous mercy he will grant to this Child that thing which by 
 nature he cannot have." According to the doctrine of the 
 Church, then, baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation : 
 " None can enter . . . except he be . . . born anew 
 of water ;" thus peals out the doom of condemnation on the 
 whole human race, save that fragment of it which is sprinkled 
 from the Christian font ; there is no evasion possible here ; 
 no exception made in favour of heathen peoples ; no mercy 
 allowed to those who have no opportunity of baptism ; none 
 can enter save through "thelaver of regeneration." Can 
 any words be too strong whereby to denounce a doctrine so- 
 shameful, an injustice so glaring? A child is born into the 
 world ; it is no fault of his that he is conceived in sin ; it is 
 no fault of his that he is born in sin ; his consent was not 
 asked before he was ushered into the world ; no offer was 
 made to him which he could reject of this terrible gift of a 
 condemned life ; flung is he, without his knowledge, with- 
 out his will, into a world lying under the curse of God, a 
 child of wrath, and heir of damnation. " By nature he can- 
 not have." Then why should God be wrath with him because 
 he hath not? The whole arrangement is of God's 'own 
 making. He fore-ordained the birth ; he gave the life ; the 
 helpless, unconscious infant lies there, the work of his own 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 205 
 
 hands ; good or bad, he is responsible for it ; heir of love 
 or of wrath, he has made it what it is ; as wholly is it his 
 doing as the unconscious vessel is the doing of the potter ; 
 as reasonably may God be angry with the child as the potter 
 swear at the clay he has clumsily moulded : if the vessel be 
 bad, blame the potter ; if the creature be bad, blame the 
 Creator. The congregation pray that God " of his boun- 
 teous mercy," " for thine infinite mercies," will save the 
 child, " that he, being delivered from thy wrath," may be 
 blessed. It is no question of mercy we have to do with 
 here ; it is a question of simple justice, and nothing more ; if 
 God, for his own " good pleasure," or in the pursuance of" 
 the designs of his infinite wisdom, has placed this unfor- 
 tunate child in so terrible a position, he is bound by every 
 tie of justice, by every sacred claim of right, to deliver the 
 blameless victim, and to place him where he shall have a 
 fair chance of well-being. " It is certain by God's Word," 
 says the Rubric, " that children which are baptized, dying 
 before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved." 
 And those which are not baptized? The Holy Roman 
 Church sends these into a cheerful place called Limbo, and 
 the baby-souls wander about in chill twilight, cursed with 
 immortality, shut out for ever from the joys of Paradise. 
 Many readers will remember Lowell's pathetic poem on this 
 subject, and the ghastly baptism ; they will also know into 
 what devious paths of argumentative indecency that Church 
 has wandered in deciding upon the fate of unbaptized 
 infants ; how, when mothers have died in childbirth, the 
 yet unborn children have been baptized to save them from 
 the terrible doom pronounced upon them by their Father 
 in heaven, even before they saw the light ; how it has been 
 said that in cases where mother and child cannot both be 
 saved the mother should be sacrificed that the child may 
 not die unbaptized. Into the details of these arguments we 
 cannot enter ; they are only fit for orthodox Christians, in 
 whose pages they may read them who list. Truly, the Lord 
 is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the 
 children, since unborn children are condemned for the 
 untimely death of their mother, and unbaptized infants for 
 the carelessness of their parents or nurses. Of course, the 
 majority of English clergymen believe nothing of this kind ; 
 but then why do they read a service which implies it ? 
 Why do they use words in a non-natural sense ? Why do 
 they put off their honesty when they put on their surplices? 
 
206 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 And why will the laity not give utterance to their thoughts 
 on these and all such objectionable parts of the Service ? 
 In the Office for adults, as regards the necessity of the 
 Sacrament, the words come in : " where it may be had ; " 
 but the phrase reads as though it had been written in the 
 margin by some kindly soul, and had from thence crept into 
 the text, for it is in direct opposition to the whole argument 
 of the address wherein it occurs, and to the rest of the office, 
 as also to the other two offices for infants. The stress laid 
 upon right baptism, i.e., baptism with water, accompanied 
 by the " name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost," appears specially in the office to follow the 
 private baptism of a child, should the child live ; for the 
 Rubric directs that if there be any doubt of the use of -the 
 water and the formula, " which are essential parts of Bap- 
 tism," the priest shall perform the baptismal ceremony, say- 
 ing, " If thon art not already baptized, I baptize thee," &c. 
 Surely such care and pains to ensure correct baptism speak 
 with sufficient plainness as to the importance attached by 
 the Church to this initiatory rite ; this importance she 
 gives to it in other places : none, unbaptized, must approach 
 her altar to take the " bread of life :" none, unbaptized, 
 must be buried by her ministers, " in sure and certain hope 
 of the Resurrection to eternal life." The baptized are 
 within the ark of the Church ; the unbaptized are struggling 
 in the waves of God's wrath outside ; no hand can be out- 
 stretched to save them ; they are strangers, aliens, to the 
 covenant of promise ; they are without hope. The whole 
 office for infants reads like a play : the clergyman asks that 
 the infant " may receive remission of his sins ;" what sins? 
 The people are admonished " that they defer not the Bap- 
 tism of their children longer than the first or second Sunday 
 next after their birth." What sins can a baby a week old 
 have committed ? from what sins can he need release ? for 
 what sins can he ask forgiveness ? And yet, here is a whole 
 congregation prostrate before Almighty God, praying that a 
 tiny long-robed baby may be forgiven, may be pardoned his 
 sins of coming into the world when God sent him ! The 
 ceremony would be ludicrous were it not so pitiful. And 
 supposing that the infant does need forgiveness, and has 
 sins to be washed away, why should a few drops of water, 
 sprinkled on the face or bonnet of the. baby, or even the 
 immersion of his body in the font, wash away the sins of his 
 soul ? The water is " sanctified ;" we pray : " Sanctify this 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 207 
 
 water to the mystical washing away of sin." As the hymn 
 sweetly puts it : 
 
 " The water in this font 
 Is water, by gross mortals eyed ; 
 But, seen by faith, 'tis blood 
 Out of a dear friend's side." 
 
 Blood once more ! how Christians cling to the revolting 
 imagery of a bygone and barbarous age of gross conceptions. 
 And, applied by faith, it cleanses the soul of the child from 
 sin. Well, the whole thing is consistent : the invisible soul 
 is washed from invisible sin by invisible blood, and to all 
 outward appearance the child remains after baptism exactly 
 what it was before except it chance to get inflammation of 
 the lungs, as we have known happen, from High Church 
 free use of water, which is, perhaps, the promised baptism 
 of fire. The promises of the sponsors are in full accordance 
 with the rest of the services ; promises made by other people, 
 in the child's name, as to his future conduct, over which 
 they have no control. The baby renounces the devil and 
 all his belongings, believes the Apostles' Creed, and answers 
 " that is my desire," when asked if he will be baptized ; all 
 which " is very pretty acting," but jars somewhat on the feel- 
 ing of reality which ought surely to characterize a believer's 
 intercourse with his God. The child being baptized and 
 signed with the Cross, " is regenerate," according to the 
 declaration of the priest. Some contend that the Church 
 of England does not teach baptismal regeneration, but it is 
 hard to see how any one can read this service, and then 
 deny the teaching ; it is clearer and fuller than is the teach- 
 ing of her voice upon most subjects. The ceremony of 
 baptism and the idea of regeneration are both derived from 
 the sun-worship of which so many traces have already been 
 pointed out : the worshippers of Mithra practised baptism, 
 and it is common to the various phases of the solar faith. 
 Regeneration, in some parts, especially in India, was ob- 
 tained in a different fashion : a hole through a rock, or a 
 narrow passage between two, was the sacred spot, and a 
 worshipper, squeezing himself through such an opening, was" 
 regenerated, and was, by this literal representation of birth, 
 born a second time, born into a new life, and the sins of the 
 former life were no longer accounted to him. Many such 
 holes are still preserved and revered in India, and there can 
 be little doubt that the ancient Druidic remains bear traces 
 
208 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 of being adapted for this same ceremony, although a natural 
 fissure appears ever to have been accounted the most 
 sacred.* 
 
 One ought scarcely to leave unnoted the preamble to the 
 first prayer in the baptismal service : " Who of thy great 
 mercy didst save Noah and his family in the ark from 
 perishing by water ; and also didst safely lead the children 
 of Israel thy people through the Red Sea, figuring thereby 
 thy holy baptism ; and by the baptism of thy well-beloved 
 Son Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan, didst sanctify water to 
 the mystical washing of sin/' In the two first examples given 
 the choice of the Church appears to be peculiarly unfortu- 
 nate, as in each case water was the element to be escaped 
 jrom, and it was a source of death, not of life; perhaps, 
 though, there is a subtle meaning in the Red Sea, it points 
 to the blood of Christ : but then, again, the Red Sea drowned 
 people, and surely the anti-type is not so dangerous as that? 
 It must be a mystery. It would be interesting to know how 
 many of the educated clergymen who read this prayer be- 
 lieve in the story of the Noachian deluge, and of the mira- 
 culous passage of the Red Sea ; and further, how many of 
 them believe that God, by these fables, figured his holy bap- 
 tism. Will the nineteenth century ever summon up energy 
 enough to shake off these remnants of a dead superstition, 
 and be honest enough to stop using a form of words which 
 is no longer a vehicle of belief? When the Prayer Book was 
 compiled these words had a meaning ; to-day they have 
 none. Shall not a second Reformation sweep away these 
 dead beliefs, even as the first away for its own age the phrases 
 which reoresented an earlier and coarser creed ? 
 
 THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION. 
 
 " These signs shall follow them that believe : In my 
 name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with 
 new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they 
 drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall 
 lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." In those 
 remarkable days the " order of Confirmation " might have 
 
 * Even in this country, at Brimham Rocks, near Ripon, in York- 
 shire, the dead form of the custom is, or was, until very lately, kept u 
 by the guide sending all visitors, who chose to avail themselves cf th 
 privilege, through such a fissure. 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 209 
 
 been in consonance with its surroundings, a sfote of things 
 which is* very far from being its present position. Mr. 
 Spurgeon, writing for the benefit of street preachers, lately 
 pointed out very sensibly that as the Holy Ghost no longer 
 gave the gift of tongues, they had " better stick to their 
 grammars," and in these degenerate days honest effort 
 is more likely to show results more satisfactory than those 
 which ensue from the laying on of Bishops' hands. When 
 the Apostles performed this ceremony, which the Bishop 
 now performs after their example, definite proofs of its 
 efficacy were said to have been seen; so much so, indeed, 
 that Simon, the sorcerer, wished to invest some money 
 in heavenly securities, so that " on whomsoever I lay 
 hands he may receive the Holy Ghost." A Simon would 
 manifestly never be found nowadays ready to pay a Bishop 
 for the power of causing the effects of Confirmation. So 
 far as the carnal eye can see, the white-robed, veiled young 
 ladies, and the shame-faced black-coated boys, who throng 
 the church on a Confirmation day, return from the altar very 
 much the same as they went up to it : no one begins to speak 
 with tongues ; if they did, the beadle would probably inter- 
 fere and quench the Spirit with the greatest promptitude. 
 They are supposed to have received some special gifts: ""the 
 spirit of wisdom and understanding ; the spirit of counsel 
 and ghostly strength ; the spirit of knowledge and true god- 
 liness;" and in addition to these six spirits, there is one 
 more : " the spirit of thy holy fear." No less than seven 
 spirits, then, enter these lads and lasses. Wisdom and under- 
 standing are easily perceptible : are they wiser after Confirma- 
 tion than they were before? do they understand more rapidly? 
 do they know more ? if there be no perceptible difference is 
 the presence of the Holy Spirit of none effect? if of none effect 
 can his presence be of any use, of the very smallest advantage? 
 if of no use, why make all this parade about giving a thing 
 whose gift makes the recipient no richer than he was before ? 
 Besides, what certainty can there be that the Holy Ghost is given 
 at all? Allowing what seems to an outsider a gross piece of 
 irreverence that the Holy Ghost is in the fingers of the Bishop 
 to be given away when it suits the Bishop's convenience, or is in 
 a sort of reservoir, of which the Bishop turns the tap and 
 lets the stream of grace descend allowing all this as pos- 
 sible, ought not some " sign to follow them that believe " ? 
 How can we be sure that the Bishop is not an impostor, 
 going through a conjuror's gestures and mutterings, and no 
 
210 BEAUTIES O? THE PRAYER-EOOK. 
 
 magic results accruing ? If, in the ordinary course of daily 
 life, any one came and offered us some valuable things he 
 said that he possessed, and then went through the form of 
 giving them to us, saying : " Here they are ; guard and pre- 
 serve them for the rest of your life ;" and the outstretched 
 hand contained nothing at all, and we found ourselves with 
 nothing in our grasp, should we be content with his assur- 
 ance that we had really got them, although we might not be 
 able to see them, and we ought to have sufficient faith to 
 take his word for it ? Should we not utterly refuse to believe 
 that we had received anything unless we had some proof of 
 having done so, and were in some way the better or the 
 worse for it ? The truth is that people's religion is, to them, 
 a matter of such small importance that they do not trouble 
 themselves about proof Faith is enough to comfort them ; 
 the six week-days require their brains, their efforts, their 
 thought : the Sunday is the Lord's day, and he must see to 
 it : earth needs all their earnest attention, but heaven must 
 take care of itself; the validity of an earthly title is import- 
 ant, and the confirmation of a right to inherit property in 
 this world is eagerly welcomed, but the Confirmation to a 
 heavenly inheritance is a mere farce, which it is the fashion 
 to go through about the age of fifteen, but which is only a 
 fashion, the confirmation of a faith in nothing in particular 
 to an invisible heritage of nothing at all 
 
 THE FORM OF THE SOLEMNIZATION OF 
 MATRIMONY. 
 
