{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45483/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45483","id":"gutenberg_45483","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45483","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity -- Controversial literature","Rationalism"],"text":"THE STORY OF MY MIND\n\nHow I Became a Rationalist\n\nBy M. M. Mangasarian\n\n1909\n\nDEDICATION\n\nTo My Children\n\nMy Dear Children:--\n\nYou have often requested me to tell you how, having been brought up by\nmy parents as a Calvinist, I came to be a Rationalist. I propose now to\nanswer that question in a more connected and comprehensive way than I\nhave ever done before. One reason for waiting until now was, that you\nwere not old enough before, to appreciate fully the mental struggle\nwhich culminated in my resignation from the Spring Garden Presbyterian\nchurch of Philadelpha, in which, my dear Zabelle, you received your\nbaptism at the time I was its pastor. Your brother, Armand, and your\nsister, Christine, were born after I had withdrawn from the Presbyterian\nchurch, and they have therefore not been baptised. But you are, all\nthree of you, now sufficiently advanced in years, and in training, to\nbe interested in, and I trust also, to be benefited by, the story of my\nreligious evolution. I am going to put the story in writing that you may\nhave it with you when I am gone, to remind you of the aims and interests\nfor which I lived, as well as to acquaint you with the most earnest and\nintimate period in my career as a teacher of men. If you should ever\nbecome parents yourselves, and your children should feel inclined to\nlend their support to dogma, I hope you will prevail upon them, first to\nread the story of their grand-father, who fought his way out of the camp\nof orthodoxy by grappling with each dogma, hand to hand and breast to\nbreast.\n\nI have no fear that you yourselves will ever be drawn into the meshes of\northodoxy, which cost me my youth and the best years of my life to break\nthrough, or that you will permit motives of self-interest to estrange\nyou from the Cause of Rationalism with which my life has been so closely\nidentified. My assurance of your loyalty to freedom of thought in\nreligion is not based, nor do I desire it to be based, on considerations\nof respect or affection which you may entertain for me as your father,\nbut on your ability and willingness to verify a proposition before\nassenting to it. Do not believe me because I am your parent, but believe\nwhat you have yourselves, by conscientious and earnest endeavor, found\nto be worthy of belief. It will never be said of you, that you have\ninherited your opinions from me, or borrowed them from your neighbors,\nif you can give a reason for the faith that is in you.\n\nI wish you also to know that during those years of storm and stress,\nwhen everything seemed so discouraging, and when my resignation from\nthe church had left us exposed to many privations,--without money and\nwithout help, your mother's sympathy with me in my combat with the\nchurch--a lone man, and a mere youth, battling with the most powerfully\nintrenched institution in all the world, was more than my daily bread\nto me during the pain and travail of my second birth. My spirits, often\ndepressed from sheer weariness, were nursed to new life and ardor by her\npatience and sympathy.\n\nOne word more: Nothing will give your parents greater satisfaction than\nto see in you, increasing with the increase of years, a love for those\nideals which instead of dragging the world backward, or arresting its\nprogress, urge man's search to nobler issues. Co-operate with the\nlight. Be on the side of the dawn. It is not enough to profess\nRationalism--make it your religion. Devotedly,\n\nM. M. Mangasarian.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. In the Cradle of Christianity\n\nI was a Christian because I was born one. My parents were Christians for\nthe same reason. It had never occurred to me, any more than it had to\nmy parents, to ask for any other reason for professing the Christian\nreligion. Never in the least did I entertain even the most remote\nsuspicion that being born in a religion was not enough, either to make\nthe religion true, or to justify my adherence to it.\n\nMy parents were members of the Congregational church, and when I was\nonly a few weeks old, they brought me, as I have often been told by\nthose who witnessed the ceremony, to the Rev. Mr. Richardson, to be\nbaptized and presented to the Lord. It was the vow of my mother, if she\never had a son, to dedicate him to the service of God. As I advanced in\nyears, the one thought constantly instilled into my mind was that I did\nnot belong to myself but to God. Every attempt was made to wean me from\nthe world, and to suppress in me those hopes and ambitions which might\nlead me to choose some other career than that of the ministry.\n\nThis constant surveillance over me, and the artificial sanctity\nassociated with the life of one set apart for God, was injurious to me\nin many ways. Among other things it robbed me of my childhood. Instead\nof playing, I began very early to pray. God, Christ, Bible, and the\ndogmas of the faith monopolized my attention, and left me neither the\nleisure nor the desire for the things that make childhood joyous. At the\nage of eight years I was invited to lead the congregation in prayer, in\nchurch, and could recite many parts of the New Testament by heart. One\nof my favorite pastimes was \"to play church.\" I would arrange the chairs\nas I had seen them arranged at church, then mounting on one of the\nchairs, I would improvise a sermon and follow it with an unctuous\nprayer. All this pleased my mother very much, and led her to believe\nthat God had condescended to accept her offering.\n\nMy dear mother is still living, and is still a devout member of the\nCongregational church. I have not concealed my Rationalism from her,\nnor have I tried to make light of the change which has separated us\nradically in the matter of religion. Needless to say that my withdrawal\nfrom the Christian ministry, and the Christian religion, was a painful\ndisappointment to her. But like all loving mothers, she hopes and prays\nthat I may return to the faith she still holds, and in which I was\nbaptized. It is only natural that she should do so. At her age of life,\nbeliefs have become so crystallized that they can not yield to new\nimpressions. When my mother had convictions I was but a child, and\ntherefore I was like clay in her hands, but now that I can think for\nmyself my mother is too advanced in years for me to try to influence\nher. She was more successful with me than I shall ever be with her.\n\nThat my mother had a great influence upon me, all my early life attests.\nAs soon as I was old enough I was sent to college with a view of\npreparing myself for the ministry. Having finished college I went to the\nPrinceton Theological Seminary, where I received instruction from such\neminent theologians as Drs. A. A. Hodge, William H. Green, and Prof.\nFrancis L. Patton. At the age of twenty-three, I became pastor of the\nSpring Garden Presbyterian church of Philadelphia.\n\nIt was the reading of Emerson and Theodore Parker which gave me my first\nglimpse of things beyond the creed I was educated in. I was at this time\nobstinately orthodox, and, hence, to free my mind from the Calvinistic\nteaching which I had imbibed with my mother's milk, was a most painful\noperation. Again and again, during the period of doubt, I returned to\nthe bosom of my early faith, just as the legendary dove, scared by the\nwaste of waters, returned to the ark. To dislodge the shot fired into\na wall is not nearly so difficult an operation as to tear one's self\nforever from the early beliefs which cling closer to the soul than the\nskin does to the bones.\n\nWhile it was the reading of a new set of books which first opened my\neyes, these would have left no impression upon my mind had not certain\nevents in my own life, which I was unable to reconcile with the belief\nin a \"Heavenly Father\", created in me a predisposition to inquire into\nthe foundations of my Faith.\n\nAn event, which happened when I was only a boy, gave me many anxious\nthoughts about the truth of the beliefs my dear mother had so eloquently\ninstilled into me. The one thought I was imbued with from my youth was\nthat \"the tender mercies of God are over all his children,\" I believed\nmyself to be a child of God, and counted confidently upon his special\nprovidence. But when the opportunity came for providence to show his\ninterest in me, I was forsaken, and had to look elsewhere for help. My\nfirst disappointment was a severe shock. I got over it at the time, but\nwhen I came to read Rationalistic books, the full meaning of that early\nexperience, which I will now briefly relate, dawned upon me, and helped\nto make my mind good soil for the new ideas.\n\nIn 1877 I was traveling in Asia Minor, going from the Euphrates to the\nBosphorus, accompanied by the driver of my horses, one of which I rode,\nthe other carrying my luggage. We had not proceeded very far when we\nwere overtaken by a young traveler on foot, who, for reasons of safety,\nbegged to join our little party. He was a Mohammedan, while my driver\nand I professed the Christian religion.\n\nFor three days we traveled together, going at a rapid pace in order to\novertake the caravan. It need hardly be said that in that part of the\nworld it is considered unsafe to travel even with a caravan, but, to\ngo on a long journey, as we were doing, all by ourselves, was certainly\ntaking a great risk.\n\nWe were armed with only a rifle--one of those flint fire-arms which\nfrequently refused to go off. I forgot to say that my driver had also\nhanging from his girdle a long and crooked knife sheathed in a\nblack canvas scabbard. Both the driver, who was a Christian, and the\nMohammedan, who had placed himself under our protection, were, I am\nsorry to say, much given to boasting. They would tell how, on various\noccasions, they had, single-handed, driven away the Kurdish brigands,\nwho outnumbered them, ten to one; how that rusty knife had disemboweled\none of the most renowned Kurdish chiefs, and how the silent and\nmeek-looking flint-gun had held at bay a pack of those \"curs\" who go\nabout scenting for human flesh. All this was reassuring to me--a lad of\nseventeen, and I began to think that I was indebted to Providence for my\nbrave escort.\n\nOn the morning of the 18th of February, 1877, we reached the valley said\nto be a veritable den of thieves, where many a traveler had lost his\nlife as well as his goods. A great fear fell upon us when we saw on\nthe wooden bridge which spanned the river at the base of the hills, two\nKurds riding in our direction. I was at once disillusioned as to the\nboasted bravery of my comrades, and felt that it was all braggadocio\nwith which they had been regaling me. As I was the one supposed to have\nmoney, I would naturally be the chief object of attack, which made\nmy position the more perilous. But this sudden fear which seemed to\nparalyze me at first, was followed by a bracing resolve to cope with\nthese \"devils\" mentally.\n\nAs I look back now upon the events of that day, I am puzzled to know\nhow I got through it all without any serious harm to my person. I was\nsurprised also that I, who had been brought up to pray and to trust in\ndivine help, forgot in the hour of real peril, all about \"other help\"\nand bent all my energies upon helping myself.\n\nBut why did I not pray? Why did I not fall upon my knees to commit\nmyself to God's keeping? Perhaps it was because I was too much\npre-occupied--too much in earnest to take the time to pray. Perhaps my\nbetter instincts would not let me take refuge in words when something\nstronger was wanted. We may ask the good Lord not to burn our house,\nbut when the house is actually on fire, water is better than prayer.\nPerhaps, again, I did not pray because of an instinctive feeling that\nthis was a case of self-help or no help at all. Perhaps, again, there\nwas a feeling in me, that if all the prayers my mother and I had offered\ndid not save me from falling into the hands of thieves neither would any\nnew prayer that I might offer be of any help. But the fact is that in\nthe hour of positive and imminent peril--when face to face with death--I\nwas too busy to pray.\n\nMy mother, before I started on this journey, had made a bag for my\nvaluables--watch and chain, etc.--and sewed it on my underflannels, next\nto my body. But my money (all in gold coins) was in a snuff-box, and\nthat again in a long silk purse. I was, of course, the better dressed\nof the three--with long boots which reached higher than my knees, a\nwarm English broadcloth cloak reaching down to my ankles, and an Angora\ncollarette, soft and snow white, about my neck.\n\nI rode ahead, and the others, with the baggage horse, followed me. When\nthe two Kurdish riders who were advancing in our direction reached me,\nthey saluted me very politely, saying, according to the custom of the\ncountry, \"God be with you,\" to which I timidly returned the customary\nanswer, \"We are all in his keeping.\" At the time it did not occur to me\nhow absurd it was for both travelers and robbers to recommend each other\nto God while carrying fire-arms--the ones for attack, the others for\ndefense.\n\nOf course now I can see, though I could not at the time I am speaking\nof, that God never interfered to save an _unarmed_ traveler from\nbrigands--I say never, for if he ever did, and could, he would do it\nalways. But as we know, alas, too well, that hundreds and thousands have\nbeen robbed and cut to pieces by these Kurds, it would be reasonable to\ninfer that God is indifferent. Of course, the strongly-armed travelers,\nas a rule, escape, thanks to their own courage and firearms. For, we ask\nagain, if the Lord can save one, why not all? And if he can save all,\nbut will not, does he not become as dangerous as the robbers? But really\nif God could do anything in the matter, He would reform the Kurds out\nof the land, or--out of the thieving business. If God is the unfailing\npolice force in Christian, lands, he is not that in Mohammedan\ncountries, at any rate.\n\nAs the two mounted Kurds passed by me, they scanned me very closely--my\ncostume, boots, furs, cap and so on. Then I heard them making inquiries\nof my driver about me--who I was, where I was going, and why I was going\nat all.\n\nMy driver answered these, inquiries as honestly as the circumstances\npermitted. Wishing us all again the protection of Allah, the Kurds\nspurred their horses and galloped away.\n\nFor a moment we began to breathe freely--but only for a moment, for as\nour horses reached the bridge we saw that the Kurds had turned around\nand were now following us. And before we reached the middle of the\nbridge over the river, one of the Kurds galloping up close to me laid\nhis hand on my shoulders and, unceremoniously, pulled me out of my\nsaddle. At the same time he dismounted himself, while his partner\nremained on horseback with his gun pointed squarely in my-face, and\nthreatening to kill me if I did not give him my money immediately.\n\nI can never forget his savage grin when at last he found my purse, and\ngrabbing it, with another oath, pulled it out of its hiding place. I\nhave already described that my coins were all in a little box hid away\nin my purse, hence, as soon as the robber had loosened the strings he\ntook out the box, held it in his left hand, while with his right he kept\nsearching in the inner folds of my long purse. While he was running his\nfingers through the tortuous purse, I slipped mine into his left hand,\nand, taking hold of the box, I emptied its contents into my pocket\nin the twinkling of an eye and handed it back to the robber. The Kurd\nincensed at finding nothing in the purse which he kept shaking and\nfingering, snatched the box from my hand, opened it, and finding it as\nempty as the purse, flung it away with an oath.\n\n\"Are you Moslems or Christians?\" inquired one of the Kurds, to my\ncompanions.\n\n\"We are all Moslems, by Allah,\" they answered.\n\nIn Turkey you are not supposed to speak the truth unless you say, \"by\nAllah,\" which means \"_by God_.\"\n\nOf course it was not true that I was a Mohammedan. My companions told\nthe Kurds a falsehood about me, to save my life. There was no doubt the\nKurds would have killed me, but for the lie _which I did not correct_.\nWhen I reached my destination many of my co-religionists declared that I\nhad denied Christ by allowing the Kurds to think that I was a Moslem.\n\nAs I feel now, my conscience does not trouble me for helping, by my\nsilence, to deceive the Kurds about my religion. In withholding the\ntruth from these would-be assassins I was doing them no evil, but\nprotecting the most sacred rights of man, the Kurd's included. Here was\nan instance in which silence was golden. But I would not hesitate,\nany moment, to mislead a thief or a murderer, by speech, as well as\nby silence. If it is right to kill the murderer in self-defense, it is\nright to deny him also the truth.\n\nBut young as I was, what alarmed me at the time was that we should\nhave been led into the temptation of lying to save our lives. Why did a\n\"Heavenly Father\" deliver us to the brigands? And of what help was God\nto us, if, in real peril, we had to resort to fighting or falsehood for\nself-protection? In what way would the world have been worse off without\na \"Heavenly Father?\"\n\nAbout a month after I arrived at my destination, I received a letter\nfrom my mother, to whom the driver, upon his return, had related my\nadventure with the Kurds. Without paying the least thought to the fact\nthat we had to lie to save our lives, my mother claimed that it was her\nprayers which had saved _me_ from the brigands. _Sancta Simplicitas!_\n\nBut my hospitality to new tendencies did not in the least diminish the\nanguish and pain of the separation from the religion of my mother. Even\nafter I began to seriously doubt many of the beliefs I had once accepted\nas divine, it seemed impossible to abandon them. Ten thousand obstacles\nblocked my way, and as many voices seemed to caution me against sailing\nforth upon an unknown sea. In a modest way, I was like Columbus,\nseparated from the new world I was seeking, by the dark and tempestuous\nwaste of waters. How often my heart sank within me! I was almost sure\nof a better and larger world beyond Calvin, or Christ even, but the huge\nsea rolled between and struck terror upon my mind.\n\nBut if there are difficulties, there is a way out of them. I am glad\nthat the difficulties, great and insurmountable as they seemed at\nthe time, did not succeed in holding me back. Between Calvinism and\nRationalism flowed the deep, dark sea of fear. I have crossed that sea.\nBehind me is theology with its mysteries and dogmas; before me are the\nsunny fields of science. Born in the world of John Calvin, baptised\nin the name of the Holy Trinity, and set apart for the Christian\nministry,--I have become a Rationalist. The meaning of both these words,\nCalvinist and Rationalist, will, I hope, become clear to all the readers\nof this book. The difference between the Calvinist and the Rationalist\nis not that the one uses his reason, while the other does not. Both\nuse their reason. It is by using his reason that the Calvinist is not\na Catholic, for instance, or a Mohammedan. In the same way the Catholic\nreasons for his church and against Calvinism. To say that Christianity,\nor Judaism, should be accepted on faith, without first subjecting\nits claims to the strain of reason, is also reasoning. Such is the\nconstitution of the mind, that even when men seek to suppress reason,\nthey are compelled to offer reasons for doing so.