{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30207/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30207","id":"gutenberg_30207","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30207","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Free thought"],"text":"MEN, WOMEN, AND GODS,\n\nAND\n\nOTHER LECTURES.\n\nBy Helen H. Gardener.\n\n\nWith An Introduction By Robert G. Ingersoll.\n\nTwelfth Edition.\n\nNew York:\n\nThe Truth Seeker Company,\n\n28 Lafayette Place.\n\nCopyright, By Helen H. Gardener,\n\n1885.\n\n\nTHIS LITTLE VOLUME\n\nis\n\nRESPECTFULLY DEDICATED\n\nWITH THE LOVE OF THE AUTHOR, TO\n\nMRS. EVA INGERSOLL,\n\nTHE BRAVE, HAPPY WIFE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST ORATOR,\n\nAND WOMAN'S TRUEST FRIEND.\n\nIN HER BEAUTIFUL HOME-LIFE SUPERSTITION AND FEAR HAVE NEVER\n\nENTERED; HUMAN EQUALITY AND FREEDOM HAVE\n\nTHEIR HIGHEST ILLUSTRATION;\n\nAND\n\nTIME HAS DEEPENED YOUTHFUL LOVE INTO A DIVINER WORSHIP\n\nTHAN ANGELS OFFER OR THAN GODS INSPIRE.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n     INTRODUCTION.\n     MEN, WOMEN, AND GODS.\n     ACCIDENT INSURANCE.\n     CHIEFLY WOMEN.\n     WHY WOMEN SUPPORT IT.\n     WHAT IT TEACHES.\n     THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.\n     KNOWLEDGE NOT A CRIME.\n     AS MUCH INSPIRED AS ANY OF IT.\n     VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.\n     FEAR.\n     BEGINNING TO THINK.\n     CREEDS.\n     SELF-CONTROL WHAT WE NEED.\n     VICARIOUS ATONEMENT NOT A CHRISTIAN INVENTION.\n     TWIN MONSTERS INHERITED FROM INTELLECTUAL PIGMIES.\n     GEOGRAPHICAL RELIGION.\n     REVELATION.\n     EVIDENCE OF FAITH.\n     DID HE TALK?\n     WHAT YOU MAY THINK.\n     INTELLECTUAL GAG-LAW.\n     THE VICARIOUS THEORY THE CAUSE OF CRIME.\n     REVISION.\n     THE CHURCH'S MONEY-BOX.\n     SHALL PROGRESS STOP?\n     HISTORICAL FACTS AND THEOLOGICAL FICTIONS.\n     CHURCH FICTIONS.\n     HISTORICAL FACTS.\n     CIVILIZATION.\n     COMPARATIVE STATUS.\n     WOMEN AS PERSONS.\n     EDUCATION.\n     AS WIVES.\n     NOT WOMAN'S FRIEND.\n     MORALS.\n\n     APPENDIX\n     Appendix A.\n     Appendix B.\n     Appendix C.\n     Appendix D.\n     Appendix E.\n     Appendix F.\n     Appendix G.\n     Appendix H.\n     Appendix I.\n     Appendix J.\n     Appendix K\n     Appendix L.\n     Appendix M.\n     Appendix N.\n     Appendix O.\n     Appendix P.\n     Appendix Q.\n     Appendix R.\n     Appendix S.\n     Appendix T.\n     Appendix U.\n     Appendix V.\n     \n     ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY AND OTHERS.\n     LETTER TO THE CLEVELAND CONGRESS OF FREETHINKERS, OCTOBER, 1885.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nNothing gives me more pleasure, nothing gives greater promise for the\nfuture, than the fact that woman is achieving intellectual and physical\nliberty. It is refreshing to know that here, in our country, there are\nthousands of women who think and express their own thoughts--who are\nthoroughly free and thoroughly conscientious--who have neither been\nnarrowed nor corrupted by a heartless creed--who do not worship a being\nin heaven whom they would shudderingly loathe on earth. Women who do\nnot stand before the altar of a cruel faith with downcast eyes of timid\nacquiescence, and pay to impudent authority the tribute of a thoughtless\nyes. They are no longer satisfied with being told. They examine for\nthemselves. They have ceased to be the prisoners of society--the\nsatisfied serfs of husbands or the echoes of priests. They demand the\nrights that naturally belong to intelligent human beings. If wives, they\nwish to be the equals of husbands--if mothers, they wish to rear their\nchildren in the atmosphere of love, liberty and philosophy. They believe\nthat woman can discharge all her duties without the aid of superstition,\nand preserve all that is true, pure and tender without sacrificing in\nthe temple of absurdity the convictions of the soul.\n\nWoman is not the intellectual inferior of man. She has lacked--not\nmind--but opportunity. In the long night of barbarism physical strength,\nand the cruelty to use it, were the badges of superiority. Muscle was\nmore than mind. In the ignorant age of Faith the loving nature of woman\nwas abused, her conscience was rendered morbid and diseased. It might\nalmost be said that she was betrayed by her own virtues. At best, she\nsecured, not opportunity, but flattery, the preface to degradation. She\nwas deprived of liberty and without that nothing is worth the having.\nShe was taught to obey without question, and to believe without thought.\nThere were universities for men before the alphabet had been taught\nto woman. At the intellectual feast there were no places for wives and\nmothers. Even now they sit at the second table and eat the crusts and\ncrumbs. The schools for women, at the present time, are just far\nenough behind those for men to fall heirs to the discarded. On the same\nprinciple, when a doctrine becomes too absurd for the pulpit, it is\ngiven to the Sunday School. The ages of muscle and miracle--of fists and\nfaith--are passing away. Minerva occupies at last a higher niche than\nHercules. Now, a word is stronger than a blow.\n\nAt last we see women who depend upon themselves--who stand self poised\nthe shocks of this sad world without leaning for support against a\nchurch--who do not go to the literature of barbarism for consolation,\nnor use the falsehoods and mistakes of the past for the foundation of\ntheir hope--women brave enough and tender enough to meet and bear the\nfacts and fortunes of this world.\n\nThe men who declare that woman is the intellectual inferior of man, do\nnot, and cannot, by offering themselves in evidence, substantiate their\ndeclaration.\n\nYet, I must admit that there are thousands of wives who still have\nfaith in the saving power of superstition--who still insist on attending\nchurch while husbands prefer the shores, the woods, or the fields. In\nthis way families are divided. Parents grow apart, and unconsciously\nthe pearl of greatest price is thrown away. The wife ceases to be\nthe intellectual companion of the husband. She reads the \"Christian\nRegister,\" sermons in the Monday papers, and a little gossip about\nfolks and fashions, while he studies the works of Darwin, Haeckel and\nHumboldt. Their sympathies become estranged. They are no longer mental\nfriends. The husband smiles at the follies of the wife and she weeps for\nthe supposed sins of the husband. Such wives should read this book.\nThey should not be satisfied to remain forever in the cradle of thought,\namused with the toys of superstition.\n\nThe parasite of woman is the priest.\n\nIt must also be admitted that there are thousands of men who believe\nthat superstition is good for women and children--who regard falsehood\nas the fortress of virtue, and feel indebted to ignorance for the purity\nof daughters and the fidelity of wives. These men think of priests\nas detectives in disguise, and regard God as a policeman who prevents\nelopements. Their opinions about religion are as correct as their\nestimate of woman.\n\nThe church furnishes but little food for the mind. People of\nintelligence are growing tired of the platitudes of the pulpit--the\niterations of the itinerants. The average sermon is \"as tedious as a\ntwice-told tale vexing the ears of a drowsy man.\"\n\nOne Sunday a gentleman who is a great inventor called at my house. Only\na few words had passed between us, when he arose, saying that he must\ngo as it was time for church. Wondering that a man of his mental wealth\ncould enjoy the intellectual poverty of the pulpit, I asked for an\nexplanation, and he gave me the following: \"You know that I am an\ninventor. Well, the moment my mind becomes absorbed in some difficult\nproblem, I am afraid that something may happen to distract my attention.\nNow, I know that I can sit in church for an hour without the slightest\ndanger of having the current of my thought disturbed.\"\n\nMost women cling to the Bible because they have been taught that to give\nup that book is to give up all hope of another life--of ever meeting\nagain the loved and lost. They have also been taught that the Bible is\ntheir friend, their defender, and the real civilizer of man.\n\nNow if they will only read this book--these three lectures, without\nfear, and then read the Bible, they will see that the truth or falsity\nof the dogma of inspiration has nothing to do with the question of\nimmortality. Certainly the Old Testament does not teach us that there is\nanother life, and upon that question, even the New is obscure and vague.\nThe hunger of the heart finds only a few small and scattered crumbs.\nThere is nothing definite, solid, and satisfying. United with the idea\nof immortality we find the absurdity of the resurrection. A prophecy\nthat depends for its fulfillment upon an impossibility, cannot satisfy\nthe brain or heart.\n\nThere are but few who do not long for a dawn beyond the night. And\nthis longing is born of, and nourished by, the heart. Love wrapped\nin shadow--bending with tear-filled eyes above its dead, convulsively\nclasps the outstretched hand of hope.\n\nI had the pleasure of introducing Helen H. Gardener to her first\naudience, and in that introduction said a few words that I will repeat,\n\n\"We do not know, we can not say whether death is a wall or a door, the\nbeginning or end of a day, the spreading of pinions to soar, or the\nfolding forever of wings. The rise or the set of a sun, of an endless\nlife that brings rapture and love to every one.\n\n\"Under the seven-hued arch of hope let the dead sleep.\"\n\nThey will also discover, as they read the \"Sacred Volume,\" that it is\nnot the friend of woman. They will find that the writers of that book,\nfor the most part, speak of woman as a poor beast of burden--a serf, a\ndrudge, a kind of necessary evil--as mere property. Surely a book that\nupholds polygamy is not the friend of wife and mother.\n\nEven Christ did not place woman on an equality with man. He said not\none word about the sacredness of home, the duties of the husband to the\nwife--nothing calculated to lighten the hearts of those who bear the\nsaddest burdens of this life.\n\nThey will also find that the Bible has not civilized mankind. A book\nthat establishes and defends slavery and wanton war is not calculated to\nsoften the hearts of those who believe implicitly that it is the work of\nGod. A book that not only permits, but commands religious persecution,\nhas not in my judgment developed the affectional nature of man. Its\ninfluence has been bad and bad only. It has filled the world with\nbitterness, revenge, and crime, and retarded in countless ways the\nprogress of our race.\n\nThe writer of this little volume has read the Bible with open eyes. The\nmist of sentimentality has not clouded her vision.\n\nShe has had the courage to tell the result of her investigations. She\nhas been quick to discover contradictions. She appreciates the humorous\nside of the stupidly solemn. Her heart protests against the cruel, and\nher brain rejects the childish, the unnatural, and absurd. There is no\nmisunderstanding between her head and heart. She says what she thinks,\nand feels what she says.\n\nNo human being can answer her arguments. There is no answer. All the\npriests in the world cannot explain away her objections. There is no\nexplanation. They should remain dumb, unless they can show that the\nimpossible is the probable--that slavery is better than freedom--that\npolygamy is the friend of woman--that the innocent can justly suffer for\nthe guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love\nand worship.\n\nWives who cease to learn--who simply forget and believe, will fill the\nevening of their lives with barren sighs and bitter tears. The mind\nshould outlast youth.\n\nIf, when beauty fades, Thought, the deft and unseen sculptor, hath not\nleft his subtle lines upon the face, then all is lost. No charm is left.\nThe light is out. There is no flame within to glorify the wrinkled clay.\n\nROBERT G. INGERSOLL.\n\nHoffman House,\n\nNew York, July 22, 1885.\n\n\n\n\n\nMEN, WOMEN, AND GODS.\n\nIT is thought strange and particularly shocking by some persons for a\nwoman to question the absolute correctness of the Bible. She is supposed\nto be able to go through this world with her eyes shut, and her mouth\nopen wide enough to swallow Jonah and the Garden of Eden without making\na wry face. It is usually recounted as one of her most beautiful traits\nof character that she has faith sufficient to float the Ark without\ninspecting the animals.\n\nSo it is thought strange that a woman should object to any of the\nteachings of the Patriarchs. I claim, however, that if she honestly\nthinks there is anything wrong about them, she has a right to say so. I\nclaim that I have a right to offer my objections to the Bible from the\nstandpoint of a woman. I think that it is fair, at least, to put the\ncase before you as it looks to me, using the Bible itself as my chief\nwitness. That Book I think degrades and belittles women, and I claim\nthe right to say why I think so. The opposite opinion has been stated by\nhundreds of people, hundreds of times, for hundreds of years, so that it\nis only fair that I be allowed to bring in a minority report.\n\nWomen have for a long time been asking for the right to an education,\nfor the right to live on an equal footing with their brothers, and\nfor the right to earn money honestly; while at the same time they have\nsupported a book and a religion which hold them as the inferiors of\ntheir sons and as objects of contempt and degradation with Jehovah. They\nhave sustained a so-called \"revelation\" which holds them as inferior\nand unclean things. Now it has always seemed to me that these women are\ntrying to stand on both sides of the fence at the same time--and that\nneither foot touches.\n\nI think they are making a mistake. I think they are making a mistake to\nsustain any religion which is based upon faith. Even though a religion\nclaim a superhuman origin--and I believe they all claim that--it must\nbe tested by human reason, and if our highest moral sentiments revolt at\nany of its dictates, its dictates must go. For the only good thing about\nany religion is its morality, and morality has nothing to do with faith.\nThe one has to do with right actions in this world; the other with\nunknown quantities in the next. The one is a necessity of Time; the\nother a dream of Eternity. Morality depends upon universal evolution;\nFaith upon special \"revelation;\" and no woman can afford to accept any\n\"revelation\" that has yet been offered to this world.\n\nThat Moses or Confucius, Mohammed or Paul, Abraham or Brigham Young\nasserts that his particular dogma came directly from God, and that\nit was a personal communication to either or all of these favored\nindividuals, is a fact that can have no power over us unless their\nteachings are in harmony with our highest thought, our noblest purpose,\nand our purest conception of life. Which of them can bear the test?\nNot one \"revelation\" known to man to-day can look in the face of\nthe nineteenth century and say, \"I am parallel with your richest\ndevelopment; I still lead your highest thought; none of my teachings\nshock your sense of justice.\" Not one.\n\nIt is faith in \"revelation\" that makes a mother tear from her arms a\ntender, helpless child and throw it in the Ganges--to appease the gods!\nIt is a religion of faith that teaches the despicable principle of\ncaste--and that religion was invented by those who profited by caste. It\nwas our religion of faith that sustained the institution of slavery--and\nit had for its originators dealers in human flesh. It is the Mormon's\nreligion of faith, his belief in the Bible and in the wisdom of Solomon\nand David, that enables the monster of polygamy to flaunt its power and\nits filth in the face of the morality of the nineteenth century, which\nhas outgrown the Jehovah of the Jews.\n\nEvery religion must be tried at the bar of human justice, and stand or\nfall by the verdict there. It has no right to crouch behind the theory\nof \"inspiration\" and demand immunity from criticism; and yet that is\njust what every one of them does. They all claim that we have no right\nto use our reason on their inventions. But evil cannot be made good by\nrevelation, and good cannot be made evil by persecution.\n\nA \"revelation\" that teaches us to trample on purity, or bids us despise\nbeauty--that gives power to vice or crushes the weak--is an evil. The\ndogma that leads us to ignore our humanity, that asks us to throw away\nour pleasures, that tells us to be miserable here in order that we may\nbe happy hereafter, is a doctrine built upon a false philosophy, cruel\nin its premises and false in its promises. And the religion that teaches\nus that believing Vice is holier than unbelieving Virtue is a grievous\nwrong. Credulity is not a substitute for morality. Belief is not a\nquestion of right or wrong, it is a question of mental organization. Man\ncannot believe what he will, he must believe what he must. If his brain\ntells him one thing and his catechism tells him another, his brain ought\nto win. You don't leave your umbrella at home during a storm, simply\nbecause the almanac calls for a clear day.\n\nA religion that teaches a mother that she can be happy in heaven, with\nher children in hell--in everlasting torment--strikes at the very roots\nof family affection. It makes the human heart a stone. Love that means\nno more than that, is not love at all. No heart that has ever loved can\nsee the object of its affection in pain and itself be happy. The thing\nis impossible. Any religion that can make that possible is more to be\ndreaded than war or famine or pestilence or death. It would eat out all\nthat is great and beautiful and good in this life. It would make life a\nmockery and love a curse.\n\nI once knew a case myself, where an eldest son who was an unbeliever\ndied. He had been a kind son and a good man. He had shielded his widowed\nmother from every hardship. He had tried to lighten her pain and relieve\nher loneliness. He had worked early and late to keep her comfortable and\nhappy. When he died she was heartbroken. It seemed to her more than\nshe could bear. As she sat and gazed at his dear face in a transport of\ngrief, the door opened and her preacher came in to bring her the comfort\nof religion. He talked with her of her loss, and finally he said, \"But\nit would not be so hard for you to bear if he had been a Christian. If\nhe had accepted what was freely offered him you would one day see him\nagain. But he chose his path, he denied his Lord, and he is lost. And\nnow, dear madam, place your affections on your living son, who is,\nthank God, saved.\" That was the comfort he brought her. That was the\nconsolation of his religion. I am telling you of an actual occurrence.\nThis is all a fact. Well, a few years later that dear old lady died in\nher son's house, where she had gone on a visit. He broke her will--this\nson who was saved--and brought in a bill against her estate for her\nboard and nursing while she was ill! Which one of those boys do you\nthink would be the best company for her in the next world?\n\nIt has always seemed to me that I would rather go to hell with a good\nson than to heaven with a good Christian. I may be wrong, but with\nmy present light that is the way it looks to me; and for the sake of\nhumanity I am glad that it looks that way.\n\n\n\n\nACCIDENT INSURANCE.\n\nA church member said to me some time ago that even though the Bible were\nnot \"the word of God,\" even though it were not necessary to believe in\nthe creed in order to go to heaven, it could not do any harm to believe\nit; and he thought it was \"best to be on the safe side, for,\" said he,\n\"suppose after all it should happen to be true!\"\n\nSo he carries a church-membership as a sort of accident insurance\npolicy.\n\nI do not believe we have a right to work upon that basis. It is not\nhonest. I do not believe that any \"suppose it should be\" gives us the\nright to teach \"I know that it is.\" I do not believe in the honesty\nand right of any cause that has to prop up its backbone with faith, and\nsplinter its legs with ignorance. I do not believe in the harmlessness\nof any teaching that is not based upon reason, justice, and truth. I do\nnot believe that it is harmless to uphold any religion that is not noble\nand elevating in itself. I do not believe that it is \"just as well\" to\nspread any dogma that stultifies reason and ignores common-sense. I\ndo not believe that it is ever well to compromise with dishonesty and\npretence. And I cannot admit that it \"can do no harm\" to teach a belief\nin the goodness of a God who sends an Emerson or a Darwin to hell\nbecause Eve was fond of fruit, and who offers a reserved seat in heaven\nto Christine Cox because a mob murdered Jesus Christ. It does not seem to\nme good morals, and it is certainly poor logic.\n\nAnd speaking of logic, I heard a funny story the other day about one of\nthose absurdly literal little girls who, when she heard people say they\n\"wanted to be an angel,\" did not know it was a joke.. She thought it was\nall honor-bright. She was standing by the window killing flies, and\nher mother called her and said, \"My child, don't you know that is very\nwicked? Don't you know that God made those dear little flies, and that\nhe loves them?\" (Just imagine an infinite God in love with a blue-bottle\nfly!) Well, the little girl thought that was queer taste, but she was\nsorry, and said that she would not do it any more. By and by, however,\na great lazy fly was too tempting, and her plump little finger began to\nfollow him around slowly on the glass, and she said, \"Oh you nice big\nfly, did dod made you? And does dod love you? And does you love dod?\"\n(Down came the finger.) \"_Well, you shall see him_.\"\n\nYet we all know Christians who love God better than anything else--\"with\nall their hearts and soul and strength\"--who prefer to postpone seeing\nhim till the very last minute. They say it is because they have not\n\"fulfilled their allotted time.\" Why not be honest and say it is because\nthey like to live? They \"long to put on immortality;\" but their sleep is\nsounder if they live next door to a good doctor.\n\nPeople say that men are infidels because it is easier--to rid themselves\nof responsibility. But it seems to me that anyone who advances the\ndoctrine of \"morality and works\" instead of that of \"repentance and\nfaith,\" on the ground that it is easier, is laboring under a mistake. I\ndon't see how any one could ask for an easier way of getting rid of his\nsins than the plan that simply unloads them on to another man. I fail to\nsee anything hard about that--except for the man who catches the load;\nand I am unable to see anything commendable about it either. But it is\nnot always easy for a man to be brave enough to be responsible for his\nown mistakes or faults. It is not always easy for a man to say \"I did\nit, and I will suffer the penalty.\" That is not always easy, but it is\nalways just. No one but a coward or a knave needs to shift his personal\nresponsibility on to the shoulders of the dead. Honest men and women\ndo not need to put \"Providence\" up between themselves and their own\nmotives.\n\nA short time ago the wife of a very devout man apparently died, but her\nbody remained so lifelike and her color so natural that her relatives\ndecided that she could not be dead, and they summoned a physician. The\nhusband, however, refused to have him administer any restoratives. He\nsaid that if the Lord had permitted her to go into a trance and was\nanxious to bring her out alive he would do it. Meanwhile he did not\nintend to meddle with Providence. His maxim was, \"Whatever else you do,\ndon't interfere with Providence. Give Providence a good chance and if it\ndoesn't come round all right for Betsy, I think I can bear it--and she\nwill have to.\"\n\nIf we take care of our motives toward each other, \"Providence\" will take\ncare of itself.\n\nDid you ever know a pious man do a real mean thing--that succeeded--who\ndid not claim that Providence had a finger in it? The smaller the trick,\nthe bigger the finger. He is perfectly honest in his belief too. He is\nthe sort of man that never has a doubt about hell--and that most people\ngo there. Thinks they all deserve it. Has entire confidence that God is\nresponsible for every word in the Bible, and that all other Bibles and\nall other religions are the direct work of the devil. Probably prays for\npeople who don't believe that way. He is perfectly honest in it. That is\nsimply his size, and he usually pities anybody who wears a larger hat.\n\n\n\n\nCHIEFLY WOMEN.\n\nBut they say this is not a matter of reason. This is outside of reason,\nit is all a matter of faith. But whenever a superstition claims to be\nso holy that you must not use your reason about it, there is something\nwrong some place. Truth is not afraid of reason, nor reason of truth.\n\nI am going to say something to-night about why I do not believe in a\nreligion of faith. I am going to tell you some of the reasons why I do\nnot believe that the Bible is \"inspired;\" why I, as a woman, don't\nwant to think it is the word of God; why I think that women, above all\nothers, should not believe that it is. And since women are the bulwarks\nof the churches to-day, it seems to me they have the right, and that it\nis a part of their duty, to ask themselves why. Since about seven-tenths\nof all church-members are women, surely the churches should not deny\nthem the right to use their reason (or whatever serves them in that\ncapacity) in regard to their own work.\n\nI saw some ladies begging the other day for money to pay off the debt of\na $200,000 church, on the corner-stone of which were cut the words,\n\"My kingdom is not of this world;\" and I wondered at the time what the\nproperty would have been like if the kingdom had been of this world. It\nseemed to me that a few hundred such untaxed houses would be a pretty\nfair property almost anywhere.\n\nOne of our prominent bishops, when speaking recently of\nchurch-membership, said, \"The Church must recruit her ranks hereafter\nalmost entirely with children;\" and he added, \"the time has passed\nwhen she can recruit her ranks with grown men.\" Good! And the New York\n_Evangelist_ (one of the strongest church papers) says, \"Four-fifths of\nthe earnest young men of this country are sceptics, distrust the clergy,\nand are disgusted with evangelical Christianity.\" Good again.\n\nThe Congregational Club of Boston has recently been discussing the\nquestion how to win young men to Christianity. The Rev. R. R. Meredith\nsaid: \"The churches to-day do not get the best and sharpest young\nmen. They get the goody-goody ones easily enough; but those who do the\nthinking are not brought into the church in great numbers. You cannot\nreach them by the Bible. How many did Moody touch in this city during\nhis revival days? You can count them on your fingers. The man who wants\nthem cannot get them with the Bible under his arm. He must be like them,\nsharp. They cannot be gathered by sentimentality. If you say to them,\n'Come to Jesus,' very likely they will reply, ''Go to thunder.' [In\nBoston!] The thing to be done with such a man is to first get into his\nheart, and then lead him into salvation before he knows it.\"\n\nI don't know how good this recipe is, but I should infer that it is a\ndouble-back-action affair of some sort that could get into a man's heart\nand lead him into salvation before he knew it, and that if the Church\ncan just get a patent on that she is all right; otherwise I suspect that\nthe goody-goody ones are likely to be about all she will get in large\nnumbers.\n\nDo I need any stronger, plainer evidence than this to show that the\nthought of the world is against it, and that it is time for women to ask\nthemselves whether a faith that can hold its own only by its grasp\nupon the ignorance and credulity of children, a faith that has\nmade four-fifths of the earnest men sceptics, a faith that has this\ndeplorable effect upon Boston manners, is one that does honor to the\nintellect and judgment of the women of to-day?\n\nWe hear women express indignation that the law classes them with idiots\nand children; but from these orthodox statements it would seem that in\nthe Church they voluntarily accept about this classification themselves.\nIf only these church-people go to heaven, what a queer kindergarten\nit will be, to be sure, with only a few male voices to join in the\nchoruses--and most of those tenor.\n\nThis religion and the Bible require of woman everything, and give her\nnothing. They ask her support and her love, and repay her with contempt\nand oppression. No wonder that four-fifths of the earnest men are\nagainst it, for it is not manly and it is not just; and such men are\nwilling to free women from the ecclesiastical bondage that makes her\nresponsible for all the ills of life, for all the pains of deed and\ncreed, while it allows her no choice in their formation, no property in\ntheir fruition. Such men are outgrowing the petty jealousies and musty\nsuperstitions of narrow-minded dogmatists sufficiently to look upon the\nquestion not as one of personal preference, but as one of human justice.\nThey do not ask, \"Would _I_ like to see woman do thus or thus?\"\nbut, \"Have _I_ a right to dictate the limit of her efforts or her\nenergy?\"--not, \"Am I benefited by her ecclesiastical bondage and\ncredulity? Does it give me unlimited power over her?\" but, \"Have I\na right to keep in ignorance, have I a right to degrade, any human\nintellect?\" And they have answered with equal dignity and impersonal\njudgment that it is the birthright of no human being to dominate or\nenslave another; that it is the just lot of no human being to be born\nsubject to the arbitrary will or dictates of any living soul; and that\nit is, after all, as great an injustice to a _man_ to make him a tyrant\nas it is to make him a slave.\n\nWhenever a man rises high enough to leave his own personality out of\nthe question, he has gone beyond the stage of silly platitudes. His own\ndignity is too secure, his title to respect too far beyond question,\nfor him to need such little subterfuges to guard his position, either\nas husband, as household-king, or as public benefactor. His home life is\nnot founded upon compulsory obedience; but is filled with the perfume of\nperfect trust, the fragrance of loving admiration and respect. It is the\ndomestic tyrant, the egotistic mediocre, and the superstitious Church\nthat are afraid for women to think, that fear to lose her as worshipper\nand serf.\n\nYou need go only a very little way back in history to learn that the\nChurch decided that a woman who learned the alphabet overstepped all\nbounds of propriety, and that she would be wholly lost to shame who\nshould so far forget her modesty as to become acquainted with the\nmultiplication table.\n\nAnd to-day, if she offers her opinion and her logic for what they are\nworth, the clergy preach doleful sermons about her losing her beautiful\nhome character, about her innocence being gone, about their idea of her\nglorious exaltation as wife and mother being destroyed. Then they grow\nflorid and exclaim that \"man is after all subject to her, that he is\nborn for the rugged path and she for the couch of flowers!\"*\n\n     * \"A pertinacious adversary, pushed to extremities, may say\n     that husbands indeed are willing to be reasonable, and to\n     make fair concessions to their partners without being\n     compelled to it, but that wives are not; that if allowed any\n     rights of their own, they will acknowledge no rights at all\n     in any one else, and never will yield in anything, unless\n     they can be compelled, by the man's mere authority, to yield\n     in everything. This would have been said by many persons\n     some generations ago, when satires on women were in vogue,\n     and men thought it a clever thing to insult women for being\n     what men made them.   But it will be said by no one now who\n     is worth replying to. It is not the doctrine of the present\n     day that women are less susceptible of good feeling and\n     consideration for those with whom they are united by the\n     strongest ties, than men are. On the contrary, we are\n     perpetually told that women are better than men by those who\n     are totally opposed to treating them as if they were as\n     good; so that the saying has passed into a piece of tiresome\n     cant, intended to put a complimentary face upon an injury.\"\n     --John Stuart Mill.\n\nYou recognize it all, I see. You seem to have heard it somewhere before.\nI recall one occasion when I heard it from a country clergyman, who knew\nso much about heaven and hell that he hardly had time to know enough\nabout this world to enable him to keep out of the fire unless he was\ntied to a chair. It was in the summer of 1876, and I remember the\nconversation began by his asking a lady in the room about the Centennial\ndisplay, from which she had just returned. He asked her if she would\nadvise him to take his daughter. She said she thought it would be a very\nnice thing for the girl, and she added, \"It will be good for you. You\nwill see so much that is new and wonderful. It will be of use to you in\nyour work, I am sure.\" He said, \"Well, I don't know about that. There\nwon't be anything much that is new to me. I've seen it all. _I was\nin Philadelphia in 1840_.\" Then he gave us quite a talk on \"woman's\nsphere.\" He could tell you in five minutes just what it was; and the\namount of information that man possessed about the next world was simply\nastonishing. He knew pretty nearly everything. I think he could tell\nyou, within a fraction or two, just how much material it took to make\nwings for John the Baptist, and whether Paul sings bass or tenor. His\npresbytery says he is a most remarkable theologian--and I don't doubt\nit. According to the law of compensation, however, what he does not know\nabout this world would make a very comprehensive encyclopedia.\n\nBut seriously, did it ever occur to you to ask any of these divine\noracles why, if all these recent compliments are true about the superior\nbeauty and virtue and truth and power resting with women--why it is that\nthey always desire as heirs sons rather than daughters? You would think\ntheir whole desire would be for girls, and that, like Oliver Twist,\ntheir chief regret would be that they hadn't \"more.\" But the Bible (and\nthe clergy, until quite recently) pronounces it twice as great a crime\nto be the mother of a girl as to be the mother of a boy. A crime to be\nthe mother of a little child--a double crime if the child should be a\ngirl.*\n\n     * See Appendix K.\n\nIt is often urged that women are better off under the Christian than\nunder any other religion; that our Bible is more just to her than\nother Bibles are. For the time we will grant this, and respectfully\ninquire--what does it prove? If it proves anything it is this--that\nall \"divine revelations\" are an indignity to women, and that they had\nbetter stick to nature. Nature may be exacting, but she is not partial.\nIf it proves anything, it is that all religions have been made by men\nfor men and through men. I do not contend for the superiority of other\nBibles, I simply protest against the wrong in ours. One wrong cannot\nexcuse another. That murder is worse than arson does not make a hero of\nthe rascal who fires our homes. If Allah were more cruel than Jehovah,\nthat would be no palliation of the awful crimes of the Old Testament.\nThat slaves have better clothes than savages cannot make noble traffic\nin human blood. A choice of evils is often necessary, but it does not\nmake either of them a good. But there is no book which tells of a more\ninfamous monster than the Old Testament, with its Jehovah of murder and\ncruelty and revenge, unless it be the New Testament, which arms its God\nwith hell, and extends his outrages throughout all eternity!\n\n\n\n\nWHY WOMEN SUPPORT IT.\n\nAnother argument is that if orthodox Christianity were not good for\nwomen they would not support and cling to it; if it did not comfort them\nthey would discard it. In reply to that I need only recall to you the\nfact that it is the same in all religions. Women have ever been the\nstanchest defenders of the faith, the most bitter haters of an infidel,\nthe most certain that their form of faith is the only truth.* Yet I do\nnot hear this fact advanced to prove the divinity of the Koran or the\nbook of Mormon. If it is a valid argument in the one case it is valid in\nthe others. The trouble with it is it proves too much. It takes in the\nwhole field. It does not leave a weed, from the first incantation of the\nfirst aborigine to the last shout of the last convert to Mormonism, out\nof its range; and it does, and always has done, just as good service\nfor any one of the other religions as it does for ours. It is a\nfree-for-all, go-as-you-please argument; but it is the sort of chaff\nthey feed theological students on--and they sift it over for women. It\nis pretty light diet when it gets to them--but it is filling.\n\n     * See Appendix G.\n\nRecently I heard a clergyman give the following as his reason for\nopposing medical, or scientific training of any sort, for women: \"Now\nher whole energy and force of action (outside of the family) must be\nexpended upon religion. If she were allowed other fields of action\nor thought, her energy, like that of man, would be withdrawn from and\n_fatally cripple the Church_.\"\n\nTo me, however, it seems that any organization that finds it necessary\nto cripple its adherents in order to keep them has a screw loose\nsomewhere.\n\nAnd it also seems to me that it is time for women to try to find out\nwhere the trouble is. They will not want for aid from the men\nwho think--the men who hold self vastly inferior to principle and\njustice--the rare noblemen of nature, honorable, fair, just, tender,\nand thoughtful men--men who love to see the weakest share with them the\nbenefits of freedom--men who know that they are not the less men because\nthey are tender, that women are not the less women because they are\nstrong; and no land under the sky holds so many such as ours.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT IT TEACHES.\n\nIt seemed to me that the time had come when women should know for\nthemselves what the Bible teaches for them and what the pulpit has\nupheld; so I have looked it up a little, and although I cannot soil my\nlips nor your ears with much of it, there is enough, I think, that I may\nuse to make any self-respecting, pure woman blush that she has sustained\nit by word or act.\n\nThe Bible teaches that a father may sell his daughter for a slave,* that\nhe may sacrifice her purity to a mob,** and that he may murder her, and\nstill be a good father and a holy man. It teaches that a man may have\nany number of wives; that he may sell them, give them away, or change\nthem around, and still be a perfect gentleman, a good husband, a\nrighteous man, and one of God's most intimate friends; and that is a\npretty good position for a beginning. It teaches almost every infamy\nunder the heavens for woman, and it does not recognize her as a\nself-directing, free human being. It classes her as property, just as it\ndoes a sheep: and it forbids her to think, talk, act, or exist, except\nunder conditions and limits defined by some priest.\n\n     * Ex. xxi. 7.\n\n     ** Judges xix. 24; Gen. xix. 8\n\nIf the Bible were strictly followed, women and negroes would still be\npublicly bought and sold in America. If it were believed in as it once\nwas, if the Church had the power she once had, I should never see the\nlight of another day, and your lives would be made a hell for sitting\nhere to-night. The iron grasp of superstition would hold you and your\nchildren forever over the bottomless pit of religious persecution, and\ncover your fair fame with infamous slander, because you dared to sit\nhere and hear me strike a blow at infinite injustice.\n\nEvery injustice that has ever been fastened upon women in a Christian\ncountry has been \"authorized by the Bible\" and riveted and perpetuated\nby the pulpit. That seems strong language, no doubt; but I shall give\nyou an opportunity to decide as to its truth. I will now bring my\nwitnesses. They are from the \"inspired word\" itself, and therefore\nmust be all that could be desired. I will read you a short passage from\nExodus xx. 22; xxi. 7-8:\n\n     22  And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto\n     the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I talked with you\n     from heaven. ********\n\n     7  _And if a man sell his daughter_ to be a maid-servant,\n     she shall not go out as the men-servants do.\n\n     8  If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to\n     himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her\n     unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath\n     dealt deceitfully with her.\n\nThe Lord doesn't object to a man selling his daughter, but if any one\nthing makes him angrier than another it is to have her go about as the\nmen-servants do after she is sold. On a little point like that he is\nabsolutely fastidious. You may here notice that God took the trouble\nto come down from heaven to tell the girl what not to do after she was\nsold. He forgot to suggest to her father that it might be as well not\nto sell her at all. He forgot that. But in an important conversation one\noften overlooks little details. The next is Joshua xv. 16-17:\n\n     16   And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher, and\n     taketh it to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.\n\n     17   And Othniel the brother of Caleb [and consequently the\n     girl's uncle] took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter\n     to wife.\n\nPlease to remember that the said Caleb was one of God's intimates--a\nfavorite with the Almighty. The girl was not consulted; the father paid\noff his warriors in female scrip. The next is Gen. xix. 5-8:\n\n     5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where _are_\n     the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out\n     unto us that we may know them,\n\n     6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door\n     after him,\n\n     7  And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.