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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12)
+       Dresden Edition--Miscellany
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38811]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+
+By Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+"TO PLOW IS TO PRAY; TO PLANT IS TO PROPHESY, AND THE HARVEST ANSWERS
+AND FULFILLS."
+
+IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME XI.
+
+MISCELLANY
+
+1900
+
+DRESDEN EDITION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME XI.
+
+
+ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.
+
+Introduction by Frederick Douglass("Abou Ben Adhem")--Decision of
+the United States Supreme Court pronouncing the Civil Rights Act
+Unconstitutional--Limitations of Judges--Illusion Destroyed by the
+Decision in the Dred Scott Case--Mistake of Our Fathers in adopting
+the Common Law of England--The 13th Amendment to the Constitution
+Quoted--The Clause of the Constitution upholding Slavery--Effect of
+this Clause--Definitions of a State by Justice Wilson and Chief Justice
+Chase--Effect of the Thirteenth Amendment--Justice Field on Involuntary
+Servitude--Civil Rights Act Quoted--Definition of the Word Servitude by
+the Supreme Court--Obvious Purpose of the Amendment--Justice Miller
+on the 14th Amendment--Citizens Created by this Amendment--Opinion
+of Justice Field--Rights and Immunities guaranteed by the
+Constitution--Opinion delivered by Chief-Justice Waite--Further Opinions
+of Courts on the question of Citizenship--Effect of the 13th, 14th and
+15th Amendments--"Corrective" Legislation by Congress--Denial of equal
+"Social" Privileges--Is a State responsible for the Action of its Agent
+when acting contrary to Law?--The Word "State" must include the People
+of the State as well as the Officers of the State--The Louisiana Civil
+Rights Law, and a Case tried under it--Uniformity of Duties essential to
+the Carrier--Congress left Powerless to protect Rights conferred by the
+Constitution--Definition of "Appropriate Legislation"--Propositions laid
+down regarding the Sovereignty of the State, the powers of the General
+Government, etc.--A Tribute to Justice Harlan--A Denial that Property
+exists by Virtue of Law--Civil Rights not a Question of Social
+Equality--Considerations upon which Social Equality depends--Liberty not
+a Question of Social Equality--The Superior Man--Inconsistencies of the
+Past--No Reason why we should Hate the Colored People--The Issues that
+are upon Us.
+
+TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.
+
+ADDRESS TO THE JURY.
+
+Report of the Case from the New York Times (note)--The Right to express
+Opinions--Attempts to Rule the Minds of Men by Force--Liberty the
+Greatest Good--Intellectual Hospitality Defined--When the Catholic
+Church had Power--Advent of the Protestants--The Puritans, Quakers.
+Unitarians, Universalists--What is Blasphemy?--Why this Trial should not
+have Taken Place--Argument cannot be put in Jail--The Constitution of
+New Jersey--A higher Law than Men can Make--The Blasphemy Statute
+Quoted and Discussed--Is the Statute Constitutional?--The Harm done
+by Blasphemy Laws--The Meaning of this Persecution--Religions are
+Ephemeral--Let us judge each other by our Actions--Men who have braved
+Public Opinion should be Honored--The Blasphemy Law if enforced would
+rob the World of the Results of Scientific Research--It declares the
+Great Men of to-day to be Criminals--The Indictment Read and Commented
+upon--Laws that go to Sleep--Obsolete Dogmas the Denial of which was
+once punished by Death--Blasphemy Characterized--On the Argument
+that Blasphemy Endangers the Public Peace--A Definition of real
+Blasphemy--Trials for Blasphemy in England--The case of Abner
+Kneeland--True Worship, Prayer, and Religion--What is Holy and
+Sacred--What is Claimed in this Case--For the Honor of the State--The
+word Liberty--Result of the Trial (note).
+
+GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+The Feudal System--Office and Purpose of our Constitution--Which God
+shall we Select?--The Existence of any God a Matter of Opinion--What is
+entailed by a Recognition of a God in the Constitution--Can the Infinite
+be Flattered with a Constitutional Amendment?--This government is
+Secular--The Government of God a Failure--The Difference between the
+Theological and the Secular Spirit--A Nation neither Christian nor
+Infidel--The Priest no longer a Necessity--Progress of Science and the
+Development of the Mind.
+
+A REPLY TO BISHOP SPALDING.
+
+On God in the Constitution--Why the Constitutional Convention ignored
+the Question of Religion--The Fathers Misrepresented--Reasons why the
+Attributes of God should not form an Organic Part of the Law of the
+Land--The Effect of a Clause Recognizing God.
+
+CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS.
+
+The Three Pests of a Community--I. Forms of Punishment and Torture--More
+Crimes Committed than Prevented by Governments--II. Are not Vices
+transmitted by Nature?--111. Is it Possible for all People to be
+Honest?--Children of Vice as the natural Product of Society--Statistics:
+the Relation between Insanity, Pauperism, and Crime--IV. The Martyrs of
+Vice--Franklin's Interest in the Treatment of Prisoners--V. Kindness
+as a Remedy--Condition of the Discharged Prisoner--VI. Compensation
+for Convicts--VII. Professional Criminals--Shall the Nation take
+Life?--Influence of Public Executions on the Spectators--Lynchers
+for the Most Part Criminals at Heart--VIII. The Poverty of the Many a
+perpetual Menace--Limitations of Land-holding.--IX. Defective Education
+by our Schools--Hands should be educated as well as Head--Conduct
+improved by a clearer Perception of Consequences--X. The Discipline of
+the average Prison Hardening and Degrading--While Society cringes before
+Great Thieves there will be Little Ones to fill the Jails--XI. Our
+Ignorance Should make us Hesitate.
+
+A WOODEN GOD.
+
+On Christian and Chinese worship--Report of the Select Committee
+on Chinese Immigration--The only true God as contrasted with
+Joss--Sacrifices to the "Living God"--Messrs. Wright, Dickey, O'Connor
+and Murch on the "Religious System" of the American Union--How to prove
+that Christians are better than Heathens--Injustice in the Name of
+God--An honest Merchant the best Missionary--A Few Extracts from
+Confucius--The Report proves that the Wise Men of China who predicted
+that Christians could not be Trusted were not only Philosophers but
+Prophets.
+
+SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.
+
+A New Party and its Purpose--The Classes that Exist in every
+Country--Effect of Education on the Common People--Wants Increased by
+Intelligence--The Dream of 1776--The Monopolist and the Competitor--The
+War between the Gould and Mackay Cables--Competition between
+Monopolies--All Advance in Legislation made by Repealing Laws--Wages
+and Values not to be fixed by Law--Men and Machines--The Specific of
+the Capitalist: Economy--The poor Man and Woman devoured by
+their Fellow-men--Socialism one of the Worst Possible forms of
+Slavery--Liberty not to be exchanged for Comfort--Will the Workers
+always give their Earnings for the Useless?--Priests, Successful Frauds,
+and Robed Impostors.