\n\nBut there is reasoning and reasoning. The Bushman has his reason for\ntrusting in his amulets; the civilized man, his, for trusting in\nself-help. Just as the eyes must have light before they can see, Reason\nmust have knowledge before it can reason truly. But it is possible to\npossess knowledge and still reason badly, just as a man may be in the\nlight, and still not see--by keeping his eyes shut.\n\nNor does it follow that if a man opens his eyes he _will_ see. The eyes\nobey the will; if we do not wish to see, we will not see even with\nour eyes open. There are many educated people who allow motives of\nself-interest, if not to blind, at least to blur their vision.\n\nFinally, it is not enough to see for ourselves. We must show to others\nwhat we see: My object for telling the story of my mind--how it passed\nfrom Calvinism to Rationalism,--is to help others see what I see.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. Early Struggles\n\nAs I look back upon the period of mental conflict and uncertainty which\nmarked the closing years of my pastorate in the Presbyterian church, I\nam comforted by the thought that I did not wait until I was accused of\nheresy, tried by an ecclesiastical court and dismissed from the church\nbefore I severed my connection with the Presbyterian denomination. On\nthe contrary, as soon as I had fully persuaded myself that I was no\nlonger a Presbyterian, I, of my own accord, offered my resignation,\nafter stating publicly the reasons which had led me to renounce\nCalvinism. It was not the church that expelled me; it was I that\nrenounced the church.\n\nOf course, even then there were those, who demanded a public trial and\nmy formal deposition from the ministry. The Philadelphia Presbytery met\nto discuss whether I should not be summoned to appear before them, to\nreceive their censure. But wiser counsel prevailed, and a sensational\npublic trial was avoided. The district attorney of the city of\nPhiladelphia, Mr. George Graham, himself a staunch Presbyterian,\nexplained to the ministers that my resignation had deprived them of all\necclesiastical jurisdiction over me. I had, he explained, unlocked the\ndoor and walked out into the open, and it was too late now to talk of\nexpelling me. On the other hand, although my complete severance from\nCalvinism had been fully announced, still for many days and nights my\nhouse was filled with members of my church urging me to remain with them\nas their pastor, and to hold on to the church building. I am very happy\nto think that I was able to resist this temptation too. Had I yielded to\ntheir entreaties, or allowed myself to be swayed by their arguments,\nI would have been placed in a position where I could neither be\na Rationalist nor a Calvinist, but a preacher of ambiguities,\ncontradicting in one breath what I had said in another. From such a\ncareer of duplicity and arrested growth, I was saved by a fortunate\ndecision on my part to give up Presbyterian property as well as the\nPresbyterian creed.\n\nThe first Sunday after my resignation, I spoke in a hall on Broad\nstreet, in Philadelphia. It was quite a change from a handsome church\nedifice to a secular hall. I could see that those who followed me out of\nthe Presbyterian denomination felt ill at ease, on a Sunday morning in a\npublic hall. But that was not the worst shock in store for them.\n\nWhen I reached the hall on Broad street it was so densely packed that\nit seemed impossible for me to reach the platform. In the meantime, my\ntrustees were getting anxious about my failure to appear in the\npulpit. The audience too was showing signs of discomfort in the crowded\nauditorium. It was only by announcing my name, and begging those who\nstood up in rows at the entrance,--all the seats being occupied--to help\nme reach the stage, that I could make any progress through the crowd.\nWhen at last I faced the audience to deliver my first address from a\nfree platform, I thought of the advice given me by my trustees, that, as\nmuch depended upon the impression of my first talk, which would in all\nprobability be extensively reported in the papers, I should take care\nnot to go \"too far.\" What they meant by not going \"too far,\" was that I\nshould let the public know that in the essentials I was as Christian as\never. I do not blame my friends for this advice. They trembled for me\nand for the organization which was to be launched for the first time on\nthat day. Besides, they were themselves, Presbyterians still, at heart,\nand had no clear understanding of the meaning of my renunciation\nof Calvinism. Sentimentally they were with me, but by training and\nconviction they were still for the creed of their ancestors.\n\nSpeaking frankly, I had myself agreed to the wisdom of being careful and\nconservative in my opening address, believing that radical utterances at\nthis time would make me more enemies than friends. But when I began to\nspeak, in the enthusiasm of the moment, joyous over the first taste of\nfreedom of speech, I forgot my caution, and gave my thoughts as\nthey welled up within me, full scope. \"To the winds with policy and\ncalculation! Whether I win followers, or lose the last man, I must not\nstammer,--I must speak!\" Under the spell of this thought, which seemed\nto seize me without at all consulting me, I said many things which\nchanged the color on the faces of my Presbyterian supporters.\n\nUnused to freedom of speech, and brought up to believe certain beliefs\nas sacred, the attempt on my part to subject these to the strain of\nreason was in the nature of a painful disappointment to them. Thus\nmany of my followers lost heart and quickly returned to the cradle from\nwhich, in a moment of excitement, they had leaped forth. But new friends\ntook the place of those who deserted the young movement, and in a very\nshort time, a larger hall was secured. This was St. George's hall, on\nArch street, one of the largest halls in Philadelphia. But up to this\ntime we, including myself, believed ourselves to be still Christians,\nthough no longer Presbyterians. As long as we held on to the name of\nChristian we continued to sail in comparatively smooth waters. We made\nthe word \"Christian,\" of course, to mean what we wanted it to mean.\n\nBut very soon new perplexities arose. The people who came to hear me,\nand who paid the expenses of the new organization, as well as\ndirected its policy, while they progressed sufficiently to renounce\nPresbyterianism, they were very reluctant to part with Christianity\naltogether. I could criticise Calvin to my heart's content, but I must\nnot, Christ. The church, or churchianity, certainly deserved to be\ninvestigated, and its errors exposed, but Christ and Christianity were\ntoo sacred to be handled with equal freedom. My trustees felt that as a\nliberal _Christian_ organization, there was a great future before us;\nwe would soon become one of the largest and most prosperous religious\nbodies in the city; but if we \"attacked\" Christ--they called examining\nthe teachings and character of Christ freely \"attacking\" Christ--we\nwould be disowned by all respectable members, and lose our standing in\nthe esteem of a hitherto friendly public.\n\nAnd the public was indeed friendly at this stage of our evolution. The\npress of Philadelphia, as well as of New York City, reported daily,\nfor some time, the doings of the new organization. The majority of\nthe editorials in the daily papers commended the course I had taken\nin avoiding a \"heresy trial,\" and in resisting the great temptation to\nresort to shifts and subterfuges to enable me to remain at a lucrative\npost. In these days * departures from Orthodoxy were rare, and\nnaturally, my case created a great stir. But as I have intimated,\nthe preponderance of criticism and comment was favorable. Encouraging\nletters from Henry Ward Beecher, Lyman Abbott, Prof. David Swing, and\nother prominent leaders gave the new society an enviable prestige.\nBut my trustees protested that this \"good will\" of the public, which\nconstituted our best asset, would be lost, and its sympathy turned\ninto antagonism, if I spoke as freely of Christ as I did of Calvin,\nand subjected the Bible to the same strain of reason that I did the\nWestminster Catechism. In other words, I was politely made to feel that\nwhile it was respectable enough to part with Presbyterianism, it would\nspell ruin to part also with Christianity.\n\n     * 1880.\n\nIn justice to my supporters I must state that when I resigned from the\nPresbyterian church I had no idea that the step would eventually carry\nme beyond Christianity itself. \"A purer Christianity\" was my plea at\nthat time, and I sincerely believed that with Calvinism out of the way\nthere would be left no serious obstacle for reason to stumble over.\nI was not prepared at that stage of my evolution to perceive the\nimpossibility of separating Calvinism from Christianity without\ndestroying both. Calvinism was a symptom and not the disease itself.\nThe disease was supernaturalism, of which the different sects are\nthe manifestations. It is the disease and not its manifestation that\nrequired suppression. I was unable to see the relationship between an\ninfinite God, sovereign of all, and Calvinism, and fancied in my mind\nthat I could keep God and let Calvin go. But faith in a God who knows\neverything and is absolutely sovereign, spells Calvinism.\n\nThe step out of Christianity was infinitely more difficult than the\nstep out of Presbyterianism. Had my followers been trained to think\nrationally, they would have seen that since I did not resign from the\nPresbyterian church, for a different form of baptism, or communion, but\nbecause of its failure to recognize Reason as the highest authority in\nreligion, I was bound, by the very stress and logic of my premises, to\ndrop Christianity as I had been led to drop Calvinism.\n\nMy trustees were quite unconscious of giving me dangerous advice, or of\ntrying to make of me an example of arrested development. They were\nmy friends, and the friends of the cause, but they could not think\nlogically, and that is why they could not appreciate my reply that we\nare not free to command the truth,--we must obey the truth.\n\nMatters came to a crisis when I delivered a lecture on \"Was Jesus\nGod?\" I can still see the painful expression on the faces of many of my\nhearers on that Sunday morning. Did I bring them out of the Presbyterian\nchurch to make \"infidels\" and \"blasphemers\" of them? A number of my\nhearers rose and left the hall. The strain upon me was severe. When I\nsat down I was in a profuse perspiration. When all was over, I must\nhave looked ashen pale. I had hardly any strength left to announce the\nclosing hymn. But my audience suffered perhaps even more than did I. To\npart with Jesus is not the same thing as parting with Calvin, and that\nmorning I had told them that if Calvin goes, Jesus must go too.\n\n_C'est le premier pas qui co\u00fbte._ \"It is the first step that costs.\"\nBut I found my second step even more costly. Voltaire speaks of the\ninevitableness of the second step if the first is taken. They told him\nhow St. Denis had picked up his own head after it had been chopped off\nby the executioner, and walked a hundred steps with it in his hands. He\nreplied, \"I can believe in the ninety-nine steps, it is the first step I\nfind difficulty in believing.\" Granted the first step, the ninety-nine,\nor nine million steps are very easy. Would it not be wasteful to argue\nthat St. Denis took the first step, but no more? Is it not equally\nsuperfluous to accept one miracle in the Bible, and deny the rest?\nIf one miracle, why not a million? But the aim of the training we had\nreceived in the church was not to help us to think logically but how\nnot to think logically. The state of the Christian church, divided,\nsub-divided, and voicing doctrines diametrically opposed the one to the\nother, while they all claim to be and are, equally scriptural is a proof\nof this. I do not blame therefore, the members of my society for taking\noffense or for withdrawing, as many of them did after the \"Jesus\"\nlecture, their support from my work. They could not see the incongruity\nof accepting one part and rejecting another of a \"divine\" revelation.\nIf the texts upon which Calvin based his theology were doubtful, what\nassurance could we have of the genuineness of the more liberal texts.\nThe obscurity or ambiguity of Jesus was really the cause of the\ncontradictions and divisions of his followers. The obscurity and\ncontradictory nature of the text accounts for the crowd of religious\nsects, each claiming to be the only church of Christ, or, at least, more\nscriptural than its competitors. It was both a moral as well as a mental\nrelief to escape the bewildering confusion of such a situation. And it\nwas after I had commanded the babel of clashing voices to hush that I\ncould hear the still, small voice of Reason.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. New Temptations\n\nNotwithstanding our many heresies we still believed in Christianity--in\nits moral excellence, as we expressed it. Jesus was not God; Calvin was\nall wrong; but still there was that in Christianity which could not be\nfound elsewhere. While I myself did not linger long in this indecisive\nmood, still it was very trying while it lasted. To soften a little the\npain of losing Jesus the God, the temptation to exalt him as a perfect\nmoral teacher beyond all others the world had ever seen very nearly\nswamped me. But there were also financial considerations which made my\nposition at this stage a very critical one. I was, besides, so much in\nneed of companionship and sympathy that I wonder now why I did not rush\ninto the open arms of the first liberal Christian sect that offered to\nfellowship with me.\n\nAnd there were religious fellowships ready to receive us. Let me first\nspeak of the Unitarians, who very kindly offered to help us, both\nmorally and financially. We were not told that we had to join the\ndenomination before we could receive financial assistance. They offered\nto help us without any conditions. The Unitarians have a fund to\nhelp all \"liberal\" religious movements, and as a \"liberal\" religious\nmovement, we could, if we wished, draw upon that fund. We did not accept\nthe financial help, but we were happy to receive such moral support as\nmen like James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, Minot J. Savage and\nother equally distinguished preachers of Unitarianism could give us. The\nvenerable Dr. Furness, more than once, occupied my pulpit, as also\nthe Rev. Gordon Ames, whose church also proposed my name for a life\nmembership in the American Unitarian Association. I can never be too\ngrateful to the Unitarians for their hospitality to me in those trying\ntimes. Both Dr. Clarke and Dr. Hale had received me in their homes and\ngiven me such counsel as a young man at the threshold of a new career\nstands in need of. It was thus that Unitarianism, with its gracious\nhospitality, its tolerance and liberality, came very near persuading\nme that having gone as far as Unitarianism, it was not necessary to\ngo farther. Thus you see, Moses and Calvin came back to me dressed as\nUnitarians; but, fortunately for me, I recognized the disguise.\n\nIf I could \"settle down\" in Unitarianism, why did I leave the\nPresbyterian church? The difference between them is after all a\ndifference of quantity. The Presbyterians believe more than the\nUnitarians, and while the Bible is inspired from cover to cover for the\nformer, the latter believe only in the authority of certain portions\nof the book. Ernest Renan told the Protestants that they did not have\nsufficient reason for leaving the Catholic church. \"But we could not\nbelieve in the mass,\" replied the Protestants. \"If you believe in the\nvirgin birth and the resurrection of the flesh, what but a whim could\nprevent you from believing also in transubstantiation,\" argued Renan.\nWe can say the same of Unitarianism. If it can believe in parts of the\nBible, as \"inspired\" or if it can accept, the unity of God, or \"the\nLordship of Jesus,\" why not believe a little more? If it drops one dogma\non grounds of reason, it must drop all, and if it can accept one\ndogma, the \"Lordship of Jesus,\" for example, on faith, why not also\nthe Trinity? If God exists, he could be in three or more parts quite as\neasily as in one.\n\nUnwittingly the Unitarian church has helped to strengthen the cause of\nOrthodoxy. It speaks of Christ as the most perfect being or teacher who\nhas ever visited this planet--a being possessing all the virtues, and\nnone of the defects of human nature,--a being worthy to be called in a\nspecial sense, \"the Son of God.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" answers the Orthodox believer, \"If Jesus was all that, he\nwas God.\" The difference between Unitarianism and Orthodoxy is that,\nwhile the latter calls Christ a God, the former holds that he was more\nthan man. The point is not worth fighting for. Moreover, \"If Christ was\nthe type of perfection, as you Unitarians seem to believe,\" argues the\nCalvinist, \"he could not have claimed to be God, as he certainly does,\nunless he was God. If he was not God, he was an impostor, and not the\nmost perfect type of character the world has ever seen, as you claim.\"\nThe answer is decisive. If Jesus believed himself to be only a mortal\nlike ourselves, how explain his language of authority, his forgiving of\nsins, his miracles, his claim to be equal with the Father, and to have\nexisted from all time? The weapons which Unitarianism uses against\nOrthodoxy, the latter can easily ignore. Nay, Unitarians are often\nquoted by the Orthodox to prove that even those who deny the divinity\nof Jesus, are compelled to admit \"that there never was another like\nunto Him.\" The point I am endeavoring to make is that I could not accept\nUnitarianism because its claim about the moral perfection of Jesus was\nas much an unreasoned dogma, as the belief in his divinity. If I could\nsubscribe to one dogma, why not to all? If there is no evidence that\nJesus was God, neither is there any that he was morally perfect.\n\nI am aware that there are Unitarians who do not accept even the moral\nperfection of Jesus. But that only helps to confuse us as to what\nUnitarianism really stands for. If Jesus was not morally perfect, or the\nwisest and best teacher, why does he monopolize the Unitarian pulpit? In\nconclusion, as already intimated, Unitarianism with its God-idea differs\nfrom Calvinism, not in kind, but in degree only. Its baggage of the\nsupernatural is not quite so heavy, but what there is of it is every\nwhit as supernatural.\n\nBut my inexperienced bark had hardly weathered the Unitarian storm\nwhich, as I confessed, came very near driving me under shelter, before\nanother danger confronted me and my struggling society. The financial\nproblem was, of course, a pressing one with us. Hall rent had to be\npaid, which was considerable, and the lecturer and his family had to be\nsupported. The independent course I was following was not adding to the\nrevenues of the society. The moneyed people, and the people accustomed\nto making generous contributions for church purposes, did not approve of\nmy Rational tendencies. It was at this time that Spiritualism crossed\nmy path, and endeavored, if I may use so trite a phrase, \"to flirt with\nme.\"\n\n\"I could have many new supporters, and some moneyed men and women, if I\ncould see the truth of Spiritualism,\" was whispered in my ears by my own\nfears and hopes. And then hardly a Sunday passed when at the conclusion\nof the lecture I was not met by some believer in Spiritualism, who told\nme how he or she had seen Darwin, or Emerson, or Goethe, or Voltaire at\nmy side on the platform, while I was delivering my address, and how\none or the other had smiled upon me with approval. I received messages\npurporting to come from the world of Spirits, commending my course, and\nbidding me to go forward unafraid. Opportunities were given me to see\ntables tip, to hear \"celestial\" voices, and to be surprised by flashes\nof light in perfectly dark rooms.