 One of the most curious blunders regarding orthodox 
 Christianity is, that it has tended to the elevation of woman. 
 As a matter of fact, the Eastern ideas about women are em- 
 bodied in Christianity, and these ideas are essentially de- 
 graded and degrading. From the time when Paul bade 
 women obey their husbands, Augustine's mother was beaten, 
 unresisting, by Augustine's father, and Jerome fled from 
 woman's charms, and monks declaimed against the daugh- 
 ters of Eve, doAvn to the present da}', when Peter's authority 
 is used against woman suffrage, Christianity has consistently 
 regarded woman as a creature to be subject to man, because, 
 being deceived, she was first in transgression. The Church 
 service for matrimony is redolent of this barbarous idea, relic 
 of a time when men seized wives by force, or else purchased 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 211 
 
 them, so that the wives became, in literal fact, the property 
 -of their husbands. We learn that matrimony was " instituted 
 of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us 
 the mystical union that is between Christ and his Church." 
 It would be interesting to know how many of those joined 
 IDV the Church believe in the Paradise story of man's inno- 
 cency and fall. It seems that Christ has adorned the holy 
 estate by his first miracle in Cana; but the adornment is 
 rather of a dubious character, when we reflect that the prob- 
 able effect of the miracle would be a scene somewhat too 
 gay, from the enormous quantity of wine made by Christ 
 for men who already had "well drunk." Christ's approval 
 of marriage may well be considered doubtful when we 
 remember that a virgin was chosen as his mother, that 
 he himself remained unmarried, and that he distinctly 
 places celibacy higher than marriage in Matt. xix. n, 12, 
 where he urges : "he that is able to receive it let him re- 
 ceive it." St. Paul also, though he allows it to his converts, 
 advises virginity in preference : " I say to the unmarried and 
 widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I ;" "he 
 that giveth her not in marriage doeth better" (see throughout 
 i Cor. vii.) The reasons given for marriage are surely 
 misplaced ; last of all, it is said that marriage is " ordained 
 for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought 
 to have of the other;" this, instead of " thirdly," ought to be 
 " first." " As a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication, 
 that such persons as have not the gift of continency might 
 marry," is not a reason very honourable to the marriage 
 estate, nor very delicate to read out before a mixed congre- 
 gation to a young bride and bridegroom ; so strongly ob- 
 jectionable is the heedless coarseness of this preface felt to 
 be that in many churches it is entirely omitted, although 
 it is retained as are all remains of a coarser age in the 
 Prayer-Book as published by authority. The promise ex- 
 changed between the contracting parties is of far too 
 sweeping a character, and is immoral, because promising 
 what may be beyond the powers of the promisers to perform ; 
 "to love" "so long as ye both shall live," and "till death 
 us do part," is a pledge far too wide ; love does not stay by 
 promising, nor is love a feeling which can be made to order. 
 A promise to live always together might be made, although 
 that would be unwise in this changing world, and the 
 endless processes in the Divorce Court are a satire on this 
 so-called joined by God ; " what God hath joined together " 
 
212 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 man does continually " put asunder," and it would be wiser 
 to adapt the service to the altered circumstances of the 
 times in which we live. The promise of obedience and 
 service on the woman's part should also be eliminated, and 
 the contract should be a simple promise of fidelity between 
 two equal friends. The declaration of the man as he places 
 the ring on the woman's finger is as archaic as the rest of this 
 fossil service, and about as true : " With all my worldly 
 goods I thee endow," says the man, when, as a matter of 
 fact, he becomes possessed of all his wife's property and she 
 does not become possessed of his. One of the concluding 
 prayers is a delightful specimen of Prayer-Book science : " O 
 God, who of thy mighty power hast made all things of 
 nothing." What was the general aspect of affairs when there 
 was " nothing?" how did something emerge where " nothing" 
 was before ? if God filled all space, was he "nothing?" is 
 the existence of nothing a conceivable idea? can people 
 think of nothing except when they don't think at all ? " who 
 also (after other things set in order) didst appoint that out of 
 man (created after thine own image and similitude) woman 
 should take her beginning :" " out of man," that is out of one 
 of man's ribs ; has any one tried to picture the scene : 
 Almighty God, who has no body nor parts, taking one of 
 Adam's ribs, and closing up the flesh, and " out of the rib 
 made he a woman." God, a pure spirit, holding a man's 
 rib, not in his hands, for he has none, and "making" a 
 woman out of it, fashioning the rib into skull, and arms, and 
 ribs, and legs. Can a more ludicrous position be imagined ; 
 and Adam ? What became of his internal economy ? was 
 he made originally with a rib too much, to provide against 
 the emergency, or did he go, for the rest of his life, with a 
 rib too little ? And the Church of England endorses this 
 ridiculous old-world fable. Man was created " after thine 
 own image and similitude." What is the image of God? He 
 is a spirit and has no similitude. If man is made in his 
 image, God must be a celestial man, and cannot possibly be 
 omnipresent. Besides, in Genesis i. 27, where it is stated 
 that " God created man in his own image," it distinctly goes 
 on to declare : "in the image of God created he him ; male 
 and female created he them. Thus the woman is made in 
 God's image as much as the man, and God's image is " male 
 and female." All students know that the ancient ideas of 
 God give him this double nature, and that no trinity is com- 
 plete without the addition of the female element ; but the 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 2 13 
 
 pious compilers of the Prayer-Book did not probably intend 
 thus to transplant the simple old nature-worship into their 
 marriage office. Once more we hear of Adam and Eve in 
 the next prayer, and we cannot help thinking that, consider- 
 ing all the trouble Eve brought upon her husband by her 
 flirtation with the serpent, she is made rather too prominent 
 a figure in the marriage service. The ceremony winds up 
 with a long exhortation, made of quotations from the 
 Epistles, on the duties of husbands and wives. Husbands 
 are to love their wives because Christ loved a church a 
 reason that does not seem specially a propos, as husbands 
 are not required to die for their wives or to present to them- 
 selves glorious wives, not having spot or wrinkle or any such 
 thing (!) ; nor would most husbands desire that their wives' con- 
 versation should be " coupled with fear." Why should women 
 be taught thus to abase themselves ? They are promised as 
 a reward that they shall be the daughters of Sarah ; but that 
 is no great privilege, nor are English wives likely to call their 
 husbands "lord;" if they did not adorn themselves with 
 plaited hair and pretty apparel, their husbands would be sure 
 to grumble, and the only defence that can be made for this 
 absurd exhortation is that nobody ever listens to it. 
 
 Among the various reforms needed in the Marriage Laws 
 one imperatively necessary is that all marriages should be 
 made civil contracts that is, that the contract which is 
 made by citizens of the State, and which affects the interests 
 of the State, should be entered into before a secular State 
 official ; if after that the parties desired a religious cere- 
 mony, they could go through any arrangements they pleased 
 in their own churches and chapels, but the civil contract 
 should be compulsory and should be the only one recog- 
 nised by the law. Of course the Church might maintain 
 its peculiar marriage as long as it chose, but it would probably 
 soon pass out of fashion if it were not acknowledged as 
 binding by the State. 
 
 THE ORDER FOR THE VISITATION OF THE 
 SICK. 
 
 Of all the services in the Prayer-Book this is, perhaps 1 , 
 the most striking relic of barbarism, the most completely at 
 variance with sound and reasonable thought. The clergy- 
 man entering into a house of sickness, and as he enters the 
 
214 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOQK. 
 
 sick man's room and catches sight of him, kneeling down 
 and exclaiming, as though horror-stricken : " Remember not, 
 Lord, our iniquities, nor the iniquities of our forefathers ; 
 spare us, good Lord, spare Thy people whom Thou hast re- 
 deemed with Thy most precious blood, and be not angry 
 with us for ever." This clergyman reminds one of nothing 
 so much as of one of Job's friends, \vho appear to have been 
 an even more painful infliction than Job's boils. The sick- 
 ness, the patient is told, "is God's visitation," and " for 
 what cause soever this sickness is sent unto you : whether it 
 be to try your faith for the example of others, ... or 
 else it be sent unto you to correct and amend in you 
 whatsoever doth offend the eyes of your heavenly Father ; 
 know you certainly, that if you truly repent you of your sins, 
 and bear your sickness patiently, ... it shall turn to 
 your profit, and help you forward in the right way that 
 leadeth unto everlasting life." One might question the jus- 
 tice of Almighty God if the theory be correct that the sick- 
 ness may be sent " to try your patience for the example of 
 others ;" why should one unfortunate victim be tormented 
 simply that others may have the advantage of seeing how 
 well he bears it ? If we are to endeavour to conform our- 
 selves to the image of God, then it would seem that we 
 should be doing right if we racked our neighbours occasion- 
 ally to " try their patience for the example of others." And 
 is the idea of God a reverent one ? What should we think 
 of an earthly father who tortured one of his children in 
 order to teach the others how to bear pain ? if we should 
 condemn the earthly father as wickedly cruel, why should 
 the same action be righteous when done by the Father in 
 heaven ? If we accept the second reason given for the sick- 
 ness, it is difficult to see the rationale of it. Why should ill- 
 ness of the body correct illness of the mind ; does pain cure 
 fretfulness, or fever increase truthfulness ? Is not sickness 
 likely rather to bring out and strengthen mental faults than 
 to. weaken them ? And how far is it true that sickness is, in 
 any sense, the visitation of God for moral delinquencies ? Is 
 it not true, on the contrary, that a man may lie, rob, cheat, 
 slander, tyrannise, and yet, if he observe the laws of health, 
 may remain in robust vigour, while an upright, sincere, 
 honest and truthful man, disregarding those same laws, may 
 be miserably feeble and suffer an early death ? Is it, or is 
 it not, a fact, that. in the Middle Ages, when people prayed 
 much and studied little, when the peasant went to the shrine 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 21$ 
 
 for a cure instead of to the doctor, when sanitary science, 
 was unknown, and cleanliness was a virtue undreamed of, 
 is it, or is it not, true, that pestilence and black death then 
 swept off their thousands, while these terrible scourges have 
 been practically driven away in modern times by proper 
 attention to sanitary measures, by improved drainage and 
 greater cleanliness of living ? How can that be a visitation 
 of God for moral transgressions, which can be prevented by 
 man if he attends to physical laws ? Is man's power greater 
 than God's, and can he thus play with the thunderbolts of 
 the divine displeasure ? The. clergyman prays that " the 
 sense of his weakness may add strength to his faith ;" what 
 fine irony is here, as body and mind grow weak faith grows 
 strong as a man is less able to think, he becomes more 
 ready to believe. It is impossible to pass, without a word of 
 censure, over the passage in the exhortation, taken from the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, which says, " for they (fathers of our 
 flesh) verily for a few days chastened us after their own plea- 
 sure." Good earthly fathers do not chasten their children 
 for their own amusement, while God does it " for our 
 profit ;" on the contrary, they do it for the improvement of 
 their children, while God alone, if there be a hell, tortures 
 his children for his own pleasure and for no gain to them. 
 The succeeding portion of the Exhortation, that, " our way 
 to eternal joy is to suffer here with Christ/'' is full of that 
 sad asceticism which has done so much to darken the world 
 since the birth of Christ ; men have been so engaged in look- 
 ing for the " eternal joy " that they have let pass unnoted 
 the misery here ; they have been so busy planting flowers in 
 .heaven that they have let weeds grow here ; yes, and they 
 have rejoiced in the misery and in the weeds, because they 
 were, only strangers and pilgrims, and the tribulation, which 
 was but temporal, increased the weight of the glory that was 
 eternal. Thus has Christianity blighted the flowers of this 
 world, and entwined the brows of its followers with wreaths 
 of thorns. The concluding portion of the exhortation deals 
 with the duty of self-examination and self-accusation, that 
 you may " not be accused and condemned in that fearful 
 judgment." Very wholesome teaching for a sick man ; sick- 
 ness always makes a person morbid, and the Church steps 
 in to encourage the unwholesome feeling; sickness always 
 makes a person timid and unnerved, and the Church steps 
 in to talk about a " fearful judgment," and bewilders and 
 stuns the confused brain by the terrible pictures called up 
 to the mind by the thought of the last day. 
 
2l6 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 But worse follows ; for after the sick person has said that 
 he steadfastly believes the creed, the clergyman is bidden 
 by the rubric to '"examine whether he repent him truly of 
 his sins, and be in charity with all the world." Imagine a 
 sick person being worried by an examination of this kind, 
 putting aside the gross impertinence of the whole affair. 
 Further, " the minister should not omit earnestly to move 
 such persons as are of ability to be liberal to the poor." 
 When every one remembers the terrible scandals of by-gone 
 days, when priests drew into the net of the Church the 
 goods of the dying, using threat of hell and promise of 
 heaven to win that which should have been left for the 
 widow and the orphan, one marvels that such a rubric 
 should be left to recall the rapaciousness and the greed of 
 the Church, and to invite priests to grasp at the wealth 
 slipping out of dying hands. And here the sick person is 
 to " be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if 
 he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter," 
 and the priest is bidden to absolve him, for Christ having 
 " left power to his Church to absolve by his authority com- 
 mitted to me," says the priest, " I absolve thee." Confes- 
 sion, delegated authority, priestly absolution, such is the 
 doctrine of the Church of England : all the untold abomi- 
 nations of the confessional are involved in this rubric and 
 sentence ; for if the man can absolve a man at one time, he 
 can do it at another. The precious power should surely not 
 be left unused and wasted ; whenever sin presses, behold 
 the remedy, and thus we are launched and in full sail. But 
 never in England shall the confessional again flourish ; 
 never again shall English women be corrupted by the foul 
 questions of the priests ; never again shall Englishmen have 
 their mental vigour and virility destroyed by such degrada- 
 tion. Let the Church fall that countenances such an 
 accursed thing, and leave English purity and English 
 courage to grow and flourish unchecked. 
 
 The devil is in great force in this service, as is only right 
 in a so generally barbarous an office : " Let the enemy have 
 no advantage of him ;" " defend him from the danger of 
 the enemy ;" " renew in tdm whatsoever hath been decayed 
 by the fraud and malice of the devil;" " the wiles of Satan;" 
 " deliver him from fear of the enemy ;" all this must convey 
 to the sick person a cheerful idea of the devil lingering 
 about his bed, and trying to get hold of him before it is too 
 late to drag him down to hell. 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 21 7 
 
 Is there any meaning at all in the expression, "the 
 Almighty Lord .... to whom all things in heaver* *n 
 earth, and under the earth do bow and obey. wnere is 
 "under the earth"? The sun is under some i jar t of the 
 earth to some people at any given time; the tar s are under, 
 or above, according to the point of v : ^ v > m , whlch the y 
 are looked at. Of course, the exr^ 510 ^ only a survival 
 from a time when the earth ^ flat and the bottomless pit 
 was under it, only it see>- a P U 7 to continue to use expres- 
 sions which have i- c a11 heir ^eanmg and are now 
 thoroughly ridic^ us " People seem to think that any old 
 
 ^ enough for Gods servlce ' 
 
 two prayers are remarkable chiefly for their 
 
 and craven tone towards God: "we humbly 
 
 , 
 
 r .amend," "most humbly beseeching thee." Surely God 
 is not supposed to be an Eastern despot, desiring this kind 
 of cringing at his feet. Yet the " Prayer for persons 
 troubled in mind or in conscience " is one pitiful wail, as 
 though only by passionate entreaty could God be moved to 
 mercy, and he were longing to strike, and with difficulty 
 withheld from avenging himself. When will men learn to 
 stand upright on their feet, instead of thus crouching on 
 their knees ? When will they learn to strive to live nobly, 
 and then to fear no celestial anger, either in life or in 
 death ? 
 
