{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30204/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30204","id":"gutenberg_30204","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30204","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Free thought"],"text":"ARROWS OF FREETHOUGHT.\n\nBy G. W. Foote\n\nEditor of \"The Freethinker.\"\n\nLONDON:\n\nH. A. KEMP, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, FARRINGDON STREET, E.C.\n\n1882.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n     PREFACE\n     RELIGION AND PROGRESS.\n     A DEFENCE OF THOMAS PAINE.\n     THE GOSPEL OF FREETHOUGHT.\n     FREETHOUGHT IN CURRENT LITERATURE.\n     DEAN STANLEY'S LATEST.\n     GOD AND THE QUEEN.\n     CARDINAL NEWMAN ON INFIDELITY.\n     SUNDAY TYRANNY.\n     WHO ARE THE BLASPHEMERS?\n     THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.\n     THE REIGN OF CHRIST.\n     THE PRIMATE ON MODERN INFIDELITY.\n     BAITING A BISHOP.\n     PROFESSOR FLINT ON ATHEISM.\n     A HIDDEN GOD.\n     GENERAL JOSHUA.\n     GOING TO HELL.\n     CHRISTMAS EVE IN HEAVEN.\n     PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON ATHEISM.\n     SALVATIONISM.\n     A PIOUS SHOWMAN.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nI republish in this little volume a few of my numerous articles\nthat have appeared in the _Secularist_, the _Liberal_, the _National\nReformer_, and the _Freethinker_, during the last five or six years.\nI have included nothing (I hope) of merely ephemeral interest. Every\narticle in this collection was at least written carefully, and with an\neye to more than the exigencies of the moment. In disentombing them\nfrom the cemeteries of periodical literature, where so many of their\ncompanions lie buried, I trust I have not allowed parental love to\noutrun discretion.\n\nI have not thought it necessary to indicate, in each case, the journal\nin which the reprinted articles were first published.\n\nShould anyone object to the freedom of my style, or the asperity of\nmy criticism, I would ask him to remember that Christianity still\npersecutes to the full extent of its power, and that a Creed which\nanswers argument with prosecution cannot expect tender treatment in\nreturn; and I would also ask him, in the words of Ruskin, \"to consider\nhow much less harm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness than by\nuntimely fear.\"\n\nLondon, November 15th, 1882.\n\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION AND PROGRESS.\n\n     (November, 1882.)\n\nThe Archbishop of York is peculiarly qualified to speak on religion\nand progress. His form of thanksgiving to the God of Battles for our\n\"victory\" in Egypt marks him as a man of extraordinary intellect and\ncharacter, such as common people may admire without hoping to emulate;\nwhile his position, in Archbishop Tait's necessitated absence from the\nscene, makes him the active head of the English Church. Let us listen to\nthe great man.\n\nArchbishop Thomson recently addressed \"a working-men's meeting\" in the\nDrill Hall, Sheffield. It was densely crowded by six or seven thousand\npeople, and this fact was cited by the Archbishop as a proof that the\nworking classes of England have not yet lost interest in the Christian\nfaith. But we should very much like to know how it was ascertained\nthat all, or even the major portion, of the vast audience were\nworking-men. It is easy enough to give any meeting a name. We often hear\nof a Conservative Working-men's banquet, with tickets at something like\na guinea each, a duke at the top of the table and a row' of lords\ndown each side. And our experience leads us to believe that nearly all\nreligious meetings of \"working-men\" are attended chiefly by the lower\nmiddle classes who go regularly to church or chapel every Sunday of\ntheir lives.\n\nEven, however, if the whole six or seven thousand were working-men, the\nfact would prove little; for Sheffield contains a population of three\nhundred thousand, and it was not difficult for the clergy who thronged\nthe platform to get up a big \"ticket\" meeting, at which a popular\nArchbishop was the principal speaker, and the eloquence was all to be\nhad for nothing.\n\nThe Archbishop's lecture, or sermon, or whatever it was, contained\nnothing new, nor was any old idea presented in a new light. It was\nsimply a summary of the vulgar declamations against the \"carnal mind\"\nwith which we are all so familiar. Progress, said his Grace, was of two\nkinds, intellectual and moral. Of the former sort we had plenty, but\nof the latter not so much. He repudiated the notion that moral progress\nwould naturally keep pace with intellectual progress, and he denied that\nrighteousness could ever prevail without \"some sanction from above.\"\nThis was the sum and substance of his discourse, and we have no\ndoubt that our readers have heard the same thing, in various forms of\nlanguage, some hundreds of times.\n\nLike the rest of his tribe, Archbishop Thomson went abroad for all his\nfrightful warnings, and especially to France. He severely condemned the\nFrench \"pride in progress,\" which led to the Revolution. His Grace has\ncertainly a most original conception of history. Ordinary historians\ntell us that the Revolution was caused by hunger, bad government, and\nthe rigidity of old institutions that could not accommodate themselves\nto new ideas. But whatever were the causes, look at the results. Compare\nthe state of France before the Revolution with its condition now. The\ndespotic monarchy is gone; the luxurious and privileged aristocracy has\ndisappeared; and the incredibly wealthy and tyrannous Church is reduced\nto humbleness and poverty. But the starving masses have become the most\nprosperous on the face of the earth; the ignorant multitudes are well\neducated; the platform and the press are free; a career is open to every\ncitizen; science, art, and literature have made immense strides; and\nalthough Paris, like every great capital, may still, as Mr. Arnold says,\nlack morality, there is no such flagrant vileness within her walls as\nthe corruptions of the _ancien r\u00e9gime_; no such impudent affronting of\nthe decencies of life as made the _parc aux cerfs_ for ever infamous,\nand his Christian Majesty, Louis the Fifteenth, a worthy compeer of\nTiberius; no such shameless wickedness as made the orgies of the Duke of\nOrleans and the Abb\u00e9 Dubois match the worst saturnalia of Nero.\n\nHis Grace felt obliged to advert also to the Paris Commune, about which\nhis information seems to be equal to his knowledge of the Revolution. He\nhas the ignorance or audacity to declare that the Commune \"destroyed a\ncity and ravaged the land;\" when, as a matter of fact, the struggle was\nabsolutely confined to Paris, and the few buildings injured were in\nthe line of fire. This worthy prelate thinks destruction of buildings\na crime on the part of Communalists, but a virtue on the part of a\nChristian power; and while denouncing the partial wreck of Paris, he\nblesses the wholesale ruin of Alexandria.\n\nHis Grace ventures also to call the leading men of the Commune \"drunken\ndissolute villains.\" The beaten party is always wicked, and perhaps\nDr. Thomson will remember that Jesus Christ himself was accused of\nconsorting with publicans and sinners. Drunken dissolute villains do\nnot risk their lives for an idea. The men of the Commune may have been\nmistaken, but their motives were lofty; and Milli\u00e8re, falling dead on\nthe Church steps before the Versailles bullets, with the cry of _Vive\nl'Humanit\u00e9_ on his lips, was as noble a hero as any crucified Galilean\nwho questioned why his God had forsaken him.\n\nThat intellectual and moral progress naturally go together, the\nArchbishop calls \"an absurd and insane doctrine,\" and he couples with\nthese epithets the honored names of Buckle and Spencer. Now it will\nbe well to have a clear understanding on this point. Are intellectual\ncauses dominant or subordinate? Even so intensely religious a man as\nLamennais unhesitatingly answers that they are dominant. He affirms, in\nhis _Du Pass\u00e9 et de l'Avenir du, Peuple_, that \"intellectual development\nhas produced all other developments,\" and he adds:--\n\n\"It is represented that evil, as it appears in history, springs entirely\nfrom the passions. This is quite false. The passions disturb the\nexisting order, whatever it may be, but they do not constitute it. They\nhave not that power. It is the necessary result of the received ideas\nand beliefs. Thus the passions show themselves the same in all epochs,\nand yet, in different epochs, the established order changes, and\nsometimes fundamentally.\"\n\nThe truth is that the great moral conceptions are securely established,\nand the only possible improvement in them must come from the increased\nfineness and subtlety of our mental powers.\n\nCivilisation and progress are, according to Archbishop Thomson, nothing\nbut \"cobwebs and terms.\" He besought the working men of Sheffield not to\ngo for information to a big book written in some garret in London.\nHis Grace, who lives in a palace at other people's expense, has a very\nnatural dislike of any man of genius who may live in a garret at his\nown. What has the place in which a book is written to do with its value?\n\"Don Quixote\" and the \"Pilgrim's Progress\" were written in gaol; and for\nall Archbishop Thomson knows to the contrary every gospel and epistle of\nthe New Testament may have been written in an attic or a cellar.\n\nThe Archbishop seems to hate the very idea of Progress. What has it\ndone, he asks, to abolish drunkenness and gambling? To which we reply\nby asking what Christianity has done. Those vices are unmistakably here,\nand on the face of it any objection they may furnish against Progress\nmust equally apply to Christianity. Nay more; for Christianity has had\nan unlimited opportunity to reform the world, while Progress has been\nhindered at every turn by the insolent usurpation of its rival.\n\nDr. Thomson admits that he cannot find a text in the Bible against\ngambling, and assuredly he cannot find one in favor of teetotalism. On\nthe contrary he will find plenty of texts which recommend the \"wine that\ncheereth the heart of God and man;\" and he knows that his master, Jesus\nChrist, once played the part of an amateur publican at a marriage feast,\nand turned a large quantity of water into wine in order to keep the\nspree going when it had once begun.\n\nWe repeat that all the Archbishop's objections to Progress, based on the\nmoral defects of men, apply with tenfold force against Religion, which\nhas practically had the whole field to itself. And we assert that he is\ngrievously mistaken if he imagines that supernatural beliefs can ennoble\nknaves or give wisdom to fools. When he talks about \"Christ's blood shed\nto purchase our souls,\" and specifies the first message of his creed\nas \"Come and be forgiven,\" he is appealing to our basest motives, and\nturning the temple into a huckster's shop. Let him and all his tribe\nlisten to these words of Ruskin's:--\n\n\"Your honesty is _not_ to be based either on religion or policy. Both\nyour religion and policy must be based on _it_. Your honesty must be\nbased, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the\nfirmament, which have rule over the day and over the night If you ask\nwhy you are to be honest--you are, in the question itself, dishonored\n'Because you are a man,' is the only answer; and therefore I said in\na former letter that to make your children _capable of honesty_ is\nthe beginning of education. Make them men first and religious men\nafterwards, and all will be sound; but a knave's religion is always the\nrottenest thing about him.--_Time and Tide_, p. 37.\"\n\nThese are the words of a real spiritual teacher. Archbishop Thomson will\nnever get within a million miles of their meaning; nor will anybody\nbe deceived, by the unctuous \"Oh that\" with which he concludes his\ndiscourse, like a mental rolling of the whites of his eyes.\n\nAs we approach the end of his address, we begin to understand his\nGrace's hatred of Progress. He complains that \"intellectual progress\nnever makes a man conceive eternal hopes, never makes a man conceive\nthat he has an eternal friend in heaven, even the Son of God.\" Quite\ntrue. Intellectual progress tends to bound our desires within the scope\nof their realisation, and to dissipate the fictions of theology. It is\ntherefore inimical to all professional soul-savers, who chatter about\nanother world with no understanding of this; and especially to the\nlofty teachers of religion who luxuriate in palaces, and fling jibes and\nsneers at the toiling soldiers of progress who face hunger, thirst and\ndeath. These rich disciples of the poor Nazarene are horrified when\nthe scorn is retorted on them and their creed; and Archbishop Thomson\nexpresses his \"disgust\" at our ridiculing his Bible and endeavoring to\nbring his \"convictions\" into \"contempt.\" It is, he says, \"an offence\nagainst the first principles of mutual sympathy and consideration.\" Yet\nthis angry complainant describes other people's convictions as \"absurd\nand insane.\" All the sympathy and consideration is to be on one side!\nThe less said about either the better. There can be no treaty or truce\nin a war of principles, and the soldiers of Progress will neither take\nquarter nor give it. Christianity must defend itself. It may try to kill\nus with the poisoned arrows of persecution; but what defence can it\nmake against the rifleshot of common-sense, or how stand against the\nshattering artillery of science? Every such battle is decided in its\ncommencement, for every religion begins to succumb the very moment it is\nattacked.\n\n\n\n\nA DEFENCE OF THOMAS PAINE.\n\n     (February, 1879.)\n\nFling mud enough and some of it will stick. This noble maxim has been\nthe favorite of traducers in all ages and climes. They know that the\nobject of their malignity cannot always be on the alert to cleanse\nhimself from the filth they fling, especially if cast behind his\nback; they know that lies, and especially slanderous lies, are hard to\novertake, and when caught harder to strangle; and therefore they feel\nconfident as to the ultimate fate of their victim if they can only\npersevere long enough in their vile policy of defamation. For human\nnature being more prone to believe evil than good of others, it\ngenerally happens that the original traducers are at length joined by a\nhost of kindred spirits almost as eager and venomous as themselves, \"the\nlong-neck'd geese of the world, who are ever hissing dispraise because\ntheir natures are little;\" while a multitude of others, not so\nmuch malignant as foolish and given to scandal, lend their cowardly\nassistance, and help to vilify characters far beyond the reach of their\nemulation. And should such characters be those of men who champion\nunpopular causes, there is no lie too black for belief concerning them,\nno accusation of secret theft or hateful meanness or loathsome lust,\nthat will not readily gain credence. Mr. Tennyson speaks of--\n\n      That fierce light which beats upon a throne,\n      And blackens every blot\n\nbut what is that to the far fiercer and keener light which beats upon\nthe lives of the great heroes of progress? With all due deference to\nthe Poet Laureate, we conceive that kings and their kind have usually\nextended to them a charity which covers a multitude of their sins. The\nlate king of Italy, for instance, was said to have had \"the language of\na guardroom, the manners of a trooper, and the morals of a he-goat,\" yet\nat his death how tenderly his faults were dealt with by the loyal press,\nand how strongly were all his merits brought into relief. Our own royal\nSardanapalus, George the Fourth, although Leigh Hunt had the courage\nto describe him aright and went to the gaol for so doing, was styled by\nSociety \"the first gentleman in Europe.\" Yet Mazzini, Vittor Emmanuel's\ngreat contemporary, whose aims were high and noble as his life was pure,\ngot little else than abuse from this same loyal press; and the Society\nwhich adored George the Fourth charged Shelley himself with unspeakable\nvices equalled only by the native turpitude of his soul.\n\nPerhaps no man has suffered more from calumny than Thomas Paine. During\nhis lifetime, indeed, his traducers scarcely ever dared to vent their\nmalice in public, doubtless through fear of receiving a castigation\nfrom his vigorous and trenchant pen. But after his death they rioted\nin safety, and gave free play to the ingenuity of their malevolence.\nGradually their libels became current; thousands of people who knew\nalmost nothing of his life and less of his writings were persuaded that\nThomas Paine, \"the Infidel,\" was a monster of iniquity, in comparison\nwith whom Judas appeared a saint, and the Devil himself nearly white;\nand this estimate finally became a tradition, which the editors of\nillustrated religious papers and the writers of fraudulent \"Death-Bed\nScenes\" did their best to perpetuate. In such hands the labor of\nposthumous vilification might have remained without greatly troubling\nthose who feel an interest in Thomas Paine's honor through gratitude\nfor his work. The lowest scavengers of literature, who purvey religious\noffal to the dregs of orthodoxy, were better employed thus than in a\nreverse way, since their praise is so very much more dishonorable and\nappalling than their blame. But when other literary workmen of loftier\nrepute descend to the level of these, and help them in their villainous\ntask, it becomes advisable that some one who honors the memory of the\nman thus aspersed should interpose, and attempt that vindication which\nhe can no longer make for himself.\n\nIn reviewing Mr. Edward Smith's \"Life of Cobbett,\" our principal\nliterary paper, the Athen\u00e6um, in its number for January 11th, went out\nof its way to defame Paine's character. This is what it said:--\n\n\"A more despicable man than Tom Paine cannot easily be found among the\nready writers of the eighteenth century. He sold himself to the highest\nbidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. He wrote well;\nsometimes he wrote as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett. Neither excelled\nhim in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in\npopularity-hunting. He had the art, which was almost equal to genius, of\ngiving happy titles to his productions. When he denounced the British\nGovernment in the name of 'Common Sense' he found willing readers in the\nrebellious American colonists, and a rich reward from their grateful\nrepresentatives. When he wrote on behalf of the 'Rights of Man,' and in\nfurtherance of the 'Age of Reason,' he convinced thousands by his\ntitle-pages who were incapable of perceiving the inconclusiveness of his\narguments. His speculations have long since gone the way of all shams;\nand his charlatanism as a writer was not redeemed by his character as a\nman. Nothing could be worse than his private life; he was addicted to\nthe most degrading of vices. He was no hypocrite, however, and he cannot\nbe charged with showing that regard for appearances which constitutes\nthe homage paid by vice to virtue. Such a man was well qualified for\nearning notoriety by insulting Washington. Only a thorough-paced rascal\ncould have had the assurance to charge Washington with being\nunprincipled and unpatriotic. Certainly Mr. Smith has either much to\nlearn, or else he has forgotten much, otherwise he could not venture to\nsuggest the erection of a monument 'recording the wisdom and political\nvirtues of Thomas Paine.'\"\n\nNow we have in this tirade all the old charges, with a new one which\nthe critic has either furnished himself or derived from an obscure\nsource--namely, that Paine \"sold himself to the highest bidder.\" Let us\nexamine the last charge first. The critic curiously contradicts himself.\nPaine, he admits, could \"sometimes write as pointedly as Junius or\nCobbett,\" whose works sold enormously, and he had the art of devising\nhappy titles for his productions; yet, although he sold himself to the\nhighest bidder, he could be bought at a very low price! The fact is,\nPaine was never bought at all. His was not a hireling pen. Whatever he\nwrote he put his name to, and he never parted with the copyright of any\nof his works, lest the Government or some friend of despotism should\nprocure their suppression. He also published his writings at a\nridiculously low price, so low indeed that he lost by them instead of\ngaining. Of his \"Common Sense,\" that fine pamphlet which stirred the\nAmerican colonists to battle against their oppressors, not less than a\nhundred thousand copies were sold; yet he found himself finally indebted\nto his printer \u00a329 12s. 1d. Fifteen years later the English Government\ntried through the publisher to get the copyright of the \"Rights of Man;\"\nbut though a large sum was offered, Paine refused on principle to let it\npass out of his own hands. The first part of this work was published\nat a price which precluded any chance of profit; the publication of\nthe second part caused him to be tried and condemned for treason, the\npenalty of the law being escaped only by flight. All publication of his\nworks, whether political or religious, was afterwards illegal. Thousands\nof copies were circulated surreptitiously, or openly by men like Richard\nCarlile, who spent nine years in prison for his sale of prohibited\nbooks. But clearly Paine could derive no profit from this traffic in\nhis works, for he never set foot in England again. Thomas Paine wrote\nin order to spread his political and religious views, and for no other\npurpose. He was not a professional author, nor a professional critic,\nand never needed payment for his literary work. And assuredly he got\nnone. Let the _Athen\u00e6um_ critic inform the world to whom Paine sold\nhimself, or who ever paid him a penny for his writings. Until he does so\nwe shall believe that the author of \"Common Sense,\" the \"Rights of Man,\"\nand the \"Age of Reason,\" was honest in saying: \"In a great affair, where\nthe good of mankind is at stake, I love to work for nothing; and so\nfully am I under the influence of this principle, that I should lose\nthe spirit, the pride, and the pleasure of it, were I conscious that I\nlooked for reward.\"\n\nPopularity-hunting, to use the critic's graceless phrase, was Paine's\nnext fault; but as, according to the same authority, he was guilty in\nthis respect only in the same sense as Junius was, the burden of his\niniquity cannot be very great.\n\nAddiction to the most degrading of vices, is a charge difficult to\nconfute until we know specifically what vice is meant. Paine has been\naccused of drunkenness; but by whom? Not by his intimate acquaintances,\nwho would have detected his guilt, but by his enemies who were never in\nhis society, and therefore could know nothing of his habits. Cheetham,\nwho first disseminated this accusation, was a notorious libeller, and\nwas more than once compelled to make a public apology for his lies;\nbut he was a shameless creature, and actually in his \"Life\" of Paine\nresuscitated and amplified falsehoods for which he had tendered abject\napologies while his victim was alive. Even, however, if Paine had\nyielded to the seductions of strong drink, he should be judged by the\ncustom of his own age, and not that of ours.\n\nMr. Leslie Stephen does not rail against Boswell for his drinking\npowers; Burns is not outlawed for his devotion to John Barlycorn; Byron\nand Sheridan are not beyond pardon because they often went drunk to bed;\nand some of the greatest statesmen of last century and this, including\nPitt and Fox, are not considered the basest of men because they\nexercised that right which Major O'Gorman claims for all Irishmen--\"to\ndrink as much as they can carry.\" But no such plea is necessary, for\nPaine was not addicted to drink, but remarkably abstemious. Mr. Fellows,\nwith whom he lived for more than six months, said that he never saw him\nthe worse for drink. Dr. Manley said, \"while I attended him he never was\ninebriated.\" Colonel Burr said, \"he was decidedly temperate.\" And even\nMr. Jarvis, whom Cheetham cited as his authority for charging Paine with\ndrunkenness, authorised Mr. Vale, of New York, editor of the _Beacon_,\nto say that _Cheetham lied_. Amongst the public men who knew Paine\npersonally were Burke, Home Tooke, Priestley, Lord Edward Fitzgerald,\nDr. Moore, Jefferson, Washington, Volney and Condorcet: but none of\nthese ever hinted at his love of drink. The charge of drunkeness is a\nposthumous libel, circulated by a man who had publicly quarrelled with\nPaine, who had been obliged to apologise for former aspersions, and who\nafter Paine's death was prosecuted and _condemned_ for libelling a lady\nwhom he had accused of undue familiarity with the principal object of\nhis malice.\n\nFinding the charge of drunkenness unequivocally rebutted, Paine's\ntraducers advance that of licentiousness. But this is equally\nunsuccessful. The authority relied on is still Cheetham, who in turn\nborrowed from a no less disreputable source. A man named Carver had\nquarrelled with Paine over money matters; in fact, he had been obliged\nwith a loan which he forgot to pay, and like all base natures he showed\nhis gratitude to his benefactor, when no more favors could be expected,\nby hating and maligning him. A scurrilous letter written by this fellow\nfell into the hands of Cheetham, who elaborated it in his \"Life.\" It\nbroadly hinted that Madame Bonneville, the by no means youthful wife of\na Paris bookseller who had sheltered Paine when he was threatened with\ndanger in that city, was his paramour; for no other reason than that\nhe had in turn sheltered her when she repaired with her children to\nAmerica, after her home had been broken up by Buonaparte's persecution\nof her husband. This lady prosecuted Cheetham for libel, and a jury of\nAmerican citizens gave her a verdict and damages.\n\nHere the matter might rest, but we are inclined to urge another\nconsideration. No one of his many enemies ever accused Paine of\nlicentiousness in his virile manhood; and can we believe that he began\na career of licentiousness in his old age, when, besides the infirmities\nnatural to his time of life, he suffered dreadful tortures from an\ninternal abscess brought on by his confinement in the reeking dungeons of\nthe Luxembourg, which made life a terror and death a boon? Only lunatics\nor worse would credit such a preposterous story.\n\nThe _Athenoum_ critic alleges that Paine insulted Washington, and was\ntherefore a \"thorough-paced rascal.\" But he did nothing of the kind. He\nvery properly remonstrated with Washington for coolly allowing him to\nrot in a French dungeon for no crime except that he was a foreigner,\nwhen a word from the President of the United States, of which he was\na citizen, would have effected his release. Washington was aware of\nPaine's miserable plight, yet he forgot the obligations of friendship;\nand notwithstanding frequent letters from Munro, the American ambassador\nat Paris, he supinely suffered the man he had once delighted to honor to\nlanguish in wretchedness, filth, and disease. George Washington did much\nfor American Independence, but Thomas Paine did perhaps more, for his\nwritings animated the oppressed Colonists with an enthusiasm for liberty\nwithout which the respectable generalship of Washington might have\nbeen exerted in vain. The first President of the United States was, as\nCarlyle grimly says, \"no immeasurable man,\" and we conceive that Paine\nhad earned the right to criticise even him and his policy.\n\nEvery person is of course free to hold what opinion he pleases of\nPaine's writings. The _Athenoum_ critic thinks they have \"gone the way\nof all shams.\" He is wrong in fact, for they circulate very extensively\nstill. And he may also be wrong in his literary judgment. William\nHazlitt, whose opinion on any subject connected with literature is at\nleast as valuable as an _Athenoum_ critic's, ranked Paine very high as\na political writer, and affirmed of his \"Rights of Man\" that it was \"a\npowerful and explicit reply to Burke.\" But Hazlitt had read Paine, which\nwe suspect many glib critics of to-day have not; for we well remember\nhow puzzled some of them were to explain whence Shelley took the motto\n\"We pity the Plumage, but Forget the Dying Bird\" prefixed to his Address\nto the People on the death of the Princess Charlotte. It was taken, as\nthey should have known, from one of the finest passages of the \"Rights\nof Man.