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THE STORY OF MY MIND

How I Became a Rationalist

By M. M. Mangasarian

1909

DEDICATION

To My Children

My Dear Children:--

You have often requested me to tell you how, having been brought up by
my parents as a Calvinist, I came to be a Rationalist. I propose now to
answer that question in a more connected and comprehensive way than I
have ever done before. One reason for waiting until now was, that you
were not old enough before, to appreciate fully the mental struggle
which culminated in my resignation from the Spring Garden Presbyterian
church of Philadelpha, in which, my dear Zabelle, you received your
baptism at the time I was its pastor. Your brother, Armand, and your
sister, Christine, were born after I had withdrawn from the Presbyterian
church, and they have therefore not been baptised. But you are, all
three of you, now sufficiently advanced in years, and in training, to
be interested in, and I trust also, to be benefited by, the story of my
religious evolution. I am going to put the story in writing that you may
have it with you when I am gone, to remind you of the aims and interests
for which I lived, as well as to acquaint you with the most earnest and
intimate period in my career as a teacher of men. If you should ever
become parents yourselves, and your children should feel inclined to
lend their support to dogma, I hope you will prevail upon them, first to
read the story of their grand-father, who fought his way out of the camp
of orthodoxy by grappling with each dogma, hand to hand and breast to
breast.

I have no fear that you yourselves will ever be drawn into the meshes of
orthodoxy, which cost me my youth and the best years of my life to break
through, or that you will permit motives of self-interest to estrange
you from the Cause of Rationalism with which my life has been so closely
identified. My assurance of your loyalty to freedom of thought in
religion is not based, nor do I desire it to be based, on considerations
of respect or affection which you may entertain for me as your father,
but on your ability and willingness to verify a proposition before
assenting to it. Do not believe me because I am your parent, but believe
what you have yourselves, by conscientious and earnest endeavor, found
to be worthy of belief. It will never be said of you, that you have
inherited your opinions from me, or borrowed them from your neighbors,
if you can give a reason for the faith that is in you.

I wish you also to know that during those years of storm and stress,
when everything seemed so discouraging, and when my resignation from
the church had left us exposed to many privations,--without money and
without help, your mother's sympathy with me in my combat with the
church--a lone man, and a mere youth, battling with the most powerfully
intrenched institution in all the world, was more than my daily bread
to me during the pain and travail of my second birth. My spirits, often
depressed from sheer weariness, were nursed to new life and ardor by her
patience and sympathy.

One word more: Nothing will give your parents greater satisfaction than
to see in you, increasing with the increase of years, a love for those
ideals which instead of dragging the world backward, or arresting its
progress, urge man's search to nobler issues. Co-operate with the
light. Be on the side of the dawn. It is not enough to profess
Rationalism--make it your religion. Devotedly,

M. M. Mangasarian.




CHAPTER I. In the Cradle of Christianity

I was a Christian because I was born one. My parents were Christians for
the same reason. It had never occurred to me, any more than it had to
my parents, to ask for any other reason for professing the Christian
religion. Never in the least did I entertain even the most remote
suspicion that being born in a religion was not enough, either to make
the religion true, or to justify my adherence to it.

My parents were members of the Congregational church, and when I was
only a few weeks old, they brought me, as I have often been told by
those who witnessed the ceremony, to the Rev. Mr. Richardson, to be
baptized and presented to the Lord. It was the vow of my mother, if she
ever had a son, to dedicate him to the service of God. As I advanced in
years, the one thought constantly instilled into my mind was that I did
not belong to myself but to God. Every attempt was made to wean me from
the world, and to suppress in me those hopes and ambitions which might
lead me to choose some other career than that of the ministry.

This constant surveillance over me, and the artificial sanctity
associated with the life of one set apart for God, was injurious to me
in many ways. Among other things it robbed me of my childhood. Instead
of playing, I began very early to pray. God, Christ, Bible, and the
dogmas of the faith monopolized my attention, and left me neither the
leisure nor the desire for the things that make childhood joyous. At the
age of eight years I was invited to lead the congregation in prayer, in
church, and could recite many parts of the New Testament by heart. One
of my favorite pastimes was "to play church." I would arrange the chairs
as I had seen them arranged at church, then mounting on one of the
chairs, I would improvise a sermon and follow it with an unctuous
prayer. All this pleased my mother very much, and led her to believe
that God had condescended to accept her offering.

My dear mother is still living, and is still a devout member of the
Congregational church. I have not concealed my Rationalism from her,
nor have I tried to make light of the change which has separated us
radically in the matter of religion. Needless to say that my withdrawal
from the Christian ministry, and the Christian religion, was a painful
disappointment to her. But like all loving mothers, she hopes and prays
that I may return to the faith she still holds, and in which I was
baptized. It is only natural that she should do so. At her age of life,
beliefs have become so crystallized that they can not yield to new
impressions. When my mother had convictions I was but a child, and
therefore I was like clay in her hands, but now that I can think for
myself my mother is too advanced in years for me to try to influence
her. She was more successful with me than I shall ever be with her.

That my mother had a great influence upon me, all my early life attests.
As soon as I was old enough I was sent to college with a view of
preparing myself for the ministry. Having finished college I went to the
Princeton Theological Seminary, where I received instruction from such
eminent theologians as Drs. A. A. Hodge, William H. Green, and Prof.
Francis L. Patton. At the age of twenty-three, I became pastor of the
Spring Garden Presbyterian church of Philadelphia.

It was the reading of Emerson and Theodore Parker which gave me my first
glimpse of things beyond the creed I was educated in. I was at this time
obstinately orthodox, and, hence, to free my mind from the Calvinistic
teaching which I had imbibed with my mother's milk, was a most painful
operation. Again and again, during the period of doubt, I returned to
the bosom of my early faith, just as the legendary dove, scared by the
waste of waters, returned to the ark. To dislodge the shot fired into
a wall is not nearly so difficult an operation as to tear one's self
forever from the early beliefs which cling closer to the soul than the
skin does to the bones.

While it was the reading of a new set of books which first opened my
eyes, these would have left no impression upon my mind had not certain
events in my own life, which I was unable to reconcile with the belief
in a "Heavenly Father", created in me a predisposition to inquire into
the foundations of my Faith.

An event, which happened when I was only a boy, gave me many anxious
thoughts about the truth of the beliefs my dear mother had so eloquently
instilled into me. The one thought I was imbued with from my youth was
that "the tender mercies of God are over all his children," I believed
myself to be a child of God, and counted confidently upon his special
providence. But when the opportunity came for providence to show his
interest in me, I was forsaken, and had to look elsewhere for help. My
first disappointment was a severe shock. I got over it at the time, but
when I came to read Rationalistic books, the full meaning of that early
experience, which I will now briefly relate, dawned upon me, and helped
to make my mind good soil for the new ideas.

In 1877 I was traveling in Asia Minor, going from the Euphrates to the
Bosphorus, accompanied by the driver of my horses, one of which I rode,
the other carrying my luggage. We had not proceeded very far when we
were overtaken by a young traveler on foot, who, for reasons of safety,
begged to join our little party. He was a Mohammedan, while my driver
and I professed the Christian religion.

For three days we traveled together, going at a rapid pace in order to
overtake the caravan. It need hardly be said that in that part of the
world it is considered unsafe to travel even with a caravan, but, to
go on a long journey, as we were doing, all by ourselves, was certainly
taking a great risk.

We were armed with only a rifle--one of those flint fire-arms which
frequently refused to go off. I forgot to say that my driver had also
hanging from his girdle a long and crooked knife sheathed in a
black canvas scabbard. Both the driver, who was a Christian, and the
Mohammedan, who had placed himself under our protection, were, I am
sorry to say, much given to boasting. They would tell how, on various
occasions, they had, single-handed, driven away the Kurdish brigands,
who outnumbered them, ten to one; how that rusty knife had disemboweled
one of the most renowned Kurdish chiefs, and how the silent and
meek-looking flint-gun had held at bay a pack of those "curs" who go
about scenting for human flesh. All this was reassuring to me--a lad of
seventeen, and I began to think that I was indebted to Providence for my
brave escort.

On the morning of the 18th of February, 1877, we reached the valley said
to be a veritable den of thieves, where many a traveler had lost his
life as well as his goods. A great fear fell upon us when we saw on
the wooden bridge which spanned the river at the base of the hills, two
Kurds riding in our direction. I was at once disillusioned as to the
boasted bravery of my comrades, and felt that it was all braggadocio
with which they had been regaling me. As I was the one supposed to have
money, I would naturally be the chief object of attack, which made
my position the more perilous. But this sudden fear which seemed to
paralyze me at first, was followed by a bracing resolve to cope with
these "devils" mentally.

As I look back now upon the events of that day, I am puzzled to know
how I got through it all without any serious harm to my person. I was
surprised also that I, who had been brought up to pray and to trust in
divine help, forgot in the hour of real peril, all about "other help"
and bent all my energies upon helping myself.

But why did I not pray? Why did I not fall upon my knees to commit
myself to God's keeping? Perhaps it was because I was too much
pre-occupied--too much in earnest to take the time to pray. Perhaps my
better instincts would not let me take refuge in words when something
stronger was wanted. We may ask the good Lord not to burn our house,
but when the house is actually on fire, water is better than prayer.
Perhaps, again, I did not pray because of an instinctive feeling that
this was a case of self-help or no help at all. Perhaps, again, there
was a feeling in me, that if all the prayers my mother and I had offered
did not save me from falling into the hands of thieves neither would any
new prayer that I might offer be of any help. But the fact is that in
the hour of positive and imminent peril--when face to face with death--I
was too busy to pray.

My mother, before I started on this journey, had made a bag for my
valuables--watch and chain, etc.--and sewed it on my underflannels, next
to my body. But my money (all in gold coins) was in a snuff-box, and
that again in a long silk purse. I was, of course, the better dressed
of the three--with long boots which reached higher than my knees, a
warm English broadcloth cloak reaching down to my ankles, and an Angora
collarette, soft and snow white, about my neck.

I rode ahead, and the others, with the baggage horse, followed me. When
the two Kurdish riders who were advancing in our direction reached me,
they saluted me very politely, saying, according to the custom of the
country, "God be with you," to which I timidly returned the customary
answer, "We are all in his keeping." At the time it did not occur to me
how absurd it was for both travelers and robbers to recommend each other
to God while carrying fire-arms--the ones for attack, the others for
defense.

Of course now I can see, though I could not at the time I am speaking
of, that God never interfered to save an _unarmed_ traveler from
brigands--I say never, for if he ever did, and could, he would do it
always. But as we know, alas, too well, that hundreds and thousands have
been robbed and cut to pieces by these Kurds, it would be reasonable to
infer that God is indifferent. Of course, the strongly-armed travelers,
as a rule, escape, thanks to their own courage and firearms. For, we ask
again, if the Lord can save one, why not all? And if he can save all,
but will not, does he not become as dangerous as the robbers? But really
if God could do anything in the matter, He would reform the Kurds out
of the land, or--out of the thieving business. If God is the unfailing
police force in Christian, lands, he is not that in Mohammedan
countries, at any rate.

As the two mounted Kurds passed by me, they scanned me very closely--my
costume, boots, furs, cap and so on. Then I heard them making inquiries
of my driver about me--who I was, where I was going, and why I was going
at all.

My driver answered these, inquiries as honestly as the circumstances
permitted. Wishing us all again the protection of Allah, the Kurds
spurred their horses and galloped away.

For a moment we began to breathe freely--but only for a moment, for as
our horses reached the bridge we saw that the Kurds had turned around
and were now following us. And before we reached the middle of the
bridge over the river, one of the Kurds galloping up close to me laid
his hand on my shoulders and, unceremoniously, pulled me out of my
saddle. At the same time he dismounted himself, while his partner
remained on horseback with his gun pointed squarely in my-face, and
threatening to kill me if I did not give him my money immediately.

I can never forget his savage grin when at last he found my purse, and
grabbing it, with another oath, pulled it out of its hiding place. I
have already described that my coins were all in a little box hid away
in my purse, hence, as soon as the robber had loosened the strings he
took out the box, held it in his left hand, while with his right he kept
searching in the inner folds of my long purse. While he was running his
fingers through the tortuous purse, I slipped mine into his left hand,
and, taking hold of the box, I emptied its contents into my pocket
in the twinkling of an eye and handed it back to the robber. The Kurd
incensed at finding nothing in the purse which he kept shaking and
fingering, snatched the box from my hand, opened it, and finding it as
empty as the purse, flung it away with an oath.

"Are you Moslems or Christians?" inquired one of the Kurds, to my
companions.

"We are all Moslems, by Allah," they answered.

In Turkey you are not supposed to speak the truth unless you say, "by
Allah," which means "_by God_."

Of course it was not true that I was a Mohammedan. My companions told
the Kurds a falsehood about me, to save my life. There was no doubt the
Kurds would have killed me, but for the lie _which I did not correct_.
When I reached my destination many of my co-religionists declared that I
had denied Christ by allowing the Kurds to think that I was a Moslem.

As I feel now, my conscience does not trouble me for helping, by my
silence, to deceive the Kurds about my religion. In withholding the
truth from these would-be assassins I was doing them no evil, but
protecting the most sacred rights of man, the Kurd's included. Here was
an instance in which silence was golden. But I would not hesitate,
any moment, to mislead a thief or a murderer, by speech, as well as
by silence. If it is right to kill the murderer in self-defense, it is
right to deny him also the truth.

But young as I was, what alarmed me at the time was that we should
have been led into the temptation of lying to save our lives. Why did a
"Heavenly Father" deliver us to the brigands? And of what help was God
to us, if, in real peril, we had to resort to fighting or falsehood for
self-protection? In what way would the world have been worse off without
a "Heavenly Father?"

About a month after I arrived at my destination, I received a letter
from my mother, to whom the driver, upon his return, had related my
adventure with the Kurds. Without paying the least thought to the fact
that we had to lie to save our lives, my mother claimed that it was her
prayers which had saved _me_ from the brigands. _Sancta Simplicitas!_

But my hospitality to new tendencies did not in the least diminish the
anguish and pain of the separation from the religion of my mother. Even
after I began to seriously doubt many of the beliefs I had once accepted
as divine, it seemed impossible to abandon them. Ten thousand obstacles
blocked my way, and as many voices seemed to caution me against sailing
forth upon an unknown sea. In a modest way, I was like Columbus,
separated from the new world I was seeking, by the dark and tempestuous
waste of waters. How often my heart sank within me! I was almost sure
of a better and larger world beyond Calvin, or Christ even, but the huge
sea rolled between and struck terror upon my mind.

But if there are difficulties, there is a way out of them. I am glad
that the difficulties, great and insurmountable as they seemed at
the time, did not succeed in holding me back. Between Calvinism and
Rationalism flowed the deep, dark sea of fear. I have crossed that sea.
Behind me is theology with its mysteries and dogmas; before me are the
sunny fields of science. Born in the world of John Calvin, baptised
in the name of the Holy Trinity, and set apart for the Christian
ministry,--I have become a Rationalist. The meaning of both these words,
Calvinist and Rationalist, will, I hope, become clear to all the readers
of this book. The difference between the Calvinist and the Rationalist
is not that the one uses his reason, while the other does not. Both
use their reason. It is by using his reason that the Calvinist is not
a Catholic, for instance, or a Mohammedan. In the same way the Catholic
reasons for his church and against Calvinism. To say that Christianity,
or Judaism, should be accepted on faith, without first subjecting
its claims to the strain of reason, is also reasoning. Such is the
constitution of the mind, that even when men seek to suppress reason,
they are compelled to offer reasons for doing so.

But there is reasoning and reasoning. The Bushman has his reason for
trusting in his amulets; the civilized man, his, for trusting in
self-help. Just as the eyes must have light before they can see, Reason
must have knowledge before it can reason truly. But it is possible to
possess knowledge and still reason badly, just as a man may be in the
light, and still not see--by keeping his eyes shut.