\n\nFor many of the friends who tried to lead my steps toward Spiritualism,\nI still cherish the tenderest thoughts. They befriended me and my wife,\nthey helped to render those desolate days of anxiety and hardship\na little less of a strain upon our resources. But I could become a\nSpiritualist only with my eyes shut, and I had opened them when I parted\nwith Calvinism. Was I now going to shut my eyes again?\n\nMy neighbor and colleague, Dr. John E. Roberts, who left the Baptist\nchurch to join the Unitarians, and later, became minister of the Church\nof this World, has recently expressed his interest in Spiritualism. He\nthinks the Spiritualists have the most comforting doctrine, because of\ntheir hope of immortality. Dr. Roberts thinks that we need the spiritual\nglow of faith in immortality to keep us from withering. But is not\nimmortality as inconceivable as the Trinity? Why should a man object\nto the Baptist or the Unitarian immortality, if he can accept the\nimmortality of the Spiritualists? Is the evidence furnished by modern\nmediums more convincing than that furnished by the mediums in the Bible?\nAre the spirits who manifest themselves in the Old and New Testaments,\nimpostors, while those who appear to Mrs. Piper in Brooklyn are genuine?\nAnd is the immortality promised by Mrs. Piper's ghosts different, or\nbetter, than the immortality promised by those who communed with Jesus,\nPeter and Paul? But let us hear Dr. Roberts' reasons for preferring\nthe Spiritualist's certain hope of another life to the silence of\nRationalism on the question of the hereafter:\n\n\"And then I think there is need of a revival along the line of\ncherishing the old-fashioned hopes. You can see in current literature a\nstrong tendency towards the belief that this world is the end of it.\nIt is surprising to one that will bear in mind how often he finds that\nstrain of pessimism. Men and women in very great numbers are beginning\nto think that after all maybe eternal sleep is better than eternal life.\nFor, in the grave there can come no pain, no sorrow, no tears. 'On the\nshore of that vast sea of oblivion no wave of sorrow breaks.' But, to my\nmind, life is too sweet ever to be given up, and I can't help liking\nthe old-fashioned hope that there is something beyond; that we shall\nremember and find each other and make reparations for wrongs we have\ndone and explain some things that were misunderstood here. In other\nwords, that we shall live again. For one, without knowing a thing about\nit, I cling to the old-fashioned hope of immortality.\"\n\nBut is it correct to identify \"the old-fashioned hope\" with optimism,\nand \"the belief that eternal sleep is better than eternal life,\" or\nthat \"in the grave there can come no pain, no sorrow, no tears,\"--with\npessimism? \"The old-fashioned hope\" was no hope at all, because it was\na private and exclusive hope. It reserved a place in heaven for the few,\nthe elect,--whether Jewish, Mohammedan or Christian,--and condemned the\nmultitude to the pains of hell. Can such a hope make for optimism? Can\nsuch a prospect brace up humanity at large? Moreover, the \"old-fashioned\nhope's\" picture of eternal life is so prosaic, so savorless, that it\nhas fallen into \"innocuous desuetude\" even among the elect. Men have\nexpressed their hesitation to decide which they would prefer, the heaven\nor the hell of the \"old-fashioned hope.\" The grave is more optimistic\nthan the old-fashioned future.=\n\n``_Ah, within our Mother's breast,\n\n``From toil and tumult, sin and sorrow free,\n\n``Sphered beyond hope and dread, divinely calm,\n\n``They lie, all gathered into perfect rest.\n\n``And o'er the trance of their Eternity.\n\n``The cypress waves more holy than the palm_.=\n\nBut Dr. Roberts likes \"eternal life\" of some kind. Eternal life! We\nfear our good friend has stooped to a sonorous phrase. Pliny, one of the\nillustrious philosophers of the reign of Trajan, thought that man was\nmore fortunate than the gods, because, while \"the gods cannot die, man\ncan.\" We are not in a position to tell whether or not \"eternal life\" is\ndesirable, for we do not know what it is. How can we desire, or despise\nthe inconceivable? No one can tell whether it is an evil or a blessing\nto live forever and ever, and ever, and ever,--and ever--unless he\nhas experienced it. Nor can anyone affirm \"eternal life\" (we think\nDr. Roberts means conscious, personal immortality) until he has lived\nthrough an eternity. To live a million, million years, is not eternal\nlife. Hence, no one who has not so lived, can speak intelligently of\n\"eternal life.\" We cannot even say that the gods are immortal. Because\nthey have lived until now, so to speak, is no argument that they will\nlive forever. We have to wait until they prove their ability to live\nforever, and ever, and ever, before we can pronounce them immortal. No\nbeing can be called immortal until he has lived to the end of time. We\ndo not affirm, nor do we deny, the inconceivable. The question of the\nhereafter is still an open one. There is no reason why people should not\nspeculate about it. We may even hope that tomorrow's science will throw\nmore light upon this interesting problem, but today, all we know about\neternal life is that we do not know anything about it.\n\n``_I gazed (as oft I've gazed the same)\n\n``To try if I could wrench aught out of death,\n\n``Which could confirm, or shake, or make a faith,\n\n``But it was all a mystery. Here we are._=\n\nYes, \"Here we are,\"--that is the great reality. There is cheer and\nhope and love even in the thought that the present hour is big with\npossibilities and sweet with memories. We need not think of the grave\nwhile our hearts pulse, and our blood is warm. It is queer how all\nbelievers in eternal life fear the grave and deepen its gloom. The\nthought of another life often impoverishes the life we now possess.\nPining for the far away tomorrow, we lose the joy at our doors. Schiller\ndescribes a recluse at the bar of heaven, arguing that he must have\ngreat rewards because he has practiced great privations in life. He\nreceived a chilling answer. He is told that if he was foolish enough to\nlet the real life slip through his fingers for a distant reward, there\nis no power that can make good his losses.\n\nReal optimism springs from the thought that the present life may be made\ndearer and nobler, richer, and happier, and that we may so live as to\nleave behind us a long and fragrant memory:\n\n``The ripe products of a fertile brain\n\n``Will live and reproduce fair fruit again.=\n\nEven at its worst, death is an obligation we owe posterity, and the\ndischarge of it should make no one a pessimist. At any rate, with Grant\nAllen, we can sing when we feel life's evening gathering about us:\n\n``Perchance a little light will come with morning;\n\n````Perchance I shall but sleep.\n\nDr. Roberts admits, I believe, that he has no evidence to offer, except\nwhat he calls \"the innate desire for another life.\" But if the desire\nfor immortality proves another and an endless life, the desire for God,\nor Christ, or an infallible Revelation, ought to be sufficient to prove\ntheir existence. The Spiritualists, like the Orthodox, reason logically\nenough against beliefs not their own, but when it comes to their own\ndogmas they do not consult reason at all. I had left Calvinism because\nit failed to furnish the evidence for its claims, how then could I join\nthe Spiritualists with no more evidence to substantiate their claims\nthan that it was pleasant to desire another life? But there is the\ntestimony of the mediums; yes, and there is the testimony of the\napostles. If the latter is not enough to make Christianity true, the\nformer is not enough to prove Spiritualism.\n\nThe comparatively few lines in which I have tried to tell my early\nexperience as a Rationalist give but an imperfect idea of the effort\nrequired under circumstances of stress and anxiety, to keep my ship\nsteady on the troublous waters to which the winds outside the harbor\nof Calvinism had driven me. In the words of Shelley, I had unfurled my\nsails to the tempest, and fear and alarm were to be my portion, until\nI became more accustomed to the swing of the sea, and could command the\nstars to point the way. The open sea is not like the sheltered harbor.\nIt is easy to go out to sea, but not so easy to find one's way there.\n\nDuring this period of mental struggle to work out a philosophy of life\nwhich should fill the vacuum created by the collapse of theology, I was\nfrequently approached by well-meaning, but over-confident, teachers who,\nin their own opinion, at any rate, had completely and satisfactorily\nreconciled religion with Reason. Nearly every mail brought me letters\nrecommending some publication which would answer all my difficulties as\nit had theirs. Not a few of my would-be helpers went to the trouble of\ncalling on me with the same object in view. I shall only speak here of\none of the books which was supposed to have untied all the knots, divine\nand human, which have ever perplexed the brain of man. The book came\nto me highly recommended. Even President Eliot of Harvard had publicly\nendorsed it. While it was many years after the period I am now writing\nof, that my attention was called to this book, nevertheless, it is\nbecause the book is typical of the efforts to make Reason approve of the\nfundamentals of the popular faith, that I reproduce here what I said of\nit at the time: _Balance_ is the name of a little book with a great aim.\nIts author, Mr. Orlando Smith, sets out as a new Columbus to discover\nnot another earth, but another truth, which shall give to all\nknown truths new meaning and worth. This truth, he believes, he\nhas discovered, and christens it, \"The Fundamental Verity.\" Lucid\nillustrations are massed together with telling effect, to show that\nNature is equipped with a self-curative genius which makes discord an\nimpossibility. That which is overdone in one direction is underdone\nequally in an opposite direction. This rhythm, this equivalence which\npulls the pendulum in one direction as far as it pushes it in another is\nthe _Fundamental Verity_, which, if grasped as universal and infallible,\nwill remove from our shoulders what Shakespeare calls \"the weary weight\nof all this unintelligible world,\" and bring Religion and Science,\nthe two gladiatorial contestants in the modern arena, to replace their\nquarrelous weapons, with which they have given and received gashes deep\nand bloody, with the olive branch of peace and concord.\n\nHaving undertaken to demonstrate that the physical world is in the\nembrace of laws which forever evolve order out of confusion, and that\nBalance is supreme in every detail of life, from the most momentous to\nthe most minute, that throughout the length and breadth of the universe\nthe account balances perfectly; and that Nature has no failures, and bad\ndebts; that Balance forbids wrong, such for instance as the victory of\none force over another, the author believes he has found in this law the\nunanswerable demonstration for the existence of a Supreme Being who is\nthe author of _Balance_ in the universe and of the immortality of the\nsoul. Thus, having given to these two ambitious propositions a new\nfront, he concludes he has reconciled Religion with Science.\n\nIt is quite easy to reconcile enemies if they let you interpret their\ndifferences to suit yourself. Mr. Smith defines both Religion and\nScience with a view to reconciliation, and it is no wonder that they\nstop quarreling immediately.\n\nEven in Mr. Orlando Smith's religion, there is an element of the\nsupernatural, a _deus ex machina_--who from the eternities rules the\nworld and is pledged to see that in the end right shall prevail. This is\ntheology and not science.\n\nMr. Smith starts by trying to prove that Nature is just, orderly, and\nits accounts are always perfect, and then, unfortunately enough, he\ndrags forth once more the obsolete theological argument which science\nhas already rent into tatters, that another life is inevitable since\nthis life is unsatisfactory. Having shown that there are no failures in\nNature, he now says, \"We must admit, however, that justice is incomplete\nin this life.\" That, however, destroys the position that Nature is at\npresent governed by a Supreme Being who makes failure impossible, and\nthe proposition that this Supreme Being must be given more time to work\nin--an eternity--is theology, not science.\n\nIf for millions of years this earth could roll under the eye of a\nSupreme Being and still be imperfect, what reason have we to conclude\nthat the Being who has failed hitherto is going to do better in the\nunknown future? And what about the animals? Will they have to\nlook forward to another world for justice? Must not their lives be\n\"balanced\"' in some way too? Or will Mr. Orlando Smith answer with St.\nPaul, \"Does God care for the oxen\"?\n\nToward the end, Mr. Smith develops into a full-fledged pulpiteer,\nclaiming that no hospitals, charities, or institutions of\nlearning,--songs hymns, poems, noble thoughts or sentiments are\npossible, without the doctrine of a Supreme Being, and of another\nlife. Thus the science with which Mr. Smith began is swallowed up in\ntheology--it is the lamb and the lion lying down together,--but one\ninside the other.\n\nI had renounced Calvinism, not because it would not let me use my reason\nat all, but because it would not let me use it consistently. I could\nuse it here, but not there, or only so far and no further. The men who\noffered me substitutes for Calvinism placed restrictions upon reason\ntoo, differing only in appearance from those imposed by the church.\nI had not yet found an organization that respected consistency, and\nconsistency is another word for sincerity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. The Critical Period\n\nIn 1888 I became acquainted with the work of the Ethical Movement, which\nwas then establishing a branch in Philadelphia. The platform of the\nmovement appealed to me strongly, because it was completely divorced\nfrom the supernatural. It emphasized the deed, and ignored the creed; or\nrather, it believed in the creed of the deed. I invited the leaders of\nthis movement to address my society, and to explain to us in detail the\nphilosophy of Ethical Culture. All five of the lecturers of the Ethical\nSocieties in America successively occupied my platform in St. George's\nhall, and I in return occupied their platforms in New York, Chicago,\nSt. Louis and Philadelphia. This interchange of platforms resulted in\nmy accepting a call from the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and\nthree years later from the Chicago Society, which latter I served as its\nlecturer for five years.\n\nThe founder of the Ethical Societies was Dr. Felix Adler, the son of a\nJewish Rabbi, who was expected to succeed his father as the spiritual\nhead of the fashionable and wealthy Fifth Avenue synagogue in New York\nCity. But all the other members of the fraternity of lecturers were\neither ex-ministers of the Christian church, like myself, or had, at one\ntime, studied for the Christian ministry. In the beginning, the movement\nwas consistently and fearlessly Rationalistic. Adler had a lecture\non Atheism in which he boldly exposed the weakness of the theistic\nposition. This lecture was printed and widely circulated. The other\nlecturers also openly antagonized the God idea as robbing the idea\nof the Good of the attention and love of man. The churches feared the\nEthical Movement in those days, and denounced it as an irreligious\ninstitution.\n\nBut soon there appeared a change in the leader and founder of the\nmovement, and gradually also in the majority of his colleagues. The\nlecture on Atheism was withdrawn from circulation, and Dr. Adler began\ndelivering addresses on immortality, and exalting the character of\nChrist in the fashion of Unitarianism. All lectures in criticism of the\nfundamentals of Orthodoxy were as much as prohibited. Orthodox leaders\nwere invited to preach from the platform of the Ethical Societies,\nand it became the ambition of an Ethical lecturer to deliver only such\nlectures as no church-goer would object to hear. I do not mean that\nOrthodox doctrines were promulgated by the Ethical lecturers, but\nnothing was to be said against them, if nothing could be said in\ntheir favor. The aim of the Movement was now defined to be solely\nthe improvement of the morals of its members and of the public, and\ntherefore, like the church, it began to fight \"sin,\" studiously ignoring\nthe debasing superstitions and the bondage of dogma which not only had\nbankrupted, both mentally and morally, whole nations, but which had\nalso withered the greatest civilization the world had ever seen, and\nsurrendered humanity to the keeping of \"the dark ages\" for a thousand\nyears. This change in the program of the Ethical Societies greatly\npleased the Orthodox world, and all fear of menace or danger to its\ntheological interests from that direction was dissipated. Catholic and\nProtestant clergymen vied with each other in expressions of admiration\nfor the work of the Ethical Societies, and all praised the tact which\nthe leaders of the movement displayed in refraining from criticisms\nof the churches and their doctrines, to protest against the degrading\neffects of which, was the very object for which the Ethical Societies\nwere organized in the first place. Thus it will be seen how completely\nthe Movement came to abandon its original program. The Sunday lectures\nof the leaders of the Movement became, in time, so \"harmless\" that\npreachers recommended them to their flock, while the Ethical lecturers\nin return publicly declared that it was not necessary for a Trinitarian,\na Papist or a Jew to leave his church before he could be admitted to\nmembership in an Ethical Society. The Ethical Societies, in fact,\ndid not encourage people to break away from their ecclesiastical\nconnections, but indirectly, at least, advised them to support the new\nmovement without withdrawing their support from the churches to which\nthey belonged.\n\nI cannot imagine that any one seriously believed that a devout\nChristian, or an Orthodox Jew, would join an Ethical Society for\npurposes of edification in morals. To do so would be equivalent to an\nadmission that one's divinely appointed church was not satisfying one's\nhighest needs, and to feel that way toward one's own church is to cease\nto believe in it. Only those then who had parted with the past, with\nits crushing and hampering freight of dogmas, would think of joining\nan organization that started as an \"Atheistic,\" or at least, a\nnon-religious society. But the invitation to join the Ethical Societies\nwithout leaving their own churches had the effect of drawing the new\nmovement into closer relations with the religious bodies, which in our\nopinion has greatly handicapped the Ethical lecturers, and impaired\ntheir leadership in the world of thought. It is not my intention to\nbring a charge of deliberate surrender to the churches against the\nleaders of the Ethical Movement. It will be difficult to find anywhere a\nfiner body of men than the lecturers of the different Ethical Societies\nin America. But they swerved from the path they had started to follow,\nand sacrificed a magnificent career to become an annex to the church.\nNot only the history of the Movement, but also the literature which it\nnow puts forth, lends confirmatory evidence to the criticism I have made\nagainst a cause to which I once gave my heart.\n\nThat the publications of the Ethical Society as well as the Sunday\nlectures of the leaders, show decidedly reactionary tendencies, it\nwill not be difficult to prove. They do this, first, by maintaining\na significant silence on questions the free discussion of which would\noffend the churches, and in the second place, by indirectly endeavoring\nto bolster up, by new interpretations, the discredited dogmas of the\npopular religions. Either of these charges, if true, will be enough\nto prove that the Ethical Movement has not remained faithful to its\noriginal intentions.