\n\n     8  Behold now, I have two daughters        * * * * * let me,\n     I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is\n     good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing; for\n     therefore came they under the shadow of my root\n\nThese men had come under the shadow of Lot's roof for protection, it\nseems, and Lot felt that his honor demanded that he should shield them\neven at the cost of the purity and safety of his own daughters! Do you\nknow I have always had a mild curiosity to know what his daughters were\nunder the shadow of his roof for. It could not have been for protection,\nI judge, since Lot was one of God's best friends. He was on all sorts of\nintimate terms with the Deity--knew things were going to happen before\nthey came--was the only man good enough to save from a doomed city--the\nonly one whose acts pleased God; and this act seems to have been\nparticularly satisfactory. These men were \"angels of God\" who required\nthis infamy for their protection! If it takes all the honor out of a man\nwhen he gets to be an angel, they may use my wings for a feather-duster.\n\nNow here is a little property law. Num. xxvii.:\n\n     6 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,\n\n     8 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying,\n     If a man die, _and have no son_, then ye shall cause his\n     inheritance to pass unto his daughter.\n\nAnd our law works a little that way yet; being the result of\necclesiastical law it naturally would.*\n\n     * See Appendix N. 5 and P. 5.\n\nNext we have Num. xxxvi.:\n\n     8  And every daughter that possesseth an inheritance in any\n     tribe of the children of Israel,  _shall be wife_ unto one\n     of the family of the tribe of her father, _that the children\n     of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his\n     fathers_.\n\n     9 Neither shall the inheritance remove from _one_ tribe to\n     another tribe; but every one of the tribes of the children\n     of Israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance.\n\n     10 _Even as the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters\n     of Zelophehad_.\n\nThat is all the women were for--articles of conveyance for property.\nSave the land, no matter about the girls. Now these silly women actually\nbelieved that God told Moses whom they had to marry just because Moses\nsaid so! I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is not safe to take\nheavenly communications at second-hand. Second-hand articles are likely\nto be varnished over, and have to be taken at a discount. And it seems\nto me that, if the Lord is at all particular as to whom a girl should\nmarry, she is the one for him to discuss the matter with. Moses didn't\nhave to live with the _sons_ of Zelophehad, and consequently wasn't the\none to talk the matter over with. But, you see, it won't do to question\nwhat Moses said God told him, because upon his veracity the whole\nstructure is built. He had more personal interviews with the Deity than\nany other man--he and Solomon--and hence they are the best authority.\n\nI have here the 31st chapter of Numbers, but it is unfit to read. It\ntells a story of shame and crime unequalled in atrocity. It tells\nthat God commanded Moses and Eleazar, the priest, to produce vice and\nperpetrate crime on an unparalleled scale. _It tells us that they obeyed\nthe order, and that 16,000 helpless girls were dragged in the mire of\ninfamy and divided amongst the victorious soldiers_. They were made\ndissolute by force, and by direct command of God!\n\nThis one chapter stamps as false, forever, the claim of inspiration for\nthe Bible. That one chapter would settle it for me. Do you believe that\nGod told Moses that? Do you believe there is a God who is a thief, a\nmurderer, and a defiler of innocent girls? Do you believe it? Yet this\nreligion is built upon Moses' word, and woman's position was established\nby him. It seems to me time for women to retire Moses from active\nlife. Coax him to resign on account of his health. Return him to his\nconstituency. He has been on the supreme bench long enough. Don't\nlet your children believe in such a God. Better let them believe in\nannihilation. Better let them think that the sleep of death is the end\nof all! Better, much better, let them believe that the tender kiss\nat parting is the last of all consciousness for them, and after that\neternal rest! Don't let their hearts be seared, their lives clouded,\ntheir intellects dwarfed by the cruel dread of the God of Moses! Better,\nthrice better, let the cold earth close over the loved and loving dust\nforever, than that it should enter the portals of infinite tyranny.\n\nNext we will take Deut. xx. 10-16:\n\n     10  When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it,\n     then proclaim peace unto it.   [Good scheme!]\n\n     11  And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and\n     open unto thee, then it shall be, _that_ all the people\n     _that_ is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and\n     they shall serve thee.\n\n     12  And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make\n     war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:\n\n     13  _And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy\n     hands_, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of\n     the sword:\n\n     14   But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and\n     all that is in the city, _even_ all the spoil thereof,\n     _shalt thou take unto thyself_; and thou shalt eat the spoil\n     of thy enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.\n\n     15  Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very\n     far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these\n     nations.\n\n     16  But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy\n     God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive\n     nothing that breatheth.\n\nThe injunction to proclaim peace unto a city about to be attacked and\nplundered strikes me as a particularly brilliant idea. When you go\nto rob and murder a man, just tell him to keep cool and behave like a\ngentleman and you won't do a thing to him but steal all his property and\ncut his throat and retire in good order, God always seemed to fight on\nthe side of the man who would murder most of his fellow-men and degrade\nthe greatest number of women. He seemed, in fact, to rather insist on\nthis point if he was particular about nothing else. And, by the way,\nif you had happened to live in one of those cities, what opinion do you\nthink you would have had of Jehovah? Would he have impressed you as a\nloving Father? Here we have 2 Samuel v. 10, 12-13:\n\n     10 And David went on, and grew great, and the Lord God of\n     hosts was with him.\n\n     12  And David perceived that the Lord had established him\n     king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for\n     his people Israel's sake.\n\n     13  And David took him more concubines and wives out of\n     Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet\n     sons and daughters born to David.\n\nThe nearer he got to God--the more God was \"with him,\" the more wives he\nwanted. Next we have 2 Samuel xx. 3:\n\n     3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem, and the king\n     took the ten women, his concubines, whom he had left to keep\n     the house, and put them in ward, and fed them * * * * * So\n     they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in\n     widowhood.\n\nNow what did David do that for? I don't know. It was such a trifling\nlittle matter that it was not thought necessary to give any reason.\nPerhaps he had eaten too much pie and felt cross; and what else were\nthose women for but to be made stand around on such occasions? Weren't\nthey his property? Didn't those ten women belong to David? Hadn't he a\nperfect right to shut them up and feed them if he wanted to? Don't you\nthink it was kind of him to feed them? I wonder if he sang any of his\npsalms to them through the key-hole. His son Absalom had just been\nkilled, and he felt miserable about that. He had just delivered himself\nof that touching apostrophe we often hear repeated from the pulpit\nto-day, to awaken sympathy for God's afflicted prophet: \"O my son\nAbsalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O\nAbsalom, my son, my son!\" And I haven't a doubt that there were at least\nten women who echoed that wish most heartily. It must have been carried\nin the family without a dissenting vote.\n\nTo this God of the Bible a woman may not go unless her father or husband\nconsents. She can't even promise to be good without asking permission.\nThis God holds no communication with women unless their male relations\napprove. He wants to be on the safe side, I suppose. I'll read you\nabout that. It is in one of the chapters that are not commonly cited as\nevidence that God is no respecter of persons, and that the Bible holds\nwoman as man's equal; nevertheless it is as worthy of belief as any\nof the rest of it, and its \"Thus saith the Lord\" and \"as the Lord\ncommanded Moses\" are \"frequent and painful and free,\" as Mr. Bret Harte\nmight say. The chapter is Numbers xxx.:\n\n     And Moses spake unto the heads of the tribes concerning the\n     children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord\n     hath commanded.\n\n     2  If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to\n     bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he\n     shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.\n\n     3  If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself\n     by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth;\n\n     4  And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she\n     hath; bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at\n     her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith\n     she hath bound her soul shall stand.\n\n     5  But if her father disallow her in the day that he\n     heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she\n     hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive\n     her, because her father disallowed her.\n\n     6  And if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or\n     uttered aught out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul;\n\n     7  And her husband heard _it_, and held his peace at her in\n     the day that he heard _it_; then her vows shall stand, and\n     her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand.\n\n     8  But if her husband disallowed her on the day that he\n     heard _it_; then he shall make her vow which she vowed, and\n     that which she uttered with her lips, wherewith she bound\n     her soul, of none effect: and the Lord shall forgive her.\n\n     9  But every vow of a widow, and of her that is divorced,\n     wherewith they have bound their souls, shall stand against\n     her.\n\n     10  And if she vowed in her husband's house, or bound her\n     soul by a bond with an oath;\n\n     11  And her husband heard _it_, and held his peace at her,\n     _and_ disallowed her not; then all her vows shall stand, and\n     every bond wherewith she hound her soul shall stand.\n\n     12  But if her husband hath utterly made them void on the\n     day he heard _them_; then whatsoever proceeded out of her\n     lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of her\n     soul, shall not stand: her husband hath made them void; and\n     the Lord shall forgive her.\n\n     13  Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul,\n     her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it\n     void.\n\n     14  But if the husband altogether hold his peace at her from\n     day to day; then he establisheth all her vows, or all her\n     bonds, which are upon her: he confirmeth them, because he\n     held his peace at her in the day that he heard them.\n\n     15  But if he shall any ways make them void after that he\n     hath heard them; then he shall bear her iniquity.\n\n     16  These are the statutes, which the Lord commanded Moses,\n     between a man and his wife, between the father and his\n     daughter, _being yet_ in her youth in her father's house.\n\nBetween man and his God they tell us there is no one but a Redeemer; but\nbetween woman and man's God there seems to be all her male relations,\nwhich, I should think, would prevent any very close intimacy. And by the\ntime the divine commands to woman were filtered through the entire\nmale population, from Moses to the last gentleman who, in the confusion\nnatural to the occasion, misquotes \"with all _thy_ worldly goods I _me_\nendow,\" I should think it not impossible that some slight errors may\nhave crept in, and the Church should not feel offended if I were to aid\nher in their detection.\n\nHere we have two or three passages that are said to be the words of\nJesus. I hope that is not true. But I, believing him to have been a man,\ncan understand how they might have been the words of even a very good\nman in that age and with his surroundings; but the words of a perfect\nbeing--never! Of course I know that we have no positive knowledge of any\nof the words of Jesus, since no one pretends that they were ever\nwritten down until long after his death; but I am dealing now with the\ntheological creation upon the theologian's own grounds. My own idea of\nJesus places him far above the myth that bears his name.\n\n     3  And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto\n     him, They have no wine.\n\n     4 Jesus saith unto her, _Woman, what have I to do with\n     thee?_\n\n     --John ii, 3-4.\n\nI hope that Christ did not say that--for his manhood I hope so. I would\nrather believe that this is the mistake of some \"uninspired\" writer than\nthink that one who in much had so gentle and tender a nature, was\nunkind and brutal to his mother. No one would attempt, in this age, to\napologize for such a reply to so simple a remark made by a mother to her\nson. But they say \"he was divine.\" They also tell us he was a perfect\nexample; but with this evidence before me, I am glad our men are human.\nStill I cannot pretend to say that this is not divine--never having made\nany divine acquaintances. I can only say, humanity is better.\n\nThen again he is reported to have said a most cruel thing to the\nbroken-hearted mother of a dying child, and I would rather believe the\nBible uninspired and keep my respect for Jesus, the man. It will be\nbetter for this world to believe in Jesus, the brave, earnest man, than\nin Jesus, the cruel God.\n\n     21  Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of\n     Tyre and Sidon.\n\n     22  And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same\n     coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O\n     Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed\n     with a devil.\n\n     23  But he answered her not a word.\n\n     25 Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me.\n\n     26  But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the\n     children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.\n\n     27  And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the\n     crumbs which fall from their masters' table.\n\n     --Matt. xv.\n\nDo you think that was kind? Do you think it was godlike? What would\nyou think of a physician, if a woman came to him distressed and said,\n\"Doctor, come to my daughter; she is very ill. She has lost her reason,\nand she is all I have!\" What would you think of the doctor who would not\nreply at all at first, and then, when she fell at his feet and worshiped\nhim, answered that he did not spend his time doctoring dogs? Would you\nlike him as a family physician? Do you think that, even if he were to\ncure the child then, he would have done a noble thing? Is it evidence of\na perfect character to accompany a service with an insult? Do you think\na man who could offer such an indignity to a sorrowing mother has a\nperfect character, is an ideal God? I do not. And I hope that Jesus\nnever said it. I prefer to believe that that story is a libel.\n\nIt won't do. We have either to give up the \"inspiration\" theory of the\nBible, and acknowledge that it is the work of men of a crude and brutal\nage, and like any other book of legend and myth of any other people; or\nelse to give up the claim that God is any better than the rest of us.\nYou can take your choice.\n\nWhenever a theologian undertakes to explain matters so as to keep the\nBible and the divine character both intact, I am always reminded of\nthe story of the Irishman who was given a bed in the second story of\na lodging-house the first night he spent in New York. In the night the\nfire-engines ran past with their frightful noise. Aroused from a deep\nsleep and utterly terrified, Mike's first thought was to get out of\nthe house. He hastily jerked on the most important part of his costume,\nunfortunately wrong side before, and jumped out of the window. His friend\nran to the window and exclaimed, \"Are ye kilt, Mike?\" Picking himself up\nand looking himself over by the light of the street lamp, he replied,\n\"No, not kilt, Pat, but I fear I am_ fatally twishted_.\"\n\nNext we have God's opinion (on Bible authority) as to the use of wives.\nThey were to be forcibly changed around _as a punishment to their\nhusbands_ and for offences committed by the latter.\n\n     11 Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against\n     thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before\n     thy eyes and give them unto thy neighbor.\n\n     --2 Sam. xii.\n\nThe latter part of the verse is omitted as being unfit to read. Don't\nunderstand that I think any of it is exactly choice literature; but that\ncover has been used to silence objection long enough. If it is fit to\nteach as the word and will of God for women, it ought to be fit to read\nin a theatre--but it is not.\n\nWhat do you think of a religion that upholds such morals and such\njustice as that just quoted? What do you think of women supporting the\nBible in the face of that as the will of God? Of all human beings a\nwoman should spurn the Bible first. She, above all others, should try\nto destroy its influence; and I mean to do what little I can in that\ndirection. The morals of the nineteenth century have outgrown the Bible.\nJehovah stands condemned before the bar of every noble soul. What Moses\nand David and Samuel taught as the word and will of God, we, who are\nfortunate enough to live in the same age with Charles Darwin, know to\nbe the expression of a low social condition untempered by the light of\nscience. Their \"thus saith the Lord,\" read in the light of to-day, is\n\"thus saith ignorance and fear\"--no more, no less.\n\nIf you will read the 12th chapter of Leviticus, which is unfit to read\nhere, you will see that the Bible esteems it twice as great a crime to\nbe the mother of a girl as to be the mother of a boy; so highly esteemed\nwas woman by the priesthood; so great a favorite was she of Jehovah.*\n\n     * See Appendix K.\n\nAnd do you know there is a law in the Bible* which \"the Lord spake unto\nMoses\" that says if a man is jealous of his wife, \"whether he have cause\nor not,\" he is to take her to a priest, and take a little barley meal\n(if you ever want to try it, remember it must be barley meal; I don't\nsuppose the priest could tell whether she was guilty or not if you were\nto take corn meal or hominy grits) and put it in the wife's hands. And\nthe priest is to take some \"holy\" water and scrape up the dirt off the\nfloor of the Tabernacle, and put the dirt in the water and make the\nwife drink it. Now just imagine an infinite God getting up a scheme like\nthat! Then the priest curses her and says if she is guilty she shall\nrot.... \"and she shall say Amen.\" That is her defence! Then the priest\ntakes the stuff she has in her hands--this barley-meal \"jealousy\noffering\"--and \"waves it before the Lord.\" (I suppose you all know what\nthat part is done for. If you don't, ask some theological student with\na number six hat-band; he'll tell you.) And then he burns a pinch of it\n(that is probably for luck), and at this point it is time to make the\nwoman drink some more of the filthy water (which he does with great\nalacrity), and \"if she be guilty the water will turn bitter within\nher,\"... \"and she shall be accursed among her people.\" (You doubtless\nperceive that her defence has been most elaborate throughout.) Do you\nthink that water would be bitter to the priest?\n\n     *See Numbers v. 11-31.\n\nBut if she does not complain that the water is bitter, and if her \"Amen\"\nis perfectly satisfactory all round, and she be pronounced innocent,\nwhat then? Is the husband in any way reproved for his brutality? Did the\nLord \"reveal\" to Moses that he should drink the rest of that holy water\nand dirt? No! That wasn't in Moses' line. Neither he nor the husband\ndrink the rest of that water--priest doesn't either; they don't even\ntake a pinch of the barley. But after she is subjected to this, and the\nshow is over, \"if she be innocent, then shall she go free!\" Oh, ye\ngods! what magnificent generosity! I should have thought they would have\nhanged her then for being innocent.\n\n\"And then shall the man be guiltless of iniquity, and the woman shall\nbear her iniquity.\"\n\n_If she is innocent she shall bear her iniquity_. You all see how that\nis done I suppose. If you don't, ask your little number six theological\nstudent, and he will tell you all about it, and he will also prove to\nyou, without being asked, that he and God are capable of regulating the\nentire universe without the aid of General Butler.\n\nBut I am told that I ought to respect and love the Bible; that all women\nought to take an active part in teaching it to the heathen, to show\nthem how good Jehovah is to his daughters. But if he is, he has been\nunusually unfortunate in his choice of executors.\n\nNor is it only in the Old Testament that such morals and such justice\nare taught. The clergy put that part off by saying--\"Oh, that was\na different dispensation, and God, the Unchangeable, has changed his\nmind.\" That is the sole excuse they give for all the \"holy\" men, who\nused to talk personally with God, practicing polygamy and all the\nother immoralities. They maintain that it was God's best man who upheld\npolygamy then, and that it is the Devil's best man who does it now.\nOdd idea, isn't it? Simply a question of time and place; and as Col.\nIngersoll says, you have got to look on a map to see whether you are\ndamned or not. But it does seem to me that a God that did not always\nknow better than that, is not a safe chief magistrate. He might take to\nthose views again, They say history is likely to repeat itself. Anyhow,\nI would rather be on the safe side and just fix the laws so that he\ncouldn't. It would be just as well.\n\nBut now we have come to \"St.\" Paul and his ideas on the woman question.\nHe worked the whole problem by simple proportion and found that man\nstands in the same relation to woman as God stands to man. That is, man\nis to woman as God is to man--and only a slight remainder. I'm not going\nto misrepresent this gifted saint. I shall let him speak for himself. He\ndoes it pretty well for a saint, and much more plainly than they usually\ndo.\n\n     33  Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, _as\n     unto the Lord,_\n\n     33 For the husband is the head of the wife, _even as Christ\n     is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the\n     body._\n\n     --Ephesians v.\n\nThe husband is the saviour of the wife! Pretty slim hold on heaven for\nmost women, isn't it? And then suppose she hasn't any husband? Her case\nis fatal.\n\n     34  Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let\n     the wives be to their own husbands in everything.\n\n     --Ephesians v.\n\nPaul was a modest person in his requirements.\n\n9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel,\nwith shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or\npearls, or costly array.\n\n--1 Timothy ii.\n\nIt does seem as if anybody would know that braided hair was wicked; and\nas to \"gold and pearls and costly array,\" all you have to do to prove\nthe infallibility of Paul--and what absolute faith Christians have in\nit!--is to go into any fashionable church and observe the absence of all\nsuch sinfulness:\n\n     10  But (which becometh women professing godliness) with\n     good works.\n\n     11  _Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection_.\n\n     12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority\n     over the man, but to be in silence.\n\n     13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.\n\n     14 And _Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived_\n     was in the transgression.\n\n     --1 Timothy ii.\n\nAccording to the reasoning of verse 13 man should be subject to all the\nlower animals, because they were first formed, and then Adam. Verse 14\ntells us that Adam sinned knowingly; Eve was deceived, so she deserves\npunishment. Now I like that. If you commit a crime understandingly it is\nall right. If you are deceived into doing it you ought to be damned. The\nlaw says, \"The criminality of an act resides in the intent;\" but more\nthan likely St. Paul was not up in Blackstone and did not use Coke.\n\nThis next is St. Peter, and I believe this is one of the few topics\nupon which the infallible Peter and the equally infallible Paul did not\ndisagree:\n\n     Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands;\n     that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the\n     word be won by the conversation of the wives;\n\n     2  While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with\n     fear.\n\n     --1 Peter iii.\n\nI should think that would be a winning card. If the conversation of a\nwife, coupled with a good deal of fear, would not convert a man, he is a\nhopeless case.\n\nBut here is Paul again, in all his mathematical glory, and mortally\nafraid that women won't do themselves honor.\n\n     3  But I would have you know, that the head of every man is\n     Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head\n     of Christ is God.\n\n     4  Every man praying or prophesying, having his head\n     covered, dishonoreth his head.\n\n     5  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head\n     uncovered, dishonoreth her head; for that is even all one as\n     if she were shaven.\n\n     6  For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn:\n     but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let\n     her be covered.\n\n     7  For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch\n     as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the\n     glory of the man:\n\n     8  For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the\n     man.\n\n     9  Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman\n     for the man.\n     --1 Cor. xi.\n\nAnd that settles it, I suppose. But what on earth was man created for? I\nshould not think it could have been just for fun.\n\n     34 Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is\n     not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to\n     be under obedience, as also saith the law.\n\n     35  And if they will learn anything, let them ask their\n     husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in\n     the church.\n\n     --1 Cor. xiv.\n\nThat is a principle that should entitle St. Paul to the profound\nadmiration of women. And yet, when I come to think of it, I don't know\nwhich one gets the worst of that either. Whenever you want to know\nanything, ask your husband, at home! No wonder most husbands don't have\ntime to stay at home much. No wonder they have to see a man so often.\nIt would unseat any man's reason if he lived in constant fear that he\nmight, any minute, be required to explain to a woman of sense, how death\ncould have been brought into this world by Eve, when every one knows\nthat long before man could have lived upon this earth animals lived and\ndied. It would make any man remember that he had to \"catch a car\" if he\nwere asked suddenly to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. I would not\nblame the most sturdy theologian for remembering that it was club night,\nif his wife were to ask him, unexpectedly, how Nebuchadnezzar, with his\ninexperience, could digest grass with only one stomach, when it takes\nfour for the oxen that are used to it. That may account, however, for\nhis hair turning to feathers.\n\nI don't believe St. Paul could have realized what a diabolical position\nhe was placing husbands in, when he told wives to ask them every time\nthey wanted to know anything--unless he wanted to make marriage\nunpopular. There is one thing certain, he was careful not to try it\nhimself, which looks much as if he had some realizing sense of what he\nhad cut out for husbands to do, and felt that there were some men who\nwould rather be drafted--and then send a substitute.\n\nBut why are his commands not followed to-day? Why are not the words,\nsister, mother, daughter, wife, only names for degradation And dishonor?\n\nBecause men have grown more honorable than their religion, and\nthe strong arm of the law, supported by the stronger arm of public\nsentiment, demands greater justice than St. Paul ever dreamed of.\nBecause men are growing grand enough to recognize the fact that right\nis not masculine only, and that justice knows no sex. And because the\nChurch no longer makes the laws. Saints have been retired from the legal\nprofession. I can't recall the name of a single one who is practicing\nlaw now. Have any of you ever met a saint at the bar?\n\nWomen are indebted to-day for their emancipation from a position of\nhopeless degradation, not to their religion nor to Jehovah, but to the\njustice and honor of the men who have defied his commands. That she does\nnot crouch to-day where Saint Paul tried to bind her, she owes to the\nmen who are grand and brave enough to ignore St. Paul, and rise superior\nto his God.\n\nAnd remember that I have not read you the worst stories of the Bible.\nThe greater number of those which refer to women are wholly unfit to\nread here. Are you willing to think they are the word of God? I am not.\nBelieve in a God if you will, but do not degrade him by accepting an\ninterpretation of him that would do injustice to Mephistopheles! Have\na religion if you desire, but demand that it be free from impurity and\nlies, and that it be just. Exercise faith if you must, but temper it\nwisely with reason. Do not allow ministers to tell you stories that are\nsillier than fairy tales, more brutal than barbaric warfare, and too\nunclean to be read, and then assure you that they are the word of God.\nUse your reason; and when you are told that God came down and talked to\nMoses behind a bush, and told him to murder several thousand innocent\npeople; when you are told that he created a vast universe and filled it\nwith people upon all of whom he placed a never-ending curse because of a\ntrivial disobedience of one; give him the benefit of a reasonable doubt\nand save your reputation for slander.\n\nNow just stop and think about it. Don't you think that if a God had come\ndown and talked to Moses he would have had something more important to\ndiscuss than the arrangement of window curtains and the cooking of a\nsheep? Since Moses was the leader of God's people, their lawgiver,\nthe guardian of their morals, don't you think that the few minutes of\nconversation could have been better spent in calling attention to some\nof the little moral delinquencies of Moses himself? Don't you think\nit would have been more natural for an infinite and just ruler to have\nmentioned the impropriety of murdering so many men, and degrading so\nmany young girls to a life worse than that of the vilest quarter of any\ninfamous dive, than to have occupied the time in trivial details about\na trumpery jewel-box? Since God elected such a man as Moses to guide\nand govern his people, does it not seem natural that he would have given\nmore thought to the moral worth and practices of his representative on\nearth, than to the particular age at which to kill a calf? If he were\ngoing to take the trouble to say anything, would it not seem more\nnatural that he should say something important?\n\nIn his numerous chats with Solomon, don't you think he could have added\nsomewhat to that gentleman's phenomenal wisdom by just hinting to him\nthat he had a few more wives than were absolutely necessary? He had a\nthousand we are told, which leaves Brigham Young away behind. Yet there\nare Christians to-day who teach their children that Solomon was the\nwisest man who ever lived, and that Brigham Young was very close to the\nbiggest fool. It is not strange that some of these children infer that\nthe trouble with Brigham was that he had not wives enough, and that\nif he had only married the whole state of Massachusetts he and Solomon\nwould now occupy adjoining seats on the other shore, and use the same\njew's-harp?\n\nDo you believe for one moment that a God ever talked with any man and\ntold him to murder a whole nation of men, to steal their property, to\nbutcher in cold blood the mothers, and to give the young girls to a camp\nof brutal soldiers--_and that he helped to do it?_ Do you believe any\nGod ever told a man to give so many of those girls to one tribe, so\nmany to another, and to burn so many as an offering to himself? Do you\nbelieve it? I don't. Would you worship him if he had? I would not.\n\nAnd yet it is true that he did help in such work, or else the word\nof Moses is not worth a nickel. God did this, or else our religion is\nfounded upon a fraud. He did it, or orthodoxy is a mistake. He did it,\nor the Bible is an imposition. If it is true, no woman should submit to\nsuch a fiend for an hour; if it is false, let her unclasp the clutches\nof the superstition which is built upon her dishonor and nourished by\nher hand.\n\nThey say it is a shame for a woman to attack the Bible. I say she is\nthe one who should do it. It is she who has everything to gain by its\noverthrow. It is she who has everything to lose by its support. They\ntell me it is the word and will of God. I do not, I cannot, believe\nit! And it does seem to me that nothing but lack of moral perception\nor mental capacity could enable any human being who was honest (and not\nscared) to either respect or believe in such a God.\n\nAs a collection of ingenious stories, as a record of folly and\nwickedness, as a curious and valuable old literary work, keep the Bible\nin the library. But put it on the top shelf--or just behind it, and\ndon't let the children see it until they are old enough to read it\nwith discrimination. As a mythological work it is no worse than several\nothers. As a divine revelation it is simply monstrous.\n\nAmong your other tales you might tell the children some from it. You\nmight tell them that at one time a man got mad at another man, and\ncaught three hundred foxes, and set fire to their tails (they standing\nstill the while), and then turned them loose into the other man's corn,\nand burned it all up. If they don't know much about foxes, and have\nnever experimented in burning live hair, they may think it is a pretty\ngood story. But I would not tell them that the man who got up that\ntorch-light procession was a good man. I would not tell them that he was\none of God's most intimate friends; because even if they think he had a\nright to burn his enemy's crops, I don't believe that any right-minded\nchild would think it was fair to the foxes.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.\n\nSome time ago I went to hear a noted minister, who preached a sermon\nabout the \"fruit of the tree of knowledge\" to a congregation composed,\nas most congregations are, chiefly of women. Yet his sermon was a\nmonument of insult, bigotry, and dogmatic intolerance that would have\ndone honor to a witch-hunter several centuries ago. That women will\nsubject themselves to such insults week after week, and that there are\nstill men who will condescend to offer them, is a sad commentary upon\ntheir self-respect as well as upon the degrading influence of their\nreligion.\n\nWhy will they listen to such nonsense? Perhaps woman was made of a rib\nand so should be held as flesh and blood only, devoid of intellect. But\nI don't know that she was; I was not there to see, and, in fact, none of\nmy family were; and since they tell us that the only gentleman present\nupon that interesting occasion was asleep, I don't know who could have\ntold the story in the first place.\n\nIt is always a surprise to me that women will sit, year after year, and\nbe told that, because of a story as silly and childish as it is unjust,\nshe is responsible for all the ills of life; that because, forsooth,\nsome thousands of years ago a woman was so horribly wicked as to eat an\napple, she must and should occupy a humble and penitent position, and\nremain forever subject to the dictates of ecclesiastical pretenders. It\nis so silly, so childish, that for people of sense to accept it seems\nalmost incredible.\n\nAccording to the story, she was deceived. According to the story, she\nbelieved that she was doing a thing which would give greater knowledge\nand a broader life, and she had the courage to try for it. According to\nthe story, she first evinced the desire to be more and wiser than a mere\nbrute, and incidentally gave her husband an opportunity to invent the\nfirst human lie (a privilege still dear to the heart), a field which up\nto that time had been exclusively worked by the reptiles. But they never\ngot a chance at it again. From the time that Adam entered the lists,\ncompetition was too lively for any of the lower animals to stand a ghost\nof a chance at it, and that may account for the fact that, from that\ntime to this, nobody has ever heard a snake tell a lie or volunteer\ninformation to a woman. The Church has had a monopoly of these\nprofitable perquisites ever since. The serpent never tried it again. He\nturned woman over to the clergy, and from that time to this they have\nbeen the instructors who have told her which apple to bite, and how big\na bite to take. She has never had a chance since to change her diet.\nFrom that day to this she has had apple pie, stewed apple, dried apple,\nbaked apple, apple-jack, and cider; and this clergyman that I heard,\nstarted out fresh on apple-sauce. He seemed to think--\"anything for a\nchange.\" You would have thought, to hear him, that the very worst\nthing that ever happened to this world was the birth of the desire\nfor knowledge, and that such desire in woman had been the curse of all\nmankind.\n\nBut it seems to me that if in this day of intelligence a minister\npreaches or acts upon such dogmas, women should scorn him both as a\nteacher and as a man. If a creed or Church upholds such doctrines they\nshould shun it as they would a pest-house. If any system or any book\nof religion teaches such principles they should exert every effort to\nutterly destroy its influence. I want to do what I can to show women\nthat the mercury of self-respect must fall several degrees at the church\ndoor, and that the light of reason must go out.\n\nIn this sermon that I speak of, we were warned \"not to be wise above\nthat which is written.\" As if a man should bind his thoughts and\nknowledge down to what was known, believed, or written in ages past!\nAs though a man should fear and tremble, should hesitate to reach out\nafter, to labor to know, all that his intellect and energy can compass.\nAs though to be good he must accept situations, sentiments, ideas\nready-made, and dwarf his intellect and bind his mental ability by the\ncapacity of somebody else.\n\n\"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.\"\n\n\"He that hath eyes to see, let him see.\"\n\nAnd he that hath a brain to think, let him think. What is his intellect\nfor? Why is his mind one vast interrogation point? Why should not Eve\nhave grasped with eagerness the fruit of the tree of knowledge?\n\nA taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge does drive man from the\nparadise of ignorance, does send him forth a laborer in the vast fields\nof speculation and thought, where there is no rest, and no possibility\nof the cessation of labor so long as his energies and his love of truth\nremain to impel him to the conquest of the infinite domain that lies\nunexplored beyond.\n\nBut would any man sell what is gained in liberty, in strength, in\nbreadth, in conscious superiority, for the delights which every brute\nhas left him in his stagnant paradise of ignorance and rest? What man\nin this nineteenth century can unblushingly say he would not choose the\nlabor with all its pain, the effort with all its failure, the struggle\nwith all its exhaustion? Why try to bind the human mind by the silly\ntheory that a God requires man to crush out or subject the intellect he\nhas given him? Whatever religion may have gained by such a course, think\nwhat morality and progress have lost by it!\n\nWhat has not woman lost by that silly fable which made her responsible\nfor transgression? Honor her for it! Honor her the more if it was she\nwho first dared the struggle rather than lose her freedom or crush her\nreason. _If_ she learned first that the price of ignorance and slavery\nwas too great to pay for the luxury of idleness--honor her for it. The\nacceptance of such contemptible stories, as told by the clergy _in\nall ages and in all religions_ as the \"word of God,\" has done more to\nenslave and injure women's intellects, and to brutalize men, than has\nbeen done by any other influence; and our boasted superior civilization\nis not the result of the Christian religion, but has been won step\nby step in despite of it.* For the Church has fought progress with a\nvindictive bitterness and power found in no other antagonist--from the\ntime, long ago, when it crushed Galileo for daring to know more than its\n\"inspired\" leaders could ever learn, down to yesterday, when it raised a\nwild howl against Prof. Tyndall for making a simple statement, in itself\nabsolutely incontrovertible.\n\n     * See Lecture 3, \"Theological Fictions.\"\n\nIt had to yield to Galileo as the people grew beyond its power to blind\nthem to his truth. It is yielding every hour to-day to Tyndall from the\nsame dire necessity; while its nimble devotees vie with each other in\nproclaiming that they thought that way all the time; had neglected\nto say so (through an oversight); but that it was one of their very\nstrongest holds from the beginning. They have recently told us that\nmodern scientific doctrines (evolution included) are \"plainly indicated\nin the Bible,\" and that Science has at last worked up towards the\ncomprehension of scriptural truths.\n\nIt used to be the fashion to burn the man who got up a new theory or\ndiscovered a new law of nature that interfered with the \"revelation\"\ntheory; but the style now is to go into the mental gymnastic business\nand \"reconcile\" the old dogma with the new truth. The only kind of\nreconciling the Church ever thought of in the days of her power, was to\nbecome reconciled to the death of the scientist or thinker. To-day she\ncan take evolution and revelation, shake them up in a theological bag,\nand then bring them forth so marvellously alike in appearance that their\nown father would not know them apart. And the rest of us can't recognize\nthem at all.