Nor does it follow that if a man opens his eyes he _will_ see. The eyes
obey the will; if we do not wish to see, we will not see even with
our eyes open. There are many educated people who allow motives of
self-interest, if not to blind, at least to blur their vision.

Finally, it is not enough to see for ourselves. We must show to others
what we see: My object for telling the story of my mind--how it passed
from Calvinism to Rationalism,--is to help others see what I see.




CHAPTER II. Early Struggles

As I look back upon the period of mental conflict and uncertainty which
marked the closing years of my pastorate in the Presbyterian church, I
am comforted by the thought that I did not wait until I was accused of
heresy, tried by an ecclesiastical court and dismissed from the church
before I severed my connection with the Presbyterian denomination. On
the contrary, as soon as I had fully persuaded myself that I was no
longer a Presbyterian, I, of my own accord, offered my resignation,
after stating publicly the reasons which had led me to renounce
Calvinism. It was not the church that expelled me; it was I that
renounced the church.

Of course, even then there were those, who demanded a public trial and
my formal deposition from the ministry. The Philadelphia Presbytery met
to discuss whether I should not be summoned to appear before them, to
receive their censure. But wiser counsel prevailed, and a sensational
public trial was avoided. The district attorney of the city of
Philadelphia, Mr. George Graham, himself a staunch Presbyterian,
explained to the ministers that my resignation had deprived them of all
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over me. I had, he explained, unlocked the
door and walked out into the open, and it was too late now to talk of
expelling me. On the other hand, although my complete severance from
Calvinism had been fully announced, still for many days and nights my
house was filled with members of my church urging me to remain with them
as their pastor, and to hold on to the church building. I am very happy
to think that I was able to resist this temptation too. Had I yielded to
their entreaties, or allowed myself to be swayed by their arguments,
I would have been placed in a position where I could neither be
a Rationalist nor a Calvinist, but a preacher of ambiguities,
contradicting in one breath what I had said in another. From such a
career of duplicity and arrested growth, I was saved by a fortunate
decision on my part to give up Presbyterian property as well as the
Presbyterian creed.

The first Sunday after my resignation, I spoke in a hall on Broad
street, in Philadelphia. It was quite a change from a handsome church
edifice to a secular hall. I could see that those who followed me out of
the Presbyterian denomination felt ill at ease, on a Sunday morning in a
public hall. But that was not the worst shock in store for them.

When I reached the hall on Broad street it was so densely packed that
it seemed impossible for me to reach the platform. In the meantime, my
trustees were getting anxious about my failure to appear in the
pulpit. The audience too was showing signs of discomfort in the crowded
auditorium. It was only by announcing my name, and begging those who
stood up in rows at the entrance,--all the seats being occupied--to help
me reach the stage, that I could make any progress through the crowd.
When at last I faced the audience to deliver my first address from a
free platform, I thought of the advice given me by my trustees, that, as
much depended upon the impression of my first talk, which would in all
probability be extensively reported in the papers, I should take care
not to go "too far." What they meant by not going "too far," was that I
should let the public know that in the essentials I was as Christian as
ever. I do not blame my friends for this advice. They trembled for me
and for the organization which was to be launched for the first time on
that day. Besides, they were themselves, Presbyterians still, at heart,
and had no clear understanding of the meaning of my renunciation
of Calvinism. Sentimentally they were with me, but by training and
conviction they were still for the creed of their ancestors.

Speaking frankly, I had myself agreed to the wisdom of being careful and
conservative in my opening address, believing that radical utterances at
this time would make me more enemies than friends. But when I began to
speak, in the enthusiasm of the moment, joyous over the first taste of
freedom of speech, I forgot my caution, and gave my thoughts as
they welled up within me, full scope. "To the winds with policy and
calculation! Whether I win followers, or lose the last man, I must not
stammer,--I must speak!" Under the spell of this thought, which seemed
to seize me without at all consulting me, I said many things which
changed the color on the faces of my Presbyterian supporters.

Unused to freedom of speech, and brought up to believe certain beliefs
as sacred, the attempt on my part to subject these to the strain of
reason was in the nature of a painful disappointment to them. Thus
many of my followers lost heart and quickly returned to the cradle from
which, in a moment of excitement, they had leaped forth. But new friends
took the place of those who deserted the young movement, and in a very
short time, a larger hall was secured. This was St. George's hall, on
Arch street, one of the largest halls in Philadelphia. But up to this
time we, including myself, believed ourselves to be still Christians,
though no longer Presbyterians. As long as we held on to the name of
Christian we continued to sail in comparatively smooth waters. We made
the word "Christian," of course, to mean what we wanted it to mean.

But very soon new perplexities arose. The people who came to hear me,
and who paid the expenses of the new organization, as well as
directed its policy, while they progressed sufficiently to renounce
Presbyterianism, they were very reluctant to part with Christianity
altogether. I could criticise Calvin to my heart's content, but I must
not, Christ. The church, or churchianity, certainly deserved to be
investigated, and its errors exposed, but Christ and Christianity were
too sacred to be handled with equal freedom. My trustees felt that as a
liberal _Christian_ organization, there was a great future before us;
we would soon become one of the largest and most prosperous religious
bodies in the city; but if we "attacked" Christ--they called examining
the teachings and character of Christ freely "attacking" Christ--we
would be disowned by all respectable members, and lose our standing in
the esteem of a hitherto friendly public.

And the public was indeed friendly at this stage of our evolution. The
press of Philadelphia, as well as of New York City, reported daily,
for some time, the doings of the new organization. The majority of
the editorials in the daily papers commended the course I had taken
in avoiding a "heresy trial," and in resisting the great temptation to
resort to shifts and subterfuges to enable me to remain at a lucrative
post. In these days * departures from Orthodoxy were rare, and
naturally, my case created a great stir. But as I have intimated,
the preponderance of criticism and comment was favorable. Encouraging
letters from Henry Ward Beecher, Lyman Abbott, Prof. David Swing, and
other prominent leaders gave the new society an enviable prestige.
But my trustees protested that this "good will" of the public, which
constituted our best asset, would be lost, and its sympathy turned
into antagonism, if I spoke as freely of Christ as I did of Calvin,
and subjected the Bible to the same strain of reason that I did the
Westminster Catechism. In other words, I was politely made to feel that
while it was respectable enough to part with Presbyterianism, it would
spell ruin to part also with Christianity.

     * 1880.

In justice to my supporters I must state that when I resigned from the
Presbyterian church I had no idea that the step would eventually carry
me beyond Christianity itself. "A purer Christianity" was my plea at
that time, and I sincerely believed that with Calvinism out of the way
there would be left no serious obstacle for reason to stumble over.
I was not prepared at that stage of my evolution to perceive the
impossibility of separating Calvinism from Christianity without
destroying both. Calvinism was a symptom and not the disease itself.
The disease was supernaturalism, of which the different sects are
the manifestations. It is the disease and not its manifestation that
required suppression. I was unable to see the relationship between an
infinite God, sovereign of all, and Calvinism, and fancied in my mind
that I could keep God and let Calvin go. But faith in a God who knows
everything and is absolutely sovereign, spells Calvinism.

The step out of Christianity was infinitely more difficult than the
step out of Presbyterianism. Had my followers been trained to think
rationally, they would have seen that since I did not resign from the
Presbyterian church, for a different form of baptism, or communion, but
because of its failure to recognize Reason as the highest authority in
religion, I was bound, by the very stress and logic of my premises, to
drop Christianity as I had been led to drop Calvinism.

My trustees were quite unconscious of giving me dangerous advice, or of
trying to make of me an example of arrested development. They were
my friends, and the friends of the cause, but they could not think
logically, and that is why they could not appreciate my reply that we
are not free to command the truth,--we must obey the truth.

Matters came to a crisis when I delivered a lecture on "Was Jesus
God?" I can still see the painful expression on the faces of many of my
hearers on that Sunday morning. Did I bring them out of the Presbyterian
church to make "infidels" and "blasphemers" of them? A number of my
hearers rose and left the hall. The strain upon me was severe. When I
sat down I was in a profuse perspiration. When all was over, I must
have looked ashen pale. I had hardly any strength left to announce the
closing hymn. But my audience suffered perhaps even more than did I. To
part with Jesus is not the same thing as parting with Calvin, and that
morning I had told them that if Calvin goes, Jesus must go too.

_C'est le premier pas qui coute._ "It is the first step that costs."
But I found my second step even more costly. Voltaire speaks of the
inevitableness of the second step if the first is taken. They told him
how St. Denis had picked up his own head after it had been chopped off
by the executioner, and walked a hundred steps with it in his hands. He
replied, "I can believe in the ninety-nine steps, it is the first step I
find difficulty in believing." Granted the first step, the ninety-nine,
or nine million steps are very easy. Would it not be wasteful to argue
that St. Denis took the first step, but no more? Is it not equally
superfluous to accept one miracle in the Bible, and deny the rest?
If one miracle, why not a million? But the aim of the training we had
received in the church was not to help us to think logically but how
not to think logically. The state of the Christian church, divided,
sub-divided, and voicing doctrines diametrically opposed the one to the
other, while they all claim to be and are, equally scriptural is a proof
of this. I do not blame therefore, the members of my society for taking
offense or for withdrawing, as many of them did after the "Jesus"
lecture, their support from my work. They could not see the incongruity
of accepting one part and rejecting another of a "divine" revelation.
If the texts upon which Calvin based his theology were doubtful, what
assurance could we have of the genuineness of the more liberal texts.
The obscurity or ambiguity of Jesus was really the cause of the
contradictions and divisions of his followers. The obscurity and
contradictory nature of the text accounts for the crowd of religious
sects, each claiming to be the only church of Christ, or, at least, more
scriptural than its competitors. It was both a moral as well as a mental
relief to escape the bewildering confusion of such a situation. And it
was after I had commanded the babel of clashing voices to hush that I
could hear the still, small voice of Reason.




CHAPTER III. New Temptations

Notwithstanding our many heresies we still believed in Christianity--in
its moral excellence, as we expressed it. Jesus was not God; Calvin was
all wrong; but still there was that in Christianity which could not be
found elsewhere. While I myself did not linger long in this indecisive
mood, still it was very trying while it lasted. To soften a little the
pain of losing Jesus the God, the temptation to exalt him as a perfect
moral teacher beyond all others the world had ever seen very nearly
swamped me. But there were also financial considerations which made my
position at this stage a very critical one. I was, besides, so much in
need of companionship and sympathy that I wonder now why I did not rush
into the open arms of the first liberal Christian sect that offered to
fellowship with me.

And there were religious fellowships ready to receive us. Let me first
speak of the Unitarians, who very kindly offered to help us, both
morally and financially. We were not told that we had to join the
denomination before we could receive financial assistance. They offered
to help us without any conditions. The Unitarians have a fund to
help all "liberal" religious movements, and as a "liberal" religious
movement, we could, if we wished, draw upon that fund. We did not accept
the financial help, but we were happy to receive such moral support as
men like James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, Minot J. Savage and
other equally distinguished preachers of Unitarianism could give us. The
venerable Dr. Furness, more than once, occupied my pulpit, as also
the Rev. Gordon Ames, whose church also proposed my name for a life
membership in the American Unitarian Association. I can never be too
grateful to the Unitarians for their hospitality to me in those trying
times. Both Dr. Clarke and Dr. Hale had received me in their homes and
given me such counsel as a young man at the threshold of a new career
stands in need of. It was thus that Unitarianism, with its gracious
hospitality, its tolerance and liberality, came very near persuading
me that having gone as far as Unitarianism, it was not necessary to
go farther. Thus you see, Moses and Calvin came back to me dressed as
Unitarians; but, fortunately for me, I recognized the disguise.

If I could "settle down" in Unitarianism, why did I leave the
Presbyterian church? The difference between them is after all a
difference of quantity. The Presbyterians believe more than the
Unitarians, and while the Bible is inspired from cover to cover for the
former, the latter believe only in the authority of certain portions
of the book. Ernest Renan told the Protestants that they did not have
sufficient reason for leaving the Catholic church. "But we could not
believe in the mass," replied the Protestants. "If you believe in the
virgin birth and the resurrection of the flesh, what but a whim could
prevent you from believing also in transubstantiation," argued Renan.
We can say the same of Unitarianism. If it can believe in parts of the
Bible, as "inspired" or if it can accept, the unity of God, or "the
Lordship of Jesus," why not believe a little more? If it drops one dogma
on grounds of reason, it must drop all, and if it can accept one
dogma, the "Lordship of Jesus," for example, on faith, why not also
the Trinity? If God exists, he could be in three or more parts quite as
easily as in one.

Unwittingly the Unitarian church has helped to strengthen the cause of
Orthodoxy. It speaks of Christ as the most perfect being or teacher who
has ever visited this planet--a being possessing all the virtues, and
none of the defects of human nature,--a being worthy to be called in a
special sense, "the Son of God."

"Very well," answers the Orthodox believer, "If Jesus was all that, he
was God." The difference between Unitarianism and Orthodoxy is that,
while the latter calls Christ a God, the former holds that he was more
than man. The point is not worth fighting for. Moreover, "If Christ was
the type of perfection, as you Unitarians seem to believe," argues the
Calvinist, "he could not have claimed to be God, as he certainly does,
unless he was God. If he was not God, he was an impostor, and not the
most perfect type of character the world has ever seen, as you claim."
The answer is decisive. If Jesus believed himself to be only a mortal
like ourselves, how explain his language of authority, his forgiving of
sins, his miracles, his claim to be equal with the Father, and to have
existed from all time? The weapons which Unitarianism uses against
Orthodoxy, the latter can easily ignore. Nay, Unitarians are often
quoted by the Orthodox to prove that even those who deny the divinity
of Jesus, are compelled to admit "that there never was another like
unto Him." The point I am endeavoring to make is that I could not accept
Unitarianism because its claim about the moral perfection of Jesus was
as much an unreasoned dogma, as the belief in his divinity. If I could
subscribe to one dogma, why not to all? If there is no evidence that
Jesus was God, neither is there any that he was morally perfect.

I am aware that there are Unitarians who do not accept even the moral
perfection of Jesus. But that only helps to confuse us as to what
Unitarianism really stands for. If Jesus was not morally perfect, or the
wisest and best teacher, why does he monopolize the Unitarian pulpit? In
conclusion, as already intimated, Unitarianism with its God-idea differs
from Calvinism, not in kind, but in degree only. Its baggage of the
supernatural is not quite so heavy, but what there is of it is every
whit as supernatural.

But my inexperienced bark had hardly weathered the Unitarian storm
which, as I confessed, came very near driving me under shelter, before
another danger confronted me and my struggling society. The financial
problem was, of course, a pressing one with us. Hall rent had to be
paid, which was considerable, and the lecturer and his family had to be
supported. The independent course I was following was not adding to the
revenues of the society. The moneyed people, and the people accustomed
to making generous contributions for church purposes, did not approve of
my Rational tendencies. It was at this time that Spiritualism crossed
my path, and endeavored, if I may use so trite a phrase, "to flirt with
me."

"I could have many new supporters, and some moneyed men and women, if I
could see the truth of Spiritualism," was whispered in my ears by my own
fears and hopes. And then hardly a Sunday passed when at the conclusion
of the lecture I was not met by some believer in Spiritualism, who told
me how he or she had seen Darwin, or Emerson, or Goethe, or Voltaire at
my side on the platform, while I was delivering my address, and how
one or the other had smiled upon me with approval. I received messages
purporting to come from the world of Spirits, commending my course, and
bidding me to go forward unafraid. Opportunities were given me to see
tables tip, to hear "celestial" voices, and to be surprised by flashes
of light in perfectly dark rooms.