\n\nIt is not a secret that the lecturers of the Ethical Societies no\nlonger publicly condemn the false teaching of the churches. These false\nteachings, in our opinion, form an essential part of both Christianity\nand Judaism, which have to be exposed and attacked vigorously and\nwithout compromise, if morality is ever to make any permanent progress\nin the world. It should be as impossible to reconcile Ethical Culture\nwith the churches, as it is to reconcile theology with science, and\nyet, that is precisely what the Ethical lecturers think they Have\naccomplished. I have only to quote from authoritative Christian sources\nto show how prejudicial to the interests of morality is the teaching of\nthe churches. For an Ethical Movement systematically to ignore the evil\nwhich the churches do by sacrificing reason to dogma is in the nature of\ntreason to its own principles. The whole trend of Christian teaching is\nthat Ethics is secondary. How can the Ethical Societies afford to ignore\nso fundamental an untruth? Both the established and the non-conformist\nchurches explicitly and officially declare and teach that, \"They also\nare to be accursed that presume to say, that every man shall be saved by\nthe Law, or the sect that he professeth, so that he be diligent to\nframe his life according to that Law, and the Light of Nature. For Holy\nScripture doth set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ whereby men\nmust be saved.\" * Clearly, then, for the churches it is not ethics, but\nfaith in Jesus, a disputed personage at the very best, which represents\nthe highest interests of the race.\n\n     *  Eighteenth Article of the Church of England.\n\nThat the same unethical doctrine forms the basis of the Reformed\nchurches will be seen from the following:\n\n\"Much less can men not professing the Christian religion be saved, _be\nthey ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of\nnature_; and to ascertain and maintain that they can is very _pernicious\nand to be detested_.\" *\n\nThe same indifference, if not contempt for morality is shown by the\nleading exponents of Christianity. When I was a lad of about fifteen,\none of the books placed in my hand, and which I was made to\nregard almost as inspired as the Bible, was, _Paleys Evidences of\nChristianity_. Speaking on the scope of the Christian religion, in the\nsecond part of his book, he writes: \"Moral precepts or examples, or\nillustrations of moral precepts, may be _occasionally_ given, and be\nhighly valuable, yet still they do not form the original purpose of the\nmission.\" The meaning is clear: Christ did not come to make men moral,\nhe came to save those who shall believe in him. And this is also the\nteaching of leaders like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon\nand General Booth. The burden of Luther's message was that \"Christ had\ncome to abolish the Moral Law.\" The liberty which Luther proclaimed\nassured the believer that even the decalogue shall not be brought\ninto account against him, \"nor its violation be allowed to disturb the\nconscience of the Christian.\" ** In the same spirit, Spurgeon cried in\nhis London Tabernacle, Sunday after Sunday, for nearly half a century:\n\"Thirty years of sin shall be forgiven, and it shall not take thirty\nminutes to do it in.\" And this doctrine that faith in Christ can in one\ninstant make a man who has led a life of crime and corruption, one of\nGod's saints, Spurgeon and his fellow-clergymen learned from Christ\nhimself, who opened the gates of paradise to the malefactor on the\ncross, and in one minute wiped out all his past. This example from the\ngospels shows that, the preachers and the creeds in giving to morality a\nsecondary place, are not misrepresenting the teachings of Christ. What\nneed has a religion which can change men miraculously,--and which makes\nfaith the sole condition of salvation,--for Ethical Culture?\n\n     * Westminster Catechism.\n\n     **  Moehler's Works, quoted by Cotter Morison, Service of\n     Man, page 51.\n\nWhat is true of Christianity is equally true of its parent, Judaism. The\nfull stress of the Old Testament is on the necessity of the Ceremonial\nand not the Moral Law. While the Jews were not only permitted, but were\nordered to break every Ethical commandment in the decalogue, to commit\ntheft, murder, massacre, and acts of oppression and brigandage,--every\ndeparture from the ritual of Israel was visited by immediate and\nclamorous punishment. Both Judaism and Christianity make their special\nobjective, not character, but the creed. How, then, can a movement the\nmotto of which is \"The deed, not the creed,\" maintain so profound a\nsilence, or refrain even from calling attention to the positive hurt\nwhich the old religions do to the cause of righteousness? What is the\ndefense of Ethical Culture against this charge?\n\nIf it be answered that, the churches no longer take their creeds or\nbibles, seriously, notwithstanding their official professions, then the\nEthical lecturers should, instead of silently endorsing the hypocrisy\nwhich professes one thing and believes another, thunder against it\nwith all their might. This should be done not from motives of hatred or\ncombativeness, but in the spirit of faithfulness to the best interests\nof man. It is error, and not its victims, against which the Rationalist\ndirects his straight and sounding blows. It was Paine's kindly advice\nin the French convention to kill the king and spare the man. It is the\ndesire of Reason to destroy false teachings and to help enlighten the\nteacher.\n\nThe effect upon the prosperity of the Ethical Societies, both in America\nand Europe, of this policy of silence, has been really disastrous. Like\nUnitarianism, the Ethical Movement has drifted into the sheltered harbor\nwhere it hugs the wharves made fast by posts and ropes. Both these\nmovements started out for the sea, but not a vessel flying their flags\ncan now be encountered at any distance from the coast. Thirty years ago\nthere were four Ethical Societies in America; there are now these same\nfour and no more, and three of them are without any lecturers.\n\nBut not only by their silence on the injurious teachings of both Judaism\nand Christianity, which strike at the very foundations of moral health,\nbut also by their attempts, incredible as it may seem, to discredit\nscience and to seek in metaphysics, or in a sort of attenuated theology,\nthe origins and sanctions of Ethics, the Ethical lecturers have given to\ndecaying dogmas the support they owed to Rationalism.\n\nIn a contribution by Dr. Adler, head of the fellowship, on one of the\nfundamentals of the Movement, we see full traces of this deplorable\neffort to divorce Ethics from science, and wed her to theology.\n\nIn discussing \"The Religion of Duty,\" the professor, instead of\nexplaining duty in the terms of science, tries to make of it a deeper\nmystery even than the thrice veiled dogmas of the churches. \"Duty,\"\nhe says, \"becomes religion when we recognize that it is not a law or a\ncommand that has a merely sensible origin, or can be explained in\nterms of sensible experience, that we can get to the bottom of it and\nthoroughly penetrate it with our understanding, or see fully the use of\nit. * * * It is then that we come to realize that in the moral command\nthere is something awful.\" The language is not very clear--perhaps\nbecause the thought is not very clear--but we believe its meaning is\nthat, a moral command is awful because we cannot understand it. Prof.\nAdler seems to make of duty a new kind of a god. The qualities and\nattributes of the deity he bodily transfers to his successor--_Duty_.\nAccordingly, Duty becomes just as mysterious and awful as God, and\nwe can no more get at the \"bottom\" of Duty than we can understand\nthe Deity. Duty no more than the Deity can be \"expressed in terms of\nsensible experience,\" hence it is inexplicable; and the only way we\ncan feel \"the majesty and inexplicable augustness of it,\" says the\nprofessor, \"is to draw back the curtains and see,\" and then \"we shall\nfind that out of this relation we suddenly get religion.\" I fear we get\nit a little too suddenly. Such rapid transformations suggest a _deus ex\nmachina_.\n\nThere is serious danger of making a fetish out of the word duty. The\nthinking world has abandoned theism because of the impossibility of\nexplaining in terms of sensible experience, the existence of a personal\ninfinite; but now Prof. Adler wishes to surround his new deity, Duty,\nwith the same \"clouds and darkness\" which have so long hung about the\nancient divinities.\n\nIn what sense is it a compliment to the moral law to say that it cannot\nbe \"explained in terms of sensible experience\"? What is gained by\nputting a dead wall or \"curtains\" between the intelligence of man and\nhis conscience? Why sneer at the scientific explanation of the\norigin and growth of the moral sense by calling it \"narrow, secular,\nmaterialistic and paltry,\" as Prof. Adler does in this lecture--when no\nbetter explanation is offered than a mere rhetorical recommendation \"to\ndraw back the curtains and see the majesty and inexplicable augustness\nof it\"? What are these curtains? Who put them there to hide such\n\"augustness\"? If the scientific explanation of the origin of the moral\nsense is a \"flat failure,\" quoting from the professor again, what is\n_his_ explanation? We are really grieved to see so influential a public\nleader taking sides against science, the only dependable teacher we\nhave, notwithstanding its many limitations.\n\nAgain, in his criticism of the evolutionary view, the professor says:\n\"As against the scientific evolutionary view, I plead for what I would\ncall the moral evolutionary view, which asserts that the moral law is a\nlaw of our nature, and in so far, the universal nature. * * * We leave\nthe issues to work themselves out; we leave them to mightier powers than\nwe, whose ways we wot not of.\" Here surely is theology--cap, cassock and\nall.\n\nBut what is the difference between the scientific evolutionary view and\nthe moral evolutionary view? If the scientific view is not in accord\nwith the known facts, then it is not scientific. But if it is in harmony\nwith the facts, what do we gain by rejecting it in preference to the\n\"moral evolutionary view\"? If on the other hand the \"moral evolutionary\nview\" is not scientific, what is its value?\n\nAccording to the generally admitted scientific explanation, morality is\njust as much the result of evolution as is music or language. Morality\nis the slow product of the accumulated experience of humanity. But that\ndoes not seem to be Prof. Adler's theory. \"There is,\" he says, \"a voice\nthat speaks in us out of the ultimate reality of things.\" But if this\nvoice is not the inherited instincts of the race, what is it? If it is\na ready-made, or made to order voice, or a voice not made at all--but,\nwell, an unfathomable something commanding us in tones of the\ncategorical imperative--who placed it there? God, or chance? If\nconscience, in straight words, is a natural product in the same sense\nthat the brain or the human hand is, then there is no good reason for\nthrowing a mystic veil over this one faculty or sense, or in decorating\nit with fallacy trimmings and jingling bells in order to make it look\nexceptionally awful and august. Just as the foolish overpraise of Jesus\nhas nearly ruined him as a living force in the life of the world today,\nso there is danger of making an idol or a mummy out of morality by\ntaking away all its beautiful naturalness.\n\n\"I simply think of the moral law within us,\" says Dr. Adler, \"as a hand\nlaid on us. * * * I like to think of the moral law * * * as of a hand;\nthe face we do not see, but the hand we feel.\" Is not this an attempt to\nmake ethics as mystifying as theology? If this \"hand,\" of which the\nprofessor speaks, is endowed with unerring intelligence, how shall we\naccount for the missteps, disastrous in their consequences, which man\nhas taken with this \"hand\" laid on him?\n\nHowever, this \"hand\" which we are told \"is heavy upon our shoulders as\nAtlas,\" is not infallible, what is its worth? Is it necessary to perplex\nan audience with visions of a \"hand,\" and \"a face that belongs to the\nhand which we do not see,\" in order to impress it with the beauty and\nduty of obedience to the dictates of the enlightened and emancipated\nconscience?\n\nBut this confusion is the result of the commerce of Ethical Culture\nwith Churchianity and Judaism, in other words, with the supernatural.\nA teacher who is trying to convince both Christian and Jew that without\ndiscarding their obsolete and obstructive dogmas they can join\nthe Ethical Movement, is compelled by the very exigencies of the\n_mesalliance_ to tarry in the region of fog and obscurity. And this\nconfusion in thought, this lack of decision and clarity in one's\nconcepts, this metaphysical vagueness and bewildering rhetoric is the\nprice Orthodoxy exacts before it will bestow its smile upon a prodigal\nteacher seeking to return to the fold.\n\nWe could not agree with the head of the Ethical Movement that it was\nworth our while to try to win the favor of the churches, or to seek\ntheir co-operation. In our opinion such a _rapprochement_ would only\nredound to the glory of an institution that has proven itself not\nonly incapable of saving the world, but of positively hindering its\nsalvation. This indictment is not voiced in haste, or in malice, but\nbecause it is based upon careful observation and study.\n\nThe church can never become a great moral power until it is\nrationalized. In this age of enlightenment the church can not be\nhonest and Orthodox at the same time. We recommend this thought to the\nconsideration of the Ethical lecturers. And no institution can make\nothers honest, if it is dishonest itself. Is the church honest with\nscience? Is it honest with history? Is it honest with the Bible? Mark\nthese brave words of Huxley:\n\n\"When Sunday after Sunday, men who profess to be our instructors in\nrighteousness, read out the statement that 'In six days the Lord made\nheaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is,' in innumerable\nchurches, they are either propagating what they may honestly know, and,\ntherefore, are bound to know, to be falsities; or if they use the words\nin some non-natural sense, they fall below the moral standard of the\nmuch-abused Jesuit.\"\n\nHow refreshing!\n\nTo the average thinker the inconsistency of advocating Ethics as the\nsupreme good, on the one hand, and on the other, of maintaining a\ndeliberate silence on the demonstrably false teaching of the church\nwhich makes belief the greatest of all virtues, has only to be pointed\nout to be comprehended. And it is Kant, the patron-saint of the American\nEthical lecturers, who set them the example of inconsistency. With a\nrigour which even in a dogmatist of the theological schools would be\nconsidered excessive, Emanuel Kant argued that so imperative was the\nduty to tell the truth that, even to save one's self or another from\nmurder, there must be no departure from it. If you saw an assassin with\na drawn dagger running after a man or a woman, and he asked you, \"which\nway the fugitive ran,\" if you answer him at all, insists Kant, you must\ntell him the truth. And yet this same philosopher encouraged openly the\nLutheran clergy of his day to go on deceiving the people with beliefs\nwhich they themselves had discarded, on the score that _populus vult\ndecipi_, and that the clergy are excused by their profession for playing\na false part.\n\nIs it then from policy or from principle that the Ethical lecturers,\nstarting as they did, by denouncing the supernatural as the destroyer\nof character, later on came to ignore altogether the existence even\nof degrading superstitions, and were content to be a moral improvement\nassociation merely, somewhat after the pattern, as Marie-Jean Guyau\nstates, of a Christian Temperance Society? *\n\n     *  L'Irr\u00e9ligion de L'Avenir.\n\nThe battle of progress is to be fought in the mind. An intellectual\nawakening must precede all real and permanent moral improvement of\nthe world. On the tree of enlightenment alone can ripen the fruit of\nrighteousness and peace. And there can be no enlightenment under the\nchurch. Even as the light of the sun can not enter a dungeon, the light\nof knowledge can not penetrate the mind which it has been the aim of the\nchurch to keep shut. The condition of the spread of knowledge as of the\nsunlight is the same--freedom. Yet freedom is anathema where there is\na Revelation. A thousand Ethical Societies could not help Russia unless\nshe began by striking, without sparing or wavering, at the teachings of\nthe Greek church.\n\nThe new edifice cannot rise side by side with the old--it must rise on\nthe ruins of the old.\n\nCan there be any real moral advance in a community in which the\nfollowing is accepted and taught as a divinely revealed truth: \"We\nare accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and\nSaviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works and deservings.\nWherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome\ndoctrine, and very full of comfort.\" *\n\n     * No. XI. of the Articles of the Church of England. All the\n     other Christian churches teach to young and old the same\n     doctrine.\n\nOnly by self-stultification can an Ethical Society refrain from\ncombating so injurious a teaching with all the earnestness and courage\nat their command.\n\nNothing would please the priests and rabbis more than to be assured\nthat the efforts of the new teachers will be confined strictly to\ngiving moral exhortations, and that they will leave church and dogma\nrespectfully alone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. Anchored at Last\n\nAfter nearly ten years of service in the Ethical field, I felt\nconstrained to withdraw from the fraternity of lecturers, because I\nrealized that under the guise of a new name we were all slowly slipping\nback into the net of theology, from which we had escaped after years\nof struggle and suffering. When I look over my own lectures delivered\nduring my connection with the Ethical Movement, I find in them clearly\nthe traces of the same reactionary bias. The atmosphere of theology is\nperceptible on nearly every page, Passages about the moral supremacy of\nJesus, His uniqueness, and the indebtedness of the ages to Him, will be\nfound in the publications which will not only show that I had swerved\nfrom the path into which I had entered when I left Calvinism, and in\nwhich I had persevered against numerous temptations to leave it, but\nalso, what a powerful influence my new environment exerted upon me. In a\nlecture delivered before the Chicago Ethical Society, I try to prove\nthe spiritual resurrection of Jesus, and His incomparable greatness. In\nanother, delivered before the New York Society, in Carnegie Music\nHall, I fail to appreciate the services of such intellectual Titans\nas Voltaire and Thomas Paine--who flung themselves against a thousand\nabuses, and by opposing, succeeded in putting an end to them. I make\nthese confessions to show that there was in my course from Calvinism to\nRationalism, a break, after all. I missed the straight path, despite\nall my vigilance, and cannot, therefore, claim the happiness, nor the\ndistinction which belongs to those who have been more consistent than I\nhave been.\n\nBut it was not very long before I began to see whither I was drifting.