\" Critics, it is well known, sometimes write as Artemus Ward\nproposed to lecture on science, \"with an imagination untrammeled by the\nleast knowledge of the subject.\"\n\nLet us close this vindication of Paine by citing the estimate of him\nformed by Walt Whitman, an authority not to be sneered at now even\nby _Athenoum_ critics. In 1877 the Liberal League of Philadelphia\ncelebrated the 140th birthday of Thomas Paine, and a large audience was\ngathered by the announcement that Whitman would speak. The great\npoet, according to the _Index_ report, after telling how he had become\nintimate with some of Paine's friends thirty-five years before, went on\nto say:--\n\n\"I dare not say how much of what our Union is owning and enjoying\nto-day, its independence, its ardent belief in, and substantial practice\nof, Radical human rights, and the severance of its Government from all\necclesiastical and superstitious dominion--I dare not say how much of\nall this is owing to Thomas Paine; but I am inclined to think a good\nportion of it decidedly is. Of the foul and foolish fictions yet told\nabout the circumstances of his decease, the absolute fact is that, as\nhe lived a good life after its kind, he died calmly, philosophically, as\nbecame him. He served the embryo Union with the most precious service,\na service that every man, woman, and child in the thirty-eight States\nis to some extent receiving the benefit of to-day, and I for one here\ncheerfully and reverently throw one pebble on the cairn of his memory.\"\n\nWe are content to let the reader decide between Whitman and the\n_Athenoum_ critic in their respective estimates of him who wrote, and as\nwe think acted up to it--\"All the world is my country, and to do good my\nreligion.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE GOSPEL OF FREETHOUGHT.\n\n     (August, 1882.)\n\nChristians are perpetually crying that we destroy and never build up.\nNothing could be more false, for all negation has a positive side, and\nwe cannot deny error without affirming truth. But even if it were true,\nit would not lessen the value of our work. You must clear the ground\nbefore you can build, and plough before you sow. Splendor gives no\nstrength to an edifice whose foundations are treacherous, nor can a\nharvest be reaped from fields unprepared for the seed.\n\nFreethought is, in this respect, like a skilful physician, whose\nfunction it is to expel disease and leave the patient sound and well. No\nsick man claims that the doctor shall supply him with something in place\nof his malady. It is enough that the enemy of his health is driven out.\nHe is then in a position to act for himself. He has legs to walk with, a\nbrain to devise, and hands to execute his will. What more does he need?\nWhat more can he ask without declaring himself a weakling or a fool? So\nit is with superstition, the deadliest disease of the mind. Free-thought\ncasts it out, with its blindness and its terrors, and leaves the mind\nclear and free. All nature is then before us to study and enjoy.\nTruth shines on us with celestial light, Goodness smiles on our best\nendeavors, and Beauty thrills our senses and kindles our imagination\nwith the subtle magic of her charms.\n\nWhat a boon it is to think freely, to let the intellect dart out in\nquest of truth at every point of the compass, to feel the delight of\nthe chase and the gladness of capture! What a noble privilege to pour\ntreasures of knowledge into the crucible of the brain, and separate gold\nfrom the dross!\n\nThe Freethinker takes nothing on trust, if he can help it; he dissects,\nanalyses, and proves everything. Does this make him a barren sceptic?\nNot so. What he discards he knows to be worthless, and he also knows\nthe value of what he prizes. If one sweet vision turns out a mirage, how\ndoes it lessen our enjoyment at the true oasis, or shake our certitude\nof water and shade under the palm trees by the well?\n\nThe masses of men do not think freely. They scarcely think at all out of\ntheir round of business. They are trained not to think. From the cradle\nto the grave orthodoxy has them in its clutches. Their religion is\nsettled by priests, and their political and social institutions by\ncustom. They look askance at the man who dares to question what is\nestablished; not reflecting that all orthodoxies were once heterodox,\nthat without innovation there could never have been any progress, and\nthat if inquisitive fellows had not gone prying about in forbidden\nquarters ages ago, the world would still be peopled by savages dressed\nin nakedness, war-paint, and feathers. The mental stultification which\nbegins in youth reaches ossification as men grow older. Lack of thought\nends in incapacity to think.\n\nReal Freethought is impossible without education. The mind cannot\noperate without means or construct without materials. Theology opposes\neducation: Freethought supports it. The poor as well as the rich should\nshare in its blessings. Education is a social capital which should be\nsupplied to all. It enriches and expands. It not only furnishes the\nmind, but strengthens its faculties. Knowledge is power. A race of\ngiants could not level the Alps; but ordinary men, equipped with\nscience, bore through their base, and made easy channels for the\nintercourse of divided nations.\n\nGrowth comes with use, and power with exercise. Education makes both\npossible. It puts the means of salvation at the service of all, and,\nprevents the faculties from moving about _in vacuo_, and finally\nstanding still from sheer hopelessness. The educated man has a whole\nmagazine of appliances at his command, and his intellect is trained in\nusing them, while the uneducated man has nothing but his strength, and\nhis training is limited to its use.\n\nFreethought demands education for all. It claims a mental inheritance\nfor every child born into the world. Superstition demands ignorance,\nstupidity, and degradation. Wherever the schoolmaster is busy,\nFreethought prospers; where he is not found, superstition reigns supreme\nand levels the people in the dust.\n\nFree speech and Freethought go together. If one is hampered the other\nlanguishes. What is the use of thinking if I may not express my thought?\nWe claim equal liberty for all. The priest shall say what he believes\nand so shall the sceptic. No law shall protect the one and disfranchise\nthe other. If any man disapproves what I say, he need not hear me a\nsecond time. What more does he require? Let him listen to what he likes,\nand leave others to do the same. Let us have justice and fair play all\nround.\n\nFreethought is not only useful but laudable. It involves labor and\ntrouble. Ours is not a gospel for those who love the soft pillow of\nfaith. The Freethinker does not let his ship rot away in harbor; he\nspreads his canvas and sails the seas of thought. What though tempests\nbeat and billows roar? He is undaunted, and leaves the avoidance of\ndanger to the sluggard and the slave. He will not pay their price for\nease and safety. Away he sails with Vigilance at the prow and Wisdom at\nthe helm. He not only traverses the ocean highways, but skirts unmapped\ncoasts and ventures on uncharted seas. He gathers spoils in every zone,\nand returns with a rich freight that compensates for all hazards. Some\nday or other, you say, he will be shipwrecked and lost. Perhaps. All\nthings end somehow. But if he goes down he will die like a man and not\nlike a coward, and have for his requiem the psalm of the tempest and the\nanthem of the waves.\n\nDoubt is the beginning of wisdom. It means caution, independence,\nhonesty and veracity. Faith means negligence, serfdom, insincerity and\ndeception. The man who never doubts never thinks. He is like a straw\nin the wind or a waif on the sea. He is one of the helpless, docile,\nunquestioning millions, who keep the world in a state of stagnation,\nand serve as a fulcrum for the lever of despotism. The stupidity of the\npeople, says Whitman, is always inviting the insolence of power.\n\nBuckle has well said that scepticism is \"the necessary antecedent of\nall progress.\" Without it we should still be groping in the night of the\nDark Ages. The very foundations of modern science and philosophy were\nlaid on ground which was wrested from the Church, and every stone\nwas cemented with the blood of martyrs. As the edifice arose the\nsharpshooters of faith attacked the builders at every point, and they\nstill continue their old practice, although their missiles can hardly\nreach the towering heights where their enemies are now at work.\n\nAstronomy was opposed by the Church because it unsettled old notions of\nthe earth being the centre of the universe, and the sun, moon, and stars\nmere lights stuck in the solid firmament, and worked to and fro like\nsliding panels. Did not the Bible say that General Joshua commanded the\nsun to stand still, and how could this have happened unless it moved\nround the earth? And was not the earth certainly flat, as millions of\nflats believed it to be? The Catholic Inquisition forced Galileo to\nrecant, and Protestant Luther called Copernicus \"an old fool.\"\n\nChemistry was opposed as an impious prying into the secrets of God. It\nwas put in the same class with sorcery and witchcraft, and punished\nin the same way. The early chemists were considered as agents of the\nDevil, and their successors are still regarded as \"uncanny\" in the more\nignorant parts of Christendom. Roger Bacon was persecuted by his brother\nmonks; his testing fire was thought to have come from the pit, and the\nexplosion of his gunpowder was the Devil vanishing in smoke and smell.\nEven at the end of last century, the clergy-led mob of Birmingham who\nwrecked Priestley's house and destroyed his apparatus, no doubt felt\nthat there was a close connexion between chemistry and infidelity.\n\nPhysiology and Medicine were opposed on similar grounds. We were all\nfearfully and wonderfully made, and the less the mystery was looked into\nthe better. Disease was sent by God for his own wise ends, and to resist\nit was as bad as blasphemy. Every discovery and every reform was decried\nas impious. Men now living can remember how the champions of faith\ndenounced the use of anaesthetics in painful labor as an interference\nwith God's curse on the daughters of Eve.\n\nGeology was opposed because it discredited Moses, as though that famous\nold Jew had watched the deposit of every stratum of the earth's crust.\nIt was even said that fossils had been put underground by God to puzzle\nthe wiseacres, and that the Devil had carried shells to the hilltops for\nthe purpose of deluding men to infidelity and perdition. Geologists were\nanathematised from the pulpits and railed at by tub-thumpers. They were\nobliged to feel their way and go slowly. Sir Charles Lyell had to keep\nback his strongest conclusions for at least a quarter of a century, and\ncould not say all he thought until his head was whitened by old age and\nhe looked into the face of Death.\n\nBiology was opposed tooth and nail as the worst of all infidelity. It\nexposed Genesis and put Moses out of court. It destroyed all special\ncreation, showed man's kinship with other forms of life, reduced Adam\nand Eve to myths, and exploded the doctrine of the Fall. Darwin was for\nyears treated as Antichrist, and Huxley as the great beast. All that is\nbeing changed, thanks to the sceptical spirit. Darwin's corpse is buried\nin Westminster Abbey, but his ideas are undermining all the churches and\ncrumbling them into dust.\n\nThe gospel of Freethought brands persecution as the worst crime against\nhumanity. It stifles the spirit of progress and strangles its pioneers.\nIt eliminates the brave, the adventurous and the aspiring, and leaves\nonly the timid, the sluggish and the grovelling. It removes the lofty\nand spares the low. It levels all the hills of thought and makes an\nintellectual flatness. It drenches all the paths of freedom with blood\nand tears, and makes earth the vestibule of hell.\n\nPersecution is the right arm of priestcraft. The black militia of\ntheology are the sworn foes of Freethought. They represent it as the sin\nagainst the Holy Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness in this world\nor the next. When they speak of the Holy Ghost they mean themselves.\nFreethought is a crime against _them_. It strips off the mystery that\ninvests their craft, and shows them as they really are, a horde of\nbandits who levy black mail on honest industry, and preach a despot in\nheaven in order to main-tain their own tyranny on earth.\n\nThe gospel of Freethought would destroy all priesthoods. Every man\nshould be his own priest. If a professional soul-doctor gives you wrong\nadvice and leads you to ruin, he will not be damned for you He will see\nyou so first. We must take all responsibility, and we should also take\nthe power. Instead of putting our thinking out, as we put our washing,\nlet us do it at home. No man can do another's thinking for him. What is\nthought in the originator is only acquiescence in the man who takes it\nat secondhand.\n\nIf we do our own thinking in religion we shall do it in everything else.\nWe reject authority and act for ourselves. Spiritual and temporal power\nare brought under the same rule. They must justify themselves or go. The\nFreethinker is thus a politician and a social reformer. What a Christian\n_may_ be he _must_ be. Freethinkers are naturally Radicals. They are\nalmost to a man on the side of justice freedom and progress. The Tories\nknow this, and hence they seek to suppress us by the violence of unjust\nlaw. They see that we are a growing danger to every kind of privilege, a\nmenace to all the idle classes who live in luxury on the sweat and labor\nof others--the devouring drones who live on the working bees.\n\nThe gospel of Freethought teaches us to distinguish between the knowable\nand the unknowable. We cannot fathom the infinite \"mystery of the\nuniverse\" with our finite plummet, nor see aught behind the veil of\ndeath. Here is our appointed province:\n\n    \"This world which is the world\n    Of all of us, and where in the end\n    We find our happiness or not at all.\"\n\nLet us make the best of this world and take our chance of any other. If\nthere is a heaven, we dare say it will hold all honest men. If it will\nnot, those who go elsewhere will at least be in good company.\n\nOur salvation is here and now. It is certain and not contingent. We need\nnot die before we realise it. Ours is a gospel, and the only gospel,\nfor this side of the grave. The promises of theology cannot be made good\ntill after death; ours are all redeemable in this life.\n\nWe ask men to acknowledge realities and dismiss fictions. When you have\nsifted all the learned sermons ever preached, you will find very little\ngood grain. Theology deals with dreams and phantasies, and gives no\nguidance to practical men. The whole truth of life may be summed up in\na few words. Happiness is the only good, suffering the only evil, and\nselfishness the only sin. And the whole duty of man may be expressed\nin one sentence, slightly altered from Voltaire--Learn what is true in\norder to do what is right. If a man can tell you anything about these\nmatters, listen to him; if not, turn a deaf ear, and let him preach to\nthe wind.\n\nThe only noble things in this world are great hearts and great brains,\nThere is no virtue in a starveling piety which turns all beauty into\nugliness and shrivels up every natural affection. Let the heart beat\nhigh with courage and enterprise, and throb with warm passion. Let the\nbrain be an active engine of thought, imagination and will. The gospel\nof sorrow has had its day, and the time has come for the gospel of\ngladness. Let us live out our lives to the full, radiating joy on all\nin our own circle, and diffusing happiness through the grander circle\nof humanity, until at last we retire from the banquet of life, as others\nhave done before us, and sink in eternal repose.\n\n\n\n\nFREETHOUGHT IN CURRENT LITERATURE.\n\n     [A Paper read at the Annual Conference of the National\n     Secular Society, in the Co-operative Hall, Bury, June 5th,\n     1881.]\n\nWhen I was invited to read a paper at this Conference, I thought\nthat, as editor of the Freethinker, I ought to say something about\nFreethonght. And as the deliberations of this Conference are mostly on\npractical matters, it occurred to me that I had better select a subject\nof less immediate though not of insignificant interest. So I resolved to\naddress you on Freethonght in Current Literature.\n\nI have said that this subject, if not practical and urgent, is assuredly\nnot unimportant. The power of literature over men's minds cannot be\nestimated too highly. Science is a tremendous force, but its greatest\ninfluence is exercised over the human mind when it quits the merely\npractical task of ministering to our material desires, and seeks to\nmould our moral and spiritual conceptions of our position and destiny\nin the universe. To do this it must address us through the medium of\nliterature. Art also is a great force, more especially in countries\nwhich have not been subjected, like ours, to the bondage of Puritanism.\nBut art has hitherto appealed to a restricted circle, although that\ncircle is rapidly widening in our own age. The greatest, most permanent,\nand most universal force is literature. Raphael and Michael Angelo have\nnot influenced the world so profoundly as Shakespeare and Dante; while\nso many artistic achievements of antiquity are lost or half decayed,\nits literary masterpieces still survive with undiminished freshness and\ncharm; and while the most eminent works even of contemporary artists\nare seen only occasionally by a few, the most eminent writings of\nthe world's master minds may and do become a household possession to\nthousands who move in the humblest spheres of life.\n\nIn these cosmopolitan days the Freethinker and Humanitarian naturally\nlooks beyond his own country into the great world, which is at present\ndivided by national and other barriers, but which will in time become\nthe home of one all-embracing family. And I confess that I was strongly\ntempted to trace the workings of the spirit of Freethought as far as\nI could in the general literature of Europe. But I soon recognised the\nnecessity of limiting myself to the manifestations of that subtle and\npervasive spirit in the current literature of our English tongue.\n\nWhen the present century commenced Europe was stirred to the utter\ndepths by that great French Revolution which marked a new epoch in the\nworld's history. The revolutionary wave surged across the western world,\nand passed over England as well as other countries. Some thought\nthe huge eclipse of social order which accompanied it the herald of\napproaching night, and others thought it the dawn of a new day; but none\nwere indifferent. There was an intense excitement of radical passions\nand desires, a quickening of all the springs of life. This produced a\nblossoming of our literature such as had not been witnessed since the\ngreat Elizabethan age, and then, as before, Free-thought mixed with\nthe vital sap. Of the long array of post-revolutionary names I select\nthree--Thomas Paine, who represented the keen and restless common-sense\nof Freethought; William Godwin, who represented its calmer philosophy;\nand Shelley, who represented its lofty hopes and soaring aspirations.\nGodwin has almost faded into a name; Paine's great work is nearly done,\nfor a deeper and more scientific scepticism has possessed itself of the\nfield in which he labored; but Shelley has a message for generations\nyet unborn. He emerges as the supreme figure destined to immortality\nof fame. All great and noble and beautiful qualities cohere in him, the\n\"poet of poets and purest of men.\" And he is ours. Byron, with all his\nsplendid energy and terrible scorn, quailed before the supreme problems\nof life; but Shelley faced them with a courage all the greater because\nit was unconscious, and casting aside all superstitious dreams and\nillusory hopes, yearned prophetically towards the Future, when freedom,\ntruth and love shall supersede all other trinities, and realise here on\nearth that Paradise which theologians have only promised in a world to\ncome.\n\nA Shelley cultus has grown up during recent years, and many of our most\ngifted writers reverently bow themselves before him. I have only to\nmention such names as Browning, Swinburne, and Rossetti to show the\nintellectual rank of his worshippers. Their number increases every year,\nand it is touching to witness the avidity with which they seize on all\nnew facts relating to him, whether the record of some episode in his\nlife, a reported conversation, or a scrap of writing from his hand.\n\nFrom the Shelley and Byron period to the fresh revolutionary outburst\nof 1848 there was a lull in England as well as elsewhere. Several great\npolitical reforms were achieved in the interval. A Reform Bill was\ncarried. Catholics and Jews were emancipated, and freedom and cheapness\nof the press were won by the untameable courage of men like Carlile,\nHetherington, Lovett, and Watson. But quietude reigned in the higher\nspheres of literature. The age was eminently respectable, and it\nacclaimed the highly respectable Wordsworth as, the prophet divinely\ninspired to teach men how to rest and be thankful.\n\nBut during that interval of apathy and respectability, Science was\nslowly gathering strength and making conquests, in preparation for the\ntime when she might plant her feet firmly on the solid ground she had\nwon, and challenge Theology to mortal combat. Geology and Biology,\nin especial, were getting themselves ready to overthrow the fables of\nGenesis and destroy its doctrines of special creation. And one is glad\nto admit that they have completely succeeded at last. Professor Huxley\ndeclares that he is not acquainted with any man of science or properly\ninstructed person who believes that Adam and Eve were the first parents\nof mankind, or that we have all descended from the eight persons\nwho superintended that wonderful floating menagerie which survived a\nuniversal deluge less than five thousand years ago. And all the clergy\ncan say in reply is that Professor Huxley is not endowed with that\ntheological faculty which enables them to perceive in the language of\nScripture a meaning which is quite undiscernible to the eyes of common\nsense.\n\nAnother influence was at work during that interval. Mainly through\nCarlyle, the treasures of German literature were opened up to English\nreaders. The greatest German writers, from Leasing, G\u00f6ethe, and Schiller\nto Fichte, Richter, and Heine, were outrageous Freethinkers compared\nwith our own respectable and orthodox writers, and their influence soon\nmade itself evident in the tolerance and courage with which English\nauthors began to treat the great problems of morality and religion.\nGerman scholarship, too, slowly crept among us. Its Biblical criticism\nshowed us the utter inadequacy of evidential works like Paley's, and\nmade us see that the Christian Scriptures would have to be viewed in a\nvery different light and studied in a very different spirit. To estimate\nthe extent of this change, we have only to place Paley's \"Evidences of\nChristianity\" beside such a work as \"Supernatural Religion.\" The\ngulf between these works is enormous; and it is notable that the more\nscientific and rigorous is the criticism of the New Testament books,\nthe more heterodox are the conclusions reached. Even Scotland has been\ninvaded by this German influence, and it now affords us the laughable\nspectacle of a number of grave ministers pursuing as a damnable heretic\na man like Dr. Robertson Smith, whose only crime is having stated about\nthe Bible nothing new, but what every scholar in Europe knows to be\nadmitted and indisputable. These solemn ministers of the old creed are\ndetermined to keep the deluge of what they call \"German infidelity\" from\nflooding the valleys and mounting the hillsides of Scotland; but their\nheresy-hunts are just as efficacious against what they so piously dread\nas Mrs. Partington's mop against the mighty onrush of Atlantic rollers.\n\nWith the revolutionary movement of '48 came a fresh impulse from France.\nThe great evangel of '89 had not perished; it was only in abeyance; and\nagain it burst upon Europe with its words of fire. We all know how the\nRepublic which was then established was soon suppressed in blood by the\ngang of adventurers presided over by Napoleon the Little. But the day of\nretribution came, and the empire went the way of all tyrannies. On its\nruins the Republic has been established anew, and now it reckons in\nits service and among its champions the best intellects and the noblest\ncharacters in France; while the masses of the people, taught by the\nbitter lessons of adversity, are also content to enjoy the benefits of\nordered liberty and peaceful progress under its benign sway.\n\nNow French progress has always been a question of ideas no less than of\nmaterial advantage. The great democratic leaders in France have nearly\nall been avowed Freethinkers. They have separated themselves alike\nfrom \"the blood on the hands of the king and the lie at the lips of the\npriest,\" being perfectly assured that outward freedom in politics is\nin the long run impossible without inward freedom of thought. The\nchief statesman in France, M. Gambetta, has publicly declared himself a\ndisciple of Voltaire, and neither at the marriages nor at the funerals\nof his friends does he ever enter the doors of a church. He stays\noutside and quietly allows those who desire it to go in and listen to\nthe mumbling of the priest.\n\nMy purpose, however, being literary and not political, I must recur\nto my remark that a fresh impulse came to us from France after the\nrevolution of '48. Lamartine at first exercised considerable influence\nhere, but gradually Victor Hugo's star ascended, and from the moment it\nreached the zenith until now, he has been accounted the supreme poet of\nFrance, and the greatest contemporary evangelist of the ideas of '89. He\nis a Freethinker as well as a Republican; and it was inevitable that\nthe younger school of writers in England, who acknowledge him as a lofty\nmaster, should drink from his inexhaustible spring the living waters of\nDemocracy and Freethought.\n\nFrench influence on our very recent literature is evident in such\nworks as Mr. John Morley's Studies on Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot,\nand Condorcet; Mr. Christie's monumental Life of Etienne Dolet, the\nFreethought martyr; and Mr. Parton's new Life of Voltaire; all of which\ndemand and will amply requite our attention.\n\nSuch are the influences which have conspired to shape the literary\nactivities of the generation in which we live. Now Freethought, like a\nsubtle essence, penetrates everywhere. Every book betrays its presence,\nand even the periodical literature of our age is affected by it. The\nArchbishop of Canterbury laments that Christian men cannot introduce\nthe most respectable magazines into their homes without the risk of\npoisoning the minds of their families with heretical ideas.\n\nOne of the signs that Freethought had begun to leaven the educated\nclasses was the publication of the famous \"Essays and Reviews.\" The\nheresy of that book was exceedingly small, but it roused a great storm\nin the religious world and led to more than one clerical prosecution.\nAnother sign was the publication of Colenso's learned work on the\nPentateuch. This hard-working Colonial Bishop was denounced as a heretic\nby the idler home Bishops, and Ruskin has said that they would have\nliked to burn Colenso alive, and make Ludgate Hill easier for the\nomnibuses with the cinders of him. An antagonist very different from the\nBishops was Mr. Matthew Arnold, who severely censured Colenso's whole\nmethod of criticism, as a handling of religious questions in an\nirreligious spirit. Mr. W. R. Greg admirably defended the Bishop, and\nthe controversy ended in a drawn battle.