Any one advanced in life who has enjoyed opportunities
of knowledge derived from association with men and
books, and who has an inclination to reach the bottom
of things by his own independent thought, is apt to
arrive at conclusions regarding the world and society
very different from those which had been early impressed
upon him by his superiors and teachers. From a suspicion,
at first reluctantly accepted, but finally confirmed
beyond a doubt, he finds that he has been deceived in
many things. The discovery arouses no indignation
because he knows that his early instructors were in most
cases the victims of misdirection themselves, and are
therefore not to be held accountable for the promulgation
of errors which they had mistaken for truths. His self-emancipation
has so filled his mind with a better hope
for the future of the world, and a higher opinion of his
fellow men, that the delight and satisfaction of the discovery
overcomes every sentiment except pity for those
who had been leading him astray, and if the feeling of
condemnation or censure comes to his mind at all, it is
only for those few who live and thrive upon those delusions
having their origin in the past, and whose chief purpose
in life is to keep them alive and to bolster them up
among the multitude.
In the new light that has come to him, the world and
society have been transformed to his view and understanding.
He discovers goodness in many places where his
teachers had denied its existence, and its definition has
become so changed, under his broader vision, that
humanity seems teeming with it everywhere, and is ruled
by it, and those departments of it most affecting society
he observes to be increasing, and that instead of like an
exotic in uncongenial soil, hard to be retained by mankind,
it is perpetuated and cherished by natural human
impulses. He finds, also, that the sum of badness in the
world has been greatly exaggerated by his teachers, and
that those branches of it most interfering with the welfare
of society are gradually being lessened, and are likely
to work out their extinction by the penalties of public
disapproval. These convictions make the world seem a
brighter and better dwelling place. They reveal to him
the possibilities of its future, and tend to divert his higher
aims from the obscure paths where tradition had been
leading them, into more fruitful channels. The truth will
have at last dawned upon him, bearing evidences in this
age that none but the unenlightened can doubt, that
superstition, during many of the centuries past, has belittled
the world, and has discouraged humanity in improving
it, under the mistaken assumption of the world’s small
comparative importance in the great outcome; the circumstantial
particulars, of which, it pretends to hold by divine
revelation. Having rid himself of these beliefs by a process
of reasoning, and the assistance of the available
knowledge of his time, he arrives at the conclusion that
the best work of humanity is not, altogether that taught
by the creeds, and that its most divinely inspired motives
are those which tend to increase the knowledge of worldly
things, those which add to the sum of goodness in society
by exhibiting its practical effect toward happiness, and
those also which assist in the great end of equalizing the
burdens and enjoyments of life among all.
Having these conclusions firmly established in his mind,
and the undeserved reverence from early training removed,
he becomes especially fitted to examine these old beliefs,
and to pass judgment upon them, without that taint of
blind devotional fervor which the unremitted teaching of
many centuries has rendered current in the world. He
observes of these old beliefs, that during their supremacy,
when their control of society was complete and unquestioned,
the material progress of mankind was least, without
any compensating condition to make up for the darkness,
and dead mental activity that had fallen upon it;
except that apparent hypnotic influence from the doctrines
taught, which made men careless of their miseries, and
indifferent to the things of the earth. He observes, further,
of these old beliefs, that as modern knowledge reduces
their hold of authority among men, the world improves as
it never did before. Even charity, kindness, and good
will to men, adopted, and long taught as an inseparable
part of them, multiply more rapidly as their weight in
the management of human affairs grow less. From these
well attested facts he arrives at the conviction that those
religious societies, founded upon, and which have for centuries
labored to perpetuate these beliefs, either are not
possessed with all the elements of human progress, or,
that having many of such elements, they have others of
such neutralizing and retarding effect as to render the first
futile for such a purpose. That the latter is the case,
every year added to his experience of life removes the
doubt, and explains to his understanding why the religious
societies of the world have failed in any great degree to
advance the material and intellectual condition of mankind.
With a moral code, every provision of which plainly
indicates the method of a better social state, these religious
societies have indissolubly associated in their teachings
certain doctrinal beliefs, originating in a semi-barbarous
age, and laden with its superstitions, with that fatal
assumption of divine authority which demands their
acceptance every where and for all time. Beliefs of such
unbending rigidity, impossible adaption or amendment,
and intolerance of dissent, on account of their pretended
sacred character, that the world has been kept in a turmoil
discussing them since their introduction, and the
more salutary lessons of morality and spiritual hope have
been outranked and submerged by these vain and profitless
discussions. These beautiful and attractive lessons of
love, kindness, and charity, exemplified and taught
through a personality, whose gift of genius was to see,
above all other men, the needs of humanity, have attracted
men and women into these religious societies as the hungry
are attracted by stores of food. Once within their
lines, and imbued with the doctrines there found, they see
but little abroad in the outside world but the evil spirit
of Sheol. To them, its shadow rests upon much of the
business of life, and with increased obscurity, upon many
of its pleasures. It even shows to them among those
humanities which are without their direction and cue. It
is only however among the many who openly deny their
doctrines and authority that the evil spirit is seen by
them in all its hideous and malevolent personality, and
their especial mission is to give battle in that direction.
Between he who doubts, no matter how respectfully, and
these religious societies, are drawn their lines of kindness
and charity, and with their sermons of love, and their
protestations of good will to mankind fresh upon them,
they are at any time, transformed, so far as their relations
with a doubter are concerned, into a band of hostile
and relentless savages, with inflictions of punishment,
measured in degree by surrounding enlightenment, from
the actual barbaric torture of the savage, to mere social
ostracism and avoidance.
If it were the sole purpose of all Christian organizations
to bring into general practice the civilizing precepts
of their founder, they would become the most powerful
agents in the world to human advancement and the betterment
of social conditions, but these precepts are made
subordinate by them, and are neither valued or estimated
beyond their jurisdiction. They count nothing as saving
qualities without the acknowledgment of certain doctrines
and methods accompanying them. Those beautiful sentiments
of charity and kindness, always so precious to the
hearts of men, and growing more so as the ages advance,
were not adopted nor promulgated entirely for civilizing
purposes, but mostly with the selfish view of capturing
humanity to church interests. With a like purpose,
knowing the mystic tendency of the masses, the supernaturalisms,
made a part of these attractive precepts, were
adopted and upheld; bringing into the world an endless
multitude of barren illusions, provoking acrimonious contentions
among men, to no good purpose whatever, and
filling the pages of history with a description of scenes
that are a torture even to the memory.
It is given only to those now living, and who have
experienced the longest terms of life, to personally compare
the past with the present, so far as their limited
sojourn in the world extends. They are living witnesses
to the wonderful changes in society and its beliefs during
the short period of two generations only. They have
seen many of these ancient supernatural dreams in all
their power of authority, and have watched them wilt, and
finally disappear, under some silent influence, after argument
and reason had exhausted themselves against them
in vain. They have listened to those weekly expositions
of infernal horrors, common at one time, in all the fear
and trembling of childhood, and have later, witnessed the
theories and beliefs which inspired them, with many others
equally obnoxious to reason, relegated to silence and disuse,
as antiquated and worn furniture, no longer serviceable,
is consigned to the rubbish heap. Only two generations
ago they have seen the literature of the churches in
leather bound books occupying the best filled, and most
easily reached shelves of the libraries, and now laying
neglected among the dust of the cellars; not one retained
for reference, and even their titles forgotten. They have
seen, in their time, the clutches of superstition compelled
to relax its hold upon the throats of many a worthy
human enterprise. They have witnessed the triumph of
science in its many skirmishes with tradition, and have
been interested lookers-on, while the famous battle of evolution
raged. They have seen it from start to finish, and
the amusing spectacle of its end, when theology, metaphorically
speaking, dragged its bruised and trembling
body out of the dust; and wiping the blood from its pale
and troubled face, unblushingly declared, as it had in
every like outcome before, that there had been no conflict.