\n\nTo-morrow, when she has to yield her whole field to science, she will\nhasten to assure us that it was only a few mistaken souls who ever\nobjected to Col. Ingersoll's style of theology; and that if we would\nonly interpret the Bible aright (and understood Hebrew) we should at\nonce discover that Col. Ingersoll was the \"biggest card\" they had had\nyet.\n\nYou may not live until that to-morrow; I may not live until that\nto-morrow; but it is as sure to come as it is certain that the old\ntenets have yielded one by one before the irresistible march of an age\nof intelligence and freedom, in which a priest or a Church can no longer\nbe judge, jury, and counsel.\n\nNot long ago I heard two gentlemen--one a very devout Christian--talking\nabout what use the Church could make of Col. Ingersoll's teachings. One\nsaid he was such a moral man, and always insisted so strongly upon right\naction in this world, that it was a pity he did not have more faith. He\nsaid, \"What a power he would be in the Church! What a preacher he would\nmake! He would be a second St. Paul--I have been praying for years for\nhis conversion.\" \"Well,\" said the other, \"you needn't waste your time\nany longer; softening of the brain doesn't run in Robert's family.\"\n\n\n\n\nKNOWLEDGE NOT A CRIME.\n\nLet man rid himself of the pernicious idea that knowledge is a crime,\nand then let only the man who is afraid to enter the world of thought go\nback to his native paradise of ignorance and rest. Let him cling to his\nold ideas. Humanity can do better without such a man, and humanity will\nbe better without him. The time is past when his type is needed, and let\nus hope that it is nearly past when it can be found. He may have been\nabreast of the time in 1840, but his grave was dug, his epitaph written,\nin 1841. Science did not wait for him, and the world forgot his name!\n\nDo you think the world has any farther use for the man who can gravely\ntell those stories about Samson, for instance, as truth--as the word of\nGod? Do you think they do honor to the most attenuated intellect? Now\njust stop and think of it. Just think of one thousand able-bodied men\n(1,000 is a good many men) quietly standing around waiting for Sampson\nto knock them on the head with a bone! And how does the durability of\nthat bone strike you?\n\nIf prowess with arms were estimated, I should say that was about the\nmost effective piece of generalship on record. If the gentleman who\nconducted that neat little skirmish were living to-day there would not\nbe a question as to his eligibility for a third term, unit rule or no\nunit rule. If we could provide our generals with a bone like that, we\nmight reduce the standing army sufficiently to reassure the most timid\ncongressman of the whole lot. It would not take more than four or five\ngenerals and a captain to guard the whole frontier. Then we might keep\na private to keep the peace at the polls, and that would give us\nsufficient force to readily murder several thousand people any morning\nbefore breakfast, and I don't see how you could ask for anything better\nthan that. Two live men and one dead mule could raise a siege in a\nquarter of an hour. Now, if there is anybody who wants to start \"a\nbrilliant foreign policy,\" here is his chance. He could at the same time\nmake a record for economy, for it would be an enormous saving to this\ncountry in arms and ammunition alone. For durability, cheapness, and\ncertainty not to miss fire there is simply no comparison at all.\n\nIt may be objected that our soldiers are not so strong as Samson; but\nI am told by those who are intimately acquainted with mules, that they\nhave not deteriorated. They have simply transferred their superior\nstrength and durability from their jaw-bones to their heels--and they\nengineer them themselves. So if our men can stand his voice and aim him\nright, they won't have to wear long hair.\n\nBut seriously, if it is necessary to believe such stories as that in\norder to go to heaven, don't you think the admission fee is a trifle\nhigh? It is entirely beyond my means, and that is not one of the big\nstories either.\n\nThe one that comes right after it is just as absurd. It is the second\nscene of the same performance, and Samson only went out between acts for\na drink, and then he playfully walked off with a building about the size\nof the capitol at Washington.\n\nThey say we must believe these tales or be damned; and that a woman has\nnot even a right to say, \"I object.\" But it always did seem to me that\nanybody who could believe them would not have brains enough to know\nwhether he was damned or not. They say we must not laugh at such very\nsolemn things as that. They also say that even if we don't believe them\nourselves we should show respect for those who do.\n\nThat is a very good theory, but I should like to know how any human\nbeing with a sense of humor could sit and look solemn, and feel very\nrespectful, with that sort of chaff rattling down his back. It can't\nbe done unless he is scared. Fear will convince a man the quickest of\nanything on earth. Even a shadow is provocative of solemnity if the\nnight is dark enough and the man is sufficiently scared.\n\nIgnorance and Fear made the Garden of Eden, they created Jehovah, gave\nSamson his wonderful strength, and Solomon his wisdom; they divided the\nRed Sea, and raised Lazarus from the dead. It is not strange, therefore,\nthat they have compelled women to cling to the Church, and slaves to\ncling to slavery. There were many black men in the South who voluntarily\nwent back and offered to remain in bondage. And that is one of the\nstrongest arguments against the institution of slavery--that it can so\nfar degrade its victims that they lose even the ambition to be free!*\n\n     * \"It was quite an ordinary fact in Greece and Rome for\n     slaves to submit to death by torture rather than betray\n     their masters. Yet we know how cruelly many Romans treated\n     their slaves. But in truth these intense individual feelings\n     nowhere rise to such a luxuriant height as under the most\n     atrocious institutions. It is part of the irony of life,\n     that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which\n     human nature seems susceptible, are called forth in human\n     beings toward those who, having the power entirely to crush\n     their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that\n     power. How great a place in most men this sentiment fills,\n     even in religious devotion, it would be cruel to inquire. We\n     daily see how much their gratitude to Heaven appears to be\n     stimulated by the _contemplation of fellow-creatures to whom\n     God has not been so merciful as he has to themselves_.\"\n     --Mill.\n\nThe time is not far distant when a bondage of the intellect to the\nChurch will receive no more respectful consideration than a bondage\nof the body to a master. This nineteenth century cannot much longer\nbe bound by the ignorance and intolerance of an age when might was the\nhighest law and force the only appeal. We need to recognize that the\nbroadest possible liberty is the greatest possible good; and that the\nliberty to think is the highest good of all. So don't let people make\nyou afraid to think, or to laugh at nonsense wherever you see it.\n\nSolomon saying it cannot make a silly thing wise, nor Moses doing it a\ncruel thing kind. David cannot make brutality gentle, nor Paul injustice\njust; and that the Bible sustains a wrong can never make it right.\n\nDon't you know that if the leading men of the Old Testament were living\nto-day, they would be known as liars, thieves, and murderers--some\nindeed as monsters to whom even these terms would be base flattery.\nDespoilers of those who had not injured them; infamous liars in the name\nof God; murderers of men; butchers of children; debauchers of women;\nif they were living in the nineteenth century they would be unanimously\nelected to the gallows--that is if they escaped Judge Lynch long enough.\nAnd yet they are held up to us, who have outgrown their morals, as\nauthorities on the subject of God's will to man, as Prophets, Saints,\nMediators!\n\nDo you want your children taught to believe in the purity and honor\nof such men? Do you want your children taught to worship a God who\nsanctioned, commanded, and gloried (and usually participated) in their\nworst crimes? Do you want them to believe that at any time, in any age,\na God was the director in the most heinous crimes, in the vilest\nplots, in the most cruel, vulgar, cowardly acts of vice that were ever\nrecorded? Either he was or else Moses' word is not worth a copper, and\ntheology is the invention of ignorance. He did these hideous things\nor the Bible is mistaken about it. There is to-day that kind of a God\nsomewhere in space waiting around to pounce on anybody who doesn't\nadmire him, or else the Church is founded upon the ignorance and fear of\nits dupes, and teaches them what is not true.\n\nThey say it is wicked to inquire into the facts. I say it is wrong not\nto. It seems to me that in a matter like this the most important thing\nis to be honest all round, and that if the claims of the Church are true\nno inquiry can injure them. They say, \"Oh, well, drop all the bad part,\nand only take the good. There is a great deal of good in it too.\" But if\nI don't know what is good myself I won't go to Moses and that class of\nmen to find out. I'll go to somebody who has got a clean record. I won't\ngo to men who robbed and murdered in the name of God; I won't go to men\nwho bought and sold their fellow-men; I won't go to men who gave their\nown daughters over to the hate and lust of others, even bargaining for\nthem with sons and brothers. Such men cannot tell me what is good.\nSuch men cannot make a religion for me to live by, or a God that I can\naccept.\n\nI am sometimes told that intelligent ministers nowadays do not believe\nin the inspiration of the Bible, and do not teach it. Yet every minister\nwho, like the Rev. R. Heber Newton, dares to suggest mildly that even\nthe apple story is a fable, is silenced by his bishop or hounded down\nfor \"heresy.\" And still they go right on telling little children that it\nis the \"word of God\" and the only guide of life. For truth, better give\nthem AEsop's Fables or the Arabian Nights; for purity the Decameron or\nDon Juan; for examples of justice the story of Blue-Beard or the life of\nHenry the Eighth.\n\nI wish you would read the Bible carefully _just as you would any other\nbook_, and see what you think of its morals. I am debarred from touching\nthe parts of it that are the greatest insult to purity and the most\ninfamous travesties of justice. I can only say to you, read it, and if\nyou are lovers of purity you will find that it teaches respect for a God\nwho taught the most degrading impurity and defended those who forced it\nupon others. If you believe in the sacredness of human life, he gave the\nlargest license to murder. It does not matter that Moses said he\ntold him _to tell somebody else_ \"Thou shalt not kill;\"* for the same\ngentleman remarked upon several other occasions that God told him not\nonly to kill, but to steal, to lie, to commit arson, to break pretty\nmuch all the other commandments--and to be a professional tramp besides.\n(I am told that he followed this latter occupation for forty years,\nwhich I should think would give him the belt.) So you see we have the\nsame gentleman's word for all of it; and at times, I must confess, it\ndoes not seem to me absolutely reliable authority. There is one thing\ncertain, if the returns are correct, and that is that Moses did not take\nhis own medicine in the little matter of keeping the commandments. They\nwere for his enemies and his slaves.\n\n     * See Lecture 3, \"Theological Fictions.\"\n\nIf you love liberty remember that the Bible teaches slavery in every\nform, not only the buying of slaves, but the stealing them into bondage.\nHow any man or woman who censured slavery in our Southern States\ncan permit their children to be taught that the Bible is a book of\nauthority, and think they are consistent, I cannot understand. Every\nslave-whip had for its lash the Bible. Every slave-holder had its\nteachings for his guide. Every slave-driver found his authority there.\nWhen the sword of the North severed the thongs of the black man, it\ndestroyed the absolute control of the Bible in America; and gave a fatal\nblow to Jehovah the God of oppression. Only in the South is it that the\nBible still holds its own. Freedom has outgrown it; and the young South\nis reading it, for the first time, with an eraser!\n\nIf you respect your mother, if you wish your children to respect theirs,\nyou will find that the Bible teaches not only disrespect for her, but\nabject slavery and the most oppressive degradation. If you love your\nyoung sister, your beautiful pure daughter, remember that Jehovah taught\nthat, whenever men could do so, they were to abuse, ruin, degrade\nthem; and remember, further, that his \"prophets\"--_the men who made our\nreligion--did these things and gloried in the work_.\n\nIt is for this reason that I say it is right and peculiarly fitting that\nwomen should object to his teaching. After you have read the 31st ch.\nof Numbers, with its \"thus saith the Lord,\" think then if you want to\nfollow such teachings. Decide then whether or not the words, the acts,\nthe commands, or the religion of such men is good enough for you. Think\nthen whether or not you want your daughters, your sons, to believe that\nthe Bible has one grain of authority, or is in any sense a \"revelation\nof the divine will.\"\n\nDon't allow ministers to palm off platitudes on you for \"revelation;\"\nand don't let them make you believe that anything that Moses or David or\nSolomon said was the command of God to women. Neither one of those men\nwas fit to speak of a respectable woman. With the superior morals of our\ntime neither one of them would be considered fit to live outside of a\nbrothel.\n\nAnd don't let them tell you what \"Saint\" Paul said either. What did he\nknow about women anyway? He was a brilliant but erratic old bachelor\nwho fought on whichever side he happened to find himself on. He could\naccommodate himself to circumstances and accept the situation almost\nas gracefully as that other biblical gentleman who quietly went to\nhousekeeping inside of a whale, and held the fort for three days.\n\n\n\n\nAS MUCH INSPIRED AS ANY OF IT.\n\nDid it ever occur to you that those absurd tales have as much claim to\nbe called the \"word of God\" as any of the rest of it? How can people\nsay they believe such nonsense? And how can they think it is evidence of\ngoodness to believe it? They say it takes a horribly wicked man to doubt\none of those yarns; and to come right out and say honestly, \"I don't\nbelieve it,\" will elect you, on the first ballot, to a permanent seat\nin the lower house. Mr. Talmage says four out of five Christians \"try to\nexplain away\" these tales by giving them another meaning, and he urges\nthem not to do it. He says, stick to the original story in all its\nliteral bearings. The advice is certainly honest, but it would take\na brave man to follow it. And four out of five of even professed\nChristians is a pretty heavy balance on the side of intellectual\nintegrity; and even Mr. Tal-mage's mammoth credulity fails to tip the\nscale.\n\nThey simply can't believe these biblical stones, so they try to explain\nthe marvellous part entirely away. It has about come to this, in this\nday of thought and intelligence, that when a thinking man claims to\nbelieve these tales, and says it is an evidence of righteousness to\nbelieve them, there are just two things to examine, his intellect and\nhis integrity. If one is all right the other is pretty sure to be out\nof repair. Defective intellect or doubtful integrity is what he suffers\nfrom. He has got one of them sure, and he may have both.\n\nNow I should just like to ask you one honest question. Why should any\nbook bind us to sentiments that we would not tolerate if they came from\nany other source? And why tolerate them coming from it? Do you know who\ncompiled the Bible? Do you know it was settled by vote which manuscripts\nGod did and which he did not write? The ballot is a very good thing to\nhave; but I decline to have it extend its power into eternity, and bind\nmy brain by the capacity of a ballot-box held by caste and saturated\nwith blood.\n\nThere can be but slow progress while we are weighted down by the\nsuperstitions of ages past. The brain of the nineteenth century should\nnot be bound down to the capacity of the third, nor its moral sentiment\ndwarfed to fit Jehovah.\n\nBut so long as the theories of revelation and vicarious atonement are\ntaught, we shall not need to be surprised that every murderer who is\nhanged to-day says that he is going, with bloody hands, directly into\ncompanionship with the deity of revelation. He has had ample time in\nprison to re-read in the Bible (what he had previously been taught\nin Sunday school), of many worse crimes than his which his spiritual\nadviser assures him (to the edification and encouragement of all his\nkind outside) were not only forgiven, but were actually ordered and\nparticipated in, by the God he is going to.\n\nThat is what orthodoxy tells him! Just think of it! Do you think that is\na safe doctrine to teach to the criminal classes? Aside from its being\ndishonest, is it safe? Does it not put a premium on crime? I maintain\nthat it is always a dangerous religion where faith in a given dogma, and\nnot continuous uprightness of life, is the standard of excellence. It is\na cruel religion where force is king and immorality God. It is an unjust\nreligion which seeks to make women serfs and men tyrants. It is an\nunreasonable religion where credulity usurps the place of intellect and\njudgment. It is an immoral religion where vice is deified and virtue\nstrangled. It is a cowardly religion where an innocent man, who was\nmurdered 1,800 years ago, is asked to bear the burden of your wrong acts\nto-day. Aside from its impossibility that is cowardly.\n\nMan should be taught that for every wrong he does, he must himself be\nresponsible--not that some one else stands between him and absolute\npersonal responsibility--not that Eve caused him to sin, nor that Christ\nstands between him and full accountability for his every act.\n\nAnd he should be taught that for every noble deed, for every act of\njustice or mercy, he deserves the credit himself; that Christ does not\nneed it; that Christ cannot want it; and that Christ does not deserve\nit.\n\nAnd you will not want to \"wash your hands in the blood of Christ,\" nor\nto shed that of any other innocent man, if your motives are pure and\nyour lives clean.\n\n\n*****\n\n\n\n\n\nVICARIOUS ATONEMENT.\n\nIN an art collection in Boston there is a god--a redeemer--the best\nillustration I have ever seen of the vicarious atonement theory. It is\na perfect representation of the agony endured by a helpless and innocent\nbeing in order to relieve the guilty of their guilt. This god was\ncaptured in Central Africa before his mission was complete, and there is\nstill suffering-space upon his body unused.\n\nIt is a wooden image of some frightful beast, and it is represented as\nsuffering the most intense physical agony. Nails are driven into its\nhead, body, legs, and feet. Each wrongdoer who wanted to relieve himself\nof his own guilt drove a nail, a tack, a brad, or a spike into the flesh\nof his god. The god suffered the pain; the man escaped the punishment.\nHe cast his burdens on his god, and went on his way rejoicing. Here is\nvicarious atonement in all its pristine glory. The god is writhing\nand distorted with pain; the criminal has relieved himself of further\nresponsibility, and his faith has made him whole. His sins are forgiven,\nand his god will assume his load.\n\nIt is curious to examine the various illustrations of human nature as\nrepresented by the size and shape of the nails. A sensitive man had\ncommitted a trifling offence, and he drove a great spike into the head\nof the god. A thick-skinned criminal inserted a small tack where it\nwould do the least harm--in the hoof. An honest, or an egotistic\npenitent drove his nail in where it stands out prominently; while the\nsecretive devotee placed his among a mass of others of long standing and\ninconspicuous location.\n\nOne day I stood with a friend looking at this god. My friend, who was a\ndevout believer in the vicarious theory of justification and punishment\nas explained _away_ by the ethical divines of Boston, was unable to see\nanything but the most horrible brutality and willingness to inflict\npain on the part of these African devotees, and was equally unable to\nrecognize the same principle when applied to orthodoxy. She said, \"Is it\nnot horrible, the ignorance and superstition of these poor people? What\na vast field of labor our missionaries have.\"\n\nTo her the idea of justification by faith in a suffering god meant only\nsuperstition and brutality when plainly illustrated in somebody else's\nreligion; but the same idea, the same morality, the same justice, she\nthought beautiful when applied to Christianity.\n\nI said, \"There is the whole vicarious theory in wood and iron. That\nis exactly the same as the Christian idea; and the same human\ncharacteristics are plainly traceable in the size and location of these\nnails.\n\n\"A Presbyterian or a Methodist drives his nail in the most conspicuous\nspot, where the flesh is tender and the suffering plainly visible. The\nEpiscopalian or Catholic uses a small tack, and drives it as much out of\nsight as possible, covering it over with stained glass, and distracting\nthe attention with music; but the bald, cruel, unjust, immoral,\ndegrading, and dishonest principle is there just the same.\n\n\"Faith in blind acts of devotion; the suffering of innocence for guilt;\ntransferring of crime; comfort and safety purchased for self by the\ninfliction of pain and unmerited torture upon another; premiums offered\nfor ignorance and credulity; punishments guaranteed for honest doubt and\nearnest protest--all these beautiful provisions of the vicarious theory\nare as essential to our missionary's belief as to that of his African\nconverts; and it seems to me simply a choice between thumbs up and\nthumbs down.\"\n\nWhile we were talking my friend's pastor joined us, and she told him\nwhat I had said, and asked him what was the difference between the\nChristian and the heathen idea of a suffering god. He said he could\nexplain it in five minutes some morning when he had time. He said\nthat the one was the true and living faith, and the other was blind\nsuperstition. He also said that he could easily make us see which was\nwhich. Then he gracefully withdrew with the air of one who says: \"In six\ndays God made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day _he_\nand _I_ rested.\" He has not called since to explain. While he stayed,\nhowever, his manner was deeply, solemnly, awfully impressive; and of\ncourse I resigned on the spot.\n\nThe theory of vicarious atonement is the child of cowardice and fear.\nIt arranges for a man to be a criminal and to escape the consequences\nof his crime. It destroys personal responsibility, the most essential\nelement of moral character. It is contrary to every moral principle.\n\nThe Church never has been and never will be able to explain why a god\nshould be forced to resort to such injustice to rectify a mistake of his\nown. To earnest questions and honest thoughts it has always replied with\nthreats. It has always silenced inquiry and persecuted thought. Past\nauthority is its god, present investigation its devil. With it brains\nare below par, and ignorance is at a premium. It has never learned that\nthe most valuable capital in this world is the brain of a scholar.\n\n\n\n\nFEAR.\n\nEvery earnest thought, like every earnest thinker, adds something to\nthe wealth of the world. Blind belief in the thought of another produces\nonly hopeless mediocrity. Individual effort, not mere acceptance, marks\nthe growth of the mind. The most fatal blow to progress is slavery of\nthe intellect. The most sacred right of humanity is the right to think,\nand next to the right to think is the right to express that thought\nwithout fear.\n\nFear is the nearest approach to the ball and chain that this age will\npermit, and it should be the glorious aim of the thinkers of to-day that\nso refined and cruel a form of tyranny shall not be left for those who\ncome after us. We owe physical freedom to the intellectual giants of the\npast; let us leave mental freedom to the intellectual children of the\nfuture.\n\nFear scatters the blossoms of genius to the winds, and superstition\nburies truth beneath the incrustation of inherited mediocrity. Fear\nputs the fetters of religious stagnation on every child of the brain. It\ncovers the form of purity and truth with the contagion of contumely and\ndistrust. It warps and dwarfs every character that it touches. It is the\nfather, mother, and nurse of hypocrisy. It is the one great disgrace\nof our day, the one incalculable curse of our time; and its nurse and\nhot-bed is the Church.\n\nBecause I, a woman, have dared to speak publicly against the\ndictatorship of the Church, the Church, with its usual force and honor,\nanswers argument with personal abuse. One reply it gives. It is this. If\na woman did not find comfort and happiness in the Church, she would not\ncling to it. If it were not good for her, she in her purity and truth\nwould not uphold it in the face of the undeniable fact that the present\ngeneration of thinking men have left it utterly.\n\nYou will find, however, that in every land, under every form of faith,\nin each phase of credulity, it is the woman who clings closest and\nlongest to the religion she has been taught; yet no Christian will\nmaintain that this fact establishes the truth of any other belief.*\n\n     * \"Exactly the same thing may be said of the women in the\n     harem of an Oriental They do not complain.... They think\n     our women insufferably unfeminine.\"\n     --Mill.\n\nThey will not argue from this that women know more of and have a\nclearer insight into the divine will! If she knows more about it, if she\nunderstands it all better than men, why does she not occupy the pulpit?\nWhy does she not hold the official positions in the Churches? Why has\nshe not received even recognition in our system of religion? Who ever\nheard of a minister being surprised that God did not reveal any of the\nforms of belief through a woman? If she knows and does the will of God\nso much better than man, why did he not reveal himself to her and place\nhis earthly kingdom in her hands?\n\nThat argument won't do! As long as creed and Church held absolute\npower there was no question but that woman was a curse, that she was an\ninferior being, an after-thought. No Church but the Roman Catholic has\nthe decency to recognize even the so-called mother of God! The Church\nhas never offered women equality or justice. Its test of excellence\nis force. The closer a Church or creed clings to its spirit, the more\nsurely does it assume to dictate to and control woman and to degrade\nher. The more liberal the creed the nearer does it come to offering\nindividual justice and liberty.\n\nThe testimony of our own missionaries, as well as that of many others,\nassures us that it is not the Turk but his wives who hold fastest\nto their faith. The women of the harem, whom we pity because of the\ninjustice of their religious training, are the last to relinquish\ntheir god, the most bitter opponents of the infidel or sceptic in their\nChurch, the most devout and constant believers of the faith, and the\nmost content with its requirements. They are the ones who cling to the\nform even when the substance has departed--and it is so with us!\n\nAmong the \"heathen\" it is the women who are most shocked and offended\nby the attacks made upon their superstitions by the missionaries whom we\npay to go to them and blaspheme their gods and destroy their idols.\n\nGo where you will, read history as you may, and you will find that it\nis the men who invented religion, and the women who believed in it.\nThey are the last to give it up. _The physically weak dread change_.\nInexperience fears the unknown. Ignorance shuns thought or development.\nThe dependent cannot be brave.\n\nWe are all prepared to admit, I think, that, with but few marked\nexceptions here and there, the women of most countries are physically\nand mentally undeveloped. They have had fear and dependence, the dread\nenemies of progress and growth, constantly to retard them. Fear of\nphysical harm, fear of social ostracism, fear of eternal damnation. With\nrare exceptions a child with a weak body, or any other dependent, will\ndo as he is told; and women have believed to order. They have done so\nnot only in Christianity but in Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Mormonism,\nand Fetichism--in each and all of them. Each and all of these religions\nbeing matter of faith, religion was the one subject in which every\nChurch alike claimed ignorance as a virtue; and the women understood\nthat the men understood it as little as they did. It was a field\nwhere credulity and a solemn countenance placed all on an intellectual\nlevel--and the altitude of the level was immaterial.\n\nWomen have never been expected to understand anything; hence jargon\nabout the \"testimony of the spirit,\" the \"three in one\" absurdity, the\n\"horns of the altar,\" or the widow's oil miracle was not more empty or\nunmeaning to her than a conversation about Bonds and Stocks, Political\nEconomy, or Medical Science. She swallowed her religion just as she did\nher pills, because the doctor told her to, and said there was something\nwrong with her head--and usually there was.\n\n\n\n\nBEGINNING TO THINK.\n\nThe past education of woman gave her an outlook which simply embraced a\nhusband or nothing at all, which was often only a choice between two of\na kind.\n\nThere are a great many women to-day who think that orthodoxy is as great\nnonsense as I do, but who are afraid to say so.\n\nThey whisper it to each other. They are afraid of the slander of the\nChurch.\n\nI want to help make it so that they will dare to speak. I want to do\nwhat I can to make it so that a mother won't have to evade the questions\nof her children about the Bible.\n\n\n\n\nCREEDS.\n\nI am sometimes asked, \"What do you propose to give in place of this\ncomforting faith? It makes people so happy. You take away all this\nblessing and you give no other in its place. What is your creed?\"\n\nIt has never seemed to me that a creed was the staff of life. Man cannot\nlive by creeds alone. I should not object, however, to one that should\nread something like this:\n\nI believe in honesty.\n\nI believe that a Church has no right to teach what it does not know.\n\nI believe that a clean life and a tender heart are worth more to this\nworld than all the faith and all the gods of Time.\n\nI believe that this world needs all our best efforts and earnest\nendeavors twenty-four hours every day.\n\nI believe that if our labors were needed in another world we should be\nin another world; so long as we are in this one I believe in making the\nbest and the most of the materials we have on hand.\n\nI believe that fear of a god cripples men's intellects more than any\nother influence. I believe that Humanity needs and should have all our\ntime, efforts, love, worship, and tenderness.\n\nI believe that one world is all we can deal with at a time.\n\nI believe that, if there is a future life, the best possible preparation\nfor it is to do the very best we can here and now.\n\nI believe that love for our fellow-men is infinitely nobler, better, and\nmore necessary than love for God.\n\nI believe that men, women, and children need our best thoughts, our\ntenderest consideration, and our earnest sympathy.\n\nI believe that God can get on just as well without any of these as with\nthem. If he wants anything he can get it without our assistance. It\nis people with limitations, not gods without limitations, who need and\nshould have our aid.\n\nI believe that it is better to build one happy home here than to invest\nin a thousand churches which deal with a hereafter.\n\nIf a life that embraces this line of action does not fit a man for\nheaven, and if faith in vicarious atonement will, then such a heaven is\nnot worth going to, and its god would be unworthy to make a good man's\nacquaintance.\n\nBut suppose that faith in a myth is destroyed and another mysticism be\nnot set up in its place, what then? If a mother takes her child away\nfrom the fire, which it finds beautiful, and believes to be a nice toy,\nis it necessary for her to give it a kerosene lamp in its place?\nShe destroys a pleasant delusion--a faith and a delightful hope and\nconfidence--because she knows its danger and recognizes its false\nfoundation. It is surely not necessary that she should give to the child\nanother delusion equally dangerous and false. She gives it something\nshe knows to be safe; something she understands will not burn; something\nwhich, though not so bright and attractive to the child at first, gives\npleasure without pain, occupation without disaster. Is she cruel or\nonly sensible? If I were to pretend to a knowledge of a divine creed, a\nsuperhuman system, I should be guilty of the same dishonesty, the same\ndeception of which I complain in the Church.\n\nI do not know of any divine commands. I do know of most important human\nones. I do not know the needs of a god or of another world. I do not\nknow anything about \"a land that is fairer than day.\" I do know that\nwomen make shirts for seventy cents a dozen in this one. I do know that\nthe needs of humanity and this world are infinite, unending, constant,\nand immediate. They will take all our time, our strength, our love, and\nour thoughts; and our work here will be only then begun.\n\nWhy not, if you believe in a God at all, give him credit for placing you\nwhere he wanted you? Why not give him credit for giving you brains and\nsympathies, as well as the courage to use them. Even if Eve did eat that\napple, why should _we_ insist upon having the colic?\n\n\n\n\nSELF-CONTROL WHAT WE NEED.\n\nI want to see the time come when mothers won't have to explain to their\nchildren that God has changed his mind about goodness and right since he\nused to incite murder; that eighteen hundred years ago he was a criminal\nwith bloody hands and vile, polluted breath; that less than three\nhundred years ago his greatest pleasure was derived from witnessing the\nagony of pure young girls burning alive, whose only crime was beauty of\nface or honesty of thought.*\n\n     * See Gage, \"History of Woman Suffrage,\" p. 766.\n\nI want it so that she won't allow her children to hear and believe such\na statement as Bishop Fallows made not long ago. He said, in effect,\nthat sins of omission are as heinous as those of commission: that Saul\ncommitted two sins in his life, and that one of them was a refusal to\ncommit a coldblooded murder! He spared the life of a conquered enemy!\nOut of a whole nation he saved one life--and that was a crime, a\nsin! Bishop Fallows said that God expressly commanded Saul to utterly\nexterminate that whole nation, and not only the nation but its flocks;\nand that God took Saul's kingdom from him because he saved the life of\none fallen enemy.\n\nThat story, I think, is a libel; and I believe that if there is a God he\nwas never such a fiend! And I want it so that no mother will allow her\nchild to hear such an infamous travesty of the character of a Deity who\nis called good, I want it so that all the lessons of the week, all\nthe careful training of a wise father or a good mother, will not be\nantagonized on Sunday by such a statement as the Rev. Mr. Williamson\nmade at a large church convention recently. Speaking of prayer, he said:\n\"We should offer to God, by prayer, our virtue, our purity, and our\npious aspirations\" (so far I do not object, for if it means anything I\nfail to grasp it), \"for by not doing so we claim self-control, which is\ndispleasing to God!\"\n\nI object! The lesson of self-control is precisely what we need. And when\nwe control ourselves and regulate our lives on principles of right and\ntruth, instead of allowing a Church to regulate them through a fear of\nhell, we shall be a better people, and character will have a chance to\ngrow.\n\nThen this same gentleman added: \"We should also give him our vices, our\nworry, our temper, and our passions, so that he may dispose of them.\"\n\nDispose of them yourselves! Don't try to shift your responsibilities\non to somebody else. Don't drive your tack into the brain of justice,\nexpecting to save your own soft skull. Don't enervate your strength\nto do light by accepting the fatal doctrine of vicarious atonement. It\nweakens every character that it touches.\n\n\n\n\nVICARIOUS ATONEMENT NOT A CHRISTIAN INVENTION.\n\nThe doctrine of vicarious atonement is found in some form in most\nreligions, and it is the body and soul of ours. The idea is not a\nChristian invention. It caused the Carthaginians to put to death their\nhandsomest prisoners if a battle were won, the most promising children\nof their own nobility if it were lost. They were offerings to appease\nthe gods.\n\nIn old times there were peoples who believed that if a chief was guilty\nof a misdemeanor it was just to punish or enslave any one of his tribe.\nThat was their idea of liberty and justice. If a father committed\na crime it could be expiated by the murder of his son. That was the\ndoctrine of vicarious atonement in all its pristine glory. So they\nadopted that style of justice in our religion, and condemned the\nwhole lot of us to the eternal wrath of God on account of that little\nindiscretion attributed to Eve. It seems a very little thing for anybody\nto get so angry at us all about and stay angry so long! It doesn't seem\nto me that if one of you were to eat every apple I had in my orchard, I\nshould want to murder and eternally damn all the folks that live in Asia\nMinor. Do you think you would?\n\nIn the 11th verse of the 12th chapter of the second book of Samuel it is\nclaimed that God said he was going to be revenged for the crimes of some\nmen by a vile punishment of their wives.\n\nOnly a short time ago a man tried that same style of justice in one of\nour Western towns. He claimed that Smith had alienated the affections of\nhis wife, so he went over to Smith's house and _whipped Mrs. Smith!_ And\ndo you know that the judge who tried that case (not being a good Bible\nstudent) actually sent that good, pious man to the house of correction\n--that man who not only believed in his Bible, but lived by it! And just\nas likely as not that judge will be elected again. Truly we have fallen\non degenerate times!\n\nLegal minds outgrew the idea of vicarious punishment long ago. Physical\nliberty came to have a new meaning, and punishment was awarded more\nnearly where it was due. But the religious mind never outgrows anything.\nIt is born as big as it ever gets. Development is its terror. It abhors\na change. It forces you to sin by proxy, to be redeemed by proxy; and\nthe only thing it does permit you to receive at first hand is Hell. That\nis the only one thing you can't delegate to somebody else.\n\nIf you commit no sin, you are responsible for the sins of other people\n--dead people, too, that you can't look after. If you are good and true\nand noble--even if you are a Christian--you don't get any credit for it.\nIf there is any one thing above another that God detests it is to have\na man try to be grand and noble and true, and then get the credit of\nit. \"To Christ belongs all the honor, the praise, and the glory--world\nwithout end, Amen.\"\n\nBut when it comes to the punishment, the vicarious notion doesn't seem\nto work. There is the one point where you are welcome to your own, and\nno discount allowed to heavy takers. Hell is always at par and no bail\npermitted. Even ignorance of the requirements is no excuse. If you did\nnot know any better, somebody else did, and you've got to pay for it.\n\nNow if the vicarious principle is not big enough to go clear round, I'll\nleave my share off at the other end. If the Church wants to take my hell\n(vicariously) it is welcome to it. I will let it go cheap.\n\nAwhile ago a man stayed some time at a hotel in New York, and when\nthe time came for him to pay his bill he hadn't the money. Well, the\nproprietor felt sorry for him and said, \"I tell you what I'll do about\nthat bill, I'll throw off half.\" His guest was overwhelmed by this\nliberality, and with tears of gratitude said, \"I cannot permit you to\noutdo me in generosity; I'll throw off the other half and we'll call it\nsquare.\"\n\nSo if the Church desires all the credit, it is also welcome to all the\nblame. I cannot permit it to outdo me in generosity. But I'd rather be\nresponsible for just my own sins, and then I can regulate them better,\nand I can take care of my own reward when I get it. I shall not want\nto deposit it with the clergy. A profit and loss system that is chiefly\nloss will not pay me.\n\nThe doctrines of vicarious atonement and original or inherited sin are\nthe most infamously unjust dogmas that ever clouded the brain of man.\n\n\n\n\nTWIN MONSTERS INHERITED FROM INTELLECTUAL PIGMIES.\n\nThey are twin monsters inherited from intellectual pigmies.\n\nLet me read you a little prayer based upon this idea of right. I heard\nit offered as a thanksgiving tribute. \"Oh, God, we do thank thee that\nthou didst give thy only son to die for us! _We thank thee that the\ninnocent has suffered for the guilty_, and that through the suffering\nand death of thy most holy son our sins are blotted out!\"\n\nMonstrous! How would that work in a court of justice? What would you\nthink of a person who coolly thanked a judge who had knowingly allowed\nthe wrong man to be hung? What do you think of a code of morals that\noffers as one of its beautiful provisions the murder of the innocent\ninstead of the punishment of the guilty?\n\nPeople ask what good I expect to come of an attack on Christianity. They\nask me if I think Christianity does any direct harm. Yes! _It makes\na man unjust to believe in unjust doctrines_. Any man who honestly\nbelieves in the righteousness of a system of vicarious rewards and\npunishments is ripe for any form of tyranny. And the more honestly he\nbelieves in it the less will he be a good man from principle.\n\nI want men and women to be good and true because it is right towards\neach other, and not because they are afraid of Hell. Honor towards\npeople in this world, not fear of a fiend in the next--that is my\ndoctrine. That is the way to make men and women strong and brave and\nnoble. Stop telling them they can't be good themselves; teach them that\nthey must do right themselves. Make them self-dependent. Teach them to\nstand alone. Honor towards others, kindness, and love--these are what\nmake a man a good husband, a noble father--king in his household.