For many of the friends who tried to lead my steps toward Spiritualism,
I still cherish the tenderest thoughts. They befriended me and my wife,
they helped to render those desolate days of anxiety and hardship
a little less of a strain upon our resources. But I could become a
Spiritualist only with my eyes shut, and I had opened them when I parted
with Calvinism. Was I now going to shut my eyes again?

My neighbor and colleague, Dr. John E. Roberts, who left the Baptist
church to join the Unitarians, and later, became minister of the Church
of this World, has recently expressed his interest in Spiritualism. He
thinks the Spiritualists have the most comforting doctrine, because of
their hope of immortality. Dr. Roberts thinks that we need the spiritual
glow of faith in immortality to keep us from withering. But is not
immortality as inconceivable as the Trinity? Why should a man object
to the Baptist or the Unitarian immortality, if he can accept the
immortality of the Spiritualists? Is the evidence furnished by modern
mediums more convincing than that furnished by the mediums in the Bible?
Are the spirits who manifest themselves in the Old and New Testaments,
impostors, while those who appear to Mrs. Piper in Brooklyn are genuine?
And is the immortality promised by Mrs. Piper's ghosts different, or
better, than the immortality promised by those who communed with Jesus,
Peter and Paul? But let us hear Dr. Roberts' reasons for preferring
the Spiritualist's certain hope of another life to the silence of
Rationalism on the question of the hereafter:

"And then I think there is need of a revival along the line of
cherishing the old-fashioned hopes. You can see in current literature a
strong tendency towards the belief that this world is the end of it.
It is surprising to one that will bear in mind how often he finds that
strain of pessimism. Men and women in very great numbers are beginning
to think that after all maybe eternal sleep is better than eternal life.
For, in the grave there can come no pain, no sorrow, no tears. 'On the
shore of that vast sea of oblivion no wave of sorrow breaks.' But, to my
mind, life is too sweet ever to be given up, and I can't help liking
the old-fashioned hope that there is something beyond; that we shall
remember and find each other and make reparations for wrongs we have
done and explain some things that were misunderstood here. In other
words, that we shall live again. For one, without knowing a thing about
it, I cling to the old-fashioned hope of immortality."

But is it correct to identify "the old-fashioned hope" with optimism,
and "the belief that eternal sleep is better than eternal life," or
that "in the grave there can come no pain, no sorrow, no tears,"--with
pessimism? "The old-fashioned hope" was no hope at all, because it was
a private and exclusive hope. It reserved a place in heaven for the few,
the elect,--whether Jewish, Mohammedan or Christian,--and condemned the
multitude to the pains of hell. Can such a hope make for optimism? Can
such a prospect brace up humanity at large? Moreover, the "old-fashioned
hope's" picture of eternal life is so prosaic, so savorless, that it
has fallen into "innocuous desuetude" even among the elect. Men have
expressed their hesitation to decide which they would prefer, the heaven
or the hell of the "old-fashioned hope." The grave is more optimistic
than the old-fashioned future.=

``_Ah, within our Mother's breast,

``From toil and tumult, sin and sorrow free,

``Sphered beyond hope and dread, divinely calm,

``They lie, all gathered into perfect rest.

``And o'er the trance of their Eternity.

``The cypress waves more holy than the palm_.=

But Dr. Roberts likes "eternal life" of some kind. Eternal life! We
fear our good friend has stooped to a sonorous phrase. Pliny, one of the
illustrious philosophers of the reign of Trajan, thought that man was
more fortunate than the gods, because, while "the gods cannot die, man
can." We are not in a position to tell whether or not "eternal life" is
desirable, for we do not know what it is. How can we desire, or despise
the inconceivable? No one can tell whether it is an evil or a blessing
to live forever and ever, and ever, and ever,--and ever--unless he
has experienced it. Nor can anyone affirm "eternal life" (we think
Dr. Roberts means conscious, personal immortality) until he has lived
through an eternity. To live a million, million years, is not eternal
life. Hence, no one who has not so lived, can speak intelligently of
"eternal life." We cannot even say that the gods are immortal. Because
they have lived until now, so to speak, is no argument that they will
live forever. We have to wait until they prove their ability to live
forever, and ever, and ever, before we can pronounce them immortal. No
being can be called immortal until he has lived to the end of time. We
do not affirm, nor do we deny, the inconceivable. The question of the
hereafter is still an open one. There is no reason why people should not
speculate about it. We may even hope that tomorrow's science will throw
more light upon this interesting problem, but today, all we know about
eternal life is that we do not know anything about it.

``_I gazed (as oft I've gazed the same)

``To try if I could wrench aught out of death,

``Which could confirm, or shake, or make a faith,

``But it was all a mystery. Here we are._=

Yes, "Here we are,"--that is the great reality. There is cheer and
hope and love even in the thought that the present hour is big with
possibilities and sweet with memories. We need not think of the grave
while our hearts pulse, and our blood is warm. It is queer how all
believers in eternal life fear the grave and deepen its gloom. The
thought of another life often impoverishes the life we now possess.
Pining for the far away tomorrow, we lose the joy at our doors. Schiller
describes a recluse at the bar of heaven, arguing that he must have
great rewards because he has practiced great privations in life. He
received a chilling answer. He is told that if he was foolish enough to
let the real life slip through his fingers for a distant reward, there
is no power that can make good his losses.

Real optimism springs from the thought that the present life may be made
dearer and nobler, richer, and happier, and that we may so live as to
leave behind us a long and fragrant memory:

``The ripe products of a fertile brain

``Will live and reproduce fair fruit again.=

Even at its worst, death is an obligation we owe posterity, and the
discharge of it should make no one a pessimist. At any rate, with Grant
Allen, we can sing when we feel life's evening gathering about us:

``Perchance a little light will come with morning;

````Perchance I shall but sleep.

Dr. Roberts admits, I believe, that he has no evidence to offer, except
what he calls "the innate desire for another life." But if the desire
for immortality proves another and an endless life, the desire for God,
or Christ, or an infallible Revelation, ought to be sufficient to prove
their existence. The Spiritualists, like the Orthodox, reason logically
enough against beliefs not their own, but when it comes to their own
dogmas they do not consult reason at all. I had left Calvinism because
it failed to furnish the evidence for its claims, how then could I join
the Spiritualists with no more evidence to substantiate their claims
than that it was pleasant to desire another life? But there is the
testimony of the mediums; yes, and there is the testimony of the
apostles. If the latter is not enough to make Christianity true, the
former is not enough to prove Spiritualism.

The comparatively few lines in which I have tried to tell my early
experience as a Rationalist give but an imperfect idea of the effort
required under circumstances of stress and anxiety, to keep my ship
steady on the troublous waters to which the winds outside the harbor
of Calvinism had driven me. In the words of Shelley, I had unfurled my
sails to the tempest, and fear and alarm were to be my portion, until
I became more accustomed to the swing of the sea, and could command the
stars to point the way. The open sea is not like the sheltered harbor.
It is easy to go out to sea, but not so easy to find one's way there.

During this period of mental struggle to work out a philosophy of life
which should fill the vacuum created by the collapse of theology, I was
frequently approached by well-meaning, but over-confident, teachers who,
in their own opinion, at any rate, had completely and satisfactorily
reconciled religion with Reason. Nearly every mail brought me letters
recommending some publication which would answer all my difficulties as
it had theirs. Not a few of my would-be helpers went to the trouble of
calling on me with the same object in view. I shall only speak here of
one of the books which was supposed to have untied all the knots, divine
and human, which have ever perplexed the brain of man. The book came
to me highly recommended. Even President Eliot of Harvard had publicly
endorsed it. While it was many years after the period I am now writing
of, that my attention was called to this book, nevertheless, it is
because the book is typical of the efforts to make Reason approve of the
fundamentals of the popular faith, that I reproduce here what I said of
it at the time: _Balance_ is the name of a little book with a great aim.
Its author, Mr. Orlando Smith, sets out as a new Columbus to discover
not another earth, but another truth, which shall give to all
known truths new meaning and worth. This truth, he believes, he
has discovered, and christens it, "The Fundamental Verity." Lucid
illustrations are massed together with telling effect, to show that
Nature is equipped with a self-curative genius which makes discord an
impossibility. That which is overdone in one direction is underdone
equally in an opposite direction. This rhythm, this equivalence which
pulls the pendulum in one direction as far as it pushes it in another is
the _Fundamental Verity_, which, if grasped as universal and infallible,
will remove from our shoulders what Shakespeare calls "the weary weight
of all this unintelligible world," and bring Religion and Science,
the two gladiatorial contestants in the modern arena, to replace their
quarrelous weapons, with which they have given and received gashes deep
and bloody, with the olive branch of peace and concord.

Having undertaken to demonstrate that the physical world is in the
embrace of laws which forever evolve order out of confusion, and that
Balance is supreme in every detail of life, from the most momentous to
the most minute, that throughout the length and breadth of the universe
the account balances perfectly; and that Nature has no failures, and bad
debts; that Balance forbids wrong, such for instance as the victory of
one force over another, the author believes he has found in this law the
unanswerable demonstration for the existence of a Supreme Being who is
the author of _Balance_ in the universe and of the immortality of the
soul. Thus, having given to these two ambitious propositions a new
front, he concludes he has reconciled Religion with Science.

It is quite easy to reconcile enemies if they let you interpret their
differences to suit yourself. Mr. Smith defines both Religion and
Science with a view to reconciliation, and it is no wonder that they
stop quarreling immediately.

Even in Mr. Orlando Smith's religion, there is an element of the
supernatural, a _deus ex machina_--who from the eternities rules the
world and is pledged to see that in the end right shall prevail. This is
theology and not science.

Mr. Smith starts by trying to prove that Nature is just, orderly, and
its accounts are always perfect, and then, unfortunately enough, he
drags forth once more the obsolete theological argument which science
has already rent into tatters, that another life is inevitable since
this life is unsatisfactory. Having shown that there are no failures in
Nature, he now says, "We must admit, however, that justice is incomplete
in this life." That, however, destroys the position that Nature is at
present governed by a Supreme Being who makes failure impossible, and
the proposition that this Supreme Being must be given more time to work
in--an eternity--is theology, not science.

If for millions of years this earth could roll under the eye of a
Supreme Being and still be imperfect, what reason have we to conclude
that the Being who has failed hitherto is going to do better in the
unknown future? And what about the animals? Will they have to
look forward to another world for justice? Must not their lives be
"balanced"' in some way too? Or will Mr. Orlando Smith answer with St.
Paul, "Does God care for the oxen"?

Toward the end, Mr. Smith develops into a full-fledged pulpiteer,
claiming that no hospitals, charities, or institutions of
learning,--songs hymns, poems, noble thoughts or sentiments are
possible, without the doctrine of a Supreme Being, and of another
life. Thus the science with which Mr. Smith began is swallowed up in
theology--it is the lamb and the lion lying down together,--but one
inside the other.

I had renounced Calvinism, not because it would not let me use my reason
at all, but because it would not let me use it consistently. I could
use it here, but not there, or only so far and no further. The men who
offered me substitutes for Calvinism placed restrictions upon reason
too, differing only in appearance from those imposed by the church.
I had not yet found an organization that respected consistency, and
consistency is another word for sincerity.




CHAPTER IV. The Critical Period

In 1888 I became acquainted with the work of the Ethical Movement, which
was then establishing a branch in Philadelphia. The platform of the
movement appealed to me strongly, because it was completely divorced
from the supernatural. It emphasized the deed, and ignored the creed; or
rather, it believed in the creed of the deed. I invited the leaders of
this movement to address my society, and to explain to us in detail the
philosophy of Ethical Culture. All five of the lecturers of the Ethical
Societies in America successively occupied my platform in St. George's
hall, and I in return occupied their platforms in New York, Chicago,
St. Louis and Philadelphia. This interchange of platforms resulted in
my accepting a call from the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and
three years later from the Chicago Society, which latter I served as its
lecturer for five years.

The founder of the Ethical Societies was Dr. Felix Adler, the son of a
Jewish Rabbi, who was expected to succeed his father as the spiritual
head of the fashionable and wealthy Fifth Avenue synagogue in New York
City. But all the other members of the fraternity of lecturers were
either ex-ministers of the Christian church, like myself, or had, at one
time, studied for the Christian ministry. In the beginning, the movement
was consistently and fearlessly Rationalistic. Adler had a lecture
on Atheism in which he boldly exposed the weakness of the theistic
position. This lecture was printed and widely circulated. The other
lecturers also openly antagonized the God idea as robbing the idea
of the Good of the attention and love of man. The churches feared the
Ethical Movement in those days, and denounced it as an irreligious
institution.

But soon there appeared a change in the leader and founder of the
movement, and gradually also in the majority of his colleagues. The
lecture on Atheism was withdrawn from circulation, and Dr. Adler began
delivering addresses on immortality, and exalting the character of
Christ in the fashion of Unitarianism. All lectures in criticism of the
fundamentals of Orthodoxy were as much as prohibited. Orthodox leaders
were invited to preach from the platform of the Ethical Societies,
and it became the ambition of an Ethical lecturer to deliver only such
lectures as no church-goer would object to hear. I do not mean that
Orthodox doctrines were promulgated by the Ethical lecturers, but
nothing was to be said against them, if nothing could be said in
their favor. The aim of the Movement was now defined to be solely
the improvement of the morals of its members and of the public, and
therefore, like the church, it began to fight "sin," studiously ignoring
the debasing superstitions and the bondage of dogma which not only had
bankrupted, both mentally and morally, whole nations, but which had
also withered the greatest civilization the world had ever seen, and
surrendered humanity to the keeping of "the dark ages" for a thousand
years. This change in the program of the Ethical Societies greatly
pleased the Orthodox world, and all fear of menace or danger to its
theological interests from that direction was dissipated. Catholic and
Protestant clergymen vied with each other in expressions of admiration
for the work of the Ethical Societies, and all praised the tact which
the leaders of the movement displayed in refraining from criticisms
of the churches and their doctrines, to protest against the degrading
effects of which, was the very object for which the Ethical Societies
were organized in the first place. Thus it will be seen how completely
the Movement came to abandon its original program. The Sunday lectures
of the leaders of the Movement became, in time, so "harmless" that
preachers recommended them to their flock, while the Ethical lecturers
in return publicly declared that it was not necessary for a Trinitarian,
a <DW7> or a Jew to leave his church before he could be admitted to
membership in an Ethical Society. The Ethical Societies, in fact,
did not encourage people to break away from their ecclesiastical
connections, but indirectly, at least, advised them to support the new
movement without withdrawing their support from the churches to which
they belonged.

I cannot imagine that any one seriously believed that a devout
Christian, or an Orthodox Jew, would join an Ethical Society for
purposes of edification in morals. To do so would be equivalent to an
admission that one's divinely appointed church was not satisfying one's
highest needs, and to feel that way toward one's own church is to cease
to believe in it. Only those then who had parted with the past, with
its crushing and hampering freight of dogmas, would think of joining
an organization that started as an "Atheistic," or at least, a
non-religious society. But the invitation to join the Ethical Societies
without leaving their own churches had the effect of drawing the new
movement into closer relations with the religious bodies, which in our
opinion has greatly handicapped the Ethical lecturers, and impaired
their leadership in the world of thought. It is not my intention to
bring a charge of deliberate surrender to the churches against the
leaders of the Ethical Movement. It will be difficult to find anywhere a
finer body of men than the lecturers of the different Ethical Societies
in America. But they swerved from the path they had started to follow,
and sacrificed a magnificent career to become an annex to the church.
Not only the history of the Movement, but also the literature which it
now puts forth, lends confirmatory evidence to the criticism I have made
against a cause to which I once gave my heart.

That the publications of the Ethical Society as well as the Sunday
lectures of the leaders, show decidedly reactionary tendencies, it
will not be difficult to prove. They do this, first, by maintaining
a significant silence on questions the free discussion of which would
offend the churches, and in the second place, by indirectly endeavoring
to bolster up, by new interpretations, the discredited dogmas of the
popular religions. Either of these charges, if true, will be enough
to prove that the Ethical Movement has not remained faithful to its
original intentions.

It is not a secret that the lecturers of the Ethical Societies no
longer publicly condemn the false teaching of the churches. These false
teachings, in our opinion, form an essential part of both Christianity
and Judaism, which have to be exposed and attacked vigorously and
without compromise, if morality is ever to make any permanent progress
in the world. It should be as impossible to reconcile Ethical Culture
with the churches, as it is to reconcile theology with science, and
yet, that is precisely what the Ethical lecturers think they Have
accomplished. I have only to quote from authoritative Christian sources
to show how prejudicial to the interests of morality is the teaching of
the churches. For an Ethical Movement systematically to ignore the evil
which the churches do by sacrificing reason to dogma is in the nature of
treason to its own principles. The whole trend of Christian teaching is
that Ethics is secondary. How can the Ethical Societies afford to ignore
so fundamental an untruth? Both the established and the non-conformist
churches explicitly and officially declare and teach that, "They also
are to be accursed that presume to say, that every man shall be saved by
the Law, or the sect that he professeth, so that he be diligent to
frame his life according to that Law, and the Light of Nature. For Holy
Scripture doth set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ whereby men
must be saved." * Clearly, then, for the churches it is not ethics, but
faith in Jesus, a disputed personage at the very best, which represents
the highest interests of the race.

     *  Eighteenth Article of the Church of England.

That the same unethical doctrine forms the basis of the Reformed
churches will be seen from the following:

"Much less can men not professing the Christian religion be saved, _be
they ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of
nature_; and to ascertain and maintain that they can is very _pernicious
and to be detested_." *

The same indifference, if not contempt for morality is shown by the
leading exponents of Christianity. When I was a lad of about fifteen,
one of the books placed in my hand, and which I was made to
regard almost as inspired as the Bible, was, _Paleys Evidences of
Christianity_. Speaking on the scope of the Christian religion, in the
second part of his book, he writes: "Moral precepts or examples, or
illustrations of moral precepts, may be _occasionally_ given, and be
highly valuable, yet still they do not form the original purpose of the
mission." The meaning is clear: Christ did not come to make men moral,
he came to save those who shall believe in him. And this is also the
teaching of leaders like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon
and General Booth. The burden of Luther's message was that "Christ had
come to abolish the Moral Law." The liberty which Luther proclaimed
assured the believer that even the decalogue shall not be brought
into account against him, "nor its violation be allowed to disturb the
conscience of the Christian." ** In the same spirit, Spurgeon cried in
his London Tabernacle, Sunday after Sunday, for nearly half a century:
"Thirty years of sin shall be forgiven, and it shall not take thirty
minutes to do it in." And this doctrine that faith in Christ can in one
instant make a man who has led a life of crime and corruption, one of
God's saints, Spurgeon and his fellow-clergymen learned from Christ
himself, who opened the gates of paradise to the malefactor on the
cross, and in one minute wiped out all his past. This example from the
gospels shows that, the preachers and the creeds in giving to morality a
secondary place, are not misrepresenting the teachings of Christ. What
need has a religion which can change men miraculously,--and which makes
faith the sole condition of salvation,--for Ethical Culture?

     * Westminster Catechism.

     **  Moehler's Works, quoted by Cotter Morison, Service of
     Man, page 51.

What is true of Christianity is equally true of its parent, Judaism. The
full stress of the Old Testament is on the necessity of the Ceremonial
and not the Moral Law. While the Jews were not only permitted, but were
ordered to break every Ethical commandment in the decalogue, to commit
theft, murder, massacre, and acts of oppression and brigandage,--every
departure from the ritual of Israel was visited by immediate and
clamorous punishment. Both Judaism and Christianity make their special
objective, not character, but the creed. How, then, can a movement the
motto of which is "The deed, not the creed," maintain so profound a
silence, or refrain even from calling attention to the positive hurt
which the old religions do to the cause of righteousness? What is the
defense of Ethical Culture against this charge?

If it be answered that, the churches no longer take their creeds or
bibles, seriously, notwithstanding their official professions, then the
Ethical lecturers should, instead of silently endorsing the hypocrisy
which professes one thing and believes another, thunder against it
with all their might. This should be done not from motives of hatred or
combativeness, but in the spirit of faithfulness to the best interests
of man. It is error, and not its victims, against which the Rationalist
directs his straight and sounding blows. It was Paine's kindly advice
in the French convention to kill the king and spare the man. It is the
desire of Reason to destroy false teachings and to help enlighten the
teacher.

The effect upon the prosperity of the Ethical Societies, both in America
and Europe, of this policy of silence, has been really disastrous. Like
Unitarianism, the Ethical Movement has drifted into the sheltered harbor
where it hugs the wharves made fast by posts and ropes. Both these
movements started out for the sea, but not a vessel flying their flags
can now be encountered at any distance from the coast. Thirty years ago
there were four Ethical Societies in America; there are now these same
four and no more, and three of them are without any lecturers.

But not only by their silence on the injurious teachings of both Judaism
and Christianity, which strike at the very foundations of moral health,
but also by their attempts, incredible as it may seem, to discredit
science and to seek in metaphysics, or in a sort of attenuated theology,
the origins and sanctions of Ethics, the Ethical lecturers have given to
decaying dogmas the support they owed to Rationalism.

In a contribution by Dr. Adler, head of the fellowship, on one of the
fundamentals of the Movement, we see full traces of this deplorable
effort to divorce Ethics from science, and wed her to theology.

In discussing "The Religion of Duty," the professor, instead of
explaining duty in the terms of science, tries to make of it a deeper
mystery even than the thrice veiled dogmas of the churches. "Duty,"
he says, "becomes religion when we recognize that it is not a law or a
command that has a merely sensible origin, or can be explained in
terms of sensible experience, that we can get to the bottom of it and
thoroughly penetrate it with our understanding, or see fully the use of
it. * * * It is then that we come to realize that in the moral command
there is something awful." The language is not very clear--perhaps
because the thought is not very clear--but we believe its meaning is
that, a moral command is awful because we cannot understand it. Prof.
Adler seems to make of duty a new kind of a god. The qualities and
attributes of the deity he bodily transfers to his successor--_Duty_.
Accordingly, Duty becomes just as mysterious and awful as God, and
we can no more get at the "bottom" of Duty than we can understand
the Deity. Duty no more than the Deity can be "expressed in terms of
sensible experience," hence it is inexplicable; and the only way we
can feel "the majesty and inexplicable augustness of it," says the
professor, "is to draw back the curtains and see," and then "we shall
find that out of this relation we suddenly get religion." I fear we get
it a little too suddenly. Such rapid transformations suggest a _deus ex
machina_.

There is serious danger of making a fetish out of the word duty. The
thinking world has abandoned theism because of the impossibility of
explaining in terms of sensible experience, the existence of a personal
infinite; but now Prof. Adler wishes to surround his new deity, Duty,
with the same "clouds and darkness" which have so long hung about the
ancient divinities.

In what sense is it a compliment to the moral law to say that it cannot
be "explained in terms of sensible experience"? What is gained by
putting a dead wall or "curtains" between the intelligence of man and
his conscience? Why sneer at the scientific explanation of the
origin and growth of the moral sense by calling it "narrow, secular,
materialistic and paltry," as Prof. Adler does in this lecture--when no
better explanation is offered than a mere rhetorical recommendation "to
draw back the curtains and see the majesty and inexplicable augustness
of it"? What are these curtains? Who put them there to hide such
"augustness"? If the scientific explanation of the origin of the moral
sense is a "flat failure," quoting from the professor again, what is
_his_ explanation? We are really grieved to see so influential a public
leader taking sides against science, the only dependable teacher we
have, notwithstanding its many limitations.

Again, in his criticism of the evolutionary view, the professor says:
"As against the scientific evolutionary view, I plead for what I would
call the moral evolutionary view, which asserts that the moral law is a
law of our nature, and in so far, the universal nature. * * * We leave
the issues to work themselves out; we leave them to mightier powers than
we, whose ways we wot not of." Here surely is theology--cap, cassock and
all.

But what is the difference between the scientific evolutionary view and
the moral evolutionary view? If the scientific view is not in accord
with the known facts, then it is not scientific. But if it is in harmony
with the facts, what do we gain by rejecting it in preference to the
"moral evolutionary view"? If on the other hand the "moral evolutionary
view" is not scientific, what is its value?

According to the generally admitted scientific explanation, morality is
just as much the result of evolution as is music or language. Morality
is the slow product of the accumulated experience of humanity. But that
does not seem to be Prof. Adler's theory. "There is," he says, "a voice
that speaks in us out of the ultimate reality of things." But if this
voice is not the inherited instincts of the race, what is it? If it is
a ready-made, or made to order voice, or a voice not made at all--but,
well, an unfathomable something commanding us in tones of the
categorical imperative--who placed it there? God, or chance? If
conscience, in straight words, is a natural product in the same sense
that the brain or the human hand is, then there is no good reason for
throwing a mystic veil over this one faculty or sense, or in decorating
it with fallacy trimmings and jingling bells in order to make it look
exceptionally awful and august. Just as the foolish overpraise of Jesus
has nearly ruined him as a living force in the life of the world today,
so there is danger of making an idol or a mummy out of morality by
taking away all its beautiful naturalness.

"I simply think of the moral law within us," says Dr. Adler, "as a hand
laid on us. * * * I like to think of the moral law * * * as of a hand;
the face we do not see, but the hand we feel." Is not this an attempt to
make ethics as mystifying as theology? If this "hand," of which the
professor speaks, is endowed with unerring intelligence, how shall we
account for the missteps, disastrous in their consequences, which man
has taken with this "hand" laid on him?

However, this "hand" which we are told "is heavy upon our shoulders as
Atlas," is not infallible, what is its worth? Is it necessary to perplex
an audience with visions of a "hand," and "a face that belongs to the
hand which we do not see," in order to impress it with the beauty and
duty of obedience to the dictates of the enlightened and emancipated
conscience?

But this confusion is the result of the commerce of Ethical Culture
with Churchianity and Judaism, in other words, with the supernatural.
A teacher who is trying to convince both Christian and Jew that without
discarding their obsolete and obstructive dogmas they can join
the Ethical Movement, is compelled by the very exigencies of the
_mesalliance_ to tarry in the region of fog and obscurity. And this
confusion in thought, this lack of decision and clarity in one's
concepts, this metaphysical vagueness and bewildering rhetoric is the
price Orthodoxy exacts before it will bestow its smile upon a prodigal
teacher seeking to return to the fold.

We could not agree with the head of the Ethical Movement that it was
worth our while to try to win the favor of the churches, or to seek
their co-operation. In our opinion such a _rapprochement_ would only
redound to the glory of an institution that has proven itself not
only incapable of saving the world, but of positively hindering its
salvation. This indictment is not voiced in haste, or in malice, but
because it is based upon careful observation and study.

The church can never become a great moral power until it is
rationalized. In this age of enlightenment the church can not be
honest and Orthodox at the same time. We recommend this thought to the
consideration of the Ethical lecturers. And no institution can make
others honest, if it is dishonest itself. Is the church honest with
science? Is it honest with history? Is it honest with the Bible? Mark
these brave words of Huxley:

"When Sunday after Sunday, men who profess to be our instructors in
righteousness, read out the statement that 'In six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is,' in innumerable
churches, they are either propagating what they may honestly know, and,
therefore, are bound to know, to be falsities; or if they use the words
in some non-natural sense, they fall below the moral standard of the
much-abused Jesuit."

How refreshing!

To the average thinker the inconsistency of advocating Ethics as the
supreme good, on the one hand, and on the other, of maintaining a
deliberate silence on the demonstrably false teaching of the church
which makes belief the greatest of all virtues, has only to be pointed
out to be comprehended. And it is Kant, the patron-saint of the American
Ethical lecturers, who set them the example of inconsistency. With a
rigour which even in a dogmatist of the theological schools would be
considered excessive, Emanuel Kant argued that so imperative was the
duty to tell the truth that, even to save one's self or another from
murder, there must be no departure from it. If you saw an assassin with
a drawn dagger running after a man or a woman, and he asked you, "which
way the fugitive ran," if you answer him at all, insists Kant, you must
tell him the truth. And yet this same philosopher encouraged openly the
Lutheran clergy of his day to go on deceiving the people with beliefs
which they themselves had discarded, on the score that _populus vult
decipi_, and that the clergy are excused by their profession for playing
a false part.

Is it then from policy or from principle that the Ethical lecturers,
starting as they did, by denouncing the supernatural as the destroyer
of character, later on came to ignore altogether the existence even
of degrading superstitions, and were content to be a moral improvement
association merely, somewhat after the pattern, as Marie-Jean Guyau
states, of a Christian Temperance Society? *

     *  L'Irreligion de L'Avenir.

The battle of progress is to be fought in the mind. An intellectual
awakening must precede all real and permanent moral improvement of
the world. On the tree of enlightenment alone can ripen the fruit of
righteousness and peace. And there can be no enlightenment under the
church. Even as the light of the sun can not enter a dungeon, the light
of knowledge can not penetrate the mind which it has been the aim of the
church to keep shut. The condition of the spread of knowledge as of the
sunlight is the same--freedom. Yet freedom is anathema where there is
a Revelation. A thousand Ethical Societies could not help Russia unless
she began by striking, without sparing or wavering, at the teachings of
the Greek church.

The new edifice cannot rise side by side with the old--it must rise on
the ruins of the old.

Can there be any real moral advance in a community in which the
following is accepted and taught as a divinely revealed truth: "We
are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works and deservings.
Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome
doctrine, and very full of comfort." *

     * No. XI. of the Articles of the Church of England. All the
     other Christian churches teach to young and old the same
     doctrine.

Only by self-stultification can an Ethical Society refrain from
combating so injurious a teaching with all the earnestness and courage
at their command.

Nothing would please the priests and rabbis more than to be assured
that the efforts of the new teachers will be confined strictly to
giving moral exhortations, and that they will leave church and dogma
respectfully alone.




CHAPTER V. Anchored at Last

After nearly ten years of service in the Ethical field, I felt
constrained to withdraw from the fraternity of lecturers, because I
realized that under the guise of a new name we were all slowly slipping
back into the net of theology, from which we had escaped after years
of struggle and suffering. When I look over my own lectures delivered
during my connection with the Ethical Movement, I find in them clearly
the traces of the same reactionary bias. The atmosphere of theology is
perceptible on nearly every page, Passages about the moral supremacy of
Jesus, His uniqueness, and the indebtedness of the ages to Him, will be
found in the publications which will not only show that I had swerved
from the path into which I had entered when I left Calvinism, and in
which I had persevered against numerous temptations to leave it, but
also, what a powerful influence my new environment exerted upon me. In a
lecture delivered before the Chicago Ethical Society, I try to prove
the spiritual resurrection of Jesus, and His incomparable greatness. In
another, delivered before the New York Society, in Carnegie Music
Hall, I fail to appreciate the services of such intellectual Titans
as Voltaire and Thomas Paine--who flung themselves against a thousand
abuses, and by opposing, succeeded in putting an end to them. I make
these confessions to show that there was in my course from Calvinism to
Rationalism, a break, after all. I missed the straight path, despite
all my vigilance, and cannot, therefore, claim the happiness, nor the
distinction which belongs to those who have been more consistent than I
have been.

But it was not very long before I began to see whither I was drifting.
I discovered that I was using two sets of weights and measures--one set
for Calvinistic Christianity, and another set for _my_ Christianity, and
it was only necessary to submit my own interpretations to the same
tests which had shown the untenability of Calvinism to discover my
self-deception. I had rejected Calvinism because it offered no evidence
in support of its dogmas, but what evidence did I offer to prove the
moral superiority of _my_ Jesus which I claimed to find in the gospels?
Why is not Calvin's word as good as mine, if an assertion may pass
for an argument? I began to see, even more clearly than ever before,
perhaps, because of my temporary backsliding or _egarement_, as the
French would it is as impossible to construct a character of Jesus as
it is to write a life of Jesus out of the data in hand. No less an
authority than Prof. Conybeare, of Oxford, Fellow of the British Academy
and Doctor of Theology, admits that "We cannot, then, aspire to write
a life of Jesus. Even Renan failed, and from the hands of a Farrar
we merely get under this rubric a farago of falsehood, absurdity, and
charlatanry." * This is strong language, but there is no exaggeration
in it. If, however, a life of Jesus cannot be written, it follows that,
under the circumstances a character of Jesus can not be constructed. How
can the character of a man be known whose life is unknown to us? Are
a few floating aphorisms ascribed to Jesus enough to justify his
beatification? And yet, the other Ethical lecturers, as well as myself,
were speaking of Jesus not only as the religious genius of the ages, but
also as the one being in whom humanity's hopes and dreams came true. I
have quoted elsewhere ** Adler's description of Christ as "a personality
of such superlative excellence, so radiant, so incomparably lofty in
mien and port and speech and intercourse." But this rhetorical praise is
as untrue of Jesus as it would be of Moses or Mohammed.

     *  Myth, Magic and Morals, page 140.

     *  The Truth About Jesus, page 257.

In the fall of 1899 there was presented to me the opportunity of either
going to Philadelphia, the scene of my earlier intellectual struggles,
as the lecturer of an Independent Society, or of returning to Chicago,
after an absence of four years from that city, to be the lecturer of
a society which promised to help support a platform pledged to an
uncompromising Rationalism. Considerable objection was made by members
and lecturers of the Ethical Societies to my trying to organize an
Independent Society in Chicago. Was not one liberal society enough in
Chicago? it was asked. Did not the Ethical platform answer the purposes
which the proposed society wished to serve? Would I not be dividing and
thereby weakening the cause by engaging a new lecture hall? My critics
did not object to my going to cities where there were no Ethical
Societies, but in cities where there was one, I was not needed, was
their argument. But time has shown that the society of which I have
been the lecturer for the past ten years, does not in the least conflict
with, or duplicate the work of the Ethical Societies. There is a radical
difference between Ethical Culture and Rationalism, which may be brought
out by the help of an illustration: A certain king had many slaves. This
king had been a slave-holder for a long, long time. And his slaves had
lived in slavery ever since they could remember. There were among the
slaves of the king, young and old, men and women, rich and poor.

Now there came to the slave-holder, one day, men from a strange country,
who demanded that the slaves be given their freedom. The king put them
to death, and continued to hold his slaves. From time to time others
came demanding freedom for the slaves, but they met a similar fate.
Some of the preachers of freedom were burned at the stake, others were
tortured to death in dungeons, and others again were put to the sword.
But this did not stop the coming of new preachers of liberty.

When the number of people believing in freedom for the slave increased
sufficiently to command respect, the slave-holder changed his policy. He
received the messengers of liberty with great courtesy and hospitality,
and expressed the hope that he and they might arrive at a satisfactory
arrangement.

"Why do you demand the freedom of the slaves?" he asked, very politely.
"It is their right, and it alone can develop the best possibilities in
them," they answered.

"I am perfectly willing,--indeed, I shall cooperate with you toward that
laudible end, but on one condition: they shall continue to remain in my
care and obey me as their guide and protector."

"No," said some of the apostles of liberty, "as slaves they can never be
helped to the fuller and better life. Before everything else, they
must conquer freedom to obey not you, but their own unfettered and
enlightened consciences. Besides, you have been an evil Master, and can
no longer be entrusted with the care of others. With the fall of slavery
falls all your pretended rights to the allegiance of these men and
women. And the slaves can not become free until your real character is
exposed and your pretensions to authority divine exploded."

But, on the other hand, there were those among the preachers of freedom
who were inclined to accept the slave-owner's proposition: "We will
come in and do what we can to educate and reform the people. We will
say nothing to them about their slavery, or against your authority over
them. All we wish is to make good men and women out of them," they said.

Behold the difference between "liberal" Christian and Ethical movements,
and a thoroughgoing and uncompromising Rationalism. The former think
that the intellectual bondage of the church is not an obstacle to the
moral and mental development of man, the latter hold, and to my mind,
justly, that the first condition of salvation for a slave is that he be
free--free from gods, christs, bibles and churches, as well as kings.

But the Rationalist Societies of Europe and America need no
justification for their existence. They do a work which neither
Unitarianism nor Ethical Culture attempt even to do. The work of the
Rationalists of Chicago has been singularly successful, both in building
up a self-supporting Society with a large membership and a much larger
audience which regularly fills Orchestra Hall--the largest and finest on
Michigan Avenue, but it has also, together with the other progressive
forces at play in the modern world, profoundly influenced the life and
thought of the community. Superstition is more ashamed to show her face
in Chicago, than perhaps in any other city of its size in America. There
are no doubt, Rationalists in many of our other cities, and in large
numbers, but in Chicago, Rationalists are organized. They maintain a
regular platform, and disseminate Rationalistic publications by the
thousands.

The ten years in which I have been engaged in this work of constructive
Rationalism have been the most fruitful years of my life. They have
been years of conscious development in the knowledge and grasp of
truths which enrich as well as interpret life. The sense of freedom from
inconsistency, which is a kind of insincerity, is a great source, both
of power and happiness. Then, the militant note to which the soul of the
Rationalist vibrates,--for he is a soldier sworn to free men from the
fear of the gods and their priests--a soldier to help man break his
holy chains--gives him all the alertness, watchfulness, and courage of
a sentinel at his vigil. There have been those who have helped man to
political liberty, and others who are nobly endeavoring to help him
conquer industrial liberty: but not until man has thrown off the yoke
of the gods can he be free indeed. The last king to be dethroned is the
heavenly king. If he stays, Tzar and Kaiser, tyrant and despot, pope and
priest, in some form or other, will remain with us. Here and there men
may succeed in banishing or overthrowing the tyrant,--king or priest,
but these will come back again and again, perhaps disguised, but
ever really the same, until God from whom they derive their power is
unseated, and man becomes forever free. Honor to those who taught us not
to kneel before Caesar, but greater honor to him who shall teach us not
to kneel at all, and to accept nothing that is given to us for kneeling.




CHAPTER VI. Some Objections to Rationalism.

"Rationalism is cold," is a frequent criticism advanced by theological
people. Without God and the hope of immortality, the Rationalist,
according to church-goers, ought to be very miserable. Even if he should
manage to escape the consequences of his unbelief while living, he is
sure to suffer horrors when he comes to die. Life and death are so awful
that only faith in God and the hope of a future life can enable us to
endure the one and resign ourselves to the other. Such is the reasoning
of Orthodoxy.

Strictly speaking, the question of the existence of a God is not a
human question. The bare fact that for these thousands of years, and
throughout the world, the existence of God has remained an unsolved
question, suggests that in all probability it will never be decided by
mortals. Certainty about the future is equally impossible. Of course, we
do not know what light science may throw upon these problems to-morrow,
but speaking modestly, and without dogmatizing, every honest soul must
admit, with Shakespeare, that the future is still an "undiscovered
country."

The essential thing is not that we should believe in a God or in the
hereafter, but that we should grow. Whenever, during my ten years of
complete severance from the supernatural, I have been called to say a
few words in the house of mourning, or at the open grave, I have
never pretended to find comfort for the bereaved in the belief in a
non-resident God or in a life hereafter.

The priest knows, or says he does, where the departed has gone, what
kind of a life he leads there, what will be his lot in eternity,
and whether we shall meet again. He speaks of these things with the
assurance of a schoolboy reciting a page which he has learned by heart.
But he is only pretending to possess information which, as a matter
of fact, no one possesses. He knows no more of a personal God, or of
another life, than anybody else. If we cannot predict what will happen
in the next hour, how can we talk with assurance of the secrets of the
unending future? If we do not quite understand ourselves, or the world
which we daily see, how can we boast of any certain knowledge of a
Being who is said to be infinitely and absolutely and incomprehensibly
different from us? Silence is more religious than the gossip one hears
about such a Being. Modesty is more reverent than dogmatism, and the
agnostic is more honest and more eloquent than the garrulous preacher.
If men wish to know where the Eternal is, who he is, what he does, what
his intentions are, how he should be praised, what humors or provokes
him, how many manifestations or persons there are in his godhead,
and when he first began his operations, etc., they must not come to a
Rationalist for such information. To acquaint man with himself, to show
him the way to develop and use his own resources, and in time of sorrow
and bereavement, to depend upon the thoughts of the wise and the brave,
which heal and sooth and bless, is the consolation Rationalism offers.
It is modest, but it is real. Rationalists cannot count on the creeds
for consolation. A doll may amuse a baby, but is a grown-up man
miserable because he cannot play with a toy? The Rationalist is willing
to see Nature in its true light. He prefers reality to illusions, and
would rather be awake than dreaming the most seductive dreams which
"poppy or mandragora, or all the drowsy syrups of the world" can
medicine the mind into.

But the greatest consolation of the Rationalist is in this, that he is
not under obligation to distort his intellect and twist his affections
out of joint in order to justify God's way to man. No sooner a disaster
is announced than the clergy begin to concoct excuses for this seeming
neglect of Providence. God meant to punish human carelessness; he was
angry with the present generation for its unbelief; he wished to speak
in tones loud enough to be heard the world over, he was trying to make
us more careful in the future, he wished to demonstrate that all human
devices and inventions are futile unless "the Lord protect" the ship,
the house or the city; and finally, that we do not understand God, for
"he moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform," though we know
he does everything for the best. Is it not a welcome relief that the
Rationalist can bear his great sorrow without resorting to commonplace
sophistries of this nature? Not taxed with the burden of vindicating
Providence, the Rationalist devotes his energies to the fruitful work of
developing his resources against the fortuitous elements at play about
him.

Only a moment's reflection will prove the futility of all attempts to
establish a relation of some kind between God and the world's life.