With all this, and within their own era of two generations
only, they have seen the world arise to such prodigies
of advancement, such marvels of practical charity
and such activities in the pursuit of knowledge, in so
close and quick succession as to fill them with bewilderment
and wonder, and they will recognize, at least such
of them as reflect upon the matter, that after conflicts
innumerable, and setbacks and suppressions, the scientific
have prevailed over the theological methods, and are at
work in all the glories of their triumph, and that the
ancient modes of thought are at last masters of the civilized
world after nearly two thousand years of battle. The
thread of civilization has been taken up and spliced at its
point of rupture sixteen centuries ago. All this activity
in the building of roads, bridges and aqueducts, this tunnelling
of mountains and rivers, this straining to make
available for the services of man all the elements of
nature, this untiring search to increase the comforts and
conveniences of life, this higher regard for pure secular
learning, regardless of where it may lead, this diversion
of art from the purposes of religious expression only, to
an exhibition of nature in all her beautiful forms, this
greater toleration of opinion, this coming back to the
earth in short, after a long period of phantom chasing in
the clouds, is neither more nor less than the revival of
paganism. But paganism with its brutalities filtered out,
and the best, and only civilizing parts of christianity, its
hope of immortality, its lessons of virtue, its brotherhood
and socialism retained, the superstitions of paganism
buried forever, and those of christianity gradually dropping
one by one into their graves.
He, who now at three score and ten, remembers when
the sound of the flint and steel was a necessary prelude to
the morning fire, when the open fire place with its crane
and pot hooks was the only resource for warmth and cooking,
when the largest city on the American continent was
without sewers or water conduits, when a river steamer
was a wonder upon which the curious gazed, and ocean
ones unheard of, when railroads were in an experimental
stage, when the belief that ghosts flitted about the graveyards
was unquestioned and undenied, when Satan was
said to have stalked upon the earth in person, his presence
seriously considered and accounted for by many of the
churches, when witchcraft, only in the throes of death
but not yet buried, had many adherents in animated
defence, when the electrical experiments of Franklin were
reckoned in some places as the trifling of an infidel with
the spirit of evil, can best appreciate, by the comparison
which reminiscence affords, of these wonderful changes
in thought, and the significant accompaniment of increased
mental activity in all things benefitting the race. The
close relations exhibited in this comparatively brief period
between the growth of rationalism, and that accelerated
movement all along the line of science, learning, and
everything tending to place humanity on a higher plain,
is more than a mere coincidence. It is the operation of
cause and effect, better understood and acknowledged
upon a closer examination.
The bursting forth, as it were, during this century of
the united energies of mankind in the direction of knowledge,
is an expansion after the removal of a pressure that
has borne down upon them for ages. Those great things
that men have accomplished lately, they were as capable
of centuries ago, and it is not surprising that they had
not until recently made greater advances, when we estimate
the weight of opposing forces. There had been for
centuries nothing more discouraging to the formation of
scientific hopes and ambitions than the theological methods
of thought, and the atmosphere which surrounded
them. The more that atmosphere was saturated with the
doctrines of the churches, the more repellent it was to
any intellectual effort toward outside things, and especially
one requiring such a monopoly of mental energy and
attention as to interfere with the Christian ideas of constant
and unremitting devotion. There was no cultivated
field, during the thousand years of supreme church jurisdiction,
where an independent scientific ambition could
germinate. Within the church such an ambition was
impossible. It was not only against the spirit, but the
very letter of its teachings. Its foundation was laid by
its victory over science, in its overcome of which, it proclaimed
divine assistance and authority. It already possessed
a knowledge of all things appertaining to the earth
and the “firmament” above it which the Almighty
desired men to know. The earth was not round, it was
the center of the universe. It stood still while the sun
moved daily over its surface, getting back each morning
into its place with the help of angels. The rainbow was
a sign placed in the heavens for a purpose. Every known
phenomenon of nature was accounted for by scriptural
reference. The method of the creation of the world and
the origin of man and of woman also, the church possessed
in circumstantial detail. The moment true science
began its work, and ran counter to any of this fund of
knowledge, assumed to have been furnished by the
Almighty, the trouble began. But the trouble was not
altogether with the honest investigator. If his discovery
tended to disprove what was known as scriptural truth,
and inadvertently had been allowed to gain the public
ear, every prelate in the church began contriving to
refute it. A new opportunity for fame was opened to
every ambitious theologian, and there immediately began
in rebuttal a spinning of texts, and a style of metaphysical
argument, from one end of the church to the other,
which remain to this day as the most remarkable curiosities
of sinuous reasoning and constrained thought on
record. All questions of a scientific character had but
one method of settlement, were they authorized or denied
by scripture? If denied as they usually were, the disturber
was either burned at the stake or made to recant.
Fame, that chief incentive to all high effort, offered none
of its rewards beyond theological circles, and during the
ten centuries of complete church supremacy, any advance
in knowledge which did not stir the animosity of theologians
gained less public attention and applause than the
wearing of a hair shirt or a crown of thorns. During a
thousand years the church had kept the world slumbering
in the darkness of barbarism and superstition punishing
with death those it could not convince. Any doubter
of generally accepted beliefs, either in religion or science,
who can support his position with plausable argument, is
entitled at least to the consideration of being a thinker.
The constant taking off of every such one, during a term
counted by centuries, could have no other effect than to
reduce the average of intellectual vigor in the whole.
The husbandman, who removes from his acres of growing
grain the tallest and heaviest stalks, and instead of saving
them for seed, destroys them, insures, in time, the misfortune
of dwarfed fields and diminished harvests. The
church, since its complete victory over paganism in the
fourth century, had not produced with its supreme control
over all learning a single noted man of science, or one
promising to be such, whom it had not either suppressed
or tortured to death, not a painter or poet who had not
devoted his genius principally to superstition or sensuality,
not a historian whose veracity is not doubted, and
not a single towering man of letters. This, too, in a people,
among whom mingled the descendants of the Greek
masters of literature and philosophy. When, about four
centuries ago, secular learning and free thought began
their first open advances since pagan days, the church,
finding in every such movement some disturbance of its
traditions, and making no account of their benefit to mankind,
brought all its powers to bear for their suppression.
In laying to do so it pursued the same cruel policy it had
adopted in former contests. These cruelties and intimidations
were practiced at a time when within the church
were openly perpetrated corruptions of the most glaring
character; which together, loosened its hold upon the
consciences of men, and made possible that revolt and
division known as the Reformation, early in the sixteenth
century. Coming nearer our own time, and having to
deal with theological conditions not yet entirely removed,
a little more detail is necessary.
The quarter century before and the century following
the Reformation was a remarkable era in the world’s history.