+
+ART AND MORALITY.
+
+The Origin of Man's Thoughts--The imaginative Man--"Medicinal View" of
+Poetry--Rhyme and Religion--The theological Poets and their Purpose in
+Writing--Moral Poets and their "Unwelcome Truths"--The really Passionate
+are the Virtuous--Difference between the Nude and the Naked--Morality
+the Melody of Conduct--The inculcation of Moral Lessons not contemplated
+by Artists or great Novelists--Mistaken Reformers--Art not a
+Sermon--Language a Multitude of Pictures--Great Pictures and Great
+Statues painted and chiseled with Words--Mediocrity moral from a
+Necessity which it calls Virtue--Why Art Civilizes--The Nude--The Venus
+de Milo--This is Art.
+
+THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.
+
+The Way in which Theological Seminaries were Endowed--Religious
+Guide-boards--Vast Interests interwoven with Creeds--Pretensions of
+Christianity--Kepler's Discovery of his Three Great Laws--Equivocations
+and Evasions of the Church--Nature's Testimony against the
+Bible--The Age of Man on the Earth--"Inspired" Morality of the
+Bible--Miracles--Christian Dogmas--What the church has been Compelled to
+Abandon--The Appeal to Epithets, Hatred and Punishment--"Spirituality"
+the last Resource of the Orthodox--What is it to be Spiritual?--Two
+Questions for the Defenders of Orthodox Creeds.
+
+WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
+
+Part I. Inharmony of Nature and the Lot of Man with the Goodness and
+Wisdom of a supposed Deity--Why a Creator is Imagined--Difficulty of the
+Act of Creation--Belief in Supernatural Beings--Belief and Worship among
+Savages--Questions of Origin and Destiny--Progress impossible without
+Change of Belief--Circumstances Determining Belief--How may the
+True Religion be Ascertained?--Prosperity of Nations nor Virtue
+of Individuals Dependent on Religions or Gods--Uninspired Books
+Superior--Part II. The Christian Religion--Credulity--Miracles cannot
+be Established--Effect of Testimony--Miraculous Qualities of all
+Religions--Theists and Naturalists--The Miracle of Inspiration--How
+can the alleged Fact of Inspiration be Established?--God's work and
+Man's--Rewards for Falsehood offered by the Church.
+
+HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.
+
+Statement by the Principal of King's College--On the Irrelevancy of a
+Lack of Scientific Knowledge--Difference between the Agnostic and
+the Christian not in Knowledge but in Credulity--The real name of
+an Agnostic said to be "Infidel"--What an Infidel is--"Unpleasant"
+significance of the Word--Belief in Christ--"Our Lord and his Apostles"
+possibly Honest Men--Their Character not Invoked--Possession by evil
+spirits--Professor Huxley's Candor and Clearness--The splendid Dream
+of Auguste Comte--Statement of the Positive Philosophy--Huxley and
+Harrison.
+
+ERNEST RENAN.
+
+His Rearing and his Anticipated Biography--The complex Character of the
+Christ of the Gospels--Regarded as a Man by Renan--The Sin against the
+Holy Ghost--Renan on the Gospels--No Evidence that they were written
+by the Men whose Names they Bear--Written long after the Events they
+Describe--Metaphysics of the Church found in the Gospel of John--Not
+Apparent why Four Gospels should have been Written--Regarded as
+legendary Biographies--In "flagrant contradiction one with another"--The
+Divine Origin of Christ an After-growth--Improbable that he intended to
+form a Church--Renan's Limitations--Hebrew Scholarship--His "People of
+Israel"--His Banter and Blasphemy.
+
+TOLSTOY AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."
+
+Tolstoy's Belief and Philosophy--His Asceticism--His View of Human
+Love--Purpose of "The Kreutzer Sonata"--Profound Difference between the
+Love of Men and that of Women--Tolstoy cannot now found a Religion, but
+may create the Necessity for another Asylum--The Emotions--The Curious
+Opinion Dried Apples have of Fruit upon the Tree--Impracticability of
+selling All and giving to the Poor--Love and Obedience--Unhappiness in
+the Marriage Relation not the fault of Marriage.
+
+THOMAS PAINE.
+
+Life by Moncure D. Conway--Early Advocacy of Reforms against Dueling
+and Cruelty to Animals--The First to write "The United States of
+America"--Washington's Sentiment against Separation from Great
+Britain--Paine's Thoughts in the Declaration of Independence--Author of
+the first Proclamation of Emancipation in America--Establishment of a
+Fund for the Relief of the Army--H's "Farewell Address"--The "Rights of
+Man"--Elected to the French Convention--Efforts to save the Life of the
+King--His Thoughts on Religion--Arrested--The "Age of Reason" and the
+Weapons it has furnished "Advanced Theologians"--Neglect by Gouverneur
+Morris and Washington--James Monroe's letter to Paine and to the
+Committee of General Safety--The vaunted Religious Liberty of
+Colonial Maryland--Orthodox Christianity at the Beginning of the 19th
+Century--New Definitions of God--The Funeral of Paine.
+
+THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS.
+
+I. Mr. A., the Professional Philanthropist, who established a Colony
+for the Enslavement of the Poor who could not take care of themselves,
+amassed a large Fortune thereby, built several churches, and earned
+the Epitaph, "He was the Providence of the Poor"--II. Mr. B.,
+the Manufacturer, who enriched himself by taking advantage of the
+Necessities of the Poor, paid the lowest Rate of Wages, considered
+himself one of God's Stewards, endowed the "B Asylum" and the "B
+College," never lost a Dollar, and of whom it was recorded, "He Lived
+for Others." III. Mr. C., who divided his Profits with the People who had
+earned it, established no Public Institutions, suppressed Nobody; and
+those who have worked for him said, "He allowed Others to live for
+Themselves."
+
+SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?
+
+Trampling on the Rights of Inferiors--Rise of the Irish and Germans
+to Power--The Burlingame Treaty--Character of Chinese Laborers--Their
+Enemies in the Pacific States--Violation of Treaties--The Geary Law--The
+Chinese Hated for their Virtues--More Piety than Principle among the
+People's Representatives--Shall we go back to Barbarism?
+
+A WORD ABOUT EDUCATION.
+
+What the Educated Man Knows--Necessity of finding out the Facts
+of Nature--"Scholars" not always Educated Men; from necessaries to
+luxuries; who may be called educated; mental misers; the first duty of
+man; university education not necessary to usefulness, no advantage in
+learning useless facts.
+
+WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.
+
+Would have the Kings and Emperors resign, the Nobility drop their
+Titles, the Professors agree to teach only What they Know, the
+Politicians changed to Statesmen, the Editors print only the
+Truth--Would like to see Drunkenness and Prohibition abolished,
+Corporal Punishment done away with, and the whole World free.