\nI discovered that I was using two sets of weights and measures--one set\nfor Calvinistic Christianity, and another set for _my_ Christianity, and\nit was only necessary to submit my own interpretations to the same\ntests which had shown the untenability of Calvinism to discover my\nself-deception. I had rejected Calvinism because it offered no evidence\nin support of its dogmas, but what evidence did I offer to prove the\nmoral superiority of _my_ Jesus which I claimed to find in the gospels?\nWhy is not Calvin's word as good as mine, if an assertion may pass\nfor an argument? I began to see, even more clearly than ever before,\nperhaps, because of my temporary backsliding or _egarement_, as the\nFrench would it is as impossible to construct a character of Jesus as\nit is to write a life of Jesus out of the data in hand. No less an\nauthority than Prof. Conybeare, of Oxford, Fellow of the British Academy\nand Doctor of Theology, admits that \"We cannot, then, aspire to write\na life of Jesus. Even Renan failed, and from the hands of a Farrar\nwe merely get under this rubric a farago of falsehood, absurdity, and\ncharlatanry.\" * This is strong language, but there is no exaggeration\nin it. If, however, a life of Jesus cannot be written, it follows that,\nunder the circumstances a character of Jesus can not be constructed. How\ncan the character of a man be known whose life is unknown to us? Are\na few floating aphorisms ascribed to Jesus enough to justify his\nbeatification? And yet, the other Ethical lecturers, as well as myself,\nwere speaking of Jesus not only as the religious genius of the ages, but\nalso as the one being in whom humanity's hopes and dreams came true. I\nhave quoted elsewhere ** Adler's description of Christ as \"a personality\nof such superlative excellence, so radiant, so incomparably lofty in\nmien and port and speech and intercourse.\" But this rhetorical praise is\nas untrue of Jesus as it would be of Moses or Mohammed.\n\n     *  Myth, Magic and Morals, page 140.\n\n     *  The Truth About Jesus, page 257.\n\nIn the fall of 1899 there was presented to me the opportunity of either\ngoing to Philadelphia, the scene of my earlier intellectual struggles,\nas the lecturer of an Independent Society, or of returning to Chicago,\nafter an absence of four years from that city, to be the lecturer of\na society which promised to help support a platform pledged to an\nuncompromising Rationalism. Considerable objection was made by members\nand lecturers of the Ethical Societies to my trying to organize an\nIndependent Society in Chicago. Was not one liberal society enough in\nChicago? it was asked. Did not the Ethical platform answer the purposes\nwhich the proposed society wished to serve? Would I not be dividing and\nthereby weakening the cause by engaging a new lecture hall? My critics\ndid not object to my going to cities where there were no Ethical\nSocieties, but in cities where there was one, I was not needed, was\ntheir argument. But time has shown that the society of which I have\nbeen the lecturer for the past ten years, does not in the least conflict\nwith, or duplicate the work of the Ethical Societies. There is a radical\ndifference between Ethical Culture and Rationalism, which may be brought\nout by the help of an illustration: A certain king had many slaves. This\nking had been a slave-holder for a long, long time. And his slaves had\nlived in slavery ever since they could remember. There were among the\nslaves of the king, young and old, men and women, rich and poor.\n\nNow there came to the slave-holder, one day, men from a strange country,\nwho demanded that the slaves be given their freedom. The king put them\nto death, and continued to hold his slaves. From time to time others\ncame demanding freedom for the slaves, but they met a similar fate.\nSome of the preachers of freedom were burned at the stake, others were\ntortured to death in dungeons, and others again were put to the sword.\nBut this did not stop the coming of new preachers of liberty.\n\nWhen the number of people believing in freedom for the slave increased\nsufficiently to command respect, the slave-holder changed his policy. He\nreceived the messengers of liberty with great courtesy and hospitality,\nand expressed the hope that he and they might arrive at a satisfactory\narrangement.\n\n\"Why do you demand the freedom of the slaves?\" he asked, very politely.\n\"It is their right, and it alone can develop the best possibilities in\nthem,\" they answered.\n\n\"I am perfectly willing,--indeed, I shall cooperate with you toward that\nlaudible end, but on one condition: they shall continue to remain in my\ncare and obey me as their guide and protector.\"\n\n\"No,\" said some of the apostles of liberty, \"as slaves they can never be\nhelped to the fuller and better life. Before everything else, they\nmust conquer freedom to obey not you, but their own unfettered and\nenlightened consciences. Besides, you have been an evil Master, and can\nno longer be entrusted with the care of others. With the fall of slavery\nfalls all your pretended rights to the allegiance of these men and\nwomen. And the slaves can not become free until your real character is\nexposed and your pretensions to authority divine exploded.\"\n\nBut, on the other hand, there were those among the preachers of freedom\nwho were inclined to accept the slave-owner's proposition: \"We will\ncome in and do what we can to educate and reform the people. We will\nsay nothing to them about their slavery, or against your authority over\nthem. All we wish is to make good men and women out of them,\" they said.\n\nBehold the difference between \"liberal\" Christian and Ethical movements,\nand a thoroughgoing and uncompromising Rationalism. The former think\nthat the intellectual bondage of the church is not an obstacle to the\nmoral and mental development of man, the latter hold, and to my mind,\njustly, that the first condition of salvation for a slave is that he be\nfree--free from gods, christs, bibles and churches, as well as kings.\n\nBut the Rationalist Societies of Europe and America need no\njustification for their existence. They do a work which neither\nUnitarianism nor Ethical Culture attempt even to do. The work of the\nRationalists of Chicago has been singularly successful, both in building\nup a self-supporting Society with a large membership and a much larger\naudience which regularly fills Orchestra Hall--the largest and finest on\nMichigan Avenue, but it has also, together with the other progressive\nforces at play in the modern world, profoundly influenced the life and\nthought of the community. Superstition is more ashamed to show her face\nin Chicago, than perhaps in any other city of its size in America. There\nare no doubt, Rationalists in many of our other cities, and in large\nnumbers, but in Chicago, Rationalists are organized. They maintain a\nregular platform, and disseminate Rationalistic publications by the\nthousands.\n\nThe ten years in which I have been engaged in this work of constructive\nRationalism have been the most fruitful years of my life. They have\nbeen years of conscious development in the knowledge and grasp of\ntruths which enrich as well as interpret life. The sense of freedom from\ninconsistency, which is a kind of insincerity, is a great source, both\nof power and happiness. Then, the militant note to which the soul of the\nRationalist vibrates,--for he is a soldier sworn to free men from the\nfear of the gods and their priests--a soldier to help man break his\nholy chains--gives him all the alertness, watchfulness, and courage of\na sentinel at his vigil. There have been those who have helped man to\npolitical liberty, and others who are nobly endeavoring to help him\nconquer industrial liberty: but not until man has thrown off the yoke\nof the gods can he be free indeed. The last king to be dethroned is the\nheavenly king. If he stays, Tzar and Kaiser, tyrant and despot, pope and\npriest, in some form or other, will remain with us. Here and there men\nmay succeed in banishing or overthrowing the tyrant,--king or priest,\nbut these will come back again and again, perhaps disguised, but\never really the same, until God from whom they derive their power is\nunseated, and man becomes forever free. Honor to those who taught us not\nto kneel before Caesar, but greater honor to him who shall teach us not\nto kneel at all, and to accept nothing that is given to us for kneeling.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. Some Objections to Rationalism.\n\n\"Rationalism is cold,\" is a frequent criticism advanced by theological\npeople. Without God and the hope of immortality, the Rationalist,\naccording to church-goers, ought to be very miserable. Even if he should\nmanage to escape the consequences of his unbelief while living, he is\nsure to suffer horrors when he comes to die. Life and death are so awful\nthat only faith in God and the hope of a future life can enable us to\nendure the one and resign ourselves to the other. Such is the reasoning\nof Orthodoxy.\n\nStrictly speaking, the question of the existence of a God is not a\nhuman question. The bare fact that for these thousands of years, and\nthroughout the world, the existence of God has remained an unsolved\nquestion, suggests that in all probability it will never be decided by\nmortals. Certainty about the future is equally impossible. Of course, we\ndo not know what light science may throw upon these problems to-morrow,\nbut speaking modestly, and without dogmatizing, every honest soul must\nadmit, with Shakespeare, that the future is still an \"undiscovered\ncountry.\"\n\nThe essential thing is not that we should believe in a God or in the\nhereafter, but that we should grow. Whenever, during my ten years of\ncomplete severance from the supernatural, I have been called to say a\nfew words in the house of mourning, or at the open grave, I have\nnever pretended to find comfort for the bereaved in the belief in a\nnon-resident God or in a life hereafter.\n\nThe priest knows, or says he does, where the departed has gone, what\nkind of a life he leads there, what will be his lot in eternity,\nand whether we shall meet again. He speaks of these things with the\nassurance of a schoolboy reciting a page which he has learned by heart.\nBut he is only pretending to possess information which, as a matter\nof fact, no one possesses. He knows no more of a personal God, or of\nanother life, than anybody else. If we cannot predict what will happen\nin the next hour, how can we talk with assurance of the secrets of the\nunending future? If we do not quite understand ourselves, or the world\nwhich we daily see, how can we boast of any certain knowledge of a\nBeing who is said to be infinitely and absolutely and incomprehensibly\ndifferent from us? Silence is more religious than the gossip one hears\nabout such a Being. Modesty is more reverent than dogmatism, and the\nagnostic is more honest and more eloquent than the garrulous preacher.\nIf men wish to know where the Eternal is, who he is, what he does, what\nhis intentions are, how he should be praised, what humors or provokes\nhim, how many manifestations or persons there are in his godhead,\nand when he first began his operations, etc., they must not come to a\nRationalist for such information. To acquaint man with himself, to show\nhim the way to develop and use his own resources, and in time of sorrow\nand bereavement, to depend upon the thoughts of the wise and the brave,\nwhich heal and sooth and bless, is the consolation Rationalism offers.\nIt is modest, but it is real. Rationalists cannot count on the creeds\nfor consolation. A doll may amuse a baby, but is a grown-up man\nmiserable because he cannot play with a toy? The Rationalist is willing\nto see Nature in its true light. He prefers reality to illusions, and\nwould rather be awake than dreaming the most seductive dreams which\n\"poppy or mandragora, or all the drowsy syrups of the world\" can\nmedicine the mind into.\n\nBut the greatest consolation of the Rationalist is in this, that he is\nnot under obligation to distort his intellect and twist his affections\nout of joint in order to justify God's way to man. No sooner a disaster\nis announced than the clergy begin to concoct excuses for this seeming\nneglect of Providence. God meant to punish human carelessness; he was\nangry with the present generation for its unbelief; he wished to speak\nin tones loud enough to be heard the world over, he was trying to make\nus more careful in the future, he wished to demonstrate that all human\ndevices and inventions are futile unless \"the Lord protect\" the ship,\nthe house or the city; and finally, that we do not understand God, for\n\"he moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform,\" though we know\nhe does everything for the best. Is it not a welcome relief that the\nRationalist can bear his great sorrow without resorting to commonplace\nsophistries of this nature? Not taxed with the burden of vindicating\nProvidence, the Rationalist devotes his energies to the fruitful work of\ndeveloping his resources against the fortuitous elements at play about\nhim.\n\nOnly a moment's reflection will prove the futility of all attempts to\nestablish a relation of some kind between God and the world's life.\n\n`````_God's in His Heaven,\n\n````All's right with the World!_=\n\nis Browning's creed in his _Pippa Passes._\n\nThe verse in which the lines occur is, no doubt, excellent poetry, but\nwhat about its philosophy?\n\n````\"_The lark's on the wing;\n\n````The snail's on the thorn;\n\n````God's in His Heaven-\n\n````All's right with the world!\"_=\n\nWe have seen and heard the lovely lark winging through the crystal air;\nand a thousand thousand eyes have discovered the snail on the thorn.\nIs it Browning's idea to intimate that by the same material or tangible\nproofs we may be sure \"God's in His Heaven,\" and be reassured that\n\"All's right with the world?\" The two propositions belong altogether to\nradically different categories, and to infer from the presence of the\nlark in the air, or the snail on the thorn, that \"All's right with the\nworld,\" may be good rhyme, but that is all it is. Granting that \"God's\nin His Heaven,\"--a question toward which we maintain the modest and\nhonest agnostic position,--it is within the sphere of man to discuss\nwhether \"All's right with the world.\" The world is made up of many\ncountries full of people, and it has had a long history. Certainly\n\"all's not right\" in all the countries of the world, nor has it been\nso during all the periods of time. Is it, for example, true of Russia\nto-day that \"all's right\" there? Is it true of Poland, bleeding from\na thousand wounds? Has it ever been all right in Turkey? In Browning's\nopinion, was there a country in Europe--the Europe of his day--of which\nhe could truthfully say that _all_ was right there? But perhaps the poet\nmerely meant to say that since \"God's in His Heaven,\" all is bound to\nbe right, sooner or later,--if not in this world, then, surely, in some\nother. But is not that begging the question? The mere fact that the best\nhuman effort is directed toward making the world better, shows that\nthe world needs mending, and is far from being all right. We fear\nthat Browning used his oft-quoted expression after a very enjoyable\nbreakfast, while looking out upon his green and carefully trimmed lawns,\nshaded with the overspreading branches of gorgeous trees, and imagined\nthat his cheerful yard was the world. The poet appears to correct his\nown hasty generalization when a little later he puts in Pippa's mouth\nthe lines:\n\n```\"_In the morning of the world,\n\n```When earth was nigher Heaven than now_.\"=\n\nIf it is true that the older the world grows, the farther it falls from\nheaven, then, it can not be all right with the world, even if \"God's in\nHis Heaven.\" And what is Browning's authority that the earth was nearer\nHeaven once than it is now? Does he believe that the state of barbarism\nis nearer heaven than that of civilization? Or does he believe that man\nbegan life as an angel, and later became a man--a fallen man? It seems\nas if the former of the two suppositions represents Browning's thought,\nfor in the following lines he shows decided preference for the animal,\nthe primitive, life of the world:\n\n```\"_For what are the voices of birds,\n\n```Aye! and of beasts--but words, our words?\n\n```Only so much more sweet?_\"=\n\nThis is reason swallowed up in rhyme, or sense lost in sentiment. Why\nis the incoherent, instinctive exclamations of childhood, of bird and\nbeast, sweeter than the ripened, rational, progressive, word of man?\nSurely a bird is more innocent than a man, but a stone is even more\ninnocent than a bird. The beast tears its victims to death, the tree\nfeeds the worms; is not a tree, therefore, purer than a beast? In all\nnature, there is nothing holier than man, for he alone can be holy.\nBrowning seems to think that we were all so much better off when we were\nnearer the bird and beast, but evolution is our destiny, and only faint\nhearts cast wistful glances at the ages left behind.\n\nFinally, the great English poet seems to develop further the Asiatic\nfatalism of \"God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world\" idea, when\nin Scene VI., Pippa, in her chamber, exclaims:\n\n```\"_All service ranks the same with God--\n\n```With God, whose puppets, best and worst,\n\n```Are we; there is no last, nor first._\"=\n\nIndeed! Are we, then, but his puppets'? Is God a puppet showman? And is\nthis a puppet world which he rules? What is the educational value to God\nof presiding over a race of puppets? Is there any glory for God, as Omar\nKhayyam suggests, in pushing back and forth, on a checkerboard, mere\npuppets, and then shutting them up in a closet after he has finished\nwith the game? If we are all his puppets, we cannot much care whether\n\"God's in His Heaven\", or somewhere else, and whether or not \"All's\nright with the world.\" The truth is, Browning, instead of portraying\ntruth, betrays it. He sacrifices reason to imagination, and the result\nis failure.\n\nThe attempts of the clergy to reconcile the god-idea with human\nsuffering and wrong have proved equally worthless. Shortly after the\ndisastrous Iroquois fire, in which nearly six hundred lives were lost,\nthe Chicago clergy met, strange to say, to thank God for his tender\nmercies. Theology cuts strange capers with Reason after it has put out\nits eyes. It was of course appropriate that, not only the mourners,\nbut the public in general, should observe with sober reflections the\nanniversary of a holocaust which left a great city in mourning. It is\nregrettable, however, that the ceremonies at the commemoration service\nassumed altogether a theological character, excluding thereby from\nparticipation many who would have derived great benefit from a purely\nhuman expression of sorrow and sympathy. The exercises opened by the\nringing of the well known Hymn, _Nearer, My God, to Thee_, which was\ntouchingly rendered by the soloist and quartet to the accompaniment\nof the piano. All music, softly and feelingly rendered, is sure to be\nimpressive as well as soothing on occasions of this kind. But was it not\na pity that some poet's words, free from the theological implication,\nwere not selected in place of this church hymn which is, after all,\nnothing but the ecstatic outpouring of a superlatively mystical soul?\nWhat does it mean, for instance, to be \"Nearer and still nearer, to\nGod\"? Did the six hundred people who murmured the words of the hymn have\nany clear idea of what they were asking for when they sang \"_Nearer, My\nGod, to Thee?_\" No doubt they were comforted by the hymn, but how did it\ndiffer from the help which the Asiatic thinks he derives as often as\nhe exclaims _Om Mani Padme Houm_--\"O the glorious jewel of the\nlotus,--amen\"? Imagine the effect upon an American audience, had one of\nthe speakers suggested that the audience should sing the Hindoo prayer\nto the lotus instead of the Christian hymn. But why is not _O the\nglorious jewel of the lotus_ as intelligible as _Nearer, My God, to\nThee?