It was noted throughout as a desperate and continuous
struggle by men of science to dispel the darkness
that had so long enveloped the Christian world. The art
of printing, then recently discovered, and just coming
into practical working effect, and the thoughts of men
thereby communicated from one to the rest with a facility
never before known, had the effect of arousing mental
activities everywhere. From a load only partially removed
men began exploring regions of science that had been
interdicted, and a great movement in positive knowledge
began. The most enlightened men of the time went over
to the Reformation, and if within that body, they had
found the shelter and encouragement they deserved, the
sixteenth century and the one following it would have
been the most brilliant period on record except our own,
for scientific discoveries and the world’s advancement.
Such a conclusion is justified by taking note of the wonderful
men of genius who came into the world during
that time, who, with all the restrictions and limitations
cast about them by the two churches, laid such new foundations
in truth and learning, that nothing was to be done
by subsequent workers in the same lines but build upon
them. Buffon, who may justly be called the father of
natural science, with powers of research and gifts of
presenting results showing genius of a high order, by his
simple statement of truths which are to-day truisms in
science, was dragged forth by the leaders of the Reformation,
and forced to recant publicly and to print his recantation.
“I abandon everything in my book respecting the
formation of the earth, and generally all which may be
contrary to the narrative of Moses.” Linnaeus, the
founder of a scientific system in botany, and the discoverer
of sex in plants, was constantly hampered and constrained
in his thoughts by the threats of the Reformation.
A pretended miracle of turning water into blood
appeared in his vicinity, and after looking into it carefully
he reported that the reddening of the water was caused
by dense masses of minute insects. When news of this
explanation reached the ears of the Protestant bishop he
denounced this scientific discovery as a “Satanic Abyss.”
“When God allows such a miracle to take place,” said
he, “Satan endeavors, and so does his ungodly and
worldly tools, to make it signify nothing.” Descartes,
the founder of modern philosophy, and ranked among the
foremost mathematicians of his day, yet, his constant
dread of persecution from Protestantism led him steadily
to veil his thoughts, and to suppress them when they
threatened to interfere with theological beliefs. Leibnitz,
the great thinker, who came so near to the discovery
of evolution, Spinoza, and later Hume, Kepler, Kant,
Newton and many others, which want of space prevents
mention were likely to have done much more for science
had not the theological atmosphere of the Christian
churches been so unpropitious.
The true story of Galileo, the monumental shame of
Christianity, cannot be told without implicating the
younger with the older church. The Reformation looked
on complaisantly and approvingly while this crime was
being committed. It was in complete accordance with its
beliefs and methods. The Copernican system, on account
of the adoption of which, Galileo was persecuted was as
strenuously and bitterly denounced by Protestants as
Catholics. Luther says “People gave ear to an upstart
astrologer, who strove to show that the earth revolved,
and not the sun and moon. This fool wishes to revise
the whole system of astronomy, but sacred scripture tells
us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not
the earth.” The recantation of this venerable scientist,
worn out with imprisonment and sorrow, and in fear of
torture and death, is as follows: “I Galileo, being in my
seventieth year, being a prisoner on my knees before
your eminences, having before my eyes the Holy Gospel,
which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse and detest
the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.”
As the sphericity of the earth was suggested by Aristotle,
and its movement had been a matter of earnest discussion
by theologians for ages, we see fit to transcribe here the
argument of one of them, made a long time ago it is true,
but nevertheless a fair sample of the theological methods
of thought. It is copied from a book written by one
Scipio Chiaramonti, and dedicated to Cardinal Barberini.
“Animals which move have limbs and muscles, the earth
has no limbs and muscles, therefore it does not move. It
is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the Sun, etc., turn
round. If the earth revolves it must also have an angel
in the center to set it in motion; but only devils live
there; it would therefore be a devil who would impart
motion to the earth.” All branches of the Protestant
church condemned the theory of the earth’s movement.
Calvin asked, “Who will venture to place the authority
of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?” Wesley
also denounced the new theory, declaring it to “tend
toward infidelity.” The grand men who were coming
forward in their efforts to advance knowledge unavoidably
encroached upon many of the “truths of scripture”
and both churches were equally engaged in their efforts
to suppress them, by argument if possible, but if not, by
fire and stake. The Protestant church, which has always
made a claim of especial enlightenment, vied with the
other in its cruel and relentless warfare upon what is
known among the churches as heresy, the proper definition
of which is reason and common sense. We have said that
the case of Galileo was the monumental shame of
Christendom; the case of Servetus was a monumental
crime, which Protestantism alone must answer for.
The persecution of Michael Servetus by John Calvin,
one of the leaders of the Reformation, was one of the
most unjust and inhuman exercises of religious authority
that the world has seen. There were many features in
this tragedy of burning at the stake, that were out of the
common. The victim was a man of unblemished character,
of great learning, and a scientist, with a genius for
investigation. He was a skilled practitioner of medicine,
out of which profession he derived his income. He had
made some advances in medical science, coming so near
to a discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it is
quite likely, but for his untimely death, he would have
reached it instead of Harvey, many years afterward. His
active mind had led him to devote much of his leisure to
the study of theology, and, laboring among its problems,
he strove to reconcile a number of orthodox beliefs and
doctrines with the scientific knowledge of his time, not
combating them or contriving at their destruction, but by
changing the sense of words, to make them apparently
accord with known elements of truth. He was an ardent
supporter of the Reformation, and a friend and admirer of
Calvin, and he began and maintained for some time, a
correspondence with him, with the view of obtaining his
advice and support. The proposed modification in the
sense of scriptural texts, was not favorably received by
Calvin, and the two were drawn into a controversy,
which finally became acrimonious. The world, at present,
partially recovered from its long period of hypnotized
reason, is able to appreciate the small value of the questions
which engaged these two men, and which led one to
strike the other down to death, and it is also able to judge
how much Servetus was in advance of his adversary in
their discussions.
Calvin maintained, that under instructions from God,
through the Bible, an infant, dying without baptism,
could not escape the tortures of Hell, a locality described
by the same authority, as a place of horrors, of endless
burning amid sulphurous fires, of never ending thirst,
and of a “weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth”
through all time to come. Servetus expressed his doubts
of the justice of this infliction upon sinless infants, and
attempted to show that it was not authorized by the
Sacred Book. He also denied the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, as it was commonly received. He did not deny
a kind of Trinity in the unity of God, but believing that
it was merely formal, and not personal, mere distinctions
in the divine essence, and that, as generally understood,
it was a dream, and an invention of the Fathers of the
Church. He also asserted, upon good authority, that
there was a Christian doctrine before there was any adoption
of the Hebrew legends; that these legends did not
become a part of the church, until nearly a century after
the great moral teacher had met his cruel death. He also
came as near as he dared, to expressing his belief, that
the Son was merely a man, with the divine inspiration in
a large degree. Such advanced ideas as these, asserted
with the positiveness of conviction, and backed with
unanswerable argument, were the cause of his undoing.
Calvin, at this time, was at the head of a church
already powerful. He ruled it with an autocratic will,
and upon all questions of doctrinal beliefs, he was the
last court of appeal. He had long accepted the homage
of his followers, as one selected by the Almighty for their
spiritual guidance, and, with the common weakness of
humanity, he became arbitrary and despotic in his management
of church affairs. He was always ready to
advise and direct, and in his first letters to Servetus,
assumed some show of argument while denying his
doctrines. Servetus answered him, not with that deference
that his adversary usually received, but in all the
spirit of earnest debate. Nothing more exasperating to
Calvin could have occurred, and to cap the climax of
affront, his adversary, a mere layman, published a book
“Christianity Restored” setting forth his advanced views,
and with a reckless temerity, sent the reformer a copy.