+
+FOOL FRIENDS.
+
+The Fool Friend believes every Story against you, never denies a Lie
+unless it is in your Favor, regards your Reputation as Common Prey,
+forgets his Principles to gratify your Enemies, and is so friendly that
+you cannot Kick him.
+
+INSPIRATION.
+
+Nature tells a different Story to all Eyes and Ears--Horace Greeley and
+the Big Trees--The Man who "always did like rolling land"--What the
+Snow looked like to the German--Shakespeare's different Story for each
+Reader--As with Nature so with the Bible.
+
+THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.
+
+People who live by Lying--A Case in point--H. Hodson Rugg's Account of
+the Conversion of Ingersoll and 5,000 of his Followers--The "Identity of
+Lost Israel with the British Nation"--Old Falsehoods about Infidels--The
+New York Observer and Thomas Paine--A Rascally English Editor--The
+Charge that Ingersoll's Son had been Converted--The Fecundity of
+Falsehood.
+
+HOW TO EDIT A LIBERAL PAPER.
+
+The Editor should not narrow his Horizon so that he can see only
+One Thing--To know the Defects of the Bible is but the Beginning of
+Wisdom--The Liberal Paper should not discuss Theological Questions
+Alone--A Column for Children--Candor and Kindness--Nothing should be
+Asserted that is not Known--Above All, teach the Absolute Freedom of the
+Mind.
+
+SECULARISM.
+
+The religion of Humanity; what it Embraces and what it Advocates--A
+Protest against Ecclesiastical Tyranny--Believes in Building a Home
+here--Means Food and Fireside--The Right to express your Thought--Its
+advice to every Human Being--A Religion without Mysteries, Miracles, or
+Persecutions.
+
+CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN FARM."
+
+Religion unsoftened by Infidelity--The Orthodox Minister whose Wife has
+a Heart--Honesty of Opinion not a Mitigating Circumstance--Repulsiveness
+of an Orthodox Life--John Ward an Object of Pity--Lyndall of the
+"African Farm"--The Story of the Hunter--Death of Waldo--Women the
+Caryatides of the Church--Attitude of Christianity toward other
+Religions--Egotism of the ancient Jews.
+
+THE LIBEL LAWS.
+
+All Articles appearing in a newspaper should be Signed by the
+Writer--The Law if changed should throw greater Safeguards around the
+Reputation of the Citizen--Pains should be taken to give Prominence to
+Retractions--The Libel Laws like a Bayonet in War.
+
+REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.
+
+Mr. Newton not Regarded as a Sceptic--New Meanings given to Old
+Words--The vanishing Picture of Hell--The Atonement--Confidence being
+Lost in the Morality of the Gospel--Exclusiveness of the Churches--The
+Hope of Immortality and Belief in God have Nothing to do with Real
+Religion--Special Providence a Mistake.
+
+AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.
+
+The Day regarded as a Holiday--A Festival far older
+than Christianity--Relics of Sun-worship in Christian
+Ceremonies--Christianity furnished new Steam for an old Engine--Pagan
+Festivals correspond to Ours--Why Holidays are Popular--They must be for
+the Benefit of the People.
+
+HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?
+
+The Object of Freethought--what the Religionist calls "Affirmative
+and Positive"--The Positive Side of Freethought--Constructive Work of
+Christianity.
+
+THE IMPROVED MAN.
+
+He will be in Favor of universal Liberty, neither Master nor Slave; of
+Equality and Education; will develop in the Direction of the Beautiful;
+will believe only in the Religion of this World--His Motto--Will not
+endeavor to change the Mind of the "Infinite"--Will have no Bells or
+Censers--Will be satisfied that the Supernatural does not exist--Will be
+Self-poised, Independent, Candid and Free.
+
+EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.
+
+The Working People should be protected by Law--Life of no particular
+Importance to the Man who gets up before Daylight and works till
+after Dark--A Revolution probable in the Relations between Labor and
+Capital--Working People becoming Educated and more Independent--The
+Government can Aid by means of Good Laws--Women the worst Paid--There
+should be no Resort to Force by either Labor or Capital.
+
+THE JEWS.
+
+Much like People of other Religions--Teaching given Christian Children
+about those who die in the Faith of Abraham--Dr. John Hall on
+the Persecution of the Jews in Russia as the Fulfillment of
+Prophecy--Hostility of Orthodox early Christians excited by Jewish
+Witnesses against the Faith--An infamous Chapter of History--Good
+and bad Men of every Faith--Jews should outgrow their own
+Superstitions--What the intelligent Jew Knows.
+
+CRUMBLING CREEDS.
+
+The Common People called upon to Decide as between the Universities and
+the Synods--Modern Medicine, Law, Literature and Pictures as against the
+Old--Creeds agree with the Sciences of their Day--Apology the Prelude
+to Retreat--The Presbyterian Creed Infamous, but no worse than
+the Catholic--Progress begins when Expression of Opinion is
+Allowed--Examining the Religions of other Countries--The Pulpit's
+Position Lost--The Dogma of Eternal Pain the Cause of the orthodox
+Creeds losing Popularity--Every Church teaching this Infinite Lie must
+Fall.
+
+OUR SCHOOLS.
+
+Education the only Lever capable of raising Mankind--The
+School-house more Important than the Church--Criticism of New York's
+School-Buildings--The Kindergarten System Recommended--Poor Pay of
+Teachers--The great Danger to the Republic is Ignorance.
+
+VIVISECTION.
+
+The Hell of Science--Brutal Curiosity of Vivisectors--The Pretence that
+they are working for the Good of Man--Have these scientific Assassins
+added to useful Knowledge?--No Good to the Race to be Accomplished by
+Torture--The Tendency to produce a Race of intelligent Wild Beasts.
+
+THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.
+
+Right of the Government to ask Questions and of the Citizen to refuse
+to answer them--Matters which the Government has no Right to pry
+into--Exposing the Debtor's financial Condition--A Man might decline to
+tell whether he has a Chronic Disease or not.
+
+THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.
+
+Natural Phenomena and Myths celebrated--The great Day of the first
+Religion, Sun-worship--A God that Knew no Hatred nor Sought Revenge--The
+Festival of Light.
+
+SPIRITUALITY.
+
+A much-abused Word--The Early Christians too Spiritual to be
+Civilized--Calvin and Knox--Paine, Voltaire and Humboldt not
+Spiritual--Darwin also Lacking--What it is to be really Spiritual--No
+connection with Superstition.
+
+SUMTER'S GUN.
+
+What were thereby blown into Rags and Ravelings--The Birth of a
+new Epoch announced--Lincoln made the most commanding Figure of the
+Century--Story of its Echoes.
+
+WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.
+
+What might have been Asked of a Christian 100 years after
+Christ--Hospitals and Asylums not all built for Charity--Girard
+College--Lick Observatory--Carnegie not an Orthodox Christian--Christian
+Colleges--Give us Time.