\n\nFear never made any man a gentleman. Fear never made any woman a true\nwife or a good mother. Fear never covered the pitfalls of vice with\nanything stronger than the gloss of hypocrisy.\n\nWhen Reason's torch burned low, Faith led her victims by chains of\nignorance into the land of hopeless superstition, and built her temple\nthere.\n\n\n\n\nGEOGRAPHICAL RELIGION.\n\nA religion of faith is simply a question in geography. Keep your\nlocality in mind and you are all right. On the banks of the Red Sea\nmurder and slavery were a religious duty. On the Ganges infanticide is a\nvirtue. In Rome you may steal or lie; you may deceive an innocent young\ngirl and blast her life forever; you may stab your friend in the dark,\nand you are all right: but if you eat a piece of fried pork on Friday\nyou are a lost man! China arranges her prayers in a machine, and turns\nher obligations to Deity off with a crank. There is usually more or less\nintimate relationship between prayer and a crank. Our God loved human\nsacrifice in Galilee, and rewarded Abraham for it. He abhors it\nin Pocasset, America, and his followers threaten to hang the only\nconsistent follower of Jehovah who has come amongst them.\n\nIf you live in Utah, or had lived in Jerusalem, your most certain\nhope of salvation would have been the possession of numerous wives. In\nEngland or New York more than one is sure damnation.\n\nLose your bearings and you are a lost man! Make a mistake in your\ncounty and your soul is not worth a copper. A traveler is not safe five\nminutes, and I doubt if an accident policy would cover his case.\n\nGod and the Devil have been held accountable for about every crime that\never has been committed, and it has been very largely a geographical\nquestion which of the two was responsible. If it was longitude 35\u221e 14'\neast it was the Lord! If you shifted to longitude 70\u221e 58' west it was\nthe devil.\n\nWhen locality becomes the all-important question, we do not wonder at\nthe old lady who felt relieved when the new survey threw her house just\nacross the state line into Ohio, after she had been under the impression\nthat she lived in Indiana. \"Well,\" said she, \"I am glad we don't live\nin Indiana; I always did say it was a very unhealthy state. Now, our\ndoctor's bills won't be so high.\"\n\nPocasset, Mass., is in the devil's country, and murder is not safe;\nit is a crime. Abraham and Saul lived in a healthier climate--in God's\ncongressional district, where murder was above par and decency was out\nof fashion. Take it all in all, and the devil seems to make the best\ngovernor.\n\nNow it seems to me that Sunday-schools should teach nothing so much as\ngeography, so that a man may not be in doubt as to who is his Secretary\nof State, and when an order comes from head-quarters he may fairly be\nexpected to know whether it is safe to obey--whether obedience means\nglorification on earth and a home in heaven, or a sprained neck and a\nbright fire. It seems now that Pocasset is over the line and out of the\nLord's clearing.\n\n\n\n\nREVELATION.\n\nNow this God either did or he did not believe in and command murder and\nrapine in the days when he used to sit around evenings and chat with\nAbraham and Moses and the rest of them. His especial plans and desires\nwere \"revealed\" or they were not. The ideas of justice and right were\nhigher in those days than they are now, or else we are wiser and better\nthan God, or else the Bible is not his revealed will. You can take your\nchoice. My choice is to keep my respect for divine justice and honor,\nand let the Bible bear the burden of its own mistakes.\n\nIf religion is a revelation, then it is not a growth, and it would have\nbeen most perfect in design and plan when it was nearest its birth.\nNow accepting the Bible theory of Jehovah, we find that when the\ncommunications of God were immediate and personal there could have been\nno mistake as to his will. To deal with it as a growth or evolution\ntoward better things is to abandon the whole tenet of a revealed law\nof God. But to deal with it as a revelation is to make God a being too\nrepulsive and brutal to contemplate for one moment with respect.\n\nHe either did or did not tell those men those things. Which will you\naccept?\n\nHe divided men into two classes. Of one he made tyrants and butchers;\nof the other, victims. He made woman weak in order that she might be the\nmore easily overcome by vice; helpless, in order that she might the more\neasily be made the victim of brutal lust! He made children to be the\nbeasts of burden, the human sacrifices, the defenceless property of\ncriminals and fiends. He did these things, or the prophets romanced\nabout it, or some one else romanced about them. Which?\n\nIf I accept the former alternative. I can have nothing but loathing and\ncontempt for the Diety and his followers. If the latter, it clouds the\ncharacter of no one. It simply places the ignorance of the past on the\nsame plane with the ignorance of the present. It rescues the reputation\nof the Infinite at the trifling expense of a few musty fables.\n\nI choose the latter! I prefer to believe either that a few men were\nthemselves deceived, or that they tried to deceive others--it does\nnot much matter which. I prefer to adopt this belief, and so keep the\ncharacter of even a supposititious God above reproach.\n\nIf we accept a God at all let us accept an honest one.\n\n\n\n\nEVIDENCE OF FAITH.\n\nWe are asked to be as fair toward the evidence of Bible witnesses as we\nare toward other evidence. We are told that we believe a great deal that\nwe have never seen, and that we accept it on the word of others; that we\nhave never seen a man hung, but that we believe that men have been hung;\nwe never saw Napoleon's great feats of generalship, but we believe in\nthem because history records them. Why not believe in the Bible as well\nas in other history? Why not, on the testimony of witnesses, believe\nthat Christ turned water into wine, as readily as that a man was hung?\nWhy not accept the miracle of the loaves and fishes on evidence, as\nreadily as the victories of Napoleon?\n\nNow that line of argument, although it is the one used by and for\ntheological students, is entirely illogical. It will not work with\npeople who think. The cases are not parallel.\n\nWe believe the facts of history and the occurrences of to-day not\nsolely on the testimony of others, but because they are in accord with\ncommon-sense and experience and judgment; because they fall within the\nrange of possibility, and do not antagonize the laws of nature. We know\na man can be hung. We know one general may defeat another. We are asked\nto believe nothing outside of reasonable bounds. Here then the only\nthing to examine is the credibility of the witnesses.\n\nIf, however, our witnesses told us that whenever Napoleon wanted to know\nthe strength of an enemy he flew up over their camp and counted their\nmen; or that when he found too many he prayed down fire from heaven and\nburned them up, we should dismiss their testimony at once as unworthy\nof farther notice. We should know that they were deceived, or that they\nwere trying to deceive us. We should know that Napoleon's real means\nof estimating the strength of his enemy were of a different nature,\nand that he did not resort to the upper air and flit about at will. We\nshould know that no fire was prayed down, and that although soldiers\nmight be told to put their trust in God, the little addition--\"and keep\nyour powder dry\"--would be the really important part of the command.\n\nSo when we are told that wine was made out of water, and bread and fish\nout of nothing in large quantities, we know that we are listening to\nstatements that simply go out of the field of credible testimony into\nthe realm of supreme credulity. Such assertions require you to believe\nnot only what you have not seen, but what all experience and reason tell\nyou you never can see. They ask you not only to believe in a past\nevent, but in a past event outside of all reason, beyond all experience,\nincapable of demonstration, unsupported by nature, opposed to all\nnatural laws--beneath the realm of reason, out of the light of\nexperience, under the shadow of superstition!\n\nThe great electric light of the intellect is turned off at the church\ndoor. On one day out of every seven the human lamps enter in utter\ndarkness a field of superstition. During six days the light is turned\nfull on the world of commerce, science, art, and literature, and these\nglow and grow and are examined by its rays. When, however, the signal\ntolls from the steeple on the seventh day, the light is turned off for\nthat day, and for that topic alone; and then there is brought out once\nmore the old tallow candle of ignorance that hides in shadow the cobwebs\nof undeveloped thought!\n\nUse your noblest powers of thought freely in the bank; strain and\ndevelop your ability to improve and control in the engine-room; train\nand exert your judgment in literature and art; push and brighten and\nsharpen your reason in science or political economy.\n\nIn the practical affairs of life faith will not help you. It is childish\nand insecure. It will not honor your cheque; it will not prevent the\nbroken engine from hurling its human companion into eternity. It will\nnot prove the rotundity of the earth, nor establish a sound financial\nbasis for a nation. In all such matters it leads to nothing but\nignorance and disaster. In theology it is the one element of light.\n\nAs a test and an aid in this world, it is puerile and trifling; but the\ndepths of the Great Beyond it fathoms to a nicety. It gives no grasp\nupon the truths of Time; but it is the all-sufficient hold on Eternity.\nIt leads to the discovery of no important principle here; but it holds\nthe keys to the secret chambers of divinity! It is an attribute of\nchildish development now. It is to indicate infinite mental superiority\nhereafter!\n\nIt is a strange philosophy which asserts that a faculty which is a\nhindrance to superiority in this world is the one thing needful for the\nsoul of man!\n\nGive me the brain that dares to think! Give me the mind that grasps\nwith herculean power the rocks that crush the treasures of intellectual\ngrowth, and tears them from their foundation! Give me the mind that\ndares to step from the fallen stones, that leaps from rock to rock past\nthe dark rift torn in the superstitions of ages past, and that, standing\non the farthest crag, waits and watches for the breaking light! He can\ntrust his future whose present scorns stagnation!\n\n\n\n\nDID HE TALK?\n\nIn olden times--in the times of the Bible--men believed that animals\nsometimes used human language, and that beasts were wiser than their\nmasters. I'm not now going to question that belief, but still I don't\nthink that nowadays one-half of us would take the word of a horse on any\nimportant subject. You must remember, however, that it took an ass to\nknow an angel at first sight in Balaam's time. Balaam never suspected\nthat there was an angel in his path until that ass told him! In those\ndays, on a little matter like that, the word of any beast seemed to be\ntaken as good evidence.\n\nBut let a mule jam his rider's foot against a wall, nowadays, and then\nlie down under him, and there is not one man in ten who would associate\nthat fact in his mind with the presence of an angel. I suppose, however,\nthere wasn't as much known about mules then as there is now; and most\nasses were of a more pious turn of mind.\n\nI don't suppose there is one intelligent man in this city who believes\nthat story, and yet he is not a good Christian if he questions it.\n\nShow me a locality where actual belief--where old time orthodoxy--is\nlooked upon as a requisite of good citizenship and standing in society,\nand you will show me a place where intellectual development and rapid\nprogress have died or gone to sleep!\n\nThe most ignorant and backward parts of this great country, the\nlocalities where Congress is asking for better and more secular schools\nto be established as a means of safety to the state, are situated in the\nvery States where orthodoxy holds absolute sway. In those states a\nman is looked upon as a very dangerous character if he questions the\naccuracy of that story about those three hot-house plants, Shadrach,\nMeshach, and Abednego. Yes, the people of that pious region would be\nafraid of a man who was wicked enough to laugh at that yarn; and yet do\nyou believe there is a man in this city who could make you believe it?\nAnd you don't look dangerous either; and I don't think that I do.\n\nIt seems that when they used to run ashore for big scare-stories, they\njust poked up the fire and went into the blastfurnace business--here and\nhereafter. But--seeing that a furnace--a real one--heated seven times\nhotter than it takes to melt iron, did not injure those three tropical\ninnocents--did not even singe their eye-brows--it does look a little as\nif we should stand a pretty fair show with the spiritual fuel they now\npromise us hereafter. Still I must say I don't believe I should like the\nclimate.\n\nSpeaking of Bible arguments, I must tell you of a new one I heard\nrecently. A gentleman acquaintance of mine asked a colored woman, who\nhad applied to him for money to help build a colored people's church,\nwhether she thought God was black or white. She replied that the Bible\nimplied that he was black--that it said, \"And His wool shall be whiter\nthan snow;\" and that _white men don't have wool!_\n\n\n\n\nWHAT YOU MAY THINK.\n\nShow me a grade of society that buckles its little belt of belief and\nfaith around its members, and you will show me a collection of hopeless\nmediocres. The thinkers move out or die out. They object to being\nfossilized. They decline to go down to history as physical members of\nthe nineteenth century, and mental members of the third.\n\nI would rather have the right to put on my monument, \"She was abreast of\nher time,\" than have all the sounding texts and all the feathered tribes\nchiseled upon it. I would prefer that it be said of me, \"She was a good\nwoman because she had a pure heart,\" than to have this record: \"She was\na Christian. She was afraid of hell. She cast her burdens on the Lord,\nand went to heaven.\"\n\nYou have been told, \"Blessed are they who die in the Lord.\" Rather let\nus say, \"Blessed are they who live clean lives.\"\n\nBut the Church does not allow you to regulate your lives by what you\nbelieve to be right. It always did and it always will hate a thinker. It\nproposes to do the mental labor for great minds by means of brains large\nenough to hold nothing but Faith. It says, \"I cannot, and you shall not\noutgrow the past. The measure of my capacity shall be the limit of your\nattainment.\"\n\nThe laws of a nation presume to regulate only what you may do. The\nChurch is kind enough to say what you may think. It proposes to control\nthe mental condition of every man and woman for time and eternity, and\nits first command is that we shall not grow.\n\nIt seems to me rather a queer admission to make, but the Church says\nthat a child or a fool knows quite enough for its purpose--and it does\nnot seem to be my place to question that fact. Now that may be all very\nwell for the child and the fool, but it is rather binding on the rest of\nus.\n\nOnce in a while a minister outgrows the doctrines that were big enough\nfor him in his youth; but that minister, though his life be as pure and\nhis character as sweet as a flower, would be safer to be cast into\nthe sea than that this instrument of torture, this court of injustice,\nshould discover that he had laid aside the outfit of his undeveloped\nyears. His mind may have grown to be a giant in strength, but it must be\ncompressed into the nut-shell of superstition--dwarfed to the capacity\nof intellectual pigmies.\n\nChrist was a thinker, a man of progress, an infidel, a man who outgrew\nthe Church of his time; and the Church of his time crucified him. Those\nwho oppose the spirit of religious stagnation to-day meet the same\nspirit in the Church that Christ met, and receive the same treatment so\nfar as the law will permit.\n\nIt is a sentiment as true as it is beautiful that asks us to reverence\nthe great men, the thinkers of the past; but it is no mark of respect\nto them to rest forever over their graves. We show our respect and our\nappreciation better by a spirit of research that reaches beyond them,\nthan by a simple admiration which takes their gifts and dies. The\nlessons they left were not alone lessons of memory and acceptance, but\nexamples of effort and progress.\n\nA pupil who stops content with his teacher's last words is no great\ncredit either to himself or to his master. If he has learned only\nto accept, his lesson is only begun; and until he knows that he must\ninvestigate, his education is that of a child, his development that of a\nclown.\n\nIt is no compliment to Christ, the man of progress 1800 years ago, that\nhis followers clip the wings of thought. He struck for freedom from\necclesiastical bondage. He added a new link to the chain of intellectual\ngrowth, and his followers have riveted it back to the immovable rock of\nsuperstition. He offered a key to open the door of individual liberty.\nThey have wrapped it in the folds of ignorance and laid it in the closet\nof fear. He said in effect, \"When you have outgrown the Church, leave it\nand bless the world.\" They say, \"Leave it and be damned.\" For what is a\nChristian to-day without his hell? The chief objection I hear offered to\nthe last arrangements made for us by the revisers is that they left out\nsome of the hell, and gave the part they kept a poetical name.\n\n\n\n\nINTELLECTUAL GAG-LAW.\n\nWhen the day comes when offences against the intellect are deemed as\ngreat crimes as offences against the person, intellectual gag-law\nwill meet with no more respect than lynch-law does to-day, and will\nbe recognized as the expression of an undeveloped moral and social\ncondition. Choking an opinion into or out of a man's mind is no more\nrespectable than the same argument applied to his body.\n\nAny form of faith, any religion, that has the vicarious element in it,\nis an insult to the intellect. It is based upon the idea of a God of\nrevenge, a ruler infamously unjust. It is a system utterly ineffectual\nwithout the wanton sacrifice of helpless innocence under fangs of\nbeastly cruelty--a revenge that has no thought of the redress of wrong\nby its punishment--a revenge that simply requires a victim--and blood!\n\nEven with those two elements of the plan it is still impotent until\nit has appealed to the basest element in every human breast--the\nwillingness to accept happiness that is bought by the agony of another!\nIt is too abjectly selfish and groveling to command the least respect\nfrom a noble character or a great, tender soul. It severs the ties of\naffection without compunction. It destroys all loyalty. It says, \"No\nmatter what becomes of my loved ones--those who would die to help me--I\nmust save my soul.\" Without the use of the microscope, however, such a\nsoul would never know whether it was saved or not.\n\nWhat sort of a soul would it be that could have a heaven apart from\nthose it loved? It would not be big enough to save, and its heaven would\nnot be good enough to have.\n\nI prefer the philosophy, the dignified loyalty and love for the dead of\nthe old Goth, the captive warrior whom the Christians persuaded to be\nbaptized. As he stood by the font he asked the bishop, \"Where are\nthe souls of my heathen ancestors?\" The bishop, with great alacrity,\nreplied, \"In hell.\"\n\nThe brave old warrior, the loyal Goth, drew his skins about him and\nsaid, \"I would prefer, if you do not object, to go to my people;\" and he\nleft unbaptized.\n\nThat was heathen philosophy; but I think I prefer it to the Christianity\nof a devout man, a Sunday-school superintendent, whom I know. He is\na great light in a Christian church today. He worships the beautiful\nprovisions of vicarious atonement. He refused his mother her dying wish,\nand on the following Sunday atoned for the inhuman act by singing with\nunusual unction, \"How gentle God's commands,\" and reading with devout\nfervor, \"The Lord is my shepherd, _I_ shall not want.\" His mother, who\nhad the same shepherd, had wanted for much. She even wanted for a stone\nto mark her grave, because the money she had left for that purpose\nher holy son thought best to use, vicariously, upon himself. That man\nbelieves in the Bible absolutely. He is a good Christian, and he abhors\nan infidel! He knows he is going to heaven because he has faith in\nChrist, and Christ had an extra stab on his account. He is willing to\ntake his heavenly home through the blood of Christ, and his earthly one\nout of the pockets of a dead mother. The blood of the murdered Nazarene\nobliterates the infamy of his acts over her dishonored grave.\n\nAnd this is perfectly consistent! A religion of faith, a religion that\ngets its good vicariously and shifts its sins and responsibilities on\nto the past, is a religion that can never elevate character; _it simply\nmakes a man more intensely what he was before_. It is all self,\nself, self. Think of the infinitesimal smallness, the irredeemable\nworthlessness, the unutterable meanness of a soul that could forsake\nthose it had loved, and be happy believing that they were suffering and\neternally lost!\n\nYet who does not know men who go tramping about the country, living\non the charity of their dupes, and declaring that \"the Lord is their\nShepherd, _they_ shall not want,\" whose families want for almost every\ncomfort of life? And this is true orthodox doctrine. \"Ye shall forsake\nfather, mother, wife, and children,\" for what?--to \"follow me!\" Think of\nthe infamy of it!\n\nIf that is the kind of souls that go to heaven, I shall do all I can to\nkeep mine amongst more respectable spirits. I will go with the Goth. I\ncould suffer in hell (if there were such a place) with those I love, and\nkeep my self-respect.\n\nIf I believed I could be happy in heaven with my loved ones in agony\nbelow--if I believed it of myself--there is no vile, slime-covered\nreptile on earth that I would so loathe! Forsake father, mother,\nhusband, children to save my soul! Never! I will go with my people!\n\n\n\n\nTHE VICARIOUS THEORY THE CAUSE OF CRIME.\n\nThis idea of vicarious atonement has encouraged injustice and crime\nof every kind. Out of eighty-four men who have been hanged recently,\nseventy-one have gone directly to heaven. They asked the assembled\nspectators to be as good as they conveniently could, and meet them\non the other shore. Their spiritual advisers administered the holy\nsacrament, and assured them that they were \"lambs of the fold,\" and that\na robe and a harp awaited them at the right hand of God.\n\nJust imagine a lamb in a robe, playing on a harp! A lamb with wings, a\nharp, a long white robe, and golden slippers seems to me an object to\narouse the sympathy of a demon. Poor lamb! He would wish himself a goat\nevery hour of the day.\n\nThere is an implied crime in the very word vicarious. If it means\nanything it means the suffering of innocence to atone for guilt.\nIt means that one crime is condoned by the commission of another--a\ndeliberate one. It means that truth must die in order that dishonor may\nlive. It substitutes vengeance for justice. It does not seek to protect\nsociety by checking villany; it seeks the safety of the criminal by a\nshifting of responsibility. If the framers of human laws were no wiser\nthat the revealers of divine law, no nation could live, no family would\nbe secure, no justice possible.\n\n     [See Appendix S.]\n\nNot long ago the New York _Independent_ contained an article against\nSarah Bernhart, calling her \"a lewd woman,\" and against her play because\nit did not contain good morals. The same paper contained an article\nagainst George Eliot's works, and said that the Mormon Congressman is a\ndisgrace to all America because he is a polygamist. All these things\nby a man who swallows David and Lot whole, and has Solomon pose as the\nsummit of all wisdom! All this by a man who builds his life on the word\nof Moses, and denies to others the right to object to his code of morals\nor his version of heavenly wisdom and divine direction!\n\nI should like a little consistency. The Christian who rails against\npolygamy, and at the same time poses in morals with a bible in his hand,\nis a man who saws his own legs from under him, and still expects us to\nbelieve that he has legs, which we might possibly do if only our sight\nwere aided by faith. As long as my eyes hold out, I'll stick to unaided\nvision; after that, spectacles or faith according to circumstances.\n\nWhen goodness and virtue are measured, not by a book, but by our own\nacts toward each other; when a man's character is judged by the amount\nof joy he gives to his household; when a happy laugh from his children\nand a bright smile from his wife greet him as often as he comes home;\nwhen these are taken as the evidence of a good man, deacons will go out\nof fashion. Meek, tired, persecuted-looking wives will not listen to a\ncanting husband and believe that he is a holy man, when they know that\nhe is a bad husband and a tyrannical father.\n\nThere is not any way that I know of to make a home happy vicariously. No\nconfession of faith can take pain out of a mother's heart. No \"testimony\nof the spirit\" can make love and beauty in a home where \"the heathen\"\nhold the first place, and foreign missions get tangled up in the\nchildren's hair. No man accustomed to a high intellectual temperature\ncan keep warm by theological fires. No man whose brain is king can ever\nagain recognize the authority of this mere undisciplined sentiment.\n\n\n\n\nREVISION.\n\nAs a system Christianity has had its day. Long ago it may have served a\ngood purpose, but after eighteen hundred years it is worn threadbare and\nuseless. If some of its milder tenets still cling to and fit our vast\nmediocrity, it is equally certain that the intellectual giants have\nmoulted it as the birds moult their plumage in a dying year, and have\ntaken on the bright new garments of higher thought, the spring plumage\nof intellectual liberty.\n\nWhen I heard that the Bible was going to be revised I felt very glad,\nbecause I thought there was a wide field of usefulness open to somebody\nright there; and I concluded to do all I could to help it along. I\nunderstood that they wanted the substance retained as it was, with the\nlanguage made more as we use language now.\n\nSo I began my revision in this way: \"Good morning, Moses, I hear that\nyou have some gods in this country. Do you know anything about it?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I'm the head god's head man.\" \"You are?\"\n\n\"Yes, I had a talk with the head god--the top one of the three (we are\ndown to three here now), and he told me to tell people what a good god\nhe is, and that they must all praise him up for it.\"\n\n\"He did! Well is that all he said?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, he told me to tell them that he is the only God, and is the\nkind father of all, and loves all alike, and that they must all just\ntrust in him and he will take good care of them.\"\n\n\"I thought you said a while ago that there were three of these gods; now\nthis one says he is the only one. Is there trouble in the cabinet?\"\n\n\"No, there are three, but there is one. See?\"\n\n\"Well, no, I can't say that I do. But no matter, the rest of that about\nthe father business was pretty good. That was the best I ever heard. But\ndo you know that the very last man I talked with said that this god was\npartial to some folks and treated some others pretty shabbily.\"\n\n\"Oh, that is not so; my god is no respecter of persons; that's his very\nstrongest hold. He treats rich and poor just alike, only if anything he\nleans a little toward the poor.\"\n\n\"That is pretty clever. But what else did he tell you in that talk?\"\n\n\"Well, he told me to tell the people, 'Thou shalt not kill;' and\nafterwards, at another time, he told me to take a lot of my men, and\ngo over there to that town just across, and kill all the men and boys I\ncould find, and if they fought hard for their homes, and I seemed to be\ngetting the worst of it for a little while, not to be afraid, he'd be\nwith me, and he'd see that I came out all right. Oh, he's the gayest old\ngod you ever saw to help in a fight.\"\n\n\"Well, yes, that was pretty clever to you; but isn't he the god of that\nvillage too!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; but you see one of the men that lives over there went and\nworshipped another god one day, and this one didn't like it.\"\n\n\"I see; but if he treats them all that way, don't you think it is rather\nnatural that they should go and hunt up another god to admire?\"\n\nWell, while I was waiting for Moses to answer this question, I heard\nanother man say that only a day or two previously this very fellow had\nburned up their homes, and murdered a good many people who had never\ninjured him; and that he had dashed out the brains of the innocent\nchildren, and had actually sold the sweet, pure young girls to his\nbrutal soldiers. Since I heard that, my mind has been so occupied with\nsome other little matters that my revision has not gone any farther, and\nsomebody else has got one out; so I don't know that I shall ever finish\nmine. It does not seem to be very encouraging work any way; and I am\nafraid that people would find fault with its scholarship if it should be\nfinished. Theological scholarship and common-sense always did disagree.\nA man who is well vaccinated with either will never catch the other.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHURCH'S MONEY-BOX.\n\nThe Church used to keep a box about four feet long and two feet wide\nwhich it called the sacred ark of God. It was certain death for any man\nnot a priest to touch that box. It is supposed that they kept in it gold\nand jewels which they extorted from their dupes, and that for fear of\nrobbery they made superstition their banker. Well, they had to move\nthat jewelry-box once for some reason, and it is not said that anything\nhappened to the men who put it on the cart; but as the man who drove\nthe oxen--in one place it says that they were oxen, in another that they\nwere cows with young calves, and you will be damned if you don't believe\nboth--anyhow, as the driver walked along in horrid fear lest something\nshould happen to that ark of God, the oxen shied, and the ark toppled,\nand instinctively the driver put out his hand to steady the sacred\nthing. Well, you would think that any sane man, any reasonable being,\nwould have commended him for it; but no! Jehovah struck him dead for his\npains. Why? Because that box was so supremely sacred. Supreme nonsense!\nSuppose he had not touched it and it had fallen? What then? Most likely\nJehovah would then have struck him dead for not touching it. It strikes\nme that the only reasonable, sensible being connected with that whole\nstory was the driver, the man they abuse, the man the priests murdered,\nI suspect because he discovered what was in that ark, and threatened to\nexpose the humbug.\n\nWhenever any man uses judgment and common-sense the Church calls him\nwicked and dangerous. They say he \"touches with unholy hands holy\nthings;\" and when he dies, whether his death was expedited or otherwise,\nthey say God killed him.\n\nNow, if God did kill that man for touching the ark to save it from\nfalling, what do you think of him--as a God? I can tell you what you\nwould think of him as a man. You would think he was a ruffian and a\nmurderer--that is what you would think of him as a man.\n\nTruly gods are made of poor stuff. If I can't have a god that is nobler\nand better and truer and kinder than the very best man I ever saw, then\nI don't want any god at all. And candor forbids me to state that I ever\nsaw, heard, or read of any such a god. All the gods I ever read or heard\nof have fallen infinitely below a few men I know.\n\nJehovah, it seems to me, is hardly an average god, even as gods go. He\nbelieved in polygamy. He believed in slavery. He was a murderer--killed\n52,000 people once because somebody looked into that four-by-two box\nthat he thought so much of. Human life was not worth a copper in his\nneighborhood. He was always in a rage about something, and you never\nknew when he would \"get the drop on you\" because somebody else had\nruffled his temper. \"Any man was liable,\" as the Irishman said, \"to wake\nup any morning and find himself burned to ashes in his bed,\" because one\nof his neighbors had been wicked enough to lend a five-dollar greenback\nto one of the Philistines, or had eaten a gum-drop in the dark of the\nmoon, or committed some other awful crime like-that.\n\n\n\n\nSHALL PROGRESS STOP?\n\nIn its day the Bible was all very well, no doubt. It was the expression\nof the best that the Jewish people then knew in morals. In his time\nChrist was a great reformer and a brave man. His philosophy was then an\nonward spring, and he detested the shams of the Church.\n\nBut with the knowledge we have to-day we should call that man a lunatic\nwho tried to bind medical science by the teachings of that age, and\nmaintained that when a man was sick he had a devil, and that if he got\nworse he had a whole flock of them. Yet Christ thought that. We should\ncall the man utterly insane who insisted that Joshua gave us the last\nlight that is ever to be thrown on astronomy. We should simply look\nwith pity on one who should try to convince us that the legal profession\nought to be bound by the laws of Moses; and we know that any nation\nthat attempted to act under his guidance would be soon convinced by the\nunerring voice of foreign cannon that somebody had made a mistake.\n\nScience has grown. Philosophy has developed. International law has\nsprung up. In religion alone we are asked to accept the standard of\nmorality and honor of ages that are dead--to take as the last word of\nwisdom the reformer's code of eighteen hundred years ago. We may grow in\nall else; in this we must stand still. We may use a text-book on\nNature, Medicine, Law, or Mechanics, until by its aid we pass beyond its\nknowledge to a higher; but in morals and religion the book that was a\nlight to the ages of ignorance and superstition, and the production of\nits brain, must still be the sole illuminator of a world made wise and\ncritical and thoughtful by science and deep experience. The fisherman's\nlantern, although useful in its day, cannot guide us while we stand\nin the glare of electricity. Why stand persistently with our faces\nwestward, and gaze at the declining light, crying out impotently and\nhopelessly as we see it grow dim and vanish?\n\nOur wise men have kept steadily onward, guided by the light of the\nbreaking dawn; and with their faces to the East their star has never\nset. The fishermen's light has sunk below the horizon, leaving behind it\nthe glow of honest labor and earnest effort to keep their memory bright.\nThe scientist's star has risen, and with no claim that it is even yet\nthe highest light--the final promise, it throws its rays of knowledge,\nits beams of hope, far into the future, and bids us follow, leaving\nthe cold embers of the dead past for the warmth and light of the living\nfuture.\n\nThe hope of the past is the despair of the future. Stagnation is death.\nIn movement and thought alone is progress. The wealth of the world is\nthe brain of the scholar.\n\nThe past is dead; peace to its ashes. The future is ours to form on new\nmodels; models deformed by past superstitions, or models though faulty,\ninstinct with true freedom. You are the jury, what is the verdict?\n\n\n*****\n\n\n\n\n\nHISTORICAL FACTS AND THEOLOGICAL FICTIONS.\n\n\n\n\nCHURCH FICTIONS.\n\nIT is one of the glittering fictions of the Church that to her\ncivilization is due,* and that it is to her benign influence and\ndirection alone that woman has been advanced to her present position in\nthe social scale; that without the Bible and the Church the status of\nwoman in Christian countries would be lower and her lot harder.\n\n     * See Appendix T,\n\n1st. To prove this claim she directs attention to the status of woman\nin several non-Christian countries, and compares the degradation and\nhardship she there endures to the position of woman to-day in America,\nEngland, and France.\n\n2d. The Church claims the credit of originating and sustaining the\nvarious steps of progress by which woman has been elevated. She claims\nto have originated and to sustain the idea that woman is man's equal,\nand to recognize her as such in the Church.\n\n3d. She points with pride to the superior education and intelligence\nof the women of Christian countries, and contrasts this intellectual\naltitude with that of women elsewhere. She says that women owe their\nsuperior opportunities of education and advancement to their religion.\n\n4th. But above all the clergy attempt to silence those who ask\nquestions, by calling attention to the superior _legal_ status of woman\nin Christian countries, and asserting that the Church secured this, _and\nthat it made marriage honorable and home a possibility_.\n\n5th. The clergy claim that the Bible is woman's best friend and\nstaunchest defender, and that it is the originator of morality.\n\n\n\n\nHISTORICAL FACTS.\n\n     \"The moment there is fixation, petrification and death\n     ensue.\" \"Profound sincerity is the only basis of\n     character.\"\n     --Emerson.\n\n\n\n\nCIVILIZATION.\n\nWe are told that our superior civilization and high moral tone are due\nto Christianity. I think that this is not true. The whole, or at\nleast much the larger and foundation part of the question of\ncivilization--where it shall grow and where only live, where it shall\ndrag and where scarcely exist--seems to me to be decided primarily by\nenvironment, the basis of which is climate and soil.\n\nWhere the climate and soil are most favorable to the highest\ndevelopment; where the environment is neither too hard nor too\nindulgent; where man is neither enervated by heat and the absence\nof necessity to labor, nor stunted by cold and hardship and the\never-present necessity to search or labor for food and warmth; there\nwill be the highest types and forms of civilization.*\n\n     * See Appendix A*\n\nIf the Buddhist religion had chanced to be the one that in the process\nof events took root in the climate and soil where the Hebrew Bible and\nthe Christian belief hold sway; and if, on the other hand, the Hebrew\nand Christian religions had been the ones developed in India or China,\nthe civilization of the various countries would still, in the main, be\nwhat they are to-day.\n\nIf our superior civilization were the result of our religion, then\nthe most civilized countries would be the most intensely Christian\ncountries. We all know that this is not the case. Compare the intense\nChristianity of Spain or Russia, and their backward civilization, with\nthe easy-going religious or irreligious condition of France or America,\nand their recognition of Liberty and Humanity, equalled nowhere else on\nearth.\n\nI admit unreservedly that a religion; by its inelasticity, may do much\nto retard progress, or by its greater elasticity may permit a more rapid\ndevelopment than a more nearly petrified or incoherent system would\nallow; but what I hold is this, that the primary and controlling causes\nof the various stages of civilization are climate and soil.\n\nThere are, of course, many other things which modify the social\ndevelopment or civilization in any country, as its religion, its laws,\nand what we may call \"accidents of international or civil contest,\" such\nas the religious or other wars--our own war in which the blacks were\nfreed, arbitration, and immigration. All of these, and many others, are\nmodifying influences; but no one of them can claim the primary place.\n\nSoil, climate, and location determine the occupation of a nation, as\nwhether it shall be militant, commercial, or agricultural. In turn\noccupation determines what the character of a people and their laws\nshall be, whether they shall be warlike or peaceful, inventive or\nreceptive, stationary or roving; and these, in turn, are the matters\nwhich determine the civil scale to which a people shall rise.\n\nTrue, the religion of a people will make itself felt strongly; but\nwhenever a nation has found it expedient or desirable to accomplish a\nfeat which was in opposition to its religion, it has invariably modified\nthe religion to fit the case, or waived it in favor of that particular\nmovement.*\n\n     * \"The popular religion in this, as in other cases, was\n     made to bend to the new vice.\"--Lecky's History of European\n     Morals, vol. il, page 311.\n\nIn keeping with this fact it is found that in those countries where the\ngreatest changes and modifications of government and occupation have\noccurred, there have the religions undergone the greatest modification\n_to fit the new order of things_. If it were the religion that\ndetermined the matter, civilization and morals would be immovable, and\nlegislation would revolve around, the guidance of the Church.\n\nAccording to the very theory of Divine revelation a religion would be\nmost perfect at its beginning. It would be without flaw when born.\nIt would be incapable of improvement or growth. In a word it would be\nimmovable. It would possess the fixation of which Emerson speaks. It\nwould not have to readjust itself to the changed and improved conditions\nof man, and its word would be always a higher light on every movement of\nprogress. It would be to the Church and not to the State that the great\nprinciples of progress, of liberty, and of justice would look for the\nhighest guidance and the last light. How far this is from the real\nstate of things in any country or in any religion all readers of history\nknow.*\n\n     * See Appendix B.\n\nIt is the State or Science which has proposed and made the steps of\nprogress, and the Church has (often after the most bitter fight and\ndenunciation) readjusted her creed to the new code, and then claimed\nthat she had that light and knew that principle before, although neither\nshe nor any one else had ever suspected it.\n\nThis has been the case with almost every important discovery that\nScience has ever made. The Church has retarded the acceptance of the new\nlight, and has set her seal of \"divine disapproval and damnation\" on the\nbrow of the thinkers who strove to bless mankind. It has been the rule\nin State reforms as well. It was so in the struggle to separate Church\nand State. It is so in the effort to sustain the belief in the \"divine\nright of kings.\" The Church fought individual liberty and representative\ngovernment, and she still contests the questions of individual\nconscience and universal equality and independence.