The controversy between them immediately degenerated
into mutual recrimination and abuse. Calvin’s anger
was raised to a white heat, when he saw the errors and
blasphemies, as he regarded them, and which he had
vainly sought to combat, confided to the printed page,
and thrown broadcast upon the world. Besides the alleged
heretical matter of the book, he found himself taken to
task, declared to be in error, and his most cherished doctrines
controverted. But he discovered withal some
matter in the book which pleased him. His enemy had
committed himself in abusing the Papacy: evidence
sufficient to convict him at once of blasphemy in the
Roman Catholic city of Vienne in France where Servetus
then resided, and he proceeded at once to put the cruel
scheme of his death into execution. By information to
the authorities at Vienne through dictated letters, he succeeded
in having Servetus thrown into prison there, from
whence he escaped, and became an outcast for months.
The malignant and inhuman manner in which this
Christian leader followed his innocent victim, could
scarcely have occurred upon any other question but a
religious one, and his murderous intent, from the first,
is shown by a letter from Calvin to a friend in which he
says, “Servetus wrote to me lately, and besides his letter
sent me a great volume of his ravings, telling me, with
audacious arrogance, that I should find there things stupendous
and unheard of until now.” He offers to come
thither if I approve; but I will not pledge my faith to
him; for, did he come, if I have any authority here, “I
should never suffer him to go away alive.” And
he proved himself, in this instance, true to his word.
The Roman Catholic authorities of Vienne, discovering
after a while the connivance of Calvin, in putting the
execution of his enemy on them, contrived, it is said, to
make his escape easy. They had no mind to have this
work thrust upon them. They probably felt that the
reformers should take care of their own heretics. Servetus,
after his escape, wandered about from place to
place, all the time his life in imminent danger, and
finally brought up in Geneva, the home of Calvin, disguising
himself, and hiding in the outskirts. What
induced him to take such desperate chances is not positively
known. His intention is supposed to have been to
go to Naples, and to be gone from Geneva on the first favorable
opportunity. Weary of confinement, and always
piously inclined, he ventured imprudently to show himself,
at the evening service of a neighboring church, and being
there recognized, intimation of his presence was conveyed
to Calvin, who, without loss of a moment, demanded his
immediate arrest, making his arraignment himself, and
industriously working until the end, as chief prosecutor
and witness. The barbaric cruelty during imprisonment
to this famous man, in an eminently Christian community,
and by a Christian leader is shown by the following letter
from his prison cell. “Most noble Lords, it is now three
weeks since I petitioned for an audience, and I have to
inform you that nothing has been done, and I am in a
more filthy plight than ever. In addition, I suffer terribly
from the cold, and from colic and my rupture, which
causes me miseries. It is very cruel that I am neither
allowed to speak, nor not have my most pressing wants
supplied; for the love of God sirs, in pity give orders in
my behalf.” And here is another one: “My most
honored Lords, I humbly entreat of you to put an end to
these great delays, or to exonerate me of the criminal
charge. You must see that Calvin is at his wits ends, and
knows not what more to say, but for his pleasure, would
have me rot here in prison. The lice eat me up alive,
my breeches are in rags, and I have no change, no doublet,
and but a single shirt in tatters.” Thirty-eight
articles of impeachment were drawn up by Calvin, and
after a protracted trial, wherein he acted as chief interrogator,
this unhappy victim was sentenced to be burnt at
the stake. Servetus, during his whole examination,
showed himself to be a brave, conscientious, religious
man. His answers to each one of the articles was able,
consistent, and would have been considered in this day
unanswerable, and what is more his views have since
been adopted by the most advanced of the Christian sects.
The following is a description of his execution recorded
at that time.
“When he came in sight of the fatal pile, the wretched
Servetus prostrated himself on the ground and for a while
was absorbed in prayer. Rising and advancing a few
steps he found himself in the hands of the executioner,
by whom he was made to sit on a block, his feet just
reaching the ground. His body was then bound to the
stake behind him by several turns of an iron chain, whilst
his neck was secured in like manner by the coil of a
hempen rope. His two books—the one in manuscript
sent to Calvin in confidence six or eight years before for
his stricture, and a copy of the one lately printed at
Vienne—were fastened to his waist, and his head was
encircled in mockery with a chaplet of straw and green
twigs bestrewed with brimstone. The deadly torch was
then applied to the fagots and flashed in his face; and
the brimstone catching, and the flames rising, wrung from
the victim such a cry of anguish as struck terror into the
surrounding crowd. After this he was bravely silent;
but the wood being purposely green, although the people
aided the executioner in heaping the fagots upon him, a
long half hour elapsed before he ceased to show signs of
life and suffering. Immediately before giving up the
ghost, with a last expiring effort he cried aloud, ‘Jesus,
thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!’
All was then hushed, save hissing and crackling of the
green wood, and by and by there remained no more of
what had been Michael Servetus, but a charred and
blackened trunk, and a handful of ashes.” So died in
advance of his age, this victim of religious fanaticism and
personal hate, a fitting triumph of the theological over the
scientific methods of thought, the result among many
thousands like it of the adoption of the Jewish legends
by Christianity, and in this case, brought about by a
Christian leader, the founder of a creed, in which to this
day, enough of his spirit remains to make it the greatest
enemy of free thought and liberal opinion, among all the
creeds of Protestantism. Of this disgraceful tragedy was
it the spirit of the Master which led the inhuman crowd to
vie with each other in piling on the fagots, or was it the
malign influence of a vindictive and cruel Hebrew God?
Every conflict between science and theology since the
days of Copernicus has resulted in an unequivocal victory
for the former. Both churches resisted the truth of the
rotundity and movement of the earth as though their
existence depended upon it. They fought each question
as it arose in the same spirit. The Mosaic account of the
creation, the age of the world, the deluge, the length of
man’s sojourn upon the earth, are questions as effectively
settled adversely to the “truths of scripture” as
the one for which Galileo suffered. And yet Christianity
lives, and will continue to live and flourish, solely on
account of the inherent and increasing affinity of the human
heart as civilization advances for the precepts and example
of its founder. If Christianity were destined to
fall by the undermining of its legends it would fall now
with the recent destruction of one upon which its existence
appeared to depend, which has, more than any
other, shaped its course and laid the foundation of its
rituals. The doctrine of evolution now established as a
truth is the most serious and apparently destructive one
that theology ever met. The fact that man has ARISEN
from a condition of brutality, instead of FALLEN
from a state of perfection is, to ecclesiasticism, a raking
blow from stem to stern, compared with all previous battles
with science as the shot of a modern thirty-two
pounder with old fashioned ordinance. The legend of
the fall of man, compared with all others, is the vilest.