\n\nBut what has happened since? The same Matthew Arnold who censured\nColenso has himself published two remarkable works on \"Literature and\nDogma\" and \"God and the Bible,\" written it is true on a different plan\nfrom Colenso's, but containing a hundred times more heresy than the\nBishop crammed into all his big volumes. For Mr. Arnold deprecates\nthe idea of a personal god, likens the Christian Trinity to three Lord\nShaftesburys, and says that the Bible miracles must all be given up\nwithout reservation. All the positive religion he leaves us is the\nbelief in \"An eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness,\" which\nis about as nebulous a creed as ever was preached. Now Mr. Arnold is not\nan insignificant person. He is recognised as a past-master of English\nletters, a ripe scholar, a fine poet, and an exquisite critic. When such\na man carries destructive criticism to its utmost limits, we may well\ncongratulate ourselves on a signal triumph of Freethought. And we may\nalso find comfort in the fact that nobody thinks of flinging a stone\nat Mr. Arnold for his heresy. By-and-by the censors of religion in the\npress will cease to throw stones at the Freethought teachers among the\nmasses of the people, who only put into homlier English and publish in a\ncheaper form the sentiments and ideas which Mr. Arnold expresses for the\neducated classes at a higher price and in a loftier style.\n\nDuring the winter a gap was made in the front rank of English literature\nby the deaths of Carlyle and George Eliot. Neither of these great\nwriters was orthodox. Carlyle was a Freethinker to the extent of\ndiscarding Christian supernaturalism. Very early in his life he told\nEdward Irving that he did not, nor was it likely he ever would, regard\nChristianity as he did. We all remember, too, his scornful references to\nHebrew Old Clothes, and his fierce diatribes against the clergy who,\nhe said, went about with strange gear on their heads, and underneath it\nsuch a theory of the universe as he, for one, was thankful to have no\nconcern with. In the \"Latter-Day Pamphlets\" he likened Christianity to\na great tree, sprung from the seed of Nazareth, and since fed by the\nopulences of fifty generations; which now is perishing at the root, and\nsways to and fro ever farther and farther from the perpendicular; and\nwhich in the end must come down, and leave to those who found shelter\nbeneath it and thought it infinite, a wholesome view of the upper\neternal lights. And his contempt for controversial or dogmatic theology\nmay be gauged by his reply to one who asked him whether he was a\nPantheist. \"No,\" said Carlyle, \"never was; nor a Pot-Theist either.\"\n\nGeorge Eliot was notoriously a Freethinker. Early in her literary career\nshe translated Strauss and Feuerback into English, and through all her\nnovels there runs a profound Secular spirit. Among her friends she\nwas well known to be a Positivist; and though her creed held forth no\npromise of personal life beyond the grave, she found inspiration and\ncomfort in the thought that Humanity would advance after she was gone,\nthat though she died the race was practically immortal. Her mind was\nthoroughly imbued with the scientific spirit, and her writings give some\nconception of the way in which the Evolution theory affected a mind,\nfortified by culture and abundant common sense against the crudities of\nenthusiasm. The doctrine of Evolution did not fill her with despair;\non the contrary, it justified and strengthened her ardent hopes for the\nfuture of mankind.\n\nMany other novelists betray a strong spirit of Freethought.\n\nIt pervades all George Meredith's later writings, and is still more\nconspicuous in Mrs. Lynn Linton's \"True History of Joshua Davidson\" and\nher powerful \"Under which Lord?\" the hero-husband of that story being\nan Agnostic gentleman who founds a workmen's institute and delivers\nFreethought lectures in it.\n\nAlmost all the young school of poets are Freethinkers. Browning, our\ngreatest, and Tennyson, our most popular, belong to a generation that\nis past. Mr. Swinburne is at the head of the new school, and he is\na notorious heretic. He never sings more loftily, or with stronger\npassion, or with finer thought, than when he arraigns and denounces\npriestcraft and its superstitions before the bar of humanity and truth.\n\nThe reception of Mr. Thomsons poems and essays affords another sign of\nthe progress of Freethought. This gentleman for many years contributed\nto secular journals under the initials of \"B. V.\" He is a pronounced\nAtheist, and makes no concealment of it in his poems. Yet, while a few\ncritics have expressed horror at his heresy, the majority have treated\nit as extremely natural in an educated thoughtful man, and confined\nthemselves to the task of estimating the genius he has put into his\nwork.\n\nI must now draw to a close. Freethought, I hold, is an omnipresent\nactive force in the English literature of to-day. It appears alike in\nthe greatest works of scholarship, in the writings of men of science,\nin the songs of poets, in the productions of novelists, in the most\nrespectable magazines, and in the multitudinous daily press. It is\nurgent and aggressive, and tolerates no restraint. It indicates the\nprogress we have made towards that time when the mind of man shall play\nfreely on every subject, when no question shall be thought too sacred\nto be investigated, when reason shall be the sovereign arbiter of all\ndisputes, when priestly authority shall have perished, when every man's\nthought shall decide his own belief, and his conscience determine the\nway in which he shall walk.\n\n\n\n\nDEAN STANLEY'S LATEST.\n\n     (August, 1880.)\n\nAt one of Charles Lamb's delightful Wednesday evenings Coleridge had,\nas usual, consumed more than his fair share of time in talking of some\n\"regenerated\" orthodoxy. Leigh Hunt, who was one of the listeners,\nmanifested his surprise at the prodigality and intensity of the poet's\nreligious expressions, and especially at his always speaking of Jesus\nas \"our Savior.\" Whereupon Lamb, slightly exhilarated by a glass of\ngooseberry cordial, stammered out, \"Ne--ne--never mind what Coleridge\nsays; he's full of fun.\" This jocular and irreverent criticism is\nperhaps, after all, the most pertinent that can be passed on the\nutterances of this school of \"regenerated orthodoxy.\" Coleridge, who had\nunbounded genius, and was intellectually capable of transforming British\nphilosophy, went on year after year maundering about his \"sumject\"\nand \"omject,\" mysteriously alluding to his great projected work on\nthe Logos, and assuring everybody that he knew a way of bringing all\nascertained truth within the dogmas of the Church of England. His\npupil, Maurice, wasted a noble intellect (as Mill says, few of his\ncontemporaries had so much intellect to waste) in the endeavor to\ndemonstrate that the Thirty-Nine Articles really anticipated all the\nextremest conclusions of modern thought; afflicting himself perpetually,\nas has been well said, with those \"forty stripes save one.\" And now\nwe have Dean Stanley, certainly a much smaller man than Maurice, and\ninfinitely smaller than Coleridge, continuing the traditions of the\nschool, of which let us hope he will be the last teacher. What his\ntheology precisely is no mortal can determine. He subscribes the\ndoctrines of the Church of England, but then he interprets them in an\nesoteric sense; that is, of course, in a Stanleyan sense; for when the\nletter of doctrine is left for its occult meaning every man \"runs\" a\nprivate interpretation of his own. The _Nineteenth Century_ for August\ncontains a characteristic specimen of his exegesis. It is entitled \"The\nCreed of the Early Christians,\" but is really a sermon on the Trinity,\nwhich doubtless has been preached at Westminster. We shall examine its\npeculiarities and try to reach its meaning; a task by no means easy, and\none which we could pardon anyone for putting aside with Lamb's remark,\n\"It's only his fun.\"\n\nDean Stanley has a new theory of the Trinity, partly deduced from other\nmystics, and partly constructed on the plan of the negro who explained\nthat his wooden doll was made \"all by myself, out of my own head.\" God\nthe Father, in this as in other theories, comes first: not that he is\nolder or greater than the other persons, for they are all three coequal\nand co\u00ebternal; but because you must have a first for the sake of\nenumeration, or else the most blessed Trinity would be like the\nIrishman's little pig who ran about so that there was no counting him.\nThere is also another reason. God the Father corresponds to _Natural_\nReligion, which of course has priority in the religious development\nof mankind; coming before _Revealed_ Religion, to which God the Son\ncorresponds, and still more before _Spiritual_ Religion to which\ncorresponds the Holy Ghost.\n\n\"We look round the physical world; we see indications of order, design,\nand good will towards the living creatures which animate it. _Often,\nit is true, we cannot trace any such design_; but, whenever we can, the\nimpression upon us is the sense of a Single, Wise, Beneficent Mind,\nthe same now that it was ages before the appearance of man--the same in\nother parts of the Universe as it is in our own. And in our own hearts\nand consciences we feel an instinct corresponding to this--a voice, a\nfaculty, that seems to refer us to a higher power than ourselves, and\nto point to some Invisible Sovereign Will, like to that which we see\nimpressed on the natural world. And further, the more we think of the\nSupreme, the more we try to imagine what his feelings are towards\nus, the more our idea of him becomes fixed as in the one simple,\nall-embracing word that he is _Our Father_.\"\n\nThe words we have italicised say that design cannot _always_ be traced\nin nature. We should like to know where it can _ever_ be. Evolution\nshows that the design argument puts the cart before the horse. Natural\nSelection, as Dr. Schmidt appositely remarks, accounts for adaptation as\na _result_ without requiring the supposition of design as a _cause_. And\nif you cannot deduce God from the animate world, you are not likely\nto deduce him from the inanimate. Dean Stanley himself quotes some\nremarkable words from Dr. Newman's _Apologia_--\"The being of a god is as\ncertain to me as the certainty of my own existence. Yet when I look\nout of myself into the world of men, I see a sight which fills me with\nunspeakable distress. _The world of men seems simply to give the lie to\nthat great truth_ of which my whole being is so full. If I looked into\na mirror and did not see my face, I should experience the same sort of\ndifficulty that actually comes upon me when _I look into this living\nbusy world and see no reflection of its Creator._\" How, asks the Dean,\nis this difficulty to be met? Oh, he replies, | we must turn to God the\nSon in the person of Jesus Christ, and his utterances will supplement\nand correct the uncertain sounds of nature; and then there is the Holy\nGhost to finally supply all omissions, and clear up all difficulties.\nNow to our mind this is simply intellectual thimble-rigging. Or rather\ndoes it not suggest the three-card trick? One card is useless, two cards\nare unsafe, but with three cards to shuffle you are almost sure to\nwin. Dr. Newman gets his God through intuition; he maintains that\nthe existence of God is a primary fact of consciousness, and entirely\ndeclines the impossible task of proving it from the ph\u00e6nomena of nature.\nDean Stanley should do the same. It is not honest to employ an argument\nand then shirk all the difficulties it raises by resorting to the\ntheological three-card trick, which confounds instead of satisfying the\nspectator, while emptying his mental pockets of the good cash of common\nsense.\n\nThe Dean's treatment of God the Son is amusing. He writes of Jesus\nChrist as though he were a principle instead of a person. \"The\nMahometan,\" he says, \"_rightly_ objects to the introduction of the\npaternal and filial relations into the idea of God, when they are\ninterpreted in the _gross and literal sense_. But in the moral spiritual\nsense it is true that the kindness, tenderness and wisdom we find in\nJesus Christ is the reflection of the same kindness, tenderness and\nwisdom which we recognise in the governance of the universe.\" This may\nbe called mysticism, but we think it moonshine. Gross and literal sense,\nforsooth! Why, was not Jesus Christ a man, a most literal fact, \"gross\nas a mountain, open, palpable?\" Dean Stanley approves the Mahometan's\nobjection, and yet he knows full well that it contravenes a fundamental\ndogma of the Christian Church, and is accounted a most damnable heresy.\nWhy this paltering with us in a double sense? To our mind downright\nblatant orthodoxy, which is at least honest if not subtle, is preferable\nto this hybrid theology which attempts to reconcile contradictions\nin order to show respect to truth while sticking to the flesh-pots of\nerror, and evades all difficulties by a patent and patently dishonest\nmethod of \"interpretation.\"\n\nQuoting Goethe's \"Wilhelm Meister,\" Dean Stanley tells us that one great\nbenefit traceable to God the Son is the recognition of \"humility and\npoverty, mockery and despising, wretchedness and suffering, as divine.\"\nWell, if these things are divine, the sooner we all become devilish the\nbetter. Nobody thinks them divine when they happen to himself; on the\ncontrary, he cries out lustily against them. But it is a different\nmatter when they happen to others. Then the good Christian considers\nthem divine. How easily, says a French wit, we bear other people's\ntroubles! Undistracted by personal care, pious souls contemplate with\nserene resignation the suffering of their neighbors, and acknowledge in\nthem the chastening hand of a Divine Father.\n\nGod the Holy Ghost represents _Spiritual_ religion: the Father\nrepresents God in Nature, the Son represents God in History, and \"the\nHoly Ghost represents to us God in our own hearts and spirits and\nconsciences.\" Here be truths! An illustration is given. Theodore Parker,\nwhen a boy, took up a stone to throw at a tortoise in a pond, but felt\nhimself restrained by something within him; and that something, as his\nmother told him, was the voice of God, or in other words the Holy Ghost.\nNow if the Holy Ghost is required to account for every kind impulse of\nboys and men, there is required also an Unholy Ghost to account for all\nour unkind impulses. That is, a place in theology must be found for\nthe Devil. The equilateral triangle of theology must be turned into a\nsquare, with Old Nick for the fourth side. But Dean Stanley does not\nlike the Devil; he deems him not quite respectable enough for polite\nsociety. Let him, then, give up the Holy Ghost too, for the one is the\ncorrelative of the other.\n\n\"It may be,\" says the Dean, after interpreting the Trinity, \"that the\nBiblical words in some respects fall short of this high signification.\"\nWhat, God's own language inferior to that of the Dean of Westminster?\nSurely this is strange arrogance, unless after all \"it's only his fun.\"\nPerhaps that is how we should take it. Referring to some sacred pictures\nin the old churches of the East on Mount Athos, intended to represent\nthe doctrine of the Trinity, the Dean says that standing on one side the\nspectator sees only Christ on the Cross, standing on the other he sees\nonly the Holy Dove, while standing in front he sees only the Eternal\nFather. Very admirable, no doubt. But there is a more admirable picture\ndescribed by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his \"Study of Sociology,\" which\ngraphically represents the doctrine of the Trinity in the guise of three\npersons trying to stand in one pair of boots!\n\nGoethe is cited as a Christian, a believer in the Trinity. Doubtless the\nDean forgets his bitter epigram to the effect that he found four things\ntoo hard to put up with, and as hateful as poison and serpents; namely,\ntobacco, garlic, bugs, and the _Cross_. Heine also is pressed into\nservice, and an excellent prose translation of one of his poems is\ngiven, wherein he celebrates the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God. But Dean\nStanley has read his Heine to little purpose if he imagines that this\nradiant and splendid soldier of progress meant by the Spirit of God the\nthird person of the Christian Trinity. Heine was no Christian, and the\nvery opposite of a theologian. We might translate passages of scathing\nirony on the ascetic creed of the Cross from the _De L'Allemagne_, but\nspace does not admit. A few of Heine's last words must do instead. To\nAdolph Stahr he said: \"For the man in good health Christianity is an\nunserviceable religion, with its resignation and one-sided precepts.\nFor the sick man, however, I assure you it is a very good religion.\"\nTo Alfred Meissner: \"When health is used up, money used up, _and sound\nhuman sense used up_, Christianity begins.\" Once, while lying on\nhis mattress-grave, he said with a sigh: \"If I could even get out on\ncrutches, do you know whither I would go? Straight to church.\" And when\nhis hearer looked incredulous, he added: \"Most decidedly to church.\n_Where else should one go with crutches?_\" Such exquisite and mordant\nirony is strange indeed in a defender of the holy and blessed Trinity.\n\nDean Stanley's peroration runs thus:--\"Wherever we are taught to know\nand understand the real nature of the world in which our lot is cast,\nthere is a testimony, however humble, to the name of the Father;\nwherever we are taught to know and admire the highest and best of human\nexcellence, there is a testimony to the name of the Son: wherever there\nis implanted in us a presence of freedom, purity and love, there is a\ntestimony to the name of the Holy Ghost.\" Very fine, no doubt; also\nvery soporific. One is inclined to mutter a sleepy Amen. If this\npassage means anything at all it implies that all who know truth, admire\nexcellence, and have any share in freedom and virtue, are testators\nto the names of Father, Son and Holy Ghost; so that many Atheists are\nTrinitarians without knowing it. \"In Christianity,\" says the Dean, \"no\nthing is of real concern except that which makes us wiser and better.\"\nThat is precisely what the sceptic says, yet for that coroners reject\nhis service on juries, and rowdy Christians try to keep him out of\nParliament when he has a legal right to enter. But the Dean adds:\n\"Everything which does make us wiser and better is the very thing which\nChristianity intends.\" That is, Christianity means just what you like to\nfind in it. How can a man of Dean Stanley's eminence and ability\nwrite such dishonest trash? Must we charitably, though with a touch of\nsarcasm, repeat Lamb's words of Coleridge--\"Never mind; it's only his\nfun?\"\n\n\n\n\nGOD AND THE QUEEN.\n\n     (March, 1882.)\n\nThe Queen is now safely lodged at Mentone. Although-the political\noutlook is not very bright, there is pretty sure to be a good solid\nmajority to vote a dowry for Prince Leopold's bride; and so long as\nroyalty is safe it does not much matter what becomes of the people. That\ndreadful Bradlaugh is gagged; _he_ cannot open his mouth in the House\nof Commons against perpetual pensions or royal grants. The interests of\nmonarchy are in no immediate peril, and so the Queen is off to Mentone.\n\nNow she is gone, and the loyal hubbub has subsided, it is just the time\nto consider her late \"providential escape\" from the bullet which was\nnever fired at her.\n\nWhat is the meaning of _providential?_ God does all or nothing. There is\na special providence in the fall of a sparrow, as well as in the fall of\nempires. In that case _everything_ is providential. But this is not the\nordinary view. When a railway accident occurs those who do not come to\ngrief ascribe their preservation to Providence. Who then is responsible\nfor the fate of those who perish? Centuries ago Christians would have\nanswered, \"the Devil.\" Now they give no answer at all, but treat the\nquestion as frivolous or profane.\n\nThomas Cooper, in his _Autobiography_, says that the perfecting touch\nwas given to his conversion by an interposition of God. During a\ncollision, the carriage in which he sat was lifted clean on to another\nline of rails, and thus escaped the fate of the other carriages, which\nwere broken to pieces. Pious Thomas recognised at once the finger\nof God, and he there and then fell on his knees and offered up a\nthanksgiving. He was too vain to carry his argument out to its logical\nend. Why did the Lord protect him, and not his fellow-travellers? Was he\nof more importance than any of the others? And why, if it was right to\nthank God for saving Thomas Cooper, would it be wrong to curse him for\nsmashing all the rest?\n\nThis superstition of Providence is dying out. Common people are\ngradually being left to the laws of Nature. If a workhouse were to\ncatch on fire, no one would speak of those who escaped the flames as\nprovidentially saved. God does not look after the welfare of paupers;\nnor is it likely that he would pluck a charwoman's brat out of the fire\nif it tumbled in during her absence. Such interpositions are absurd. But\nwith kings, queens, princes, princesses, and big nobs in general, the\ncase is different. God looks after the quality. He stretches forth his\nhand to save them from danger, from the pestilence that walketh by day\nand the terror that walketh by night. And his worshippers take just the\nsame view of the \"swells.\" When the Queen came to London, a few weeks\nago, one of her mounted attendants was thrown and badly hurt; and the\nnext day one of the loyal Tory papers reported that her Majesty had\ncompletely recovered from the accident to her outrider!\n\nBut if the Lord overlooks the great ones of the earth, why is he not\nimpartial? He did not turn aside Guiteau's bullet, nor did he answer the\nprayers of a whole nation on its knees. President Garfield was allowed\nto die after a long agony. Poor Mrs. Garfield believed up to the very\nlast minute that God would interpose and save her husband. But he never\ndid. Why was he so indifferent in this case? Was it because Garfield was\na President instead of a King, the elected leader of free men instead of\nthe hereditary ruler of political slaves? Informer Newdegate would say\nso. In his opinion God Almighty hates Republicans. Yet the Bible clearly\nshows that the Lord is opposed to monarchy. He gave his chosen people a\nking as a punishment, after plainly telling them what an evil they had\nsought; and there is perhaps a covert irony in the story of Saul, the\nson of Kish, who went to seek his father's asses and found instead a\nnation of subjects--two-legged asses, who begged him to mount them and\nride.\n\nTake another case. Why did God permit the Nihilists to assassinate the\nlate Czar of Russia? All their previous plots had failed. Why was the\nlast plot allowed to succeed? There is only one answer. God had nothing\nto do with any of them, and the last succeeded because it was better\ndevised and more carefully executed. If God protected the Czar against\ntheir former attempts, they were too many for him in the end; that is,\nthey defeated Omnipotence--an absurdity too flagrant for any sane man to\nbelieve.\n\nWhy should God care for princes more than for peasants, for queens more\nthan for washerwomen? There is no difference in their compositions;\nthey are all made of the same flesh and blood. The very book these\nloyal gushers call the Word of God declares that he is no respecter of\npersons. What are the distinctions of rank and wealth? Mere nothings.\nLook down from an altitude of a thousand feet, and an emperor and his\nsubjects shall appear equally small; and what are even a thousand feet\nin the infinite universe? Nay, strip them of all their fictions of\ndress; reduce them to the same condition of featherless bipeds; and\nyou shall find the forms of strength or beauty, and the power of brain,\nimpartially distributed by Nature, who is the truest democrat, who\nraises her Shakespeares from the lowest strata of society, and laughs to\nscorn the pride of palaces and thrones.\n\nProvidence is an absurdity, a superstitious relic of the ignorant past.\nSensible men disbelieve it, and scientists laugh it to scorn. Our\nvery moral sense revolts against it. Why should God help a few of his\nchildren and neglect all the others? Explosions happen in mines, and\nscores of honest industrious men, doing the rough work of the world\nand winning bread for wife and child, are blown to atoms or hurled into\nshapeless death. God does not help them, and tears moisten the dry bread\nof half-starved widows and orphans. Sailors on the mighty deep go down\nwith uplifted hands, or slowly gaze their life away on the merciless\nheavens. The mother bends over her dying child, the first flower of her\nwedded love, the sweetest hope of her life. She is rigid with despair,\nand in her hot tearless eyes there dwells a dumb misery that would touch\na heart of stone. But God does not help, the death-curtain falls, and\ndarkness reigns where all was light.\n\nWho has the audacity to say that the God who will not aid a mother in\nthe death-chamber shelters the Queen upon her throne? It is an insult to\nreason and a ghastly mockery of justice. The impartiality of Nature is\nbetter than the mercy of such a God.\n\n\n\n\nCARDINAL NEWMAN ON INFIDELITY.\n\n     (April, 1882.)\n\nCardinal Newman is perhaps the only Catholic in England worth listening\nto. He has immured his intellect in the catacombs of the Romish Church,\nbut he has not been able to quench it, and even there it radiates a\nsplendor through the gloom. His saintly character is as indubitable as\nthe subtlety of his mind, and no vicissitude has impaired the charm\nof his style, which is pure and perfect as an exquisite and flawless\ndiamond; serene and chaste in its usual mood, but scintillating\ngloriously in the light of his imagination.\n\nOn Sunday last Cardinal Newman preached a sermon at the Oratory in\nBirmingham on \"Modern Infidelity.\" Unfortunately we have not a full\nreport, from which we might be able to extract some notable passages,\nbut only a newspaper summary. Even this, however, shows some points of\ninterest.\n\nCardinal Newman told his hearers that \"a great storm of infidelity and\nirreligion was at hand,\" and that \"some dreadful spiritual catastrophe\nwas coming upon them.\" We quite agree with the great preacher; but\nevery storm is not an evil, and every catastrophe is not a disaster.\nThe revolutionary storm in France cleared the air of much pestilence. It\ndissipated as by enchantment the horrible cloud of tyranny, persecution\nand want, which had for centuries hovered over the land. And certainly,\nto go back a stage farther in history, the Reformation was not a\nmisfortune, although it looked like a \"spiritual catastrophe\" to a great\nmany amiable people. The truth is, Revolutions must occur in this world,\nboth in thought and in action. They may happen slowly, so that we may\naccommodate ourselves to them; or rapidly, and so disturb and injure\nwhole generations.\n\nBut come they must, and no power can hinder them; not even that once\nmighty Church which has always striven to bind Humanity to the past with\nadamantine chains of dogma. In Cardinal Newman's own words, from perhaps\nhis greatest and most characteristic book,--\"here below to live is to\nchange, and to be perfect is to have changed often.\"\n\nWe cannot say that Cardinal Newman indicates how humanity will suffer\nfrom the \"coming storm of infidelity and irreligion.\" He does, indeed,\nrefer to the awful state of a people forsaken by God, but in our humble\nopinion this is somewhat ludicrous. We can hardly understand how God can\nforsake his own creatures. Why all this pother if he really exists?\nIn that case our scepticism cannot affect him, any more than a man's\nblindness obscures the sun. And surely, if Omnipotence desired us all\nto believe the truth, the means are ready to hand. The God who said, Let\nthere be light, and there was light, could as easily say, Let all men be\nChristians, and they would be Christians. If God had spoken the universe\nwould be convinced; and the fact that it is not convinced proves, either\nthat he does not exist, or that he purposely keeps silent, and desires\nthat we should mind our own business.\n\nThe only tangible evil Cardinal Newman ventures to indicate is the\n\"indignity which at this moment has come over the Holy Father at Rome.\"\nHe declares, as to the Pope, that \"there hardly seems a place in the\nwhole of Europe where he could put his foot.