*\n\n     * See reports of the last General Conference of the\n     Methodist Church held in Philadelphia, where, during a\n     heated debate, one member said that he was in favor of using\n     common-sense and the principle of justice in deciding\n     questions of right and wrong and of liberty of conscience;\n     whereupon a large majority voted him a dangerous man, and\n     decided that common-sense and justice had nothing to do with\n     religion. One member naively remarked that the whole career\n     and life of a good preacher fully disproved that any such\n     heretical doctrines obtained in the Church as that the use\n     of common-sense was admissible; and since the majority voted\n     with him it does not seem to be my place to question that\n     fact.\n\nIn these matters the Church has invariably been on the side that\nultimately had to go to the wall, and she has become a party to the\nprogress only after the principle has become an established fact.\n\nNow it is the efforts of Science and Law towards the elevation of man\nand the bettering of his condition in this world--the procuring for him\nof greater personal advantages, dignity, and liberty--that have marked\nthe progress of civilization.\n\nThe climate and soil decided man's occupation; his occupation determined\nwhat his higher needs should be; and his higher needs and the gained\nresults of his occupations enabled him to strive for the bettering of\nhis condition and surroundings. The man who lived in a climate favorable\nto mental and physical activity, and in a country with a rich and\nvaried soil, was enabled to accomplish his ends as his less fortunate\nbrother-lacking such support and stimulus and motive--has been unable to\ndo.\n\nIf such a thing had been possible, thirty years ago, as that all\nknowledge of our religion had been utterly wiped out of America, and\na thorough knowledge of Buddhism or Mohammedanism instilled into every\nYankee brain in its stead, the Yankee brain would have simply adjusted\nits religion to its surroundings and not its surroundings to its\nreligion; and America would have gone right on in the front rank of\nliberty and toleration and progress. There would have been social\nand political and religious contests over \"caste\" or \"harems\" or\n\"Tripitaka,\" instead of over slavery as a divine institution, the right\nof a mother to her own offspring, or the inspiration of the Bible. The\nwheels of progress would have been blocked some days by devotees who\npreached damnation for those who believed in the \"Trinity\" instead of\nfor those who did not. Hell would have been as freely promised to the\nman who suggested that Newton knew more than Mohammed, as it is to-day\nto any one who makes the same odious comparison between Darwin and\nMoses. The timid would have been terrified by sermons to prove the\nlost condition of a man who touched one of lower rank, in place of\nthe edification our clergy offer in the shape of eternal damnation\nfor unbaptized infants. And there would have been so little difference\nbetween the arguments for the divinity of the Tripitaka and the Bible,\nand for the miracles of each, that if any devout Presbyterian had by\naccident left his barrel of sermons on the latter subject behind him,\nhis Buddhist brother could have utilized them without the change of an\nargument. But the wheel would turn and the devotee would either go\ndown or change his creed, and it would depend chiefly upon his age and\nconsequent flexibility which course he would adopt.\n\nNo known religion could transfer the conditions of civilization in China\nto America or England or France, and no amount of christianizing (if\nsuch a thing were possible) could transform China into a like condition\nwith us, so long as her climate, her soil, and her population remain\nwhat they are to-day. You may make the Arab or the Jap digest the whole\nWestminster catechism, but he will, he _must_, be an Arab or a Jap\nstill--if he lives through it all. If his constitution is good, and he\ngets over it, his condition and grade of civilization will continue to\nconform to his environment; and the trifling difference involved between\nturning-off prayers on a wheel and counting them off on beads will be\nsimply the difference between tweedledee and tweedledum.\n\nNotwithstanding this as a primary fact, the religion of a country has a\nmodifying influence on the rapidity of its progress, and the more fixed\na religion--the more certainly it claims perfection, the greater claim\nit lays to holding the final word; _and the more fully this claim is\naccepted by the people_, the greater influence will it have, the greater\ncheck will it be to the development of any new thought, discovery,\ninvention, or principle that arises in the process of evolution toward\na freer atmosphere and a broader understanding of individual liberty and\ndignity and life. William Kingdon Clifford, F. R. S., in his delightful\nbook on the \"Scientific Basis of Morals,\" says:\n\n\"It is sometimes said that moral questions have been authoritatively\nsettled by other methods; that we ought to accept this decision, and\nnot to question it by any method of scientific inquiry; and that reason\nshould give way to revelation on such matters.\n\n\"I hope before I have done to show just cause why we should pronounce on\nsuch teaching as this no light _sentence of moral condemnation_: first,\nbecause it is our duty to form those beliefs which are to guide our\nactions by the two scientific modes of inference, and by these alone;\nand, secondly, because the proposed mode of settling ethical questions\nby authority is contrary to the very nature of right and wrong.\n\n\"The worship of a deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to\nany portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be\nthe threats and promises by which it is commended. And still worse, the\nreference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, _the\ndiversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to\nhim, is the most insidious and fatal of social diseases_.\n\n\"_The first principle of natural ethics is the sole and supreme\nallegiance of conscience to the community_.\n\n\"Secondly, veracity to the community depends upon faith in man. Surely I\nought to be talking platitudes when I say that it is not English to\ntell a man a lie, or to suggest a lie by your silence or your actions,\nbecause you are afraid that he is not prepared for the truth, because\nyou don't quite know what he will do when he knows it, because perhaps\nafter all this lie is a better thing _for him_ than the truth would be,\nthis same man being all the time an honest fellow-citizen whom you have\nevery reason to trust. Surely I have heard that this craven crookedness\nis the object of our national detestation. _And yet it is constantly\nwhispered that it would be dangerous to divulge certain truths to the\nmasses_. 'I know the whole thing is untrue: but then it is so useful for\nthe people; you don't know what harm you might do by shaking their faith\nin it.' Crooked ways are none the less crooked because they are meant\nto deceive great masses of people instead of individuals. If a thing is\ntrue, let us all believe it, rich and poor, men, women, and children. If\na thing is untrue, let us all disbelieve it, rich and poor, men, women,\nand children. Truth is a thing to be shouted from the housetops, not to\nbe whispered over rose-water after dinner when the ladies are gone away.\n\n\"Even in those whom I would most reverence, who would shrink with horror\nfrom such actual deception as I have just mentioned, I find traces of\na want of faith in man. Even that noble thinker, to whom we of this\ngeneration owe more than I can tell, seemed to say in one of his\nposthumous essays that in regard to questions of great public importance\nwe might encourage a hope in excess of the evidence (which would\ninfallibly grow into a belief and defy evidence) if we found that life\nwas made easier by it. _As if we should not lose infinitely more by\nnourishing a tendency to falsehood than we could gain by the delusion of\na pleasing fancy_. Life must first of all be made straight and true;\nit may get easier through the help this brings to the commonwealth. And\nLange, the great historian of materialism, says that the amount of false\nbelief necessary to morality in a given society is a matter of taste. _I\ncannot believe that any falsehood whatever is necessary to morality_. It\ncannot be true of my race and yours that to keep ourselves from becoming\nscoundrels we must needs believe a lie. _The sense of right grew up\namong healthy men and was fixed by the practice of comradeship. It has\nnever had help from phantoms and falsehoods, and it never can want any_.\nBy faith in man and piety toward men we have taught each other the right\nhitherto; with faith in man and piety toward men we shall never more\ndepart from it.\"\n\nIf religion decided and produced the civilization of a people, what sort\nof civilization would exist to-day among the Jews? All Jews would be\nbigamists, and murder would be their pastime. No people would be free\nfrom their rapine, no woman safe from their lust. But fortunately they\nhave followed their scientific and political leaders instead of their\nProphets, and the consequence is that they are so far above and\nsuperior to their religion and their Bible, that only in its trivial and\nimmaterial dictates is it their guide and law to-day.\n\nAnd we, building upon the same foundation, with an added story to our\nedifice, modify, to suit legislation and a higher public sentiment and a\nbroader conception of justice, both the foundation and the roof whenever\na new principle is born or some great soul floods the world with light.\n\nAnd so the world moves on, those nations in advance that possess the\nclimate to stimulate and the soil to support to the best advantage their\ncitizens--philosophers and scientists who grope towards perfection and\nstumble on the way over real and imaginary obstacles, but still bring\neach generation nearer the goal, and freer to brush aside the cobwebs\nof superstition and ignorance, and to look fairly out on the light that\nbreaks in the East.\n\nThere is another feature of the subject that will bear looking at.\nChristians are the last to give credit to other religions for the\ndevelopment and advance of civilization in the countries possessing\nthem. What Christian will admit that it is the religion of the Chinese\nthat makes them the most orderly, law-abiding, mob-avoiding people on\nthe globe? Will any Christian admit that it is the inferior moral tone\nof Christ and his teachings which enables the followers of Confucius\nand Buddha to offer this superior showing? Is he prepared to say that\nMohammedanism is superior to Christianity because its followers outdo\nthe Christians in honesty?* Is it owing to the superior blessings of the\nMormon faith that its followers are more thrifty, and that paupers are\nfew or unknown among them?\n\n     * Travelers tell us that a native can leave an order\n     together with a bag of uncounted gold at the shop of a\n     dealer, and upon the return of the buyer his order will be\n     exactly filled, his gold properly and honestly divided, and\n     all where he had left them, even though the shop be open to\n     the street and unattended and unguarded.\n\nIs it because their religion is superior to ours that the Lapp women\nare better treated; that their comparative status is higher, and their\nfamily life purer than with ourselves?*\n\n     * \"Though Norway with Ladies.\" By W. Mattieu Williams.\n     F.R.A.S., F.C.S.\n\nThe claim that superiority of civilization is due to Christianity,\nand that to it we owe the good things of the nations where it is the\nprevailing religion, proves too much. _It will work just as well for\nany other religion as for our own_. Its reach is too extended, its\nconclusion too comprehensive for its purpose. Christianity could not be\nmade its sole terminus. It reminds one of the story of the brakeman who\nwas persuaded to go to church. When he came out his friend asked him\nhow he liked the preacher. He said, \"Very well, on the main line. He\nhad good wheels, his track was straight and level, and he carried a good\nhead of steam, but he seemed to _lack terminal facilities_.\"\n\nHorace Seaver recently wrote the following:\n\n     \"ALL OWING TO THE BIBLE.\n\n     \"It is a very common argument with Christians, that only\n     those nations which have had the Bible were refined,\n     civilized, and learned. A Christian paper, now before us,\n     exultingly says:\n\n     \"'Take the map of the world, draw a line around those\n     countries that have enjoyed the highest degree of\n     refinement, and you will encircle just those nations that\n     have received the Bible as their authority in religion.'\n\n     \"From this language the plain inference is, that those\n     nations have been indebted to the influence of the Bible for\n     the positions to which they have attained. Let us follow out\n     a little this line of argument and see where it will lead.\n\n     \"The ancient Egyptians stood as far in advance of their\n     contemporaries as do the nations of Christendom at the\n     present day, as the remains of Egyptian cities and temples\n     fully attest. And if the argument is good, they were\n     indebted for that superiority to their worship of cats,\n     crocodiles, and onions!\n\n     \"The ancient Greek might have exclaimed, as he beheld the\n     proud position to which Greece had attained--'See what we\n     owe to a belief in our glorious mythology; we have reached\n     the highest point of enlightenment the world has ever\n     witnessed; we stand unequalled in power, wealth, the\n     cultivation of the arts, and all that makes a nation\n     refined, polished, and great!'\"\n\n\n\n\nCOMPARATIVE STATUS.\n\nIt is a fact that in some Christian countries the actual status of woman\nis higher than it is to-day in any other country; but it is also true\nthat her _comparative_ status is often lower.*\n\n     * See Appendix C, 1-6.\n\nIf we compare the actual status of woman in Russia or Spain (the two\nmost intensely Christian countries to-day) with that of the Chinese or\nHindoo woman, the showing may be somewhat in favor of the former; but on\nthe other hand, her _comparative_ position (when taken with that of the\nmen of her country) does not gain but loses by the contrast.\n\n     \"How immeasurably would his faith in the elevating tendency\n     of his religion have been increased, could he have looked\n     with prophetic eye into the distant ages of the future, and\n     beheld the enlightened and Christianized nations of the\n     nineteenth century adopting the remains of Grecian\n     architecture, sculpture, painting, oratory, music, and\n     literature as their models!\n\n     \"Pagan Rome, too, once mistress of the world and arbitress\n     of nations--the home of philosophers and sages--the land in\n     which the title, 'I am a Roman citizen,' was the proudest\n     that a mortal could wear--Rome, by the above Christian\n     argument, should have ascribed all her honor, praise, and\n     glory to her mythology.\n\n     \"The Turk and the Saracen, likewise, have had their day of\n     power and renown. Bagdad was the seat of science and\n     learning at a time when the nations of Europe were sunk in\n     darkness and superstition. The Turk and Saracen should have\n     pointed to the Koran as the source of their refinement.\n\n     \"Thus we see that the Christian argument we are noticing, if\n     it proves anything, proves too much. If the nations of\n     Christendom are indebted to the Bible for their\n     enlightenment, likewise were the Egyptians indebted to their\n     cat and crocodile and onion worship, the Greeks and Romans\n     to their mythology, and the Turks and Saracens to their\n     Koran.\"\n\nIt is a significant fact that of all the Christian countries, in those\nwhere the Church stands highest and has most power women rank lowest\nand have fewest rights accorded them, whether of personal liberty\nor proprietary interest. In the countries named above, and in other\ncountries where the Church still has a strong grip upon the throat\nof the State, woman's position is degraded indeed; while in the three\nso-called Christian countries where the Church has _least_ power, where\nlaw is not wholly or in so large part canonical, woman's position is\nmore free, more independent, and less degraded, when compared with the\nposition of the men of those countries.\n\nThat tells the whole story. If it were to the Church or to her religion\nthat she owed her advancement, it would be in the most strictly\nChristian countries that her elevation and advantages would be greatest.\nUnder the canon law her status would be higher than under the common\nlaw. On the contrary, however, it is under the least religious, freest,\nand most purely secular forms of government that she has attained most\nfull recognition and secured the greatest advancement.\n\nCompare the position of woman in Christian Spain with her position in\nInfidel France. Compare her condition in Russia, with the flag of the\nChurch and the seal of the Cross for her protection, with that of her\nsister under the stars and stripes of America, with a constitution\nwritten by the infidels Jefferson and Paine.\n\nCompare them and decide whether it is to the Church and the Cross, with\ntheir wars and persecutions, or to Liberty and Scepticism that women owe\ntheir loyal love and their earnest support. Compare them and determine\nthen whether it is to Christianity or to Science that she should fly for\nprotection, and where it is that she will be most certain of justice.\nCompare them and answer whether it is to the Fathers of the Church or\nto the Founders of Republics that women should be most grateful. Compare\nthem, and be thankful, oh women of America, that the Church never had\nher hand on the throat of the Constitution of the United States, and\nthat she is losing her grip on the Supreme Bench! *\n\nIn our pride of race we forget that it is less than three hundred short\nyears since Christianity by both legal and spiritual power enforced the\nmost degrading and vile conditions upon woman, compelling her to live\nsolely by the sale of her virtue.**\n\nOnly within the past three hundred years of growing scepticism and loss\nof power by the Church has either purity or dignity become possible for\nwomen; and it is well for us to remember that for over 1500 years\nof Christianity, when the Church had almost absolute power, it never\ndreamed of elevating woman, or recognizing her as other than an inferior\nbeing created solely to minister to the lowest nature of man, and\npossessing neither a right to her own person nor a voice in her own\ndefence.\n\nI wish that every woman who upholds the Church to-day might read the\narray of facts on this subject so ably presented by Matilda Joslyn Gage\nin her work on \"Woman, Church, and State,\" a digest of which is printed\nin the last chapter of vol. 1. of the \"History of Woman Suffrage,\" of\nwhich she is one of the editors. It is so ably written, and the facts\ncollected are so damning, that I need add no word of mine to such\npassages as I can give from it, in the accompanying appendix to this\nwork. ***\n\n     * On the status of women there is much of interest in Mr.\n     Herbert Spencer's \"Principles of Sociology,\" vol 1. Mr.\n     Spencer deals with the subject, in the main, from a\n     different point of view from the one taken in this article;\n     but that his position (in regard to the causes of woman's\n     advancement being due to the Church) is not wholly unlike my\n     own, will, I think, be readily seen. He places more stress\n     on the results of war than I have done (and in this the\n     corroborating evidence furnished by the Holy wars would\n     sustain the position of both), I having included this phase\n     of action under the term occupation, since I have dealt\n     almost wholly with nations more advanced and freer from the\n     fortunes of the Militant type than Mr. Spencer has done.\n\n     ** See Appendix D.\n\n     ***  See Appendix E.\n\n\n\n\nWOMEN AS PERSONS.\n\nBlackstone enumerates three \"absolute rights of persons.\" First, \"The\nright of personal _security_, in the legal enjoyment of life,\nlimb, body, health, and reputation.\" Second, \"The right of personal\nliberty--free power of locomotion without legal restraint.\" Third, \"The\nright of private property--the free use and disposal of his own lawful\nacquisitions.\"\n\nNone of these three primary and essential rights of persons were\nconceded to women, and Church law did not rank her as a person deprived\nof these rights, but held that she was _not a person at all_, but only a\nfunction; therefore she possessed no rights of person in this world and\nno hope of safety in the next.\n\nAs to the first of these \"absolute rights of persons,\" any one of her\nmale relations, or her husband after she passed from one to the other,\nhad absolute power over her, even to the extent of bodily injury,*\nbargain and sale of her person, and death. Nor did even this limit the\nnumber of her masters. By both Church and Common Law the Lords temporal\n(barons and other peers) and the Lords spiritual (Archbishops, Bishops,\nand Abbots) possessed and exercised the right to dispose of her purity,\neither for a money consideration or as a bribe or present as they saw\nfit.**\n\n     * \"Although England was christianized in the fourth century,\n     it was not until the tenth that a daughter had a right to\n     reject a husband selected for her by her father; and it was\n     not until the same century that a Christian wife of a\n     Christian husband acquired the right of eating at the table\n     with him. For many hundred years the law bound out to\n     servile labor all unmarried women between the ages of eleven\n     and forty.\"--M. J. Gage.\n\n     \"Wives in England were bought from the fifth to the\n     eleventh century\" [The dates are significant; let the Church\n     respond.]--Herbert Spencer.\n\n     \"In England, as late as the seventeenth century, husbands of\n     decent station were not ashamed to beat their wives.\n     Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure for the purpose of\n     seeing wretched women whipped at Bridewell. It was not until\n     1817 that the public whipping of women was abolished in\n     England.\"--Spencer.\n\n     ** See Appendix E.\n\nThus was the forced degradation of woman made a source of revenue to\nthe Church, and a means of crushing her self-respect and destroying her\nsense of personal responsibility as to her own acts in the matter of\nchastity, the legitimate outcome of which is to be found in the vast\narmy of women who are named only to be reviled. _In them the Church can\nlook on her own work_. The fruit is the natural outcome of the training\nwoman received that taught and compelled her _always_ to submit to\nthe dictates of some man, no matter what her own judgment, modesty, or\ndesires might be. She was not supposed to have an opinion or to know\nright from wrong; and from Paul's injunction, \"If you want to know\nanything ask your husband at home,\" down to the decisions of the last\nGeneral Conference of the Methodist Church, the teaching that woman must\nsubordinate her own sense of right and her own judgment to the dictates\nof someone else--_any_ one else of the opposite sex--from first to last\nhas been as ingenious a method as could have been devised to fill the\nworld with libertines and their victims.* It is time for the followers\nof St. Paul to nice the results of their own work.\n\n     * See Appendix F, 2.\n\nUnder the provisions of the law which held that all \"persons\" could\nrecover damages for injury--have legal redress for a wrong inflicted\nupon them--woman again was held as _not a 'person._\n\nIf she were assaulted and beaten, or if she were subjected to the\ngreatest indignity that it is possible to inflict upon her, she had\nno redress. She could not complain. The law gave her no protection\nwhatever. Her father or husband could, if he saw fit, bring suit to\nrecover damages for the loss of _her services as a servant and wholly\nupon the ground that it was an injury to him and to his feelings_. She\nwas no more recognized as a \"person\" in the matter, nor was she more\nhighly considered than if she were an inmate of a zoological garden to\nwhich some mischievous visitor had fed too many bonbons. The owner was\ndamaged because the brute might die or be injured in the sight of the\npatrons, but aside from that view of the case no harm was done and no\naccount taken of so trivial a matter.\n\nNo matter what the injury she sustained, whether it crippled her\nphysically or blighted her mentally and made life to her the worst curse\nthat could be inflicted, she had no appeal. The wounded feelings of one\nof her male relations received due consideration, and he could recover\nthe money-value he might set upon the injury to his lacerated mind. This\nis still the letter and the practice of the law in many places, even in\nAmerica.\n\nIf she had no male relations, the injury did not count, and no \"person\"\nbeing injured everything was lovely, and prayers went right on to the\nGod who, being no respecter of persons (provided they were free, white,\nadult males), enjoyed the incense from altars whereon burning \"witches\"\nwrithed in agony and helpless young girls plead for mercy under\nthe loathed and loathsome touch of the \"St.\" Augustines* and \"St.\"\nPelayos,** whose praises are chanted and whose divine goodness is\nrecounted by Christendom to-day.\n\n     * \"To Augustine, whose early life was spent in company with\n     the most degraded of womankind, is Christianity indebted for\n     the full development of the doctrine of Original sin.\"\n     --Gage.\n\n     \"All or at least the greater part of the fathers of the\n     Greek Church before Augustine, denied any real original\n     sin.\"--Emerson. \"The doctrine had a gradual growth, and was\n     fully developed by Augustine.\"\n     --Waite.\n\n     ** \"The abbot elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, in\n     1171, was found on investigation to have seventeen\n     illegitimate children in a single village.   An abbot of St.\n     Pelayo in Spain, in 1180, was proved to have kept no less\n     than seventy mistresses. Henry III, Bishop of Liege, was\n     deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five illegitimate\n     children.\"\n     --Leeky, \"Hist, of European Morals.\"\n\n     \"This same bishop boasted, at a public banquet, that in\n     twenty-two months fourteen children had been born to him. A\n     license to the clergy to keep concubines was during several\n     centuries levied by princes.\"--Ibid.\n\n     \"It was openly attested that 100,000 women in England alone\n     were made dissolute by the clergy.\"\n     --Draper, \"Intellectual Development of Europe.\"\n\nSuch was the \"_elevation\" and civilization offered by the Church to\nwoman_. These are among her debts to the Church, and the men who fought\nand contended against the incorporation of such infamy into the common\nlaw were branded as infidels. It was said they denied their Lord. They\nwere pronounced most dangerous, and the clergy held up their hands in\nholy horror and whispered that such men \"as much as denied the Bible,\nblasphemed their God, and sold their souls to the Devil.\" And the women,\npoor dupes, believed it.\n\nOne method the Church took to benefit woman and show its respect for her\nwas this: any married man was prohibited from being a priest. Women\nwere so unholy, so unclean, and so inferior, that to have one as a wife\ndegraded a man to such an extent that he was unfit to be a minister or\nto touch holy things. The Catholic Church still prohibits either\nparty who is so unholy as to marry from profaning its pulpit'; but the\nProtestant Churches divide up, giving women the disabilities and mon the\noffices. The unselfishness of such a course is quite touching. It says\nto women: \"You support us and we will damn you; there is nothing mean or\nniggardly about us.\"\n\nAs to Blackstone's second count--\"the right to personal liberty\"--I can\nperhaps do no better than give a few bald facts.\n\nUnder Pagan rule the personal liberty of woman had become very\nconsiderable, as well as her proprietary liberty; but Christianity began\nher degradation at once.\n\nChristianity was introduced into England in the fourth century, and the\n_sale of women began in the fifth_; and it was not until the eleventh\nthat a girl could refuse to marry any suitor her father chose for\nher. In a word, she always had a guardian; she had no personal liberty\nwhatever; she could neither buy nor own property as her brothers could;\nshe could not marry when and whom she preferred, live where she wished,\neat, drink, or wear what she liked, or refuse any of these provisions\nwhen they were offered by her male relatives. If they decided that she\nhad too many back teeth they simply pulled them out, and she had nothing\nto say on the subject. She could be sold outright by her father, or\nleased or bound out as he preferred. She never got so old but that\nher earnings belonged to him, and a mother never arrived at an age\nsufficiently advanced to be entitled to the earnings of her children.\n\nSharswood says, \"A father is entitled to the benefits of his children's\nlabor.\" \"An infant [any one not of age] owes reverence and respect to\nhis mother; but she has no right to his services.\"*\n\n     * Blackstone.  Sharswood.\n\nThis is upon the theory, doubtless, that starvation is wholesome for a\nwidowed mother, but that it does not agree with a father's digestion at\nany time.\n\nSir Henry Maine in his \"Ancient Law.\" says, that from the Pagan laws all\nthis inequality and oppressiveness of guardianship and restriction\nof the personal liberty of women had disappeared, and he adds: \"The\nconsequence was that the situation of the Roman female, whether married\nor unmarried, became one of great personal and proprietary independence.\n_But Christianity tended somewhat from the very first to narrow this\nremarkable liberty...._ The great jurisconsult himself [Gaius] scouts\nthe popular Christian apology offered for it in the mental inferiority\nof the female sex.... Led by their theory of Natural Law, the Roman\n[Pagan] jurisconsults had evidently at this time assumed the equality of\nthe sexes as a principle of their code of equity.\"\n\nOf the Christians, led by their theory of a revealed divine law which\ntreated women as inferior beings and useful only as prey, Lecky says\n(\"European Morals,\" vol. 1, page 358): \"But in the whole feudal\n[Christian and chiefly Canon] legislation women were placed in a much\nlower legal position than in the Pagan empire. The complete inferiority\nof the sex was continually maintained by the law; and that generous\npublic opinion which in Pagan Rome had frequently revolted against the\ninjustice done to girls, in depriving them of the greater part of the\ninheritance of their fathers, totally disappeared. _Wherever the canon\nlaw has been the basis of legislation, we find laws of succession\nsacrificing the Merest of daughters and of wives_, and a state of public\nopinion which has been formed and regulated by these laws; nor was\nany serious attempt made to abolish them _till the close of the last\ncentury_. The French revolutionists, though rejecting the proposal of\nSieyes and Condorcet [both infidels] to accord political emancipation to\nwomen, established at least an equal succession of sons and daughters,\nand thus initiated a great reformation of both law and opinion which\nsooner or later must traverse the world.\"\n\nHow soon or how late this will happen will depend very greatly upon the\namount of power retained by the Church. Pagans, Infidels, and Scientists\nhave fought for, and the Church has fought against, the dignity, honor,\nand welfare of women for centuries; and because fear, organization,\nwealth, selfishness, and power have been on the side of the Church, and\nshe has kept women too ignorant to understand the situation, she has\nsucceeded for many generations in retarding the progress and shutting\nout the light that slowly came in despite of her.\n\n\"_No society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is\never_ likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred\non them by the middle Roman law; but the proprietary disabilities of\nmarried females stand on quite a different basis from their personal\nincapacities, and it is by keeping alive and consolidating the former\nthat _the canon law has so deeply injured civilization_. There are\nmany vestiges of a _struggle between the secular and ecclesiastical\nprinciples; but the canon law nearly everywhere prevailed._\"*\n\n     * Maine's \"Ancient Law,\" 158.\n\nIt has always been uphill work fighting the Church. So long as it had\nsword and fagot at its command, and the will to use them; so long as it\npretended to have, and people believed that it had, power to mete out\ndamnation to its opposers; just so long were science, justice, and\nthought fatally crippled.\n\nBut when Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and the great encyclopedist circle\nof France got their hands on the throat of the Church, and dipped their\npens in the fire of eloquence, wit, ridicule, reason, and justice,\nthen, and not till then, began to dawn a day of honor toward women, of\nhumanity and justice and truth. They drew back the curtain, the world\nsaw, the cloud lifted, and life began on a new plane. Under Pagan rule\nwoman had begun, as we have seen, to receive recognition apart from\nsex. She was a human being. A general law of \"persons\" applied to\nand shielded her. But from the first the Christian Church refused to\nconsider her apart from her capacity for reproduction; and this one\nground of consideration it pronounced a curse, a crime, and a shame to\nher. Her only claim to recognition at all was a curse. She was not a\nperson, she was only a function.*\n\n      * See Lea's \"Sacerdotal Celibacy.\"\n\nMan it pronounced a person first, with rights, privileges, and\nprotection as such. Incidentally he might also be a husband, a father,\nor a son. His welfare, duties, and rights as a person, as a human being,\nwere apart from and superior to those that were special and incidental.\nHe received consideration always as a person. He _might_ be dealt with\nas husband or father.\n\nBut ignoring all her mental life and denying that she had any, and\nignoring all her physical possibilities, ambitions, desires, and\ncapabilities as a person, the Church narrowed woman's life and\nrestricted her energies into a compass where its power over her became\nabsolute and her subjection certain. Nor has the loss been wholly\nto woman, for any influence which cripples the mother's capacity of\nendowment takes cruel revenge on the race.*\n\n     * \"It is not impossible but that a more correct\n     understanding of the laws of life and heredity may establish\n     the fact that because of the subjection of woman, the entire\n     race has been mentally dwarfed and physically weakened.\"\n     --Gamble.\n\nFrom this outlook the debt of civilization to the Church is heavy\nindeed. Is it a debt of gratitude?\n\nUnder this head there is space for but one point farther, out of the\ngreat store at hand.\n\nThe clergy were licensed to commit crime. They got up a neat little\nscheme called \"benefit of clergy\" by which they were secure from\nthe punishment meted out to other criminals. The relief offered did\nsometimes reach other men, but as learning was largely confined to the\nclergy they were the chief beneficiaries, as the name implies and as was\nthe intent of the law. Any man who could read was allowed \"benefit\nof clergy;\" in other words, his punishment was lightened or entirely\nomitted. But a woman, though she were a perfect mine of wisdom and could\nread in any number of languages, could receive no such benefit, _because\nshe could not take holy orders_. They first enacted that she should\nnot take orders, and then they denied to her the relief which only that\nability could give. So great a favorite was woman with the Church!\n\nThe ordinary male criminal received the ordinary punishment, the clergy\nreceived none; and in order that the requisite gross amount of suffering\nfor crime should be inflicted on somebody, the clergy enacted that woman\nshould receive _their_ share vicariously in addition to her own,\nand then to this they added such interest as would make the\ntwenty-per-cent-a-month men of Wall street ashamed of their stupid\nfinanciering.\n\nThus the Church arrogated to itself the exclusive right to commit crime\nwith impunity, and also claimed and exercised the right to prevent women\nfrom learning to read. If she still persisted it could then punish her\ndoubly, _because she had no right to learn_.\n\nFor offenses for which ordinary men were hanged, women were burned\nalive, and priests were glorified. For larceny a man was branded in the\nhand or imprisoned for a few months; while _for a first offence_ of\nthe kind a woman was kindly permitted to be hanged or beheaded _without\nbenefit of clergy_; and the clergy went scot free.* The Church did then\nas it does now, it claimed all the benefits of citizenship and paid none\nof the penalties and bore none of the burdens.**\n\n     * Blackstone.   Christian.\n\n     ** It still claims exemption from taxation, thus throwing\n     its burden on others; and it also claims immunity from the\n     very gambling laws which it so rigidly enforces against\n     other institutions.\n\nThe Church did then just as it does now, in principle, in setting up\ncertain great benefits which _only priests might hope to obtain, and\nthen enacting that certain persons were forever ineligible to the\npriesthood_; and the same or quite as good reasons were given for\ndenying women such relief from the penalties of the law as was freely\nextended to men, as are given to-day for refusing her the liberty,\nemoluments, and benefits that are freely accorded to the most imbecile\nlittle theological student who is educated by the needle of a sister\nand supported by money wrung from the fears of shop or factory girls,\nto whom he paints the terrors of hell, and freely threatens the same to\nthose who disobey him. Salvation comes high, but no preacher ever gets\nso poor that he cannot distribute hell free of charge to the multitude\nwithout the least diminution of his stock-in-trade.\n\nI should think that an orthodox pulpit would be about the last place a\nself-respecting woman would wish to fill; but I am glad, since there\nare some who do so wish, that the issue has again been forced upon the\nChurch, and that in 1884, true to her history, she was again compelled\nto acknowledge herself a respecter of persons, a degrader of women, and\na clog to progress and individual liberty, equality, and conscience.\n\nI am glad that women have recently forced the Methodist and Presbyterian\nChurches to declare their principles of class preference and partial\nlegislation. I am glad that in 1884 these Churches were compelled to say\nin effect to women, so that the world could hear: \"You are not and you\nnever can be our equals. We are holy. You are unclean. We will hold you\nback and down to the ancient level we made for you just as long as the\nlife is in us; and if you ever receive recognition as a human being, it\nmust be at the hands of those who defy the Church and hate creeds that\nare not big enough to go all round. Our creeds are only large enough to\ngive each sex half. But we won't be stingy, we only want our share. You\nare entirely welcome to all the degradation here and all the damnation\nhereafter; and any man who attempts to deprive you of these blessings is\na heretic and a sinner. Let us pray.\"\n\n\n\n\nEDUCATION.\n\nIn dealing with this point the humor of the situation is too plain to\nrequire comment, and I need only cite a few facts in order to place the\nbeautiful little fiction where it belongs.*\n\n     * See Appendix T.\n\nAs to general education it is well known that the Church has fought\ninvestigation and persecuted science. From the third century to Bruno,\nand from Bruno to Darwin and Tyndall there is an unbroken chain of\nevidence as to her position in these matters and her opposition to the\ndiffusion of knowledge. When, however, it became impossible for her to\nresist the demand of the people for education; when she could no longer\nretard liberty and prevent the recognition of individual rights; then\nshe modestly demanded the right to do the teaching herself and to\ncontrol its extent and scope.*\n\nWith a brain stultified by faith** she proposed to regulate\ninvestigations in which the habit of faith would necessarily prove fatal\nto the discovery of truth.*** She proposed to teach nothing but the dead\nlanguages and theology, and to confine knowledge to these fields, and\nshe succeeded for many generations in so doing. Every time she found a\nman who had discovered something, or who had a theory he was trying to\ntest by some little scientific investigations, she cried \"heretic\" and\nsuppressed that man. She stuck to the dead languages, and the only\nthing she is not afraid of to-day is something dead. Any other kind of\nknowledge is a dangerous acquaintance for her to make. ****\n\nIf you meet a clergyman to-day who has devoted his time to the dead\nlanguages you need not be afraid that he is a heretic; but if he is\nstudying the sciences, arts, literature, and history of the living world\nin earnest you can get your fagot ready. His orthodoxy is a dead doxy.\nIt is only a question of time and bravery when he will swear off.*****\n\n     * See Appendix G, 1-4.\n\n     ** See Appendix U.\n\n     ***  See Clifford's \"Scientific Basis of Morals,\" p. 25\n\n     **** See Morley's \"Diderot,\" p. 190.\n\n     ***** See Ibid, p. 126.\n\nIn the Church schools and \"universities\" to-day it is quite pathetic\nto hear the professors wrestle with geology and Genesis, and cut\ntheir astronomy to fit Joshua. If in one of these institutions for the\npetrifaction of the human mind there is a teacher who is either not\nnimble enough to escape the conclusions of a bright pupil or too honest\nto try, he is at once found to be \"incompetent as an instructor,\" and is\ndropped from the faculty. I know one case where it took twenty years to\ndiscover that a professor was not able to teach geology--and it took a\nheresy-hunter with a Bible to do it then.\n\nBut it is the claim of the Church in regard to the education of women\nwith which I have to do here.\n\nWomen in Greece and Rome under Pagan rule had become learned and\ninfluential to an unparalleled degree.