It was brought from Assyria, by the Hebrews, who
obtained it during their captivity, from a barbarous people,
among whom it was current for ages, and was thus
inserted in our Sacred Book, proofs of which have recently
been found in deciphering the Ninevite records. A suspicion
is not entirely without warrant that it may have
been adopted with a purpose of creating miseries and
sorrows in the multitude for the profitable occupation of
a divinely authorized few in the business of consoling
them, and right well has it fulfilled its mission. It has
changed the facial expression of Christendom. It has
deepened the furrows of sorrow upon old age, and fixed
lines of care upon the features of youth. It has brought
the undeserved dejection of criminality, and the downcast
of shame, where of right belongs the reflection of hopefulness
and the light of expectancy. It has incalculably
multiplied the sorrows of life, and created for each death
a nightmare of imaginary horrors. This legend is
the foundation and inspiration of most of the evil
and cruelty that Christianity has inflicted on
human kind. Fabulous itself, it has been the parent of
unrealities, witchcraft and magic for instance, from which
millions of innocent victims have been sacrificed to torture
and death. It has transformed reasonable enjoyments of
life into crimes by the invention of a word, which with
the latitude given its definition, has kept in trembling
uncertainty the innocent and harmless. To the parent it
has bestowed the agony of dread for the fate of departed
offspring, guileless infants, as well as the matured. This
legend of the fall of man has established in the paths of
life its drag net Sin, a word of such unlimited theological
definition, that any one of average rectitude, by some
trifling inadvertance of thought or action, is likely to
bring upon himself the condemnation of a frowning God;
so that, the worthy as well as the unworthy, may not
escape the services of theological assistance and intercession.
But for the doubt that exists, and has probably
always existed, except among the ignorant and sluggish
minded, of the truth of this puerile invention, it would
have reduced humanity long ago to a state of universal
hopelessness and despair.
The theologians have but little left now but the miracles
to defend, and although it must be conceded by them that
the miracle of Joshua has fallen, others whose fallacy cannot
be so well demonstrated by science, are held to with
the tenacity of desperation, and in utter disregard of
reason and common sense. Fortunately, in the interest of
truth, we are given an opportunity to study the evolution
of miracles, in a case so modern that every statement in
proof of their fallacy can be substantiated by the current
literature of the time. Saint Francis Xavier was an
earnest, sincere and truthful Jesuit, whose religious services
were performed in the middle of the sixteenth century.
He gave up a promising career as professor in a
Paris academy, and in his enthusiasm and devotion to
Christianity, went as missionary to the Far East. Among
the various tribes of lower India, and afterward in Japan
he wrought untiringly, toiling through village after
village collecting the natives by means of a hand bell.
After twelve years of such efforts seeking new converts
for religion, he sacrificed his life on the desert island of
San Chan. During his career as missionary he wrote
great numbers of letters, which were preserved, and have
since been published, and these, with the letters of his
contemporaries, exhibit clearly all the features of his life.
No account of a miracle wrought by him appears either
in his own letters or any contemporary document. More
than that, his brother missionaries, who were in constant
and loyal fellowship with him, make no illusions to them
in their communications with each other, or with their
brethren in Europe. This silence regarding his miracles
was clearly not due to any unbelief in them, because these
good missionary fathers were free to record the slightest
occurrence which they thought evidence of Divine favor.
One of them sends a report that an illuminated cross had
been recently seen in the heavens; another that devils
had been cast out of the natives by the use of holy water;
others send reports that lepers had been healed by baptism,
and that the blind and dumb had been restored by the
rites of the church; but to Xavier no miracles are imputed
by his associates during his life, or during several years
after his death. On the contrary we find his own statements
as to his personal limitations and the difficulties
arising from them fully confirmed by his brother workers.
It is interesting for example, in view of the claim afterwards
made, that the Saint was divinely endowed for his
mission with the “gift of tongues” to note in these letters
confirmation of Xavier’s own statement utterly disproving
the existence of any such Divine gift, and detailing
the difficulties which he encountered from his want of
knowing various languages, and the hard labor he underwent
in learning the elements of the Japanese tongue.
With all this evidence, and much more available if
necessary, to prove that Xavier never performed a miracle
the church began building them up for him, unmindful
of the fact that he lived in an age of literature, books and
printed correspondence, and not in those remote times
when it held supreme control of all learning and communication
by letters; accordingly, the first of the Xavier
miracles began to appear about ten years after his death.
They multiplied from time to time beginning, it is reasonable
to suppose, about the gossiping hearth and eagerly
confirmed by the cloister, until they began to be mentioned
in church literature. The first of which, a letter
twenty years after his death by a Jesuit father entitled “On
religious affairs in the Indies” says nothing of Xavier’s
miracles. The next, a publication called “History of
India” thirty-six years after his death by another Jesuit
father dwells lightly on the alleged miracles. The next,
sixty years later, a “Life of Xavier” shows an increase
of his miracles, and representing him as casting out
devils, curing the sick, stilling the tempest, raising the
dead, and performing miracles of all sorts. Since Xavier
was made a Saint many other lives of him appeared, one
of them one hundred and sixty years after his death, the
best so far written and now esteemed a classic, in which
the old miracles were enormously multiplied. According
to his first biographer he saves one person from drowning
by a miracle, in this one he saves, during his life time,
three. In the first he raises three persons from the dead,
in this one fourteen. In the first there is one miraculous
supply of water, in this one three, and so on, until this
date when the Xavier miracles are counted by hundreds.
This case of the evolution of miracles is largely copied
from a recent publication of President White of Cornell
University. It is not only highly instructive as indicating
the process by which these deceptions are evolved, but
also tends to the pleasant and welcome conviction that many
of the earnest and self-sacrificing workers in the field of
Christianity, to whom miracles are imputed were guiltless
of them. But more than all it shows the way to a reasoning
mind by which, through the present and coming
rationalism, a pure and worshipful personality shall retain
his hold upon the affections of men.
Those men of science and independent thought who
went over to the Reformation, expecting encouragement
and protection under it, were doomed to be disappointed.
It was not a movement caused by the pressure of enlightenment.
At that period, both Germany and England were far
below Italy in their conditions of knowledge and learning.
It was a rebellion caused by the oppression of evils, and a
desire for change in the management of church matters only.
Every one of the superstitions of the old church were
transferred to the new one. The same, in fact a stricter
literal adherence to the words of scripture in managing
the affairs of life, and in deciding questions of science,
were maintained, the same incessant watchfulness toward
those men of learning who were threatening the “truths
of scripture” in their scientific labors, and the same
cruelties invoked for their suppression, and the extinction
of heresy. No more intellectual freedom was permitted,
except upon minor doctrinal points of beliefs, and upon
these there began those controversies which soon broke
up the movement into factions or creeds. The intention
of the new church was to do away with those rituals and
ceremonies, which had been adopted from paganism as a
compromise in the second and third centuries, and to
bring their church back as far as possible, to that simplicity
which characterized the first teachings of Christianity.
But the leaders of the Reformation never attempted nor
had they any desire to bring back that entire freedom of
thought and expression which existed in the early days.
No one with immunity would be allowed to deny the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity or the truth of Immaculate
Conception, as the old Greek philosophers were wont to
do. Such vital questions it was torture and death to
adversely consider, Servetus being an early victim to such
temerity. There were questions enough however within
the limits of safe discussion, to set agoing those unending
controversies which distinguished Protestantism to this
day. The newly acquired privilege of discussing sacred
affairs among laymen as well as others, were indulged in
to such an extent that debate between the sects, in defense
of their several interpretations of scriptural texts, monopolized
in society its hours of intercourse and conversation.