 THE ORDER FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD. 
 
 It is a little difficult to write a critical notice of a funeral 
 office, simply because people's feelings are so much bound up 
 in it that any criticism seems a cruelty, and any interference 
 seems an impertinence. Round the open grave all contro- 
 versy should be hushed, that no jarring sounds may mingle 
 with the sobs of the mourners, and no quarrels wring the 
 torn hearts of the survivors. Our criticism of this office, 
 then, will be brief and grave. 
 
 The opening verses strike us first as manifestly inappro- 
 priate : "Whosoever liveth and belie veth in me shall never 
 die ;" yet the dead is then being carried to his last home, 
 and the words seem a mockery spoken in face of a corpse. 
 In the Fourth Gospel they preface the raising of Lazarus, 
 and of course are then very significant, but to-day no power 
 raises our dead, no voice of Jesus says to the mourners, 
 
2l8 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 "Weep not." The second verse from Job is as is well 
 ki^wn an utter mistranslation : "without my flesh" would 
 be ne^er the truth than " in my flesh," and " worms" and 
 ' f \ not menti o ned ^ the original at all. It seems 
 P be used SU h solemn moments known falsehoods 
 
 The whole argume,^ the th ch of Corinthians is 
 the reverse of convincing. Christ fe h fir 
 them that slept A dead man ^ d been ^ d b 
 the bones of Elisha (2 Kings xm. .\ --,. , / ^- > 
 time, had raised the dead son of the ^SSjfW 1 ^- 1 *" 
 iv.) ; Elijah, before him, had raised the so^f ( 2 Km s 
 Zarephath (2 Kings xvii.) ; Christ had raised - ^us^th! 
 daughter of Jairus, and the son of the widow of i\ ; Sj T e 
 no sense, then, if the Scriptures of the Christians bt 
 can it be said that Christ has become the first fruits, 'if* 
 first begotten from the dead. " For since by man came 
 death ; " but death did not come by man ; myriads of ages 
 before man was in the world animals were born, lived and 
 died, and they have left their fossilised remains to prove the 
 falsity of the popular belief. We notice also that " flesh and 
 blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." If this be so, 
 what becomes of the resurrection of the flesh," spoken of 
 in the Baptismal and Visitation Offices ? What has become of 
 the " flesh and bones" which Christ had after his resurrection 
 and with which, according to the 4th Article, he has gone 
 into heaven ? Cannot Christ "inherit the kingdom of God"? 
 It is hard to see how, in any sense, the resurrection of Christ 
 can be taken as a proof of the resurrection of man. Christ 
 was only dead thirty-six or thirty-seven hours before he is 
 said to have risen again ; there was no time for bodily decay, 
 no time for corruption to destroy his frame : how could the 
 restoration to life of a man whose body was in perfect 
 preservation prove the possibility of the resurrection of the 
 bodies which have long since been resolved into their 
 constituent elements, and have gone to form other bodies, 
 and to give shape to other modes of existence? People 
 talk in such superior fashion of the resurrection that 
 they never stoop to remember its necessary details, or 
 to think where is to be found sufficient matter where- 
 with to clothe all the human souls on the resurrection morn. 
 The bodies of the dead make the earth more productive ; 
 they nourish vegetable existence ; transformed into grass 
 they feed the sheep and the cattle ; transformed into these 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 219 
 
 they sustain human beings ; transformed into these they 
 form ne\v bodies once more, and pass from birth to death, 
 and from death to birth again, a perfect circle of life, trans- 
 muted by Nature's alchemy from form to form. No man 
 has a freehold of his body ; he possesses only a life- 
 tenancy, and then it passes into other hands. The melan- 
 choly dirge which succeeds this chapter sounds like a wail 
 of despair : man " hath but a short time to live and is full of 
 misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower ; he 
 fleeth as it were a shadow, and never cbntinueth in one 
 stay." Can any teaching be more utterly unwholesome? 
 It is the confession of the most complete helplessness, the 
 recognition of the futility of toil. And then the agonised 
 pleading : " O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, 
 O holy and most merciful Saviour deliver us not into the 
 bitter pains of eternal death." But if he be most merciful, 
 whence all this need of weeping and wailing ? If he be 
 most merciful, what danger can there be of the bitter pains 
 of eternal death ? And again the cry rises : " Shut not thy 
 merciful ears to our prayer ; but spare us, Lord most holy, 
 O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most 
 worthy Judge Eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any 
 pains of death, to fall from thee." It is nothing but the Avail 
 of humanity, face to face with the agony of death, feeling 
 its utter helplessness before the great enemy, and clinging to 
 any straw which may float within reach of the drowning grasp ; 
 it is the horror of Life facing Death, a horror that seems felt 
 only by the fully living and not by the dying; it is the 
 recoil of vigorous vitality from the silence and chilliness of 
 the tomb. 
 
 After this comes a sudden change of tone, and the 
 mourners are told of God's " great mercy " in taking the 
 departed, and of the ''burden of the flesh," and they are 
 bidden to give " hearty thanks " for the dead being delivered 
 " out of the miseries of this sinful world." Can anything be 
 more unreal ? There is not one mourner there who desires 
 to share in the great mercy, who wants to be freed from the 
 burden of the flesh, or desires deliverance from the miseries 
 of this world. Why should people thus play a farce beside 
 the grave ? Do they expect God to believe them, or to be 
 deceived by such hypocrisy ? 
 
 It is urged by some that the Church cannot have a " sure 
 and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life " as 
 regards some of those whom she buries with this service ; 
 
22O BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 and it is manifest that, if the Bible be true, drunkards and 
 others who are to be cast into the lake of fire, can scarcely 
 rise to eternal life at the same time, and therefore the 
 Church has no right to express a hope where God has pro- 
 nounced condemnation. The Rubric only shuts out of the 
 hope the unbaptized, the excommunicated, and the suicide ; 
 all others have a right to burial at her hands, and to the 
 hope of a joyful resurrection, in spite of the Bible. 
 
 We may hope that the day will soon come when people 
 may die in England and may be buried in peace without 
 this cry of pain and superstition over their graves. 
 Wherever cemeteries are within reasonable distance the 
 Rationalist may now be buried, lovingly and reverently, 
 without the echo of that in which he disbelieved during life 
 sounding over his grave ; but throughout many small towns 
 and country villages the Burial Service of the Church is 
 practically obligatory, and is enforced by clerical bigotry. 
 But the passing knell of the Establishment sounds clearer 
 and clearer, and soon those who have rejected her services 
 in life shall be free from her ministrations at the tomb. 
 
THE 
 
 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 A COMMINATION ; 
 
 OR, DENOUNCING OF GOD'S ANGER AND JUDGMENTS 
 AGAINST SINNERS. 
 
 THIS service is too beautiful to be passed over without a 
 word of homage ; the spectacle of the Church raving and 
 cursing is too edifying to be ungratefully ignored. "Brethen, 
 in the primitive Church there was a godly discipline that, at 
 the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of 
 notorious sin were put to open penance and punished in 
 this world, that their souls might be saved. . . . Instead 
 whereof (until the said discipline may be restored again, 
 which is much to be wished), it is thought good," &c. That 
 is, in other words : " In days gone by, we were able to bite, 
 as well as to bark ; now that our mouths are muzzled we 
 can only snarl ; but, until the old power comes back, which 
 is much to be wished, let us, since we cannot bite, show 
 our teeth and growl as viciously as we can, so that people 
 may understand that it is only the power that is wanting, 
 and not the will, and that, if we could, we would torture 
 and burn as vigorously as we curse and damn." And 
 promptly the priest begins with his curses, and all the 
 people say Amen : what a pretty sight a whole church full 
 of Christians with one consent cursing their neighbours ! 
 Then comes an exhortation ; as so many curses are flying 
 about we must take care of our heads : " Let us, remember- 
 ing the dreadful judgment hanging over our heads, and 
 always ready to fall upon us, return to our Lord God." 
 Always ready to fall ; but is God, then, always lying in wait 
 
222 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 to catch us tripping, and crush us with his judgments? 
 Does he punish gladly, and keep his blow suspended, to fall 
 at the first chance our weakness gives him ? If so, by no 
 means let us return to our Lord God, but let us rather try 
 to put a considerable distance between himself and us, and 
 endeavour, like the prophet Jonah, to flee from the pre- 
 sence of the Lord. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the 
 hands of the living God : he shall pour down rain upon the 
 sinners, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest." And who 
 made the sinners ? Who called them into the world with- 
 out their own consent ? Who made them with an evil 
 nature ? Who moulded them as the potter the clay ? Who 
 made it impossible for them to go to Jesus unless he drew 
 them, and then did not draw them ? If God wants to pour 
 fire and brimstone on anybody, he should pour it on him- 
 self, for he made the sinners, and is responsible for their 
 existence and their sin. " It shall be too late to knock 
 when the door shall be shut ; too late to cry for mercy when 
 it is the time of justice." How utterly repulsive is this pic- 
 ture of the popular and traditional God : how black the 
 colours wherein is painted this Moloch ; surely the artist 
 must have been sketching a picture of the devil, and by 
 mistake wrote under it the name of God when he should 
 have put the name of Satan. If, however, we submit our- 
 selves, and walk in his ways, and seek his glory, and serve 
 him duly that is, if we acknowledge injustice to be justness, 
 and cruelty to be mercy, and evil to be good then we shall 
 escape "the extreme malediction which shall light upon 
 them that shall be set on the left hand." On the whole, 
 brave men and women will prefer to do rightly and justly 
 here, caring much about serving man, and nothing about 
 glorifying such a God, and leaving the malediction alone, 
 very sure that no punishment can befal a man for living 
 nobly, and that no fear need cloud the death-bed of him 
 who has made his life a blessing to mankind. 
 
 Of course, after all this preface, come cringing confes- 
 sions of sin. The 51 st Psalm leads the way, the congrega- 
 tion having by this time become so thoroughly confused 
 that they see no incongruity in saying that when God has 
 built the walls of Jerusalem, he will be pleased with burnt 
 offerings and oblations, and that "then shall they offer 
 young bullocks upon thy altar." As a matter of fact, they 
 have no intention of offering young bullocks at all bullocks 
 having become too useful to be wasted in that fashion, but 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 223 
 
 they have so thoroughly left the realm of common sense 
 that they have become unconscious of the absurdities which 
 they repeat. The gross exaggeration of the concluding 
 prayers must be patent to everyone ; they are full of the 
 hysteria which passes for piety. "We are grieved and 
 wearied with the burden of our sins," although most of the 
 -congregation will forget all about the burden before they 
 leave the church : we are " vile earth and miserable sinners;" 
 we " meekly acknowledge ourvileness." One longs to shake 
 them all, and tell them to stand up like men and women, 
 instead of cringing there like cowards, whining about their 
 vileness. If they are vile, why don't they mend, instead of 
 saying the same thing every year ? They should be ashamed 
 to tell God of their miserable condition year after year, 
 when his grace is sufficient for them, and they might be 
 perfect as their Father in heaven. 
 
 The Church in all this service reminds one of nothing so 
 much as a wicked old crone, who whines to the parson and 
 scolds all the children. In days gone by the old woman has 
 been the terror of the village, and her sturdy arm has been 
 .shown on many a black eye and bruised face ; now she can 
 no longer strike, she can only curse ; she can no longer 
 tyrannise, she can only scowl; her palsied tongue still 
 mutters the curses which her shrivelled arm can no longer 
 translate into act, and in her bleared eye, in her wrinkled 
 cheeks, in her shaking frame, we read the record of an evil 
 youth, wherein she abused her strength, and we see 
 descending upon her the gloom of a dishonoured age, and 
 the night of a fathomless despair, 
 
 FORMS OF PRAYER 
 
 TO BE 
 
 USED AT SEA. 
 
 There is now a special service used at the launching of 
 her Imperial Majesty's war-vessels which has not yet found 
 its way into the Prayer-Book ; curious thoughts arise in the 
 mind in contemplating that fashion, conjoined to the office 
 to be " used in her Majesty's navy every day." How does 
 God protect " the persons of us, thy servants, and the fleet 
 in which we serve ? " Does prayer make bad ships more 
 seaworthy, or supply the place of stout iron and sound wood? 
 If the ship is not safe without prayer, will prayer make it so? 
 
224 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-EOOK. 
 