+
+CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.
+
+Brockway a Savage--The Lash will neither develop the Brain nor cultivate
+the Heart--Brutality a Failure--Bishop Potter's apostolical Remark.
+
+LAW'S DELAY.
+
+The Object of a Trial--Justice can afford to Wait--The right of
+Appeal--Case of Mrs. Maybrick--Life Imprisonment for Murderers--American
+Courts better than the English.
+
+BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.
+
+Universities naturally Conservative--Kansas State University's
+Objection to Ingersoll as a commencement Orator--Comment by Mr. Depew
+(note)--Action of Cornell and the University of Missouri.
+
+A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.
+
+The Chances a few Years ago--Capital now Required--Increasing
+competition in Civilized Life--Independence the first Object--If he has
+something to say, there will be plenty to listen.
+
+SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.
+
+Science goes hand in hand with Imagination--Artistic and Ethical
+Development--Science destroys Superstition, not true Religion--Education
+preferable to Legislation--Our Obligation to our Children.
+
+"SOWING AND REAPING."
+
+Moody's Belief accounted for--A dishonest and corrupting Doctrine--A
+want of Philosophy and Sense--Have Souls in Heaven no Regrets?--Mr.
+Moody should read some useful Books.
+
+SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?
+
+Teachings of orthodox Sunday Schools--The ferocious God of the
+Bible--Miracles--A Christian in Constantinople would not send his
+Child to a Mosque--Advice to all Agnostics--Strangle the Serpent of
+Superstition.
+
+WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?
+
+Character of the Bible--Men and Women not virtuous because of any
+Book--The Commandments both Good and Bad--Books that do not help
+Morality--Jehovah not a moral God--What is Morality?--Intelligence the
+only moral guide.
+
+GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.
+
+Decline of the Christian Religion in New Hampshire--Outgrown
+Beliefs--Present-day Views of Christ and the Holy Ghost--Abandoned
+Notions about the Atonement--Salvation for Credulity--The Miracles
+of the New Testament--The Bible "not true but inspired"--The "Higher
+Critics" riding two Horses--Infidelity in the Pulpit--The "restraining
+Influences of Religion" as illustrated by Spain and Portugal--Thinking,
+Working and Praying--The kind of Faith that has Departed.
+
+A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.
+
+The _Truth Seeker_ congratulated on its Twenty-fifth Birthday--Teachings
+of Twenty-five Years ago--Dodging and evading--The Clerical Assault
+on Darwin--Draper, Buckle, Hegel, Spencer, Emerson--Comparison
+of Prejudices--Vanished Belief in the Devil--Matter and
+Force--Contradictions Dwelling in Unity--Substitutes for Jehovah--A
+Prophecy.
+
+POLITICAL MORALITY.
+
+Argument in the contested Election Case of Strobach against Herbert--The
+Importance of Honest Elections--Poisoning the Source of Justice--The
+Fraudulent Voter a Traitor to his Sovereign, the Will of the
+People--Political Morality Imperative.
+
+A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
+
+Date and Manner of Composing the Old Testament--Other Books not now in
+Existence, and Disagreements about the Canon--Composite Character of
+certain Books--Various Versions--Why was God's message given to the Jews
+alone?--The Story of the Creation, of the Flood, of the Tower, and
+of Lot's wife--Moses and Aaron and the Plagues of Egypt--Laws of
+Slavery--Instructions by Jehovah Calculated to excite Astonishment and
+Mirth--Sacrifices and the Scapegoat--Passages showing that the Laws of
+Moses were made after the Jews had left the Desert--Jehovah's dealings
+with his People--The Sabbath Law--Prodigies--Joshua's Miracle--Damned
+Ignorance and Infamy--Jephthah's Sacrifice--Incredible Stories--The
+Woman of Endor and the Temptation of David--Elijah and Elisha--Loss of
+the Pentateuch from Moses to Josiah--The Jews before and after being
+Abandoned by Jehovah--Wealth of Solomon and other Marvels.
+
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.
+
+
+ON the 22d of October, 1883, a vast number of citizens met at Lincoln
+Hall, Washington, D. C., to give expression to their views concerning
+the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which it is
+held that the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional.
+
+Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was one of the speakers.
+
+The Hon. Frederick Douglass introduced him as follows:
+
+     Abou Ben Adhem--(may his tribe increase!)
+     Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
+     And saw within the moonlight of his room,
+     Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
+     An angel writing in a book of gold:
+     Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
+     And to the presence in the room he said,
+     "What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
+     And, with a look made all of sweet accord,
+     Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
+     "And is mine one?" asked Abou. "Nay, not so,"
+     Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
+     But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
+     Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
+     The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
+     It came again, with a great wakening light,
+     And showed the names whom love of God had blest;
+     And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
+
+I have the honor to introduce Robert G. Ingersoll.
+
+MR. INGERSOLL'S SPEECH.
+
+Ladies and Gentlemen:
+
+We have met for the purpose of saying a few words about the recent
+decision of the Supreme Court, in which that tribunal has held the first
+and second sections of the Civil Rights Act to be unconstitutional; and
+so held in spite of the fact that for years the people of the North
+and South have, with singular unanimity, supposed the Act to be
+constitutional--supposed that it was upheld by the 13th and 14th
+Amendments,--and so supposed because they knew with certainty the
+intention of the framers of the amendments. They knew this intention,
+because they knew what the enemies of the amendments and the enemies of
+the Civil Rights Act claimed was the intention. And they also knew what
+the friends of the amendments and the law admitted the intention to
+be. The prejudices born of ignorance and of slavery had died or fallen
+asleep, and even the enemies of the amendments and the law had accepted
+the situation.
+
+But I shall speak of the decision as I feel, and in the same manner as I
+should speak even in the presence of the Court. You must remember that
+I am not attacking persons, but opinions--not motives, but reasons--not
+judges, but decisions.
+
+The Supreme Court has decided:
+
+1. That the first and second sections of the Civil Rights Act of March
+1, 1875, are unconstitutional, as applied to the States--not being
+authorized by the 13th and 14th Amendments.
+
+2. That the 14th Amendment is prohibitory upon the States only, and the
+legislation forbidden to be adopted by Congress for enforcing it, is
+not "direct" legislation, but "corrective,"--such as may be necessary
+or proper for counteracting and restraining the effect of laws or acts
+passed or done by the several States.
+
+3. That the 13th Amendment relates only to slavery and involuntary
+servitude, which it abolishes.
+
+4. That the 13th Amendment establishes universal freedom in the United
+States.
+
+5. That Congress may probably pass laws directly enforcing its
+provisions.
+
+6. That such legislative power in Congress extends only to the subject
+of slavery, and its incidents.
+
+7. That the denial of equal accommodations in inns, public conveyances
+and places of public amusement, imposes no badge of slavery or
+involuntary servitude upon the party, but at most infringes rights which
+are protected from State aggression by the 14th Amendment.