When their leaders were indulging in such discussion as
the dialogue between Eve and the Serpent; whether the
Serpent stood erect on his tail, or in its natural coil when
it was addressing Eve; fixing the hour of this remarkable
event; accounting for the manner in which Noah fed the
animals in the ark; how fishes appeared before Adam to
be named by him, and such troublesome problems, laymen
were mostly engaged in the examination of those doctrinal
points which were dividing the movement into
sects. Questions that had been settled centuries before
by authority in the old church were dragged forth to
renewed discussion. Luther was describing his frequent
interviews with the devil in his bed room. Demons and
witches were poisoning the air, and bringing calamity and
misfortune, against which there was but one safeguard
and remedy, reading texts of scripture and prayer. But
however the sects might differ in their understanding of
the sacred language, upon a number of things they were
all agreed; every text of scripture was to be taken literally;
heresy could not be too severely punished; a
curtailment of the pleasures of life increased the chances
of heaven; the world was a “sink of iniquity” destined for
early destruction, and presided over by a God who never
smiles, and troubled by a devil who never sleeps, the
latter with millions of offspring, man pursuing demons,
inflicting insanity, sickness and many other of the misfortunes
of life.
In these beliefs the two churches were in entire accord
and must equally answer for the miseries and cruelties
they have inflicted upon humanity in enforcing them.
Theories and doctrines so persistently advanced and
upheld by both churches, and which have proved so disastrous
to humanity do not properly belong, and should
have no place in Christianity. They are not only without
the authority of the Master, but are mostly in opposition
to his teaching and example. The most harmful of them
owe their origin to the fables and myths introduced into
the sacred book second-hand from Egyptian and Oriental
sources, centuries before the Christian era, and it is not
surprising that legends due to the faculty of romance in
the minds of some barbarous Assyrians or Pharos, far
back in the cradles of humanity, when introduced as
foundations for rules of life, and as explanations of the
mysterious processes of nature along the whole line of
human advancement should have been constantly rejected
and denied by the reasoning portion of mankind, and it
is scarcely conceivable that now, within a few months of
the twentieth century, they should be upheld by both
churches as inspirations of the Deity. Not so surprising
either when we consider that for seventeen centuries, the
undeveloped minds of youth in all Christendom, have
been moulded into the acceptance of beliefs, which, had
they been presented without that gradual absorption in
which reason takes no part would have been long ago
rejected on account of their improbability. In no place
is this better understood than among the churches, and
as a consequence, they have been in perpetual contention
with each other for the early education of youth.
The most inspiring and hopeful spectacle in all humanity
is an assemblage, wrapt in the devotional exercises of
Christianity, listening attentively to the eloquent ministrations
of an earnest leader, who pleads the cause of
virtue and charity as it is exhibited in the written life and
character of the Model Man. The great central story
never wearies in interest, and never grows old; a willing
sacrifice and suffering for the benefit of mankind. Such
never failing kindness, such lessons of brotherhood, such
love for men, such tenderness for children, such consideration
beyond his time for women, and with such a
pathetic and suffering end as to capture their emotional
natures for all time. And above all bringing the tidings
of a hope, that comes to men, as a boat of rescue comes
to a storm-tossed ship slowly sinking into the depths; so
cherished in Christian households as to become a worshiped
member of them, to be defended as one of them,
upheld if need be by force of arms and sacrifice of life.
And the lesson of it all, and the hopefulness and inspiration
of it all is, that wherever mankind dwells, be it in
castles or cottages, amid the crowds of cities, or among
quiet country fields, there are laurels everywhere among
them all for him who will sacrifice himself that others
may gain; esteem and veneration among them all for
him, whose life is pure, and whose ways are ways of kindness
and charity. Vice can never reign supreme but for a
time amid such inherent affinity for goodness implanted
in every human heart, and as the days of general consent
and unobstructed knowledge enlighten and control the
affairs of men, more and more certain, as time rolls on,
will come protests and rebellions against the temporary
triumph of evil.
Of that entrancing story which has captured civilization,
and has come to be a part of it, what is there in the
Master that deserves such barbaric surroundings; such
inconsequential details of obscure and barbarous lives;
such vindictive retaliations and brutal conflicts, sacrilegiously
involving the Deity as a promoter of them; wild
fictions of early ages, inventions of the infancy of man,
conflicting accounts of historical events, fragmentary
parts by different persons at different periods; explanations
in many branches of science, now known to be mistaken
and absurd, and containing texts, that either openly
sanction or have been twisted into service of the most
stupendous outrages that humanity has suffered.
“Considering the asserted origin of these records—indirectly
from God himself—we might justly expect that
they would bear to be tried by any standard that man can
apply, and vindicate their truth and excellence in the
ordeal of human criticism. We ought therefore to look
for universality, completeness, perfection. We might
expect that they would present us with just views of the
nature and position of this world in which we live, and
that, whether dealing with the spiritual or material, they
would put to shame the most celebrated productions of
human genius, as the magnificent mechanism of the
heavens, and the beautiful forms of the earth are superior
to the vain contrivances of man. We might expect that
they would propound with authority, and definitely settle
those all important problems, which have exercised the
mental powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe for
so many centuries, and which are at the foundation of all
faith and all philosophy; that they should distinctly tell
us, in unmistakable language, what is God, what is the
world, what is the soul, and whether man has any criterion
of truth; that they should explain to us how evil can
exist in a world, the Maker of which is omnipotent, and
altogether good; that they should reveal to us in what
the affairs of men are fixed by destiny, in what by free
will; that they should teach us whence we came, what is
the object of our continuing here, what is to become of
us hereafter. And since a written word claiming a divine
origin must necessarily accredit itself, even to those most
reluctant to receive it, its internal evidences becoming
stronger and not weaker, with the strictness of the examination
to which they are submitted, it ought to deal with
those things that may be demonstrated by the increasing
knowledge and genius of many anticipating therein his
conclusions. Such a work noble as may be its origin,
must not refuse, but court the test of natural philosophy,
regarding it not as an antagonist but as its best support.
As years pass on and human science becomes more exact
and more comprehensive, its conclusions must be found
in unison therewith. When occasion arises they should
furnish us at least the foreshadowings of the great truths
discovered by astronomy and geology, not offering for them
the wild fictions of earlier ages. They should tell us how
suns and worlds are distributed in infinite space, and how,
in their succession they come forth in limitless time.