_ Would the millions of Orientals who in sorrow and darkness find\nlight in drawing nearer to the lotus, be in the least moved by the\nChristian hymn which moistened the eyes of so many in Willard Hall?\n\nBut why not let the Hindoo have his lotus prayer and the Christian his\nhymn? We have no objection: if they cannot do without them, they are\nwelcome to them. In our opinion there has never been a religion, however\ncrude or primitive, but has helped some struggling soul; there has\nnot been an idol, however wooden, but has answered some prayers; not\na fetish, however cheap, but has inspired some believer. It is with\nreligions as it is with houses: The poorest hut or shanty protects some\nlittle ones from the cold, the most rickety roof shields from the storm\nsome shivering child of want--even the hole in the ground into which\nthe savage creeps to escape the ravages of the elements is a refuge. But\ntrue as all this is, it still remains as the most religions duty of man\nto try to replace these primitive shelters by building, as Oliver Wendel\nHolmes suggests, \"more stately mansions\" for his soul. Even as liberty\nwith little is better than slavery with prosperity, and as justice is\nmore precious than peace, truth is better than all the consolations\nwhich such financial exclamations as _O the glorious jewel of the\nlotus_, or _Nearer, My God, to Thee_, can afford.\n\n\"We thank Thee, O God, for the gift of tears; we thank Thee for the\nministrations of pain,\" prayed the reverend comforter. Pain and tears\nare certainly among man's teachers, but they have not been an unmixed\ngood. Pain has crushed, perhaps, as many souls as it has educated. How\nmany have come and gone to whom pain was simply pain, and who derived no\nbenefit from it whatever? A dispatch from Port Arthur states that \"the\ninmates of the hospitals complain bitterly of the heartlessness of the\ndoctors and sisters of charity, who have become so accustomed to human\nsuffering during the long siege that they have lost all sympathy\nwith their patients.\" Pain, then, can make people callous as well as\nsensitive; it can break the spring of the heart as well as sting the\nwill into action.\n\nBut it is not our purpose, at present, to question the wisdom of being\nspecially and officially \"grateful for the ministrations of pain\"; our\nobject is to inquire what the officiating clergyman meant when he said,\n\"We _thank_ Thee, O Father, etc.\" Did he mean it was good of the Deity\nto visit us, now and then, with such catastrophes as the Iroquois\ntheatre fire? or, did he mean that it was quite considerate of him to\nmake us feel the horror of that event sufficiently as to bring tears\nfrom our eyes? In thanking the Lord for pain as a gift, are we to\nunderstand that we owe it solely to his loving kindness that we can\nsuffer, and not to any merit on our part? To thank anybody for anything\nimplies the receiving of a favor, and is it this clergyman's idea that\nin send-ing pain and suffering--earthquakes and floods and terrible\nfires which in one black hour destroys the lives of dearest children\nwith their helpless parents or guardians--the Deity is doing us a favor?\n\nLet us reflect a moment: \"We thank Thee, O Father, etc.,\" Does this\nmean that there was \"a possibility of the Lord withholding from us the\nministrations of pain,\" and that, therefore, we must be thankful to him\nfor not doing so--for not letting us be like the angels who live in a\nworld free from evil and error? We cannot understand what the reverend\ndoctor means when he publicly thanks the Deity for the \"ministrations of\npain.\" And will our good neighbor * tell us who he meant by \"O Father,\"\nand how he connects this \"Father\" with the unutterable calamity, the\nshadow of which still darkens our human hearts? Ah, let us be truthful.\nWe are soldiers, and illusions can only spoil us. \"We had sinned\ntogether,\" continued the Reverend, \"at least someone had sinned, and\n'let him without sin cast the first stone,' I have not the heart to\nrecriminate now, as I had not then, because in my own conscience I\nstand convicted before God of the common negligence. We are common\nsinners.\" What do these words mean? Is the good doctor trying to\nexonerate God by laying the entire blame upon us \"common sinners\"?\n\n     * Reverend Lloyd Jones.\n\nThe theatre fire was in all probability started by an accident which, in\nthe absence of efficient management on the stage and in the auditorium,\nspread rapidly, converting the building in a few moments into a\ncharnel-house. Why bring the Deity into the affair? What part, according\nto the doctor, did the Deity play in the Iroquois fire? Did he try to\nsave anybody? Did he try to prevent anybody from being rescued? Did he\ncause the accident? Did he put it into someone's mind to be careless?\nDid he confuse the people and throw them into a panic purposely? Did he\nfold his hands and stand aside to see the burning? Did he wish to help\nbut could not for any moral reasons? Did he regret his inability to\nprevent the horror? or was he glad it happened because it would teach us\na lesson? Did he choose that special way of teaching us a lesson? Had he\ninevitable reasons for selecting a Wednesday matinee, when more children\nwould be present, to punish \"us common sinners, who stand convicted\nbefore God.\" If we cannot answer any of these questions, why do we\nconnect God with the affair? If we cannot say just what God did or did\nnot do in the theatre fire, why talk about it? If this calamity came\nupon us because of our sins, then, according to the missionary the\nMartinique earthquake came because the islanders rejected the Protestant\nreligion. And whose sins was God punishing by the Galveston disaster\nor the Armenian massacres? Has it come to this that a man cannot take\na sorrowing, weeping, heart-mangled brother or sister by the hand with\nsincere and sweet pity, without speculating about the Deity and his\nmysterious moves?\n\nRationalism saves us from all these contradictions, and gives us the\nconsolation of being sane, even when we cannot have our heart's desire.\n\nBut to abstain from the worship of unknown beings, does not mean to go\nthrough life without an ideal. The feeling of longing, which the poet\ntells us is \"of all the moods of mind, the dearest,\" is present in\nevery earnest man and woman. To develop our faculties, to accomplish our\ntasks, to realize our hopes, to reach after our best thoughts--to labor\nfor the beautiful yet-to-be--it is this hope which gives atmosphere\nto life, and makes our prattle eloquent. The pursuit of the ideal, the\nvision of a world void of wrong, of a humanity free and strong, of a\nworld sweetened by the harmony of happy lives, of honest loves, of great\nworth, of innocent joys,--will ever draw us like a loving kiss.\n\nAnother objection marshalled against Rationalism is that it is too\ncritical, and that it is not \"nice\" to criticise. \"Criticism,\" it is\nargued, \"dwells upon the things which separate, more than upon those\nwhich bring together races and creeds.\"\n\nIt certainly is more pleasant to talk of the unities and the\nfraternities, instead of the differences between men or their views and\nideals.\n\nUnity is a fine thing, but when it is used as a _shibboleth_, or as a\ncheck upon the freedom of thought and speech, it ceases to be desirable.\nWhen agreement is the product of unhampered and generous research, it is\ngood; but when it is desired as an excuse for the fear to investigate,\nthen it becomes a cover for error, or a plea for peace and harmony at\nthe cost of truth and growth. The teacher who provokes thought through\ncriticism is a greater helper than he who by repeating set phrases never\nawakens a new interest in us. To sacrifice everything for the sake of\npeace and fraternity would be a loss rather than a gain. In Russia, for\ninstance, one has all the freedom in the world, provided, he will speak\nonly well of the government. There would, indeed, be harmony under\nthese conditions, in any camp, but what would it be worth? \"Look at my\ncharities,\" says the Catholic church--\"my art, my music--the magnificent\ncathedrals I have built, which are like beautiful galleries. Is it right\nto criticise or condemn the evil practices of a church that has done\nso much good for civilization? Speak, then, of the good the church has\ndone, and say nothing of her persecutions and superstitions, and we\nwill all be of one accord and of one mind.\" But would such a compromise,\nthough baptised with the high-sounding name of unity, help the cause of\nprogress? Is not progress a dearer word than unity? Is not freedom more\nprecious than peace? Let us have unity if we can, but we must grow, and\nwe must be free. Shall we sell the truth that we may have money to be\ncharitable with? Is it right to sacrifice speech to silence, for the\nsake of harmony?\n\nBut is it nice to criticise? Is it not more generous and aesthetic to\nbe on good terms with everybody? What is there more desirable, they say,\nthan to see the ministers of the various cults--the Catholic priest,\nthe Protestant divine, the Jewish rabbi, the Unitarian minister,\nthe Ethicist and Revivalist, arm in arm, and on the same platform,\nexchanging courtesies and praising one another's work? We are told that\nwhen we see such a gathering on one platform, we can be sure that the\nmillenium has arrived. But it will be a millenium for the priest and the\nrabbi, the healer and the shouter--they are the only ones who will be\nbenefited by such a Pentecostal assemblage. Such fellowship will no\ndoubt throw its mantle of silence over a great many evils which fear the\nlight, and encourage their authors to be defiant and indifferent to the\ntruth. Where there is silence truth has no advantage over error. Is it\nworth while to sacrifice the most sacred privileges of men in order to\nbring priest and rabbi together?\n\nA great cause is often lost from the desire of its sponsors to be\n\"nice.\" The teacher who wants to be \"nice\" may manage not to tell any\nlies, but he never succeeds in telling any truths, either. He cannot\nafford to tell the truth, for it may hurt, and he is not \"nice\" if he\nhurts. When he cannot tell anything pleasant, he must hold his tongue.\nSuch a teacher is like an acrobat dancing on a tight rope, all he can do\nis to save himself from falling. There is no more room in modern society\nfor a teacher who is afraid to hurt than there is for the physician who\nwould rather humor the patient than do his duty. And, yet, there are not\na few who trim their thoughts so as to make only friends. If the whole\ntruth should at any time escape them by accident, they hasten forthwith\nto qualify it, or to take back a part of it--just to be obliging and\nnice. There has never been a reformer in the world who could not have\nbecome the idol of the people by following such a method; but idols die\nand turn to dust, while the heroism of the martyred soul is a perennial\nbenediction.\n\nTo be \"nice\" was never the policy of a really earnest man. If Jesus was\na historical personage, it does not appear on the records that he ever\ntried to be \"nice\"--to pat the priests on the back, or to tell them what\ngood fellows they were, and that when he and they met they should be\ncareful to speak only of the things they agreed upon. Of course the\ninability, to be \"nice\" cost Jesus his life. His independence nailed him\nto the cross, but evidently he prized something else more than he\ndid unity. Luther was not very \"nice\" when he tore the pope's bull\nin pieces, and nailed his challenge to Rome on the church doors where\neverybody could see it. How impolite! That, surely, was a poor way\nto make friends. \"Let us have masculine men,\" cries Emerson, who was\nhimself thrown out of his pulpit and his church, because he preferred\nindependence to popularity.\n\nAnother thing which the independent teacher does which is not \"nice\" is\nthat he takes away the religion of our mothers. What about taking\naway the religion of heathen mothers? Why is it right to take away the\nreligion of a Chinaman--a religion handed down to him by his mother--and\nwrong to disturb the religion of an American because it was his mother's\nreligion? Did not Protestantism take away from the Catholics the\nreligion of their mothers? Did not Catholics take away from the pagan\nRomans the religion of their mothers? Is it only taking away the\nreligion of _our_ mothers that is not \"nice\"?\n\nBut the Rationalist is also charged with being negative and not\npositive. We are told in sonorous language that man cannot live on\nnegations. But it is Orthodoxy that is negative, not Rationalism. The\nfirst commandment in the Bible God ever gave man was a negative one:\n\"Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.\" It\ndenied man freedom, and science. It denied him the right to progress.\nAnd ever since the one aim of the church has been to keep man \"poor\nin spirit\". Rationalism, on the contrary, removes the angel with the\nflaming sword at the gates of Eden, and invites everyone who hungers for\nknowledge to enter and eat of the tree of life.\n\nTo know that a thing is not true, is also truth. The mind, like the\nground, must be plowed and cleared before it can receive the truth.\nThere can be no truth without the destruction of error.\n\n\"Your doctrine is well enough for the strong, but the weak must have\ncrutches to walk at all, and you take away from them their crutches,\" is\nanother criticism often advanced against the Rationalist. It is related\nthat Mr. Ingersoll, when he called one day to see his friend, Mr.\n\n--------, who was an invalid, was confronted with an argument he was\nunable to meet. \"As I was sitting in my invalid's chair,\" began his\nfriend, \"and was looking out of the window, I saw a feeble, old man,\nstruggling up the hill yonder, upon his crutches. Evidently, he was\nin pain, for he moved with extreme care and leaned heavily upon his\ncrutches. I could tell that his crutches were all that sustained him\nfrom utter collapse. Then I saw a young man run after him, and when he\ncame up to where the old man was, he kicked off his crutches, and the\npoor fellow rolled down the hill, a perfect wreck.\"\n\n\"That was an outrage,\" Ingersoll exclaimed, jumping to his feet and\nwalking toward the window. \"Where is he?\" he asked, impatient with\nindignation.\n\n\"You are that man,\" returned his friend. \"I was once a believer; my\nbeliefs comforted me. You came into my life, kicked off my crutches, and\nnow I sit here in this chair, a desolate and hopeless soul, waiting for\nthe flame to blow out.\"\n\nThere is no more comparison between a tottering man leaning upon his\nwooden crutches, and a religion claiming to appeal to the intellect\nof man, than there is between a watch and a universe, to quote Paley's\nfamous argument for the existence of a God. But, at any rate, is it not\ncruel to knock an old man's crutches from under him? Let us see. If the\nold man with the crutches represents the feeble-minded believers, the\nquestion to be answered is, how did they come to depend upon the use\nof crutches in the first place? Was it not more cruel to teach them to\ndepend upon crutches? Are not those who prevent the healthy development\nof the limbs to enhance the sale of crutches even more cruel than those\nwho despise their use? To bring a man to a state of dependence; to\nterrorize him into fear; to fetter his faculties so that he cannot\ntrain them into service; to arrest his evolution; to keep him a dwarf,\nclinging like a scared child to the apron strings of his lords; to\nplace in his hands an icon or a crucifix as his only hope--and then to\ndenounce the teachers who rob these poor people of their crutches, is an\nargument which is bound to recoil with fearful force upon the venders\nof such artificial helps. It is like depriving a man of house and goods,\nand then providing a tattered tent for his shelter, and then saying to\nus: Would you be so cruel as to pull down the only thing that protects\nhis poor head from the elements? Yes! in order that we may awaken in him\na sense of the wrong and the oppression and the deprivation of which he\nis the unconscious victim. Sir Henry Main, in his Popular Government,\nsays, that, if it had been put to a vote whether machinery, when it was\nfirst invented, should be introduced into the factories, there would\nhave been recorded an overwhelming vote against its use. It was taking\naway from the poor man his crutches to compel him to compete with the\niron and steel. And, actually, laborers of the time, suffered much\nand were driven to the wall, by the invention of machinery. But the\ntemporary mischief caused by the introduction of machinery has been\nfully compensated by its lasting benefits to all classes. Likewise, this\nor that believer may fall and hurt himself when his theological crutches\nhave been taken away from him, but if thereby his children and the\nfuture race can be taught to dispense with the use of so clumsy a\ncontrivance, altogether--who would hesitate to knock them off? Was man\nmeant to be an invalid all his life? Must all the generations of the\nfuture limp and hobble, to support the crutch industry?\n\nMoreover, if any invalid can be made to give up his crutches, that very\nfact shows that he did not need them. Grandma, or grandpa, must not\nbe disturbed in their beliefs, we hear people argue. We cannot disturb\nthem, however hard we may try, unless they are intellectually virile\nenough to keep themselves together without crutches. The very fact that\nwe can shake a man, shows he is strong enough to stand the strain. We\ncannot induce an invalid to give up his crutches; when we can, then, he\nis not an invalid. And what do we give in place of the crutches?--the\nability to do without them.\n\nI have often been asked \"Why do we not as a Rationalist Society do works\nof charity, such as establishing neighborhood guilds, sewing and bathing\nclubs for the poor, free dispensaries, and hospitals?\" There are many\nwho are already doing this kind of work whatever its value may be, but\nvery few who are even attempting to do the work which we have set out\nto do, namely, to help men to use freely and wisely the noblest of all\ntheir gifts--Reason. Is that a work that can be dispensed with? And can\npublic baths, and evening classes do more for a man than they will for\nan animal if his Reason is still fettered. The emigrant from Russia, or\nItaly, or Ireland, may join all the guilds and frequent all the night\nschools, and still remain a mental slave. But he can not take a course\nin Rationalism, and continue to cling to his chains. Of course, to make\nmen free and enlightened is not enough. They must also be helped to\ndevelop the humanities which are the salt of life, but we must first\nwake him up, for he can not be saved in his sleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. Rationalism and the World's Great Religions.\n\nRationalism does not attack the religions of the world, it tries\nto explain them. But religions do not wish to be explained, and\nconsequently they denounce the investigator as an enemy of morals as\nwell as of religion. Reason, the theologians contend, is incapable of\nunderstanding the divine mysteries, and forgets, of course, that faith\nalone can discover the hidden things of God. But they do not stop to\nthink that they are reasoning even when they are giving reasons why we\nshould not reason.\n\nBeginning with the belief in God, which is the basic belief in nearly\nall religions, Rationalism endeavors to show the unreasonableness of all\nthe dogmas which deal with the supernatural. It is impossible to\ntalk about an infinite person without making one's self utterly\nunintelligible, not to say, absurd. There is not a single statement\nmade about a god, which can be harmonized with sense. It is because the\nbeliefs about the supernatural cannot be reconciled with reason,--it is\nbecause of the apparent absurdity of the dogmas of religion, that the\nclergy have had to resort to fire and blood,--the scourge, the dungeon,\nthe rack, the gallows, and hell-fire to force people to believe in them.