\" The Catholics are carrying\nthis pretence of a captive Pope a trifle too far. His Holiness must have\na tremendous foot if he cannot put it fairly down on the floor of the\nVatican. He and his Cardinals really wail over their loss of temporal\npower. It would be wiser and nobler to reconcile themselves to the\ninevitable, and to end the nefarious diplomacy by which they are\ncontinually striving to recover what is for ever lost. The whole world\nis aware of the scandalous misrule and the flagrant immorality which,\nunder the government of the Papacy, made the Eternal City a byword and\na reproach. Under the secular government, Rome has made wonderful\nprogress. It has better streets, cleaner inhabitants, less fever and\nfilth, and a much smaller army of priests, beggars, and prostitutes.\nCatholics may rest assured that the bad old times will never return.\nThey may, of course, promise a reformation of manners if the Holy\nFather's dominion is restored, but the world will not believe them.\nReforming the Papacy, as Carlyle grimly said, is like tinkering a rusty\nold kettle. If you stop up the holes of it with temporary putty, it may\nhang together for awhile; but \"begin to hammer at it, solder it, to what\nyou call mend and rectify it,--it will fall to shreds, as sure as rust\nis rust; go all into nameless dissolution,--and the fat in the fire will\nbe a thing worth looking at, poor Pope!\"\n\nAs a sincere Christian (a very rare thing, by the way, in these days),\nCardinal Newman is bound to lament the spread of infidelity. He is a\nkeen observer, and his word may be taken for the fact. A stormy time\nis undoubtedly coming. Old creeds and institutions will have to give an\naccount of themselves, and nothing that cannot stand the test will live.\nBut truth will not suffer. Criticise the multiplication table as much as\nyou please, and twice two will still be four. In the storm and stress of\ncontroversy what is true and solid will survive; only the hollow shams\nof authority and superstition will collapse. Humanity has nothing to\nfear, however the Churches may groan.\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAY TYRANNY.\n\n     (May, 1882.)\n\nLast Sunday the myriads of Paris turned out to the Chantilly races. The\nsun shone brilliantly, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Yet there\nwas no drunkenness or disorder; on the contrary, the multitude behaved\nwith such decorum, that one English correspondent said it would not have\nappeared strange if a bishop had stepped forward in full canonicals to\ngive them his benediction.\n\nWhy cannot Englishmen enjoy their Sunday's leisure like the French?\nBecause we are still under the bondage of Puritanism; because our\nreligious dress is nothing but Hebrew Old Clothes; because we follow\nMoses instead of Jesus; because we believe that man was made for the\nSabbath, instead of the Sabbath for man; because, in short, there are\nin England a lot of sour Christians who play the dog in the manger, and\nwill neither enjoy themselves on Sunday nor let anyone else. They often\nprate about liberty, but they understand it as the Yankee did, who\ndefined it as the right to do as he pleased and the right to make\neverybody else do so too.\n\nLet us all be unhappy on Sunday, is the burden of their song. Now, we\nhave no objection to their being miserable, if they desire it, on that\nor any other day. This is supposed to be a free country; you decide to\nbe wretched and you select your own time for the treat. But you have\nno right to interfere with your neighbors. This, however, is what the\nChristians, with their customary \"cheek,\" will insist on doing. They\nlike going to the church and the public-house on Sunday, and those\nestablishments are permitted to open; they have no wish to go elsewhere,\nand so they keep all other establishments closed. This is mere\nimpudence. Let them go where they choose, and allow the same freedom to\nother people. Those who advocate a free Sunday ask for no favor; they\ndemand justice. They do not propose to compel any Christian to enter a\nmuseum, a library, or an art gallery; they simply claim the right to go\nin themselves.\n\nThe denial of that right is a violation of liberty, which every free man\nis bound to resent.\n\nThis country is said to be civilised. To a certain extent it is, but all\nour civilisation has been won against Christianity and its brutal laws.\nOur toiling masses, in factory, mine, shop, and counting-house, have one\nday of leisure in the week. Rightly considered it is of infinite value.\nIt is a splendid breathing-time. We cast off the storm and stress of\nlife, fling aside the fierce passion of gain, and let the spirit of\nhumanity throb in our pulses and stream from our eyes. Our fellow man\nis no longer a rival, but a brother. His gain is not our loss. We enrich\neach other by the noble give-and-take of fellowship, and feel what it\nreally is to _live_. Yet our Christian legislature tries its utmost\nto spoil the boon. It cannot prevent us from visiting each other, or\nwalking as far as our legs will carry us; but almost everything else is\ntabooed. Go to church, it says. Millions answer, We are sick of going;\nwe have heard the same old story until it is unspeakably stale, and many\nof the sermons have been so frequently repeated that we suspect they\nwere bought by the dozen. Then it says, Go to the public-house. But a\nhuge multitude answer, We don't want to go there either, except for a\nminute to quench our thirst; we have no wish for spirituous any more\nthan spiritual intoxication; we desire some other alternative than\ngospel or gin. Then our Christian legislature answers, You are\ndiscontented fools. It crushes down their better aspirations, and\ncondemns them to a wearisome inactivity.\n\nGo through London, the metropolis of the world, as we call it, on a\nSunday. How utterly dreary it is! The shutters are all up before the gay\nshop-windows. You pace mile after mile of streets, with sombre houses\non either hand as though tenanted by the dead. You stand in front of the\nBritish Museum, and it looks as if it had been closed since the date of\nthe mummies inside. You yearn to walk through its galleries, to gaze on\nthe relics of antiquity, to inspect the memorials of the dead, to feel\nthe subtle links that bind together the past and the present and make\none great family of countless generations of men. But you must wander\naway disappointed and dejected. You repair to the National Gallery.\nYou long to behold the masterpieces of art, to have your imagination\nquickened and thrilled by the glories of form and color, to look once\nmore on some favorite picture which touches your nature to its finest\nissues. But again you are foiled. You desire to visit a library, full\nof books you cannot buy, and there commune with the great minds who have\nleft their thoughts to posterity. But you are frustrated again. You are\ncheated out of your natural right, and treated less like a man than a\ndog.\n\nThis Christian legislature has much to answer for. Drunkenness is our\ngreat national vice. And how is it to be overcome? Preaching will not do\nit. Give Englishmen a chance, furnish them with counter attractions, and\nthey will abjure intoxication like their continental neighbors. Elevate\ntheir tastes, and they will feel superior to the vulgar temptation of\ndrink. Every other method has been tried and has failed; this is the\nonly method that promises success.\n\nFortunately the Sunday question is growing. Christian tyranny is\nevidently doomed. Mr. Howard's motion for the opening of public\nmuseums and art galleries, although defeated, received the support of\neighty-five members of Parliament. That minority will increase again\nnext year, and in time it will become a majority. Mr. Broadhurst, for\nsome peculiar reason, voted against it, but we imagine he will some day\nrepent of his action. The working-classes are fools if they listen to\nthe idle talk about Sunday labor, with which the Tories and bigots try\nto bamboozle them. The opening of public institutions on Sunday would\nnot necessitate a hundredth part of the labor already employed in\nkeeping open places of worship, and driving rich people to and fro. All\nthe nonsense about the thin end of the wedge is simply dust thrown into\ntheir eyes. The very people who vote against Sunday freedom under a\npretence of opposing Sunday labor, keep their own servants at work and\nvisit the \"Zoo\" in the afternoon, where they doubtless chuckle over\nthe credulity of the lower orders. Christian tyranny unites with Tory\noppression to debase and enslave the people. It is time that both were\nimperiously stopped. The upper classes wish to keep us ignorant, and\nparsons naturally want everybody else's shutters up when they open shop.\nWe ought to see through the swindle. Let us check their impudence, laugh\nat their hypocrisy, and rescue our Sunday from their hands.\n\n\n\n\nWHO ARE THE BLASPHEMERS?\n\n     (June, 1882.)\n\nAtheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot\ncommit. God is to them merely a word, expressing all sorts of ideas, and\nnot a person. It is, properly speaking, a general term, which includes\nall that there is in common among the various deities of the world. The\nidea of the supernatural embodies itself in a thousand ways. Truth is\nalways simple and the same, but error is infinitely diverse. Jupiter,\nJehovah and Mumbo-Jumbo are alike creations of human fancy, the products\nof ignorance and wonder. Which is _the_ God is not yet settled. When the\nsects have decided this point, the question may take a fresh turn; but\nuntil then _god_ must be considered as a generic term, like _tree or\nhorse or men_; with just this difference, however, that while the words\ntree, horse and man express the general qualities of visible objects,\nthe word god expresses only the imagined qualities of something that\nnobody has ever seen.\n\nWhen the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not\ndealing with persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God,\nfor he does not admit the existence of any such being.\n\nIdeas of god may be good or bad, beautiful or ugly; and according as he\nfinds them the Atheist treats them. If we lived in Turkey we should deal\nwith the god of the Koran, but as we live in England we deal with the\ngod of the Bible. We speak of that god as a being, just for convenience\nsake, and not from conviction. At bottom, we admit nothing but the mass\nof contradictory notions between Genesis and Revelation. We attack not a\nperson but a belief, not a being but an idea, not a fact but a fancy.\n\nLord Brougham long ago pointed out, in his \"Life of Voltaire,\" that\nthe great French heretic was not guilty of blasphemy, as his enemies\nalleged; since he had no belief in the actual existence of the god he\ndissected, analysed and laughed at. Mr. Ruskin very eloquently defends\nByron from the same charge. In \"Cain,\" and elsewhere, the great poet\ndoes not impeach God; he merely impeaches the orthodox creed. We may sum\nup the whole matter briefly. No man satirises the god he believes in,\nand no man believes in the god he satirises.\n\nWe shall not, therefore, be deterred by the cry of \"blasphemy,\" which is\nexactly what the Jewish priests shouted against Jesus Christ. If\nthere is a God, he cannot be half so stupid and malignant as the Bible\ndeclares. In destroying the counterfeit we do not harm the reality. And\nas it is better, in the words of Plutarch, to have no notion of the gods\nthan to have notions which dishonor them, we are satisfied that the Lord\n(if he exist) will never burn us in hell for denying a few lies told in\nhis name.\n\nThe real blasphemers are those who believe in God and blacken his\ncharacter; who credit him with less knowledge than a child, and less\nintelligence than an idiot; who make him quibble, deceive, and lie; who\nrepresent him as indecent, cruel, and revengeful; who give him the heart\nof a savage and the brain of a fool. These are the blasphemers.\n\nWhen the priest steps between husband and wife, with the name of God on\nhis lips, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he resists education\nand science, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes freedom\nof thought and liberty of conscience, he blasphemes. When, in the name\nof God, he robs, tortures, and kills those who differ from him, he\nblasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes the equal rights of\nall, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he preaches content to the\npoor and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious\ntyranny the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. And\nwhen he takes the Bible in his hand, and says it was written by the\ninspiration of God, he blasphemes almost beyond forgiveness.\n\nWho are the blasphemers? Not we who preach freedom and progress for all\nmen; but those who try to bind the world with chains of dogma, and\nto burden it, in God's name, with all the foul superstitions of its\nignorant past.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIRTH OF CHRIST.\n\n    (December, 1880.)\n\n\"The time draws near, the birth of Christ,\" as Tennyson sings in \"In\nMemoriam,\" and the pious followers of the Nazarene will celebrate it\nwith wonted orgies of pleasure. The Incarnation will be pondered to\nthe accompaniment of roast beef, and the Atonement will play lambently\naround the solid richness of plum-pudding. And thus will be illustrated\nthe biological truth that the stomach is the basis of everything,\nincluding religion.\n\nBut while Christians comport themselves thus in presence of the\nsubtlest mysteries of faith, the Sceptic cannot be without his peculiar\nreflections. He, of course, knows that the festal observance of this\nseason is far more ancient than Christianity; but he naturally wonders\nhow people, who imagine it to be a unique feature of their sublimely\nspiritual creed, remain contented with its extremely sensual character.\nThey profess to believe that the fate of the whole human race was\ndecided by the advent of the Man of Sorrows; yet they commemorate that\nevent by an unhealthy consumption of the meat which perisheth, and a\nwild indulgence in the frivolous pleasures of that carnal mind which is\nat enmity with God. Astonished at such conduct, the Sceptic muses on\nthe inconsistency of mankind. He may also once more consider the\ncircumstances of the birth of Christ and its relation to the history of\nthe modern world.\n\nJesus, called the Christ, is popularly supposed to have been of the seed\nof David, from which it was promised that the Messiah should come. It\nis, however, perfectly clear that he was in no-wise related to the man\nafter God's own heart His putative father, Joseph, admittedly had no\nshare in bringing him into the world; for he disdained the assistance of\na father, although he was unable to dispense with that of a mother. But\nJoseph, and not Mary, according to the genealogies of Matthew and Luke,\nwas the distant blood relation of David; and therefore Jesus was not of\nthe seed of the royal house, but a bastard slip grafted on the ancient\nfamily-tree by the Holy Ghost. It is a great pity that newspaper\ncorrespondents did not exist in those days. Had Joseph been skilfully\n\"interviewed,\" it is highly probable that the world would have been\ninitiated into his domestic secrets, and enlightened as to the paternity\nof Mary's eldest son. The Holy Ghost is rather too shadowy a personage\nto be the father of a lusty boy, and no young lady would be credited in\nthis age if she ascribed to him the authorship of a child born out of\nwedlock. Most assuredly no magistrate would make an order against him\nfor its maintenance. Even a father of the Spiritualist persuasion,\nwho believed in what is grandly called \"the materialisation of spirit\nforms,\" would probably be more than dubious if his daughter were to\npresent him with a grandson whose father lived on the other side of\ndeath and resided in a mansion not made with hands. It is, we repeat, to\nbe for ever regretted that poor Joseph has not left his version of the\naffair. The Immaculate Conception might perhaps have been cleared up,\nand theology relieved of a half-obscene mystery, which has unfortunately\nperverted not a few minds.\n\nThe birth of Jesus was announced to \"wise men from the East\" by the\nappearance of a singular star. Is not this a relic of astrology? Well\ndoes Byron sing--\n\n     \"Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven,\n     If in your bright beams we would read the fate\n     Of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven,\n     That in our aspirations to be great\n     Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,\n     And claim a kindred with you; for ye are\n     A beauty and a mystery, and create\n     In us such love and reverence from afar\n     That fortune, fame, power, life,\n     Have named themselves a star.\"\n\nBut this star was the most wonderful on record. It \"went before\"\nthe wise men, and \"_stood over_ where the young child was.\" Such an\nabsurdity could be related and credited only by people who conceived\nof the sky as a solid vault, not far distant, wherein all the heavenly\nbodies were stuck. The present writer once asked an exceedingly ignorant\nand simple man where he thought he would alight if he dropped from the\ncomet then in the sky. \"Oh,\" said he, naming the open space nearest\nhis own residence, \"somewhere about Finsbury Circus.\" That man's\nastronomical notions were very imperfect, but they were quite as good\nas those of the person who seriously wrote, and of the persons who\nseriously believe, this fairy tale of the star which heralded the birth\nof Christ.\n\nLuke's version of the episode differs widely from Matthew's. He makes\nno reference to \"wise men from the East,\" but simply says that certain\n\"shepherds\" of the same country, who kept watch over their flock by\nnight, were visited by \"the angel of the Lord,\" and told that they would\nfind the Savior, Christ the Lord, just born at Bethlehem, the City of\nDavid, \"wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.\" Luke does\nnot, as is generally supposed, represent Mary as confined in a stable\nbecause Joseph was too poor to pay for decent accommodation, but because\n\"there was no room for them in the inn.\" It is perfectly consistent with\nall the Gospel references to Joseph's status to assume that he carried\non a flourishing business, and Jesus himself in later years might\ndoubtless have earned a good living in the concern if he had not\ndeliberately preferred to lead the life of a mendicant preacher. This,\nhowever, is by the way. Our point is that Luke says nothing about the\n\"star\" or the \"wise men from the East,\" who had an important interview\nwith Herod himself; while Matthew says nothing about the \"manger\" or\nthe shepherds and their angelic visitors. Surely these discrepancies on\npoints so important, and as to which there could be little mistake, are\nenough to throw discredit on the whole story.\n\nIt is further noticeable that Luke is absolutely silent about Herod's\nmassacre of the innocents. What can we think of his reticence on such a\nsubject? Had the massacre occurred, it would have been widely known, and\nthe memory of so horrible a deed would have been vivid for generations.\nMatthew, or whoever wrote the Gospel which bears his name, is open to\nsuspicion. His mind was distorted by an intense belief in prophecy, a\nsubject which, as old Bishop South said, either finds a man cracked or\nleaves him so. After narrating the story of Herod's massacre, he adds:\n\"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy, the prophet,\nsaying,\" etc. Now, he makes similar reference to prophecy no less than\nfive times in the first two chapters, and in each case we find that the\n\"prophetical\" utterance referred to has not the faintest connexion with\nthe incident related.\n\nBesides, a man who writes history with one eye on his own period, and\nthe other on a period centuries anterior is not likely to be veracious,\nhowever earnestly he may intend to. There is an early tradition, which\nis as strong as any statement about the history of the Primitive Church,\nthat Matthew's Gospel was originally written in Hebrew; and it has\nbeen supposed that the writer gratuitously threw in these references to\nJeremy and others, in order to please the Jews, who were extremely fond\nof prophecy. But this supposition is equally fatal to his credibility as\nan historian. In any case, the Evangelists differ so widely on matters\nof such interest and importance that we are constrained to discredit\ntheir story. It is evidently, as scholarship reveals, a fairy tale,\nwhich slowly gathered round the memory of Jesus after his death. Some\nof its elements were creations of his disciples' fancy, but others were\nborrowed from the mythology of more ancient creeds.\n\nYet this fairy tale is accepted by hundreds of millions of men\nas veritable history. It is incorporated into the foundation of\nChristianity, and every year at this season its incidents are joyously\ncommemorated. How slowly the world of intelligence moves! But let us not\ndespair. Science and scholarship have already done much to sap belief in\nthis supernatural religion, and we may trust them to do still more. They\nwill ultimately destroy its authority by refuting its pretensions, and\ncompel it to take its place among the general multitude of historic\nfaiths.\n\nIf Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Deliverer, why is the\nworld still so full of sin and misery? The Redeemer has come, say\nthe Christians. Yes, we reply, but when will come the redemption?\nApostrophising Jesus in his lines \"Before a Crucifix,\" Mr. Swinburne\nreminds him that \"the nineteenth wave of the ages rolls now usward\nsince thy birth began,\" and then inquires:--\n\n     \"Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls,\n     Or are there less oppressions done\n     In this wide world under the sun?\"\n\nOnly a negative answer can be given. Christ has in no wise redeemed the\nworld. He was no god of power, but a weak fallible man like ourselves;\nand his cry of despair on the cross might now be repeated with tenfold\nforce. The older myth of Prometheus is truer and more inspiring than the\nmyth of Christ. If there be gods, they have never yielded man aught of\ntheir grace. All his possessions have been cunningly, patiently, and\nvalorously extorted from the powers that be, even as Prometheus filched\nthe fire from heaven. In that realm of mythology, whereto all religions\nwill eventually be consigned, Jesus will dwindle beneath Prometheus. One\nis feminine, and typifies resigned submission to a supernatural will;\nthe other is masculine, and typifies that insurgent audacity of heart\nand head, which has wrested a kingdom of science from the vast empire of\nnescience, and strewed the world with the wrecks of theological power.\n\n\n\n\nTHE REIGN OF CHRIST.\n\n     (January,  1880.)\n\nChristmas and Easter are fruitful in panegyrics on Jesus and the\nreligion which fraudulently bears his name. On these occasions, not only\nthe religious but even the secular newspapers give the rein to their\nrhetoric and imagination, and indulge in much fervid eloquence on the\nbirth or the crucifixion of the Nazarene. Time-honored platitudes\nare brought out from their resting-places and dexterously moved to a\nwell-known tune; and fallacies which have been refuted _ad nauseam_\nare paraded afresh as though their logical purity were still beyond\nsuspicion. Papers that differ on all other occasions and on all other\nsubjects concur then, and \"when they do agree their unanimity is\nwonderful.\" While the more sober and orthodox discourse in tones\nbefitting their dignity and repute, the more profane riotously join in\nthe chorus; and not to be behind the rest, the notoriously misbelieving\nGreatest Circulator orders from the profanest member of its staff \"a\nrousing article on the Crucifixion,\" or on the birth of Jesus, as\nthe case may be. All this, however, is of small account, except as an\nindication of the slavery of our \"independent\" journals to Bumble and\nhis prejudices, before whom they are obliged to masquerade when he\nordains a celebration of his social or religious rites. But here and\nthere a more serious voice is heard through the din, with an accent of\nearnest veracity, and not that of an actor playing a part. Such a voice\nmay be worth listening to, and certainly no other can be. Let us hear\nthe Rev. J. Baldwin Brown on \"The Reign of Christ.\" He is, I believe,\nhonorably distinguished among Dissenters; his sermons often bear marks\nof originality; and the goodness of his heart, whatever may be thought\nof the strength of his head, is sufficiently attested by his emphatic\nrevolt against the doctrine of Eternal Torture in Hell.\n\nBefore criticising Mr. Brown's sermon in detail I cannot help\nremarking that it is far too rhetorical and far too empty of argument.\nSentimentality is the bane of religion in our day; subservience to\npopularity degrades the pulpit as it degrades the press. If we desire to\nfind the language of reason in theology, we must seek it in the writings\nof such men as Newman, who contemplate the ignorant and passionate\nmultitude with mingled pity and disdain. The \"advanced\" school of\ntheologians, from Dean Stanley to the humblest reconciler of reason and\nfaith, are sentimentalists almost to a man; the reason being, I take it,\nthat although their emotional tendencies are very admirable, they lack\nthe intellectual consistency and rigor which impel others to stand\non definite first principles, as a sure basis of operation and an\nimpregnable citadel against attack. Mr. Brown belongs to this \"advanced\"\nschool, and has a liberal share of its failings. He is full of eloquent\npassages that lead to nothing, and he excites expectations which are\nseldom if ever satisfied. He faces stupendous obstacles raised by reason\nagainst his creed, and just as we look to see him valiantly surmount\nthem, we find that he veils them from base to summit with a dense cloud\nof words, out of which his voice is heard asking us to believe him on\nthe other side. Yet of all men professional students of the Bible should\nbe freest from such a fault, seeing what a magnificent masterpiece it is\nof terse and vigorous simplicity. Mr. Brown and his \"advanced\" friends\nwould do well to ponder that quaint and pregnant aphorism of old Bishop\nAndrewes--\"_Waste words addle questions_.\" When I first read it I\nwas thrown into convulsions of laughter, and even now it tickles my\nrisibility; but despite its irresistible quaint-ness I cannot but regard\nit as one of the wisest and pithiest sentences in our literature. Dr.\nNewman has splendidly amplified it in a passage of his \"University\nSermons,\" which I gratuitously present to Mr. Brown and every reader\nwho can make use of it:--\"Half the controversies in the world are verbal\nones; and could they be brought to a plain issue, they would be brought\nto a prompt termination. Parties engaged in them would then perceive,\neither that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference\nwas one of first principles. This is the great object to be aimed at\nin the present age, though confessedly a very arduous one. We need not\ndispute, we need not prove,--we need but define. At all events, let us,\nif we can, do this first of all; and then see who are left for us to\ndispute with, and what is left for us to prove.\"\n\nMr. Brown's sermon on \"The Reign of Christ\" is preached from a verse\nof St. Paul's first Epistle to Timothy, wherein Jesus is styled \"The\nblessed and only Potentate.\" From this \"inspired\" statement he derives\ninfinite consolation. This, he admits, is far from being the best of\nall possible worlds, for it is full of strife and cruelty, the wail of\nanguish and the clamor of frenzy; but as Christ is \"the blessed and only\nPotentate,\" moral order will finally be evolved from the chaos and good\nbe triumphant over evil. Now the question arises: Who made the chaos and\nwho is responsible for the evil? Not Christ, of course: Mr. Brown\nwill not allow that. Is it the Devil then? Oh no! To say that would be\nblasphemy against God. He admits, however, that the notion has largely\nprevailed, and has even been formulated into religious creeds, \"that a\nmalignant spirit, a spirit who loves cursing as God loves blessing, has\na large and independent share in the government of the world.\" But, he\nadds, \"in Christendom men dare not say that they believe it, with the\nthrone of the crucified and risen Christ revealed in the Apocalypse to\ntheir gaze.