They should say how far the dominion of God is carried
out by law, and what is the point at which it is his pleasure
to resort to his own arbitrary will. How grand would
have been the description of the magnificent universe
written by the omnipotent hand! Of man they should
set forth his relations to other living beings, his place
among them, his privileges and responsibilities. They
should not leave him to grope his way through the vestiges
of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth at last,
but they should teach him wherein true knowledge consists,
anticipating the physical science, physical power,
and physical well being of our own times, nay, even
unfolding for our benefit things that we are still ignorant
of. The discussion of subjects, so many and so high, is
not outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its
manner of dealing with them is the only criterion it can
offer of its authority to succeeding times.”[A]
How unlike this is our asserted Sacred Book, with its
fables, its myths and legends, its deadly texts that have
scourged mankind. By its pretension of divine authority,
carrying forward into our civilization superstitions, that
otherwise would have melted away under the light of
knowledge; putting a limit to learning, obstructing it,
and denouncing it, in many of its branches; paralyzing
thought, and substituting in its stead a blind faith, instituted
and cultivated by ecclesiasticism, to bring men under
its control; holding up as an example of divine favor, the
low moral standard of barbaric times; recounting murders,
incests, adulteries and obscenities, that would have
banished the book long since from the regions of refinement
and civilization, but for its assumed origin, and
which serve, by their easy and undenied access to young
minds, as a stimulation to destructive pruriency; sanctioning
human slavery, and encouraging bloodshed by
battle; setting an example of extortionate tithes for the
support of ecclesiasticism; uttering the most heart-rending
curses, as coming directly from the Almighty, for failure
to comply with his assumed commands, and which have
been made the example, authorizing the horrible cruelties
inflicted upon mankind by the churches, literary models
as they are of those anathemas, interdicts, and excommunications,
by which the older church terrorized humanity
for fifteen hundred years. “I will also do this unto
you, I will even appoint over you terror, consumption,
and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and
cause sorrow of heart, and ye shall sow your seed in vain;
for your enemies shall eat it.” “I will also send wild
beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children,
and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number,
and your highways shall be desolate.” “For they went
and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods whom
they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them;
and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land
to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this
book.” “Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee, yea
I hate them with a perfect hate.” “Thou shalt not suffer
a witch to live.” “A man, also or a woman that hath
a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to
death.” “And ye shall chase your enemies, and they
shall fall before you by the sword.” Solely on the
authority of such deadly texts as these, and the book is
full of them, the world has been overspread in blood. It
was these that gave Spain a pretended sanction of the
Lord to exterminate fifteen millions of people in Mexico
and Peru, with a better and higher civilization than itself,
and to rob them of their wealth and possessions. It was
these, and such as these, that authorized and instigated
the Inquisition, which from 1481 to 1808, put to torture
and horrible death by burning, 340,000 human beings.
It was these that induced the massacre of St. Bartholomew
with its 30,000 victims of fire and sword; the English
persecutions under Bloody Mary, in which three
hundred fellow-creatures perished; the almost total annihilation
of the Albigenesis in the south of France. This
war was carried on with more ferocious cruelty than any
ever recorded in history; the fanatical fury of the soldiers
was stimulated by the exhortations of the clergy. At the
storming of Baziers, when it was proposed to spare the
Catholics, a monk exclaimed, “Kill all, God will recognize
his own,” and the atrocious precept was but too well
observed. The war terminated by the complete devastation
of the country, and the almost complete extermination
of its inhabitants. Following along in the bloody
path of these barbaric scriptural commands, we have to
record the witch burnings of Europe and America, during
the term of Christian supremacy, calculated in the
hundreds of thousands; the Crusades, and purely religious
wars since the time of Constantine, whose victims are
beyond computation; and all this to no other purpose or
end, but that the world should be forced into the belief
of, what is known to be, the theological system of a low
social development; this the terrible cost to humanity,
for the adoption and systematic retention by the churches,
of the ancient Jewish beliefs and modes of thought; this
the infliction, that ecclesiasticism might prevail, using the
sermon on the mount to capture the consciences of men,
and scourging them with the mandates, curses and punishments
of a Hebrew divinity, to bring them into line
for its purposes. In taking these Jewish annals to its
heart, making them a part of itself, as objects of example
and worship, has not Christianity retarded the advance of
mankind? Has it not, by them, obstructed knowledge,
prevented a greater expansion of human sympathy, and
prolonged the betterment of social conditions?
In these days of enlightenment and higher thought,
the vestiges are everywhere seen of our fifteen centuries
of misdirection. Almost every Christian life bears the
impress of these cruel Hebrew traditions. The commander
of a battleship in the war with Spain, after his
slaughter of numbers of the enemy, assembles his men to
give “thanks to the Lord,” and the next moment cautions
them not to cheer because “the poor fellows are
dying,” illustrates, that mingling of Jewish superstition
with the teaching and example of the Master, to be observed
everywhere in our present civilization. The inherent
religious impulses of mankind—natural religion—some
of which, finding no more congenial quarters, is attracted
to the churches, regard war with feelings of greater repulsion
than does orthodox theology, indoctrinated in the
belief of its divine sanction, and consequently, the success
of the American arms, so plainly due to natural causes,
was celebrated by the churches in the usual ancient
Hebraic method by “thanks to the Lord.” The supreme
intolerance of Christianity which has wrought such
havoc with mankind, is plainly due to the suggestions of
Hebrew scripture, and it is only the natural religion
within the churches, and that large portion outside of
them, which is forcing Christianity into a purer worship,
and destroying its superstitions. It demands for all things,
holy as well as unholy, the right of critical examination,
and it sees but little else in our Sacred Book worth preserving,
outside the sermon on the mount, and its extensions.
It is this natural religion of conscience, encouraging
and encouraged by science and reason, which has
wrested the control of civilization from ecclesiasticism. Its
intellectual strength prevails at last over the intellectual
strength of theology; but the unthinking of the
multitude are many, and the battle commencing four centuries
ago still lingers, theology backed by its weak
numbers, its old weapons destroyed, and science by its
strong men with searchlights.
But the searchlights of science can not disturb the
heart of Christianity. Its doctrine of atonement, destroyed
by the established truth of evolution; its account
of the creation and the deluge, proved to be fables; its
miracles discredited, and many of them demonstrated by
science to be untrue, it still holds within itself, an
element which is in harmony with the aspirations of
mankind for the coming betterment on earth and hereafter.
All these things that it has lost are but perverted
offrisings from its body, not a part of the body itself.
“Love one another. Do unto others as you would that
others shall do unto you,” are the golden words that have
established it in the world as a living moving power. Of
these its soul and life are composed, and these no arrow
of science can reach. Its dogmas aside, every human
being within the precincts of civilization is born a Christian,
and but for its early perversion at the hands of a
crafty priesthood, its intolerant and cruel career from
forced and unworthy association, all men, learned as well
as unlearned, would be working in its ranks.
It came into the world and entered society, making its
way from below upward. Like all movements coming out
of the lower levels, it was socialistic. Its originator, for
he cannot be called its leader, was the first person who
had ever appeared in the world as the instigator of a great
reform movement benefitting the whole of mankind without
some apparent or suspected motive, in denial of his absolute
unselfishness, and the movement in its early stages,
partaking and wholly composed of his inspiration, was a
pure unselfish socialism. Its members were bound together
by the closest brotherhood, loving and caring for
each other by divine command; declared equal by a
mandate of Heaven, in an age when three-fourths of
mankind were outcasts, uncared, neglected, and abused
by a cruel oligarchy, slaves and dependents, among whom
it was a misfortune and misery to have been born, and
having a religion so purposeless and unpromising as to
afford nothing but a momentary spectacular display. To
these people the new religion was as congenial and welcome
as the warm sunshine and verdure of summer after
a long sojourn in the Arctic. Its doctrines touched society
where it had most need of their humane precepts and
uprising. For nearly a century no system of dogmas, no
doctrine of atonement, no extensive church authority
had been determined, and the whole stress of religious
teaching was directed toward the worship of a moral
ideal, and the cultivation of moral qualities. Its numbers,
which had been looked upon until then, by the higher
and governing class with either contemptuous silence, or
occasional argumentative opposition, were become so increased
that their political weight gave promise of a new
field for the exercise of authority and power, and from
thence on began that addition of intellectual forces which
have so completely changed its character.