+
+8. The Court is uncertain whether the accommodations and privileges
+sought to be protected by the first and second sections of the Civil
+Rights Act are or are not rights constitutionally demandable,--and if
+they are, in what form they are to be protected.
+
+9. Neither does the Court decide whether the law, as it stands, is
+operative in the Territories and the District of Columbia.
+
+10. Neither does the Court decide whether Congress, under the commercial
+power, may or may not pass a law securing to all persons equal
+accommodations on lines of public conveyance between two or more States.
+
+11. The Court also holds, in the present case, that until some State law
+has been passed, or some State action through its officers or agents has
+been taken adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected
+by the 14th Amendment, no legislation of the United States under said
+amendment, or any proceeding under such legislation, can be called into
+activity, for the reason that the prohibitions of the amendment are
+against State laws and acts done under State authority. The essence of
+said decision being, that the managers and owners of inns, railways, and
+all public conveyances, of theatres and all places of public amusement,
+may discriminate on account of race, color, or previous condition of
+servitude, and that the citizen so discriminated against, is without
+redress.
+
+This decision takes from seven millions of people the shield of the
+Constitution. It leaves the best of the colored race at the mercy of
+the meanest of the white. It feeds fat the ancient grudge that vicious
+ignorance bears toward race and color. It will be approved and quoted
+by hundreds of thousands of unjust men. The masked wretches who, in the
+darkness of night, drag the poor negro from his cabin, and lacerate with
+whip and thong his quivering flesh, will, with bloody hands, applaud
+the Supreme Court. The men who, by mob violence, prevent the negro from
+depositing his ballot--who with gun and revolver drive him from the
+polls, and those who insult with vile and vulgar words the inoffensive
+colored girl, will welcome this decision with hyena joy. The basest will
+rejoice--the noblest will mourn.
+
+But even in the presence of this decision, we must remember that it is
+one of the necessities of government that there should be a court of
+last resort; and while all courts will more or less fail to do justice,
+still, the wit of man has, as yet, devised no better way. Even after
+reading this decision, we must take it for granted that the judges
+of the Supreme Court arrived at their conclusions honestly and in
+accordance with the best light they had. While they had the right to
+render the decision, every citizen has the right to give his opinion as
+to whether that decision is good or bad. Knowing that they are liable
+to be mistaken, and honestly mistaken, we should always be charitable
+enough to admit that others may be mistaken; and we may also take
+another step, and admit that we may be mistaken about their being
+mistaken. We must remember, too, that we have to make judges out of men,
+and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and
+their intelligence is not increased. No matter whether a man wears a
+crown or a robe or a rag. Under the emblem of power and the emblem
+of poverty, the man alike resides. The real thing is the man--the
+distinction often exists only in the clothes. Take away the crown--there
+is only a man. Remove the robe--there remains a man. Take away the rag,
+and we find at least a man.
+
+There was a time in this country when all bowed to a decision of the
+Supreme Court. It was unquestioned. It was regarded as "a voice from
+on high." The people heard and they obeyed. The Dred Scott decision
+destroyed that illusion forever. From that day to this the people have
+claimed the privilege of putting the decisions of the Supreme Court in
+the crucible of reason. These decisions are no longer exempt from honest
+criticism. While the decision remains, it is the law. No matter how
+absurd, no matter how erroneous, no matter how contrary to reason and
+justice, it remains the law. It must be overturned either by the Court
+itself (and the Court has overturned hundreds of its own decisions), or
+by legislative action, or by an amendment to the Constitution. We do not
+appeal to armed revolution. Our Government is so framed that it provides
+for what may be called perpetual peaceful revolution. For the redress
+of any grievance, for the purpose of righting any wrong, there is the
+perpetual remedy of an appeal to the people.
+
+We must remember, too, that judges keep their backs to the dawn. They
+find what has been, what is, but not what ought to be. They are tied and
+shackled by precedent, fettered by old decisions, and by the desire to
+be consistent, even in mistakes. They pass upon the acts and words of
+others, and like other people, they are liable to make mistakes. In
+the olden time we took what the doctors gave us, we believed what the
+preachers said; and accepted, without question, the judgments of the
+highest court. Now it is different. We ask the doctor what the medicine
+is, and what effect he expects it to produce. We cross-examine the
+minister, and we criticise the decision of the Chief-Justice. We do
+this, because we have found that some doctors do not kill, that some
+ministers are quite reasonable, and that some judges know something
+about law. In this country, the people are the sovereigns. All
+officers--including judges--are simply their servants, and the sovereign
+has always the right to give his opinion as to the action of his agent.
+The sovereignty of the people is the rock upon which rests the right of
+speech and the freedom of the press.
+
+Unfortunately for us, our fathers adopted the common law of England--a
+law poisoned by kingly prerogative--by every form of oppression, by the
+spirit of caste, and permeated, saturated, with the political heresy
+that the people received their rights, privileges and immunities from
+the crown. The thirteen original colonies received their laws, their
+forms, their ideas of justice, from the old world. All the judicial,
+legislative, and executive springs and sources had been touched and
+tainted.
+
+In the struggle with England, our fathers justified their rebellion
+by declaring that Nature had clothed all men with the right to life,
+liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The moment success crowned their
+efforts, they changed their noble declaration of equal rights for all,
+and basely interpolated the word "white." They adopted a Constitution
+that denied the Declaration of Independence--a Constitution that
+recognized and upheld slavery, protected the slave-trade, legalized
+piracy upon the high seas--that demoralized, degraded, and debauched
+the nation, and that at last reddened with brave blood the fields of the
+Republic.
+
+Our fathers planted the seeds of injustice, and we gathered the harvest.
+In the blood and flame of civil war, we retraced our fathers' steps. In
+the stress of war, we implored the aid of Liberty, and asked once more
+for the protection of Justice. We civilized the Constitution of our
+fathers. We adopted three Amendments--the 13th, 14th and 15th--the
+Trinity of Liberty.
+
+Let us examine these amendments:
+
+"Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment
+for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
+within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
+
+"Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
+legislation."
+
+Before the adoption of this amendment, the Constitution had always been
+construed to be the perfect shield of slavery. In order that slavery
+might be protected, the slave States were considered as sovereign.
+Freedom was regarded as a local prejudice, slavery as the ward of the
+Nation, the jewel of the Constitution. For three-quarters of a century,
+the Supreme Court of the United States exhausted judicial ingenuity in
+guarding, protecting and fostering that infamous institution. For the
+purpose of preserving that infinite outrage, words and phrases were
+warped, and stretched, and tortured, and thumbscrewed, and racked.
+Slavery was the one sacred thing, and the Supreme Court was its
+constitutional guardian.
+
+To show the faithfulness of that tribunal, I call your attention to the
+3d clause of the 2d section of the 4th article of the Constitution:
+
+"No person held to service or labor in any State under the laws thereof,
+escaping to another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
+therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be
+delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
+be due."