*\n\nThe early Fathers of the Church found women thirsty for knowledge and\neager for opportunities to learn. They thereupon set about making it\ndisreputable for a woman to know anything,** and in order to clinch\ntheir prohibition the Church asserted that woman was unable to learn,\nhad not the mental capacity,*** was created without mental power and for\npurely physical purposes.\n\n     * See Lecky, Milman, Diderot, Morley, Christian, and others.\n\n     ** \"In the fourth century we find that holy men in council\n     gravely argued the question, and that too with abundant\n     confidence in their ability and power to decide the whole\n     matter: 'Ought women to be called human beings?' A wise\n     and pious father in the Church, after deliberating solemnly\n     and long on the vexed question of women, finally concluded:\n     'The female sex is not a fault in itself, but a fact in\n     nature for which women themselves are not to blame;' but he\n     graciously cherished the opinion that women will be\n     permitted to rise as men, at the resurrection. A few\n     centuries later the masculine mind underwent great agitation\n     over the question: 'Would it be consistent with the duties\n     and uses of women for them to learn the alphabet?' And in\n     America, after Bridget Gaffort had donated the first plot of\n     ground for a public school, girls were still denied the\n     advantages of such schools. The questions--'Shall women be\n     allowed to enter colleges?' and 'Shall they be admitted\n     into the professions?' have been as hotly contested as has\n     been the question of their humanity.\"\n     --Gamble.\n\n     *** \"There existed at the same time in this celebrated city a\n     class of women, the glory of whose intellectual brilliancy\n     still survives; and when Alcibiades drew around him the\n     first philosophers and statesmen of Greece, 'it was a virtue\n     to applaud Aspasia;' of whom it has been said that she\n     lectured publicly on rhetoric and philosophy with such\n     ability that Socrates and Alcibiades gathered wisdom from\n     her lips, and so marked was her genius for statesmanship\n     that Pericles afterward married her and allowed her to\n     govern Athens, then at the height of its glory and power.\n     Numerous examples might be cited in which Athenian women\n     rendered material aid to the state.\"\n     --Gamble.\n\nIt was maintained that her \"sphere\" was clearly defined, and that it\nwas purely and solely an animal one; and worst of all it was stoutly\nasserted that her greatest crime had always been a desire for wisdom,\nand that it was this desire which brought the penalty of labor and death\ninto this world.*\n\nWith such a belief it is hardly strange that the education of girls was\nlooked upon as a crime; and with such a record it is almost incredible\neffrontery that enables the Church to-day to claim credit for the\neducation of women,** If she were to educate every woman living, free\nof charge, in every branch of known knowledge, she could not repay woman\nfor what she has deprived her of in the past, or efface the indignity\nshe has already offered.***\n\n     * See Morley's \"Diderot,\" p. 76; Lea's \"Sacerdotal\n     Celibacy;\" Lecky's \"European Morals.\"\n\n     ** See Appendix H, 1 to 4.\n\n     *** Lecky, \"European Morals,\" p. 310.\n\nA prominent clergyman of the Church of England, who was recently much\nhonored in this country, lately said, in a sermon to women: \"There are\nthose who think a woman can be taught logic. This is a mistake. Men are\nlogical, women are not.\" He was too modest to give his proofs. It seemed\nto me strange that he did not mention the doctrines of the trinity and\nvicarious atonement, or a few of the miracles, as the result of logic in\nthe masculine mind. And I could not help thinking at the time that a man\nwhose mental furniture was chiefly composed of the thirty-nine articles\nand the Westminster Catechism would naturally be a profound authority on\nlogic. An orthodox preacher talking about logic is a sight to arouse the\ncompassion of a demon. Next to the natural sciences, logic can give the\nChurch the colic quicker than any other kind of a green apple. And so it\nis not strange that the clergy should be afraid that it would disagree\nwith the more delicate constitution of a woman. They always did maintain\nthat any diet that was a trifle too heavy for them couldn't be digested\nby anybody else; and they would be perfectly right in their supposition\nif intellectual dyspepsia or softening of the brain were contagious.\n\nThe \"sphere\" of no other creature is wholly determined and bounded by\n_one physical_ characteristic or capacity. To every other creature is\nconceded without question the right to use more than one talent.\n\nBut the Fathers decided in holy and solemn council that it would be\n\"unbecoming\" for a woman to learn the alphabet, and that she could have\nno possible use for such information. They said that she would be a\nbetter mother without distracting her dear little brain with the\na, b, c's, and that therefore she should not learn them. They also\ndecided that she who was so far lost to modesty as to become acquainted\nwith the multiplication table \"was an unfit associate for our wives and\nmothers.\" There was something wrong with such a woman. She was either a\n\"witch\" or else she was \"married to the devil.\"\n\nThat is the way the Church encouraged education for women. This\nwas done, the holy Fathers said, to \"protect women from the awful\ntemptations of life to which the Lord in his infinite wisdom had\nsubjected man.\" They had too much respect for their wives and mothers to\npermit them to come in contact with the wickedness of long division\nor cube root, and they hoped while life lasted that no man would be\nso negligent of duty as to allow his sister to soil her pure mind with\nconic sections.\n\nWell, in time there were a few women brave enough, and a few men\nhonorable and moral enough, to set aside the letter of this prohibition;\nbut much of its spirit still blossoms in all its splendor in Columbia,\nHarvard, Yale, and various other institutions of learning, where women\nare either not permitted to enter at all or are required to learn and\naccomplish unaided that which it takes a large faculty of instructors\nand every known or obtainable educational device (together with future\nbusiness stimulus) to enable the young men to do the same thing!\n\nThe Fathers said, in effect, \"It was through woman wanting to know\nsomething that sin came into this world; therefore let her hereafter\nwant to know nothing.\" They taught that a desire for knowledge on the\npart of woman was the greatest crime ever committed on this earth, and\nthat it so enraged God that he punished it by death and by every curse\nknown to man. When it was pointed out that animals had lived and _died_\non this earth long before man could have lived, they said that God\nknew Adam was going to live and Eve was going to sin, so he _made death\nretroactive_ because Adam would represent all animals when he should be\ncreated!\n\nAll this was thought and done and taught in order to agree with the\nsilly story of the \"fall of man in the Garden of Eden,\" which every one\nacquainted with the simple rudiments of science or the history of the\nraces knows to be a childish legend of an undeveloped people. Instead of\na \"fall\" from perfect beginnings, there has been and is a constant rise\nin the moral as well as in the mental and physical conditions of man.\nThe type is higher, the race nobler and nearer perfection than it ever\nwas before; and the stories of our Bible are the same as those of\nall other Bibles, simply the effort of ignorant or imaginative men\nto account for the origin and destiny of things of which they had no\naccurate knowledge.*\n\n     * One of the simplest and most interesting explanations of\n     this latter point will be found in \"The Childhood of\n     Religions,\" by Edward Clodd, F.R.A.S., where the Christian\n     reader may be surprised to find that the \"ten-commandment\"\n     idea (with a number of them which apply to general morals,\n     as \"Thou shalt not kill,\" etc.) is not confined to our\n     Bible, but is found also in the Buddhist Bible in the same\n     form; that the \"golden rule\" was given by Confucius 500\n     years before Christ; and that Christianity, when taken as it\n     should be with the other great religions and examined in the\n     same way, presents no problem, no claim, and no proofs which\n     are not found in equal strength in one or more of the other\n     forms of faith. In the matters of morality, miracles, and\n     power to attract and \"comfort\" multitudes of people, it\n     ranks neither first nor last. It is simply one of several,\n     and in no essential matter is it different from them.\n\nSt. Paul said, \"If they [women] will learn _anything_, let them ask\ntheir husbands at home;\" and the colossal ignorance of most women would\nseem to indicate that they have obeyed the command to the letter. But\nfortunately for women the civilization of freedom has outgrown St.\nPaul as it has the dictates of the Church, and one by one the doors of\ninformation, _and hence the doors to honest labor_, have been opened,\nand the possibility of living with dignity and honor has replaced the\nforced degradation of the days when the power of the Church enabled it\nto reduce women to the animal existence it so long forced upon her.\n\nSo long as the Church allowed woman but one avenue of support, so long\ndid it force her to use that single means of livelihood. So long as it\nmade her believe that she could bring to this world nothing of value but\nher capacity to minister to the lower animal wants of man, so long did\nit force upon her that single alternative--or starvation.\n\nSo long as it is able to make multitudes of women believe themselves of\nvalue for but one purpose, just that long will it continue to insure the\ndegradation of many of those women who are helpless, or weak, or loving,\nor ignorant of the motives of those in whose power they are. So long\nas it teaches woman that she can repay her debt to the world in but one\nway, so long will it promote commerce in vice and revenue in shame.\n\nEvery man is taught that he can repay his debt to this world in many\nways. He has open to him many avenues of happiness, many paths to\nhonorable employment. If he fails in one there is still hope. If he\nmisses supreme happiness in marriage he has still left ambition, labor,\nstudy, fame; if the one failure overtakes him, no matter how sad, he\nstill can turn aside and find, if not joy, at least occupation and rest.\n\nBut the Church has always taught woman that there is but one \"sphere,\"\none hope, one occupation, one life for her. If she fails in that, what\nwonder that with broken hope comes broken virtue or despair? Every woman\nwho has fallen or lost her way has been previously taught by the Church\nthat she had and has but one resource; that there is open to her in life\nbut one path; that whether that path be legally crooked or straight,\nshe was created for but one purpose; that _man is to decide for her what\nthat purpose is; and that she must under no circumstances set her own\njudgment up against his_.\n\nThe legitimate fruits of such an education are too horribly apparent\nto need explanation. Every fallen woman is a perpetual monument to the\ninfamy of a religion and a social custom that narrow her life to the\npossibilities of but one function, and provide her no escape--a system\nthat trains her to depend wholly on one physical characteristic of her\nbeing, and to neglect all else.\n\nThat system teaches her that her mind is to be of but slight use to her;\nthat her hands may not learn the cunning of a trade nor her brain\nthe bearings of a profession; that mentally she is nothing; and that\nphysically she is worse than nothing only in so far as she may minister\nto one appetite. I hold that the most legitimate outcome of such an\neducation is to be found in the class that makes merchandise of all that\nwoman is taught that she possesses that is of worth to herself or to\nthis world. No system could be more perfectly devised to accomplish this\npurpose.*\n\n      * See Lea's \"Sacerdotal Celibacy.\"\n\n\n\n\nAS WIVES.\n\nWe are told that women owe honorable marriage to Christianity;* that the\nmore beautiful and tender relations of husband and wife find their root\nthere; that Christianity protects and elevates the mother as no other\nlaw or religion ever has. Let us see.\n\n     * See Appendix I, 1-2.\n\nOn this subject I find in Maine's \"Ancient Law\" these facts:\n\n     \"Although women had been objects of barter and sale,\n     according to barbaric usages, between their male relatives,\n     the later Roman [Pagan] law having assumed, _on the theory\n     of Natural Law, the equality of the sexes_, control of the\n     _person_ of women was quite obsolete when Christianity was\n     born. Her situation had become one of great personal liberty\n     and proprietary independence, even when married, and the\n     arbitrary power over her of her male relations, or her\n     guardian, was reduced to a nullity, while the form of\n     _marriage conferred on the husband no superiority_.\"\n\n     Thus as a daughter and as a wife had she grown to be honored\n     and recognized as an equal under Pagan rule.\n\n     \"_But Christianity tended from the first to narrow this\n     remarkable liberty...._ The latest Roman [Pagan] law, _so\n     far as touched by the constitutions of the Christian\n     emperors, bears marks of reaction against these great\n     liberal doctrines._\"\n     --Maine.\n\n     And again began the sale of women. Christianity held her as\n     unclean and in all respects inferior; and \"during the era\n     which begins modern history the women of dominant races are\n     seen everywhere under various forms of archaic guardianship,\n     and _the husband pays a money price to her male relations\n     for her_. The prevalent state of _religious_ sentiment may\n     explain why it is that _modern_ jurisprudence has absorbed\n     among its rudiments _much more than usual of those rules_\n     [archaic] _concerning the position of women which belong\n     peculiarly to an imperfect civilization._\"\n     --Ibid.\n\nThus it will be seen that from the first, and extending down to the\npresent, the Church did all she could to cast woman back into the night\nof the race from which in a great measure she had been rescued through\nthe ages when Natural Law and not \"revelation\" was the guide of man. The\nlaws which the Church found liberal and just toward women it discarded,\nand it searched back in the ages of night for such as it saw fit to\nre-enact for her. Of this Maine says: \"The husband now draws to himself\nthe power which formerly belonged to his wife's male relatives, the only\ndifference being that he no longer pays anything for the privilege.\"\n\nAs Christians grew economical wives came cheaper than formerly, and it\nbecame a dogma that wives were not worth much anyhow, and then, too,\nit enabled persons of limited means to have more of them. Of a somewhat\nlater date Maine says: \"_At this point heavy disabilities begin to be\nimposed upon wives_.\"\n\nThat was to make marriage honorable and attractive, no doubt, and, says\nMaine: \"_It was very long before the subordination entailed on women by\nmarriage was sensibly diminished.\" And what diminution it received came\nfrom men who fought against Church law_.*\n\n     *See Lecky, Maine, Lea, Milman, Christian, Blackstone,\n     Morley, and others for ample proof of this fact\n\nIt was only the crumbs of liberty, honor, and justice extorted by men\nwho fought the Church on behalf of wives, that lightened their most\noppressive burdens. It was true then, and it is true to-day, that women\nowe what justice and freedom and power they possess to the fact that the\nbest and clearest-headed men are more honorable than our religion, and\nthat they have invited Moses and St. Paul to take a back seat Moses has\ncomplied, and St. Paul is half-way down the aisle.\n\nSome of the clergy now explain that although Paul may have written\ncertain things inimical to women, he did not _mean_ them, so it is all\nright. Such passages as 1 Cor. xi. 3-9; xiv. 34-35; and Eph. v. 22-24,\nare now explained to be intended in a purely Pickwickian sense; and\na Rev. Mr. Boyd, of St. Louis, has even gone so far as to produce the\ndoughty apostle before a woman-suffrage society, as on their side of\nthat argument. This second conversion of St. Paul impresses one as even\nmore remarkable than his first. It took an \"angel of God\" to show him\nthe error of his ways in Ephesus, but one little Baptist preacher did it\nthis time--all by himself. Truly St. Paul is getting easier to deal with\nthan he used to be.\n\n\nBut to resume, Maine, in tracing the amalgamation of the later Roman\n(Pagan) law with the archaic laws of a lower civilization (the result\nof which was Christian law), shows that the Church, while it chose the\nRoman laws, which had arrived at so high a state, for others, _retained\nfor women, and particularly for wives, the least favorable_ of the\nRoman, eked out with the archaic _Patria Potestas_ and the more\ndegrading provisions of the earlier civilizations. Maine reluctantly\nsays that the jurisconsults of the day contended for better laws for\nwives, but that the Church prevailed in most instances, and established\nthe more oppressive ones.\n\nWith certain of these laws--the worst ones--I cannot deal here for\nobvious reasons; but a few of them I may be permitted to give without\noffence to the modesty of any one.\n\nBlackstone says: \"By marriage the husband and wife are one person\nin law; that is, the very being or legal _existence of the woman\nis suspended_ during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and\nconsolidated into that of the husband. The husband becomes her _baron or\nlord_--she his _servant_. Upon this principle of the union of person\nin husband and wife depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and\ndisabilities they acquire by marriage.\"\n\nThat is to say the husband acquires all the rights, and the wife all the\ndisabilities; and the Church wishing to be fair has made the latter as\nmany as possible.\n\n\"And therefore,\" continues Blackstone, \"it is also generally true, that\nall compacts made between husband and wife, _when single, are voided\nby the intermarriage_.\" The working of this principle has been so often\nillustrated as to render comment unnecessary. A wife retains no rights\nwhich her husband is bound to respect, no matter how solemn the compact\nbefore marriage, nor what her belief in its strength might have been.\n\nFortunately for women, happily for wives, men are more decent than their\nreligion; and the law of custom and public opinion has largely outgrown\nthis enactment of the Church, made when she had the power to thus\ndegrade women and brutalize men.\n\n\"If the wife be injured in _her person or her property she can bring\nno action for redress_ without her husband's concurrence _and in his\nname_,\" and on the basis of loss of _her services_ to him _as a servant.\n\"But in criminal prosecutions, it is true, the wife may be indicted and\npunished separately_.\" *\n\n     * Blackstone.\n\nIn the case of punishment the Church was entirely willing to give the\ndevil his due. It had no ambition to deprive women of any indictments\nand punishments that were to be had. In this case, although the husband\nand wife were one, she was that one. Where privileges or property-rights\nwere to be considered, he was the \"one.\" Such grand reversible doctrines\nwere always on tap with the clergy, and their barrel was always full.\nTruly, wives do owe much to the Church.\n\nSome of the provisions of these laws have, of late years, been modified\nby the efforts of men who were pronounced \"infidels, destroyers of the\nBible, the home, and the dignity of women,\" aided by women whom the\northodox deride as \"strong--minded, ill-balanced, coarse, impious,\"\netc., etc., _ad infinitum, ad nauseam_. A strong mind, whether in man or\nwoman, has always been to the clergy as a red rag to a bull.\n\n\"A woman may make a will, _with the assent of her husband_, by way\nof appointment of her _personal_ property. _She cannot even with his\nconsent devise lands_.... Although our law in general considers a man\nand wife as one person, yet there are _some instances where she is\nconsidered separately as his inferior_,\" and for that trip only.\n\nAs I remarked before when it comes to penalties she is welcome to the\nwhole lot.\n\n\"She may not make a deed.\"\n\n\"A man may administer moderate correction to his wife.\"\n\n\"These are the chief legal effects of marriage. Even the disabilities of\nthe wife,\" Blackstone naively remarks, \"are for the most part _intended\nfor her protection; so great a favorite is the female sex of the laws of\nEngland!_\"\n\nI should think that if this latter point were not quite clear to a\nwoman, \"moderate correction\" might convince her that she was quite an\nunreasonable favorite--beyond her most eager desires. Where the Pagan\nlaw recognized her as the equal of her husband, the Church discarded\nthat law, and based the Canon Law upon an archaic invention.\n\nWhere Maine speaks of the later growth of Pagan law and of Christian\ninfluence upon it, he says: \"But the chapter of law relating to married\nwomen was for the most part read by the light, not of Roman [or Pagan]\nbut of Canon [or Church] Law, _which in no one particular departs so\nwidely from the [improved] spirit of the secular jurisprudence as in the\nview it takes of the relations created by marriage_. This was in part\ninevitable, _since no society which possesses any tincture of Christian\ninstitutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty\nconferred on them by the middle Roman law_.\"\n\nWomen who support the clergy with one hand, and hold out the other for\nthe ballot; who one day express indignation at the refusal to them of\nhuman recognition, and the next day intone the creeds, will have to\nlearn that there is nothing which has so successfully stood, and still\nso powerfully stands, in the way of the individual liberty, human\nrights, and dignity of wives, as the Church which they support.\n\nBlackstone says: \"In times of popery a great _variety_ of impediments\nto marriage were made, which impediments might, however, be _bought off\nwith money_.\"\n\nYou could, for instance, buy a more distant relationship to your future\nwife for so much cash down to the Church. If your inamorata were your\nfirst cousin, you could remove her several degrees with five hundred\ndollars, and make her no relation at all for a little more. Such little\nsleight-of-hand performances are as nothing to a well-trained clergyman.\nSlip a check into one hand, and a request to marry your aunt into the\nother, let a clergyman shake them up in the coffers of the Church, and\nwhen one comes out gold, the other will appear as a blushing bride\nnot even related to her own father, and not more than third cousin to\nherself.\n\nOf the claim made by the early Christian Fathers, that it was because of\nthe mental inferiority and incapacity of women that the more unjust and\nbinding laws were enacted for them, thus doing all they could to create\nand intensify by law the incapacity which they asserted was imposed by\nGod, Maine says: \"But the proprietary disabilities of married females\n_stand on quite a different basis from personal incapacity_, and it is\nby the tendency of their doctrines to keep alive and consolidate the\nformer, that the expositors of the _Canon Law have deeply injured\ncivilization_.\"\n\nHe adds that there are many evidences of a struggle between _secular\nprinciples in favor of justice for wives_, and _ecclesiastical\nprinciples against it_, \"but the Canon Law nearly everywhere prevailed.\nThe systems which are _least indulgent_ to married women are invariably\nthose which have followed the _Canon Law exclusively_.... It enforced\nthe complete legal subjection of wives.\"\n\nLecky says: \"Fierce invectives against the sex form a conspicuous and\ngrotesque portion of the writings of the Fathers. Woman was represented\nas the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be\nashamed at the very thought that she is a woman.... Women were even\nforbidden, in the sixth century, on account of their impurity, to\nreceive the Eucharist into their naked hands. Their essentially\nsubordinate position was continually maintained. This teaching in part\ndetermined the principles of legislation concerning the sex.* The\nPagan laws during the empire had been continually _repealing the old\ndisabilities_ of women, and the legislative movement in their favor\ncontinued with unabated force from Constantine to Justinian, and\nappeared also in some of the early laws of the barbarians. _But in the\nwhole feudal [Christian] legislation women were placed in a much lower\nlegal position than in the Pagan empire_.\"\n\n     * See Appendix J.\n\nAnd he adds that the French revolutionists (the infidel party)\nestablished better laws for women, \"and initiated a great reformation of\nboth law and opinion, _which sooner or later must traverse the world_.\"\nAnd these reformations, being in Christendom, will be calmly claimed in\nthe future, as in the present, as due to the beneficent influence of the\nChurch. The Church always belongs to the conservative party, but after a\ngood thing is established in despite of her, she says: \"Just see what I\nhave done! 'See what a good boy am I!\"'\n\nNot many years ago a few great-souled men who were \"heretics\" got a\nglimpse of a principle which has electrified the world. They said that\nindividual liberty is a universal right; they maintained that humanity\nis a unit, with interests and aims indivisible, and that liberty to use\nto the utmost advantage all natural abilities cannot be denied one-half\nof the race without crippling both. A few even went so far as to suggest\nthat the assumption of the inferiority of women, and the imposition\nof disabilities upon them, under the claim of divine authority, is the\ngreatest crime in the great calendar of crime for which the Church has\nyet to render a reckoning to humanity.\n\nTo one who reads the history of Canon Law, it is not strange that\nChristian Judges still decide that women are \"incompetent to practice\nlaw,\" and that they should not be allowed to study it. A woman well\nversed in the history of ancient and modern law might easily be an\nuncomfortable advocate for such a judge to face. He would probably feel\nthe need of an umbrella.\n\nIt is not strange that Columbia College, with its corps of clergymen,\n\"fails to see the propriety\" of opening its doors to women. The few\nclergymen who have for some little time past taken the side of fair-play\nin this and like matters have simply deserted their colors and come over\nto the side they are worldly-wise enough to see is to be the side of the\nfuture. When it comes to diplomacy the Church is always on deck in\ntime to gather in the spoils; but she stays safely below during the\nengagement, and simply holds back and anchors firm until she sees which\nway it is likely to end.\n\nThe moment there is an understanding on the part of women of what they\nowe to Church Law, that moment will educational clerical monopolists,\nsuch as the champion anchor of Columbia, be compelled to earn an honest\nliving in some honest business pertaining to this world. It will be a\ngreat day for women when they refuse to longer support these pretenders\nto divine knowledge, who are willing, at so much a head, to tell what\nthey do not know at the expense of the pale, tired needlewoman, who\nis in want of almost every comfort that money can buy in this world,\ntogether with the surplus gold of the fashionable devotees who minister\nto the vanity of the clergy, and give to the coffers of the Church that\nwhich would save thousands of young girls from degradation and crime,\nand put the roses of health on the cheek of innocence.\n\nEvery dollar that is paid to support the Church is paid to degrade a\nwoman. Every collection that is made to spread \"revelation\" is used to\nsuppress enlightenment and retard civilization. Every dollar that is\ninvested in \"another world\" is a dollar diverted from useful purposes in\nthis. Every hour that is spent mooning about \"heaven\" is that much time\ntaken from needed labor here.\n\nIf our energies were wanted in another world we should most likely be in\nanother world. Since we are in this one it is a pretty strong hint that\nwe are expected to attend to business right here. We can't do justice to\ntwo worlds at the same time; and since we are assured that we shall have\nthe whole of eternity to arrange matters in the next one, it leaves very\nlittle time by comparison to devote to our duties in this.\n\nThere we are to have nothing to do but sing and be happy--twang a harp\nand smile.\n\nHere we have pain to alleviate, ignorance to dispel, innocence to\nprotect, disease to master, and crime to restrain and prevent. Here we\nhave the helpless to shield and guard and protect. Here we have homes to\nmake happy, the hearts of husbands and wives to make glad, the light\nof love and trust to kindle in the eyes of children. Here is old age to\ncheer and console. Here are orphans to educate and protect, widows to\ncomfort, and oppression to uproot.\n\nThere--nothing to do but look after yourself and manage your harp;\nnobody to help--all will be perfect; nothing to learn--all will be wise;\nno hearts to cheer--all will be happy. All that a mother will have to do\nif she gets a little tired practicing on her lyre and feels gloomy will\nbe to just take a good look over the wall, and photograph on her eyes\nthe picture of her husband and children freshly dipped in oil and put\non the griddle, and she will come back to business perfectly satisfied,\ntake up her song where she left off, and praise the Lamb for his\ninfinite mercy. All eternity to learn how to fly round in a robe and\nkeep time with the orchestra! Why a deaf man could learn to do that in\nfifty or sixty years, and then have all the rest of the time to spare.\n\nWe are here such a little while, there is so much to learn, there is so\nmuch to do, there is so much to _undo_, that no man can afford to waste\nhis time on an infinite future of time, space, and leisure. Men cannot\nafford to lose your best energies. \"God\" can get on very well without\nthem. Time is short, and needs are pressing; and this thing you\nknow--you can keep busy doing good right here. If there is a hereafter,\ncould there be a better preparation for it than that?\n\n\n\n\nNOT WOMAN'S FRIEND.\n\nAfter all that has preceded this page I need hardly do more with this\ncount of the last claim of \"Theological Fiction\" than simply say, if the\nBible is woman's best friend, then the clergy, without authority and in\nviolation of the precepts of their own guide, have been her worst enemy,\neither through malice or ignorance; in either of which cases they are\nand have always been unfit to dictate, to lead opinion, or to receive a\nfollowing as reliable guides for this world or the next.\n\nIf they have been so ignorant or so malicious for nearly nineteen\nhundred years as to thus systematically misconstrue their own\nauthority--their own \"revelation\"--to the constant disadvantage of women\n(and the consequent enfeeblement of the race), surely they can claim no\nrespect for their opinions and no confidence in their divine calling.*\nIn trying to shield the Bible the clergy simply convict themselves.**\n\n     * See Appendix K.\n\n     ** See Appendix L.\n\nBut I incline to the opinion that in the main this view of the case\nis unfair to the clergy, and that they have followed, in spirit if not\nliterally, the dictates of the Bible as a whole. It is undoubtedly true\nthat the Bible throughout holds woman as an inferior in both mental and\nmoral characteristics; and upon this understanding of it the Fathers\nbuilt the Church and crystallized the laws.\n\nThe Fathers of the Church were as a rule a bad lot themselves. All\ncontemporaneous history and all internal evidence prove this fact: and\nwhen we remember that the \"Prophets\" were almost to a man polygamists;\nthat their belief and practices in this regard were of the order and\ntype of Mormondom to-day, _and for the same reasons_; that they were\nslave-holders and slave-stealers; that they believed in a God of\ninfinite cruelty and revenge--of arbitrary will and reasonless\nbarbarity; and that they were licentious and brutal beyond description;\nit will be easy to understand the position which such men--with these\nbeliefs, practices, mentality, and moral degradation--would accord to\nwomen. Every Bible of every people; every history of every race showing\nlike civilization, will show you like results.*\n\n     *See Appendix M.\n\nIn the New Testament we find an effort to readjust old clothes to a new\nbody, some of whose members had grown better and some worse in dogma and\nbelief. Where women are _especially_ dealt with we find them commanded\nto \"be under obedience,\" and always to subject their wills to the ways\nand wills of men; while the general tone and treatment are always based\nupon the assumption that she is an inferior, a secondary creation, and a\nsubject class.*\n\nThat this is the understanding of the Bible always recognized by the\nChurch (and to-day questioned by only a very small minority who are\nshrewd enough to see the necessity of revamping it to fit the new public\nmorality and civilization), all history attests; but the vehemence\nwith which the doctrine has been asserted the foregoing pages can only\nfaintly indicate. **\n\nBut certainly, if for thousands of years the clergy have, as a body,\nmisconstrued or misunderstood the spirit of their own book (to which\nthey have always claimed to possess the only key), they should not blame\nthose who to-day take issue with them upon their information, their\ndictates, their _basis of morality_, or their interpretations of the\nrights of humanity.\n\nIf, as they claim to-day, the Bible is the friend of women and no\nrespecter of persons, a conclusion which it took them hundreds of years\nto reach, it has taken them too long to discover the fact for their\nguidance to be either a desirable or a safe one for humanity; and the\nmillions of women they have degraded and oppressed in the past are\ncertainly not an argument in favor of their infallibility now. ***\n\n     * See Appendix N.\n\n     ** See Appendix O.\n\n     *** See Appendix P.\n\nLet them give way to men who, claiming no right to divine authority or\nsuperhuman wisdom, speak in the interest of all humanity the best they\nknow (always acknowledged to be subject to revision for the better); who\nare not bound back and retarded by the outgrown toggery of the Jewish\ncivilization of David and his time or the Christian dictatorship of\nPaul.* Acknowledging themselves as false and oppressive interpreters\nof divine law for centuries past is but a poor recommendation of their\nability or integrity for the future.\n\n     * See Appendix Q.\n\nWhichever horn of the dilemma they accept, there is but one honorable\ncourse for the clergy to pursue, and that is to resign in favor of those\nwho have all along been on the right track, without a pretence of divine\nguidance; who in despite of faith and fagot have made progress possible.\n\n\n\n\nMORALS.*\n\n     * See Appendices T and V.\n\nAfter my lecture on Men, Women, and Gods, in Chicago, I was asked how it\nwould be possible to train children to be good without a belief in the\ndivinity of the Bible; how they could be made to know it is wrong to be\nand steal and kill.\n\nThe belief that the Bible is the originator of these and like moral\nideas, or that Christ was their first teacher, is far from the truth;\nand it is only another evidence of the duplicity or ignorance of\nthe Church that such a belief obtains or that such a falsehood is\nsystematically taught.\n\nIt is too easily forgotten that morals are universal, that Christianity\nis local. Practical moral ideas grow up very early, and develop with the\ndevelopment of a race. They are the response to the needs of a\npeople, and when formulated have in several cases taken the shape of\n\"commandments\" from some unseen power. These necessary practical laws\nare by degrees attached to those of imaginary value, and all alike\nare held in esteem as of equal moral worth. By this means a ficticious\nstandard of right and wrong becomes established, and a weakening of\nconfidence in the valueless part results in damage to that portion which\nwas originally the result of wise and necessary legislation.*\n\nWhen children (of whatever age) do this or that \"because God said so,\"\nthe precepts taught on this basis, even though they are good, will have\nno hold upon the man who discovers that their origin was purely human.\nIt is a dangerous experiment, and depends wholly upon ignorance for\nits success. A firm basis of reason in this world is the only solid\nfoundation of moral training.\n\nMy Chicago questioner proceeded upon the hypothesis that what of\nvaluable morals are contained in the Bible were a \"revelation\" to one\npeople, and that their value was dependent upon this origin. For the\nbenefit of those who have been similarly** imposed upon, I will cite a\nfew facts in as short space as possible.\n\n     * \"Durable morality had been associated with a transitory\n     religious faith. The faith fell into intellectual discredit,\n     and sexual morality shared its decline for a short season.\n     This must always be the natural consequence of building\n     sound ethics on the shifting sands and rotting foundations\n     of theology. It is one of those enormous drawbacks that\n     people seldom take into account when they are enumerating\n     the blessings of superstition.\"\n     --Morley's \"Diderot,\" p. 71.\n\n     ** Professor Max Muller says that \"the consciousness of sin\n     is a leading feature in the religion of the Veda, so is\n     likewise the belief that the gods are able to take away from\n     man the heavy burden of his sins.\"\n\nBrahmanism, with its two hundred millions of believers, and its Rig-Veda\n(Bible) composed two thousand four hundred years before Christ, has its\nrigid code of morals; its theory of creation; its teachings about sin;\nits revelations; its belief in the ability of the gods to forgive;** its\nbelief that its bible came from God; and its devotees who believe\nthat an infinite God is pleased with the toys of worship, praise,\nand adulation of man. It has its prayers and hymns, its offerings and\nsacrifices. Corresponding with our \"Trinity\" idea the Brahmin has his\nthree great gods; and in place of our \"angels\" he has his infinite\nnumber of little ones.*\n\nNext, Zoroastrianism, certainly twelve hundred years older than Christ,\nhas its legends (quite as authentic as our own) of miracles performed\nby its founder and his followers; its Zend-Avesta (Bible); its \"Supreme\nSpirit;\" its belief in gods and demons who interfere with affairs in\nthis world and who are ever at war with each other; its sacred fires;\nits Lord; its praise; and its pretence to direct communication _in the\npast_ with spirits and with gods who gave their Prophet \"commandments.\"**\nIt lacks none of the paraphernalia of a \"divine institution\" ready\nfor business, and we are unable to discount it in either loaves or\nfishes. It also has its heaven and hell;*** its Messiah or Prophet; its\narch fiend or devil; its rites and ceremonies.\n\n     * See Edward Clodd, F.R.A.S., \"Childhood of Religions.\"\n\n     ** \"In the Gathas or oldest part of the Zend-Avesta, which\n     contains the leading doctrines of Zoroaster, he asks Ormuzd\n     [God] for truth and guidance, and desires to know what he\n     shall do. He is told to be pure in thought, word, and deed;\n     to be temperate, chaste, and truthful; to offer prayer to\n     Ormuzd and the powers that fight with him; to destroy all\n     hurtful things; and to do all that will increase the well-\n     being of mankind. Men were not to cringe before the powers\n     of darkness as slaves crouch before a tyrant, they were to\n     meet them upstanding, and confound them by unending\n     opposition and the power of a holy life. 'Oh men, if you\n     cling to these commandments which Mazda has given, which are\n     a torment to the wicked and a blessing to the righteous,\n     then there will be victory through them.'\"\n     --Max Muller.\n\n     *** \"In this old faith there was a belief in two abodes for\n     the departed: heaven, the 'house of the angels' hymns,' and\n     hell, where the wicked were sent.   Between the two there\n     was a bridge.\"\n     --Ibid.\n\nProfessor Max Muller remarks: \"There were periods in the history of the\nworld when the worship of Ormuzd threatened to rise triumphant on the\nruins of the temples of all other gods. If the battles of Marathon and\nSalamis had been lost and Greece had succumbed to Persia, the state\nreligion of the empire of Cyrus, which was the worship of Ormuzd, might\nhave become the religion of the whole civilized world.\"\n\nIn which case my Chicago friend would have asked, \"If you destroy a\nbelief in Ormuzd, and that he gave the only supernatural moral law to\nZoroaster, how will children ever be taught what is right and what is\nwrong, and how can they ever know that it is not right to lie and kill\nand steal?\"\n\n\"Their creed is of the simplest kind; it is to fear God, to live a life\nof pure thoughts, pure words, pure deeds, and to die in the hope of a\nworld to come. _It is the creed of those who have lived nearest to God\nand served him faithfullest in every age_, and wherever they dwell who\naccept it and practice it, they bear witness to that which makes them\nchildren of God and brethren of the prophets, among whom Zoroaster was\nnot the least. The Jews were carried away as captives to Babylon some\n600 years before Christ, and during the seventy years of their exile\nthere, they came into contact with the Persian religion _and derived\nfrom it ideas about the immortality of the soul, which their own\nreligion did not contain. They also borrowed from it their belief in a\nmultitude of angels, and in Satan as the ruler over evil spirits_.