\n\nThere is no reliable record of God ever being seen by man. His voice\nhas never been heard. His form and expression or whereabouts remain\na mystery to this day. We have nothing but guesses as to the kind\nof worship he prefers, or why he should be praised. And yet, entire\ncountries have been plundered, pillaged, and laid waste for no other\nreason than that they held different views from ours on the form or\nnature of a God whom no man has ever seen, heard or comprehended. Such\nis the extraordinary folly of man!\n\nAll religions are absolutely human in origin. There is not, and there\nhas never been, and in the nature of things there never can be a divine\nor superhuman religion--that is to say, a religion invented by a god.\n\nLet us imagine for the sake of argument, however, that a god wished to\nreveal himself to us. What would be the probable course he would pursue?\nWould he reveal himself to us as he is, or only as much of himself as we\nneeded to know or could comprehend? To reveal himself to us as he is in\nall the fulness of his nature would be a moral impossibility, for the\nreason that only a god could fully comprehend a god.\n\nBut if he revealed to men only as much of himself as they could grasp,\nthen their knowledge of him must necessarily be imperfect. We are\nrevealing ourselves to the animals, for instance, every day of our life,\nbut still the animals, owing to their limitations, can never know us\nas we are, but only as they think we are. Likewise our knowledge of\nsupernatural beings must be as incomplete as is the knowledge of animals\nconcerning man. We see objects as the structure of our eyes permits us\nto see them, or as our minds grasp them. The reflection of the sky in\na drop of dew is limited to the capacity of the dew. Owing to this\nadaptation of objects to the powers of the observer before they can be\nobserved at all, it may be said that objects are seen not as they really\nare but as they appear to the observer. Since, then, a divine revelation\ncannot overcome the limitations of the finite mind, God could be no more\nto us than what _we_ think he is, or in other words, what we make him to\nbe.\n\nAnother proof that man is the maker of his own gods is that his gods\nare neither better nor worse than he is himself. The barbarian can never\nconceive of a civilized diety; on the contrary, the Great Spirit he\nworships is a projection of his own passions and aspirations--his own\nvices and virtues. As he advances in refinement and humanity, his God\nadvances too. If he sinks into deeper ignorance and brutality, he drags\nhis God down with him. The God of the Quaker is peaceful; that of the\nHebrew was a \"man of war.\" The God of the Negro, who has never seen\nwhite folks, is necessarily black. The God of children is a child-god;\nand in a society where man, not woman, is the ruler, God is a \"he.\"\nNot only is man the maker of his gods, but he also keeps them in\nrepair--constantly remodeling or retouching them in order to preserve\nsome sort of correspondence between himself and his gods.\n\nAnd why is the god of the Negro black? Because he not only is ignorant\nof any other color, but because black is for him the color of preference\nor aristocracy. When he becomes acquainted with white people he\nassociates their color with everything that he fears and despises. He\ntherefore, as a later evolution, makes his devils white. The idea I\nwish to present is that just as man determines the color of his gods and\ndevils he determines also their characters. He can only invest them with\nsuch virtues and vices as he is acquainted with. He can not attribute\nto them powers which he does not covet for himself. In short he is the\nmaker of the gods he worships and the devils he fears.\n\nThe pathetic part of all this, however, is that though man makes his own\ngods, he imagines that the gods have made him. He manufactures an image\nor an idol, invests it with certain attributes and powers, and then,\nlike a slave, falls down to bite the dust before his own handiwork.\nReflect upon this for a moment: The Pope, for instance, owes every one\nof his prerogatives to the very people who bend before him; they make\nhim infallible, they seat him on a throne, and place the Keys of Heaven\nand Hell in his hands; yet before this creature of their own vanity or\nfear they behave like a race of bondsmen. Who created the Sultan or the\nCzar? Their own subjects! And yet see how these Turks and Russians creep\nand crawl before the work of their own hands. Is it not absurd for a\npotter to worship his own pot? In view, therefore, of the undeniable\nfact that man makes the gods he worships, how pitiable to observe the\nservility and stupidity with which he plays the sycophant before the\nimages of his own hand or head!\n\nNotwithstanding this self-evident truth that all religions are human in\norigin, every one of them has claimed to be from above. Like puffed-up\nor ungrateful children, the religions of the world have denied their\nreal, though humble parentage, and have laid claim to a celestial\nbirth. But the fact that each of the great religions, while claiming\na supernatural origin for itself, vehemently denies it to all others,\nrenders all such claims exceedingly suspicious. It would be easier for\nme, for instance, to believe that God has also spoken to you, if he\nhas really spoken to me. But if he has not spoken to me, I am apt to\nconsider the claim that he has spoken to you, as an impertinence. The\nreason one \"inspired\" teacher calls another \"an imposter\" is that he\nis not sure of his own inspiration. He judges others' pretensions to a\ndivine origin by his own. * The refusal of the different religions\nto believe in one another is a strong proof that they are all equally\nunworthy of belief, as far as their supernatural claims are concerned.\n\n     * Oato used to say that he was surprised one soothsayer\n     could keep his countenance when he saw another manipulating,\n     knowing as he did the imposture he was practicing.\n\n     Jesus is reported by John the evangelist to have denounced\n     all who preceded his as \"thieves and robbers.\"--Gospel\n     according to John.\n\n     There is a Hindoo legend that Krishna, the son of God, once\n     showed himself to a group of young ladies who were so\n     charmed with his handsome face and figure that not only did\n     each of the young ladies wish to dance with him, but each\n     insisted that no one else should enjoy the same privilege,\n     whereupon Krishna found himself in an embarrassing position.\n     He was willing enough to dance with the girls, but did not\n     wish to inflame their jealously, so calling upon his\n     resources, he immediately multiplied himself into as many\n     Krishnas as there were maidens, and danced with each and\n     every one of them, taking pains however to leave the\n     impression with each young woman that she alone had danced\n     with the god. So each religious prophet imagines that the\n     Lord has not danced with anybody but himself.\n\nThe reluctance of the prophets to believe in one another shows how\ndifficult it is for us to ascertain to which of them the revelation has\nbeen made. The only way a special revelation could be given would be\nthrough an individual--a Moses, a Mohammed, a Jesus, etc. But if we\nourselves are not inspired, how are we to tell which teacher is telling\nthe truth? If we are to use our own reason to decide this momentous\nquestion, why, then, do we need a revelation? Tell me, I pray you, was\nit fair in God to have expressed himself privately to some individual,\nand then to have left it to us to decide whether said individual was or\nwas not inspired?\n\nAnd a revelation, the truth or untruth of which has to be ascertained by\nthe exercise of human reason can claim no superiority to human reason.\nIt follows then unmistakably that a revelation is impossible since it\nis we who have to decide whether or not it is a revelation. Even as we\ncreate the gods, we create also the bibles of the world.\n\nBesides the ostensible purpose of a revelation is to make things\nclear, or to change our ignorance into knowledge. Have the different\nrevelations of the world done this? Have they not, on the contrary,\nadded to the perplexities of the mind? A god who reveals himself to an\nindividual privately and then leaves it to us to decide whether said\nindividual has or has not received a revelation instead of relieving,\nincreases our embarrassment.\n\nIf it be argued that we should have faith, I answer in which one of the\nprophets? Shall we have faith in the one our parents believed, in the\none of the country we were born in, in the one who agrees with us, or in\nthe one who can force us to accept him?\n\nMoreover, if faith can make one prophet inspired, why not another? If\nfaith can make Jesus divine, why not Mohammed?\n\nIt is our purpose to show that neither gods nor revealed religions can\nbe a proper subject of study, and what cannot be a subject of study\ncannot be an object of faith. We do not deny the gods, for we know\nnothing about them to be able to make any reasonable statement\nconcerning them; we simply dismiss them from our thought.\n\nBut while the supernatural has no interest for the Rationalist, he is\nvery much interested in the interpretations which men have given of\nit, and the manner in which they have built up a system of morals and a\nphilosophy of life upon it. The great teachers and founders of religions\nare proper subjects both for criticism and commendation. Being men they\ncannot claim immunity from a free and fearless examination of their\nteachings. The more honest a teacher is, the more willing he is to be\ninvestigated, and nothing prejudices us more against a teacher than\nhis refusal to be questioned. \"He who will have no judge but himself,\ncondemns himself,\" says the proverb.\n\nBut to regard these teachers as men, only, is to divest them also of\nall the magical powers which a fond credulity has ascribed to them.\nA teacher who seeks converts to his religion by curing a horse, as\nZoroaster is supposed to have done, or by changing a stick into a\nserpent, as Moses claims he did, or water into wine, as Jesus is\nbelieved to have done, instead of saving the world, degrades it. We\ninsult our teachers when we ascribe to them miraculous powers such as\nwalking on the water, multiplying, loaves and raising the dead. All the\nwonders of the world cannot make what is bad, good, or what is false,\ntrue. A teacher who has a falsehood which he wishes to pass for the\ntruth may resort to a miracle; but why should an honest soul undertake\nto win converts by unintelligible performances? If physical and\nmathematical truth can, unaided, command universal assent, why should\nthere be \"signs and wonders\" to maintain moral or intellectual truths?\nMoreover, if a teacher has power to stop the sun, has he not the power\nto make people see the truth without a miracle? If he can raise the\ndead, can he not lift the human mind out of error without the aid of\nextraordinary phenomena? Resorting to miracles to convert people,\nproves, not the power, but the despair of the teacher. He who can\ncommand followers relying solely upon the truth of his teaching is, and\nremains forever, a greater moral and intellectual force than he who is\ndriven to surprise and bewilder his hearers before he can convert\nthem. *\n\n     *  To aim to convert a man by miracle is a profanation.\n        --Emerson\n\nAnd now before we can make an estimate of the world's leading religions,\nwe must try to arrive at some sort of an agreement as to what we would\nconsider the greatest virtue, and what the greatest vice in religion.\n\nThere will be no objection, on the part of my readers, to the statement\nthat the most heinous of all vices in any religion is _cruelty_. There\nis not a crime or an error which is not made worse by cruelty--or\nsoftened by the absence of it. Cruelty is the most inexcusable, the most\ninhuman, the most unreasonable, the most degrading, and the most\ndeadly of the vices that human nature is heir to. Cruelty is consummate\nwickedness. It is the passion of the bad because it is bad. It is\ndoing evil from pleasure, Think, then, what a serious thing it is for\na religion purporting to be \"divine\" to recommend the halter, the\nfire-brand and the sword, for instance, against all who do not subscribe\nto its dogmas. With such a religion in force, it will not be necessary\nto invent a devil, for man, himself, under its influence, must develop\ninto a fiend of hate and cruelty, withering all he comes in contact\nwith, as the frost blackens all it bites.\n\nIt is admitted that there is an element of cruelty in almost all the\nreligions of the world;--though of Buddhism it has been claimed that\nduring its nearly twenty-five centuries of existence, it has not killed,\nmuch less tortured a single human being in the name of religion. That is\ncertainly an enviable record. It should compel the hot flush of shame to\nthe cheek of those persecuting Faiths which have shed enough human\nblood \"to incamardine the multitudinous seas.\" As Buddhism is one of\nthe numerically stronger religions of the world, and as it has helped to\nshape the beliefs and practices recommended by the more recent creeds, a\nbrief examination of its fundamental doctrine would assist us in making\nan estimate of its moral worth and may be useful to this discussion.\nWhat is the teaching which makes of Buddhism a distinctive religion?\n_Life is an evil_, taught the Hindu reformer. To desire life is the acme\nof immorality according to this doctrine for it is to desire that which\nis evil. Desire is the soil in which spring up all the noxious weeds\nwhich choke to death the flower of happiness. To cease to desire is to\nconquer freedom from suffering. Salvation according to Buddhism consists\nin winding up and sealing forever the book of life, leaving not the\nremotest possibility for any fresh life to spring up again. This\npessimism, which while it has attractions for the speculative and supine\nOriental, is justly abhorred by the creative and ever-youthful European.\nThe important question is not, \"Is life worth living?\" but \"How can life\nbe made worth living, since live we must?\" While therefore Buddha taught\na scrupulous morality, while his own character stands out as one of the\nnoblest, and while his teachings have made countless millions gentle and\npeaceful, nevertheless, there is in this mildest of religions, much\nthat is positively harmful. The Buddhist conception of life with its\nblighting pessimism which recommends non-resistance to evil, has emptied\na continent of its vigor and converted it into a desert. The teaching\nof orthodox Buddhism may be likened to the advice which a sea captain,\ndriven by despair, might give to his men on deck--to sink the ship\nin order to escape the storm. Then again the Buddhist doctrine of\nreincarnation as an endless chain of nightmares, dragging man through\nunending births to \"the vast void night,\" has caused untold agony of\nmind and body. This gloomy view has made life, for millions of people, a\nmisfortune, love a crime, and the earth, a hell!\n\nThe believers in transmigration or reincarnation forget that the\nscientific view of man leaves no room for anything to migrate. What\nscience understands by soul is the word which expresses the functions,\nincluding brain activity and the circulation of the blood. When these\ncease there is no soul to go anywhere. Neither could reincarnation\nproduce the moral discipline claimed by its advocates. It is no\npunishment to return to the world in a lower form of life, since there\nis no memory, clear and ringing, of a former and higher existence.\nMoreover, the lower forms of life are more callous and not at all\nconscious of deflection from a better standard. If a cruel man becomes\na tiger, it would be giving him a better chance to be more cruel. Unless\nthe animal can remember his humanity, he can not be disciplined by a\ndescent into a lower stage of being..\n\nBut the Buddhist hell, fearful though it is, is, fortunately, not\neverlasting. Over its gaping mouth is spread the rainbow arch of\nNirvana, that is to say, deliverance for all from every form of\nsuffering, in sleep--_eternal sleep_, which will, some day, according to\nthis religion, fold an aching world on its cool and calm bosom.\n\nThe vice of Buddhism then is its exaggeration of the troubles of\nlife--its deprecation of the opportunities for the pursuit of truth and\ngoodness which life offers. By dwelling too long and too often upon\nthe thorns, Buddhism becomes blind to the rose which is as real as the\nthorns. And again this Oriental teacher set up an unattainable ideal\nwhen he demanded the eradication of all desire from the human soul. Man\ncan only change his desires; he cannot cease to desire. Not to desire is\nalso a desire--a desire to be free from desire.\n\nThe virtue which we admire most in Buddha's doctrine is gentleness.\nBuddha is said to have been of all great leaders the most compassionate.\nHe trembled to cause pain to the least of sentient things. The birds,\nthe fishes, the crawling worms, as well as man, he looked upon as his\nbrothers. Buddhism might be called the Religion of Pity. There is little\ndoubt but that wherever Buddhism triumphed there war and persecution,\ntwo of the most abominable institutions of all time, practically\ndisappeared.\n\nIt is with feelings of undivided admiration that I now come to speak of\nConfucius--the only Rationalist among the immortals of ancient times. If\nthe other founders of Faiths owe their reign over the minds of men, in\npart at least, to the wonderful miracles attributed to them, Confucius,\non the contrary, owes his increasing reputation to the complete absence\nof the supernatural from his life and doctrines. He has conquered the\nages by his common sense. And his sanity assures for him a future which\nwe can not safely predict for the others.\n\nOmitting a historical sketch of the great Chinese teacher, and confining\nourselves briefly to an exposition of his philosophy or religion, we\nnotice at once that Confucianism devotes itself exclusively to this\nworld--to the now and here. This is very remarkable when we remember\nhow all the other teachers made the world to come, that is to say, some\ninvisible and undiscovered world the principal theme of their preaching.\nTo lose this world that we may win the next was the burden of the\nteaching of both Buddha and Jesus. But the great Chinaman completely\nignored the so-called next world, and directed all his efforts toward\nthe enlightenment of man concerning the world that now is. It will\nreadily be seen what a radical difference there is between Confucius and\nhis colleagues. When they spoke of gods, Confucius spoke of man;\nwhen they asked for faith, Confucius recommended knowledge; when they\ndelivered mysteries, Confucius presented facts. With perfect propriety\nwe may call Confucius the first apostle of secularism. Now secularism is\nthe very opposite of supernaturalism, and as the world is becoming more\nand more secular, that is to say, practical and humanitarian, Confucius\nis the only one among the great sages who is as much modern as he is\nancient.\n\nIn the teaching of Confucius we do not find the least suggestion of\neven so much as a Buddhist hell. The religion taught by Confucius is the\nleast theological of any Oriental cult. Confucius was a teacher, not a\npriest. He worked no miracles, delivered no inspired oracles, dealt in\nno mysteries, claimed no supernatural powers, did not think that the\nless sense there was in a religion the more divine it would be, and made\nno attempt to allure with future promises, or to frighten with hell-fire\nhis hearers. In the long annals of a past musty with age and choking\nwith superstitions innumerable, the page on which is inscribed the name\nof this sanest of all Asiatics is the fairest and freest from cant and\nrant.