`````_God's in His Heaven,

````All's right with the World!_=

is Browning's creed in his _Pippa Passes._

The verse in which the lines occur is, no doubt, excellent poetry, but
what about its philosophy?

````"_The lark's on the wing;

````The snail's on the thorn;

````God's in His Heaven-

````All's right with the world!"_=

We have seen and heard the lovely lark winging through the crystal air;
and a thousand thousand eyes have discovered the snail on the thorn.
Is it Browning's idea to intimate that by the same material or tangible
proofs we may be sure "God's in His Heaven," and be reassured that
"All's right with the world?" The two propositions belong altogether to
radically different categories, and to infer from the presence of the
lark in the air, or the snail on the thorn, that "All's right with the
world," may be good rhyme, but that is all it is. Granting that "God's
in His Heaven,"--a question toward which we maintain the modest and
honest agnostic position,--it is within the sphere of man to discuss
whether "All's right with the world." The world is made up of many
countries full of people, and it has had a long history. Certainly
"all's not right" in all the countries of the world, nor has it been
so during all the periods of time. Is it, for example, true of Russia
to-day that "all's right" there? Is it true of Poland, bleeding from
a thousand wounds? Has it ever been all right in Turkey? In Browning's
opinion, was there a country in Europe--the Europe of his day--of which
he could truthfully say that _all_ was right there? But perhaps the poet
merely meant to say that since "God's in His Heaven," all is bound to
be right, sooner or later,--if not in this world, then, surely, in some
other. But is not that begging the question? The mere fact that the best
human effort is directed toward making the world better, shows that
the world needs mending, and is far from being all right. We fear
that Browning used his oft-quoted expression after a very enjoyable
breakfast, while looking out upon his green and carefully trimmed lawns,
shaded with the overspreading branches of gorgeous trees, and imagined
that his cheerful yard was the world. The poet appears to correct his
own hasty generalization when a little later he puts in Pippa's mouth
the lines:

```"_In the morning of the world,

```When earth was nigher Heaven than now_."=

If it is true that the older the world grows, the farther it falls from
heaven, then, it can not be all right with the world, even if "God's in
His Heaven." And what is Browning's authority that the earth was nearer
Heaven once than it is now? Does he believe that the state of barbarism
is nearer heaven than that of civilization? Or does he believe that man
began life as an angel, and later became a man--a fallen man? It seems
as if the former of the two suppositions represents Browning's thought,
for in the following lines he shows decided preference for the animal,
the primitive, life of the world:

```"_For what are the voices of birds,

```Aye! and of beasts--but words, our words?

```Only so much more sweet?_"=

This is reason swallowed up in rhyme, or sense lost in sentiment. Why
is the incoherent, instinctive exclamations of childhood, of bird and
beast, sweeter than the ripened, rational, progressive, word of man?
Surely a bird is more innocent than a man, but a stone is even more
innocent than a bird. The beast tears its victims to death, the tree
feeds the worms; is not a tree, therefore, purer than a beast? In all
nature, there is nothing holier than man, for he alone can be holy.
Browning seems to think that we were all so much better off when we were
nearer the bird and beast, but evolution is our destiny, and only faint
hearts cast wistful glances at the ages left behind.

Finally, the great English poet seems to develop further the Asiatic
fatalism of "God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world" idea, when
in Scene VI., Pippa, in her chamber, exclaims:

```"_All service ranks the same with God--