\" [So\nyou see that even our devil is a borrowed one, and it now seems to\nbe about time to return him with thanks. ] \"The ease with which man\nbelieves in unearthly powers working for his hurt prepares a people to\nadmit into its creed the doctrine of evil spirits, and although it\nis certain that the Jews had no belief in such spirits before their\ncaptivity in Babylon, they spoke of Satan (which means _an adversary_)\nas a messenger sent from God to watch the deeds of men and accuse them\nto Him for their wrong-doing. Satan thus becoming by degrees an object\nof dread, upon whom all the evil which befell man was charged, the minds\nof the Jews were ripe for accepting the Persian doctrine of Ahriman with\nhis legions of devils. Ahriman became the Jewish Satan, _a belief in\nwhom formed part of early Christian doctrine, and is now but slowly\ndying out. What fearful ills it has caused, history has many a page to\ntell_. The doctrine that Satan, once an angel of light, had been cast\nfrom heaven for rebellion against God, and had ever since played havoc\namong mankind, gave rise to the belief that he and his demons could\npossess the souls of men and animals at pleasure. Hence grew the belief\nin wizards and witches, under which millions of creatures, both young\nand old, were cruelly tortured and put to death. We turn over the\nsmeared pages of this history in haste, thankful that from such a\nnightmare the world has wakened.\" *\n\nThe world has awakened, but the Church still snores on, confident and\nhappy in the belief that she has a devil all her own, and that he is\nattending strictly to business.\n\nNext we have Buddhism, _which numbers more followers than any other\nfaith_. It is five hundred years older than Christianity. It has its\nprophet or Messiah who was exposed to a tempter,** and overcame all\nevil; its fastings and prayers; its miracles and its visions. Of\nBuddha's teachings Prof. Max Muller tells us that he used to say,\n\"Nothing on earth is stable, nothing is real. Life is as transitory as\na spark of fire, or the sound of a lyre. There must be some supreme\nintelligence where we could find rest. If I attained it I could bring\nlight to men. If I were free myself I could deliver the world.\"\n\n     *Clodd, F.R.A.S.\n\n     ** \"Afterward the tempter sent his three daughters, one a\n     winning girl, one a blooming virgin, and one a middle-aged\n     beauty, to allure him, but they could not. Buddha was proof\n     against all the demon's arts, and his only trouble was\n     whether it were well or not to preach his doctrines to men.\n     Feeling how hard to gain was that which he had gained, and\n     how enslaved men were by their passions so that they might\n     neither listen to him nor understand him, he had well-nigh\n     resolved to be silent, but, at the last, deep compassion for\n     all beings made him resolve to tell his secret to mankind,\n     that they too might be free, and he thus became the founder\n     of _the most popular religion of ancient or modern times_.\n     The spot where Buddha obtained his knowledge became one of\n     the most sacred places in India.\"\n     --Clodd.\n\nBuddha, like Christ, wrote nothing, and the doctrines of the new\nreligion were fixed and written by his disciples after his death.\nCouncils were held afterwards to correct errors and send out\nmissionaries. You will see, therefore, that even \"revisions\" are not a\nproduct of Christianity, and that \"revelations\" have always been subject\nto reform to fit the times.*\n\n     * \"Two other councils were afterward held for the correction\n     of errors that had crept into the faith, and for sending\n     missionaries into other lands. The last of these councils is\n     said to have been held 251 years before Christ, so that long\n     before Christianity was founded we have this great religion\n     with its sacred traditions of Buddha's words, its councils\n     and its missions, besides, as we shall presently see, many\n     things strangely like the rites of the Roman Catholic\n     Church.\"--Clodd.\n\nI will here give a few of the wise or kind or moral commands of Buddha.\nIf the first were followed in Christian countries we should be a more\nmoral and a less superstitious people than we are to-day.\n\n\"Buddha said: '_The succoring of mother and father, the cherishing\nof child and wife, and the following of a lawful calling, this is the\ngreatest blessing._'\n\n\"'The giving alms, a religious life, aid rendered to relations,\nblameless acts, this, is the greatest blessing.'\n\n\"'The abstaining from sins and the avoiding them, the eschewing of\nintoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds, reverence and humility,\ncontentment and gratefulness, this is the greatest blessing.'\n\n\"'Those who having done these things, become invincible on all sides,\nattain happiness on all sides. This is the greatest blessing.'\n\n\"'He who lives a hundred years, vicious and unrestrained, a life of one\nday is better if a man is virtuous and reflecting.'\n\n\"'Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart, it will not\ncome near unto me. Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot\nis filled; the fool becomes full of evil if he gathers it little by\nlittle.'\n\n\"'Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's mind, that is\nthe teaching of the Awakened.' (This is one of the most solemn verses\namong the Buddhists).\n\n\"'Let us live happily then, not hating those who hate us! Let us dwell\nfree from hatred among men who hate!'\n\n\"After these doctrines there follow ten commandments, of which the\nfirst five apply to all people, and the rest chiefly to such as set\nthemselves apart for a religious life. They are: not to kill; not to\nsteal; not to commit adultery; not to lie; not to get drunk; to abstain\nfrom late meals; from public amusements; from expensive dress; from\nlarge beds; and to accept neither gold nor silver.\" *\n\nKeep in mind that Buddha lived more than 500 years _before_ Christ.\n\n\"The success of Buddhism was in this: It was a protest against the\npowers of the priests; _it to a large degree broke down caste by\ndeclaring that all men are equal_, and by allowing any one desiring to\nlive a holy life to become a priest. _It abolished sacrifices_; made\nit the _duty of all men to honor their parents and care for their\nchildren_, to be kind to the sick and poor and sorrowing, and to forgive\ntheir enemies and return good for evil; it spread a spirit of charity\nabroad which encompassed the lowest life as well as the highest.\" **\n\n     * Clodd.\n\n     ** Ibid.\n\nWith these before him will a Christian suppose that morals are dependent\nupon our Bible?\n\nOf Confucianism, believed by millions to be essential to their\nsalvation, and one of the three state religions of China, Clodd says:\n\"On the soil of this great country there is crowded nearly half the human\nrace, the most orderly people on the globe. This man (Confucius), who\nwas reviled in life, but whose influence sways the hundreds of\nmillions of China, was born 551 years before Christ. His nature was so\nbeautifully simple and sincere that _he would not pretend to knowledge\nof that which he felt was beyond human reach and thought_.\"\n\nWhat an earthquake there would be if our clergymen where only to become\ninoculated with that sort of simple sincerity I His disciples and\nfollowers did that for him as has been done in most other cases.\n\n\"The sacred books of China are called the _Kings_, and are five in\nnumber, containing _treatises on morals_, books of rites, poems, and\nhistory. They are of great age, perhaps as old as the earliest hymns of\nthe Rig-Veda, _and are free from any impure thoughts_. [Which is much\nmore than can be said of our own sacred books, which are not so old.] In\nthe Book of Poetry are three hundred pieces, but the design of them all\nmay be embraced in that one sentence, '_Have no depraved thoughts._'\n\n\"At the time when Confucius lived, China was divided into a number\nof petty kingdoms whose rulers were ever quarrelling, and although he\nbecame engaged in various public situations of trust, the disorder of\nthe State at last caused him to resign them, and he retired to another\npart of the country. He then continued the life of a public teacher,\ninstructing men in the simple moral truths by which he sought to govern\nhis own life. The purity of that life, and the example of veneration for\nthe old laws which he set, gathered round him many grave and thoughtful\nmen, who worked with him for the common good.\"\n\nConfucius said among other wise and moral things: \"Coarse rice for food,\nwater to drink, the bended arm for a pillow--happiness may be enjoyed\neven with these; but without virtue, both riches and honor seem to me\nlike the passing cloud.... Our passions shut up the door of our souls\nagainst God.\"\n\nWhat we are pleased to call \"the golden rule,\" and to look upon as\npurely Christian, he gave in these words 500 years before Christ was\nborn: \"Tsze-kung said, '_What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish\nnot to do to men._' The Master said, 'You have not attained to that.'\n\n\"Such is the power of words, that those uttered by this intensely\nearnest man, whose work was ended only by death, have kept alive\nthroughout the vast empire of China a reverence for the past _and a\nsense of duty to the present which_ have made the Chinese the most\norderly and moral people in the world.\"\n\nSo much for the great religions that are older than our own and _could\nnot have_ borrowed from us. So much for the moral sentiments of the\npeoples who developed them, and who live and die happy with them to-day.\nIt leaves only a small part of this globe and a comparatively small\nnumber of its inhabitants who believe in and are guided by the Bible, or\nby the morality which has grown side-by-side with it.\n\nBut there is one other great religion which is of interest to us: *\n\n     * See Appendix R.\n\n\"And the value of Islam, the youngest of the great religions, is that\nwe are able to see how its first simple form became overlaid with legend\nand foolish superstition, and thus learn how, in like manner, myth and\nfable have grown around more ancient religions [and around our own].\n\n\"For example; although Mohammed came into the world like other children,\nwonderful things are said to have taken place at his birth.\n\n\"He never claimed to be a perfect man; he did not pretend to foretell\nevents or to work miracles.\n\n\"In spite of all this, his followers said of him, while he was yet\nliving, that he worked wonders, and they believed the golden vision,\nhinted at in Koran, to have been a real event, although Mohammed said\nover and over again that it was but a dream.\n\n\"This religion is the guide in life and the support in death of _one\nhundred and fifty millions of our fellow creatures_; like Christianity,\nit has its missionaries scattered over the globe, and offers itself as a\nfaith needed by all men.\n\n\"The success of Islam was great. Not one hundred years after the death\nof the prophet, it had converted half the then known world, and its\ngreen flag waved from China to Spain. Christianity gave way before it,\nand has never regained some of the ground then lost, while at this day\nwe see Islam making marked progress in Africa and elsewhere. Travelers\ntell us that the gain is great when a tribe casts away its idols and\nembraces Islam. Filth and drunkenness flee away, and the state of the\npeople is bettered in a high degree.\"\n\n\"Muslims have not treated Christ as we have treated Mohammed, for the\ndevout among them never utter his name without adding the touching\nwords, 'on whom be peace.'\"\n\n\"Mohammed counseled men to live a good life, and to strive after the\nmercy of God by fasting, charity, and prayer, which he called 'the key\nof paradise.'\"\n\n\"He abolished the frightful practice of killing female children, and\nmade the family tie more respected.\"\n\nHe said: \"_A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he has done in this\nworld to his fellow-men_. When he dies, people will ask, What property\nhas he left behind him? But the angels will ask, What good deeds has he\nsent before him?\" [Which is a doctrine wholesome and just, so for as it\napplies to this world, and inculcates the right sort of morals.]\n\n\"Mohammed commanded his followers to make no image of any living thing,\nto show mercy to the weak and orphaned, and kindness to brutes; to\nabstain from gambling, and the use of strong drink.\n\n\"The great truth which he strove to make real to them was that God is\none, that, as the Koran says, 'they surely are infidels who say that God\nis the third of three, for there is no God but one God.'\"\n\nHe was the great original Unitarian.\n\n\"I should add that the wars of Islam did not leave waste and ruin in\ntheir path, but that the Arabs, when they came to Europe, alone held\naloft the light of learning, and in the once famous schools of Spain,\ntaught 'philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and the golden art of song.'\"\n\nWe cannot speak so well of the \"holy wars\" of Christianity.\n\nIn speaking of the men who wrote our Bible, Clodd says: \"Nor is it easy\nto find in what they have said truths which, in one form or another,\nhave not been stated by the writers of some of the sacred books into\nwhich we have dipped.\"\n\nI have quoted more fully than had been my intention simply to show the\negotistic ignorance of the Christian's claim to possess a religion or a\nBible which differs, in any material regard, from several others which\nare older, and to indicate that moral ideas, precepts, and practices\nare the property of no special people, but are the inevitable result\nof continued life itself, and the evolution of civilizations however\ndifferent in outward form and expression. They are the necessary results\nof human companionship and necessities, and not the fruits of any\nreligion or the \"revelation\" from on high to any people. As William\nKingdon Clifford, F. R. S., in his work on the \"Scientific Basis of\nMorals,\" very justly says:\n\n\"There is more than one moral sense, and what I feel to be right another\nman may feel to be wrong.\n\n\"In just the same way our question about the best conscience will\nresolve itself into a question about the purpose or function of the\nconscience--why we have got it, and what it is good for.\n\n\"Now to my mind the simplest and clearest and most profound philosophy\nthat was ever written upon this subject is to be found in the 2d and 3d\nchapters of Mr. Darwin's 'Descent of Man.' In these chapters it appears\nthat just as most physical characteristics of organisms have been\nevolved and preserved because they were useful to the individual in the\nstruggle for existence against other individuals and other species, so\nthis particular feeling has been evolved and preserved because it is\nuseful to the tribe or community in the struggle for existence against\nother tribes, and against the environment as a whole. The function of\nconscience is the preservation of the tribe as a tribe. And we shall\nrightly train our consciences if we learn to approve these actions which\ntend to the advantage of the community.\n\n\"The virtue of purity, for example, attains in this way a fairly exact\ndefinition: purity in a man is that course of conduct which makes him\nto be a good husband and father, in a woman that which makes her to be a\ngood wife and mother, or which helps other people so to prepare and\nkeep themselves. It is easy to see how many false ideas and pernicious\nprecepts are swept away by even so simple a definition as that.\"\n\nIn urging the necessity of a more substantial basis of morals than one\nbuilt upon a theory of arbitrary dictation, he says: \"The worship of a\ndeity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any portion of\nthe community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and\npromises by which it is commended. And still worse, the reference of\nright and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, the diversion of\nthe allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the\nmost insidious and fatal of social diseases.... If I let myself believe\nanything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by\nthe mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion\nto exhibit it in outward acts. _But I cannot help doing this great wrong\ntoward Man, that I make myself credulous_. The danger to society is not\nmerely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough;\nbut that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing\nthings and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into\nsavagery.\n\n\"The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the\nfostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support\nof false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to\nhabitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me.\nMen speak the truth to one another when each reveres the truth in his\nown mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the\ntruth in my mind when I myself am careless about it, when I believe\nthings because I want to believe them, and because they are comforting\nand pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, 'Peace,' to me, when there is no\npeace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere\nof falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little\nto me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it\nmatters much to Man that I have made my neighbors ready to deceive. The\ncredulous man is father to the liar....\n\n\"We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false\nbeliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to; and the\nevil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But\na greater and wider evil arises when the _credulous character_ is\nmaintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons\nis fostered and made permanent....\n\n\"The fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives\nus the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and\npleasant to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it\nis true....\n\n\"And the question which our conscience is always asking about that which\nwe are tempted to believe is not, 'Is it comfortable and pleasant?' but,\n'Is it true?'\"\n\nThe sooner moral actions and the necessity of clean, helpful, and\ncharitable living are put upon a basis more solid and permanent than\ntheology the better will it be for civilization; and if this chapter\nshall, by its light style, attract the attention of those who are too\nbusy, or are disinclined for any reason whatsoever, to collect from\nmore profound works the facts here given, I shall be satisfied with the\nresult, because I shall have done something toward the triumph of fact\nover fiction.\n\nWe cannot repeat too often nor emphasize too strongly this one simple\nfact, that we need all our energy and time to make _this_ world fit\nto live in; to make _homes_ where mothers are happy and children are\nglad--homes where fathers hasten when their work is done, and are\nwelcomed with a shout of joy.\n\n\n                    The toilers who wend up the hillside,\n                    The toilers below in the mill\n                    Alike are the victims of priestcraft,\n                    They \"do but the _Master's_ will.\"\n\n                    The _Master's_ will! ah the cunning,\n                    The bitterly cruel device,\n                    To wring from the lowly and burdened\n                    Submission at any price!\n\n                    Submission to tyrants in Russia--\n                    Submission to tyrants in Rome;\n                    The throne and the altar have ever\n                    Combined to despoil the home,\n\n                    But the home is the heaven to live for,\n                    And Love is the God sublime\n                    Who paints in tints of glory,\n                    Upon the wings of Time\n\n                    This legend, grand and simple,\n                    And true as eternal Right--\n                    \"No Justice e'er came from Jury,\n                    Whose verdict was based on might!\"\n\n                    As high above earth as is heaven;\n                    As high as the stars above\n                    The Church, the chapel, the altar;\n                    Is the home whose God is Love.\n\n\n*****\n\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\n\n\nAppendix A.\n\n1. \"For a species increases or decreases in numbers, widens or contracts\nits habitat, migrates or remains stationary, _continues an old mode\nof life or falls into a new one_, under the combined influence of its\nintrinsic nature _and the environing_ actions, inorganic and organic.\n\n\"Beginning with the extrinsic factors, we see that from the outset\nseveral kinds of them are variously operative. They need but barely\nennumerating. We have climate, hot, cold, or temperate, moist or dry,\nconstant or variable. We have surface, much or little of which is\navailable, and the available part of which is fertile in greater or\nless degree; and we have configuration of surface, as uniform or\nmultiform.... _On these sets of conditions, inorganic and organic,\ncharacterizing the environment, primarily depends the possibility of\nsocial evolution_.\"--Spencer, \"Principles of Sociology,\" vol. 1, p. 10.\n\n2. \"These considerations clearly prove that of the _two primary causes\nof civilization, the fertility of the soil_ is the one which in the\nancient world exercised most influence. But in European civilization,\n_the other great cause_, that is to say, _climate_, has been the most\npowerful.\n\n\"Owing to circumstances which I shall presently state, the only progress\nwhich is really effective depends, not upon the bounty of nature, but\nupon the _energy of man_. Therefore it is, that the civilization of\nEurope, which, in its earliest stage, was governed by _climate_, has\nshown a capacity of development unknown to those civilizations which\nwere originated by _soil_.\"--Buckle, \"History of Civilization,\" vol. 1,\np. 36--37.*\n\n     * I wish to state here that I had never read the above from\n     Buckle, nor had I seen anywhere a statement so like my own,\n     at the time mine was written. I read this for the first time\n     while reading the proofs of this chapter.   So much for what\n     may appear plagiarism.--H. H. Q,\n\n\n\n\nAppendix B.\n\n1. \"Napoleon himself was indifferent to Christianity, but he saw that\nthe clergy were friends of despotism.\"--Buckle.\n\n2. \"Thus it is that a careful survey of history will prove that the\nReformation made the most progress not in those countries where the\npeople were most enlightened, but in those countries where, from\npolitical causes, the clergy were least able to withstand the\npeople.\"--Buckle.\n\n3. \"Christian civilization in the twentieth century of its existence,\ndegrades its women to labor fit only for beasts of the field; harnessing\nthem with dogs to do the most menial labors; it drags them below even\nthis, holding their womanhood up to sale, _putting both Church and State\nsanction_ upon their moral death; which, in some places, as in the city\nof Berlin, so far recognizes the sale of women's bodies for the vilest\npurposes _as part of the Christian religion, that license for this life\nis refused until they have partaken of the Sacrament_; and demands\nof the '10,000 licensed women of the town' of the city of Hamburg,\ncertificates showing that they regularly attend church and also partake\nof the sacrament.\"--Gage.\n\nEven a lower depth than this is reached in England, France, Italy,\nSwitzerland, and Germany, and nearly every country of Europe, says the\nsame writer, \"a system of morality which declares 'the necessity' of\nwoman's degradation, and annually sends tens of thousands down to a\ndeath from which society grants no resurrection.\"--Gage.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix C.\n\n1. \"Sappho flourished b. c. 600, and a little later; and so highly did\nPlato value her intellectual, as well as her imaginative endowments,\nthat he assigned her the honors of sage as well as poet; and familiarly\nentitled her the 'tenth muse'\"--Buckle,\n\n2. \"Wilkinson says among _no_ ancient people had women such influence\nand liberty as among the ancient Egyptians.\"--Buckle.\n\n3. \"The Americans have in the treatment of women fallen below, not only\ntheir own democratic principles, but the practice of some parts of the\nOld World.\"--Harriet Martineau.\n\n4. \"Mr. F. Newman denies that Christianity has improved the position of\nwomen; and he observes that, 'with Paul, the _sole_ reason for marriage\nis, that a man may, without sin, vent his sensual desires. He teaches\nthat, _but_ for this object, it would be better not to marry;' and he\ntakes no notice of the _social_ pleasures of marriage. Newman says: 'In\nshort, only in countries where Germanic sentiment has taken root do we\nsee marks of any elevation of the female sex superior to that of Pagan\nantiquity.'\"--Buckle.\n\n5. \"Female voices are never heard in the Russian churches; their\nplace is supplied by boys; women do not yet stand high enough in the\nestimation of the churches.... to be permitted to sing the praises of\nGod in the presence of men.\"--Kohl.\n\n6. \"Christianity diminished the influence of women.\"--Neander, \"Hist, of\nthe Church.\"\n\n\n\n\nAppendix D.\n\nWithin the reign of the present sovereign Mrs. Gage tells us of a young\ngirl being ordered by the Petty Sessions Bench back to the \"service\" of\na landlord, from whom she had run away because such service meant the\nsacrifice of her honor. She refused to go _and was put in jail_.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix E.\n\n1. \"Women were taught by the Church and State alike, that the Feudal\nLord or Seigneur had a right to them, not only against themselves, but\nas against any claim of husband or father. The law known as _Marchetta_,\nor Marquette, compelled newly-married women to a most dishonorable\nservitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord\nfrom one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom, the\noldest son of the serf was held as the son of the lord, 'as perchance\nit was he who begat him.' From this nefarious degradation of woman, the\ncustom of Borough-English arose, in which the youngest son became the\nheir.... France, Germany, Prussia, England, Scotland, _and all\nChristian countries_ where feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of\nMarquette. The lord deemed this right as fully his as he did the claim\nto half the crops of the land, or to half the wool of the sheep. More\nthan one reign of terror arose in France from the enforcement of this\nlaw, and the uprisings of the peasantry over Europe during the _twelfth\ncentury_, and the fierce Jacquerie, or Peasant Wars, of the _fourteenth\ncentury_ in France owed their origin, among other causes, to the\nenforcement of these claims by the lords upon the newly-married wife.\nThe edicts of Marly transplanted that claim to America when Canada was\nunder the control of France. To persons not conversant with the history\nof feudalism, and of the Church for the first fifteen hundred years of\nits existence, it will seem impossible that such foulness could ever\nhave been part of Christian civilization. That the crimes they have been\ntrained to consider the worst forms of heathendom could have existed\nin Christian Europe, _upheld by both Church and State_ for more than a\nthousand five hundred years, will strike most people with incredulity.\nSuch, however, is the truth; we can but admit well-attested facts of\nhistory, how severe a blow soever they strike our preconceived beliefs.\n\n\"Marquette was claimed by the Lords Spiritual,* as well as by the\nLords Temporal. _The Church indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal\nclaim_. With the power of penance and excommunication in its grasp,\nthis demand could neither have originated nor been sustained unless\nsanctioned by the Church.... These customs of feudalism were the customs\nof Christianity during many centuries. (One of the Earls of Crawford,\nknown as the 'Earl Brant,' in the _sixteenth_ century, was probably\namong the last who openly claimed by right the literal translation of\n_droit de Jambage_.) These infamous outrages upon woman were enforced\nunder Christian law by both Church and State.\n\n     * \"In days to come people will be slow to believe that the\n     law among _Christian nations went beyond anything decreed_\n     concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an\n     actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound\n     _man's_ heart. The Lords Spiritual (clergy) had this right\n     no less than the Lords Temporal. The _parson_, being a lord,\n     _expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was\n     willing to sell_ his right to the husband. The Courts of\n     Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally.\"--\n     Michelet, \"La Sorcerie,\" p.62\n\n\"The degradation of the _husband_ at this infringement of the lord\nspiritual and temporal upon his marital right, has been pictured by many\nwriters, but history has been quite silent upon the despair and shame\nof the wife. No hope appeared for woman anywhere. The Church....\ndragged her to the lowest depths, through the vileness of its priestly\ncustoms.... We who talk of the burning of wives upon the funeral pyres\nof husbands in India, may well turn our eyes to the records of Christian\ncountries.\"--Matilda Joslyn Gage in \"Woman, Church, and State.\"\n\n2. From this point Mrs. Gage calls attention to the various efforts to\nthrow off this degrading custom. The women held meetings at night, and\namong other things travestied the celebration of Mass and other Church\ncustoms; but the end and aim of these meetings being a protest and\nrebellion against Marquette, the clergy called those who took part in\nthem \"witches;\"* and then and there began the persecution which the\nChurch carried on against women under this disguise (under Catholic and\nProtestant rule alike), which extended down to the latter part of the\nlast century, with its list of horrors and indignities extending over\nall Christian countries and blossoming in all their vigor in our\nown eastern States, upheld by Luther, John Wesley, and Baxter, who\nunfortunately had not at that time entered into the everlasting rest\nof the Saints. And, true to these noble and wise leaders, the Churches\nwhich they founded are to-day expressing the same sentiments (in\nprinciple) in regard to the honor and dignity and position of woman.\nThe arguments of the Rev. Dr. Craven, the prosecutor in the famous\nPresbyterian trial of 1876, which are given by Mrs. Gage, together with\nnumerous other similar ones, fully establish the fact that woman is to\nthe Church what she always was--_so far as secular law will permit._ And\nnumerous instances (such as the Buckley exhibition at the last Methodist\nConference, in which he was sustained by the Conference) prove that they\nhave learned nothing since 1876.\n\n     * \"There are few superstitions which have been so universal\n     as a belief in witchcraft. The severe theology of paganism\n     despised the wretched superstition, which has been greedily\n     believed by millions of Christians.\"--Buckle.\n\n3. I wish I might copy here the sermon to women which the Rev.\nKnox-Little, the well-known High-Church clergyman of England, preached\nwhen in this country in 1880, in which he said, \"There is no crime which\na man can commit which justifies his wife in leaving him. It is her duty\nto subject herself to him always, and no crime that he can commit can\njustify her lack of obedience.\" Although a little balder in statement\nthan are most utterances of orthodox clergymen in this age, yet in\nsentiment and in the reason given for it the echo of \"Amen\" comes from\nevery pulpit where a believer in original sin, vicarious atonement,\nor the inspiration of the Bible has a representative and a voice. If\nself-respect or honor is ever to be the lot of woman, it will not be\nuntil her foot is on the neck of orthodoxy, and when the Bible ranks\nwhere it belongs in the field of literature.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix F.\n\n1. \"The French government, about the middle of the eighteenth century,\nseems to have reached the maturity of its wickedness, allowing if not\ninstigating religious persecutions of so infamous a nature that they\nwould not be believed if they were not attested by documents of the\ncourts in which the sentences were passed.\"--Buckle.\n\n2. Of Louis XV., the eminently Christian king of France, Buckle says:\n\"His harem cost more than 100,000,000 francs, and was composed of\n_little girls_. He was constantly drunk,\" and \"turned out his own\nillegitimate children to prostitute themselves.\"\n\n3. \"It will hardly be believed that, when sulphuric ether was first\nused to lessen the pains of childbirth, it was objected to as 'a profane\nattempt to abrogate the primeval curse pronounced upon woman....' The\ninjury which the theological principle has done to the world is immense.\nIt has prevented men from studying the laws of nature.\"--Buckle.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix G.\n\n1. \"The narrow range of their sympathies [the clergy's], and the\nintellectual servitude they have accepted, render them _peculiarly\nunfitted_ for the office of educating the young, which they so\npersistently claim, and which, _to the great misfortune of the world_,\nthey were long permitted to monopolize.... The almost complete omission\nfrom female education of those studies which most discipline and\nstrengthen the intellect, increases the difference, while at the\nsame time it has been usually made a main object to imbue them with a\npassionate faith in traditional opinions, and to preserve them from\nall contact with opposing views. But contracted knowledge and imperfect\nsympathy are not the sole fruits of this education. It has always been\nthe peculiarity of a certain kind of theological teaching, that it\n-inverts all the normal principles of judgment and absolutely destroys\nintellectual diffidence. On other subjects we find if not a respect for\nhonest conviction, at least some sense of the amount of knowledge\nthat is requisite to entitle men to express an opinion on grave\ncontroversies. A complete ignorance of the subject-matter of a dispute\nrestrains the confidence of dogmatism; and an ignorant person who is\naware that, by much reading and thinking in spheres of which he has\nhimself no knowledge, his educated neighbor has modified or rejected\nopinions which that ignorant person had been taught, will, at least\nif he is a man of sense or modesty, abstain from compassionating the\nbenighted condition of his more instructed friend. But on theological\nquestions this has never been so.\n\n\"Unfaltering belief being taught as the first of duties, and all doubt\nbeing usually stigmatized as criminal or damnable, a state of mind is\nformed to which we find no parallel in other fields. Many men and most\nwomen, though completely ignorant of the very rudiments of biblical\ncriticism, historical research, or scientific discoveries, though they\nhave never read a single page, or Understood a single proposition of\nthe writings of those whom they condemn, and have absolutely no rational\nknowledge either of the arguments by which their faith is defended, or\nof those by which it has been impugned, will nevertheless adjudicate\nwith the utmost confidence upon every polemical question, denounce,\nhate, pity, or pray for the conversion of all who dissent from what they\nhave been taught, assume, as a matter beyond the faintest possibility\nof doubt, that the opinions they have received without inquiry must be\ntrue, and that the opinions which others have arrived at by inquiry must\nbe false, and make it a main object of their lives to assail what they\ncall heresy in every way in their power, except by examining the grounds\non which it rests. It is possible that the great majority of voices that\nswell the clamor against every book which is regarded as heretical, are\nthe voices of those who would deem it criminal even to open that book,\nor to enter into any real, searching, and impartial investigation of the\nsubject to which it relates. Innumerable pulpits support this tone of\nthought, and represent, with a fervid rhetoric _well fitted to excite\nthe nerves and imaginations of women_, the deplorable condition of\nall who deviate from a certain type of opinions or emotions; a blind\npropagandism or a secret wretchedness penetrates into countless\nhouseholds, poisoning the peace of families, chilling the mental\nconfidence of husband and wife, _adding immeasurably to the difficulties\nwhich every searcher into truth has to encounter, and diffusing far and\nwide intellectual timidity, disingenuousness, and hypocrisy_.\"--Lecky.\n\n2. \"The clergy, with a few honorable exceptions, have in all modern\ncountries been the avowed enemies of the diffusion of knowledge, the\ndanger of which to their own profession they, by a certain instinct,\nseem always to have perceived.\"--Buckle.\n\n3. \"In the fourth century there arose monachism, and in, the sixth\ncentury the Christians succeeded in cutting off the last ray of\nknowledge, and shutting up the schools of Greece. Then followed a long\nperiod of theology, ignorance, and vice.\"--Puckle.\n\n4. \"Contempt for human sciences was one of the first features of\nChristianity. It had to avenge itself of the outrages of philosophy; it\nfeared that spirit of investigation and doubt, that confidence of man in\nhis own reason, the pest alike of all religious creeds. The light of\nthe natural sciences was ever odious to it, and was ever regarded with a\nsuspicious eye, as being a _dangerous enemy to the success of miracles_;\nand there is no religion that does not oblige its sectaries to follow\nsome physical absurdities. _The triumph of Christianity was thus\nthe final signal of the entire decline both of the sciences and of\nphilosophy_.\"--\"Progress of the Human Mind,\" _Condorcet_.\n\n\"Accordingly it ought not to astonish us that Christianity, _though\nunable in the sequel to prevent their reappearance in splendor after\nthe invention of printing_, was at this period sufficiently powerful to\naccomplish their ruin.\"--Ibid.\n\n\"In the disastrous epoch at which we are now arrived, we shall see the\nhuman mind _rapidly descending from the height to which it had\nraised itself_... Everywhere was corruption, cruelty, and perfidy....\nTheological reveries, superstitions, delusions, are become the sole\ngenius of man, religious _intolerance his only morality_; and Europe,\ncrushed between sacerdotal tyranny and military despotism, awaits in\nblood and in tears the moment when the _revival of light shall restore\nit to liberty, to humanity, and to virtue_.... The priests held human\nlearning in contempt.... Fanatic armies laid waste the provinces.\nExecutioners, _under the guidance of legates and priests_, put to\ndeath those whom the soldiers had spared. _A tribunal of monks was\nestablished, with power of condemning to the stake whoever should be\nsuspected of making use of his reason_.... All sects, all governments,\nevery species of authority, inimical as they were to each other in\nevery point else, seemed to be of accord in granting no quarter to the\nexercise of reason.... Meanwhile education, being everywhere subjected\n[to the clergy], had corrupted everywhere the general understanding,\nby _clogging the reason of children with the weight of the religious\nprejudices of their country_... In the eighth century an ignorant pope\nhad persecuted a deacon for contending that the earth was round,\nin opposition to the opinion of the rhetorical Saint Austin. In the\nfifteenth, the ignorance of another pope, much more inexcusable,\ndelivered Galileo into the hands of the inquisition, _accused of having\nproved the diurnal and annual motion of the earth_. The greatest genius\nthat modern Italy has given to the sciences, overwhelmed with age and\ninfirmities, was obliged to purchase his release from punishment and\nfrom prison, by asking pardon of God for having taught men better to\nunderstand his works.\"--Ibid.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix H.\n\n1. Fenelon, a celebrated French clergyman and writer of the seventeenth\ncentury, discouraged the acquisition of knowledge by women.--See\nHallam's \"Lit. of Europe.\"\n\n2. \"Perhaps it is to the spirit of Puritanism that we owe the\nlittle influence of women, and the consequent inferiority of their\neducation.\"--Buckle.\n\n3. \"In England (1840) a distrust and contempt for reason prevails\namongst religious circles to a wide extent; many Christians think it\nalmost a matter of duty to decry the human faculties as poor, mean,\nand almost worthless; and thus seek to exalt piety at the expense of\nintelligence.\"--Morell's \"Hist. of Speculative Phil.\"\n\n4. \"That women are more deductive than men, because they think quicker\nthan men, is a proposition which some people will not relish, and yet\nit may be proved in a variety of ways. Indeed nothing could prevent its\nbeing universally admitted except the fact that the remarkable rapidity\nwith which women think is obscured by that miserable, that contemptible,\nthat preposterous system, called their education, in which valuable\nthings are carefully kept from them, and trifling things carefully\ntaught to them, until their fine and nimble minds are too often\nirretrievably injured.\"--Buckle.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix I.\n\n1. \"The Roman [Pagan] religion was essentially domestic, and it was\na main object of the legislator to surround marriage with every\ncircumstance of dignity and solemnity. _Monogamy was, from the earliest\ntimes, strictly enjoined_, and it was one of the great benefits that\nhave resulted from the expansion of Roman power, _that it made this type\ndominant in Europe_. In the legends of early Rome we have ample evidence\nboth of the high moral estimate of women, and of their prominence in\nRoman life. The tragedies of Lucretia and of Virginia display a delicacy\nof honor, a sense of the supreme excellence of unsullied purity, which\nno Christian nation could surpass.\"--Lecky, \"European Morals,\" Vol. 1,\np. 316.\n\n2. \"Marriage [under Christian rule] was viewed in its coarsest and most\ndegraded form. The notion of its impurity took many forms, and\nexercised _for some centuries_ an extremely wide influence over the\nChurch.\"--Ibid., p. 343.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix J.\n\n1. \"We are continually told that civilization and Christianity have\nrestored to the woman her just rights. Meanwhile the wife is the actual\nbond-servant of her husband; no less so, as far as legal obligation\ngoes, than slaves commonly so called. She vows a lifelong obedience\nto him at the altar, and is held to it all through her life by law.\nCasuists may say that the obligation of obedience stops short of\nparticipation in crime, but it certainly extends to everything else. She\ncan do no act whatever but by his permission, at least tacit. She can\nacquire no property but _for him_; the instant it becomes hers, even if\nby inheritance, it becomes _ipso facto_ his. In this respect the wife's\nposition under the common law of England is worse than that of slaves\nin the laws of many countries; by the _Roman_ law, for example, a slave\nmight have _peculium_, which, to a certain extent, the law guaranteed\nhim for his exclusive use.