 If not, what is the use of praying over it ? Either the ship 
 is seaworthy or it is not ; if it is, it will sail safely without 
 prayer ; if it is not, will prayer carry the rotten ship through 
 the storm? If prayer be so efficacious, would it not be 
 cheaper to use less wood and more prayer ? Bad materials 
 roughly put together would serve, for a curate would be 
 cheaper than a shipwright, and much prayer would enable 
 us to dispense with much labour. In " storms at sea," a 
 special prayer is to be used ; " O most powerful and glorious 
 Lord God, at whose command the winds blow, and lift up 
 the waves of the sea, and who stillest the rage thereof : " 
 " O send thy word of command to rebuke the raging winds 
 and the roaring sea." Is not this the prayer of utter 
 ignorance, the prayer of an unscientific age? For what 
 does the prayer imply ? Only the modest request that the 
 state of the atmosphere round the whole globe may be 
 modified to suit the convenience of a small ship ! And not 
 only that, but also that the whole course of weather may be 
 changed during countless yesterdays, the weather of to-day 
 being only an effect caused by them. Such prayers were 
 offered up in former days by a people who knew nothing of 
 the inviolability of natural order, and who imagined that the 
 weather might be changed at their bidding as the clerk 
 may push on the hands of the church clock. The sailors 
 are very frank in their confession: "When we have been 
 safe and seen all things quiet about us, we have forgot thee, 
 our God. . . But now we see how terrible thou art in all 
 thy works of wonder ; the great God to be feared above all." 
 At any rate they cannot be accused of hypocrisy in their 
 dealings with God ! Nor is this all. Short prayers are pro- 
 vided for those who have no time for the long ones : and if 
 the danger grows very pressing, everybody who can be spared 
 is to join in a special confession of sins, taken from the 
 Communion Office. It would surely be well to avoid a very 
 pious crew, as they might be wasting the time in prayer 
 which might save the ship by work. One serious thought 
 presents itself for consideration in connection with this sup- 
 posed power of God to smooth the turbulent billows. Many 
 ships go down year after year ; many thousands of lives sink 
 in the pitiless ocean ; many a bitter wail goes up from 
 drowning crews ; how wickedly cruel to have such power 
 and to see the ship sink in the storm ! how icily stony N> 
 have such power and to watch unmoved the agony of the 
 perishing ! 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 225 
 
 The prayers against the enemy are beautiful effusions ; 
 some of the children praying the All-father to enable them 
 -to slay his other children : " Stir up thy strength, O Lord, 
 and come and help us." What a curious request ! Does 
 the All-strong require to stir up his strength before he can 
 crush a few men? "Judge between us and our enemies." 
 But suppose the enemy is in the right, what then ? Suppose 
 English sailors are on the wrong side, as in the dispute 
 between George III. and the American Colonies, such a 
 prayer then becomes a prayer for defeat, not an encourag- 
 ing thought with which to go into battle. The prayers are 
 .also offensive for their cowardice of tone : " Let not our sins 
 now cry against us for vengeance ; but hear us thy poor 
 .servants begging mercy, and imploring thy help." The 
 praises after victory are as objectionable as the prayers 
 before : " The Lord hath covered our heads and made us 
 to stand in the day of battle." And what of the poor 
 wounded, groaning below in the cockpit, whose heads the 
 Lord hath not covered ? " The Lord hath overthrown our 
 enemies, and dashed in pieces those that rose up against us." 
 How thoroughly savage and bloodthirsty the thanksgiving ! 
 Is God supposed to rejoice over the sufferings of the de- 
 feated ? Is he to be thanked for slaying his creatures ? 
 And then the victory is to be improved to the "advance- 
 ment of thy gospel;" the gospel of so-called peace and 
 .goodwill is to be advanced by cannon-ball and torpedo, by 
 .sabre and cutlass. Truly they must believe that Jesus came 
 to send a sword through the earth. And yet this is the true 
 spirit of Christianity; of the creed which has shed more 
 human blood than any other faith ; of the creed which won 
 its way through Europe with the crucifix in one hand, and 
 the battle-axe in the other ; of the creed that tortured innu- 
 merable victims on the rack, and which lit the funeral pyres 
 of the martyrs ; of the creed whose cross has ever been 
 crimson-red, not with the blood of one who died to save 
 humanity, but with the blood of a humanity sacrificed to the 
 glory of God. 
 
226 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 THE FORM AND MANNER OF 
 
 MAKING, ORDAINING, AND CONSECRATING 
 
 OF 
 
 BISHOPS, PRIESTS, AND DEACONS, 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF 
 
 THE UNITED CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND 
 IRELAND. 
 
 IF the Church of England confined herself in her mini- 
 strations to offices which had some demonstrable effect, her 
 occupation would be gone. These Ordination offices stand 
 on a par with that of Confirmation. In both, the Holy 
 Ghost is given by imposition of episcopal hands ; in both, 
 no appreciable results follow the gift. The preface to these 
 offices says: " It is evident unto all men diligently reading 
 the Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the- 
 Apostles' time there h?.ve been these orders of ministers in 
 Christ's Church : Bishops, Priests, and Deacons." The 
 " evidence " of this appears doubtful, seeing that all Pres- 
 byterians acknowledge no such triple order, and regard 
 bishops as an invention of the devil, and "the pride of 
 prelacy " as "a rag of the scarlet " lady. The three offices 
 before us may, to all intents and purposes, be treated as one, 
 for they are the progressive steps of the ladder which reaches- 
 from earth to heaven, from the poor deacon-curate on yo/. a 
 year at the bottom, to the archbishop luxuriating on i5,ooo/. 
 a year at the top. There is much of solemn farce in the 
 opening : the archdeacon presents the candidates for ordi- 
 nation to the bishop, and the reverend father in God, who 
 has had them examined, who knows all about them, and has 
 probably dined with them the night before, gravely responds: 
 " Take heed that the persons whom ye present unto us be 
 apt and meet, for their learning and godly conversation, to- 
 exercise their ministry duly, to the honour of God and the 
 edifying of his Church." For the learning of some young 
 clergymen, the less said about it the better, but those pre- 
 sented have at least scraped through the bishop's examina- 
 tion, and will not now be turned back. The question is. 
 simply a sham, and both candidates and bishop would be 
 thoroughly astonished if the archdeacon replied that any one 
 of them was deficient. 
 
 The Litany follows after this, and then the Communion 
 Office, with special Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. After the 
 Oath of Supremacy, the bishop examines the candidates for 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 227 
 
 the diaconate : " Do you trust that you are inwardly moved 
 by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office ?" is asked 
 of each, and each answers : " I trust so." This ought to be 
 a solemn question : to be inwardly moved by the Holy 
 Ghost is surely an important thing ; and when one remem- 
 bers how very little many of these young men, fresh from 
 college, seem to think of the matter, and how one chooses 
 the Church because it is "gentlemanly," and another because 
 there is a fat living in the family, and another because he is 
 too stupid for any other profession, we can scarcely help 
 wondering at the workings of the Holy Spirit in the heart of 
 man. They are also asked if they " unfeignedly believe all 
 the Canonical Scriptures." If they really do believe them 
 at their ordination much change must take place in after 
 life, judging by the amount of scepticism among the 
 clergy. Much of the fault lies in pledging young men 
 -of three-and-twenty to absolute belief in what they have 
 probably studied but little ; at college all their instruction 
 is in Christian Evidences, not in attacks on Christianity; 
 they really know but little of the anti-Christian arguments, 
 .and therefore are naturally shaken when they learn them 
 further on. Then the deacon is to read Homilies in 
 Church, and promises to do so, although he never 
 fulfils the promise, and he vows to obey his " Ordinary and 
 other chief ministers of the Church . . . following with 
 a glad mind and will their godly admonitions." How well 
 the deacons and priests keep this pledge may be seen in the 
 daily struggles between them and their bishops, and in the 
 necessity of passing a Public Worship Regulation Act for 
 the easier suppression of rebellious priests. A year must 
 intervene between the diaconate and the priesthood, and 
 when this year has run, the youthful aspirant to the power 
 of the keys presents himself once more before the Father in 
 God, and the same farce of question and answer is repeated. 
 The service runs as in that for deacons, save the special 
 Epistle and Gospel, until after the Oath of Supremacy ; and 
 then comes a long exhortation, wherein what strikes us most 
 is the complete contrast between the priest in theory and the 
 priest in practice : " If it shall happen the same Church, or 
 any member thereof, to take any hurt or hindrance by 
 reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the 
 fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue 
 see that you never cease your labour, your care 
 and diligence, until you have done all that lieth in you, 
 
 I 2 
 
228 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 according to your bounden duty, to bring all such as are or 
 shall be committed to your charge, unto that agreement in 
 the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and 
 perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left 
 among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness in 
 life." Now change the scene to six weeks later, and our 
 young priest is playing croquet and flirting meekly with his 
 rector's daughters, oblivious of the " horrible punishment " 
 he is incurring from Hodge at the public-house getting 
 drunk unrebuked. " Consider how studious ye ought to be 
 in reading and learning the Scriptures . . . and for 
 this self-same cause how ye ought to forsake and set 
 aside (as much as you may) all worldly cares and 
 studies." Alas for the special vanities of country clergy- 
 men ; this one botanizes, and that one zoologizes, and 
 another one' geologizes, and a fourth is devoted to 
 his garden, and a fifth to his poultry, and a sixth to his farm- 
 ing, not to speak of those who adorn the bench of magis- 
 trates and sternly sentence wicked poachers, and sinful old 
 women who pick up sticks, and children who steal flowers. 
 It may be urged that no set of men could possibly live the 
 life sketched in this exhortation : granted ; but, then, why 
 pretend that they are bound to live it, and threaten horrible 
 punishments if they do not perform the impossible ? Be- 
 sides, the bishop expresses his hope that they have well con- 
 sidered the whole matter, and have " clearly determined, by 
 God's grace . . . you will apply yourself wholly to this- 
 one thing, and draw all your cares and studies this way."" 
 When the time comes to put the questions to the candi- 
 dates, this very point forms one of them : " Will you be 
 diligent in prayers, and in reading of the Holy Scriptures, 
 and in such studies as help to the knowledge of the same, 
 laying aside the study of the world and the flesh ? " And 
 the candidates solemnly promise to do that which they must 
 know they have no intention of doing. One might further 
 urge, that the perpetual meddlesomeness enjoined in this 
 Office on the priest would make that individual a perfect 
 nuisance to his parishioners if he tried to carry it into prac- 
 tice, and that he would probably very often find his- mini- 
 strations cut short with unpleasant emphasis. The consecra- 
 tion follows in due course : " Receive the Holy Ghost for 
 the Office and work of a priest in the Church of God 
 . . Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven; 
 and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained." And 
 yet some people pretend that the Church of England does 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 2 29 
 
 not sanction an absolving priesthood ! If these words have 
 any meaning, they mean that the young men now ordained 
 have the most awful power given into their hands, that they 
 can, in very truth, lock and unlock heaven, for by their ab- 
 solution the forgiven sinner may enter, while through their 
 retainment of his sins he may be shut out. How tremen- 
 dous then is the authority thus given into hands so young and 
 so untried ! And surely such power is not to be wasted ? 
 Surely it is the duty of these priests to be continually urging 
 people to seek, and continually to be giving, absolution. 
 Why should one sinner die unshriven, when such death 
 may be prevented by the diligence of the priest? Life 
 would be impossible were all this really believed ; what 
 priest could live in reasonable comfort if this were true and 
 were realised ? All earthly things would sink into insignifi- 
 cance, and life would become a desperate struggle to save 
 and absolve the perishing ; real belief would end its days in 
 a lunatic asylum. 
 
 The Consecration of Archbishop or Bishop is somewhat 
 more ceremonious, but is one in character with the pre- 
 ceding offices. The promise to banish and drive away all 
 erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's word is 
 one the fulfilment of which brings unfortunate bishops 
 nowadays into much trouble in the flesh. For when a 
 Colenso " comes down like a wolf on the fold,'' and a 
 faithful Bishop of Oxford forbids him to tear the lambs of 
 his flock, immediately people mutter "bigoted," ^narrow- 
 minded," " tyranny," with sundry other unpleasant adjec- 
 tives and nouns. Yet can there be no doubt that he of 
 Oxon was only obeying his ordination vow. In truth the 
 present spirit of liberty is thoroughly at issue with the spirit 
 of these offices, and the only effect of maintaining them is 
 to create hypocrites and vow breakers. Nor is it fair to- 
 judge too harshly those who break these foolish vows, for a 
 man may honestly think that he can best serve his genera- 
 tion as clergyman, and may have a general belief in. 
 Christianity, and he may then argue that he cannot permit 
 himself to be kept out of a wide sphere of usefulness by a 
 few obsolete vows. The pity is that men, whose common 
 sense is too strong to be bound by foolish promises taken in 
 ignorance in their youth, do not join earnestly together to 
 remove this stumbling-block from before the feet of the 
 next generation, so that, if they deem their church valuable, 
 they may preserve her by adapting her to the realities of 
 the nineteenth instead of the sixteenth century, and may 
 
230 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 make her services something more than a farce, her cere- 
 monies something better than a show. 
 
 THE ARTICLES. 
 
 It is a little difficult to make out how far the Thirty-nine 
 Articles of the Church of England " the forty stripes save 
 one " are binding or non-binding on her members. There 
 is, of course, no question that they accurately sketch her 
 doctrines, and that all her faithful children should accept 
 and believe them with devout piety, but scarcely any dogma 
 can be enforced by law against the laity, the whole spirit of 
 the time being directly antagonistic to such enforcement. 
 But there is no doubt that these Articles are both legally 
 and morally binding on the clergy, as they voluntarily 
 submit themselves to them, and declare their full and free 
 belief in them when entering upon the enjoyment of any 
 benefice of the Establishment. The Royal Declaration, 
 prefixed to the Articles, is sweeping and decisive enough. 
 " The Articles of the Church of England do contain the 
 true doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to God's 
 word ; which we do therefore ratify and confirm, requiring 
 all our loving subjects to continue in the uniform profession 
 thereof, and prohibiting the least difference from the said 
 Articles." After this distinct declaration we are commanded 
 "That no man hereafter shall either print, or preach, to 
 draw the Article aside either way, but shall submit to it in 
 the plain and full meaning thereof ; and shall not put his 
 own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, 
 but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense." 
 When any outsider has read this declaration it becomes to 
 him one of the mysteries of the faith how it is that English 
 gentlemen, honest, honourable men in everything else, 
 manage to accept livings on condition of declaring their 
 full concord with these Articles, and then deliberately twist 
 them into non-natural meanings, in order that they may be 
 Roman Catholic or Latitudinarian, according to the opinions 
 of the readers. It may, certainly, be conceded that the 
 " literal and grammatical sense " is very often nonsense, and 
 therefore cannot be believed ; perfectly true : but these 
 honest men have no right to give the weight of their culture 
 and their goodness to bolster up this falling Church, whose 
 dogmas they can never accept, except by transfiguring their 
 unreason into reason, and their folly into wisdom. Many 
 who are ignorant, and careless, and uncultured are kept as 
 nominal members of the Anglican Church because a 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 231 
 
 glamour is thrown over it by the Broad Church clergy ; but 
 their position cannot be too strongly reprobated, so long as 
 they make no effort to alter that in which they do not believe, 
 so long as they silently support superstitions which without 
 their aid would^ long ago, have crumbled into ruin. 
 