```With God, whose puppets, best and worst,

```Are we; there is no last, nor first._"=

Indeed! Are we, then, but his puppets'? Is God a puppet showman? And is
this a puppet world which he rules? What is the educational value to God
of presiding over a race of puppets? Is there any glory for God, as Omar
Khayyam suggests, in pushing back and forth, on a checkerboard, mere
puppets, and then shutting them up in a closet after he has finished
with the game? If we are all his puppets, we cannot much care whether
"God's in His Heaven", or somewhere else, and whether or not "All's
right with the world." The truth is, Browning, instead of portraying
truth, betrays it. He sacrifices reason to imagination, and the result
is failure.

The attempts of the clergy to reconcile the god-idea with human
suffering and wrong have proved equally worthless. Shortly after the
disastrous Iroquois fire, in which nearly six hundred lives were lost,
the Chicago clergy met, strange to say, to thank God for his tender
mercies. Theology cuts strange capers with Reason after it has put out
its eyes. It was of course appropriate that, not only the mourners,
but the public in general, should observe with sober reflections the
anniversary of a holocaust which left a great city in mourning. It is
regrettable, however, that the ceremonies at the commemoration service
assumed altogether a theological character, excluding thereby from
participation many who would have derived great benefit from a purely
human expression of sorrow and sympathy. The exercises opened by the
ringing of the well known Hymn, _Nearer, My God, to Thee_, which was
touchingly rendered by the soloist and quartet to the accompaniment
of the piano. All music, softly and feelingly rendered, is sure to be
impressive as well as soothing on occasions of this kind. But was it not
a pity that some poet's words, free from the theological implication,
were not selected in place of this church hymn which is, after all,
nothing but the ecstatic outpouring of a superlatively mystical soul?
What does it mean, for instance, to be "Nearer and still nearer, to
God"? Did the six hundred people who murmured the words of the hymn have
any clear idea of what they were asking for when they sang "_Nearer, My
God, to Thee?_" No doubt they were comforted by the hymn, but how did it
differ from the help which the Asiatic thinks he derives as often as
he exclaims _Om Mani Padme Houm_--"O the glorious jewel of the
lotus,--amen"? Imagine the effect upon an American audience, had one of
the speakers suggested that the audience should sing the Hindoo prayer
to the lotus instead of the Christian hymn. But why is not _O the
glorious jewel of the lotus_ as intelligible as _Nearer, My God, to
Thee?_ Would the millions of Orientals who in sorrow and darkness find
light in drawing nearer to the lotus, be in the least moved by the
Christian hymn which moistened the eyes of so many in Willard Hall?

But why not let the Hindoo have his lotus prayer and the Christian his
hymn? We have no objection: if they cannot do without them, they are
welcome to them. In our opinion there has never been a religion, however
crude or primitive, but has helped some struggling soul; there has
not been an idol, however wooden, but has answered some prayers; not
a fetish, however cheap, but has inspired some believer. It is with
religions as it is with houses: The poorest hut or shanty protects some
little ones from the cold, the most rickety roof shields from the storm
some shivering child of want--even the hole in the ground into which
the savage creeps to escape the ravages of the elements is a refuge. But
true as all this is, it still remains as the most religions duty of man
to try to replace these primitive shelters by building, as Oliver Wendel
Holmes suggests, "more stately mansions" for his soul. Even as liberty
with little is better than slavery with prosperity, and as justice is
more precious than peace, truth is better than all the consolations
which such financial exclamations as _O the glorious jewel of the
lotus_, or _Nearer, My God, to Thee_, can afford.

"We thank Thee, O God, for the gift of tears; we thank Thee for the
ministrations of pain," prayed the reverend comforter. Pain and tears
are certainly among man's teachers, but they have not been an unmixed
good. Pain has crushed, perhaps, as many souls as it has educated. How
many have come and gone to whom pain was simply pain, and who derived no
benefit from it whatever? A dispatch from Port Arthur states that "the
inmates of the hospitals complain bitterly of the heartlessness of the
doctors and sisters of charity, who have become so accustomed to human
suffering during the long siege that they have lost all sympathy
with their patients." Pain, then, can make people callous as well as
sensitive; it can break the spring of the heart as well as sting the
will into action.

But it is not our purpose, at present, to question the wisdom of being
specially and officially "grateful for the ministrations of pain"; our
object is to inquire what the officiating clergyman meant when he said,
"We _thank_ Thee, O Father, etc." Did he mean it was good of the Deity
to visit us, now and then, with such catastrophes as the Iroquois
theatre fire? or, did he mean that it was quite considerate of him to
make us feel the horror of that event sufficiently as to bring tears
from our eyes? In thanking the Lord for pain as a gift, are we to
understand that we owe it solely to his loving kindness that we can
suffer, and not to any merit on our part? To thank anybody for anything
implies the receiving of a favor, and is it this clergyman's idea that
in send-ing pain and suffering--earthquakes and floods and terrible
fires which in one black hour destroys the lives of dearest children
with their helpless parents or guardians--the Deity is doing us a favor?

Let us reflect a moment: "We thank Thee, O Father, etc.," Does this
mean that there was "a possibility of the Lord withholding from us the
ministrations of pain," and that, therefore, we must be thankful to him
for not doing so--for not letting us be like the angels who live in a
world free from evil and error? We cannot understand what the reverend
doctor means when he publicly thanks the Deity for the "ministrations of
pain." And will our good neighbor * tell us who he meant by "O Father,"
and how he connects this "Father" with the unutterable calamity, the
shadow of which still darkens our human hearts? Ah, let us be truthful.
We are soldiers, and illusions can only spoil us. "We had sinned
together," continued the Reverend, "at least someone had sinned, and
'let him without sin cast the first stone,' I have not the heart to
recriminate now, as I had not then, because in my own conscience I
stand convicted before God of the common negligence. We are common
sinners." What do these words mean? Is the good doctor trying to
exonerate God by laying the entire blame upon us "common sinners"?

     * Reverend Lloyd Jones.

The theatre fire was in all probability started by an accident which, in
the absence of efficient management on the stage and in the auditorium,
spread rapidly, converting the building in a few moments into a
charnel-house. Why bring the Deity into the affair? What part, according
to the doctor, did the Deity play in the Iroquois fire? Did he try to
save anybody? Did he try to prevent anybody from being rescued? Did he
cause the accident? Did he put it into someone's mind to be careless?
Did he confuse the people and throw them into a panic purposely? Did he
fold his hands and stand aside to see the burning? Did he wish to help
but could not for any moral reasons? Did he regret his inability to
prevent the horror? or was he glad it happened because it would teach us
a lesson? Did he choose that special way of teaching us a lesson? Had he
inevitable reasons for selecting a Wednesday matinee, when more children
would be present, to punish "us common sinners, who stand convicted
before God." If we cannot answer any of these questions, why do we
connect God with the affair? If we cannot say just what God did or did
not do in the theatre fire, why talk about it? If this calamity came
upon us because of our sins, then, according to the missionary the
Martinique earthquake came because the islanders rejected the Protestant
religion. And whose sins was God punishing by the Galveston disaster
or the Armenian massacres? Has it come to this that a man cannot take
a sorrowing, weeping, heart-mangled brother or sister by the hand with
sincere and sweet pity, without speculating about the Deity and his
mysterious moves?

Rationalism saves us from all these contradictions, and gives us the
consolation of being sane, even when we cannot have our heart's desire.

But to abstain from the worship of unknown beings, does not mean to go
through life without an ideal. The feeling of longing, which the poet
tells us is "of all the moods of mind, the dearest," is present in
every earnest man and woman. To develop our faculties, to accomplish our
tasks, to realize our hopes, to reach after our best thoughts--to labor
for the beautiful yet-to-be--it is this hope which gives atmosphere
to life, and makes our prattle eloquent. The pursuit of the ideal, the
vision of a world void of wrong, of a humanity free and strong, of a
world sweetened by the harmony of happy lives, of honest loves, of great
worth, of innocent joys,--will ever draw us like a loving kiss.

Another objection marshalled against Rationalism is that it is too
critical, and that it is not "nice" to criticise. "Criticism," it is
argued, "dwells upon the things which separate, more than upon those
which bring together races and creeds."

It certainly is more pleasant to talk of the unities and the
fraternities, instead of the differences between men or their views and
ideals.

Unity is a fine thing, but when it is used as a _shibboleth_, or as a
check upon the freedom of thought and speech, it ceases to be desirable.
When agreement is the product of unhampered and generous research, it is
good; but when it is desired as an excuse for the fear to investigate,
then it becomes a cover for error, or a plea for peace and harmony at
the cost of truth and growth. The teacher who provokes thought through
criticism is a greater helper than he who by repeating set phrases never
awakens a new interest in us. To sacrifice everything for the sake of
peace and fraternity would be a loss rather than a gain. In Russia, for
instance, one has all the freedom in the world, provided, he will speak
only well of the government. There would, indeed, be harmony under
these conditions, in any camp, but what would it be worth? "Look at my
charities," says the Catholic church--"my art, my music--the magnificent
cathedrals I have built, which are like beautiful galleries. Is it right
to criticise or condemn the evil practices of a church that has done
so much good for civilization? Speak, then, of the good the church has
done, and say nothing of her persecutions and superstitions, and we
will all be of one accord and of one mind." But would such a compromise,
though baptised with the high-sounding name of unity, help the cause of
progress? Is not progress a dearer word than unity? Is not freedom more
precious than peace? Let us have unity if we can, but we must grow, and
we must be free. Shall we sell the truth that we may have money to be
charitable with? Is it right to sacrifice speech to silence, for the
sake of harmony?

But is it nice to criticise? Is it not more generous and aesthetic to
be on good terms with everybody? What is there more desirable, they say,
than to see the ministers of the various cults--the Catholic priest,
the Protestant divine, the Jewish rabbi, the Unitarian minister,
the Ethicist and Revivalist, arm in arm, and on the same platform,
exchanging courtesies and praising one another's work? We are told that
when we see such a gathering on one platform, we can be sure that the
millenium has arrived. But it will be a millenium for the priest and the
rabbi, the healer and the shouter--they are the only ones who will be
benefited by such a Pentecostal assemblage. Such fellowship will no
doubt throw its mantle of silence over a great many evils which fear the
light, and encourage their authors to be defiant and indifferent to the
truth. Where there is silence truth has no advantage over error. Is it
worth while to sacrifice the most sacred privileges of men in order to
bring priest and rabbi together?

A great cause is often lost from the desire of its sponsors to be
"nice." The teacher who wants to be "nice" may manage not to tell any
lies, but he never succeeds in telling any truths, either. He cannot
afford to tell the truth, for it may hurt, and he is not "nice" if he
hurts. When he cannot tell anything pleasant, he must hold his tongue.
Such a teacher is like an acrobat dancing on a tight rope, all he can do
is to save himself from falling. There is no more room in modern society
for a teacher who is afraid to hurt than there is for the physician who
would rather humor the patient than do his duty. And, yet, there are not
a few who trim their thoughts so as to make only friends. If the whole
truth should at any time escape them by accident, they hasten forthwith
to qualify it, or to take back a part of it--just to be obliging and
nice. There has never been a reformer in the world who could not have
become the idol of the people by following such a method; but idols die
and turn to dust, while the heroism of the martyred soul is a perennial
benediction.

To be "nice" was never the policy of a really earnest man. If Jesus was
a historical personage, it does not appear on the records that he ever
tried to be "nice"--to pat the priests on the back, or to tell them what
good fellows they were, and that when he and they met they should be
careful to speak only of the things they agreed upon. Of course the
inability, to be "nice" cost Jesus his life. His independence nailed him
to the cross, but evidently he prized something else more than he
did unity. Luther was not very "nice" when he tore the pope's bull
in pieces, and nailed his challenge to Rome on the church doors where
everybody could see it. How impolite! That, surely, was a poor way
to make friends. "Let us have masculine men," cries Emerson, who was
himself thrown out of his pulpit and his church, because he preferred
independence to popularity.

Another thing which the independent teacher does which is not "nice" is
that he takes away the religion of our mothers. What about taking
away the religion of heathen mothers? Why is it right to take away the
religion of a Chinaman--a religion handed down to him by his mother--and
wrong to disturb the religion of an American because it was his mother's
religion? Did not Protestantism take away from the Catholics the
religion of their mothers? Did not Catholics take away from the pagan
Romans the religion of their mothers? Is it only taking away the
religion of _our_ mothers that is not "nice"?

But the Rationalist is also charged with being negative and not
positive. We are told in sonorous language that man cannot live on
negations. But it is Orthodoxy that is negative, not Rationalism. The
first commandment in the Bible God ever gave man was a negative one:
"Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." It
denied man freedom, and science. It denied him the right to progress.
And ever since the one aim of the church has been to keep man "poor
in spirit". Rationalism, on the contrary, removes the angel with the
flaming sword at the gates of Eden, and invites everyone who hungers for
knowledge to enter and eat of the tree of life.

To know that a thing is not true, is also truth. The mind, like the
ground, must be plowed and cleared before it can receive the truth.
There can be no truth without the destruction of error.

"Your doctrine is well enough for the strong, but the weak must have
crutches to walk at all, and you take away from them their crutches," is
another criticism often advanced against the Rationalist. It is related
that Mr. Ingersoll, when he called one day to see his friend, Mr.

--------, who was an invalid, was confronted with an argument he was
unable to meet. "As I was sitting in my invalid's chair," began his
friend, "and was looking out of the window, I saw a feeble, old man,
struggling up the hill yonder, upon his crutches. Evidently, he was
in pain, for he moved with extreme care and leaned heavily upon his
crutches. I could tell that his crutches were all that sustained him
from utter collapse. Then I saw a young man run after him, and when he
came up to where the old man was, he kicked off his crutches, and the
poor fellow rolled down the hill, a perfect wreck."

"That was an outrage," Ingersoll exclaimed, jumping to his feet and
walking toward the window. "Where is he?" he asked, impatient with
indignation.

"You are that man," returned his friend. "I was once a believer; my
beliefs comforted me. You came into my life, kicked off my crutches, and
now I sit here in this chair, a desolate and hopeless soul, waiting for
the flame to blow out."

There is no more comparison between a tottering man leaning upon his
wooden crutches, and a religion claiming to appeal to the intellect
of man, than there is between a watch and a universe, to quote Paley's
famous argument for the existence of a God. But, at any rate, is it not
cruel to knock an old man's crutches from under him? Let us see. If the
old man with the crutches represents the feeble-minded believers, the
question to be answered is, how did they come to depend upon the use
of crutches in the first place? Was it not more cruel to teach them to
depend upon crutches? Are not those who prevent the healthy development
of the limbs to enhance the sale of crutches even more cruel than those
who despise their use? To bring a man to a state of dependence; to
terrorize him into fear; to fetter his faculties so that he cannot
train them into service; to arrest his evolution; to keep him a dwarf,
clinging like a scared child to the apron strings of his lords; to
place in his hands an icon or a crucifix as his only hope--and then to
denounce the teachers who rob these poor people of their crutches, is an
argument which is bound to recoil with fearful force upon the venders
of such artificial helps. It is like depriving a man of house and goods,
and then providing a tattered tent for his shelter, and then saying to
us: Would you be so cruel as to pull down the only thing that protects
his poor head from the elements? Yes! in order that we may awaken in him
a sense of the wrong and the oppression and the deprivation of which he
is the unconscious victim. Sir Henry Main, in his Popular Government,
says, that, if it had been put to a vote whether machinery, when it was
first invented, should be introduced into the factories, there would
have been recorded an overwhelming vote against its use. It was taking
away from the poor man his crutches to compel him to compete with the
iron and steel. And, actually, laborers of the time, suffered much
and were driven to the wall, by the invention of machinery. But the
temporary mischief caused by the introduction of machinery has been
fully compensated by its lasting benefits to all classes. Likewise, this
or that believer may fall and hurt himself when his theological crutches
have been taken away from him, but if thereby his children and the
future race can be taught to dispense with the use of so clumsy a
contrivance, altogether--who would hesitate to knock them off? Was man
meant to be an invalid all his life? Must all the generations of the
future limp and hobble, to support the crutch industry?

Moreover, if any invalid can be made to give up his crutches, that very
fact shows that he did not need them. Grandma, or grandpa, must not
be disturbed in their beliefs, we hear people argue. We cannot disturb
them, however hard we may try, unless they are intellectually virile
enough to keep themselves together without crutches. The very fact that
we can shake a man, shows he is strong enough to stand the strain. We
cannot induce an invalid to give up his crutches; when we can, then, he
is not an invalid. And what do we give in place of the crutches?--the
ability to do without them.

I have often been asked "Why do we not as a Rationalist Society do works
of charity, such as establishing neighborhood guilds, sewing and bathing
clubs for the poor, free dispensaries, and hospitals?" There are many
who are already doing this kind of work whatever its value may be, but
very few who are even attempting to do the work which we have set out
to do, namely, to help men to use freely and wisely the noblest of all
their gifts--Reason. Is that a work that can be dispensed with? And can
public baths, and evening classes do more for a man than they will for
an animal if his Reason is still fettered. The emigrant from Russia, or
Italy, or Ireland, may join all the guilds and frequent all the night
schools, and still remain a mental slave. But he can not take a course
in Rationalism, and continue to cling to his chains. Of course, to make
men free and enlightened is not enough. They must also be helped to
develop the humanities which are the salt of life, but we must first
wake him up, for he can not be saved in his sleep.




CHAPTER VII. Rationalism and the World's Great Religions.

Rationalism does not attack the religions of the world, it tries
to explain them. But religions do not wish to be explained, and
consequently they denounce the investigator as an enemy of morals as
well as of religion. Reason, the theologians contend, is incapable of
understanding the divine mysteries, and forgets, of course, that faith
alone can discover the hidden things of God. But they do not stop to
think that they are reasoning even when they are giving reasons why we
should not reason.

Beginning with the belief in God, which is the basic belief in nearly
all religions, Rationalism endeavors to show the unreasonableness of all
the dogmas which deal with the supernatural. It is impossible to
talk about an infinite person without making one's self utterly
unintelligible, not to say, absurd. There is not a single statement
made about a god, which can be harmonized with sense. It is because the
beliefs about the supernatural cannot be reconciled with reason,--it is
because of the apparent absurdity of the dogmas of religion, that the
clergy have had to resort to fire and blood,--the scourge, the dungeon,
the rack, the gallows, and hell-fire to force people to believe in them.

There is no reliable record of God ever being seen by man. His voice
has never been heard. His form and expression or whereabouts remain
a mystery to this day. We have nothing but guesses as to the kind
of worship he prefers, or why he should be praised. And yet, entire
countries have been plundered, pillaged, and laid waste for no other
reason than that they held different views from ours on the form or
nature of a God whom no man has ever seen, heard or comprehended. Such
is the extraordinary folly of man!

All religions are absolutely human in origin. There is not, and there
has never been, and in the nature of things there never can be a divine
or superhuman religion--that is to say, a religion invented by a god.

Let us imagine for the sake of argument, however, that a god wished to
reveal himself to us. What would be the probable course he would pursue?
Would he reveal himself to us as he is, or only as much of himself as we
needed to know or could comprehend? To reveal himself to us as he is in
all the fulness of his nature would be a moral impossibility, for the
reason that only a god could fully comprehend a god.

But if he revealed to men only as much of himself as they could grasp,
then their knowledge of him must necessarily be imperfect. We are
revealing ourselves to the animals, for instance, every day of our life,
but still the animals, owing to their limitations, can never know us
as we are, but only as they think we are. Likewise our knowledge of
supernatural beings must be as incomplete as is the knowledge of animals
concerning man. We see objects as the structure of our eyes permits us
to see them, or as our minds grasp them. The reflection of the sky in
a drop of dew is limited to the capacity of the dew. Owing to this
adaptation of objects to the powers of the observer before they can be
observed at all, it may be said that objects are seen not as they really
are but as they appear to the observer. Since, then, a divine revelation
cannot overcome the limitations of the finite mind, God could be no more
to us than what _we_ think he is, or in other words, what we make him to
be.

Another proof that man is the maker of his own gods is that his gods
are neither better nor worse than he is himself. The barbarian can never
conceive of a civilized diety; on the contrary, the Great Spirit he
worships is a projection of his own passions and aspirations--his own
vices and virtues. As he advances in refinement and humanity, his God
advances too. If he sinks into deeper ignorance and brutality, he drags
his God down with him. The God of the Quaker is peaceful; that of the
Hebrew was a "man of war." The God of the <DW64>, who has never seen
white folks, is necessarily black. The God of children is a child-god;
and in a society where man, not woman, is the ruler, God is a "he."
Not only is man the maker of his gods, but he also keeps them in
repair--constantly remodeling or retouching them in order to preserve
some sort of correspondence between himself and his gods.

And why is the god of the <DW64> black? Because he not only is ignorant
of any other color, but because black is for him the color of preference
or aristocracy. When he becomes acquainted with white people he
associates their color with everything that he fears and despises. He
therefore, as a later evolution, makes his devils white. The idea I
wish to present is that just as man determines the color of his gods and
devils he determines also their characters. He can only invest them with
such virtues and vices as he is acquainted with. He can not attribute
to them powers which he does not covet for himself. In short he is the
maker of the gods he worships and the devils he fears.

The pathetic part of all this, however, is that though man makes his own
gods, he imagines that the gods have made him. He manufactures an image
or an idol, invests it with certain attributes and powers, and then,
like a slave, falls down to bite the dust before his own handiwork.
Reflect upon this for a moment: The Pope, for instance, owes every one
of his prerogatives to the very people who bend before him; they make
him infallible, they seat him on a throne, and place the Keys of Heaven
and Hell in his hands; yet before this creature of their own vanity or
fear they behave like a race of bondsmen. Who created the Sultan or the
Czar? Their own subjects! And yet see how these Turks and Russians creep
and crawl before the work of their own hands. Is it not absurd for a
potter to worship his own pot? In view, therefore, of the undeniable
fact that man makes the gods he worships, how pitiable to observe the
servility and stupidity with which he plays the sycophant before the
images of his own hand or head!

Notwithstanding this self-evident truth that all religions are human in
origin, every one of them has claimed to be from above. Like puffed-up
or ungrateful children, the religions of the world have denied their
real, though humble parentage, and have laid claim to a celestial
birth. But the fact that each of the great religions, while claiming
a supernatural origin for itself, vehemently denies it to all others,
renders all such claims exceedingly suspicious. It would be easier for
me, for instance, to believe that God has also spoken to you, if he
has really spoken to me. But if he has not spoken to me, I am apt to
consider the claim that he has spoken to you, as an impertinence. The
reason one "inspired" teacher calls another "an imposter" is that he
is not sure of his own inspiration. He judges others' pretensions to a
divine origin by his own. * The refusal of the different religions
to believe in one another is a strong proof that they are all equally
unworthy of belief, as far as their supernatural claims are concerned.

     * Oato used to say that he was surprised one soothsayer
     could keep his countenance when he saw another manipulating,
     knowing as he did the imposture he was practicing.

     Jesus is reported by John the evangelist to have denounced
     all who preceded his as "thieves and robbers."--Gospel
     according to John.

     There is a Hindoo legend that Krishna, the son of God, once
     showed himself to a group of young ladies who were so
     charmed with his handsome face and figure that not only did
     each of the young ladies wish to dance with him, but each
     insisted that no one else should enjoy the same privilege,
     whereupon Krishna found himself in an embarrassing position.
     He was willing enough to dance with the girls, but did not
     wish to inflame their jealously, so calling upon his
     resources, he immediately multiplied himself into as many
     Krishnas as there were maidens, and danced with each and
     every one of them, taking pains however to leave the
     impression with each young woman that she alone had danced
     with the god. So each religious prophet imagines that the
     Lord has not danced with anybody but himself.

The reluctance of the prophets to believe in one another shows how
difficult it is for us to ascertain to which of them the revelation has
been made. The only way a special revelation could be given would be
through an individual--a Moses, a Mohammed, a Jesus, etc. But if we
ourselves are not inspired, how are we to tell which teacher is telling
the truth? If we are to use our own reason to decide this momentous
question, why, then, do we need a revelation? Tell me, I pray you, was
it fair in God to have expressed himself privately to some individual,
and then to have left it to us to decide whether said individual was or
was not inspired?

And a revelation, the truth or untruth of which has to be ascertained by
the exercise of human reason can claim no superiority to human reason.
It follows then unmistakably that a revelation is impossible since it
is we who have to decide whether or not it is a revelation. Even as we
create the gods, we create also the bibles of the world.

Besides the ostensible purpose of a revelation is to make things
clear, or to change our ignorance into knowledge. Have the different
revelations of the world done this? Have they not, on the contrary,
added to the perplexities of the mind? A god who reveals himself to an
individual privately and then leaves it to us to decide whether said
individual has or has not received a revelation instead of relieving,
increases our embarrassment.