\"--Mill.\n\n2. Speaking of self-worship which leads to brutality toward others, Mill\nsays: \"Christianity will never practically teach it\" (the equality of\nhuman beings) \"while it sanctions institutions grounded on an arbitrary\npreference for one human being over another.\"\n\n\"The morality of the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to\npower; that of the ages next following, on the right of the weak to the\nforbearance and protection of the strong. How much longer is one form of\nsociety and life to content itself with the morality made for another?\nWe have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry\nand generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice.\"\n--Ibid.\n\n\"Institutions, books, education, society all go on training human beings\nfor the old, long after the new has come; much more when it is only\ncoming.\"--Ibid.\n\n\"There have been abundance of people, in all ages of Christianity, who\ntried... to convert us into a sort of Christian Mussulmans, with the\nBible for a Koran, prohibiting all improvement; and great has been their\npower, and many have had to sacrifice their lives in resisting them. But\nthey have been resisted, _and the resistance has made us what we are,\nand will yet make us what we are to be_.\"--Ibid.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix K\n\n\"In this tendency [to depreciate extremely the character and position\nof women] we may detect in part the influence of the earlier Jewish\nwritings, in which it is probable that most impartial observers will\ndetect evident traces of the common oriental depreciation of women.\nThe custom of money-purchase to the father of the bride was admitted.\nPolygamy was authorized, and practised by the wisest men on an enormous\nscale. A woman was regarded as the origin of human ills. A period of\npurification was appointed after the birth of every child; but, _by a\nvery significant provision, it was twice as long in the case of a female\nas of a male child_ (Levit. xii. 1-5). _The badness of men_, a Jewish\nwriter emphatically declared, _is better than the goodness of women_\n(Ecclesiasticus xlii. 14). The types of female excellence exhibited in\nthe early period of Jewish history are in general _of a low order, and\ncertainly far inferior_ to those of Roman history or Greek poetry; and\n_the warmest eulogy of a woman in the Old Testament is probably\nthat which was bestowed upon her who, with circumstances of the most\nexaggerated treachery, had murdered the sleeping fugitive who had taken\nrefuge under her roof,_\"--Lecky, \"European Morals,\" vol 1, p. 357.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix L.\n\n1. \"Mr. F. Newman, who looks on toleration as the result of intellectual\nprogress, says: 'Nevertheless, not only does the Old Testament justify\nbloody persecution, but the New teaches that God will visit men with\nfiery vengeance _for holding an erroneous creed_.\"--Buckle.\n\n2. \"The first great consequence of the decline of priestly influence was\nthe rise of toleration.... I suspect that the _impolicy_ of persecution\nwas perceived before its wickedness. \"--Ibid.\n\n3. \"While a multitude of scientific discoveries, critical and historical\nresearches, and educational reforms have brought thinking men face to\nface with religious problems of extreme importance, _women have been\nalmost absolutely excluded from their influence_.\"--Lechy.\n\n4. \"The domestic unhappiness arising from difference of belief\nwas probably almost or altogether unknown in the world before the\nintroduction of Christianity.... _The deep, and widening chasm between\nthe religious opinions of most highly educated men, and of the immense\nmajority of women is painfully apparent_. Whenever any strong religious\nfervor fell upon a husband or a wife, its first effect was to make a\nhappy union impossible.\"--Ibid.\n\n5. \"The combined influence of the Jewish writings [Old Testament] and\nof that ascetic feeling which treated woman as the chief source of\ntemptation to man, caused her degradation.... In the writings of the\nFathers, woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of\nall human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is\na woman. She should live in continual penance, _on account of the curse\nshe has brought into the world_. She should be ashamed of her dress,\n_and especially ashamed of her beauty_.\"--Ibid.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix M.\n\n1. \"The writers of the Middle Ages are full of accounts of nunneries\nthat were like brothels.... The inveterate prevalence of incest among\nthe clergy rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most\nstringent enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with\ntheir _mothers or sisters_.... An Italian bishop of the tenth century\nenigmatically described the morals of his time, when he declared,\nthat if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste people\nadministering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the Church\nexcept the boys.\"--Lecky.\n\n2. In the middle of the sixteenth century ''the majority of the clergy\nwere nearly illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low\nvices.--Hallam, \"Const. Hist, of Eng.\"\n\n3. \"The clergy have ruined Italy.\"--Brougham, \"Pol. Phil.\"\n\n4. \"It was a significant prudence of many of the lay Catholics, who were\naccustomed to insist that their priests should take a concubine _for\nthe protection of the families of the parishioners_.... It can hardly be\nquestioned that the extreme frequency of illicit connections among the\nclergy _tended during many centuries most actively to lower the\nmoral tone of the laity_.... An impure chastity was fostered, which\ncontinually looked upon marriage in its coarsest light.... Another\ninjurious consequence, resulting, in a great measure, from asceticism,\nwas a tendency to depreciate extremely the character and the position of\nwoman.\"--Lecky.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix N.\n\n1. \"The great and main duty which a wife, as a wife, ought to learn,\nand so learn as to practise it, is to be subject to her own husband....\nThere is not any husband to whom this honor of submission is not due; no\npersonal infirmity, frowardness of nature; no, not even on the point of\nreligion, doth deprive him of it.\"--Fergusson on \"the Epistles.\"\n\n2. \"The sum of a wife's duty unto her husband is subjection.\n\"--Abernethy.\n\n3. \"We shall be told, perhaps, that religion imposes the duty of\nobedience [upon wives]; as every established fact _which is too bad to\nadmit of any other defense, is always presented to us as an\ninjunction of religion. The Church, it is true, enjoins it in her\nformularies_.\"--Mill.\n\n\"The principle of the modern movement in morals and in politics, is that\nconduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what men are,\nbut what they do constitutes their claim to deference; that, above\nall, _merit and not birth is the only rightful claim to power and\nauthority_.\"--Ibid.\n\n\"Taking the care of people's lives out of their own hands, and relieving\nthem from the consequences of their own acts, _saps the very foundation_\nof the self-respect and self-control which are the essential conditions\nboth of individual prosperity and of social virtue.\"--Ibid.\n\n\"Inferior classes of men always, at heart, feel disrespect toward those\nwho are subject to their power.\"--Ibid.\n\n4. \"Among those causes of human improvement that are of most importance\nto the general welfare, must be included the total annihilation of the\nprejudices which have established between the sexes an inequality of\nright, _fatal even to the party which it favors_. In vain might we\nseek for motives to justify the principle, in difference of physical\norganization, of intellect, or of moral sensibility. It had at first\nno other origin but abuse of strength, _and all the attempts which have\nsince been made to support it_ are idle sophisms.\"--\"Progress of the\nHuman Mind,\" _Condorcet_.\n\n5. Notwithstanding the work of such men as the Encyclopedists of France\nand other liberal thinkers for the proper recognition of women, the\nChurch had held her grip so tight that upon the passage of the bill,\nas late as 1848, giving to married women the right to own their own\nproperty, the most doleful prophesies went up as to the just retribution\nthat would fall upon women for their wicked insubordination, and upon\nthe men who had defied divine commands so far as to pass such a law. A\nrecent writer tells us that Wm. A. Stokes, in talking to a lady whom he\nblamed for its passage, said: \"We hold you responsible for that law,\nand I tell you now you will live to rue the day when you opened such a\nPandora's box in your native State, and cast such an apple of discord\ninto every family of the State.\"\n\nAnd the sermons that were preached against it--the prophecies of deacon\nand preacher--were so numerous, so denunciatory, and so violent that\nthey form a queer and interesting chapter in the history of the attitude\nof the Church toward women, and illustrate, in our own time, how\npersistent it has been in its efforts to prevent woman from sharing in\nthe benefits of the higher civilization of the nineteenth century.\n\nBut fortunately for women, Infidels are more numerous than they ever\nwere before, and the power of the Church is dying of dry rot, or as Col.\nIngersoll wittily says, of the combined influence of softening of the\nbrain and ossification of the heart.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix O.\n\n\"St. Gregory the Great describes the virtue of a priest, _who through\nmotives of piety had discarded his wife_... Their wives, in _immense\nnumbers_, were driven forth with hatred and with scorn... Pope Urban II.\n_gave license_ to the nobles _to reduce to slavery the wives_ of priests\nwho refused to abandon them.\"--Lecky.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix P.\n\n1. \"Hallam denies that respect for women is due to Christianity.\n\"--Buckle.\n\n2. \"In England, wives are still occasionally led to the market by\na halter around the neck to be sold by the husband to the highest\nbidder.\"--Ibid.\n\n\"The sale of a wife with a halter around her neck is still a legal\ntransaction in England. The sale must be made in the cattle market, as\nif she were a mare, all women being considered as mares by old English\nlaw, and indeed _called_ 'mares' in certain counties where genuine old\nEnglish law is still preserved.\"--Borrow.\n\n3. \"Contempt for woman, _the result of clerical teaching_, is shown in\nmyriad forms.\"--Gage.\n\n4. \"The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself,\n_and is now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement_.\"--John\nStuart Mill.\n\n5. \"I have no relish for a community of goods resting on the doctrine,\nthat what is mine is yours, but what is yours is not mine; and I should\nprefer to decline entering into such a compact with anyone, _though I\nwere myself_ the person to profit by it.\"--Ibid.\n\nIt will take a long time for that sort of morality to filter into the\nskull of the Church, and when it does the skull will burst.\n\n6. \"Certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes invented, in\norder to intimidate the masses. Hence the Church made free thought the\nworst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of blasphemies.... As\nlate as the time of Bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit\nwas obedience to the temporal power.... All these influences fell with\ncrushing weight on woman.\"--_Matilda Joslyn Gage_ in \"Hist. Woman\nSuffrage.\"\n\n7. \"Taught that education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she\nhas been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition,\nand to glory in her own degradation... Such was the prejudice against a\nliberal education for woman, that the first public examination of a girl\nin geometry (1829) created as bitter a storm of ridicule as has since\nassailed women who have entered the law, the pulpit, or the medical\nprofession.\"--Ibid.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix Q.\n\n1. \"The five writers to whose genius we owe the first attempt at\ncomprehensive views of history were Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, Voltaire,\nHume, and Gibbon. Of these the second was but a cold believer in\nChristianity, if, indeed, he believed in it at all; and the other four\nwere avowed and notorious infidels.\"--Buckle.\n\n2 \"Here, then, we have the starting-point of progress--_scepticism_....\nAll, therefore, that men want is _no hindrance_ from their political and\nreligious rulers.... Until common minds doubt respecting religion they\ncan never receive any new scientific conclusion at variance with it--as\nJoshua and Copernicus.\"--Ibid.\n\n3. \"The immortal work of Gibbon, of which the sagacity is, if possible,\nequal to the learning, did find readers, but the illustrious author\nwas so cruelly reviled by men who called themselves Christians, that\nit seemed doubtful if, after such an example, subsequent writers would\nhazard their comfort and happiness by attempting to write philosophic\nhistory. Middleton wrote in 1750.... As long as the theological spirit\nwas alive nothing could be effected.\"--Ibid.\n\n4. \"The questions which presented themselves to the acuter minds of a\nhundred years ago were present to the acuter minds who lived hundreds\nof years before that.... But the Church had known how to deal with\nintellectual insurgents, from Abelard in the twelfth century down to\nBruno and Vanini in the seventeenth. They were isolated, and for the\nmost part submissive; and _if they were not_, the arm of the Church was\nvery long and her grasp mortal.... They [the thinkers] could have taught\nEurope _earlier than the Church allowed it to learn_, that the sun does\nnot go round the earth, and that it is the earth which goes round the\nsun.... After the middle of the last century the insurrection against\nthe pretensions of the Church and against the doctrines of Christianity\nwas marked in one of its most important phases by a new, and most\nsignificant, feature.... It was an advance both in knowledge and\nin moral motive.... The philosophical movement was represented by\n\"Diderot\" [leading the Encyclopaedist circle.]... Broadly stated the\ngreat central moral of it was this: that human nature is good, that the\nworld is capable of being made a desirable abiding-place, and that the\nevil of the world _is the fruit of bad education and bad institutions_.\nThis cheerful doctrine now strikes on the ear as a commonplace and a\ntruism. A hundred years ago in France it was a wonderful gospel, _and\nthe beginning of a new dispensation.... Into what fresh and unwelcome\nsunlight it brought the articles of the old theology... Every social\nimprovement since has been the outcome of that new doctrine in one form\nor another_.... The teaching of the Church paints men as fallen and\ndepraved. The deadly chagrin with which churchmen saw the new fabric\nrising was very natural.... The new secular knowledge clashed at\na thousand points, alike in letter and spirit, with the old sacred\nlore.... A hundred years ago this perception was vague and indefinite,\nbut there was an unmistakable apprehension that _the Catholic ideal\nof womanhood_ was no more adequate to the facts of life, than Catholic\nviews about science, or popery, or labor, or political order and\nauthority.\"--Morley.\n\nAnd it took the rising infidels to discover the fact. See Morley,\n\"Diderot,\" p. 76.\n\n\"The greatest fact in the intellectual history of the eighteenth century\nis the decisive revolution that overtook the sustaining conviction of\nthe Church. The central conception, that the universe was called into\nexistence only to further its Creator's purpose toward man, became\nincredible (by the light of the new thought). What seems to careless\nobservers a mere metaphysical dispute was in truth, _and still is, the\ndecisive quarter of the great battle between theology and a philosophy\nreconcilable with science_.\"--Morley.\n\n\"The man _who ventured to use his mind_ [Diderot] was thrown into the\ndungeon at Vincennes.\"--Ibid.\n\n5. \"Those thinkers [Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot] taught men to\nreason; reasoning well leads to acting well; justness in the mind\nbecomes justice in the heart. Those toilers for progress labored\nusefully.... The French Revolution was their soul. It was their radiant\nmanifestation. It came from them; we find them everywhere in that blest\nand superb catastrophe, which formed the conclusion of the past and the\nopening of the future.... The new society, the desire for equality\nand concession, and that beginning of fraternity which called itself\ntolerance, reciprocal good-will, the just accord of men and rights,\nreason recognized as the supreme law, the annihilation of prejudices and\nfixed opinions, the serenity of souls, the spirit of indulgence and of\npardon, harmony, peace--behold what has come from them!\"--Victor Hugo,\n\"Oration on Voltaire.\"\n\n\n\n\nAppendix R.\n\n\"He [Mohammed] promulgated a mass of fables, which he pretended to\nhave received from heaven.... After enjoying for _twenty years_ a\npower without bounds, and _of which there exists no other example_, he\nannounced publicly, that, if he had committed any act of injustice,\nhe was ready to make reparation. All were silent.... He died; and the\nenthusiasm which he communicated to his people will be seen to change\nthe face of three-quarters of the globe.... I shall add that the\nreligion of Mohammed is the most simple in its dogmas, the least\nabsurd in its practices, above all others tolerant in its\nprinciples.\"--_Condorcet_.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix S.\n\nThe claim is so often and so boldly made that Infidelity produces crime,\nand that Christianity, or belief, or faith, makes people good, that the\nfollowing statistics usually produce a rather chilly sensation in the\nbeliever when presented in the midst of an argument based upon the above\nmentioned claim. I have used it with effect. The person upon whom it\nis used will never offer that argument to you again. The following\nstatistics were taken from the British Parliamentary reports, made on\nthe instance of Sir John Trelawney, in 1873:\n\nENGLAND AND WALES.\n\nCriminals in England and Wales in 1873.................... 146,146\n\n\nSECTARIAN AND INFIDEL POPULATION OF THE SAME.\n\nChurch of England...............................................\n6,933,935\n\nDissenters............................................................\n7,235,158\n\nCatholics..............................................................\n1,500,000\n\n\nJews....................................................................\n57,000\n\n\nInfidels................................................................\n7,000,000\n\n\nRELIGIOUS PERSUASIONS OF CRIMINALS OF THE SAME.\n\nChurch of England.............................................. 96,097\n\nCatholics..............................................................\n35,581\n\nDissenters............................................................\n10,648\n\nJews...................................................................\n256\n\n\nInfidels................................................................\n296\n\n\nCRIMINALS TO 100,000 POPULATION.\n\nCatholics..............................................................\n2,500\n\nChurch of England............................................... 1,400\n\nDissenters............................................................\n150\n\n\nInfidels................................................................\n5\n\n\nThese statistics are taken from the report of the British Parliament,\nwhich, for learning and intelligence, as a deliberative body, has not\nits superior, if it has its equal, in the world, and it is surely a\nsufficiently Christian body to be accepted as authority in this matter,\nsince a large number of its members are clergymen. These statistics\nhardly sustain the allegation that \"Infidelity is coupled with\nimpurity.\"\n\nWe are willing to stand upon our record. But, lest it be claimed that\nthis is a British peculiarity, allow me to defer to the patriotic\nsentiment of my readers by one other little set of tables which, while\nnot complete, is equally as suggestive.\n\n\"In sixty-six different prisons, jails, reformatories, refuges,\npenitentiaries, and lock-ups there were, for the years given in reports,\n41,335 men and boys, women and girls, of the following religious sects:\n\n\nCatholics..................................................................\n16,431\n\nChurch of England....................................................\n9,975\n\nEighteen other Protestant denominations.................... 14,811\n\n\nUniversalists.............................................................\n5\n\nJews, Chinese, and Mormons..................................... 110\n\nInfidels (two so-called, one avowed)............................ 3\n\n\n\"These included the prisons of Iowa, Michigan, Tennessee, New York,\nPennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and Canada.\"\n\nPresent these two tables to those who assure you that crime follows in\nthe wake of Infidelity, and you will have time to take a comfortable nap\nbefore your Christian friend returns to the attack or braces up after\nthe shock sustained by his sentiments and inflicted by these two small\nbut truly suggestive tables.\n\nOne cold fact like this will inoculate one of the faithful with more\nmodesty than an hour of usual argument based upon the assumptions of the\nclergy and the ignorance of his hearers.\n\nInfidels are not perfect. Many of them need reconstruction sadly, but\nthe above data seem to indicate that they compare rather favorably with\ntheir fellow-men in the matter of good citizenship.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix T.\n\n\"Moreover, as Goethe has already shown, the celebrated Mosaic moral\nprecepts, the so-called Ten Commandments, were _not_ upon the tables\nupon which Moses wrote the laws of the covenant which God made with his\npeople.\n\n\"Even the extraordinary diversity of the many religions diffused over\nthe surface of the earth suffices to show that they can stand in no\nnecessary connection with morals, as it is well known that wherever\ntolerably well-ordered political and social conditions exist, the moral\nprecepts in their essential principles are the same, whilst when such\nconditions are wanting, a wild and irregular confusion, or even an\nentire deficiency of moral notions is met with.* History also shows\nincontrovertibly that religion and morality have by no means gone hand\nin hand in strength and development, but that even contrariwise the\nmost religious times and countries have produced the greatest number\nof crimes and sins against the laws of morality, and indeed, as daily\nexperience teaches, still produce them. The history of nearly all\nreligions is filled with such horrible abominations, massacres, and\nboundless wickednesses of every kind that at the mere recollection of\nthem the heart of a philanthropist seems to stand still, and we turn\nwith disgust and horror from a mental aberration which could produce\nsuch deeds. If it is urged in vindication of religion that it has\nadvanced and elevated human civilization, even this merit appears very\ndoubtful in presence of the facts of history, and at least as very\nrarely or isolatedly the case. In general, however, it cannot be denied\nthat most systems of religion have proved rather inimical than friendly\nto civilization. For religion, as already stated, tolerates no doubt, no\ndiscussion, no contradiction, no investigations, those eternal pioneers\nof the future of science and intellect! Even the simple circumstance\nthat our present state of culture has already long since left far\nbehind it all and even the highest intellectual ideals established and\nelaborated by former religions may show how little intellectual progress\nis influenced by religion. Mankind is perpetually being thrown to and\nfro between science, and religion, but it advances moro intellectually,\nmorally and physically in proportion as it turns away from religion and\nto science.\n\n     * \"In China, where people are, as is well-known, very\n     indifferent or tolerant in religious matters, this fine\n     proverb is current: Religions are various, but reason is\n     one, and we are all brothers.'\"\n\n\"It is therefore clear that for our present age and for the future a\nfoundation must be sought and found for culture and morality, different\nfrom that which can be furnished to us by religion. It is not the fear\nof God that acts amelioratingly or ennoblingly upon manners, of which\nthe middle ages furnish us with a striking proof; but the ennobling of\nthe conception of the world in general which goes hand in hand with\nthe advance of civilization. Let us then give up making a show of the\nprofession of hypocritical words of faith, the only purpose of which\nseems to be that they may be continually shown to be lies by the actions\nand deeds of their professors! The man of the future will feel far more\nhappy and contented when he has not to contend at every step of his\nintellectual forward development with those tormenting contradictions\nbetween knowledge and faith which plague his youth, and occupy his\nmature age unnecessarily with the slow renunciation of the notions which\nhe imbibed in his youth. What we sacrifice to God, we take away from\nmankind, and absorb a great part of his best intellectual powers in\nthe pursuit of an unattainable goal. At any rate, the least that we can\nexpect in this respect from the state and society of the future is a\ncomplete separation between ecclesiastical and worldly affairs, or\nan absolute emancipation of the state and the school from every\necclesiastical influence.\n\n\"Education must be founded upon _knowledge_, not upon _faith_; and\nreligion itself should be taught in the public schools only as religious\nhistory and as an objective or scientific exposition of the different\nreligious systems prevailing among mankind. Any one who, after such an\neducation, still experiences the need of a definite law or rule of faith\nmay then attach himself to any religious sect that may seem good to him,\nbut cannot claim that the community should bear the cost of this special\nfancy!\n\n\"As regards Christianity, or the _Paulinism_ which is falsely called\nChristianity, it stands, by its dogmatic portion or contents, in such\nstriking and irreconcilable, nay absolutely absurd contradiction with\nall the acquisitions and principles of modern science that its future\ntragical fate can only be a question of time. But even its ethical\ncontents or its moral principles are in no way essentially distinguished\nabove those of other peoples, and were equally well and in part better\nknown to mankind even _before_ its appearance. Not only in this respect,\nbut also in its supposed character as the _world-religion_, it is\nexcelled by the much older and probably most widely diffused religious\nsystem in the world, the celebrated _Buddhism_, which recognizes\nneither the idea of a personal God, nor that of a personal duration,\nand nevertheless teaches an extremely pure, amiable, and even ascetic\nmorality. The doctrine of Zoroaster or Zarathrustra also, 1800 years\nB. C, taught the principles of humanity and toleration for those of\ndifferent modes of thinking in a manner and purity which were unknown\nto the Semitic religions and especially to Christianity. Christianity\noriginated and spread, as is well-known, at a time of general decline\nof manners, and of very great moral and national corruption; and its\nextraordinary success must be partly explained by the prevalence of a\nsort of intellectual and moral disease which had overpowered the\nspirits of men after the fall of the ancient civilization and under\nthe demoralizing influence of the gradual collapse of the great Roman\nempire. But even at that time those who stood intellectually high and\nlooked deeply into things recognized the whole danger of this new turn\nof mind, and it is very remarkable that the best and most benevolent of\nthe Roman emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius, Julian, etc., were the most\nzealous persecutors of Christianity, whilst it was tolerated by the\nbad ones, such as Commodus, Heliogabalus, etc. When it had gradually\nattained the superiority, one of its first sins against intellectual\nprogress consisted in the destruction by Christian fanaticism of the\ncelebrated Library of Alexandria, which contained all the intellectual\ntreasures of antiquity--an incalculable loss to science, which can never\nbe replaced. It is usually asserted in praise of Christianity that in\nthe middle ages the Christian monasteries were the preservers of science\nand literature, but even this is correct only in a very limited sense,\nsince boundless ignorance and rudeness generally prevailed in the\nmonasteries, and innumerable ecclesiastics could not even read. Valuable\nliterary treasures on parchment contained in the libraries of the\nmonasteries were destroyed, the monks when they wanted money selling the\nbooks as parchment, or tearing out the leaves and writing psalms upon\nthem. Frequently they entirely effaced the ancient classics, to make\nroom for their foolish legends and homilies; nay, the reading of the\nclassics, such as Aristotle for example, was directly forbidden by papal\ndecrees.\n\n\"In New Spain Christian fanaticism immediately destroyed whatever of\narts and civilization existed among the natives, and that this was not\ninconsiderable is shown by the numerous monuments now in ruins which\nplace beyond a doubt the former existence of a tolerably high degree of\nculture. But in the place of this not a trace of Christian civilization\nis now to be observed among the existing Indians, and the resident\nCatholic clergy keep the Indians purposely in a state of the greatest\nignorance and stupidity (see Richthofen, Die Zustande der Republic\nMexico, Berlin, 1854).\n\n\"Thus Christianity has always acted consistently in accordance with the\nprinciples of one of the fathers of the Church, Tertullian, who says:\n'_Desire of knowledge is no longer necessary since Jesus Christ, nor is\ninvestigation necessary since the Gospel._' If the civilization of the\nEuropean and especially of Christian Nations has notwithstanding made\nsuch enormous progress in the course of centuries, an unprejudiced\nconsideration of history can only tell us that this has taken place not\nby means of Christianity, but in spite of it. And this is a sufficient\nindication to what an extent this civilization must still be capable\nof development when once it shall be completely freed from the narrow\nbounds of old superstitious and religious embarrassments!\"\n\n\"We must therefore endeavor to form convictions which are not to stand\nonce and for all, as philosophers and theologians usually do, but such\nas may change and become improved with the advance of knowledge. Whoever\ndoes not recognize this and gives himself up once for all to a belief\nwhich he regards as final truth, whether it be of a theological or\nphilosophical kind, is of course incapable of accepting a conviction\nsupported upon scientific grounds. Unfortunately our whole education is\nfounded upon an early systematic curbing and fettering of the intellect\nin the direction of dogmatic (philosophical or theological) doctrines of\nfaith, and only a comparatively small number of strong minds succeed\nin after years in freeing themselves by their own powers from these\nfetters, whilst the majority remain captive in the accustomed bonds and\nform their judgment in accordance with the celebrated saying of Bishop\nBerkeley: 'Few men think; but all will have opinions.'\"--Buchner, \"Man\nin the Past, Present, and Future.\"\n\n\n\n\nAppendix U.\n\n\"And here it may be remarked, once for all, that no man who has\nsubscribed to creeds and formulas, whether in theology or philosophy,\ncan be an unbiased investigator of the truth or an unprejudiced judge\nof the opinions of others. His sworn preconceptions warping his\ndiscernment, adherence to his sect or party engenders intolerance to the\nhonest convictions of other inquirer? Beliefs we may and must have,\nbut a belief to be changed with new and advancing knowledge impedes no\nprogress, while a creed subscribed to as _ultimate truth, and sworn\nto be defended_, not only puts a bar to further research, but as a\nconsequence throws the odium of distrust on all that may seem to oppose\nit.\n\n\"Even when such odium cannot deter, it annoys and irritates; hence the\nfrequent unwillingness of men of science to come prominently forward\nwith the avowal of their beliefs.\n\n\"It is time this delicacy were thrown aside, and such theologians\nplainly told that the skepticism and Infidelity--if skepticism and\nInfidelity there be--lies all on their own side.\n\n\"There is no skepticism so offensive as that which doubts the facts of\nhonest and careful observation; no Infidelity so gross as that which\ndisbelieves the deductions of competent and unbiased judgments.\"--David\nPage, \"Man,\" etc., Edinburgh, 1867.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix V.\n\nSince I have recorded this incident of my lecture in Chicago, it is\npeculiarly fitting and pleasant to be able to give the following\nextract from the review of the first edition of this book printed in the\n_Chicago Times_. No great daily paper would have dared to print such a\ncomment a few years ago. To-day it is stated as a matter quite beyond\ncontroversy:\n\n\"She takes considerable pains to show _what one would think\nneed scarcely be insisted upon in our day_, that the morals of\ncivilization--morals in general, indeed--are not at all based in or\ndependent upon religion, certainly not on Christianity, since the\nso-called 'golden rule' the highest principle of morality, antedates\nChristianity a thousand years.\"\n\n\n\n\nADDRESS TO THE CLERGY AND OTHERS.\n\nUp to the present time I have tried to reply personally to each one\nwho has favored me with a letter of thanks, criticism, or praise of the\nlittle book, \"Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures,\" just published,\nbut I find that if I continue to do this I shall have but little time\nfor anything else.\n\nThe very unexpected welcome which the book has received prompts me to\ntake this plan and means of replying to many who have honored me by\nwriting me personal letters. First, permit me to thank those who have\nwritten letters of praise and gratitude, and to say that, although I may\nbe unable to reply in a private letter, I am not indifferent to these\nevidences of your interest, and am greatly helped in my work by your\nsympathy and encouragement. I have also received most courteous letters\nfrom various clergymen who, disagreeing with me, desire to convert me\neither by mail or personal (private) interviews.\n\nIt is wholly impossible for me to grant these requests, since my time\nand strength are demanded in other work, but I wish to say here what I\nhave written to several of my clerical correspondents, and desire to say\nto them all.\n\nAlthough I cannot enter into private correspondence with, nor grant\npersonal interviews to, such a number of your body, I am entirely\nwilling to respond in a public way to any replies to my arguments which\ncome under the following conditions:\n\n1. On page fourteen of the introduction to my book Col. Ingersoll says:\n\"No human being can answer her arguments. There is no answer. All the\npriests in the world cannot explain away her objections. There is no\nexplanation. They should remain dumb unless they can show that the\nimpossible is the probable, that slavery is better than freedom, that\npolygamy is the friend of woman, that the innocent can justly suffer for\nthe guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love\nand worship.\"\n\nNow, whenever any one of these gentlemen who wish to convert me will\nshow that the Colonel is wrong in this brief paragraph; whenever they\nwill, in print or in public, refute the arguments to which he refers,\nand to which they object, I shall not be slow to respond.\n\n2. It must be argument, not personal abuse, and it must be conducted in\na courteous manner and tone.\n\n3. It must proceed upon the basis that I am as honest, as earnest, and\nas virtuous in my motives and intentions as they are in theirs.\n\nNow, surely these gentlemen cannot object to these simple requirements;\nand since some of them are men whose names are preceded by a title\nand followed by several capital letters (ranging from D.D. to\nO.S.F.----which last I, in my ignorance, guess at as meaning Order of\nSt. Francis, but shall like to be corrected if I am wrong) they must\nbelieve that to answer the arguments themselves is both simple and easy.\n\nIf they do not so believe they surely have no right to occupy the\npositions which they do occupy. If they do so believe it will do much\nmore good to answer them publicly, since they have been made publicly,\nand are already in the hands of several thousand people, who could not\nbe reached by any amount of eloquence poured out on ray devoted head in\nthe privacy of my own parlor (or writing-desk).\n\nTherefore, gentlemen, permit me to say to you all that which I have\nalready written to several of you personally--that Col. Ingersoll's\nparagraph, quoted above, expresses my own views and those of a great\nmany other people, and will continue so to do so long as your efforts to\nshow that he is wrong are only whispered to me behind a fan, or in the\nstrict seclusion of a letter marked \"private and personal.\"\n\nThe arguments I have given against the prevailing Christian dogmas and\nusages, which you uphold, are neither private nor personal, nor shall I\nallow them to take that phase. Life is too short for me to spend hours\nday after day in sustaining, in private, a public argument which has\nnever been (and, in my opinion, never will be), refuted. And it would\ndo no good to the thousands whom you are pleased to say you fear will\nbe led astray by my position. You have a magnificent opportunity to lead\nthem back again by honest public letters, or lectures, or sermons, not\nby an afternoon's chat with me.\n\nAnd, while I recognize the courtesy of your pressing requests (made,\nwithout exception, in the most gentlemanly terms) to permit you to meet\nme personally and refute my arguments, I feel compelled to say that,\nunless you are willing to show the courage of your convictions, _and\nthe quality of your defense_, to the public, I fear they would have no\nweight with me, and I should have wasted your precious time as well as\nmy own, which I should feel I had no right to do, nor to allow you to\ndo, without this frank statement of the case.\n\nNow, do not suppose that I have the slightest objection to meeting the\nclergy personally and socially. Upon the contrary, many of my friends\nare clergymen--even bishops--but candor compels me to state that up to\nthe present time not one of them has (either privately or otherwise)\nbeen able to answer either of the first two lectures in that little\nbook, and as to the third one, no one of them, in my opinion, will ever\ntry to answer it.\n\nTime will show whether I am right in this.\n\nIn the mean time accept my thanks for your interest, and believe me,\n\nSincerely,\n\nHelen H. Gardener.\n\n\n\n\nLETTER TO THE CLEVELAND CONGRESS OF FREETHINKERS, OCTOBER, 1885.\n\nI send my greetings to the Congress of Freethinkers assembled at\nCleveland, and regret, more than I can express, that I am unable to\nbe there and hear all the good things you will hear, and see all the\nearnest workers you will see.\n\nThe Freethinkers of America ought to be a very proud and enthusiastic\nbody, when they have in their presidential chair the ablest orator\nof modern times, and the broadest, bravest, and most comprehensive\nintellect that has ever been called \"Mr. President\" in this land of\nbravery and presidents. Washington was a patriot of whom we are all\njustly proud. He was liberal in his religion and progressive in his\nviews of personal rights. And yet he had his limitations. To him liberty\nand personal rights were modified by the words, \"free, white, adult,\nmales.\" He got no farther. He who fought for freedom upheld slavery! And\nyet we are all proud and glad to pay honor and respect to the memory of\nWashington.\n\nAbraham Lincoln we place still higher on the roll of honor; for, added\nto his still more liberal religious views, in his conceptions of freedom\nand justice he had at least two fewer limitations than had the patriot\nof 1776. He struck both \"free\" and \"white\" from his mental black list,\nand gave once more an impulse to liberty that thrilled a nation and gave\nfresh dignity to the human race.\n\nBut what shall we say of our president--Ingersoll? A man who in\nten short years has carried mental liberty into every household in\nAmerica--who is without limitations in religion, and modifies justice by\nno prefix. A man who, with unequaled oratory, champions Freedom--not the\n\"free, white, adult, male\" freedom of Washington. A man who has breasted\na whirlwind of detraction and abuse for Justice--not the \"male, adult\"\njustice of Lincoln, but the freedom and justice, without limitation, for\n\"man, woman, and child.\"\n\nWith such a leader, what should not be achieved? With such a champion,\nwhat cause could fail? If the people ever place such a man in the White\nHouse, the nations of this earth will know, for the first time, the real\nmeaning of a free government under secular administration.\n\n\"A government of the people, for the people, by the people,\" will be\nmore than simply a high-sounding phrase, which, read by the light of the\npast, was only a bitter mockery to a race in chains; and, read by the\nlight of the present, is a choice bit of grim humor to half of a nation\nin petticoats. But so long as the taste of the voter is such that he\nprefers to place in the executive chair a type of man so eminently\nfitted for private life that when you want to find him you have to\n_shake the chair_ to see if he is in it, just so long will there be no\ndanger that the lightning will strike so as to deprive the Freethinkers\nof one man in America who could fill the national executive chair\n_full_, and strain the back and sides a little getting in.\n\nOnce more I send greetings to the Convention, with the hope that you may\nhave as grand a time as you ought to have, and that Free thought will\nreceive a new impulse from the harmony and enthusiasm of this meeting.\nSincerely,\n\nHelen H. Gardener.","title":"Men, Women, and Gods; and Other Lectures","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":59530}