\" Ordinary people will rub their eyes in sheer amazement at\nthis cool assertion. Is it not plain that Christians in all ages have\nbelieved in the power and subtlety of the Devil as God's sleepless\nantagonist? Have they not held, and do they not still hold, that he\ncaused the Fall of Adam and Eve, and thus introduced original sin, which\nwas certain to infect the whole human race ever afterwards until the\nend of time? Was not John Milton a Christian, and did he not in his\n\"Paradise Lost\" develope all the phases of that portentous competition\nbetween the celestial and infernal powers for the virtual possession of\nthis world and lordship over the destinies of our race? If we accept\nMr. Brown's statements we shall have to reverse history and belie the\nevidence of our senses.\n\nBut who is responsible for the moral chaos and the existence of evil?\nThat is the question. If to say _Christ_ is absurd, and to say the\n_Devil_ blasphemy, what alternative is left? The usual answer is: Man's\nfreewill. Christ as \"the blessed and only Potentate\" leaves us liberty\nof action, and our own evil passions cause all the misery of our\nlives. But who gave us our evil passions? To this question no answer\nis vouchsafed, and so we are left exactly at the point from which we\nstarted. Yet Mr. Brown has a very decided opinion as to the part these\n\"evil passions\" play in the history cf mankind. He refers to them as\n\"the Devil's brood of lust and lies, and wrongs and hates, and murderous\npassion and insolent power, which through all the ages of earth's sad\nhistory have made it liker hell than heaven.\" No Atheist could use\nstronger language. Mr. Brown even believes that our \"insurgent lusts\nand passions\" are predetermining causes of heresy, so that in respect\nboth to faith and to works they achieve our damnation. How then did we\ncome by them? The Evolutionist frankly answers the question without fear\nof blasphemy on the one hand or of moral despair on the other. Mr. Brown\nis bound to give _his_ answer after raising the question so vividly.\nBut he will not. He urges that it \"presents points of tremendous\ndifficulty,\" although \"we shall unravel the mystery, we shall solve the\nproblems in God's good time.\" Thus the solution of the problem is to be\npostponed until we are dead, when it will no longer interest us.\nHowever convenient this may be for the teachers of mystery, it is most\nunsatisfactory to rationalists. Mr. Brown must also be reminded that\nthe \"tremendous difficulties\" he alludes to are all of his own creation.\nThere is no difficulty about any fact except in relation to some theory.\nIt is Mr. Brown's theory of the universe which creates the difficulties.\nIt does not account for all the facts of existence--nay, it is logically\ncontravened by the most conspicuous and persistent of them. Instead of\nmodifying or transforming his theory into accordance with the facts, he\nrushes off with it into the cloud-land of faith. There let him remain\nas he has a perfect right to. Our objection is neither to reason nor to\nfaith, but to a mischievous playing fast and loose with both.\n\nMr. Brown opines that Christ will reign until all his enemies are under\nhis feet. And who are these enemies? Not the souls of men, says Mr.\nBrown, for Christ \"loves them with an infinite tenderness.\" This\ninfinite tenderness is clearly not allied to infinite power or the\nworld's anguish would long since have been appeased and extinguished,\nor never have been permitted to exist at all. The real enemies of Christ\nare not the souls of men, but \"the hates and passions which torment\nthem.\" Oh those hates and passions! They are the dialectical balls with\nwhich Mr. Brown goes through his performance in that circle of _petitio\nprincipii_ so hated by all logicians, the middle sphere of intellects\ntoo light for the solid earth of fact and too gross for the aerial\nheaven of imagination.\n\nIt will be a fitting conclusion to present to Mr. Brown a very\nserious matter which he has overlooked. Christ, \"the blessed and only\nPotentate,\" came on earth and originated the universal religion nearly\ntwo thousand years ago. Up to the present time three-fourths of the\nworld's inhabitants are outside its pale, and more than half of them\nhave never heard it preached. Amongst the quarter which nominally\nprofesses Christianity disbelief is spreading more rapidly than the\nmissionaries succeed in converting the heathen; so that the reign of\nChrist is being restricted instead of increased. To ask us, despite\nthis, to believe that he is God, and possessed of infinite power, is to\nask us to believe a marvel compared with which the wildest fables are\ncredible, and the most extravagant miracles but as dust in the balance.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRIMATE ON MODERN INFIDELITY.\n\n     (September, 1880.)\n\nA bishop once twitted a curate with preaching indifferent orthodoxy.\n\"Well,\" answered the latter, \"I don't see how you can expect me to be as\northodox as yourself. I believe at the rate of a hundred a year, and you\nat the rate of ten thousand.\" In the spirit of this anecdote we should\nexpect an archbishop to be as orthodox as the frailty of human nature\nwill allow. A man who faithfully believes at the rate of fifteen\nthousand a year should be able to swallow most things and stick at\nvery little. And there can be no doubt that the canny Scotchman who has\nclimbed or wriggled up to the Archbishopric of Canterbury is prepared\nto go any lengths his salary may require. We suspect that he regards the\ndoctrines of the Church very much as did that irreverent youth mentioned\nby Sidney Smith, who, on being asked to sign the Thirty-nine Articles,\nreplied \"Oh yes, forty if you like.\" The clean linen of his theology is\nimmaculately pure. Never has he fallen under a suspicion of entertaining\ndangerous or questionable opinions, and he has in a remarkable degree\nthat faculty praised by Saint Paul of being all things to all men, or\nat least as many men as make a lumping majority. What else could be\nexpected from a Scotchman who has mounted to the spiritual Primacy of\nEngland?\n\nHis Grace has recently been visiting the clergy and churchwardens of\nhis diocese and delivering what are called Charges to them. The third of\nthese was on the momentous subject of Modern Infidelity, which seems to\nhave greatly exercised his mind. This horrid influence is found to\nbe very prevalent, much to the disconcertion of his Grace, who felt\nconstrained to begin his Charge with expressions of despondency, and\nonly recovered his spirits towards the end, where he confidently relies\non the gracious promise of Christ never to forsake his darling church.\nSome of the admissions he makes are worth recording--\n\n\"I can,\" he says, \"have no doubt that the aspect of Christian society\nin the present day is somewhat troubled, that the Church of Christ and\nthe faith of Christ are passing through a great trial in all regions\nof the civilised world, and not least among ourselves. There are dark\nclouds on the horizon already breaking, which may speedily burst into\na violent storm.... It is well to note in history how these two\nevils--superstition and infidelity--act and react in strengthening each\nother. Still, I cannot doubt that the most [? more] formidable of\nthe two for us at present is infidelity.... It is indeed a frightful\nthought that numbers of our intelligent mechanics seem to be alienated\nfrom all religious ordinances, that our Secularist halls are well\nfilled, that there is an active propagandism at work for shaking belief\nin all creeds.\"\n\nThese facts are of course patent, but it is something to get an\nArchbishop to acknowledge them, His Grace also finds \"from above, in the\nregions of literature and art, efforts to degrade mankind by denying our\nhigh original:\" the high original being, we presume, a certain simple\npair called Adam and Eve, who damned themselves and nearly the whole\nof their posterity by eating an apple six thousand years ago. The\ndegradation of a denial of this theory is hardly perceptible to\nuntheological eyes. Most candid minds would prefer to believe in Darwin\nrather than in Moses even if the latter had, which he has not, a single\nleg to stand on. For the theory of our Simian origin at least involves\nprogression in the past and perhaps salvation in the future of our\nrace, while the \"high original\" theory involved our retrogression and\nperdition. His grace wonders how these persons can \"confine their hopes\nand aspirations to a life which is so irresistibly hastening to its\nspeedy conclusion.\" But surely he is aware that they do so for the very\nsimple reason that they know nothing of any other life to hope about\nor aspire to. One bird in the hand is worth twenty in the bush when the\nbush itself remains obstinately invisible, and if properly cooked is\nworth all the dishes in the world filled only with expectations. His\ngrace likewise refers to the unequal distribution of worldly goods,\nto the poverty and misery which exist \"notwithstanding all attempts to\nregenerate society by specious schemes of socialistic reorganisation.\"\nIt is, of course, very natural that an archbishop in the enjoyment of a\nvast income should stigmatise these \"specious schemes\" for distributing\nmore equitably the good things of this world; but the words \"blessed be\nye poor\" go ill to the tune of fifteen thousand a year, and there is a\ngrim irony in the fact that palaces are tenanted by men who profess\nto represent and preach the gospel of him who had not where to lay his\nhead. Modern Christianity has been called a civilised heathenism; with\nno less justice it might be called an organised hypocrisy.\n\nAfter a dolorous complaint as to the magazines \"lying everywhere for the\nuse of our sons and daughters,\" in which the doctrines both of natural\nand of revealed religion are assailed, the Archbishop proceeds to deal\nwith the first great form of infidelity, namely Agnosticism. With\na feeble attempt at wit he remarks that the name itself implies a\nconfession of ignorance, which he marvels to find unaccompanied by\n\"the logical result of a philosophical humility.\" A fair account of the\nAgnostic position is then given, after which it is severely observed\nthat \"the better feelings of man contradict these sophisms.\" In proof\nof this, his Grace cites the fact that in Paris, the \"stronghold of\nAtheistical philosophy,\" the number of burials that take place without\nreligious rites is \"a scarcely appreciable percentage.\" We suspect the\naccuracy of this statement, but having no statistics on the subject by\nus, we are not prepared to dispute it. We will assume its truth; but\nthe important question then arises--What kind of persons are those who\ndispense with the rites of religion? Notoriously they are men of\nthe highest intellect and character, whose quality far outweighs the\nquantity of the other side. They are the leaders of action and thought,\nand what they think and do to-day will be thought and done by the masses\nto-morrow. When a man like Gambetta, occupying such a high position and\nwielding such immense influence, invariably declines to enter a church,\nwhether he attends the marriage or the funeral of his friends, we\nare entitled to say that his example on our side is infinitely more\nimportant than the practice of millions who are creatures of habit\nand for the most part blind followers of tradition. The Archbishop's\nargument tells against his own position, and the fact he cites, when\nclosely examined, proves more for our side than he thought it proved for\nhis own.\n\nAtheism is disrelished by his Grace even more than Agnosticism. His\nfavorite epithet for it is \"dogmatic.\" \"Surely,\" he cries, \"the boasted\nenlightenment of this century will never tolerate the gross ignorance\nand arrogant self-conceit which presumes to dogmatise as to things\nconfessedly beyond its ken.\" Quite so; but that is what the theologians\nare perpetually doing. To use Matthew Arnold's happy expression, they\ntalk familiarly about God as though he were a man living in the next\nstreet. The Atheist and the Agnostic confess their inability to fathom\nthe universe and profess doubts as to the ability of others. Yet they\nare called dogmatic, arrogant, and self-conceited. On the other hand,\nthe theologians claim the power of seeing _through_ nature up to\nnature's God. Yet they, forsooth, must be accounted modest, humble, and\nretiring.\n\n              \"O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us\n           To see oursels as ithers see us!\"\n\nThese abominable Atheists are by no means scarce, for, says his Grace,\n\"practical Atheists we have everywhere, if Atheism be the denial of\nGod.\" Just so; that is precisely what we \"infidels\" have been saying for\nyears. Christianity is utterly alien to the life of modern society,\nand in flagrant contradiction to the spirit of our secular progress. It\nstands outside all the institutions of our material civilisation. Its\nchurches still echo the old strains of music and the old dogmatic tones\nfrom the pulpit, but the worshippers themselves feel the anomaly of its\ndoctrines and rites when they return to their secular avocations. The\nSunday does nothing but break the continuity of their lives, steeping\nthem in sentiments and ideas which have no relation to their experience\nduring the rest of the week. The profession of Christendom is one thing,\nits practice is another. God is simply acknowledged with the lips\non Sunday, and on every other day profoundly disregarded in all the\npursuits of life whether of business or of pleasure. Even in our\nnational legislature, although the practice of prayer is still retained,\nany man would be sneered at as a fool who made the least appeal to the\nsanctions of theology. An allusion to the Sermon on the Mount would\nprovoke a smile, and a citation of one of the Thirty-nine Articles be\ninstantly ruled as irrelevant. Nothing from the top to the bottom of\nour political and social life is done with any reference to those\ntheological doctrines which the nation professes to believe, and to the\nmaintenance of which it devotes annually so many millions of its wealth.\n\nIn order to pose any member of the two great divisions of \"infidelity,\"\nthe Archbishop advises his clergy to ask the following rather comical\nquestions:--\n\n\"Do you believe nothing which is not capable of being tested by the\nordinary rules which govern experience in things natural? How then do\nyou know that you yourself exist? How do you know that the perceptions\nof your senses are not mere delusions, and that there is anything\noutside you answering to what your mind conceives? Have you a mind? and\nif you have not, what is it that enables you to think and reason, and\nfear, and hope? Are these conditions of your being the mere results\nof your material organism, like the headache which springs from\nindigestion, or the high spirits engendered by too much wine? Are\nyou something better than a vegetable highly cultivated, or than\nyour brothers of the lower animals? and, if so, what is it that\ndifferentiates your superiority? Why do things outside you obey your\nwill? Who gave you a will? and, if so, what is it? I think you must\nallow that intellect is a thing almost divine, if there be anything\ndivine; and I think also you must allow that it is not a thing to be\npropagated as we propagate well-made and high-bred cattle. Whence came\nAlexander the Great? Whence Charlemagne? And whence the First Napoleon?\nWas it through a mere process of spontaneous generation that they sprang\nup to alter by their genius and overwhelming will the destinies of the\nworld? Whence came Homer, Shakespeare, Bacon? Whence came all the\ngreat historians? Whence came Plato and all the bright lights of divine\nphilosophy, of divinity, of poetry? Their influence, after all, you must\nallow to be quite as wide and enduring as any produced by the masters\nof those positive material sciences which you worship. Do you think that\nall these great minds--for they are minds, and their work was not the\nproduct of a merely highly organised material frame--were the outcome\nof some system of material generation, which your so-called science can\nsubject to rule, and teach men how to produce by growth, as they grow\nvegetables?\"\n\nThe Archbishop is not a very skilful physician. His prescription shows\nthat he has not diagnosed the disease. These strange questions might\nstrike the infidel \"all of a heap,\" as the expressive vernacular has\nit, but although they might dumbfounder him, they would assuredly\nnot convince. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were not so exalted a\npersonage we should venture to remark that to ask a man how he knows\nthat he exists betrays a marvellous depth of ignorance or folly.\nUltimate facts of consciousness are not subjects of proof or disproof;\nthey are their own warranty and cannot be transcended. There is,\nbesides, something extraordinary in an archbishop of the church to\nwhich Berkeley belonged supposing that extreme idealism follows only the\nrejection of deity. Whether the senses are after all delusory does not\nmatter to the Atheist a straw; they are real enough to him, they\nmake his world in which he lives and moves, and it is of no\npractical consequence whether they mirror an outer world or not. What\ndifferentiates you from the lower animals? asks his Grace. The answer is\nsimple--a higher development of nervous structure. Who gave you a will?\nis just as sensible a question as Who gave you a nose? We have every\nreason to believe that both can be accounted for on natural grounds\nwithout introducing a supernatural donor. The question whether\nAlexander, Napoleon, Homer, Bacon and Shakespeare came through a process\nof spontaneous generation is excruciatingly ludicrous. That process\ncould only produce the very lowest form of organism, and not a\nwonderfully complex being like man who is the product of an incalculable\nevolution. But the Archbishop did not perhaps intend this; it may be\nthat in his haste to silence the \"infidel\" he stumbled over his own\nmeaning. Lastly, there is a remarkable na\u00efvet\u00e9 in the aside of the final\nquestion--\"for they are minds.\" He should have added \"you know,\" and\nthen the episode would have been delightfully complete. The assumption\nof the whole point at issue in an innocent parenthesis is perhaps to be\nexpected from a pulpiteer, but it is not likely that the \"infidel\"\nwill be caught by such a simple stratagem. All these questions are so\nirrelevant and absurd that we doubt whether his Grace would have the\ncourage to put one of them to any sceptic across a table, or indeed from\nany place in the world except the pulpit, which is beyond all risk of\nattack, and whence a man may ask any number of questions without the\nleast fear of hearing one of them answered.\n\nThe invitation given by his grace, to \"descend to the harder ground\nof strictest logical argumentation,\" is very appropriate. Whether\nthe movement be ascending or descending, there is undoubtedly a vast\ndistance between logical argumentation and anything he has yet advanced.\nBut even on the \"harder\" ground the Archbishop treads no more firmly.\nHe demands to know how the original protoplasm became endowed with life,\nand if that question cannot be answered he calls upon us to admit\nhis theory of divine agency, as though that made the subject more\nintelligible. Supernatural hypotheses are but refuges of ignorance.\nEarl Beaconsfield, in his impish way, once remarked that where knowledge\nended religion began, and the Archbishop of Canterbury seems to share\nthat opinion. His Grace also avers that \"no one has ever yet been able\nto refute the argument necessitating a great First Cause.\" It is very\neasy to assert this, but rather difficult to maintain it. One assertion\nis as good as another, and we shall therefore content ourselves with\nsaying that in our opinion the argument for a great First Cause was (to\nmention only one name) completely demolished by John Stuart Mill, who\nshowed it to be based on a total misconception of the nature of cause\nand effect, which apply only to ph\u00e6nomenal changes and not to the\napparently unchangeable matter and force of which the universe is\ncomposed.\n\nBut the overwhelming last argument is that \"man has something in him\nwhich speaks of God, of something above this fleeting world, and\nrules of right and wrong have their foundation elsewhere than in man's\nopinion.... that there is an immutable, eternal distinction between\nright and wrong--that there is a God who is on the side of right.\" Again\nwe must complain of unbounded assertion. Every point of this rhetorical\nflourish is disputed by \"infidels\" who are not likely to yield to\nanything short of proof. If God is on the side of right he is singularly\nincapable of maintaining it; for, in this world at least, according to\nsome penetrating minds, the devil has hitherto had it pretty much his\nown way, and good men have had to struggle very hard to make things even\nas equitable as we find them. But after all, says his Grace, the supreme\ndefence of the Church against the assaults of infidelity is Christ\nhimself. Weak in argument, the clergy must throw themselves behind his\nshield and trust in him. Before his brightness \"the mists which rise\nfrom a gross materialistic Atheism evaporate, and are scattered like the\nclouds of night before the dawn.\" It is useless to oppose reason to such\npreaching as this. We shall therefore simply retort the Archbishop's\nepithets. Gross and materialistic are just the terms to describe a\nreligion which traffics in blood and declares that without the shedding\nof it there is no remission of sin; whose ascetic doctrines malign our\npurest affections and defile the sweetest fountains of our spiritual\nhealth; whose heaven is nothing but an exaggerated jeweller's shop, and\nits hell a den of torture in which God punishes his children for the\nconsequences of his own ignorance, incapacity or crime.\n\n\n\n\nBAITING A BISHOP.\n\n     (February, 1880.)\n\nBishops should speak as men having authority, and not as the Scribes\nand Pharisees. Even the smallest of them should be a great man.\nAn archbishop, with fifteen thousand a year, ought to possess a\ntranscendent intellect, almost beyond comprehension; while the worst\npaid of all the reverend fathers of the Church, with less than a fifth\nof that salary, ought to possess no common powers of mind. The Bishop\nof Carlisle is not rich as bishops go, but he enjoys a yearly income\nof \u00a34,500, besides the patronage of forty-nine livings. Now this quite\nequals the salary of the Prime Minister of the greatest empire in the\nworld, and the Bishop of Carlisle should therefore be a truly great man.\nWe regret however, to say that he is very much the reverse, if we may\njudge from a newspaper report which has reached us of his lecture\non \"Man's Place in Nature,\" recently delivered before the Keswick\nScientific and Literary Society. Newspaper reports, we know, are often\nmisleading in consequence of their summary character; nevertheless\ntwo columns of small type must give some idea of a discourse, however\nabstruse or profound; here and there, if such occured, a fine thought or\na shrewd observation would shine through the densest veil. Yet, unless\nour vision be exceptionally obtuse, nothing of the kind is apparent in\nthis report of the Bishop's lecture. Being, as his lordship confessed,\nthe development of \"a sermon delivered to the men at the Royal\nAgricultural Society's Show last summer,\" the lecture was perhaps, like\nthe sermon, adapted to the bucolic mind, and thus does meagre justice to\nthe genius of its author. His lordship, however, chose to read it before\na society with some pretentions to culture, and therefore such a plea\ncannot avail. As the case stands, we are constrained to accuse\nthe bishop of having delivered a lecture on a question of supreme\nimportance, which would do little credit to the president of a Young\nMen's Christian Association; and when we reflect that a parson occupied\nthe chair at the meeting, and that the vote of thanks to the episcopal\nlecturer was moved by a canon, who coupled with it some highly\ncomplimentary remarks, we are obliged to think the Church more short of\nbrains than even we had previously believed, and that Mene, Mene, Tekel,\nUpharsin has already been written on its temple walls by the finger of\ndoom.\n\nVery early in his lecture the Bishop observed that \"the Scriptures are\nbuilt on the hypothesis of the supreme and unique position of man.\"\nWell, there is nothing novel in this statement. What we want is some\nproof of the hypothesis. His lordship's way of supplying this need is,\nto say the least, peculiar. After saying that \"he would rather trust the\npoet as an exponent of man than he would a student of natural history,\"\nhe proceeds to quote from Shakespeare, Pope and Plato, and ends that\npart of his argument with a rhetorical flourish, as though he had thus\nreally settled the whole case of Darwin _versus_ Moses. Our reverence\nof great poets is probably as deep and sincere as the Bishop's, but\nwe never thought of treating them as scientific authorities, or as\nwitnesses to events that happened hundreds of thousands of years before\ntheir birth. Poets deal with subjective facts of consciousness, or with\nobjective facts as related to these. The dry light of the intellect,\nradiated from the cloudless sun of truth, is not their proper element,\nbut belongs exclusively to the man of science. They move in a softer\nelement suffused with emotion, whose varied clouds are by the sun of\nimagination touched to all forms of beauty and splendor. The scientific\nman's description of a lion, for instance, would be very different from\na poet's; because the one would describe the lion as it is in itself,\nand the other as it affects us, a living whole, through our organs of\nsight and sound. Both are true, because each is faithful to its purpose\nand expresses a fact; yet neither can stand for the other, because\nthey express different facts and are faithful to different purposes.\nShakespeare poetically speaks of \"the ruddy drops that visit this sad\nheart,\" but the scientific truth of the circulation of the blood had\nto await its Harvey. In like manner, it was not Milton but Newton\nwho expounded the Cosmos; the great poet, like Dante before him, wove\npre-existent cosmical ideas into the texture of his sublime epic, while\nthe great scientist wove all the truth of them into the texture of his\nsublime theory. Let each receive his meed of reverent praise, but do not\nlet us appeal to Newton on poetry or to Milton on physics. And when a\nBishop of Carlisle, or other diocese, complains that \"the views advanced\nby scientific men tend painfully to degrade the views of poets and\nphilosophers,\" let us reply that in almost every case the great truths\nof science have been found to transcend infinitely the marvels of\ntheology, and that the magnificence of song persists through all\nfluctuations of knowledge, because its real cause lies less in the\nsubject than in the native grandeur of the poet's mind.\n\nMan's place in nature is, indeed, a great question, and it can be\nsettled only by a wide appeal to past and present facts. And those\nfacts, besides being objective realities, must be treated in a purely\nscientific, and not in a poetic or didactic spirit. Let the poet sing\nthe beauty of a consummate flower; and, if such things are required,\nlet the moralist preach its lessons. But neither should arrogate the\nprerogative of the botanist, whose special function it is to inform us\nof its genesis and development, and its true relations to other forms\nof vegetable life. So with man. The poet may celebrate his passions and\naspirations, his joys and sorrows, his laughter and tears, and ever body\nforth anew the shapes of things unseen; the moralist may employ every\nfact of his life to illustrate its laws or to enforce its duties; but\nthey must leave it to the biologist to explain his position in the\nanimal economy, and the stages by which it has been reached. With regard\nto that, Darwin is authoritative, while Moses is not even entitled to a\nhearing.