 Article I. deals with " Faith in the Holy Trinity." Most 
 creeds, certainly all Oriental creeds, cluster around a 
 Trinity ; the root of the worship of the Trinity is struck 
 deep into the nature of man, for it is the worship of the life 
 universal, localised in the giver of the life individual, under 
 the symbol of the phallic emblem, the creator of each new 
 existence. The Christian Trinity has, naturally, outgrown 
 the primal barbarism of Nature-worship, although pre- 
 serving the Trinity in unity : " There is but one living and 
 true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions ... 
 and in unity of this Godhead there be three persons, of one 
 substance, power, and eternity ; the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost." So far have we travelled under the 
 guidance of the Church, and we have before ouf mind's 
 eye, one God, uncorporeate, passionless, indivisible, and yet 
 divided into three "persons," thus implying three indi- 
 vidualities, separate the one from -the other. Let us 
 remember that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the 
 Holy Ghost is God, but that since there is but one God, 
 the Father is the Son, and the Son is the Holy Ghost, and 
 since the Father is the same as the Son, and the Son is the 
 same as the Holy Ghost, the Father and the Holy Ghost 
 must necessarily be identical. Article II. teaches us that 
 " the Son, which is the word of the Father, begotten from 
 everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of 
 one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the 
 womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance ;" the Son : 
 that is, the Second Person in the undivided and indivisible 
 Trinity : " begotten from everlasting of the Father ;" but 
 the Father is one with the Son, for both are God, and yet 
 there is but one God, and therefore Son and Father are 
 interchangeable terms ; the Son then is begotten from ever- 
 lasting of himself, for in the one true God no division is 
 possible, and " such as the Father is such is the Son ;" and 
 further, the Son, being the Son, and at the same time 
 identical with his own Father, takes man's nature : then 
 the Father and the Holy Ghost must also take man's 
 nature, for " such as the Son such is the Father, and such 
 is the Holy Ghost:" and God, "without body," takes 
 man's body, and " without parts " is crucified, and " with- 
 
232 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 out passions " suffers. But the Son dies " to reconcile 
 his Father to us ;" but he is his Father, and his 
 Father is himself. Can the one living and true God die to 
 reconcile himself to himself, and to offer himself up a sacri- 
 fice to himself to appease his own wrath ? The bodiless is 
 nailed on the cross : the impassible suffers : the undying 
 dies : the one God on earth is offered to appease the one 
 God in heaven, and there is but one living and true God. 
 If this be so, either the God in heaven or the God on earth 
 must have been a false God, for there is but one true God : 
 and the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who must be kept 
 indivisible in thought, hang upon the cross, as a sacrifice to 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and cry, being the one 
 true God, to " my God, my God " who has forsaken himself. 
 And all this " to reconcile the Father to us : " the Father 
 who is " without passions," and who therefore cannot be 
 angry or need reconcilement. " As Christ died for us, and 
 was buried, so also it is to be believed that he went down 
 into hell." Down into hell ; which way is down from a 
 round globe ? In the ancient conception of the universe the 
 earth was flat, with heaven above and hell underneath, and 
 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, when the earth opened her 
 mouth, "went down quick (alive) into hell :" did Jesus do 
 the same ? But, hanging on the cross, he said to the 
 penitent thief: " To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise :" 
 is Paradise the same hell ? and is heaven identical with 
 both ? Jesus ascended, went up, not down, to heaven : if 
 this be so, might not some confusion arise on the way, for a 
 soul starting downwards from Australia on its way to hell, 
 might be found soaring upwards from England after a few 
 hours' journey. Are heaven and hell both all round the 
 world, and if so, why is one " up " and the other " down "? 
 Rome was right and wise when she set her face sternly 
 against the heliocentric theory; a revolving globe destroys 
 all the old notions of the "heaven above," and of "the 
 water under the earth," and of hell below ; and it was a 
 strong argument against the sphericity of the earth that " in 
 the day of judgment, men on the other side of the globe 
 could not see the Lord descending through the air." The 
 Fourth Article teaches us that Christ " took again his body, 
 with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfec- 
 tion of man's nature ; wherewith he-ascended into heaven, 
 and there sitteth." Body, flesh, bones, and all things apper- 
 taining to man's nature ; wishes, and appetites, and needs, 
 heart and lungs, for instance; and he took these beyond the 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 233 
 
 atmosphere ? lungs to breathe where no air is ? heart to 
 pulse where no oxygen can purify the blood? flesh and 
 bones among pure spirits ? the form of man sitting on the 
 throne of God? and this flesh, bones, &c., all one with the 
 indivisible, from the God without body and parts, and Jesus 
 the Son of Mary, the crucified man, sitting in his flesh and 
 bones in heaven, not to be separated in thought from the 
 one living and true God, without body, parts, or passions.* 
 Such is the " literal and grammatical sense ;> of the first 
 four Articles, and to analyse the Fifth, " of the Holy Ghost/' 7 
 would be simply to repeat all that has been said above, since 
 " such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost." May it not 
 justly be said that belief in the Trinity in Unity is the 
 negation of thought, and that faith is only possible where 
 reason ends ? 
 
 Article VI. deals with "the sufficiency of the Holy 
 Scriptures for Salvation," and lays down the Canon that 
 anything not capable of proof from the Bible must not be 
 " required of any man that it should be believed as an article 
 of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." 
 The converse of this proposition, that dogmas that can be 
 proved therefrom are necessary to salvation, is said not 
 to be binding on the Church, and some notable "de- 
 pravers " of the Scriptures have successfully slipped 
 through this Article. The list of books given as those 
 " of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church " 
 seems open to grave objections, as the authority of many of 
 the books now accounted canonical has been distinctly 
 challenged. " The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it 
 is absolutely incredible." " Job spake not therefore as it 
 stands written in his book." "Isaiah hath borrowed his 
 whole art and knowledge from David." Thus, among many 
 other staid criticisms, wrote Luther. To go further back, 
 is to find much sharp challenging. The Epistle to the 
 Hebrews is of most doubtful authenticity. The 2nd Epistle 
 of Peter and that of Jude are debateable. The Revelation of 
 St. John the Divine was very slowly received, and the two 
 shorter Epistles which bear his name are dubiously recog- 
 nised. If only the books are to be received of which there 
 " was never any doubt in the Church," the canonical list 
 must be shorn of most of its ornaments. When Article VII. 
 tells us that the ceremonial and civil precepts of the Old 
 Testament are not binding upon us, it seems a pity that 
 some test is not given whereby unlearned people may be 
 
 * I Cor. xv. 50. 
 
234 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 able to. distinguish between the " Commandments which are 
 called moral " and the others. Is the command to perse- 
 cute non-believers in Jehovah (Deut. xiii.,xvii. 2 7) binding 
 to-day? Is the command to put Witches to death (Lev. 
 xx. 27) binding to-day? John Wesley said that belief in 
 witchcraft was incumbent on all those who believed the 
 Bible, and if witchcraft was possible then, why not now? or 
 has God changed his mind as to the proper method of 
 dealing with such persons ? Are the commands enjoining 
 and regulating Slavery (Ex. xxi. 2 6, and 20, 21 ; Lev. xxv. 
 44 46 ; Deut. xv. 12 18) intended for the guidance of 
 slave-holders to-day ? What is there to make the " Com- 
 mandments which are called moral " by which we may 
 presume are meant the Ten Commandments more binding 
 on " Christian men " than the other parts of the law ? The 
 Fourth Commandment is essentially a Jewish one, and is 
 not obeyed among Christians. The Second Commandment 
 is invariably ignored, and the Fifth promises a reward which 
 is not given. The Commandments touching murder, adul- 
 tery, stealing, lying are not peculiar to the Mosaic code. 
 They are found in all moral legislation, and are binding 
 not because taught by Moses or by Buddha, but because 
 their observance is necessary to the existence of society. 
 Of the three Creeds of the Church we have already spoken, 
 so pass to Article IX., " of Original or Birth-sin." It seems 
 that a fault and corruption of Nature are naturally " engen- 
 dered of the offspring of Adam," and that this fault " in 
 every person born into the world deserveth God's wrath 
 and damnation." That seems scarcely fair, since the infant's 
 consent is not asked before he is born into the world, and 
 the fault of being born is, therefore, none of his. How, 
 then, can the babe deserve God's wrath and damnation? 
 And seeing that the very next Article (X.) informs us that 
 our condition is such that a man " cannot turn and pre- 
 pare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, 
 to faith and calling upon God," it appears terribly unjust 
 that either child or man should be held accursed because 
 they do not do what God has made them incapable of 
 doing. It would be as reasonable to torture a man for not 
 flying without wings, as for God to punish man for being 
 born of the race of Adam, and for not turning to God when 
 the power so to do is withheld ; for "we have no power io 
 do good Tiizrks .... without the grace of God by Christ," 
 and wh'en that grace is not given we lie helpless and strength- 
 less, unable to do right. Nor can any deed of ours make us 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 235 
 
 fit recipients of the grace of God, for (Article XIII.) " works 
 done before the grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his 
 Spirit are not pleasant to God .... neither do they make 
 men meet to receive grace .... yea, rather, for that they 
 are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be 
 done, we doubt not but that they have the nature of sm" So 
 that if a good and noble heathen, who has never heard of 
 Christ, and whose good deeds cannot therefore " spring of 
 faith in Jesus Christ," does some high-minded action, or 
 shows some kindly charity, his good deeds are of "the 
 nature of sin," and in fact make him rather worse off than 
 he was before : as Melancthon said, his virtues are only 
 "splendid vices" because done without faith in a person of 
 whom he has never heard. For (Art. XVIII.) they " are to 
 be accursed that presume to say that every man shall be 
 saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he be 
 diligent to frame his life according to that law, and the light 
 of nature :" " we are accounted righteous before God (Art. 
 XL) only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 
 by Faith, and not for our own works and deservings." Thus we 
 learn that God cares not for righteousness of life, but only 
 for blind faith, and that he sends us out into a world lying 
 under his curse, without any chance of salvation except by 
 attaining a faith which he gives or withholds at his pleasure, 
 and which we can of ourselves do nothing to deserve, much 
 less to obtain. To crown this beautiful theory we learn, 
 Article XVII. "of Predestination and Election:" pre- 
 destination to life, it seems, " is the everlasting purpose of 
 God whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) 
 he hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to 
 deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath 
 chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by 
 Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour." 
 But if this be true, man has no choice of any kind in the 
 matter ; for not only is grace to do right the gift of God, 
 but man's acceptance of the gift is also compulsory. God 
 has arranged, before he made the world how many and 
 whom he will save. What, then, becomes of man's boasted 
 free will ? Before the creation God drew the plan of every 
 human life, and as the potter moulds the ductile clay into 
 the shape he desires, so God moulds his human pottery after 
 his own will into "vessels made to salvation" or made to 
 dishonour. To talk of man's freedom is a mockery. What 
 freedom had Adam and Eve in Paradise ? " They might 
 have stood :" nay ; for was not "the Lamb slain from the 
 
236 BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 
 
 foundation of the world?" Before the sin was committed 
 God had made the atonement for it. If Adam were free 
 not to sin, then it would be possible that he might not have 
 sinned, and then God would have offered a needless sacri- 
 fice, and would have a Saviour with no one to save, so that 
 it would have been necesssary to provide a sinner in order 
 to utilise the sacrifice. All idea of justice is here hideously 
 impossible ; God has predestinated some human beings 
 cut of mankind. These " in due season" he calls ; "through 
 grace they obey the calling;" " they be justified freely . . . 
 and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting 
 felicity.'' And the rest those who are not predestined ; 
 those who are not called ; those to whom no grace is given ; 
 those who are not justified freely ; those who have no God's 
 mercy to aid them ; what of them ? Made by God, the 
 creatures of his hand, the vessels of his moulding, the clay 
 of his shaping, are they cast into the lake of brimstone, into 
 the fire that never shall be quenched, simply because God 
 in "his sovereingty" put them unconscious under his 
 curse and left them there, adding to the cruelty of creation 
 the more savage cruelty of preservation ? No ! whether such 
 deeds should be wrought by God or man, they would be 
 wickedly wrong. Almighty power is no excuse for crime, 
 and the God of the Articles of the Church of England is a 
 gigantic criminal, who uses his Almightiness to make life 
 that he may torment it, and to create sentient beings fore- 
 doomed to bitterest agony, to keenest woe. Such frightful 
 misuse of power can only meet with strongest reprobation 
 from all moral beings ; unlimited power turned to evil pur- 
 poses may trample upon and crush us into helplessness, but 
 it can never force us to worship, nor compel us to adore. 
 
 These first eighteen Articles of the Church may be said to 
 contain the more salient points of the Church's teaching, 
 and it is needless to point out the utter impossibility of 
 reasonable and gentle-hearted men and women believing in 
 the " plan of. salvation " sketched out in them. They are 
 instinct with the cruel theology of Calvin and of Zwingli, and 
 imply (though they do not so plainly word) the view of the 
 Lambeth Articles of 1595, that "God from eternity hath 
 predestinated certain men unto life ; certain he hath repro- 
 bated" These Anglican Articles must be taken as teaching 
 predestination to damnation as well as to salvation, since 
 those not called to life must inevitably fall to death. The 
 next section so to speak of the Articles deals with Church 
 affairs, defining the authority of Churches and of Councils, 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 237 
 
 and explaining the 'doctrine of the Sacraments. It is with 
 these that the High Church party chiefly fall out, for the 
 Twenty-first Article, acknowledging that General Councils 
 may err and have erred, strikes at the root of the infallibility 
 of the Church Universal, so dear to the priestly soul. The 
 Articles on the Sacraments also tend somewhat to the Low 
 Church view of them, and dwell more on the faith of the 
 recipient than on the consecration of the priest. The 
 Article (XXXIII.) levelled against " excommunicate per- 
 sons," commanding that such an one shall " be taken of the 
 whole multitude of the faithful, as an Heathen and Publican, 
 until he be openly reconciled by penance," is duly believed 
 and subscribed by clergymen, but has no real meaning 
 to-day. If the Thirty-fifth Article were acted upon, some 
 curiosities of English literature would enliven the Churches ; 
 for this Article bids the clergy read the Homilies : "we 
 judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers, 
 diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of 
 the people." It is really a pity that this direction is not 
 carried out, for some of the barbarous doctrines of popular 
 Christianity would then be seen as they are described by 
 men who thoroughly believed in them, instead of being 
 known only as they are presented to us to-day, with some of 
 their deformity hidden under the robes woven for them by 
 modern civilisation, wherein humanity has outgrown the old 
 Christianity, and men's reason chastens their faith. The 
 last three Articles touch on civil matters, acknowledging the 
 Royal Supremacy and dealing with other matters pertaining 
 to Caesar, but on the borderland between him and God. 
 