+
+The framers of the Constitution were ashamed to use the word "slave,"
+and thereupon they said "person." They were ashamed to use the word
+"slavery," and they evaded it by saying, "held to service or labor."
+They were ashamed to put in the word "master," so they called him "the
+party to whom service or labor may be due."
+
+How can a slave owe service? How can a slave owe labor? How could a
+slave make a contract? How could the master have a legal claim against
+a slave? And yet, the Supreme Court of the United States found no
+difficulty in upholding the Fugitive Slave Law by virtue of that clause.
+There were hundreds of decisions declaring that Congress had power to
+pass laws to carry that clause into effect, and it was carried into
+effect.
+
+You will observe the wording of this clause:
+
+"No person held to service or labor in any State under the laws thereof,
+escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
+therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be
+delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
+be due."
+
+To whom was this clause directed? To individuals or to States? It
+expressly provides that the "person" held to service or labor shall not
+be discharged from such service or labor in consequence of any law or
+regulation in the "State" to which he has fled. Did that law apply to
+States, or to individuals?
+
+The Supreme Court held that it applied to individuals as well as to
+States. Any "person," in any State, interfering with the master who
+was endeavoring to steal the person he called his slave, was liable
+to indictment, and hundreds and thousands were indicted, and hundreds
+languished in prisons because they were noble enough to hold in infinite
+contempt such infamous laws and such infamous decisions. The best men in
+the United States--the noblest spirits under the flag--were imprisoned
+because they were charitable, because they were just, because they
+showed the hunted slave the path to freedom, and taught him where to
+find amid the glittering host of heaven the blessed Northern Star.
+
+Every fugitive slave carried that clause with him when he entered a free
+State; carried it into every hiding place; and every Northern man was
+bound, by virtue of that clause, to act as the spy and hound of slavery.
+The Supreme Court, with infinite ease, made a club of that clause with
+which to strike down the liberty of the fugitive and the manhood of the
+North.
+
+In the Dred Scott decision it was solemnly decided that a man of African
+descent, whether a slave or not, was not, and could not be, a citizen
+of a State or of the United States. The Supreme Court held on the even
+tenor of its way, and in the Rebellion that tribunal was about the last
+fort to surrender.
+
+The moment the 13th Amendment was adopted, the slaves became freemen.
+The distinction between "white" and "colored" vanished. The negroes
+became as though they had never been slaves--as though they had always
+been free--as though they had been white. They became citizens--they
+became a part of "the people," and "the people" constituted the
+State, and it was the State thus constituted that was entitled to the
+constitutional guarantee of a republican government.
+
+These freed men became citizens--became a part of the State in which
+they lived.
+
+The highest and noblest definition of a State, in our Reports, was given
+by Justice Wilson, in the case of Chisholm, &c., vs. Georgia;
+
+"By a State, I mean a complete body of free persons, united for their
+common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice
+to others."
+
+Chief Justice Chase declared that:
+
+"The people, in whatever territory dwelling, whether temporarily or
+permanently, or whether organized under regular government, or united by
+less definite relations, constitute the State."
+
+Now, if the people, the moment the 13th Amendment was adopted were
+all free, and if these people constituted the State; if, under
+the Constitution of the United States, every State is guaranteed a
+republican government, then it is the duty of the General Government to
+see to it that every State has such a government. If distinctions are
+made between free men on account of race or color, the government is not
+republican. The manner in which this guarantee of a republican form of
+government is to be enforced or made good, must be left to the wisdom
+and discretion of Congress.
+
+The 13th Amendment not only destroyed, but it built. It destroyed the
+slave-pen, and on its site erected the temple of Liberty. It did not
+simply free slaves--it made citizens. It repealed every statute that
+upheld slavery. It erased from every Report every decision against
+freedom. It took the word "white" from every law, and blotted from the
+Constitution all clauses acknowledging property in man.
+
+If, then, all the people in each State, were, by virtue of the 13th
+Amendment, free, what right had a majority to enslave a minority? What
+right had a majority to make any distinctions between free men? What
+right had a majority to take from a minority any privilege, or any
+immunity, to which they were entitled as free men? What right had the
+majority to make that unequal which the Constitution made equal?
+
+Not satisfied with saying that slavery should not exist, we find in the
+amendment the words "nor involuntary servitude." This was intended to
+destroy every mark and badge of legal inferiority.
+
+Justice Field upon this very question, says:
+
+"It is, however, clear that the words 'involuntary servitude' include
+something more than slavery, in the strict sense of the term. They
+include also serfage, vassalage, villanage, peonage, and all other forms
+of compulsory service for the mere benefit or pleasure of others. Nor
+is this the full import of the term. The abolition of slavery and
+involuntary servitude was intended to make every one born in this
+country a free man, and as such to give him the right to pursue the
+ordinary avocations of life without other restraint than such as affects
+all others, and to enjoy equally with them the fruits of his labor.
+A person allowed to pursue only one trade or calling, and only in one
+locality of the country, would not be, in the strict sense of the term,
+in a condition of slavery, but probably no one would deny that he would
+be in a condition of servitude. He certainly would not possess the
+liberties, or enjoy the privileges of a freeman."
+
+Justice Field also quotes with approval the language of the counsel for
+the plaintiffs in the case:
+
+"Whenever a law of a State, or a law of the United States, makes a
+discrimination between classes of persons which deprives the one class
+of their freedom or their property, or which makes a caste of them, to
+subserve the power, pride, avarice, vanity or vengeance of others--there
+involuntary servitude exists within the meaning of the 13th Amendment."
+
+To show that the framers of the 13th Amendment intended to blot out
+every form of slavery and servitude, I call attention to the Civil
+Rights Act, approved April 9, 1866, which provided, among other things,
+that:
+
+"All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign
+power--excluding Indians not taxed--are citizens of the United States;
+and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any
+previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, are entitled to
+the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security
+of person and property enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject
+to like punishments, pains and penalties--and to none other--any
+law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to the contrary
+notwithstanding; and they shall have the same rights in every State and
+Territory of the United States as white persons."
+
+The Supreme Court, in _The Slaughter-House Cases,_ (16 Wallace, 69) has
+said that the word servitude has a larger meaning than the word slavery.
+"The word 'servitude' implies subjection to the will of another contrary
+to the common right." A man is in a state of involuntary servitude when
+he is forced to do, or prevented from doing, a thing, not by the law of
+the State, but by the simple will of another. He who enjoys less than
+the common rights of a citizen, he who can be forced from the public
+highway at the will of another, who can be denied entrance to the cars
+of a common carrier, is in a state of servitude.
+
+The 13th Amendment did away with slavery not only, and with involuntary
+servitude, but with every badge and brand and stain and mark of slavery.
+It abolished forever distinctions on account of race and color.