\n\nAlthough the Bishop is very ready to quote from the poets, he is not\nalways ready to use them fairly. For instance, he cites the splendid and\nfamous passage in \"Hamlet:\"--\"What a piece of work is man! How noble in\nreason! How infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and\nadmirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like\na god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!\" There his\nlordship stops, and then exclaims, \"Shakespeare knew nothing of the\nevolution of man from inferior forms.\" But why did he not continue\nthe quotation? Hamlet goes on to say, \"And yet, what to me is this\n_quintessence of dust?_\" How now, your lordship? We have you on the hip!\n\"Quintessence of dust\" comes perilously near to evolution. Does not\nyour lordship remember, too, Hamlet's pursuing the dust of C\u00e6sar to the\nignominious bunghole? And have you never reflected how the prescient\nmind of Shakespeare created an entirely new and wonderful figure\nin literature, the half-human, half-bestial Caliban, with his god\nSetebos--a truly marvellous resuscitation of primitive man, that in our\nday has inspired Mr. Browning's \"Caliban on Setebos,\" which contains\nthe entire essence of all that Tylor and other investigators in the same\nfield have since written on the subject of Animism? It seems that the\nLord Bishop of Carlisle reads even the poets to small purpose.\n\nHaughtily waving the biologists aside, his lordship proceeds to remark\nthat \"man's superiority is not the same that a dog would claim over a\nlobster, or an eagle over a worm;\" the difference between man and\nother animals being \"not one of degree, but of kind.\" Such a statement,\nwithout the least evidence being adduced to support it, places the\nBishop almost outside the pale of civil discussion. When will these\nlordly ecclesiastics learn that the time for dogmatic assertion is past,\nand that the intellectual temper of the present age can be satisfied\nonly by proof? We defy the Bishop of Carlisle to indicate a single\nphase of man's nature which has no parallel in the lower animals. Man's\nphysical structure is notoriously akin to theirs, and even his brain\ndoes not imply a distinction of kind, for every convolution of the brain\nof man is reproduced in the brain of the higher apes. His lordship draws\na distinction between instinct and reason, which is purely fanciful and\nevinces great ignorance of the subject. That, however, is a question we\nhave at present no room to discuss; nor, indeed, is there any necessity\nto do so, since his lordship presently admits that the lower animals\nshare our \"reason\" to some extent, just as to a much larger extent we\nshare their \"instinct,\" and thus evacuates the logical fortress he took\nsuch pains to construct.\n\nQuitting that ground, which proves too slippery for his feet, the Bishop\ngoes on to notice the moral and aesthetic difference between man and the\nlower animals. No animal, says his lordship, shows \"anything approaching\nto a love of art.\" Now we are quite aware that no animal except man ever\npainted a picture or chiselled a statue, for these things involve a very\nhigh development of the artistic faculty. But the appreciation of\nform and color, which is the foundation of all fine art, is certainly\nmanifested by the lower animals, and by some fathem to an extreme\ndegree. If his lordship doubts this, let him study the ways of animals\nfor himself; or, if he cannot do that, let him read the chapters in Mr.\nDarwin's \"Descent of Man\" on sexual selection among birds. If he retains\nany doubt after that, we must conclude that his head is too hard or too\nsoft to be influenced, in either of which cases he is much to be pitied.\n\nHis lordship thinks that the moral sense is entirely absent in the lower\nanimals. This, however, is absurdly untrue; so much so, indeed, that\nwe shall not trouble to refute it _Good_ and _noble_, he avers, are\nepithets inapplicable to animals, even to the horse or dog. What vain\ncreatures men are to talk thus! Does his lordship remember Byron's\nepitaph on his Newfoundland dog, and the very uncomplimentary\ndistinction drawn therein between dogs and men? Look at that big\npet with the lordly yet tender eye! How he submits to the boisterous\ncaresses of children, because he knows their weakness and shares their\nspirit of play! Let their elders do the same, and he will at once show\nresentment. See him peril his life ungrudgingly for those he loves, or\neven for comparative strangers! And shall we deny him the epithet of\n_noble or good?_ Whatever theologians may say, the sound heart of common\nmen and women will answer _No!_\n\nLastly, we are told that \"the religious sentiment is characteristically\nand supremely human.\" But here again we must complain of his lordship's\nmental confusion. The religious sentiment is not a simple but a highly\ncomplex emotion. Resolve it into its elemental feelings, and it will be\nfound that all these are possessed in some degree by lower animals. The\nfeeling of a dog who bays the moon is probably very similar to that of\nthe savage who cowers and moans beneath an eclipse; and if the savage\nhas superstitious ideas as well as awesome feelings, it is only because\nhe possesses a higher development of thought and imagination.\n\nCanon Battersby, who moved the vote of thanks to the Bishop, ridiculed\nthe biologists, and likened them to Topsy who accounted for her\nexistence by saying \"Specs I growed.\" Just so. That is precisely how we\nall did come into existence. Growth and not making is the law for man as\nwell as for every other form of life. Moses stands for manufacture and\nDarwin stands for growth. And if the great biologist finds himself in\nthe company of Topsy, he will not mind. Perhaps, indeed, as he is said\nto enjoy a joke and to be able to crack one, might he jocularly observe\nto \"tremendous personages\" like the Bishop of Carlisle, that this is not\nthe first instance of truths being hidden from the \"wise\" and revealed\nunto babes.\n\n\n\n\nPROFESSOR FLINT ON ATHEISM.\n\n     (January,   1877.)\n\nProfessor Flint delivered last week the first of the present year's\ncourse of Baird lectures to a numerous audience in Blythswood Church,\nGlasgow, taking for his subject \"The Theories opposed to Theism.\"\nAnti-Theism, he said, is more general now than Atheism, and includes\nall systems opposed to Theism. Atheism he defined as \"the system which\nteaches that there is no God, and that it is impossible for man to know\nthat there is a God.\" At least this is how Professor Flint is reported\nin the newspapers, although we hope he was not guilty of so idiotic a\njumble.\n\nWhere are the Atheists who say there is no God? What are their names?\nHaving mingled much with thoroughgoing sceptics, and read many volumes\nof heretical literature, we can confidently defy Professor Flint to\nproduce the names of half a dozen dogmatic Atheists, and we will give\nhim the whole world's literature to select from. Does he think that the\nbrains of an Atheist are addled? If not, why does he make the Atheist\nfirst affirm that there is _no_ God, and then affirm the impossibility\nof man's ever knowing whether there is a God or not? How could a man\nwho holds his judgment in suspense, or who thinks the universal mystery\ninsoluble to us, dogmatise upon the question of God's existence? If\nProfessor Flint will carefully and candidly study sceptical literature,\nhe will find that the dogmatic Atheist is as rare a the phoenix, and\nthat those who consider the extant evidences of Theism inadequate, do\nnot go on to affirm an universal negative, but content themselves with\nexpressing their ignorance of Nature's _why_. For the most part they\nendorse Thomas Cooper's words, \"I do not say there _is_ no God, but\nthis I say, _I know not_\" Of course this modesty of affirmation may seem\nimpiously immodest to one who has been trained and steeped in Theism so\nlong that the infinite universe has become quite explicable to him; but\nto the sceptic it seems more wise and modest to confess one's ignorance,\nthan to make false pretensions of knowledge.\n\nProfessor Flint \"characterised the objections which Atheism urges\nagainst the existence of God as extremely feeble.\" Against the existence\nof _what_ God? There be Gods many and Lords many; which of the long\ntheological list is to be selected as _the_ God? A God, like everything\nelse from the heights to the depths, can be known only by his\nattributes; and what the Atheist does is not to argue against the\nexistence of _any_ God, which would be sheer lunacy, but to take the\nattributes affirmed by Theism as composing its Deity and inquire whether\nthey are compatible with each other and with the facts of life. Finding\nthat they are not, the Atheist simply sets Theism aside as not proven,\nand goes on his way without further afflicting himself with such\nabstruse questions.\n\nThe Atheist must be a very dreary creature, thinks Professor Flint. But\nwhy? Does he know any Atheists, and has he found them one half as dreary\nas Scotch Calvinists? It may seem hard to the immoderately selfish that\nsome Infinite Spirit is not looking after their little interests, but\nit is assuredly a thousandfold harder to think that this Infinite Spirit\nhas a yawning hell ready to engulph the vast majority of the world's\nmiserable sinners. If the Atheist has no heaven, he has also no hell,\nwhich is a most merciful relief. Far better were universal annihilation\nthan that even the meanest life should writhe for ever in hell, gnawed\nby the worm which never dieth, and burnt in the fire which is never\nquenched.\n\nEven Nature, thinks Professor Flint, cannot be contemplated by the\nAtheist as the Theist contemplates it; for while the latter views it\nas God's vesture wherewith he hides from us his intolerable glory, the\nlatter views it as the mere embodiment of force, senseless, aimless,\npitiless, an enormous mechanism grinding on of itself from age to\nage, but towards no God and for no good. Here we must observe that the\nlecturer trespasses beyond the truth. The Atheist does not affirm that\nNature drives on to no God and no good; he simply says he knows not\nwhither she is driving. And how many Theists are there who think of God\nin the presence of Nature, who see God's smile in the sunshine, or hear\nhis wrath in the storm? Very few, we opine, in this practical sceptical\nage. To the Atheist as to the Theist, indeed to all blessed with vision,\nNature is an ever new wonder of majesty and beauty! Sun, moon, and\nstars, earth, air, and sky, endure while the generations of men pass\nand perish; but every new generation is warmed, lighted, nurtured and\ngladdened by them with most sovereign and perfect impartiality. The\nloveliness and infinite majesty of Nature speak to all men, of all\nages, climes and creeds. Not in her inanimate beauty do we find fatal\nobjections to the doctrine of a wise and bountiful power which overrules\nher, but rather in the multiplied horrors, woes, and pangs of\nsentient life. When all actual and recorded misery is effaced, when no\nintolerable grief corrodes and no immedicable despair poisons life, when\nthe tears of anguish are assuaged, when crime and vice are unknown and\nunremembered, and evil lusts are consumed in the fire of holiness; then,\nand then only, could we admit that a wise and righteous omnipotence\nrules the universal destinies. Until then we cannot recognise the\nfatherhood of God, but must find shelter and comfort in the more\nefficacious doctrine of the brotherhood of Man.\n\nProfessor Flint concluded his lecture, according to the newspaper\nreport, thus:--\"History bears witness that the declension of religion\nhas ever been the decline of nations, because it has ever brought the\ndecay of their moral life; and people have achieved noble things only\nwhen strongly animated by religious faith.\" All this is very poor\nstuff indeed to come from a learned professor. What nation has declined\nbecause of a relapse from religious belief? Surely not Assyria, Egypt,\nGreece, or Carthage? In the case of Rome, the decline of the empire was\ncoincident with the rise of Christianity and the decline of Paganism;\nbut the Roman Empire fell abroad mainly from political, and not from\nreligious causes, as every student of history well knows. Christianity,\nthat is the religion of the Bible, has been dying for nearly three\ncenturies; and during that period, instead of witnessing a general\ndegradation of mankind we have witnessed a marvellous elevation. The\ncivilisation of to-day, compared with that which existed before Secular\nScience began her great battle with a tyrannous and obscurantist Church,\nis as a summer morn to a star-lit winter night.\n\nAgain, it is not true that men have achieved noble things only when\nstrongly animated by religious faith; unless by \"religious faith\" be\nmeant some vital idea or fervent enthusiasm. The three hundred Spartans\nwho met certain death at Thermopylae died for a religious idea, but not\nfor a theological idea, which is a very different thing. They perished\nto preserve the integrity of the state to which they belonged. The\ngreatest Athenians were certainly not religious in Professor Flint's\nsense of the word, and the grand old Roman patriots had scarcely a\nscintillation of such a religious faith as he speaks of. Their religion\nwas simply patriotism, but it was quite as operant and effective as\nChristian piety has ever been. Was it religious faith or patriotism\nwhich banded Frenchmen together in defiance of all Europe, and made\nthem march to death as a bridegroom hastens to his bride? And in our\nown history have not our greatest achievers of noble things been very\nindifferent to theological dogmas? Nay, in all ages, have not the\nnoblest laborers for human welfare been impelled by an urgent enthusiasm\nof humanity rather than by any supernatural faith? Professor Flint may\nrest assured that even though all \"the old faiths ruin and rend,\" the\nhuman heart will still burn, and virtue and beauty still gladden the\nearth, although divorced from the creeds which held them in the thraldom\nof an enforced marriage.\n\n\n\n\nA HIDDEN GOD.\n\n     (October, 1879.)\n\nThe _Christian World_ is distinguished among religious journals by a\ncertain breadth and vigor. On all social and political subjects it is\nremarkably advanced and outspoken, and its treatment of theological\nquestions is far more liberal and intelligent than sceptics would\nexpect. Of late years it has opened its columns to correspondence on\nmany topics, some of a watery character, like the reality of Noah's\nflood, and others of a burning kind, like the doctrine of eternal\npunishment, on all of which great freedom of expression has been\nallowed. The editor himself, who is, we suspect, far more sceptical than\nmost of his readers, has had his say on the question of Hell, and it is\nto be inferred from his somewhat guarded utterance that he has little\nbelief in any such place. This, however, we state with considerable\nhesitation, for the majority of Christians still regard the doctrine of\neverlasting torture as indubitable and sacred, and we have no desire to\nlower him in the estimation of the Christian world in which he labors,\nor to cast a doubt on the orthodoxy of his creed. But the editor\nwill not take it amiss if we insist that his paper is liberal in its\nChristianity, and unusually tolerant of unbelief.\n\nYet, while entitled to praise on his ground, the _Christian World_\ndeserves something else than praise on another. It has recently\npublished a series of articles for the purpose of stimulating faith and\nallaying doubt. If undertaken by a competent writer, able and willing\nto face the mighty difference between Christianity and the scientific\nspirit of our age, such a series of articles might be well worth\nreading. We might then admire if we could not agree, and derive benefit\nfrom friendly contact with an antagonist mind. But the writer selected\nfor the task appears to possess neither of these qualifications. Instead\nof thinking he gushes; instead of reason he supplies us with unlimited\nsentiment. We expect to tread solid ground, or at least to find it not\nperilously soft; and lo! the soil is moist, and now and then we find\nourselves up to the knees in unctuous mud. How difficult it is nowadays\nto discover a really argumentative Christian! The eminent favorites of\northodoxy write sentimental romances and call them \"Lives of Christ,\"\nand preach sermons with no conceivable relation to the human intellect;\nwhile the apologists of faith imitate the tactics of the cuttle-fish,\nand when pursued cast out their opaque fluid of sentimentality\nto conceal their position. They mostly dabble in the shallows of\nscepticism, never daring to venture in the deeps; and what they take\npride in as flashes of spiritual light resembles neither the royal\ngleaming of the sun nor the milder radiance of the moon, but rather the\nphosphorescence of corruption.\n\nIn the last article of the series referred to, entitled \"Thou art a God\nthat Hidest Thyself,\" there is an abundance of fictitious emotion and\nspurious rhetoric. From beginning to end there is a painful strain that\nnever relaxes, reminding us of singers who pitch their voices too high\nand have to render all the upper notes in falsetto. An attempt is made\nto employ poetical imagery, but it ludicrously fails. The heaven of the\nBook of Revelation, with its gold and silver and precious stones,\nis nothing but a magnified jeweller's shop, and a study of it has\ninfluenced the style of later writers. At present Christian gushers\nhave descended still lower, dealing not even in gold and jewels, but in\nBrummagem and paste. The word _gem_ is greatly in vogue. Talmage uses it\nabout twenty times in every lecture, Parker delights in it, and it often\nfigures on the pages of serious books. In the article before us it is\nmade to do frequent service. A promise of redemption is represented as\nshining gem-like on the brow of Revelation, Elims _gem_ the dark bosom\nof the universal desert, and the morning gleams on the _dew-gemmed_\nearth. Perhaps a good recipe for this kind of composition would be an\nhour's gloat on the flaming window of a jeweller's shop in the West End.\n\nBut let us deal with the purport and purpose of the article. It aims at\nshowing that God hides himself, and why he does so. The fact which it is\nattempted to explain none will deny. Moses ascended Mount Sinai to see\nGod and converse with him, Abraham and God walked and talked together,\nand according to St. Paul the Almighty is not far from any one of us.\nBut the modern mind is not prone to believe these things. The empire of\nreason has been enlarged at the expense of faith, whose provinces have\none after another been annexed until only a small territory is left her,\nand that she finds it difficult to keep. Coincidently, God has become\nless and less a reality and more and more a dream. The reign of law\nis perceived everywhere, and all classes of phenomena may be explained\nwithout recourse to supernatural power. When Napoleon objected to\nLaplace that divine design was omitted from his mechanical theory of the\nuniverse, the French philosopher characteristically replied: \"I had no\nneed of that hypothesis.\" And the same disposition prevails in other\ndepartments of science. Darwin, for instance, undertakes to explain the\norigin and development of man, physical, intellectual and moral, without\nassuming any cause other than those which obtain wherever life exists.\nGod is being slowly but surely driven from the domain of intermediate\ncauses, and transformed into an ultimate cause, a mere figment of the\nimagination. He is being banished from nature into that poetical region\ninhabited by the gods of Polytheism, to keep company there with Jupiter\nand Apollo and Neptune and Juno and Venus, and all the rest of that\nglorious Pantheon. He no longer rules the actual life and struggle of\nthe world, but lives at peace with his old rivals in--\n\n     \"The lucid interspace of world and world,\n     Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind,\n     Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,\n     Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans;\n     Nor sound of human sorrow mounts, to mar\n     Their sacred everlasting calm.\" *\n\n     * Tennyson: \"Lucretius.\"\n\nThe essence of all this is admitted by the writer in the _Christian\nWorld_; he admits the facts, but denies the inference. They show us\none of God's ways of hiding himself. Order prevails, but it is the\nexpression of God's will, and not a mere result of the working of\nmaterial forces. He operates by method, not by caprice, and hence the\nunchanging stability of things. While doing nothing in particular, he\ndoes everything in general. And this idea must be extended to human\nhistory. God endows man with powers, and allows him freedom to employ\nthem as he will. But, strangely enough, God has a way of \"ruling our\nfreedom,\" and always there is \"a restraining and restoring hand.\"\nHow man's will can be free and yet overruled passes our merely carnal\nunderstanding, although it may be intelligible enough to minds steeped\nin the mysteries of theology. According to this writer, God's government\nof mankind is a \"constitutional kingdom.\" Quite so. It was once\narbitrary and despotic; now it is far milder and less exacting, having\ndwindled into the \"constitutional\" stage, wherein the King _reigns_ but\ndoes not _govern_. Will the law of human growth and divine decay stop\nhere? We think not. As the despotism has changed to a constitutional\nmonarchy, so that will change to a republic, and the empty throne be\npreserved among other curious relics of the past.\n\nGod also hides himself in history. Although unapparent on the surface of\nevents, his spirit is potent within them. \"What,\" the writer asks, \"is\nhistory--with all its dark passages of horror, its stormy revolutions,\nits ceaseless conflict, its tears, its groans, its blood--but the\nchronicle of an ever-widening realm of light, of order, of intelligence,\nwisdom, truth, and charity?\" But if we admit the progress, we need not\nexplain it as the work of God. Bunsen wrote a book on \"God in History,\"\nwhich a profane wag said should have been called \"Bunsen in History;\"\nyet his attempt to justify the ways of God to men was not very\nsuccessful. It is simply a mockery to ask us to believe that the slow\nprogress of humanity must be attributed to omniscient omnipotence. A\nGod who can evolve virtue and happiness only out of infinite evil and\nmisery, and elevate us only through the agency of perpetual blood and\ntears, is scarcely a being to be loved and worshipped, unless we assume\nthat his power and wisdom are exceedingly limited. Are we to suppose\nthat God has woven himself a garment of violence, evil, and deceit, in\norder that we might not see too clearly his righteousness, goodness, and\ntruth?\n\nIt must further be observed that Christian Theists cannot be permitted\nto ascribe all the good in the world to God, and all the evil to man, or\nelse leave it absolutely unexplained. In the name of humanity we protest\nagainst this indignity to our race. Let God be responsible for good and\nevil both, or for neither; and if man is to consider himself chargeable\nwith all the world's wrong, he should at least be allowed credit for all\nthe compensating good.\n\nThe theory of evolution is being patronised by Theists rather too\nfulsomely. Not long ago they treated it with obloquy and contempt, but\nnow they endeavor to use it as an argument for their faith, and in doing\nso they distort language as only theological controversialists can.\nChanging \"survival of the _fittest_\" into \"survival of the _best_,\" they\ntransform a physical fact into a moral law; and thus, as they think,\ntake a new north-west passage to the old harbor of \"whatever is is\nright.\" But while-evolution may be construed as progress, which some\nwould contest, it cannot be construed as the invariable survival of\nthe best; nor, if it were, could the process by which this result is\nachieved be justified. For evolution works through a universal struggle\nfor existence, in which the life and well-being of some can be secured\nonly through the suffering and final extinction of others; and even\nin its higher stages, cunning and unscrupulous strength frequently\novercomes humane wisdom fettered by weakness. \"Nature, red in tooth and\nclaw, with ravin shrieks against the creed\" of the Theist. If God is\nworking through evolution, we must admit that he has marvellously hidden\nhimself, and agree with the poet that he _does_ \"move in a mysterious\nway his wonders to perform.\"\n\nThe writer in the _Christian World_ borrows an image from the puling\nscepticism of \"In Memoriam,\" which describes man as\n\n     \"An infant crying in the night,\n     And with no language but a cry.\"\n\nThis image of the infant is put to strange use. The writer says that\nGod is necessarily hidden from us because we can grasp \"his inscrutable\nnature and methods\" only as \"an infant can grasp the thought and purpose\nof a man.\" Similes are dangerous things. When it is demanded that they\nshall run upon all fours, they often turn against their masters. This\none does so. The infant grows into a man in due course, and then he can\nnot only grasp the thought and purpose of his father, but also, it may\nbe, comprehend still greater things. Will the infant mind of man, when\nit reaches maturity, be thus related to God's? If not, the analogy is\nfallacious. Man is quite mature enough already, and has been so for\nthousands of years, to understand something of God's thought and purpose\nif he had only chosen to reveal them. This, however, if there be a\nGod, he has not condescended to do. An appeal to the various pretended\nrevelations of the world serves to convince us that all are the words of\nfallible men. Their very discord discredits them. As D'Holbach said,\nif God had spoken, the universe would surely be convinced, and the same\nconviction would fill every breast.\n\nThe reason given for God's hiding himself is very curious. \"If,\" says\nthe writer, \"the way of God were not in large measure hidden, it would\nmean that we could survey all things from the height and the depth of\nGod.\" Truly an awful contemplation! May it not be that God is hidden\nfrom us because there is none to be revealed, that \"all the oracles are\ndumb or cheat because they have no secret to express\"?\n\nBut, says the writer in the _Christian World_, there is one revelation\nof God that can never be gainsaid; \"while the Cross stands as earth's\nmost sacred symbol, there can be no utter hiding of his love.\" This,\nhowever, we venture to dispute. That Cross which was laid upon the back\nof Jesus poor mankind has been compelled to carry ever since, with no\nSimon to ease it of the load. Jesus was crucified on Calvary, and in his\nname man has suffered centuries of crucifixion. The immolation of\nJesus can be no revelation of God's love. If the Nazarene was God, his\ncrucifixion involves a complicated arrangement for murder; the Jews\nwho demanded his death were divinely instigated, and Judas Iscariot was\npre-ordained to betray his master; in which case his treachery was a\nnecessary element of the drama, entitling him not to vituperation but\nto gratitude, even perhaps to the monument which Benjamin Disraeli\nsuggested as his proper reward. Looking also at the history of\nChristianity, and seeing how the Cross has sheltered oppressors of mind\nand body, sanctioned immeasurable shedding of blood, and frightened\npeoples from freedom, while even now it symbolises all that is\nreactionary and accursed in Europe, we are constrained to say that the\nlove _it_ reveals is as noxious as the vilest hate.\n\n\n\n\nGENERAL JOSHUA.\n\n     (April, 1882.)\n\nMountebank Talmage has just preached a funeral sermon on General Joshua.\nIt is rather behind date, as the old warrior has been dead above three\nthousand years. But better late than never. Talmage tells us many things\nabout Joshua which are not in the Bible, and some sceptics will say that\nhis panegyric is a sheer invention. They may, however, be mistaken. The\noracle of the Brooklyn Jabbernacle is known to be inspired. God holds\nconverse with him, and he is thus enabled to supply us with fresh facts\nabout Jehovah's fighting-cock from the lost books of Jasher and the Wars\nof the Lord.\n\nJoshua, says Talmage, was a magnificent fighter. We say, he was a\nmagnificent butcher. Jehovah did the fighting.