 Such are the Articles of the Church ; believed by few, 
 unknown to many, winked at by all, because religion is 
 practically a matter of indifference to most, and while 
 -custom and fashion enforce conformity with the Church, the 
 brain troubles not itself to analyse the claim, or to weigh the 
 conditions of allegiance. Men have become so sceptical 
 as to regard all creeds with indifference, and the half-con- 
 ceived unbelief of the clergy, signing with mental reservations, 
 and formally asserting belief where the thought and the lips 
 are at variance, appears to have eaten the heart out of all 
 religious honesty in England, and men lie to God who would 
 revolt at lying to man. If belief in the Articles is now a 
 thing of the past, then the Articles should also pass away ; 
 if Churchmen have outgrown these dogmas, why do they suffer 
 them to deface their Prayer-Book, to barb " the shafts of 
 the sceptic, and to give power to the sneer of the scoffer?" 
 
THE 
 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 WISE men, in modern times, are striving earnestly and 
 zealously to, as far as possible, free religion from the 
 cramping and deadening effect of creeds and formularies, in 
 order that it may be able to expand with the expanding 
 thought of the day. Creeds are like iron moulds, into 
 which thought is poured ; they may be suitable enough to 
 the <i4y in which they are framed ; they may be fit enough 
 to enshrine the phase of thought which designed them ; but: 
 they are fatally unsuitable and unfit for the days long after- 
 wards, and for the thought of the centuries which succeed. 
 " No man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new 
 wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and 
 the bottles will be marred ; but new wine must be put into 
 new bottles." The new wine of nineteenth century thought 
 is being poured into the old bottles of fourth century creeds: 
 and sixteenth century formulas, and the strong new wine 
 bursts the bottles, while the weak new wine that cannot 
 burst them ferments into vinegar in them, and often 
 becomes harmful and poisonous. Let the new wine 
 be poured into new bottles; let the new thought mould 
 its own expression; and then the old bottles will be pre- 
 served unbroken as curious specimens of antiquity, instead 
 of being smashed to pieces because they get in the way of 
 the world. Nothing is more to be deprecated in a new 
 and living movement than the formulating into creeds of the 
 thoughts that inspire it, and the imposition of those creeds- 
 on those who join it. The very utmost that can be done to 
 give coherency to a large movement is to put forward a 
 declaration of a few cardinal doctrines that do not interfere 
 with full liberty of divergent thought. Thus, Rationalists 
 might take as the declaration of their central thought, that 
 "reason is supreme," but they would be destroying the 
 future of Rationalism if they formulated into a creed any 
 of the conclusions to which their own reason has led them 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 239 
 
 rat the present time, for by so doing they would be stereo- 
 typing nineteenth century thought for the restraint of twentieth 
 -century thought, which will be larger, fuller, more instructed 
 than their own. Freethinkers may declare as their symbol 
 the Right to Think, and the Right to express thought, but 
 should never claim the declaration by others of any special 
 form of Freethought, before acknowledging them as Free- 
 thinkers. Bodies of men who join together in a society for 
 a definite purpose may fairly formulate a creed to be 
 assented to by those who join them, but they must ever 
 remember that such creed will lose its force in the time to 
 come, and that while it adds strength and point to their 
 movement now, it also limits its useful duration, if it is to 
 be maintained as unalterable, for as circumstances change 
 different needs will arise, and a fresh expression of the means 
 to meet those needs will become necessary. A wise society, 
 in forming a creed, will leave in the hands of its members 
 full power to revise it, to amend it, to alter it, so that the 
 living thought within the society may ever have free scope. 
 A creed must be the expression of living thought, and be 
 moulded by it, and not the skeleton of dead thought, 
 moulding the intellect of its heirs. The strength of a society 
 lies in the diversity, and not in the uniformity, of the thought 
 of its members, for progress can only be made through 
 heretical thought, i.e., thought that is at variance with pre- 
 vailing thought. All Truth is new at some time or other, 
 and the fullest encouragement should therefore be given to 
 free and fearless expression, since by such expression only 
 is the promulgation of new truths possible. An age of ad- 
 vancement is always an age of heresy ; for advancement 
 comes from questioning, and questioning springs from doubt, 
 .and hence progress and heresy walk ever hand-in-hand, 
 while an age of faith is also an age of stagnation. 
 
 Every argument that can be brought against a stereotyped 
 creed for adults, tells with tenfold force against a stereo- 
 typed catechism for children. If it is evil to try and mould 
 the thought of those whose maturity ought to be able to 
 protect them against pressure from without, it is certainly 
 far more evil to mould the thought of those whose still unset 
 reason is ductile in the trainer's hand. A catechism is a 
 sort of strait-waistcoat put upon children, preventing all 
 liberty of action ; and while the child's brain ought to be 
 cultured and developed, it ought never to be trained to run 
 in one special groove of thought. Education should teach 
 children 'how to think, but should never tell them what to 
 
240 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 think. It should sharpen and polish the instruments of 
 thought, but should not fix them into a machine made to- 
 cut out one special shape of thought. It should send the 
 young out into the world keen-judging, clear-eyed, thought- 
 ful, eager, inquiring, but should not send them out with 
 answers cut-and-dried to every question, with opinions ready 
 made for them, and dogmas nailed into their brains. Most- 
 churches have provided catechism-sawdust for the nourish- 
 ment of the lambs of their flock ; Roman Catholics, Church 
 of Englanders, Presbyterians, they have all their juvenile 
 moulds. The Church of England catechism is, perhaps, 
 the least injurious of all, because the Church of England is 
 the result of a compromise, and has the most offensive 
 parts of its dogmas cut out of the public formularies. It 
 wears some slight apron of fig-leaves in deference to the 
 effect produced by the eating of the tree of knowledge. But 
 still, the Church of England catechism is bad enough,, 
 training the child to believe the most impossible things 
 before he is old enough to test their impossibility. To the 
 age which believes in Jack-and-the-bean-stalk, and the 
 adventures of Cinderella, all things are possible ; whether 
 it be Jonah in the whale's belly, or Tom Thumb in the 
 stomach of the red cow, all is gladly swallowed with im- 
 plicit faith ; the children grow out of Tom Thumb, in the 
 course of nature, but they are not allowed to grow out of 
 Jonah. 
 
 When the baby is brought to the font to make divers 
 promises, of the making of which he is profoundly uncon- 
 scious however noisily he may at times convey his utter 
 disgust at the whole proceeding the godfathers and god- 
 mothers are directed to see that the child is "brought to the 
 bishop to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the 
 creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in 
 the vulgar tongue, and be further instructed in the Church 
 Catechism set forth for that purpose." It is scarcely neces- 
 sary to say that these words being in the Prayer-Book are 
 not meant to be taken literally, and that the bishop would 
 be much astonished if all the small children in the Sunday 
 School who can glibly repeat the required lesson, were to be 
 brought up to him for confirmation. As a matter of fact, 
 the large majority of godfathers and godmothers do not 
 trouble themselves about seeing their godchildren brought 
 to confirmation at all, and the children are sent up when 
 they are about fifteen, at which period most of them who 
 are above the Sunday School going grade, are rapidly 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 241 
 
 "crammed" with the Catechism, which they as rapidly 
 forget when the day of confirmation is over. 
 
 The Christian name of the child being given in answer to 
 the first question of the Catechism, the second inquiry pro- 
 ceeds : " Who gave you this name ? " The child is taught 
 to answer " My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism ; 
 wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God,, 
 and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." Thus, the first 
 lesson imprinted on the child's memory is one of the most 
 objectionable of the dogmas of the Church, that of .baptismal 
 regeneration. In baptism he is "made " something ; then 
 he becomes something which he was not before ; according 
 to the baptismal office, he is given in baptism " that thing 
 which by nature he cannot have," and being under the 
 wrath of God, he is delivered from that curse, and is re- 
 ceived for God's " own child by adoption ;" he is also 
 " incorporated " into the " holy Church," and thus becomes 
 " a member of Christ," being made a part of the body of 
 which Christ is the head ; this being done, he is, of course,, 
 an " inheritor of the kingdom of heaven " through the 
 " adoption." 
 
 Thus the child is taught that, by nature, he is bad and 
 accursed by God ; that so bad was he as an infant, that his 
 parents were obliged to wash away his sins before God would 
 love him. If he asks what harm he had done that he should 
 need cleansing, he will be told that he inherits Adam's sin ; 
 if he asks why he should be accursed for being born, and 
 why, born into God's world at God's will, he should not by 
 nature be God's child, he will be told that God is angry with 
 the world, and that everyone has a bad nature when they 
 are born ; thus he learns his first lesson of the unreality of 
 religion ; he is cursed for Adam's sin, which he had no share 
 in, and forgiven for his parent's good deed, which he did 
 not help in. The whole thing is to him a play acted in his 
 infancy in which he was a puppet, in which God was angry 
 with him for what he had not done, and pleased with him 
 for what he did not say, and he consequently feels that he 
 has neither part nor lot in the whole affair, and that the 
 business is none of his ; if he be timid and superstitious, he 
 will hand over his religion to others, and trust to the priest 
 to finish for him what Adam and his parents began, shifting 
 on to them all a responsibility that he feels does not in 
 reality belong to him. 
 
 The unreality deepens in the next answer which is put 
 into his mouth "What did your godfathers and god- 
 
242 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 mothers then for you ?" " They did promise and vow 
 three things in my name : First, that I should renounce the 
 devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this 
 wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Secondly, 
 that I should believe all the articles of the Christian Faith. 
 And thirdly, that I should keep God's holy will and com- 
 mandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life." 
 Turning to the Baptismal Service again, we find that the god- 
 parents are asked, " Dost thou, in the name of this child, re- 
 nounce," &c., and they answer severally, "I renounce them 
 all," " All this I steadfastly believe ;"' and, asked if they will 
 keep God's holy will, they still answer for the child, "I 
 will." What binding force can such promises as these have 
 upon the conscience of anyone when he grows up ? The 
 promises were made without his consent; why should he 
 keep them ? The belief was vowed before he had examined 
 it ; why should he profess it ? No promise made in another's 
 name can be binding on him who has given no authority for 
 such use of his name, and the unconscious baby, innocent 
 of all knowledge of what is being done, can never, in justice, 
 be held liable for breaking a contract in the making of which 
 he had no share. Bentham rightly and justly protests against 
 " the implied the necessarily implied assumption, that it 
 is in the power of any person not only with the consent of 
 the father or other guardian, but without any such consent 
 to fasten upon a child at its birth, and long before it is 
 itself even capable of giving consent to anything, with the 
 concurrence of two other persons, alike self-appointed, load 
 it with a set of obligations obligations of a most terrific 
 and appalling character obligations of the nature of oaths, 
 of which just so much and no more is rendered visible as is 
 sufficient to render them terrific obligations to which 
 neither in quantity nor in quality are any limits attempted 
 to be, or capable of being, assigned." 
 
 This obligation, laid upon the child in its unconscious- 
 ness, places it in a far worse position, should it hereafter 
 reject the Christian religion, than if such an undertaking 
 had not been entered into on its behalf. It becomes an 
 " apostate," and is considered to have disgracefully broken 
 its faith ; it lies under legal disabilities which it would not 
 otherwise incur, for heavy statutes are levelled against those 
 who, after having "professed the Christian religion," write 
 or speak against it. Thus in early infancy a chain is forged 
 round the child's neck which fetters him throughout life, and 
 the unconsciousness of the baby is taken advantage of to lay 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 243; 
 
 him under terrible penalties. In English law a minor is- 
 protected because of his youth ; surely we need an ecclesi- 
 astical minority, before the expiration of which no spiritual 
 contracts entered into should be enforceable. From the 
 religiuos point of view, apostacy is far more fatal than simple 
 non-Christianity. Keble writes : 
 
 "Vain thought, that shall not be at all ! 
 
 Refuse me, or obey, 
 
 Our ears have heard the Almighty's call, 
 We cannot be as they." 
 
 Is it fair not to ask the child's assent before making his case 
 worse than that of the heathen should he hereafter reject the 
 faith which his sponsors promise he shall believe ? 
 
 Besides, how absurd is this promising for another ; a child 
 is taught not to break his baptismal vow, when he has made 
 no such vow at all ; how can the god-parents ensure that 
 the child shall renounce the devil and believe in Christianity, 
 and obey God ? It is foolish enough to make a promise of 
 that kind for oneself, when changing circumstances may 
 force us into breaking it, but it is sheer madness to make such 
 a promise on behalf of somebody else. The promise to 
 " believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith," cannot take 
 effect until the judgment has grown ripe enough to test, to 
 accept, or to reject, and who then can say for his brother,, 
 " he shall believe." Belief is not a matter of will, it is a 
 matter of evidence ; if evidence enough supports an asser- 
 tion, we must believe it, while if the evidence be insufficient 
 we must doubt it. Belief is neither a virtue nor a vice ; it is 
 simply the consequence of sufficient evidence. Theological 
 belief is demanded on insufficient evidence ; such belief is- 
 called, theologically, "faith," but in ordinary matters it would 
 be called " credulity." First amongst the renouncings 
 comes "the devil and all his works." SaysBentham 
 "The Devil, who or what is he, and how is it that- he is 
 ? enounced ? The wo?'ks of the Devil, what are they, and how 
 is it that they are renounced ? Applied to the Devil, who 
 or whatever he is applied to the Devil's works, whatever 
 they are what sort of an operation is wnottnctmentoi renun- 
 ciation^" 
 
 Pertinent questions, surely, and none of them answerable. 
 A Court of Law lately sat upon the Devil, and could not 
 find him ; how is the Christian to explain to the child whom 
 it is he has renounced in his infancy ? " And in the first 
 place, the Devil himself of whom so decided and familiar 
 a mention, as of one whom everybody knows, is made 
 
244 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 Where lives he ? Who is he ? What is he ? The child 
 itself, did it ever see him ? By any one, to whom for the 
 purpose of the inquiry the child has access, was he ever seen? 
 The child, 'has it ever happened to it to have any dealings 
 with him ? Is it in any such danger as that of having, at 
 any time, to his knowledge, any sort of .dealings with him ? 
 If not, then to what purpose is this renouncement ? and, once 
 more, what is it that is meant by it?" 
 