+
+In the language of the Supreme Court:
+
+"It was the obvious purpose of the 13th Amendment to forbid all shades
+and conditions of African slavery."
+
+And to that I add, it was the obvious purpose of that amendment to
+forbid all shades and conditions of slavery, no matter of what sort or
+kind--all marks of legal inferiority. Each citizen was to be absolutely
+free. All his rights complete, whole, unmaimed and unabridged.
+
+From the moment of the adoption of that amendment, the law became
+color-blind. All distinctions on account of complexion vanished. It took
+the whip from the hand of the white man, and put the nation's flag above
+the negro's hut. It gave horizon, scope and dome to the lowest life. It
+stretched a sky studded with stars of hope above the humblest head.
+
+The Supreme Court has admitted, in the very case we are now discussing,
+that:
+
+"Under the 13th Amendment the legislation meaning the legislation of
+Congress--so far as necessary or proper to eradicate all forms and
+incidents of slavery and involuntary servitude, may be direct and
+primary, operating upon the acts of individuals, whether sanctioned by
+State legislation or not."
+
+Here we have the authority for dealing with individuals.
+
+The only question then remaining is, whether an individual, being the
+keeper of a public inn, or the agent of a railway corporation,
+created by a State, can be held responsible in a Federal Court for
+discriminating against a citizen of the United States on account of
+race, color, or previous condition of servitude. If such discrimination
+is a badge of slavery, or places the party discriminated against in a
+condition of involuntary servitude, then the Civil Rights Act may be
+upheld by the 13th Amendment.
+
+In The United Slates vs. Harris, 106 U. S., 640, the Supreme Court says:
+
+"It is clear that the 13th Amendment, besides abolishing forever slavery
+and involuntary servitude within the United States, gives power to
+Congress to protect all citizens from being in any way subjected to
+slavery or involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime,
+and in the enjoyment of that freedom which it was the object of the
+amendment to secure."
+
+This declaration covers the entire case.
+
+I agree with Justice Field:
+
+"The 13th Amendment is not confined to African slavery. It is general
+and universal in its application--prohibiting the slavery of white men
+as well as black men, and not prohibiting mere slavery in the strict
+sense of the term, but involuntary servitude in every form." 16 Wallace,
+90.
+
+The 13th Amendment declares that neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude shall exist. Who must see to it that this declaration is
+carried out? There can be but one answer. It is the duty of Congress.
+
+At last the question narrows itself to this: Is a citizen of the United
+States, when denied admission to public inns, railway cars and
+theatres, on account of his race or color, in a condition of involuntary
+servitude? If he is, then he is under the immediate protection of the
+General Government, by virtue of the 13th Amendment; and the Civil
+Rights Act is clearly constitutional.
+
+If excluded from one inn, he may be from all; if from one car, why not
+from all? The man who depends for the preservation of his privileges
+upon a conductor, instead of the Constitution, is in a condition of
+involuntary servitude. He who depends for his rights--not upon the
+laws of the land, but upon a landlord, is in a condition of involuntary
+servitude.
+
+The framers of the 13th Amendment knew that the negro would be
+persecuted on account of his race and color--knew that many of the
+States could not be trusted to protect the rights of the colored man;
+and for that reason, the General Government was clothed with power to
+protect the colored people from all forms of slavery and involuntary
+servitude.
+
+Of what use are the declarations in the Constitution that slavery and
+involuntary servitude shall not exist, and that all persons born or
+naturalized in the United States shall be citizens--not only of the
+United States, but of the States in which they reside--if, behind
+these declarations, there is no power to act--no duty for the General
+Government to discharge?
+
+Notwithstanding the 13th Amendment had been adopted--notwithstanding
+slavery and involuntary servitude had been legally destroyed--it was
+found that the negro was still the helpless victim of the white man.
+Another amendment was needed; and all the Justices of the Supreme Court
+have told us why the 14th Amendment was adopted.
+
+Justice Miller, speaking for the entire court, tells us that:
+
+"In the struggle of the civil war, slavery perished, and perished as a
+necessity of the bitterness and force of the conflict."
+
+That:
+
+"When the armies of freedom found themselves on the soil of slavery,
+they could do nothing else than free the victims whose enforced
+servitude was the foundation of the war."
+
+He also admits that:
+
+"When hard pressed in the contest, the colored men (for they proved
+themselves men in that terrible crisis) offered their services, and were
+accepted, by thousands, to aid in suppressing the unlawful rebellion."
+
+He also informs us that:
+
+"Notwithstanding the fact that the Southern States had formerly
+recognized the abolition of slavery, the condition of the slave, without
+further protection of the Federal Government, was almost as bad as it
+had been before."
+
+And he declares that:
+
+"The Southern States imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities
+and burdens--curtailed their rights in the pursuit of liberty and
+property, to such an extent that their freedom was of little value,
+while the colored people had lost the protection which they had received
+from their former owners from motives of interest."
+
+And that:
+
+"The colored people in some States were forbidden to appear in the towns
+in any other character than that of menial servants--that they were
+required to reside on the soil without the right to purchase or
+own it--that they were excluded from many occupations of gain and
+profit--that they were not permitted to give testimony in the courts
+where white men were on trial--and it was said that their lives were
+at the mercy of bad men, either because laws for their protection were
+insufficient, or were not enforced."
+
+We are informed by the Supreme Court that, "under these circumstances,"
+the proposition for the 14th Amendment was passed through Congress, and
+that Congress declined to treat as restored to full participation in
+the Government of the Union, the States which had been in insurrection,
+until they ratified that article by a formal vote of their legislative
+bodies.
+
+Thus it will be seen that the rebel States were restored to the Union
+by adopting the 14th Amendment. In order to become equal members of the
+Federal Union, these States solemnly agreed to carry out the provisions
+of that amendment.
+
+The 14th Amendment provides that:
+
+"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
+the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the
+State wherein they reside."
+
+That is affirmative in its character. That affirmation imposes
+the obligation upon the General Government to protect its citizens
+everywhere. That affirmation clothes the Federal Government with power
+to protect its citizens. Under that clause, the Federal arm can reach to
+the boundary of the Republic, for the purpose of protecting the weakest
+citizen from the tyranny of citizens or States. That clause is a
+contract between the Government and every man--a contract wherein the
+citizen promises allegiance, and the nation promises protection.
+
+By this clause, the Federal Government adopted all the citizens of all
+the States and Territories, including the District of Columbia, and
+placed them under the shield of the Constitution--made each one a ward
+of the Republic.
+
+Under this contract, the Government is under direct obligation to the
+citizen. The Government cannot shirk its responsibility by leaving
+a citizen to be protected in his rights, as a citizen of the United
+States, by a State. The obligation of protection is direct. The
+obligation on the part of the citizen to the Government is direct. The
+citizen cannot be untrue to the Government because his State is, The
+action of the State under the 14th Amendment is no excuse for the
+citizen. He must be true to the Government. In war, the Government has a
+right to his service. In peace, he has the right to be protected.