\n\nHe was the virtual commander of the Jewish hosts; he won all their\nvictories; and Joshua only did the slaughter. He excelled in that line\nof business. He delighted in the dying groans of women and children, and\nloved to dabble his feet and hands in the warm blood of the slain.\nNo \"Chamber of Horrors\" contains the effigy of any wretch half so\nbloodthirsty and cruel.\n\nAccording to Talmage, Joshua \"always fought on the right side.\" Wars\nof conquest are never right. Thieving other people's lands is an\nabominable crime. The Jews had absolutely no claim to the territory\nthey took possession of, and which they manured with the blood of its\nrightful owners. We know they said that God told them to requisition\nthat fine little landed estate of Canaan. Half the thieves in history\nhave said the same thing. We don't believe them. God never told any man\nto rob his neighbor, and whoever says so lies. The thief's statement\ndoes not suffice. Let him produce better evidence. A rascal who steals\nand murders cannot be believed on his oath, and 'tis more likely that he\nis a liar than that God is a scoundrel.\n\nTalmage celebrates \"five great victories\" of Joshua. He omits two mighty\nachievements. General Joshua circumcised a million and a half Jews in a\nsingle day. His greatest battle never equalled that wonderful feat. The\namputations were done at the rate of over a thousand a minute. Samson's\njaw-bone was nothing to Joshua's knife. This surprising old Jew was as\ngreat in oratory as in surgery. On one occasion he addressed an audience\nof three millions, and everyone heard him. His voice must have reached\ntwo or three miles. No wonder the walls of Jericho fell down when Joshua\njoined in the shout. We dare say the Jews wore ear-preservers to guard\ntheir tympanums against the dreadful artillery of his speech.\n\nJoshua's first victory, says Tahnage, was conquering the spring freshet\nof Jordan. As a matter of fact, Jehovah transacted that little affair.\nSee, says Talmage, \"one mile ahead go two priests carrying a _glittering\nbox_ four feet long and two feet wide. It is the Ark of the Covenant.\"\nHe forgets to add that the Jew God was supposed to be inside it. Jack in\nthe box is nothing to God in a box. What would have happened if the Ark\nhad been buried with Jehovah safely fastened in? Would his godship\nhave mouldered to dust? In that case he would never have seduced a\ncarpenter's wife, and there would have been no God the Son as the fruit\nof his adultery.\n\nTalmage credits General Joshua with the capture of Jericho. The Bible\nsays that Jehovah overcame it. Seven priests went blowing rams' horns\nround the city for seven days. On the seventh day they went round it\nseven times. It must have been tiresome work, for Jericho was a large\ncity several miles in circumference. But priests are always good\n\"Walkers.\" After the last blowing of horns all the Jews shouted \"Down\nJericho, down Jericho!\" This is Talmage's inspired account. The Bible\nstates nothing of the kind. Just as the Islamites cry \"Allah, Il Allah,\"\nit is probable that the Jews cried \"Jahveh, Jahveh.\" But Talmage and the\nBible both agree that when their shout rent the air the walls of Jericho\nfell flat--as flat as the fools who believe it.\n\nThen, says Talmage, \"the huzza of the victorious Israelites and the\ngroan of the conquered Canaanites commingle!\" Ah, that groan! Its sound\nstill curses the Bible God. Men, women and children, were murdered.\nThe very cattle, sheep and asses, were killed with the sword. Only one\nwoman's house was spared, and she was a harlot.\n\nIt is as if the German army took Paris, and killed every inhabitant\nexcept Cora Pearl. This is inspired war, and Talmage glories in it. He\nwould consider it an honor to be bottle-washer to such a pious hero\nas General Joshua. When Ai was taken, all its people were slaughtered,\nwithout any regard to age or sex. Talmage grins with delight, and cries\n\"Bravo, Joshua!\" The King of Ai was reserved for sport. They hung him on\na tree and enjoyed the fun. Talmage approves this too. Everything Joshua\ndid was right. Talmage is ready to stake his own poor little soul on\nthat.\n\nJoshua's victory over the five kings calls forth a burst of supernatural\neloquence. Talmage pictures the \"catapults of the sky pouring a volley\nof hailstones\" on the flying Amorites, and words almost fail him to\ndescribe the glorious miracle of the lengthening of the day in order\nthat Jehovah's prize-fighters might go on killing. One passage is almost\nsublime. It is only one step off. \"What,\" asks Talmage, \"is the matter\nwith Joshua? Has he fallen in an apoplectic fit? No. He is in prayer.\"\nOur profanity would not have gone to that length. But we take Talmage's\nword for it that prayer and apoplexy are very much alike.\n\nThe _five_ kings were decapitated. \"Ah,\" says Talmage, \"I want five\nmore kings beheaded to-day, King Alcohol, King Fraud, King Lust, King\nSuperstition, and King Infidelity.\" Soft, you priestly calumniator!\nWhat right have you to associate Infidelity with fraud and lust? That\nFreethought, which you call \"infidelity,\" is more faithful to truth and\njustice than your creed has ever been. And it will not be disposed of\nso easily as you think. You will never behead us, but we shall strangle\nyou. We are crushing the life out of your wretched faith, and your\nspasmodic sermons are only the groans of its despair.\n\nTalmage's boldest step on the line which separates the ludicrous from\nthe sublime occurs in his peroration. He makes General Joshua conquer\nDeath by lying down and giving up the ghost, and then asks for a\nheadstone and a foot-stone for the holy corpse. \"I imagine,\" he says,\n\"that for the head it shall be the sun that stood still upon Gibeon, and\nfor the foot the moon that stood still in the valley of Ajalon.\" This\nis about the finest piece of Yankee buncombe extant. If the sun and moon\nkeep watch over General Joshua's grave, what are we to do? When we get\nto the New Jerusalem we shall want neither of these luminaries, for the\nglory of the Lord will shine upon us. But until then we cannot dispense\nwith them, and we decidedly object to their being retained as perpetual\nmourners over Joshua's grave. If, however, one of them must do service,\nwe humbly beg that it may be the moon. Let the sun illumine us by day,\nso that we may see to transact our affairs. And if ever we should long\nto behold \"pale Dians beams\" again, we might take Talmage as our guide\nto the unknown grave of General Joshua, and while they played softly\nover the miraculous two yards of turf we should see his fitting\nepitaph--Moonshine.\n\n\n\n\nGOING TO HELL.\n\n     (June, 1882.)\n\nEditing a Freethought paper is a dreadful business. It brings one into\ncontact with many half-baked people who have little patent recipes\nfor hastening the millennium; with ambitious versifiers who think it\na disgrace to journalism that their productions are not instantly\ninserted; with discontented ladies and gentlemen who fancy that a\nheterodox paper is the proper vehicle for every species of complaint;\nand with a multitude of other bores too numerous to mention and too\nvarious to classify. But the worst of all are the anonymous bores,\nwho send their insults, advice, or warnings, through the post for\nthe benefit of the Queen's revenue. We generally pitch their puerile\nmissives into the waste-paper basket; but occasionally we find one\ndiverting enough to be introduced to our readers. A few days ago we\nreceived the following lugubrious epistle, ostensibly from a parson in\nWorcestershire, as the envelope bore the postmark of Tything.\n\n\"The fool hath said in his heart 'there is no God'--I have seen one\nof your blasphemous papers; and I say solemnly, as a clergyman of the\nChurch of England, that I believe you are doing the work of the Devil,\nand are on the road to hell, and will spend eternity with the Devil,\nunless God, in his mercy, lead you, by the Holy Spirit, to _repentance_.\nNothing is impossible, with him. A Dean in the Church of England says,\n'Be wise, and laugh not through a speck of time, and then wail through\nan immeasurable eternity.' Except you change your views you will most\ncertainly hear Christ say, at the Judgment Day, 'Depart ye cursed into\neverlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.' (Matt, xxv.)\"\n\nThis is a tolerably warm, though not very elegant effusion, and it is\nreally a pity that so grave a counsellor should conceal his name; for if\nit should lead to our conversion, we should not know whom to thank for\nhaving turned us out of the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire.\nOur mentor assures us that with God nothing is impossible. We are sorry\nto learn this; for we must conclude that he does not take sufficient\ntrouble with parsons to endow them with the courage of their\nconvictions, or to make them observe the common decencies of epistolary\nintercourse.\n\nThis anonymous parson, who acts like an Irish \"Moonlighter,\" and masks\nhis identity while venting his spleen, presumes to anticipate the Day\nof Judgment, and tells exactly what Jesus Christ will say to us on that\noccasion. We are obliged to him for the information, but we wonder how\nhe obtained it. The twenty-fifth of Matthew, to which he refers us,\ncontains not a word about unbelievers. It simply states that certain\npersons, who have treated the Son of Man very shabbily in his distress,\nshall be sent to keep company with Old Nick and his imps. Now, we have\nnever shown the Son of Man any incivility, much less any inhumanity, and\nwe therefore repudiate this odious insinuation. Whenever Jesus Christ\nsends us a message that he is sick, we will pay him a visit; if he\nis hungry, we will find him a dinner; if he is thirsty, we will stand\nwhatever he likes to drink; if he is naked, we will hunt him up a clean\nshirt and an old suit; and if he is in prison, we will, according as he\nis innocent or guilty, try to procure his release, or leave him to serve\nout his term. We should be much surprised if any parson in the three\nkingdoms would do any more Some of them, we believe, would see him\ncondemned (new version) before they would lift a finger or spend\nsixpence to-help him.\n\nWe are charged with doing the work of the Devil. This is indeed news. We\nnever knew the Devil required any assistance. He was always very\nactive and enterprising, and quite able to manage his own business.\nAnd although his rival, Jehovah, is so dotingly senile as to yield up\neverything to his mistress and her son, no one has ever whispered the\nleast hint of the Devil's decline into the same abject position. But if\nhis Satanic Majesty needed our aid we should not be loth to give it, for\nafter carefully reading the Bible many times from beginning to end, we\nhave come to the conclusion that he is about the only gentleman in it.\n\nWe are \"on the road to hell.\" Well, if we must _go_ somewhere, that is\njust the place we should choose. The temperature is high, and it would\nno doubt at first be incommodious. But, as old Sir Thomas Browne says,\nafflictions induce callosities, and in time we should get used to\nanything.\n\nWhen once we grew accustomed to the heat, how thankful we should be\nat having escaped the dreary insipidity of heaven, with its perpetual\npsalms, its dolorous trumpets, its gruesome elders, and its elderly\nbeasts! How thankful at having missed an eternity with Abraham, Isaac,\nJacob, David, and all the many blackguards and scoundrels of the Bible!\nHow thankful at having joined for ever the society of Rabelais, Bruno,\nSpinoza, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and all the great\npoets, sages and wits, who possess so much of that carnal wisdom which\nis at enmity with the pious folly of babes and sucklings!\n\nOn the whole, we think it best to keep on our present course. Let the\nbigots rave and the parsons wail. They are deeply _interested_ in the\ndoctrine of heaven and hell beyond the grave. We believe in heaven\nand hell on this side of it; a hell of ignorance, crime, and misery; a\nheaven of wisdom, virtue, and happiness. Our duty is to promote the one\nand combat the other. If there be a just God, the fulfilment of that\nduty will suffice; if God be unjust, all honest men will be in the same\nboat, and have the courage to despise and defy him.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTMAS EVE IN HEAVEN.\n\n     (December, 1881.)\n\nChristmas Eve had come and almost gone. It was drawing nigh midnight,\nand I sat solitary in my room, immersed in memory, dreaming of old days\nand their buried secrets. The fire, before which I mused, was burning\nclear without flame, and its intense glow, which alone lighted my\napartment, cast a red tint on the furniture and walls. Outside the\nstreets were muffled deep with snow, in which no footstep was audible.\nAll was quiet as death, silent as the grave, save for the faint murmur\nof my own breathing. Time and space seemed annihilated beyond those four\nnarrow walls, and I was as a coffined living centre of an else lifeless\ninfinity.\n\nMy reverie was rudely broken by the staggering step of a fellow-lodger,\nwhose devotion to Bacchus was the one symptom of reverence in his\nnature. He reeled up stair after stair, and as he passed my door he\nlurched against it so violently that I feared he would come through. But\nhe slowly recovered himself after some profane mutterings, reeled up the\nnext flight of stairs, and finally deposited his well-soaked clay on the\nbed in his own room immediately over mine.\n\nAfter this interruption my thoughts changed most fancifully. Why I\nknow not, but I began to brood on the strange statement of Saint Paul\nconcerning the man who was lifted up into the seventh heaven, and there\nbeheld things not lawful to reveal. While pondering this story I was\npresently aware of an astonishing change. The walls of my room slowly\nexpanded, growing ever thinner and thinner, until they became the\nfilmiest transparent veil which at last dissolved utterly away. Then\n(whether in the spirit or the flesh I know not) I was hurried along\nthrough space, past galaxy after galaxy of suns and stars, separate\nsystems yet all mysteriously related.\n\nSwifter than light we travelled, I and my unseen guide, through the\ninfinite ocean of ether, until our flight was arrested by a denser\nmedium, which I recognised as an atmosphere like that of our earth. I\nhad scarcely recovered from this new surprise when (marvel of marvels!)\nI found myself before a huge gate of wondrous art and dazzling splendor.\nAt a word from my still unseen guide it swung open, and I was urged\nwithin. Beneath my feet was a solid pavement of gold. Gorgeous mansions,\ninterspersed with palaces, rose around me, and above them all towered\nthe airy pinnacles of a matchless temple, whose points quivered in\nthe rich light like tongues of golden fire. The walls glittered with\ncountless rubies, diamonds, pearls, amethysts, emeralds, and other\nprecious stones; and lovely presences, arrayed in shining garments,\nmoved noiselessly from place to place. \"Where am I?\" I ejaculated,\nhalf faint with wonder. And my hitherto unseen guide, who now revealed\nhimself, softly answered, \"In Heaven.\"\n\nThereupon my whole frame was agitated with inward laughter. I in Heaven,\nwhose fiery doom had been prophesied so often by the saints on earth! I,\nthe sceptic, the blasphemer, the scoffer at all things sacred, who had\nlaughed at the legends and dogmas of Christianism as though they were\nincredible and effete as the myths of Olympus! And I thought to myself,\n\"Better I had gone straight to Hell, for here in the New Jerusalem they\nwill no doubt punish me worse than there.\" But my angelic guide, who\nread my thought, smiled benignly and said, \"Fear not, no harm shall\nhappen to you. I have exacted a promise of safety for you, and here\nno promise can be broken.\" \"But why,\" I asked, \"have you brought me\nhither, and how did you obtain my guarantee of safety?\" And my guide\nanswered, \"It is our privilege each year to demand one favor which may\nnot be refused; I requested that I might bring you here; but I did not\nmention your name, and if you do nothing outrageous you will not be\nnoticed, for no one here meddles with another's business, and our rulers\nare too much occupied with foreign affairs to trouble about our domestic\nconcerns.\" \"Yet,\" I rejoined, \"I shall surely be detected, for I wear\nno heavenly robe.\" Then my guide produced one from a little packet,\nand having donned it, I felt safe from the fate of him who was expelled\nbecause he had not on a wedding-garment at the marriage feast.\n\nAs we moved along, I inquired of my guide why he took such interest in\nme; and he replied, looking sadly, \"I was a sceptic on earth centuries\nago, but I stood alone, and at last on my death-bed, weakened by\nsickness, I again embraced the creed of my youth and died in the\nChristian faith. Hence my presence in Heaven. But gladly would I\nrenounce Paradise even for Hell, for those figures so lovely without\nare not all lovely within, and I would rather consort with the choicer\nspirits who abide with Satan and hold high revel of heart and head in\nhis court. Yet wishes are fruitless; as the tree falls it lies, and my\nlot is cast for ever.\" Whereupon I laid my hand in his, being speechless\nwith grief!\n\nWe soon approached the magnificent temple, and entering it we mixed\nwith the mighty crowd of angels who were witnessing the rites of worship\nperformed by the elders and beasts before the great white throne. All\nhappened exactly as Saint John describes. The angels rent the air with\ntheir acclamations, after the inner circle had concluded, and then the\nthrone was deserted by its occupants.\n\nMy dear guide then led me through some narrow passages until we emerged\ninto a spacious hall, at one end of which hung a curtain. Advancing\ntowards this with silent tread, we were able to look through a slight\naperture, where the curtain fell away from the pillar, into the room\nbeyond. It was small and cosy, and a fire burned in the grate, before\nwhich sat poor dear God the Father in a big arm-chair. Divested of his\ngodly paraphernalia, he looked old and thin, though an evil fire still\ngleamed from his cavernous eyes. On a table beside him stood some\nphials, one of which had seemingly just been used. God the Son stood\nnear, looking much younger and fresher, but time was beginning to tell\non him also. The Ghost flitted about in the form of a dove, now perching\non the Father's shoulder and now on the head of the Son.\n\nPresently the massive bony frame of the Father was convulsed with a fit\nof coughing; Jesus promptly applied a restorative from the phial, and\nafter a terrible struggle the cough was subdued. During this scene\nthe Dove fluttered violently from wall to wall. When the patient was\nthoroughly restored the following conversation ensued:--\n\nJesus.--Are you well now, my Father?\n\nJehovah.--Yes, yes, well enough. Alack, how my strength wanes! Where\nis the pith that filled these arms when I fought for my chosen people?\nWhere the fiery vigor that filled my veins when I courted your mother?\n\n(Here the Dove fluttered and looked queer.)\n\nJesus.--Ah, sire, do not speak thus. You will regain your old strength.\n\nJehovah.--Nay, nay, and you know it. You do not even wish me to recover,\nfor in my weakness you exercise sovereign power and rule as you please.\n\nJesus.--O sire, sire!\n\nJehovah.--Come now, none of these demure looks. We know each other\ntoo well. Practise before the saints if you like, but don't waste your\nacting on me.\n\nJesus.--My dear Father, pray curb your temper. That is the very thing\nthe people on earth so much complain of.\n\nJehovah.--My dearly beloved Son, in whom I am not at all well pleased,\ndesist from this hypocrisy. Your temper is as bad as mine. You've shed\nblood enough in your time, and need not rail at me.\n\nJesus.--Ah, sire, only the blood of heretics.\n\nJehovah.--Heretics, forsooth! They were very worthy people for the most\npart, and their only crime was that they neglected you. But why should\nwe wrangle? We stand or fall together, and I am falling. Satan draws\nmost souls from earth to his place, including all the best workers and\nthinkers, who are needed to sustain our drooping power; and we receive\nnothing but the refuse; weak, slavish, flabby souls, hardly worth saving\nor damning; gushing preachers, pious editors, crazy enthusiasts, and\nhalf-baked old ladies of both sexes. Why didn't you preach a different\nGospel while you were about it? You had the chance once and let it slip:\nwe shall never have another.\n\nJesus.--My dear Father, I am reforming my Gospel to make it suit the\naltered taste of the times.\n\nJehovah.--Stuff and nonsense! It can't be done; thinking people see\nthrough it; the divine is immutable. The only remedy is to start afresh.\nCould I beget a new son all might be rectified; but I cannot, I am too\nold. Our dominion is melting away like that of all our predecessors.\nYou cannot outlast me, for I am the fountain of your life; and all the\nmultitude of \"immortal\" angels who throng our court, live only while I\nuphold them, and with me they will vanish into eternal limbo.\n\n\nHere followed another fit of coughing worse than before. Jesus resorted\nagain to the phial, but the cordial seemed powerless against this sharp\nattack. Just then the Dove fluttered against the curtain, and my guide\nhurried me swiftly away.\n\nIn a corridor of the temple we met Michael and Raphael. The latter\nscrutinised me so closely that my blood ran cold; but just when my\ndread was deepest his countenance cleared, and he turned towards his\ncompanion. Walking behind the great archangels we were able to hear\ntheir conversation. Raphael had just returned from a visit to the earth,\nand he was reporting to Michael a most alarming defection from the\nChristian faith. People, he said, were leaving in shoals, and unless\nfresh miracles were worked he trembled for the prospects of the dynasty.\nBut what most alarmed him was the spread of profanity. While in England\nhe had seen copies of a blasphemous paper which horrified the elect by\nridiculing the Bible in what a bishop had justly called \"a heartless and\ncruel way.\" \"But, my dear Michael,\" continued Raphael, \"that is not\nall, nor even the worst. This scurrilous paper, which would be quickly\nsuppressed if we retained our old influence, actually caricatures our\nsupreme Lord and his heavenly host in woodcuts, and thousands of people\nenjoy this wicked profanity. I dare say our turn will soon come, and\nwe shall be held up to ridicule like the rest.\" \"Impossible!\" cried\nMichael; \"Surely there is some mistake. What is the name of this\nabominable print?\" With a grave look, Raphael replied: \"No, Michael,\nthere is no mistake. The name of this imp of blasphemy is--I hesitate to\nsay it--the Free----------\" *\n\n     * Was it the _Freethinker?_\n\nBut at this moment my guide again hurried me along. We reached the\nsplendid gate once more, which slowly opened and let us through. Again\nwe flew through the billowy ether, sweeping past system after system\nwith intoxicating speed, until at last, dazed and almost unconscious, I\nregained this earthly shore. Then I sank into a stupor. When I awoke\nthe fire had burnt down to the last cinder, all was dark and cold, and\nI shivered as I tried to stretch my half-cramped limbs. Was it all a\ndream? Who can say? Whether in the spirit or the flesh I know not, said\nSaint Paul, and I am compelled to echo his words. Sceptics may shrug\ntheir shoulders, smile, or laugh; but \"there are more things in heaven\nand earth than are dreamt of in _their_ philosophy.\"\n\n\n\n\nPROFESSOR BLACKIE ON ATHEISM.\n\n     (January, 1879.)\n\nProfessor Blackie is a man with whom we cannot be angry, however\ngreatly his utterances are calculated to arouse that feeling. He is\nso impulsive, frank, and essentially good-natured, that even his most\nprovoking words call forth rather a smile of compassion than a frown of\nresentment. Those who know his character and position will yield him the\nwidest allowance. His fiery nature prompts him to energetic speech on\nall occasions. But when his temper has been fretted, as it frequently\nis, by the boisterous whims of his Greek students in that most\nboisterous of universities, it is not surprising if his expressions\nbecome splenetic even to rashness. The ingenuous Professor is quite\nimpartial in his denunciations. He strikes out right and left against\nvarious objects of his dislike. Everything he dissents from receives one\nand the same kind of treatment, so that no opinion he assails has any\nspecial reason to complain; and every blow he deals is accompanied\nwith such a jolly smile, sometimes verging into a hearty laugh, that no\nopponent can well refuse to shake hands with him when all is over.\n\nThis temper, however, is somewhat inconsistent with the scientific\npurpose indicated in the title of Professor Blackie's book. A zoologist\nwho had such a particular and unconquerable aversion to one species of\nanimals that the bare mention of its name made his gorge rise, would\nnaturally give us a very inadequate and unsatisfactory account of it.\nSo, in this case, instead of getting a true natural history of Atheism,\nwhich would be of immense service to every thinker, we get only an\nemphatic statement of the authors' hatred of it under different aspects.\nAtheism is styled \"a hollow absurdity,\" \"that culmination of all\nspeculative absurdities,\" \"a disease of the speculative faculty,\" \"a\nmonstrous disease of the reasoning faculty,\" and so on.\n\nThe chapter on \"Its Specific Varieties and General Root\" is\nsignificantly headed with that hackneyed declaration of the Psalmist,\n\"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,\" as though\nimpertinence were better from a Jew than from a Christian, or more\nrespectable for being three thousand years old. Perhaps Professor\nBlackie has never heard of the sceptical critic who exonerated the\nPsalmist on the ground that he was speaking jocosely, and really meant\nthat the man who said _in his heart_ only \"There is no God,\" without\nsaying so _openly_, was the fool. But this interpretation is as profane\nas the other is impertinent; and in fact does a great injustice to the\nAtheist, who has never been accustomed to say \"There is no God,\" an\nassertion which involves the arrogance of infinite knowledge, since\nnothing less than that is requisite to prove an universal negative: but\nsimply \"I know not of such an existence,\" which is a modest statement\nintellectually and morally, and quite unlike the presumption of certain\ntheologians who, as Mr. Arnold says, speak familiarly of God as though\nhe were a man living in the next street.\n\nFor his own sake Professor Blackie should a little curb his proneness to\nthe use of uncomplimentary epithets. He does himself injustice when he\ncondescends to describe David Hume's theory of causation as \"wretched\ncavil.\" Carlyle is more just to this great representative of an\nantagonistic school of thought. He exempts him from the sweeping\ncondemnation of his contemporaries in Scottish prose literature, and\nadmits that he was \"too rich a man to borrow\" from France or elsewhere.\nAnd surely Hume was no less honest than rich in thought. Jest and\ncaptiousness were entirely foreign to his mind. Wincing under his\ninexorable logic, the ontologist may try to console himself with the\nthought that the great sceptic was playing with arguments like a\nmere dialectician of wondrous skill; but in reality Hume was quite in\nearnest, and always meant what he said. We may also observe that it is\nProfessor Blackie and not Darwin who suffers from the asking of such\nquestions as these:--\"What monkey ever wrote an epic poem, or composed a\ntragedy or a comedy, or even a sonnet? What monkey professed his belief\nin any thirty-nine articles, or well-compacted Calvinistic confession,\nor gave in his adhesion to any Church, established or disestablished?\"\nIf Mr. Darwin heard these questions he might answer with a good humored\nsmile, \"My dear sir, you quite mistake my theories, and your questions\ntravesty them. I would further observe that while the composition of\npoems would unquestionably be creditable to monkeys, I, who have some\nregard for them as relatives, however distant, am heartily glad they\nhave never done any of the other things you mention, which I deem a\nnegative proof that their reason, though limited, is fortunately sane.