 But supposing there were a devil, and supposing he had 
 works, how could the child renounce him ? The devil is 
 not in the child's possession that he might give him up as if 
 he were an injurious toy. In days gone by the phrase had a 
 definite meaning ; people were supposed to be able to hold 
 commerce with the devil, to commune with familiar spirits, 
 and summon imps to do their bidding ; to " renounce the 
 devil and all his works " was then a promise to have nothing 
 to do with witchcraft, sorcery, or magic ; to regard the devil 
 as an enemy, and to take no advantage by his help. All 
 these beliefs have long since passed away into " The Old 
 Curiosity Shop " of Ecclesiastical Rubbish, but children are 
 still taught to repeat the old phrases, to rattle the dry bones 
 which life has left so long. The " pomps of this wicked 
 world " might be renounced by Christians if they wanted to 
 do so, but they show a strange obliviousness of their baptismal 
 vow. A reception at court is as good an instance of the 
 renunciation of the vain pomp and glory of this wicked 
 world as we could wish to see, and when we remember that 
 the children who are taught the Catechism in their childhood 
 are taught to aim at winning these pomps in their youth and 
 maturity, we learn to appreciate the fact that spiritual things 
 can only be spiritually discerned. Would it not be well if 
 the Church would publish an " Explanation of the Catechism," 
 so that the children may know what they have renounced ? 
 
 " Dost thou not think that thou art bound to believe, and 
 to do as they have promised for thee ?" " Yes, verily ; and 
 by God's help so I will. And I heartily thank our heavenly 
 Father, that he hath called me to this state of salvation, 
 through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And I pray unto God to 
 give me his grace, that I may continue in the same unto my 
 life's end." " Bound to believe ... as they have pro- 
 mised for thee ! " In the name of common sense, why ? 
 What a marvellous claim for any set of people to put forward, 
 that they have the right to promise what other people shall 
 believe. And the child is taught to answer to this prepos- 
 terous question, " Yes, verily." The Church does wisely in 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 245 
 
 training children to answer thus before they begin to think, 
 as they would certainly never admit so palpably unjust a 
 claim as that they were bound to believe or to do anything 
 simply because some other persons said that they should. 
 The hearty thanks due to God " that he hath called me to 
 this state of salvation," seem somewhat premature, as. well as 
 unnecessary. God, having made the child, is bound to put 
 him in some " state " where existence will not involve a 
 curse to him ; the " salvation " is very doubtful, being de- 
 pendent on a variety of things in addition to baptism. 
 Besides, it is doubtful whether it is an advantage to be in a 
 " state of salvation," unless you get finally saved, some 
 Christian authors appearing to think that damnation is the 
 heavier if it is incurred after being put in the state of salva- 
 tion, so that, on the whole, it would probably be less dan- 
 gerous to be a heathen. The child is then required to 
 *' rehearse the articles of his belief," and is taught to recite 
 " the Apostles' Creed," i.e., a creed with which the apostles 
 had nothing in the world to do. The act of belief ought 
 surely to be an intelligent one, and anyone who professes 
 to believe a thing ought to have some idea of what the 
 thing is. What idea can a child have of conception by 
 the Holy Ghost and being born of the Virgin Mary, in 
 both which recondite mysteries he avows his belief? 
 Having recited this, to him (as to everyone else) unintelligible 
 creed, he is asked, " What dost thou chiefly learn in these 
 articles of thy belief?" a most necessary question, since 
 the,y can have conveyed no idea at all to his little mind. 
 He answers : " First, I learn to believe in God the Father, 
 who hath made me and all the world. Secondly, in God 
 the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind. Thirdly, 
 in God the Holy Ghost, who sarictifieth me and all the elect 
 people of God." Curiously, the last two paragraphs have 
 no parallels in the creed itself; there is no word there that 
 the Son is God, nor that he redeemed the child, nor that 
 he redeemed all mankind ; neither is it said that the Holy 
 Ghost is God, nor that he sanctifies anyone at all. How is 
 the child to believe that God the Son redeemed all man- 
 kind, when he is taught that only by baptism has he himself 
 been brought into " this state of salvation ? " if all are re- 
 deemed, why should he specially thank God that he himself 
 is called and saved ? if all are redeemed, what is the mean- 
 ing of the phrase that " all the elect people of God " are 
 sanctified by the Holy Ghost ? Surely all who are redeemed 
 must also be sanctified, and should not the two passages 
 
246 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 touch only the same people ? Either the Holy Ghost should 
 sanctify all mankind, or Christ should redeem only the 
 elect people of God. A redeemed, but unsanctified, person 
 would cause confusion as to his proper place when he 
 arrived in the realms above ;, St. Peter would not know 
 where to send him to. Bentham caustically remarks : 
 " Here, then, in this word, we have the name of a sort of 
 process, which the child is made to say is going on within 
 him ; going on within him at all times going on within 
 him at the very instant he is giving this account of it. This 
 process, then, what is it ? Of what feelings is it produc- 
 tive ? By what marks and symptoms is he to know whether 
 it really is or is not going on within him, as he is forced to- 
 say it is ? How does he feel, now that the Holy Ghost is 
 sanctifying him ? How is it that he would feel, if no such 
 operation were going on within him ? Too often does it 
 happen to him in some shape or other, to commit sin ; or 
 something which he is told and required to believe is sin : 
 an event which cannot fail to be frequently, not to say con- 
 tinually, taking place, if that be true, which in the Liturgy 
 we are all made so decidedly to confess and assert, viz., 
 that we are all all of us without exception so many i miser- 
 able sinners.'' In the schoolroom, doing what by this Cate- 
 chism he is forced to do, saying what he is forced to say, 
 the child thus declares himself, notwithstanding, a sanctified 
 person. From thence going to church, he confesses him- 
 self to be no better than * a miserable sinner.' 1 If he is not 
 always this miserable sinner, then why is he always forced 
 to say he is ? If he is always this same miserable sinner, 
 then this sanctification, be it what it may, which the Holy 
 Ghost was at the pains of bestowing upon him, what is he 
 the better for it ? " Besides, how can the child be taught 
 to believe in one God if he finds three different gods all 
 doing different things for him ? As clear a distinction as 
 possible is here made between the redeeming work of God 
 the Son and the sanctifying work of God the Holy Ghost, 
 and if the child tries to realise in any fashion that which he 
 is taught to say he believes, he must inevitably become a 
 Tri-theist and believe in the creator, the redeemer, the sanc- 
 tifier, as three different gods. The creed being settled, the 
 child is reminded : " You said that your godfathers and 
 godmothers did promise for you that you should keep God's 
 commandments. Tell me how many there be ? Am. Ten. 
 Ques. Which be they ? Ans. The same which God spake 
 in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, saying, I am the Lord 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 247 
 
 thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
 out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other 
 gods but me." But God has not brought the child, nor 
 the child's ancestors, out of the land of Egypt, nor out of 
 the house of bondage : therefore the first commandment, 
 which is made dependent on such out-bringing, is not spoken 
 to the child. The argument runs : " Seeing that I have 
 done so much for thee, thou shalt have no other God instead 
 of me." The second commandment is rejected by general 
 consent, and it is almost certain that the child will be taught 
 that God has commanded that no likeness of anything 
 shall be made in a room with pictures on the walls. 
 Christians conveniently gloss over the fact that this com- 
 mandment forbids all sculpture, all painting, all moulding, all 
 engraving ; they plead that it only means nothing that shall 
 be made for purposes of worship, although the distinct 
 words are : " Thou shalt not make any likeness of anything." 
 In order to thoroughly understand the state of the child's 
 mind who has learned that "I the Lord thy God am a 
 jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the 
 children," when he comes to read other parts of the Bible 
 it will be well to put side by side with this declaration, 
 Ezekiel xviii. 19, 20 : " Yet say ye, why ? doth not the son 
 bear the iniquity of the father ? When the son hath done 
 that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, 
 and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that 
 sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of 
 the father." The fourth commandment is disregarded on 
 all sides ; from the prince who has his fish on the Sunday 
 from the fishmonger down to the costermonger who sells 
 cockles in the street, all nominal Christians forget and dis- 
 obey this command ; they keep their servants at work, 
 although they ought to " do no manner of work," and 
 drive in carriage, cab, and omnibus as though God had 
 not said that the cattle also should be idle on the Sabbath 
 day. Although the New Testament is, on this point, in 
 direct conflict with the Old, Paul commanding the 
 Colossians not to trouble themselves about Sabbaths, yet 
 Christians read and teach this commandment, while in 
 their lives they carry out the injunction of Paul. To com- 
 plete the demoralising effect of this fourth commandment 
 on the child, he is taught that " in six days the Lord made 
 heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is," while, in 
 his day-school he is instructed in exactly the opposite sense, 
 and is told of the long and countless ages of evolution 
 
248 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 through which the world passed, and the marvellous 
 creatures that inhabited it before the coming of man. The 
 fifth commandment is also evil in its effect on the child's 
 mind from that same fault of unreality which runs through- 
 out the teaching of the Established Church. " Honour thy 
 father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land" 
 He will know perfectly well that good children die as well as 
 bad, and that, therefore, there is no truth in the promise he 
 recites. The rest of the commandments enjoin simple 
 moral duties, and would be useful if taught without the 
 preceding ones ; as it is, the unreality of the first five 
 injures the force of the later ones, and the good and bad, 
 being mixed up together, are not likely to be carefully dis- 
 tinguished and thus they lose all compelling moral power. 
 
 The commandments recited, the child is asked " What 
 dost thou chiefly learn by these commandments ?" and he 
 answers that " I learn two things : my duty towards God 
 and my duty towards my neighbour." We would urge here 
 that man's duty to man should be the point most pressed 
 upon the young. Supposing that any " duty to God" 
 were possible a question outside the present subject 
 it is clear that the duty to man is the nearest, the 
 most obvious, the easiest to understand, and therefore 
 the first to be inculcated. Surely, it is only by dis- 
 charge of the immediate and the plain duty that any 
 discharge becomes possible of one less near and less plain. 
 Besides, the duty to God taught in the Catechism is of 
 so wide and engrossing a nature that to discharge it fully 
 would take up the whole time and thoughts. For in answer 
 to the question, "What is thy duty towards God?" the 
 child says : " My duty towards God is to believe in him, 
 to fear him, and to love him with all my heart, with all my 
 mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength ; to wor- 
 ship him, to give him thanks, to put my whole trust in him, 
 to call upon him, to honour his holy name and his word, 
 and to serve him truly all the days of my life." First, "to 
 believe in him ;" but how can the child believe in him until 
 evidence be offered of his existence ? But to examine such 
 evidence is beyond the still weak intellectual powers of the 
 child, and therefore belief in God is beyond him, for belief 
 based on authority is utterly valueless. Besides, it can 
 never be a " duty " to believe ; if the evidence of a fact be 
 convincing, belief in that fact naturally follows, and non- 
 belief would be very stupid ; but the word " duty " is out of 
 place in connection with belief. "To fear him :" that the 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 249 
 
 child will naturally do, after learning that God was angry 
 with him for being born, and that another God, Jesus Christ, 
 was obliged to die to save him from the angry God. " To 
 love him;" not so easy, under the circumstances, nor is 
 love compatible with fear ; " perfect love casteth out fear 
 ... he that feareth is not made perfect in love." " With 
 all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with 
 all my strength." Four different things the child is to love 
 God with : What does each mean ? How is heart to be 
 distinguished from mind, soul, and strength ? In human 
 love, love of the heart might, perhaps, be distinguished from 
 love of the mind, if by love of the heart alone a purely 
 physical passion were intended ; but this cannot explain any 
 sort of love to God, to whom such love would be clearly 
 impossible. Once more, we say that the Church of Eng- 
 land should publish an explanation of the Catechism, so 
 that we may know what we ought to do and believe for our 
 soul's health. Bentham urges that to put the "whole trust" 
 in God would prevent the child from putting " any part of 
 his trust " in second causes, and that disregard of these 
 would not be' compatible with personal safety and with the 
 preservation of health and life ; and that further, as all these 
 services are " unprofitable " to God, they might " with more 
 profit be directed to the service of those weak creatures, 
 whose need of all the service that can be rendered to them 
 is at all times so urgent and so abundant." The duty to 
 God being thus acknowledged, there follows the duty to the 
 neighbour, for which there seems no room when the love, 
 trust, and service due to God have been fully rendered. 
 " Ques. What is thy duty toward thy neighbour ? Ans. 
 My duty towards my neighbour is to love him as myself, 
 and to do to all men as I would they should do unto me. 
 To love, honour, and succour my father and mother. To 
 honour and obey the king, and all that are put in authority 
 under him. To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, 
 spiritual pastors, and masters. To order myself lowly and 
 reverently to all my betters. To hurt nobody by word or 
 deed. To be true and just in all my dealings. To bear no 
 malice nor hatred in my heart. To keep my hands from 
 picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, 
 lying, and slandering. To keep my body in temperance, 
 soberness, and chastity. Not to covet nor desire .Jbt'her 
 men's goods ; but to learn and labour truly to get* mine 
 own living, and to do my duty in that state of life unto 
 which it shall please God to call me." The first phase 
 
250 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 reproduces the morality which is as old as successful 
 social life. " What word will serve as a rule for the 
 whole life?" asked one of Confucius. " Is not reciprocity 
 such a word?" answered the sage. " What thou dost not 
 desire done to thyself, do not to others. When you are 
 labouring for others, let it be with the same zeal as if for 
 yourself." The second phrase is true and right ; the next is 
 often foolish and impossible. Who could honour such a 
 king as George IV.? while to "obey" James II. would 
 have been the destruction of England. Honour and obedi- 
 ence to constituted authorities is a duty only when those 
 authorities discharge the duties that they are placed in 
 power to execute ; the moment they fail in doing this, to- 
 honour and to obey them is to become partners in their 
 treason to the nation. The doctrine of divine right was 
 believed in when the Catechism was written, and then the 
 voice of the king was a divine one, and to resist him was 
 to resist God. The two following phrases breathe the same 
 cringing spirit, as though the main duty towards one's 
 neighbour were to submit to him. Reverence to any one 
 better than one's-self is an instinct, but " my betters " is 
 simply a cant expression for those higher in the social scale,, 
 and those have no right to any lowlier ordering than the 
 simple respect and courtesy that every man should show 
 towards every other. This kind of teaching saps a child's 
 mental strength and self-respect, and is fatal to his manli- 
 ness of character if it makes any impression upon him. The 
 remainder of the answer is thoroughly good and whole- 
 some, save the last few words about " that state of life unto 
 which it shall please God to call me." A child should be 
 taught that his " state of life " depends upon his own exer- 
 tions, and not upon any " calling " of God, and that if the 
 state be unsatisfactory, it is his duty to set diligently to work 
 to mend it ; not to be content with it when bad, not to throw 
 on God the responsibility of having placed him there, but 
 so to labour with all hearty diligence as to make it worthy 
 of himself, honourable, respectable, and comfortable. At 
 this point the child is informed : "Thou art not able to do 
 these things of thyself, nor to walk in the commandments of 
 God, and to serve him, without his special grace; which thou 
 must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer." But 
 if the child cannot do these things without God's " special 
 grace," then the responsibility of his not doing them must 
 of necessity fall upon God ; for the child cannot pray unless 
 God gives him grace; and without prayer he can't get 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 251 
 