Every change instituted by its new leaders was with
the sole purpose of increasing its numbers and of augmenting
its political weight. They began by making a
compromise with paganism in adopting some of its rituals,
pandering to the imaginations of the uncultivated
multitude by spectacular display, inventing a system of
church government with an executive head, adopting the
Jewish annals for its organic laws and modes of thought,
cultivating a belief in miracles and increasing them on
every opportune occasion, until with the one end in view
of overcoming the world as Cæsar did with his legions,
more bloody than Cæsar, taking into their hands a movement
full of humanity, instituted by men in the lower
walks of life to soften their hard lines and give them new
hopes, and to increase their sympathies and feelings of
brotherhood, it became, and in many parts of the world
remains to this day, under its attached dispensation of
ecclesiastical dogma and control, a handmaid of kings
and emperors in oppression, an upholder of deadly superstition,
an intimidator of free thought and free learning,
an unconcerned looker-on upon the miseries of life beyond
its proselyting interest, careless of the whole world and
its affairs, except so far as it can profit by its theory of
exclusive salvation, and the mouth piece in cant phrases,
which have long since lost their force and meaning, of a
lingering barbarism.
And yet the world was never so much in need of a pure
Christianity. An expanded benevolence cherished and
assisted as much by skepticism as the churches is one of
the characteristics of modern society. Although the physically
strong do not prey upon the physically weak as
pitylessly as in the olden time, the financially strong are
preying upon the financially weak with as little conscience,
and the intellectually strong are preying upon the
intellectually weak with as much cunning, as they were
in barbaric times. Civilization has increased the two last
mentioned evils. The straggling masses under a load of
grinding wealth, in their better knowledge are no longer
appeased by the promises of an adulterated and composite
Christianity, whose chief business for centuries has been
to set before them an awaiting paradise, in recompense for
their earthly wrongs; but now, the multitude impressed
with a knowledge belonging to these times, is proof
against these allurements. The toiling millions who make
easy places for the few, and increase their wealth, and
who have carried out to a successful end the brilliant
material advancement which surrounds us, is the world
proper, all the rest are merely dependants. Into this
world and down among these quarters from whence it
came Christianity must prepare itself to re-enter, and of
this the shadow is already to be seen. It must discard its
dogmas and superstitions, which it has even now consigned
to partial obscurity and silence, and in place of
them, take on the things of the world. It must go
among the money changers of the temples, and into the
halls and by-ways of legislation, giving battle everywhere
with evil; for it is through these that the world is given
or denied its betterment, and it must set science on its
right hand, recognizing it as an attribute of the Deity.
Christianity with this companion, its pure ideal recovered
from its ecclesiastical mists, setting out on its new journey
through the world, blazing the way for truth instead of
suppressing it, conforming itself in all ways to the
natural religion of mankind, would become to humanity
what the sun is to the earth, comforting the souls of men
by its hopes, enlarging their charities by its precepts,
and warming into life many a germ of virtue and goodness,
which else, would never have blossomed, to shed its moral
fragrance on the earth.
The foregoing was written to indicate that line of
thought, whose convictions are briefly expressed, here
and there, through the pages of this little book, now
offered to the public in its third edition. It is always
safer and pleasanter to deal with received theology in the
spirit of reverence, usually found in literature; thus
offending no one, and meeting the approval of a worthy
and influential class; but, there are other reasons why an
adverse criticism of theological methods and beliefs, are
not so often publicly exploited as their importance to
society deserves. In the first place experience has shown
that errors of religious belief, fixed upon the mind in
infancy and youth, are seldom removed by discussion.
We are not yet arrived at that stage, when the love of
truth so predominates in the minds of men, that they
will sacrifice every prejudice, and reject all opposing
influence to obtain it. Christianity has imposed an
elaborate system of prejudices on every young mind
within its jurisdiction and they have become entwined
with all the most hallowed associations of childhood,
appealing so strongly to the affections, that any expressed
denial of their exact truth excites, in most cases, a feeling
of resentment, and often stirs to petty persecution. A
large majority of the human race accept their opinions
from authority, and all authority heretofore has encouraged
beliefs, which appear so inseparably connected with
the moral well being of society, and which hold in continued
supremacy, institutions and modes of thought
whose subversion it is alleged would be in many ways
dangerous. Yet, the fact remains that it is mostly
through its inroads upon these old beliefs that the world
has arrived at its present stage of progress, and the opinion
of orthodox theologians that they should be retained
in their entirety, or of others that they should be abolished,
cuts no figure; because, whether for good or evil
in the opinions of men, Providence has ordained, that
those only which represent the truth shall live, and knowing
this of a certainty, it becomes of the greatest interest
to discover what society is likely to lose or gain by that
modification of religious beliefs, wherein only the truth
shall remain. If we cannot foretell this future condition
with certainty, it is largely foreshadowed by past and
present experience. What the world has lost in the
modification of religious beliefs, would be hard to find,
what it has gained would take volumes to recount. In
the most important of all human interests, liberty of person,
liberty of conscience, and liberty of speech, there
has been, as yet, no adequate acknowledgement by mankind
of the great services of the silent and avowed skepticism
which brought about the consummation of these
blessings. The writings of Moses, the recorded wisdom
of Solomon, the encyclicals of popes, and the sermons of
bishops and priests, both Protestant and Catholic, in their
rising up of the lowly, in their encouragement of brotherhood,
and in that exact and even justice to all men, so
far as their practical services to humanity in these directions
can be measured, sink into an empty insignificance,
when compared with those organic declarations and laws,
upon which this great republic was founded, and which
were the outcome and product of a then recent enlightenment,
due to the combined efforts of European skeptical
writers, who by their genius of sarcasm and incisive
argument, were disturbing the old theological modes of
thought, and awaking the world to wide strides in rationalism.
That these new American rules of political equality,
beacons of liberty for men to follow and admire,
obtained their inspiration and incentive from those new
lights in literature, which, at that time, were stirring the
world of thought, there can be no question. In these
famous American documents, were embodied the practical
carrying out of principles, enunciated, and suggested by the
European writers, and the most active of the men engaged
in the noble work of forming the new government, are
known to have been disciples of these leaders of anti-theologic
thought. Our Declaration of Independence and
Federal Constitution, stand, to-day, grand achievements
of modern scientific thought, and conspicuous triumphs of
rationalism, over old methods, foreshadowing in these,
its great works, a better wisdom to govern the affairs of
men, than all the ages guided by Hebrew tradition. Yet,
in these documents will be seen an overflowing of natural
religion, and the spirit of the Master. “Do unto others
as ye would that others shall do unto you.”
If we have for more than fifteen centuries, yielded ourselves
to doctrines, conveyed to us through all the highways
of life, so assiduously, that neither infancy, youth,
manhood or old age, have escaped their tireless importunities
for acceptance; doctrines, which consign seven-eighths
of humanity to eternal torture for no faults to
most of them but a lack of opportunity, which under
Providence has been denied, it is not unreasonable to conclude,
with this experience of the mutability of human
understanding, that there are other beliefs fastened on our
minds by ages of custom and mistaken thought, equally
untenable, which may be as justly placed in our catalogue
of errors. Where then shall we look for truth?
Authority, as we have seen, is not an infallible guide.
We shall never know how much the industrious promulgation
of error is due to the selfish love of corporate
power, how much to a pure benevolence. Neither are
the brightest minds safe monitors in all things of thought.
Aristotle defended slavery, Hobbes persecution, Johnson
witchcraft, and Gladstone religious superstition; but, for
all that, we shall never arrive at the extremity of despair;
for a cultivation of the mind, the deductive use of positive
knowledge, and the untrammeled exercise of reason, lead
to truth, as directly, as the line of gravity points to the
center of the earth, and only by these will its reign be
established in the world.
W. S.