\"\n\nProfessor Blackie's opening chapter on \"Presumptions\" fully justifies\nits title. The general consent of mankind in favor of Theism is assumed\nto have established its validity, and to have put Atheists altogether\nout of court; and a long list of illustrious Theists, from Solomon to\nHegel, is contrasted with a meagre catalogue of Atheists, comprising\nonly the names of David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. *\nConfucius and Buddha are classed apart, as lying \"outside of our Western\nEuropean Culture altogether,\" but with a promise that \"in so far as they\nseem to have taught a morality without religion, or a religion without\nGod, we shall say a word or two about them by-and-by.\" So far as Buddha\nis concerned this promise is kept; but in relation to Confucius it is\nbroken. Probably the Chinese sage was found too tough and embarrassing\na subject, and so it was thought expedient to ignore him for the more\ntractable prophet of India, whose doctrine of Transmigration might\nwith a little sophistry be made to resemble the Christian doctrine of\nImmortality, and his Nirvana the Kingdom of Heaven.\n\n     * Professor Blackie is singularly silent as to James Mill,\n     the father of the celebrated Utilitarian philosopher, far\n     more robust in intellect and character than his son. He is\n     the dominant figure of Mill's \"Autobiography,\" and has about\n     him a more august air than his son ever wore.\n\nWhat does the general consent of mankind prove in regard to beliefs\nlike Theism? Simply nothing. Professor Blackie himself sees that on some\nsubjects it is worthless, particularly when special knowledge or special\nfaculty is required. But there are questions, he contends, which public\nopinion rightly decides, even though opposed to the conclusions of\nsubtle thinkers. \"Perhaps,\" he says, \"we shall hit the mark here if\nwe say broadly that, as nature is always right, the general and normal\nsentiment of the majority must always be right, in so far as it is\nrooted in the universal and abiding instincts of humanity; and public\nopinion, as the opinion of the majority, will be right also in all\nmatters which belong to the general conduct of life among all classes,\nand with respect to which the mind of the majority has been allowed a\nperfectly free, natural, and healthy exercise.\" Now, in the first place,\nwe must reiterate our opinion that the general consent of mankind on a\nsubject like Theism proves absolutely nothing. It is perfectly valid on\nquestions of ordinary taste and feeling, but loses all logical efficacy\nin relation to questions which cannot be determined by a direct appeal\nto experience. And undeniably Theism is one of those questions, unless\nwe admit with the transcendentalist what is contrary to evident fact,\nthat men have an intuitive perception of God. In the next place, the\nminor premise of this argument is assumed. There is no general consent\nof mankind in favor of Theism, but only a very extensive consent. Mr.\nGladstone, not long since, in the _Nineteenth Century_, went so far as\nto claim the general consent of mankind in favor of Christianity, by\nsimply excluding all heathen nations from a right to be heard. Professor\nBlackie does not go to this length, but his logical process is no\ndifferent. Lastly, our author's concluding proviso vitiates his whole\ncase; for if there be one question on which \"the mind of the majority\"\nhas _not_ been allowed a \"perfectly free, natural, and healthy\nexercise,\" it is that of the existence of God. We are all prepossessed\nhi its favor by early training, custom, and authority. Our minds have\nnever been permitted to play freely upon it. A century ago Atheists\nstood in danger of death; only recently have penal and invidious\nstatutes against them been cancelled or mitigated; and even now bigotry\nagainst honest disbelief in Theism is so strong that a man often incurs\ngreater odium in publicly avowing it than in constantly violating\nall the decalogue save the commandment against murder. Murderers and\nthieves, though punished here, are either forgotten or compassionated\nafter death; but not even the grave effectually shields the Atheist from\nthe malignity of pious zeal. Fortunately, however, a wise and humane\ntolerance is growing in the world, and extending towards the most\nflagrant heresies. Perhaps we shall ultimately admit with sage old\nFelltham, that \"we fill the world with cruel brawls in the obstinate\ndefence of that whereof we might with more honor confess ourselves to\nbe ignorant,\" and that \"it is no shame for man not to know that which is\nnot in his possibility.\"\n\nThe causes of Atheism are, according to Professor Blackie, very\nnumerous. He finds seven or eight distinct ones. The lowest class of\nAtheists are \"Atheists of imbecility,\" persons of stunted intellect,\nincapable of comprehending the idea of God. These, however, he will not\nwaste his time with, nor will we. He then passes to the second class of\nreprobates, whose Atheism springs not from defect of intellect, but from\nmoral disorder, and who delight to conceive the universe as resembling\ntheir own chaos. These we shall dismiss, with a passing remark that if\nmoral disorder naturally induces Atheism, some very eminent Christians\nhave been marvellous hypocrites. Lack of reverence is the next cause\nof Atheism, and is indeed its \"natural soil.\" But as Professor Blackie\nthinks this may be \"congenital, like a lack of taste for music, or an\nincapacity of understanding a mathematical problem,\" we are obliged to\nconsider this third class of Atheists as hopeless as the first. Having\nadmitted that their malady may be congenital, our author inflicts\nupon these unfortunates a great deal of superfluous abuse, apparently\nforgetting that they are less to blame than their omnipotent maker.\nThe fourth cause of Atheism is pride or self-will. But this seems very\nerratic in its operations, since the only two instances cited--namely,\nNapoleon the Great and Napoleon the Little, were certainly Theists.\nNext comes democracy, between which and irreverence there is a natural\nconnexion, and from which, \"as from a hotbed, Atheism in its rankest\nstage naturally shoots up.\" Professor Blackie, as may be surmised,\ntilts madly against this horrible foe. But it will not thus be subdued.\nDemocracy is here and daily extending itself, overwhelming slowly but\nsurely all impediments to its supremacy. If Theism is incompatible with\nit, then the days of Theism are numbered. Professor Blackie's peculiar\nNatural History of atheism is more likely to please the opposite ranks\nthan his own, who may naturally cry out, with a sense of being sold,\n\"call you that backing of your friends?\"\n\nPride of intellect is the next cause of Atheism. Don Juan sells himself\nto perdition for a liberal share of pleasure, but Faust hankers only\nafter forbidden knowledge. This is of various kinds; but \"of all kinds,\nthat which has long had the most evil reputation of begetting Atheism\nis Physical Science.\" Again does the fervid Professor set lance in rest,\nand dash against this new foe to Theism, much as Don Quixote charged the\nfamous windmill. But science, like the windmill, is too big and strong\nto suffer from such assaults. The \"father of this sort of nonsense,\" in\nmodern times was David Hume, who, we are elegantly informed, was \"a very\nclever fellow, a very agreeable, gentlemanly fellow too.\" His \"nonsense\nabout causation\" is to be traced to a want of reverence in his\ncharacter. Indeed, it seems that all persons who adhere to a philosophy\nalien to Professor Blackie's have something radically wrong with them.\nLet this Edinburgh Professor rail as he may, David Hume's theory of\ncausation will suffer no harm, and his contrast of human architecture,\nwhich is mechanism, with natural architecture, which is growth, will\nstill form an insuperable obstacle to that \"natural theology\" which,\nas Garth Wilkinson says with grim humor, seeks to elicit, or rather\n\"construct,\" \"a scientific abstraction answering to the concrete figure\nof the Vulcan of the Greeks--that is to say a universal Smith\"!\n\nEventually Professor Blackie gets so sick of philosophers, that he\nturns from them to poets, who may more safely be trusted \"in matters of\nhealthy human sentiment.\" But here fresh difficulties arise. Although\n\"a poet is naturally a religious animal,\" we find that the greatest\nof Roman poets Lucretius, was an Atheist, while even \"some of our most\nbrilliant notorieties in the modern world of song are not the most\nnotable for piety.\" But our versatile Professor easily accounts for this\nby assuming that there \"may be an idolatry of the imaginative, as well\nas of the knowing faculty.\" Never did natural historian so jauntily\nprovide for every fact contravening his theories. Professor Blackie will\nnever understand Atheism, or write profitably upon it, while he pursues\nthis course. Let him restrain his discursive propensities, and deal\nscientifically with this one fact, which explodes his whole theory of\nAtheism. The supreme glory of our modern poetry is Shelley, and if\never a man combined splendor of imagination with keen intelligence and\nsaintly character it was he. Raphael incarnate he seems, yet he stands\noutside all the creeds, and to his prophetic vision, in the sunlight of\nthe world's great age begun anew, the--\n\n     Faiths and empires gleam\n     Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.\n\nIn his treatment of Buddhism Professor Blackie is candid and impartial,\nuntil he comes to consider its Atheistic character. Then his reason\nseems almost entirely to forsake him. After saying that \"what Buddha\npreached was a gospel of pure human ethics, divorced not only from\nBrahma and the Brahminic Trinity, but even from the existence of God;\"\nand describing Buddha himself as \"a rare, exceptional, and altogether\ntranscendental incarnation of moral perfection;\" he first tries to\nshow that _Nirvana_ is the same as the Christian _eternal life_, and\ntransmigration of souls a faithful counterpart of the Christian doctrine\nof future reward and punishment. Feeling, perhaps, how miserably he\nhas failed in this attempt, he turns with exasperation on Buddhism,\nand affirms that it \"can in no wise be looked upon as anything but an\nabnormal manifestation of the religious life of man.\" We believe that\nProfessor Blackie himself must have already perceived the futility and\nabsurdity of this.\n\nThe last chapter of Professor Blackie's book is entitled \"The Atheism\nof Reaction.\" In it he strikes characteristically at the five points\nof Calvinism, at Original Guilt, Eternal Punishment, Creation out\nof Nothing, and Special Providence; which he charges with largely\ncontributing to the spread of Atheism. While welcoming these assaults\non superstition, we are constrained to observe that the Christian dogmas\nwhich Professor Blackie impugns and denounces are not specific causes\nof Atheism. Again he is on the wrong scent. The revolt against Theism at\nthe present time is indeed mainly moral, but the preparation for it\nhas been an intellectual one. Modern Science has demonstrated, for all\npractical purposes, the inexorable reign of law. The God of miracles,\nanswering prayer and intimately related to his children of men, is an\nidea exploded and henceforth impossible. The only idea of God at all\npossible, is that of a supreme universal intelligence, governing nature\nby fixed laws, and apparently quite heedless whether their operation\nbrings us joy or pain. This idea is intellectually permissible, but it\nis beyond all proof, and can be entertained only as a speculation. Now,\nthe development of knowledge which makes this the only permissible\nidea of God, also changes Immortality from a religious certitude to an\nunverifiable supposition. The rectification of the evils of this life\ncannot, therefore, be reasonably expected in another; so that man\nstands alone, fighting a terrible battle, with no aid save from his own\nstrength and skill. To believe that Omnipotence is the passive spectator\nof this fearful strife, is for many minds altogether too hard. They\nprefer to believe that the woes and pangs of sentient life were not\ndesigned; that madness, anguish, and despair, result from the interplay\nof unconscious forces. They thus set Theism aside, and unable to\nrecognise the fatherhood of God, they cling more closely to the\nbrotherhood of Man.\n\n\n\n\nSALVATIONISM.\n\n     (April, 1882.)\n\nThere is no new thing under the sun, said the wise king Many a\nsurprising novelty is only an old thing in a new dress. And this\nis especially true in respect to religion. Ever since the feast of\nPentecost, when the Apostles all jabbered like madmen, Christianity has\nbeen marked by periodical fits of insanity. It would occupy too much\nspace to enumerate these outbursts, which have occurred in every part\nof Christendom, but we may mention a few that have happened in our own\ncountry. During the Commonwealth, some of the numerous sects went to the\nmost ludicrous extremes; preaching rousing sermons, praying through the\nnose, assuming Biblical names, and prophesying the immediate reign of\nthe saints. There was a reaction against the excesses of Puritanism\nafter the death of Cromwell; and until the time of Whitfield and Wesley\nreligion continued to be a sober and respectable influence, chiefly\nuseful to the sovereign and the magistrate. But these two powerful\npreachers rekindled the fire of religious enthusiasm in the hearts of\nthe common people, and Methodism was founded among those whom the Church\nhad scarcely touched. Not many years ago the Hallelujah Band spread\nitself far and wide, and then went out like a straw fire. And now we\nhave Salvationism, doing just the same kind of work, and employing just\nthe same kind of means. Will this new movement die away like so many\nothers? It is difficult to say. Salvationism may be only a flash in\nthe pan; but, on the other hand, it may provide the only sort of\nChristianity possible in an age of science and freethought. The educated\nclasses and the intelligent artisans will more and more desert the\nChristian creed, and there will probably be left nothing but the dregs\nand the scum, for whom Salvationism is exactly suited. Christianity\nbegan among the poor, ignorant, and depraved; and it may possibly end\nits existence among the very same classes.\n\nIn all these movements we see a striking illustration of what the\nbiologists call the law of Atavism. There is a constant tendency to\nreturn to the primitive type. We can form some idea of what early\nChristianity was by reading the Acts of the Apostles. The true believers\nwent about preaching in season and out of season; they cried and prayed\nwith a loud voice; they caused tumult in the streets, and gave plenty\nof trouble to the civil authorities. All this is true of Salvationism\nto-day; and we have no doubt that the early Church, under the guidance\nof Peter, was just a counterpart of the Salvation Army under \"General\"\nBooth--to the Jews, or men of the world, a stumbling-block, and to the\nGreeks, or educated thinkers, a folly.\n\nEarly Christians were \"full of the Holy Ghost,\" that is of wild\nenthusiasm. Scoffers said they were drunk, and they acted like madmen.\nLeap across seventeen centuries, and we shall find Methodists acting\nin the same way. Wesley states in his Journal (1739) of his hearers at\nWapping, that \"some were torn with a kind of convulsive motion in every\npart of their bodies, and that so violently that often four or five\npersons could not hold one of them.\" And Lecky tells us, in his \"History\nof the Eighteenth Century,\" that \"religious madness, which from the\nnature of its hallucinations, is usually the most miserable of all\nthe forms of insanity, was in this, as in many later revivals, of\nno unfrequent occurrence.\" Now Salvationism produces the very same\neffects. It drives many people mad; and it is a common thing for men\nand women at its meetings to shout, dance, jump, and finally fall on\nthe floor in a pious ecstacy. While they are in this condition, the\nHoly Ghost is entering them and the Devil is being driven out. Poor\ncreatures! They take us back in thought to the days of demoniacal\npossession, and the strange old world that saw the devil-plagued swine\nof Gadara drowned in the sea.\n\nThe free and easy mingling of the sexes at these pious assemblies, is\nanother noticeable feature. Love-feasts were a flagrant scandal in the\nearly Church, and women who returned from them virtuous must have been\nmiracles of chastity. Methodism was not quite so bad, but it tolerated\nsome very strange pranks. The Rev. Richard Polwhele, in his \"Anecdotes\nof Methodism\" (a very rare book), says that \"At St. Agnes, the Society\nstay up the whole night, when girls of twelve and fourteen years of age,\nrun about the streets, calling out that they are possessed.\" He goes\non to relate that at Probus \"the preacher at a late hour of the night,\nafter all but the higher classes left the room, would order the candles\nto be put out, and the saints fall down and kneel on their naked knees;\nwhen he would go round and thrust his hand under every knee to feel if\nit were bare.\" Salvationism does not at present go to this length, but\nit has still time enough to imitate all the freaks of its predecessor.\nThere was an All-Night meeting in Whitechapel a few months ago, which\nthreatened to develope into a thoroughgoing love-feast. The light was\nrather dim, voices grew low, cheeks came perilously near, and hands met\ncaressingly. Of course it was nothing but the love of God that moved\nthem, yet it looked like something else; and the uninitiated spectator\nof \"the mystery of godliness\" found it easy to understand how American\ncamp-meetings tend to increase the population, and why a Magistrate in\nthe South-west of England observed that one result of revivals in his\ndistrict was a number of fatherless weans.\n\nIn one respect Salvationism excels all previous revivals. It is\nunparalleled in its vulgarity. The imbecile coarseness of its language\nmakes one ashamed of human nature. Had it existed in Swift's time, he\nmight have added a fresh clause to his terrible indictment of mankind.\nIts metaphors are borrowed from the slaughter-house, its songs are\nfrequently coarser than those of the lowest music-hall, and the general\nstyle of its preaching is worthy of a congregation of drunken pugilists.\nThe very names assumed by its officers are enough to turn one's stomach.\nChristianity has fallen low indeed when its champions boast such titles\nas the \"Hallelujah Fishmonger,\" the \"Blood-washed Miner,\" the \"Devil\nDodger,\" the \"Devil Walloper,\" and \"Gipsy Sal.\"\n\nThe constitution of the Salvation Army is a pure despotism. General\nBooth commands it absolutely. There is a Council of War, consisting of\nhis own family. All the funds flow into his exchequer, and he spends\nthem as he likes. No questions are allowed, no accounts are rendered,\nand everything is under his unqualified control. The \"General\" may be a\nperfectly honest man, but we are quite sure that none but pious lunatics\nwould trust him with such irresponsible power.\n\nWe understand that the officials are all paid, and some of them\nextremely well. They lead a very pleasant life, full of agreeable\nexcitement; they wear uniform, and are dubbed captain, major, or some\nother title. Add to all this, that they suppose themselves (when honest)\nto be particular favorites of God; and it will be easy to understand\nhow so many of them prefer a career of singing and praying to earning\nan honest living by hard work, The Hallelujah lads and lasses could not,\nfor the most part, get decent wages in any other occupation. All they\nrequire for this work is a good stomach and good lungs; and if they can\nonly boast of having been the greatest drunkard in the district, the\nworst thief, or the most brutal character, they are on the high road to\nfortune, and may count on living in clover for the rest of their sojourn\nin this vale of tears.\n\n\n\n\nA PIOUS SHOWMAN.\n\n     (October, 1882.)\n\nWe all remember how that clever showman, Barnum, managed to fan the\nJumbo fever. When the enterprising Yankee writes his true autobiography\nwe shall doubtless find some extraordinary revelations. Yet Barnum,\nafter all, makes no pretence of morality or religion. He merely goes in\nfor making a handsome fortune out of the curiosity and credulity of the\npublic. If he were questioned as to his principles, he would probably\nreply like Artemus Ward--\"Princerpuls? I've nare a one. I'm in the show\nbizniz.\"\n\nGeneral Booth is quite as much a showman as Barnum, but he is a pious\nshowman. He is a perfect master of the vulgar art of attracting fools.\nEvery day brings a fresh change in his \"Walk up, Walk up.\" Tambourine\ngirls, hallelujah lasses, converted clowns and fiddlers, sham Italian\norgan grinders, bands in which every man plays his own tune, officers in\nuniform, Davidic dances, and music-hall tunes, are all served up with\na plentiful supply of blood and fire. The \"General\" evidently means to\nstick at nothing that will draw; and we quite believe that if a pair\nof Ezekiel's cherubim were available, he would worry God Almighty into\nsending them down for exhibition at the City Road show.\n\nBooth's latest dodge is to say the least peculiar. Most fathers would\nshrink from trafficking in a son's marriage, but Booth is above such\nnice scruples. The worst deeds are sanctified by love of God, and\nreligion condones every indecency.\n\nMr. Bramwell Booth, whom the General has singled out as his apostolic\nsuccessor, and heir to all the Army's property, got married last week;\nand the pious showman actually exhibited the bridegroom and bride to the\npublic at a shilling a head. About three hundred pounds were taken at\nthe doors, and a big collection was made inside. Booth's anxiety for the\ncash was very strongly illustrated. Commissioner Bailton, who has had\na very eccentric career, was enjoying his long deferred opportunity of\nmaking a speech, when many of the crowd began to press towards the door.\n\"Stop,\" cried Booth, \"don't go yet, there's going to be a collection.\"\nBut the audience melted faster than ever. Whereupon Booth jumped up\nagain, stopped poor Railton unceremoniously, and shouted \"Hold on, we'll\nmake the collection now.\" This little manouvre was quite in keeping\nwith the showman's instruction to his subalterns, to have plenty of good\nstrong collecting boxes and pass them round often.\n\nBooth's facetious remarks during his son's marriage according to the\nArmy forms were well adapted to tickle the ears of his groundlings. The\nwhole thing was a roaring farce, and well sustained the reputation of\nthe show. There was also the usual spice of blasphemy. Before Bramwell\nBooth marched on to the platform a board was held up bearing the\ninscription \"Behold the bridegroom cometh.\" These mountebanks have no\nreverence even for what they call sacred. They make everything dance to\ntheir tune. They prostitute \"God's Word,\" caricature Jesus Christ, and\nburlesque all the watchwords and symbols of their creed.\n\nOne of Booth's remarks after the splicing was finished is full of\nsuggestion. He said that his enemies might cavil, but he had found out\na road to fortune in this world and the next. Well, the Lord only knows\nhow he will fare in the next world, but in this world the pious showman\nhas certainly gained a big success. He can neither write nor preach, and\nas for singing, a half a dozen notes from his brazen throat would empty\nthe place as easily as a cry of \"Fire.\" But he is a dexterous manager;\nhe knows how to work the oracle; he understands catering for the mob; in\nshort, he is a very clever showman, who deals in religion just as other\nshowmen deal in wild animals, giants, dwarfs, two-headed sheep, fat\nwomen, and Siamese twins.\n\nFortune has brought to our hands a copy of a private circular issued\nby \"Commissioner\" Railton, soliciting wedding presents for Mr. Bramwell\nBooth. With the exception of Reuben May's begging letters, it is the\nfinest cadging document we ever saw. Booth was evidently ashamed to\nsign it himself, so it bears the name of Railton. But the pious showman\ncannot disown the responsibility for it. He will not allow the officers\nof the Army to marry without his sanction; he forbids them to accept\nany private present; he keeps a sharp eye on every detail of the\norganisation. Surely, then, he will not have the face to say that\nhe knew nothing of Railton's circular. He has face enough for almost\nanything, but hardly for this. There is one damning fact which he cannot\nshirk. Bailton asks that all contributions shall be made \"payable to\nWilliam Booth, as usual.\"\n\nBailton spreads the butter pretty freely on Booth and his family. He\nsays that their devotion to the Army has \"loaded them with care, and\noften made them suffer weakness and pain.\" As to Mr. Bramwell Booth,\nin particular, we are informed that he has worked so hard behind the\nscenes, as Chief of the Staff, that many of his hairs are grey at\ntwenty-seven. Poor Bramwell! The Army should present him with a dozen\nbottles of hair restorer. Perhaps his young wife will renew his raven\nhead by imitating the lady in the fable, and pulling out all the grey\nhairs.\n\nIn order to compensate this noble family in some degree for their\nmarvellous devotion to the great cause, Bailton proposes that wedding\npresents _in the shape of cash_ should be made to Mr. Bramwell Booth on\nthe day of his marriage. Whatever money is received will go, not to the\nyoung gentleman personally, but to reducing the Army debt of \u00a311,000.\nBut as the Army property is all in Booth's hands, and Mr. Bramwell is\nhis _heir_ and successor, it is obvious that any reduction of the debt\nwill be so much clear gain to the firm.\n\nThe General evidently saw that the case was a delicate one; so Bailton\nsends out a private circular, which he excuses on the ground that\n\"any public appeal would not be at all agreeable to Mr. Bramwell's own\nfeelings.\" Of course not. But we dare say the wedding presents will\nbe agreeable enough. As this is a strong point with the firm, Bailton\nrepeats it later on. \"I do not wish,\" he says, \"to make any public\nannouncement of this.\" The reason of this secrecy is doubtless the same\nas that which prompts the General to exclude reporters and interlopers\nfrom his all-night meetings. Only the initiated are allowed in, and they\nof course may be safely trusted.\n\nWith the circular Bailton sent out envelopes in which the pious dupes\nwere to forward their contributions; and printed slips, headed \"Wedding\nPresents to Mr. Bramwell Booth,\" on which they were asked to specify\nthe amount of their gift and the sin from which the Salvation Army had\nrescued them. This printed slip contains a list of sins, which would do\ncredit to a Jesuit confessor. Booth has we think missed his vocation. He\nmight have achieved real distinction in the army of Ignatius Loyola.\n\nThe circular is a wonderful mixture of piety and business. Nearly every\nsentence contains a little of both. The cash will not only gladden the\nhearts of the Booths, but \"make the devil tremble,\" and \"give earth and\nhell another shock.\" This last bit of extravagance is rather puzzling.\nThat hell should receive another shock is very proper, but why is there\nto be an earthquake at the same time?\n\nWe have said enough to show the true character of this cadging trick.\nIt throws a strong light on the business methods of this pious showman.\nBooth is playing a very astute game. By reducing the Army to military\ndiscipline, and constituting himself its General, he retains an absolute\ncommand over its resources, and is able to crush out all opposition and\nsilence all criticism. He wields a more than Papal despotism. All the\nhigher posts are held by members of his own family. His eldest son is\nappointed as his successor. The property thus remains in the family, and\nthe Booth dynasty is established on a solid foundation. Such an impudent\nimposture would scarcely be credible if it were not patent that there is\nstill amongst us a vast multitude of two-legged sheep, who are ready\nto follow any plausible shepherd, and to yield up their fleeces to his\nshears.","title":"Arrows of Freethought","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":38696}