If it be argued that we should have faith, I answer in which one of the
prophets? Shall we have faith in the one our parents believed, in the
one of the country we were born in, in the one who agrees with us, or in
the one who can force us to accept him?

Moreover, if faith can make one prophet inspired, why not another? If
faith can make Jesus divine, why not Mohammed?

It is our purpose to show that neither gods nor revealed religions can
be a proper subject of study, and what cannot be a subject of study
cannot be an object of faith. We do not deny the gods, for we know
nothing about them to be able to make any reasonable statement
concerning them; we simply dismiss them from our thought.

But while the supernatural has no interest for the Rationalist, he is
very much interested in the interpretations which men have given of
it, and the manner in which they have built up a system of morals and a
philosophy of life upon it. The great teachers and founders of religions
are proper subjects both for criticism and commendation. Being men they
cannot claim immunity from a free and fearless examination of their
teachings. The more honest a teacher is, the more willing he is to be
investigated, and nothing prejudices us more against a teacher than
his refusal to be questioned. "He who will have no judge but himself,
condemns himself," says the proverb.

But to regard these teachers as men, only, is to divest them also of
all the magical powers which a fond credulity has ascribed to them.
A teacher who seeks converts to his religion by curing a horse, as
Zoroaster is supposed to have done, or by changing a stick into a
serpent, as Moses claims he did, or water into wine, as Jesus is
believed to have done, instead of saving the world, degrades it. We
insult our teachers when we ascribe to them miraculous powers such as
walking on the water, multiplying, loaves and raising the dead. All the
wonders of the world cannot make what is bad, good, or what is false,
true. A teacher who has a falsehood which he wishes to pass for the
truth may resort to a miracle; but why should an honest soul undertake
to win converts by unintelligible performances? If physical and
mathematical truth can, unaided, command universal assent, why should
there be "signs and wonders" to maintain moral or intellectual truths?
Moreover, if a teacher has power to stop the sun, has he not the power
to make people see the truth without a miracle? If he can raise the
dead, can he not lift the human mind out of error without the aid of
extraordinary phenomena? Resorting to miracles to convert people,
proves, not the power, but the despair of the teacher. He who can
command followers relying solely upon the truth of his teaching is, and
remains forever, a greater moral and intellectual force than he who is
driven to surprise and bewilder his hearers before he can convert
them. *

     *  To aim to convert a man by miracle is a profanation.
        --Emerson

And now before we can make an estimate of the world's leading religions,
we must try to arrive at some sort of an agreement as to what we would
consider the greatest virtue, and what the greatest vice in religion.

There will be no objection, on the part of my readers, to the statement
that the most heinous of all vices in any religion is _cruelty_. There
is not a crime or an error which is not made worse by cruelty--or
softened by the absence of it. Cruelty is the most inexcusable, the most
inhuman, the most unreasonable, the most degrading, and the most
deadly of the vices that human nature is heir to. Cruelty is consummate
wickedness. It is the passion of the bad because it is bad. It is
doing evil from pleasure, Think, then, what a serious thing it is for
a religion purporting to be "divine" to recommend the halter, the
fire-brand and the sword, for instance, against all who do not subscribe
to its dogmas. With such a religion in force, it will not be necessary
to invent a devil, for man, himself, under its influence, must develop
into a fiend of hate and cruelty, withering all he comes in contact
with, as the frost blackens all it bites.

It is admitted that there is an element of cruelty in almost all the
religions of the world;--though of Buddhism it has been claimed that
during its nearly twenty-five centuries of existence, it has not killed,
much less tortured a single human being in the name of religion. That is
certainly an enviable record. It should compel the hot flush of shame to
the cheek of those persecuting Faiths which have shed enough human
blood "to incamardine the multitudinous seas." As Buddhism is one of
the numerically stronger religions of the world, and as it has helped to
shape the beliefs and practices recommended by the more recent creeds, a
brief examination of its fundamental doctrine would assist us in making
an estimate of its moral worth and may be useful to this discussion.
What is the teaching which makes of Buddhism a distinctive religion?
_Life is an evil_, taught the Hindu reformer. To desire life is the acme
of immorality according to this doctrine for it is to desire that which
is evil. Desire is the soil in which spring up all the noxious weeds
which choke to death the flower of happiness. To cease to desire is to
conquer freedom from suffering. Salvation according to Buddhism consists
in winding up and sealing forever the book of life, leaving not the
remotest possibility for any fresh life to spring up again. This
pessimism, which while it has attractions for the speculative and supine
Oriental, is justly abhorred by the creative and ever-youthful European.
The important question is not, "Is life worth living?" but "How can life
be made worth living, since live we must?" While therefore Buddha taught
a scrupulous morality, while his own character stands out as one of the
noblest, and while his teachings have made countless millions gentle and
peaceful, nevertheless, there is in this mildest of religions, much
that is positively harmful. The Buddhist conception of life with its
blighting pessimism which recommends non-resistance to evil, has emptied
a continent of its vigor and converted it into a desert. The teaching
of orthodox Buddhism may be likened to the advice which a sea captain,
driven by despair, might give to his men on deck--to sink the ship
in order to escape the storm. Then again the Buddhist doctrine of
reincarnation as an endless chain of nightmares, dragging man through
unending births to "the vast void night," has caused untold agony of
mind and body. This gloomy view has made life, for millions of people, a
misfortune, love a crime, and the earth, a hell!

The believers in transmigration or reincarnation forget that the
scientific view of man leaves no room for anything to migrate. What
science understands by soul is the word which expresses the functions,
including brain activity and the circulation of the blood. When these
cease there is no soul to go anywhere. Neither could reincarnation
produce the moral discipline claimed by its advocates. It is no
punishment to return to the world in a lower form of life, since there
is no memory, clear and ringing, of a former and higher existence.
Moreover, the lower forms of life are more callous and not at all
conscious of deflection from a better standard. If a cruel man becomes
a tiger, it would be giving him a better chance to be more cruel. Unless
the animal can remember his humanity, he can not be disciplined by a
descent into a lower stage of being..

But the Buddhist hell, fearful though it is, is, fortunately, not
everlasting. Over its gaping mouth is spread the rainbow arch of
Nirvana, that is to say, deliverance for all from every form of
suffering, in sleep--_eternal sleep_, which will, some day, according to
this religion, fold an aching world on its cool and calm bosom.

The vice of Buddhism then is its exaggeration of the troubles of
life--its deprecation of the opportunities for the pursuit of truth and
goodness which life offers. By dwelling too long and too often upon
the thorns, Buddhism becomes blind to the rose which is as real as the
thorns. And again this Oriental teacher set up an unattainable ideal
when he demanded the eradication of all desire from the human soul. Man
can only change his desires; he cannot cease to desire. Not to desire is
also a desire--a desire to be free from desire.

The virtue which we admire most in Buddha's doctrine is gentleness.
Buddha is said to have been of all great leaders the most compassionate.
He trembled to cause pain to the least of sentient things. The birds,
the fishes, the crawling worms, as well as man, he looked upon as his
brothers. Buddhism might be called the Religion of Pity. There is little
doubt but that wherever Buddhism triumphed there war and persecution,
two of the most abominable institutions of all time, practically
disappeared.

It is with feelings of undivided admiration that I now come to speak of
Confucius--the only Rationalist among the immortals of ancient times. If
the other founders of Faiths owe their reign over the minds of men, in
part at least, to the wonderful miracles attributed to them, Confucius,
on the contrary, owes his increasing reputation to the complete absence
of the supernatural from his life and doctrines. He has conquered the
ages by his common sense. And his sanity assures for him a future which
we can not safely predict for the others.

Omitting a historical sketch of the great Chinese teacher, and confining
ourselves briefly to an exposition of his philosophy or religion, we
notice at once that Confucianism devotes itself exclusively to this
world--to the now and here. This is very remarkable when we remember
how all the other teachers made the world to come, that is to say, some
invisible and undiscovered world the principal theme of their preaching.
To lose this world that we may win the next was the burden of the
teaching of both Buddha and Jesus. But the great Chinaman completely
ignored the so-called next world, and directed all his efforts toward
the enlightenment of man concerning the world that now is. It will
readily be seen what a radical difference there is between Confucius and
his colleagues. When they spoke of gods, Confucius spoke of man;
when they asked for faith, Confucius recommended knowledge; when they
delivered mysteries, Confucius presented facts. With perfect propriety
we may call Confucius the first apostle of secularism. Now secularism is
the very opposite of supernaturalism, and as the world is becoming more
and more secular, that is to say, practical and humanitarian, Confucius
is the only one among the great sages who is as much modern as he is
ancient.

In the teaching of Confucius we do not find the least suggestion of
even so much as a Buddhist hell. The religion taught by Confucius is the
least theological of any Oriental cult. Confucius was a teacher, not a
priest. He worked no miracles, delivered no inspired oracles, dealt in
no mysteries, claimed no supernatural powers, did not think that the
less sense there was in a religion the more divine it would be, and made
no attempt to allure with future promises, or to frighten with hell-fire
his hearers. In the long annals of a past musty with age and choking
with superstitions innumerable, the page on which is inscribed the name
of this sanest of all Asiatics is the fairest and freest from cant and
rant.

The name of Zoroaster takes us back to a very remote period in the
history of our humanity. It has been conjectured that when he began
his career as a religious teacher he found his people, the Persians,
worshiping the principle of Evil, or Ahriman, the Persian name for
Devil. While Zoroaster was unable to wean his people from Ahriman, he
did succeed in supplementing the fear of the devil with the love of God
or Ormuzd, the principle of goodness. The dualism is the distinguishing
characteristic of the religion founded by Zoroaster, and is also its
contribution to nearly all the other religions; for we find in Judaism,
Christianity and Mohammedanism the same fundamental belief in the
existence of a God invariably accompanied by his rival--the Devil. What
the one creates, the other destroys; what the one mends, the other mars;
God makes the light, the Devil the darkness; God kindles the flame,
the Devil tries to turn it into smoke; God is omnipotent in wisdom, the
Devil is equally resourceful in mischief. Zoroastrianism or Mazdaism,
then, is the parent of dualism, namely, of the eternal struggle between
these two archpowers for the possession of man.

Without denying to Zoroaster the name of reformer, and also of
empire-builder,--for doubtless his services contributed to the political
expansion of Persia, making her on land and sea, one of the great
powers of ancient times, and duly acknowledging the beginnings of a high
morality in the collected scriptures called the _Avestas_, attributed
to his pen,--we are compelled by the evidence to charge the religion
of Zoroaster, that is to say, the religion of dualism, of a God plus a
Devil, with having invented, so to speak, the awful doctrine of hell,
and therefore of religious persecution. It was a natural consequence of
the belief in a God opposed by a Devil to make war upon all who were not
on the side of God. And as the prophet is himself invariably the vicar
or the apostle of God, it followed that all those who refused obedience
to his will were in opposition to the Deity and should be suppressed,
even as God is trying to suppress the Devil, his antagonist.

When we approach the Jewish-Christian faith, we find the dark stream
of religious persecution, which had its source in Zoroastrianism,
grown into a raging sea. The three religions, Judaism, Christianity and
Mohammedanism, bear to one another the relation of parent and children.
Christianity is the elder, and Mohammedanism the younger daughter
of Judaism. The predominant trait, which is common to them all, is
exclusiveness. It is impossible to be humanitarian or universal and
exclusive at the same time, which is another way of saying that, where
the spirit of exclusiveness holds sway, there religious toleration will
be considered a crime, both against God and the State. Of course in all
three of these faiths are to be found passages which seem to possess
an accent of universality. But it is a universality conditioned on the
conversion of the whole world to the faith in question. "My house shall
be a house of prayer for all nations," writes the Jewish prophet, but
observe it says,--"My house,"--which means that the whole world will
come to worship in a Jewish temple. It does not mean that Pagan and
Christian, without embracing the Jewish faith, may each worship his
own "Christ" in a Jewish synagogue. It is in this same spirit that the
Mohammedan throws open his mosque, and the Christian his cathedral to
the whole world. Brotherhood in these religions is limited to those of
the true faith. The misbeliever is an alien to whom it is a sin even to
say "God speed." Intermarriage is forbidden with a view to emphasize the
fact that only through conversion can a stranger become a friend or a
brother. Such exclusiveness was bound to breed hatred and persecution.

And as men make their gods, an exclusive people will have an exclusive
god. The Bible conception of God is one of the most repellant in
religious literature. We may say it is the least successful attempt at
god-making on record. The three religions we have named have all one and
the same God, with only unimportant variations. The authors of the
Bible seem to have labored under the impression that to make their God
acceptable they had only to make him intensely partisan. One who loves
his own only. But they have made him, necessarily, as terrible as he
is exclusive. He is not only called a jealous God, but also a consuming
fire, a man of war. It is expressly stated that "He is angry every
day." The English translators have interpolated the words--"with the
wicked,"--but the original as rendered into Latin, German, French and
other languages, shows plainly that the editors of King James' Version
took undue liberties with the text. The Revised Version has dropped the
words _with the wicked_, and the text now conveys the same meaning in
the English Bible as in the German, which reads: "Und ein Gott, der
taglich dirauet," and in the French, "La colere the Dieu est toujours
prete a eclater."

"Irascitur per singulos dies," are the words in the Vulgate.

To please his makers the God of the Jew, the Christian and the
Mohammedan orders the extermination of all who object to be converted:
"And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall
deliver thee: thine eye shall have no pity upon them." Each of the three
religions, unfortunately, has been too willing to obey to the letter
this unfraternal injunction introduced into the mouth of the Deity by
the priesthood. As the authors of the above text claimed to be inspired
the priests of these three religions have shed more blood than all the
tyrants put together. This is a fearful but absolutely just indictment
against the Jewish-Chris-tian-Mohammedan religion.

But confining for a moment our remarks to Christianity alone, it must be
admitted that in spite of its doctrine of hell, it has certain redeeming
features about it which are of undoubted pagan origin and which we do
not find in Judaism. The advantage of Christianity over Judaism consists
in the former's generous efforts to save the whole world, irrespective
of race or color, from the doom of hell. This is the contribution of the
Gentile to Christianity. The words of Jesus, "Go ye into all the world
and preach the Gospel to every creature," were in all probability put
in his mouth by a Gentile. What Jesus really said, if, indeed, we can
be sure of anything that he said, was, "Go not into the cities of the
Gentiles," assuring them at the same time that the world would come
to an end before they had even finished preaching to the lost sheep of
Israel. Jesus as a Jew shared the belief of his people that "none are
beloved before God but Israel." It was the Greek and Latin genius that
made of Christianity more than merely another. Jewish sect, by breathing
into it as much of its universalism as a dogmatic religion would admit
Of course, the best service which paganism rendered Christianity was
to introduce into it a new God--the _man_ God as against the all-God
Jehovah--who, by personal sacrifices, conquered for the whole world
an opportunity to be saved. Christ, as a secondary God--or a junior
God--was the revolt of the Gentile world against the Jewish Deity.
Whatever good Christianity has done is due to this rebellion which
culminated in compelling the dread Jehovah to admit the man-God into
full and equal partnership with him. The Jews call this blasphemy; but
Christianity, inspired by the Hellenic and Latin genius, weakened the
divinity by dividing it into three--later into four, by the addition of
a woman to the number. In this alone, namely, in making a new God, and
thus taking from the old solitary deity many of his ancient and Semitic
prerogatives, Christianity has proved its greater sympathy with paganism
than with Judaism.

Another leading trait of these three religions is their fear and hatred
of freedom of thought To perpetuate their own power the priests of this
family of religions found it necessary to suppress, at first by threats
of divine punishments, and when these failed, by force of arms, all
inquiry. Faith, which meant unquestioning acquiescence, was of God;
Science, which meant investigation, was of the Devil. The agents of this
group of religions which between them have held Europe, America and a
great part of Asia and Africa captive for many centuries, prompted their
God to solemnly declare in infallible documents, that a father should
not hesitate to kill his own son, or a son his own father; that a mother
should destroy her child, and the child its mother,--to prevent them
from professing or following another religion. It is impossible to bring
a more horrible accusation against a set of men. The worst thing that
we can say against the profession of the law or of medicine, pales into
insignificance when compared with this specimen of the inhumanity of the
priesthood. The day of judgment is here, and the founders of these three
religions are summoned to answer at the bar of humanity, awakened from
sleep, for the wholesale massacres which have dipped the world in blood,
for the Spanish and Scottish inquisitions, and for the sectarianism and
hatred which converted men of the same race and country into implacable
enemies and persecutors of one another.

The religious commentators defend the respective scriptures of these
religions by saying that their teachings were limited to the mental
level of the times and the peoples. But if God had to descend to
the plane of man and become brutal and bigoted like him, how was man
benefited by his intercourse with the divine? Furthermore, if the mental
and moral limitations of a people determine the character of revelation,
what advantage is there in having a revelation? Moreover, because a
child cannot comprehend algebra, is it right to teach him that one and
one make three? Is the inability of the primitive man to appreciate the
higher virtues of generosity, justice and fellowship with aliens, an
excuse to command him to exterminate his neighbors, * to bear false
witness, ** to practice immorality, to plunder, to be cruel and
credulous? *** If a revelation cannot civilize a barbarian, what is its
value?

     * Deut. 7: 16, etc.

     ** Jer. 4: 10; I. Kings 22: 23; Ezek. 14: 9, etc.

     ***Exod. 12: 85, 36; I. Sam. 16: 1, 2,; Exod. 1; 18-20, etc.

But while denouncing intolerance we must not become intolerant
ourselves. With all their faults these three religions have been, in
their day, of considerable service to the world. We may justly say of
them that having done all the bad and all the good of which they
were capable it is time for them to step aside and leave the field to
science. Am I asked what good these religions have done? I answer: They
have taught man science by forbidding it. It may sound strange, but
religion aroused human curiosity, which again discovered science. The
time came when man was not satisfied with information only about the
next world, about spirits and demons, about mysteries and divine
attributes; he asked also information about this world, about man, the
past history of the earth and so forth. Just as by seeking the
philosopher's stone men discovered chemistry, and by the way of
astrology they came to the science of astronomy, and by the way of
sorcery and magic to the knowledge of medicine,--so did theology develop
into philosophy.

Religion also must be credited with having been the first to give man a
system of thought. Now a system, however crude, is a work of art. It
is a creation. It is a putting together of ideas and beliefs for the
purpose of arriving at a conclusion. Thus religion taught man to think
connectedly, to see the relation of things, and to think for a purpose,
that is to say, to reason. The savage has ideas too, but he can not put
them together, he can not classify or systematize them. There has been
iron in the bowels of the earth, and lying on the surface in many places
for long ages, but only when man could give shape and form to it did he
enter the path of civilization. In the same sense, not until man could
forge, fuse and combine his ideas into a system of some kind, did he
begin his intellectual evolution. Religion started civilization by
enabling man to put his ideas together. Even as the worm was the
prophecy of the coming man, the creed was the beginning of science.

Let us see if we cannot make this idea a little clearer: All religions
represent the effort of the human mind to understand itself and its
environment. At the core of every religion, however crude, there is a
philosophy,--that is to say, every belief, be it ever so foolish, has a
meaning, and at one time was a help to man.

The savage carries a fetish on his person to secure himself against
evil. The civilized man crosses himself in the presence of danger. Both
practices embody a truth, and it is the province of criticism to define
that truth.

When the turbaned Oriental, standing in his mosque, pronounces the name
of _Allah_ with such awe and joy, what is it he means? In his groping
way he is aiming to be scientific; he is trying his hand at philosophy;
he wishes to put his finger upon the nerve of the universe; he is trying
to bring the multifarious forces of nature about him into a focus; he
is trying to evolve harmony out of chaos,--music out of the discord and
babel of life; and he thinks he has succeeded, when he has pronounced
the word _Allah!_ Of course, his philosophy is that of a beginner, but
it is a philosophy, nevertheless. He is an embryo scientist, taking his
first lesson in logical reasoning. That is the truth at the heart of all
religions which we must recognize. They represent the desire of man to
make things clear to his intelligence, and to wrest life's secret
from the universe. Man seeks knowledge because in the consciousness
of knowledge there is happiness and power. The strain of ignorance is
intolerable to him. Darkness embarrasses his mind and he seeks the light
by instinct.

The primitive man, for instance, alarmed by the things he did not
understand, proposed explanation after explanation, in his effort to
throw off the darkness from his mind. When the sky frowned upon him and
the winds wailed in his ears, he did not know what to make of them, and
felt insecure until he could satisfy himself that he understood how
and why the dark clouds swept over the face of the skies and the winds
moaned about his dwelling. He felt relieved when he believed that he had
grasped the situation. His explanation that the sun and the wind were
free agents, like himself, acting from choice, as he thought he did, was
a very crude one, but it was an explanation, all the same, and for the
time being proved helpful to him. From the very beginning, man has shown
a hunger for knowledge, which has put his mind in action. Religion,
then, is man's first attempt at scientific and philosophical thinking.
Religion is, in a sense, the primer of science and philosophy. The
mistake we make is to declare this primer infallible. We take the first
composition of the child, so to speak--his first prattle in the presence
of the universe--and pronounce it inspired. When Moses, or whoever wrote
the first chapters of the book of Genesis, described how man and woman
were fashioned, he was trying to be scientific, in his modest way. But
the best explanation that his mentality could produce was that God took
some clay from the ground and kneaded it into the form of man, and from
one of the ribs of this man he formed woman. It is not his science we
commend; it is his desire to explain man's origin that honors him, for
out of that desire, philosophy, science,--progress--are born.

But there is another truth hidden in the bosom of all religions which it
is the mission of philosophy to disclose. The first truth I called
your attention to was that the primitive beliefs of man represented his
effort to understand the world and himself; the second truth is that
all the religious rites and ceremonies, the most superstitious of them,
embody likewise a truth;--they represent the effort of man to get the
control of the universe into his own hands. If today we possess any
power over the resources and forces of nature, if we can utilize them,
command them to do our errands, to wait upon us, to serve us,--this
power is the fruition of that primitive desire of our barbarian
ancestors to get the gods under control by presents and compliments.

The scientist masters the laws of nature,--the movements of the
atmosphere, the currents of the ocean, the lightning's secret, for the
purpose of putting a bit into their mouths to control them for human
service; but the priest when he offered his bloody sacrifices, when he
performed his incantations, and repeated magical formulas, had the same
aim in view,--the control of the universe. As soon as primitive man
concluded that the sun, for example, or the river, was a god, he set to
work to learn the habits, tastes, pleasure of his gods, that he might
prevent them from hurting him and encourage them to gratify his needs.
In other words, he wished to replace them in the government of the
world. He did not feel safe until he could get the reins in his own
hands. When I was in one of the churches of Florence, and stood looking
at a figure of the pope with the keys of heaven and hell in his hand, it
dawned upon me that man, from time immemorial, has coveted the
ownership of the universe, and even in his feebleness gave himself the
satisfaction of holding the keys in his own hands.

But it would be unreasonable to continue to preserve and propagate these
religions at great cost to the people, and also at the detriment of more
important interests--on the ground that at one time, when man was but a
child, they were of service to him. Our ancestors before the age of
iron used tools made of stone. Shall these still be given the preference
despite the better and more useful implements of modern times--because,
forsooth, they started our race in its career of progress? Shall the
candle light be permitted to prejudice us against electricity; the
stagecoach against the locomotive; the cave of the savage against
the sanitary dwellings of modern cities; or the primitive forms of
communication against the wonderful wireless? Why, then, should Moses
or Mohammed or Jesus stand in the way of the science of the twentieth
century? If we may discard our mother's hut or the rag she clothed
herself with at one time, why not also her religion? True enough both
hut and rag served a purpose and marked a stage in the evolution of man,
but the purpose they served was to fit us for something better, that is
to say, to make us discontented with and rebellious against the hut and
the rag forever.

The day of faiths is over. They belong to the furniture of the past. The
glorious reign of Science has begun. Thought like a fruit on the tree of
evolution has at last ripened. The glow of the sun, and the tints of the
sky are upon her. The countries which were the first to replace faith
by knowledge have invariably been the first also in civilization. While
Palestine remained a desert, Greece became the garden of the world.
Whatever of beauty there is in our lives today, we owe it to the
immortal Greeks. Truth and goodness flourish in all their glory only
among a free and intelligent people. Where there is an infallible faith
there can be no liberty of thought, and without liberty of thought there
is no mind, and without mind man is not different from the brute.







End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of My Mind, by M. M. Mangasarian

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