\n\nThe name of Zoroaster takes us back to a very remote period in the\nhistory of our humanity. It has been conjectured that when he began\nhis career as a religious teacher he found his people, the Persians,\nworshiping the principle of Evil, or Ahriman, the Persian name for\nDevil. While Zoroaster was unable to wean his people from Ahriman, he\ndid succeed in supplementing the fear of the devil with the love of God\nor Ormuzd, the principle of goodness. The dualism is the distinguishing\ncharacteristic of the religion founded by Zoroaster, and is also its\ncontribution to nearly all the other religions; for we find in Judaism,\nChristianity and Mohammedanism the same fundamental belief in the\nexistence of a God invariably accompanied by his rival--the Devil. What\nthe one creates, the other destroys; what the one mends, the other mars;\nGod makes the light, the Devil the darkness; God kindles the flame,\nthe Devil tries to turn it into smoke; God is omnipotent in wisdom, the\nDevil is equally resourceful in mischief. Zoroastrianism or Mazdaism,\nthen, is the parent of dualism, namely, of the eternal struggle between\nthese two archpowers for the possession of man.\n\nWithout denying to Zoroaster the name of reformer, and also of\nempire-builder,--for doubtless his services contributed to the political\nexpansion of Persia, making her on land and sea, one of the great\npowers of ancient times, and duly acknowledging the beginnings of a high\nmorality in the collected scriptures called the _Avestas_, attributed\nto his pen,--we are compelled by the evidence to charge the religion\nof Zoroaster, that is to say, the religion of dualism, of a God plus a\nDevil, with having invented, so to speak, the awful doctrine of hell,\nand therefore of religious persecution. It was a natural consequence of\nthe belief in a God opposed by a Devil to make war upon all who were not\non the side of God. And as the prophet is himself invariably the vicar\nor the apostle of God, it followed that all those who refused obedience\nto his will were in opposition to the Deity and should be suppressed,\neven as God is trying to suppress the Devil, his antagonist.\n\nWhen we approach the Jewish-Christian faith, we find the dark stream\nof religious persecution, which had its source in Zoroastrianism,\ngrown into a raging sea. The three religions, Judaism, Christianity and\nMohammedanism, bear to one another the relation of parent and children.\nChristianity is the elder, and Mohammedanism the younger daughter\nof Judaism. The predominant trait, which is common to them all, is\nexclusiveness. It is impossible to be humanitarian or universal and\nexclusive at the same time, which is another way of saying that, where\nthe spirit of exclusiveness holds sway, there religious toleration will\nbe considered a crime, both against God and the State. Of course in all\nthree of these faiths are to be found passages which seem to possess\nan accent of universality. But it is a universality conditioned on the\nconversion of the whole world to the faith in question. \"My house shall\nbe a house of prayer for all nations,\" writes the Jewish prophet, but\nobserve it says,--\"My house,\"--which means that the whole world will\ncome to worship in a Jewish temple. It does not mean that Pagan and\nChristian, without embracing the Jewish faith, may each worship his\nown \"Christ\" in a Jewish synagogue. It is in this same spirit that the\nMohammedan throws open his mosque, and the Christian his cathedral to\nthe whole world. Brotherhood in these religions is limited to those of\nthe true faith. The misbeliever is an alien to whom it is a sin even to\nsay \"God speed.\" Intermarriage is forbidden with a view to emphasize the\nfact that only through conversion can a stranger become a friend or a\nbrother. Such exclusiveness was bound to breed hatred and persecution.\n\nAnd as men make their gods, an exclusive people will have an exclusive\ngod. The Bible conception of God is one of the most repellant in\nreligious literature. We may say it is the least successful attempt at\ngod-making on record. The three religions we have named have all one and\nthe same God, with only unimportant variations. The authors of the\nBible seem to have labored under the impression that to make their God\nacceptable they had only to make him intensely partisan. One who loves\nhis own only. But they have made him, necessarily, as terrible as he\nis exclusive. He is not only called a jealous God, but also a consuming\nfire, a man of war. It is expressly stated that \"He is angry every\nday.\" The English translators have interpolated the words--\"with the\nwicked,\"--but the original as rendered into Latin, German, French and\nother languages, shows plainly that the editors of King James' Version\ntook undue liberties with the text. The Revised Version has dropped the\nwords _with the wicked_, and the text now conveys the same meaning in\nthe English Bible as in the German, which reads: \"Und ein Gott, der\ntaglich dirauet,\" and in the French, \"La colere the Dieu est toujours\nprete a eclater.\"\n\n\"Irascitur per singulos dies,\" are the words in the Vulgate.\n\nTo please his makers the God of the Jew, the Christian and the\nMohammedan orders the extermination of all who object to be converted:\n\"And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall\ndeliver thee: thine eye shall have no pity upon them.\" Each of the three\nreligions, unfortunately, has been too willing to obey to the letter\nthis unfraternal injunction introduced into the mouth of the Deity by\nthe priesthood. As the authors of the above text claimed to be inspired\nthe priests of these three religions have shed more blood than all the\ntyrants put together. This is a fearful but absolutely just indictment\nagainst the Jewish-Chris-tian-Mohammedan religion.\n\nBut confining for a moment our remarks to Christianity alone, it must be\nadmitted that in spite of its doctrine of hell, it has certain redeeming\nfeatures about it which are of undoubted pagan origin and which we do\nnot find in Judaism. The advantage of Christianity over Judaism consists\nin the former's generous efforts to save the whole world, irrespective\nof race or color, from the doom of hell. This is the contribution of the\nGentile to Christianity. The words of Jesus, \"Go ye into all the world\nand preach the Gospel to every creature,\" were in all probability put\nin his mouth by a Gentile. What Jesus really said, if, indeed, we can\nbe sure of anything that he said, was, \"Go not into the cities of the\nGentiles,\" assuring them at the same time that the world would come\nto an end before they had even finished preaching to the lost sheep of\nIsrael. Jesus as a Jew shared the belief of his people that \"none are\nbeloved before God but Israel.\" It was the Greek and Latin genius that\nmade of Christianity more than merely another. Jewish sect, by breathing\ninto it as much of its universalism as a dogmatic religion would admit\nOf course, the best service which paganism rendered Christianity was\nto introduce into it a new God--the _man_ God as against the all-God\nJehovah--who, by personal sacrifices, conquered for the whole world\nan opportunity to be saved. Christ, as a secondary God--or a junior\nGod--was the revolt of the Gentile world against the Jewish Deity.\nWhatever good Christianity has done is due to this rebellion which\nculminated in compelling the dread Jehovah to admit the man-God into\nfull and equal partnership with him. The Jews call this blasphemy; but\nChristianity, inspired by the Hellenic and Latin genius, weakened the\ndivinity by dividing it into three--later into four, by the addition of\na woman to the number. In this alone, namely, in making a new God, and\nthus taking from the old solitary deity many of his ancient and Semitic\nprerogatives, Christianity has proved its greater sympathy with paganism\nthan with Judaism.\n\nAnother leading trait of these three religions is their fear and hatred\nof freedom of thought To perpetuate their own power the priests of this\nfamily of religions found it necessary to suppress, at first by threats\nof divine punishments, and when these failed, by force of arms, all\ninquiry. Faith, which meant unquestioning acquiescence, was of God;\nScience, which meant investigation, was of the Devil. The agents of this\ngroup of religions which between them have held Europe, America and a\ngreat part of Asia and Africa captive for many centuries, prompted their\nGod to solemnly declare in infallible documents, that a father should\nnot hesitate to kill his own son, or a son his own father; that a mother\nshould destroy her child, and the child its mother,--to prevent them\nfrom professing or following another religion. It is impossible to bring\na more horrible accusation against a set of men. The worst thing that\nwe can say against the profession of the law or of medicine, pales into\ninsignificance when compared with this specimen of the inhumanity of the\npriesthood. The day of judgment is here, and the founders of these three\nreligions are summoned to answer at the bar of humanity, awakened from\nsleep, for the wholesale massacres which have dipped the world in blood,\nfor the Spanish and Scottish inquisitions, and for the sectarianism and\nhatred which converted men of the same race and country into implacable\nenemies and persecutors of one another.\n\nThe religious commentators defend the respective scriptures of these\nreligions by saying that their teachings were limited to the mental\nlevel of the times and the peoples. But if God had to descend to\nthe plane of man and become brutal and bigoted like him, how was man\nbenefited by his intercourse with the divine? Furthermore, if the mental\nand moral limitations of a people determine the character of revelation,\nwhat advantage is there in having a revelation? Moreover, because a\nchild cannot comprehend algebra, is it right to teach him that one and\none make three? Is the inability of the primitive man to appreciate the\nhigher virtues of generosity, justice and fellowship with aliens, an\nexcuse to command him to exterminate his neighbors, * to bear false\nwitness, ** to practice immorality, to plunder, to be cruel and\ncredulous? *** If a revelation cannot civilize a barbarian, what is its\nvalue?\n\n     * Deut. 7: 16, etc.\n\n     ** Jer. 4: 10; I. Kings 22: 23; Ezek. 14: 9, etc.\n\n     ***Exod. 12: 85, 36; I. Sam. 16: 1, 2,; Exod. 1; 18-20, etc.\n\nBut while denouncing intolerance we must not become intolerant\nourselves. With all their faults these three religions have been, in\ntheir day, of considerable service to the world. We may justly say of\nthem that having done all the bad and all the good of which they\nwere capable it is time for them to step aside and leave the field to\nscience. Am I asked what good these religions have done? I answer: They\nhave taught man science by forbidding it. It may sound strange, but\nreligion aroused human curiosity, which again discovered science. The\ntime came when man was not satisfied with information only about the\nnext world, about spirits and demons, about mysteries and divine\nattributes; he asked also information about this world, about man, the\npast history of the earth and so forth. Just as by seeking the\nphilosopher's stone men discovered chemistry, and by the way of\nastrology they came to the science of astronomy, and by the way of\nsorcery and magic to the knowledge of medicine,--so did theology develop\ninto philosophy.\n\nReligion also must be credited with having been the first to give man a\nsystem of thought. Now a system, however crude, is a work of art. It\nis a creation. It is a putting together of ideas and beliefs for the\npurpose of arriving at a conclusion. Thus religion taught man to think\nconnectedly, to see the relation of things, and to think for a purpose,\nthat is to say, to reason. The savage has ideas too, but he can not put\nthem together, he can not classify or systematize them. There has been\niron in the bowels of the earth, and lying on the surface in many places\nfor long ages, but only when man could give shape and form to it did he\nenter the path of civilization. In the same sense, not until man could\nforge, fuse and combine his ideas into a system of some kind, did he\nbegin his intellectual evolution. Religion started civilization by\nenabling man to put his ideas together. Even as the worm was the\nprophecy of the coming man, the creed was the beginning of science.\n\nLet us see if we cannot make this idea a little clearer: All religions\nrepresent the effort of the human mind to understand itself and its\nenvironment. At the core of every religion, however crude, there is a\nphilosophy,--that is to say, every belief, be it ever so foolish, has a\nmeaning, and at one time was a help to man.\n\nThe savage carries a fetish on his person to secure himself against\nevil. The civilized man crosses himself in the presence of danger. Both\npractices embody a truth, and it is the province of criticism to define\nthat truth.\n\nWhen the turbaned Oriental, standing in his mosque, pronounces the name\nof _Allah_ with such awe and joy, what is it he means? In his groping\nway he is aiming to be scientific; he is trying his hand at philosophy;\nhe wishes to put his finger upon the nerve of the universe; he is trying\nto bring the multifarious forces of nature about him into a focus; he\nis trying to evolve harmony out of chaos,--music out of the discord and\nbabel of life; and he thinks he has succeeded, when he has pronounced\nthe word _Allah!_ Of course, his philosophy is that of a beginner, but\nit is a philosophy, nevertheless. He is an embryo scientist, taking his\nfirst lesson in logical reasoning. That is the truth at the heart of all\nreligions which we must recognize. They represent the desire of man to\nmake things clear to his intelligence, and to wrest life's secret\nfrom the universe. Man seeks knowledge because in the consciousness\nof knowledge there is happiness and power. The strain of ignorance is\nintolerable to him. Darkness embarrasses his mind and he seeks the light\nby instinct.\n\nThe primitive man, for instance, alarmed by the things he did not\nunderstand, proposed explanation after explanation, in his effort to\nthrow off the darkness from his mind. When the sky frowned upon him and\nthe winds wailed in his ears, he did not know what to make of them, and\nfelt insecure until he could satisfy himself that he understood how\nand why the dark clouds swept over the face of the skies and the winds\nmoaned about his dwelling. He felt relieved when he believed that he had\ngrasped the situation. His explanation that the sun and the wind were\nfree agents, like himself, acting from choice, as he thought he did, was\na very crude one, but it was an explanation, all the same, and for the\ntime being proved helpful to him. From the very beginning, man has shown\na hunger for knowledge, which has put his mind in action. Religion,\nthen, is man's first attempt at scientific and philosophical thinking.\nReligion is, in a sense, the primer of science and philosophy. The\nmistake we make is to declare this primer infallible. We take the first\ncomposition of the child, so to speak--his first prattle in the presence\nof the universe--and pronounce it inspired. When Moses, or whoever wrote\nthe first chapters of the book of Genesis, described how man and woman\nwere fashioned, he was trying to be scientific, in his modest way. But\nthe best explanation that his mentality could produce was that God took\nsome clay from the ground and kneaded it into the form of man, and from\none of the ribs of this man he formed woman. It is not his science we\ncommend; it is his desire to explain man's origin that honors him, for\nout of that desire, philosophy, science,--progress--are born.\n\nBut there is another truth hidden in the bosom of all religions which it\nis the mission of philosophy to disclose. The first truth I called\nyour attention to was that the primitive beliefs of man represented his\neffort to understand the world and himself; the second truth is that\nall the religious rites and ceremonies, the most superstitious of them,\nembody likewise a truth;--they represent the effort of man to get the\ncontrol of the universe into his own hands. If today we possess any\npower over the resources and forces of nature, if we can utilize them,\ncommand them to do our errands, to wait upon us, to serve us,--this\npower is the fruition of that primitive desire of our barbarian\nancestors to get the gods under control by presents and compliments.\n\nThe scientist masters the laws of nature,--the movements of the\natmosphere, the currents of the ocean, the lightning's secret, for the\npurpose of putting a bit into their mouths to control them for human\nservice; but the priest when he offered his bloody sacrifices, when he\nperformed his incantations, and repeated magical formulas, had the same\naim in view,--the control of the universe. As soon as primitive man\nconcluded that the sun, for example, or the river, was a god, he set to\nwork to learn the habits, tastes, pleasure of his gods, that he might\nprevent them from hurting him and encourage them to gratify his needs.\nIn other words, he wished to replace them in the government of the\nworld. He did not feel safe until he could get the reins in his own\nhands. When I was in one of the churches of Florence, and stood looking\nat a figure of the pope with the keys of heaven and hell in his hand, it\ndawned upon me that man, from time immemorial, has coveted the\nownership of the universe, and even in his feebleness gave himself the\nsatisfaction of holding the keys in his own hands.\n\nBut it would be unreasonable to continue to preserve and propagate these\nreligions at great cost to the people, and also at the detriment of more\nimportant interests--on the ground that at one time, when man was but a\nchild, they were of service to him. Our ancestors before the age of\niron used tools made of stone. Shall these still be given the preference\ndespite the better and more useful implements of modern times--because,\nforsooth, they started our race in its career of progress? Shall the\ncandle light be permitted to prejudice us against electricity; the\nstagecoach against the locomotive; the cave of the savage against\nthe sanitary dwellings of modern cities; or the primitive forms of\ncommunication against the wonderful wireless? Why, then, should Moses\nor Mohammed or Jesus stand in the way of the science of the twentieth\ncentury? If we may discard our mother's hut or the rag she clothed\nherself with at one time, why not also her religion? True enough both\nhut and rag served a purpose and marked a stage in the evolution of man,\nbut the purpose they served was to fit us for something better, that is\nto say, to make us discontented with and rebellious against the hut and\nthe rag forever.\n\nThe day of faiths is over. They belong to the furniture of the past. The\nglorious reign of Science has begun. Thought like a fruit on the tree of\nevolution has at last ripened. The glow of the sun, and the tints of the\nsky are upon her. The countries which were the first to replace faith\nby knowledge have invariably been the first also in civilization. While\nPalestine remained a desert, Greece became the garden of the world.\nWhatever of beauty there is in our lives today, we owe it to the\nimmortal Greeks. Truth and goodness flourish in all their glory only\namong a free and intelligent people. Where there is an infallible faith\nthere can be no liberty of thought, and without liberty of thought there\nis no mind, and without mind man is not different from the brute.","title":"The Story of My Mind; Or, How I Became a Rationalist","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":27898}