 .'special grace, and without special grace he can't " do these 
 things ;" so that clearly the child is helpless until God sends 
 him his grace, and therefore the whole responsibility lies 
 upon God alone, and he can never blame the child for not 
 doing that which he himself has prevented him from begin- 
 ning. Diligent prayer for special grace being thus wanted, 
 the child is taught to recite the Lord's Prayer, in which 
 .grace is not mentioned at all, and he is then asked " What 
 desirest thou of God in this prayer ?" "I desire my Lord 
 God, our Heavenly Father, who is the giver of all goodness, 
 to send his grace to me and to all people ; that we may 
 worship him, serve him, and obey him, as we ought to do." 
 We rub our eyes ; not one word of all this is discoverable 
 in the Lord's Prayer ! " Send his grace to me and to all 
 people"? not a syllable conveying any such meaning : "that 
 we may worship him, serve him, and obey him"? not the 
 .shadow of such a request. Is it supposed to train a child 
 in the habit of truthfulness to make him recite as a religious 
 lesson what is utterly and thoroughly untrue ? " And I 
 pray unto God that he will send us all things that be needful 
 both for our souls and bodies, and that he will be merciful 
 unto us, and forgive us our sins." "All things that be 
 needful both for our souls and bodies " is, we presume, 
 summed up in " our daily bread." Simple people would 
 scarcely imagine that " daily bread " was all they wanted 
 both for their souls and bodies; perhaps the souls 
 want nothing, not being discoverable by any real 
 needs which they express. " And that it will please 
 him to save and defend us in all dangers, ghostly 
 and bodily ; and that he will keep us from all sin and wicked- 
 ness, and from our ghostly enemy, and from everlasting 
 death." Here, again, nothing in the prayer can be translated 
 into these phrases ; there is nothing about saving and defend- 
 ing from all dangers, ghostly and bodily, nor a syllable as to 
 defence from our ghostly enemy, by whom a child will pro- 
 bably understand a ghost in a white sheet, and will go to 
 bed in terror after saying the Catechism which thus recog- 
 nises ghosts nor from everlasting death. The prayer is of 
 the simplest, but the translation of it of the hardest. "And 
 this I trust he will do of his mercy and goodness, through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ ; And therefore I say Amen, so be it." 
 Why should the child trust God's mercy and goodness to 
 protect him? There would be no dangers, ghostly and 
 bodily, no ghostly enemy, and no everlasting death, unless 
 God had invented them all, and the person who places us in 
 
352 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 the midst of dangers is scarcely the one to whom to turn for 
 deliverance from them. Mercy and goodness would not 
 have surrounded us with such dangers ; mercy and goodness 
 would not have encompassed us with such foes ; mercy and 
 goodness would have created beings whose glad lives would 
 have been one long hymn of praise to the Creator, and 
 would have ever blessed him that he had called them into 
 existence. 
 
 The child is now to be led further into the Christian 
 mysteries, and is to be instructed in the doctrine of the 
 sacraments, curious double-natured things of which we 
 have to believe in what we don't see, and see that 
 which we are not to believe in. " How many sac- 
 raments hath Christ ordained in his Church ?" " Two- 
 only, as generally necessary to salvation, that is to say y 
 Baptism and the Supper of the Lord." " Generally neces- 
 sary "; the word " generally " is explained by commentators 
 as " universally," so that the phrase should run, " universally- 
 necessary to salvation." The theory of the Church being 
 that all are by nature the children of wrath, and that " none 
 are regenerate," except they be born of water and of the 
 Holy Ghost, it follows that baptism is universally necessary 
 to salvation ; and since Jesus has said, " Except ye eat the 
 flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life 
 in you " (John vi. 53), it equally follows that the Lord's 
 Supper is universally necessary to salvation. Seeing that 
 the vast majority of mankind are not baptized Christians at 
 all, and that of baptized Christians the majority never eat 
 the Lord's supper, the heirs of salvation will be extremely 
 limited in number, and will not be inconveniently crowded 
 in the many mansions above. " What meanest thou by this 
 word sacrament ? I mean an outward and visible sign of an 
 inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ 
 himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and as a 
 pledge to assure us thereof." If this be a true definition of 
 a sacrament, no such thing as a sacrament can fairly be said 
 to be in existence. What is the inward and spiritual grace 
 given unto the baby in baptism ? If it be given, it must be 
 seen in its effects, or else it is a gift of nothing at all. A baby 
 after baptism is exactly the same as it was before ; cries as 
 much, kicks as much, fidgets as much ; clearly it has re- 
 ceived no inward and spiritual sanctifying grace ; it behaves 
 as well or as badly as any unbaptized baby, and is neither 
 worse nor better than its contemporaries. Manifestly the 
 inward grace is wanting, and therefore no true sacrament is 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 253 
 
 here, for a sacrament must have the grace as well as the sign. 
 The same thing may be said of the Lords Supper ; people do- 
 not seem any the better for it after its reception ; a hungry 
 man is satisfied after his supper, and so shows that he has really 
 received something, but the spirit suffers as much from the 
 hunger of envy and the thirst of bad temper after the Lord's. 
 Supper as it did before. But why should the grace be 
 " inward," and why is the soul thought of as inside the body, 
 instead of all through and over it? There are few con- 
 venient hollows inside where it can dwell, but people speak 
 as though man were an empty box, and the soul might live 
 in it. The sacrament is " a means whereby we receive the 
 same, and a pledge to assure us thereof." God's grace, then, 
 can be conveyed in the vehicles of water, bread, and wine ; 
 it must surely, then, be something material, else how can 
 material things transmit it ? And God becomes dependent 
 on man to decide for him on whom the grace shall be 
 bestowed. Two infants are born into the world ; one of 
 them is brought to church and is baptized ; God may give 
 that child his grace : the other is left without baptism ; it is 
 a child of wrath, and God may not bless it. Thus is God 
 governed by the neglect of a poor, and very likely drunken, 
 nurse, and the recipients of his grace are chosen for him at 
 the caprice or carelessness of men. Strange, too, that 
 Christians who received God's grace need "a pledge to 
 assure " them that they have really got it ; how curious that 
 the recipient should not know that so precious a gift has 
 been bestowed upon him until he has also been given a 
 little bit of bread and a tiny sip of wine. It is as though a 
 queen's messenger put into one's hand a hundred ^1000 
 notes, and then said solemnly : " Here is a farthing as a 
 pledge to assure you that you have really received the 
 notes." Would not the notes themselves be the best 
 assurance that we had received them, and would not the 
 grace of God consciously possessed be its own best proof 
 that God had given it to us ? " How many parts are there 
 in a sacrament ? Two ; the outward visible sign, and the 
 inward spiritual grace." This is simply a repetition of the 
 previous question and answer, and is entirely unnecessary. 
 " What is the outward visible sign, or form, in baptism ? 
 Water ; wherein the person is baptized in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" This 
 answer raises the interesting question as to whether English 
 Christians save the Baptists are really baptized. They 
 are not baptized "in," but only "with " water. The rubric 
 
.254 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 directs that the minister " shall dip it in the water discreetly 
 
 and warily," and that only where " the child is weak it shall 
 
 suffice to pour water upon it." It appears possible that the 
 
 salvation of nearly all the English people is in peril, since 
 
 their baptism is imperfect. The formula of baptism reminds 
 
 us of a curious difference in the baptism of the apostles 
 
 from the baptism in the triune name of God ; although 
 
 Jesus had, according to Matthew, solemnly commanded 
 
 them to baptize with this formula, we find, from the Acts, 
 
 that they utterly disregarded his injunction, and baptized 
 
 " in the name of Jesus Christ," instead of in the name of 
 
 41 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." (See Acts ii. 38, viii. 16, 
 
 x. 48, xix. 5, etc.) The obvious conclusion to be drawn 
 
 from this is, that if the Acts be historical, Jesus never gave 
 
 the command put into his mouth in Matthew, but that it 
 
 was inserted later when such a formula became usual in the 
 
 Church. " What is the inward and spiritual grace ? A 
 
 death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness ; for 
 
 being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we 
 
 are hereby made the children of grace." What ? a baby die 
 
 unto sin ? how can it, when it is unconscious of sin, and 
 
 therefore cannot sin ? "A new birth unto righteousness ?" 
 
 but it is only just born, surely there can be no need that it 
 
 should be born over again so soon ? And if it be true that 
 
 this is the inward grace given, would it not be well as did 
 
 many in the early Church to put off the ceremony of 
 
 baptism until the last moment, so that the dying man, being 
 
 baptized, may die to all the sins he has committed during 
 
 life, and be born again into spiritual babyhood, fit to go 
 
 straight into heaven ? It seems a needless cruelty to 
 
 baptize infants, and so deprive them of the chance of 
 
 getting rid of all their life sins in a lump later on. This is 
 
 not the only objection to baptism. Bentham powerfully 
 
 urges what has often been pressed : 
 
 "Note well the sort of story that is here told. The 
 Almighty God, maker of all things, visible and ' invisible,' 
 ' of heaven and earth, and all that therein is,' makes, 
 amongst other things, a child : and no sooner has he made 
 it, than he is ' wrath ' with it for being made. He deter- 
 mines accordingly to consign it to a state of endless torture. 
 Meantime comes somebody, and pronouncing certain 
 words, applies the child to a quantity of water, or a quantity 
 of water to the child. Moved by these words, the all-wise 
 Being changes his design ; and, though he is not so far 
 appeased as to give the child its pardon, vouchsafes to it a 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 255 
 
 chance, no one can say what chance, of ultimate escape. 
 And this is what the child gets by being ' made ' and we 
 see in what way made ' a child of grace?" 
 
 " What is required of persons to be baptised ? Repent- 
 ance, whereby they forsake sin ; and Faith, whereby they 
 steadfastly believe the promises of God made to them in 
 that Sacrament. Why then are infants baptised when by 
 reason of their tender age they cannot perform them ? [Why, 
 indeed !] Because they promise them both by their 
 sureties, which promise, when they come of age, themselves- 
 are bound to perform." Surely it would be better if these 
 things are " required " before baptism, to put off baptism 
 until repentance and faith become possible, instead of going 
 through it like a play, where people act their parts and repre- 
 sent somebody else. For suppose the child for whom repent- 
 ance and faith are promised does not, when he comes to full 
 age, either repent of his sins or believe God's promises, what 
 becomes of the inward and spiritual grace ? It must either 
 have been given, or not have been given ; if the former, the 
 unrepentant and unbelieving person has got it on the faith 
 of his sureties' promises for him ; if the latter, God has not 
 given the grace promised in Holy Baptism, and his promises 
 are therefore unreliable in all cases. 
 
 " Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordained ? 
 For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death 
 of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby."" 
 What very bad memories Christians must have ! God has 
 come down from heaven on purpose to die for them, and 
 they cannot remember it without eating and drinking in 
 memory of it. The child is then taught that the outward 
 part in the Lord's Supper is bread and wine, and that the in- 
 ward part is " The Body and Blood of Christ, which are 
 verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the 
 Lord's Supper," the body and blood nourishing the soul, as 
 the bread and wine do the body. If the body and blood con- 
 vey as infinitesimal an amount of nourishment to the soul as 
 the small portions of bread and wine do to the body, the soul 
 must suffer much from spiritual hunger. But how do they 
 nourish the soul ? The body and blood must be somehow 
 in the bread and wine, and how is it managed that one part 
 shall nourish the soul while the rest goes to the body? 
 "verily and indeed taken and received." From the ea^er 
 protestation one would imagine that there must be some 
 doubt about it, and that there might be some question as to 
 whether the invisible and intangible thing were really and 
 
256 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM. 
 
 truly taken. It needs but little insight to see how woefully 
 confusing it must be to an intelligent child to teach him that 
 bread and wine are only bread and wine one minute and the 
 next are Christ's body and blood as well, although none- of 
 his senses can distinguish the smallest change in them. Such 
 instruction will, if it has any effect on his mind, incline him 
 to take every assertion on trust, without, and even contrary 
 to, reason and experiment ; it lays the basis of all supersti- 
 tion, by teaching belief in what is not susceptible of proof. 
 
 " What is required of them who come to the Lord's 
 supper ? To examine themselves, whether they repent them 
 truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new 
 life ; have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with 
 a thankful remembrance of his death ; and be in charity with 
 all men." It is the custom in many churches now to have 
 weekly, and in some to have daily, communion ; can the 
 communicants who attend these steadfastly purpose to lead 
 a new life every time ? and how many " former sins " are they 
 as continually repenting of? Here we find the overstrained 
 piety which throughout disfigures the Prayer-Book ; people 
 are moaning about their sins, and crying over their falls, and 
 resolving to mend their ways, and vowing they will lead new 
 lives, and the next time one sees them they are once more 
 proclaiming themselves to be as miserable sinners as ever. 
 How weary the Holy Ghost must get of sanctifying them ! 
 
 Such is the Catechism that " The curate of every parish 
 shall diligently upon Sundays and Holy Days, after the 
 second lesson at evening prayer, openly in the Church " 
 teach to the children sent to him, and which " all fathers, 
 mothers, masters, and dames shall cause their children, ser- 
 vants, and apprentices (which have not learned their 
 Catechism) to come to the Church at the time appointed," 
 in order to learn ; such is the nourishment provided by the 
 Church for her lambs : such is the teaching she offers to the 
 rising generation. Thus, before thejt are able to think, she 
 moulds the thinking-machine ; thus, rclfore they are able to 
 judge, she biases the judgment; thus, fro*m children puzzled 
 and bewildered, she hopes to make men and women supple 
 to her teaching, and out of the Catechism she winds round 
 the children's brains, she forges the chain of creeds which 
 fetters the intellect of the full-grown members of her 
 communion. 
 
 London : Printed by Annie Eesant and Charles Bradlaugh, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.G. 
 
February, 1885. 
 
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