+
+If the citizen must depend upon the State, then he owes the first
+allegiance to that government or power that is under obligation to
+protect him. Then, if a State secedes from the Union, the citizen should
+go with the State--should go with the power that protects.
+
+That is not my doctrine. My doctrine is this: The first duty of the
+General Government is to protect each citizen. The first duty of each
+citizen is to be true--not to his State, but to the Republic.
+
+This clause of the 14th Amendment made us all citizens of the United
+States--all children of the Republic. Under this decision, the Republic
+refuses to acknowledge her children. Under this decision of the Supreme
+Court, they are left upon the doorsteps of the States. Citizens are
+changed to foundlings.
+
+If the 14th Amendment created citizens of the United States, the power
+that created must define the rights of the citizens thus created, and
+must provide a remedy where such rights are infringed. The Federal
+Government speaks through its representatives--through Congress;
+and Congress, by the Civil Rights Act, defined some of the rights,
+privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States--and
+Congress provided a remedy when such rights and privileges were invaded,
+and gave jurisdiction to the Federal courts.
+
+No State, or the department of any State, can authoritatively define
+the rights, privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States.
+These rights and immunities must be defined by the United States, and
+when so defined, they cannot be abridged by State authority.
+
+In the case of Bartemeyer vs. Iowa, 18 Wall., p. 140, Justice Field, in
+a concurring opinion, speaking of the 14th Amendment, says:
+
+"It grew out of the feeling that a nation which had been maintained by
+such costly sacrifices was, after all, worthless, if a citizen could not
+be protected in all his fundamental rights, everywhere--North and South,
+East and West--throughout the limits of the Republic. The amendment
+was not, as held in the opinion of the majority, primarily intended to
+confer citizenship on the negro race. It had a much broader purpose.
+It was intended to justify legislation extending the protection of the
+National Government over the common rights of all citizens of the United
+States, and thus obviate objection to the legislation adopted for the
+protection of the emancipated race. It was intended to make it possible
+for all persons--which necessarily included those of every race and
+color--to live in peace and security wherever the jurisdiction of
+the nation reached. It therefore recognized, if it did not create,
+a national citizenship. This national citizenship is primary and not
+secondary.".
+
+I cannot refrain from calling attention to the splendor and nobility of
+the truths expressed by Justice Field in this opinion.
+
+So, Justice Field, in his dissenting opinion in what are known as _The
+Slaughter-House Cases_, found in 16 Wallace, p. 95, still speaking of
+the 14th Amendment, says:
+
+"It recognizes in express terms--if it does not create--citizens of the
+United States, and it makes their citizenship dependent upon the
+place of their birth or the fact of their adoption, and not upon the
+constitution or laws of any State, or the condition of their ancestry.
+
+"A citizen of a State is now only a citizen of the United States residing
+in that State. The fundamental rights, privileges and immunities which
+belong to him as a free man and a free citizen of the United States, are
+not dependent upon the citizenship of any State. * * *
+
+"They do not derive their existence from its legislation, and cannot be
+destroyed by its power."
+
+What are "the fundamental rights, privileges and immunities" which
+belong to a free man? Certainly the rights of all citizens of the United
+States are equal. Their immunities and privileges must be the same.
+He who makes a discrimination between citizens on account of color,
+violates the Constitution of the United States.
+
+Have all citizens the same right to travel on the highways of the
+country? Have they all the same right to ride upon the railways created
+by State authority? A railway is an improved highway. It was only by
+holding that it was an improved highway that counties and States aided
+in their construction. It has been decided, over and over again, that a
+railway is an improved highway. A railway corporation is the creation
+of a State--an agent of the State. It is under the control of the
+State--and upon what principle can a citizen be prevented from using the
+highways of a State on an equality with all other citizens?
+
+These are all rights and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution of
+the United States.
+
+Now, the question is--and it is the only question--can these rights
+and immunities, thus guaranteed and thus confirmed, be protected by the
+General Government?
+
+In the case of _The U. S. vs. Reese, et al._, 92 U. S., p. 207,
+the Supreme Court decided, the opinion having been delivered by
+Chief-Justice Waite, as follows:
+
+"Rights and immunities created by, and dependent upon, the Constitution
+of the United States can be protected by Congress. The form and the
+manner of the protection may be such as Congress in the legitimate
+exercise of its legislative discretion shall provide. This may be varied
+to meet the necessities of the particular right to be protected."
+
+This decision was acquiesced in by Justices Strong, Bradley, Swayne,
+Davis, Miller and Field. Dissenting opinions were filed by Justices
+Clifford and Hunt, but neither dissented from the proposition that:
+
+"Rights and immunities created by or dependent upon the Constitution of
+the United States can be protected by Congress," and that "the form and
+manner of the protection may be such as Congress in the exercise of its
+legitimate discretion shall provide."
+
+So, in the same case, I find this language:
+
+"It follows that the Amendment"--meaning the 15th--"has invested the
+citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right, which
+is within the protecting power of Congress. This, under the express
+provisions of the second section of the Amendment, Congress may enforce
+by appropriate legislation."
+
+If the 15th Amendment invested the citizens of the United States with
+a new constitutional right--that is, the right to vote--and if for that
+reason that right is within the protecting power of Congress, then I
+ask, if the 14th Amendment made certain persons citizens of the United
+States, did such citizenship become a constitutional right? And is such
+citizenship within the protecting power of Congress? Does citizenship
+mean anything except certain "rights, privileges and immunities"?
+
+Is it not an invasion of citizenship to invade the immunities or
+privileges or rights belonging to a citizen? Are not, then, all the
+immunities and privileges and rights under the protecting power of
+Congress?
+
+The 13th Amendment found the negro a slave, and made him a free man.
+That gave to him a new constitutional right, and according to the
+Supreme Court, that right is within the protecting power of Congress.
+
+What rights are within the protecting power of Congress? All the rights
+belonging to a free man.
+
+The 14th Amendment made the negro a citizen. What then is under the
+protecting power of Congress? All the rights, privileges and immunities
+belonging to him as a citizen.
+
+So, in the case of _Tennessee vs, Davis_, 100 U, S,, 263, the Supreme
+Court, held that:
+
+"The United States is a government whose authority extends over the
+whole territory of the Union, acting upon all the States, and upon all
+the people of all the States.
+
+"No State can exclude the Federal Government from the exercise of any
+authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, or withhold from it
+for a moment the cognizance of any subject which the Constitution has
+committed to it."
+
+This opinion was given by Justice Strong, and acquiesced in by
+Chief-Justice Waite, Justices Miller, Swayne, Bradley and Harlan.
+
+So in the case of _Pensacola Tel. Co. vs. Western Union Tel. Co_., 96 U.
+S., p. 10, the opinion having been delivered by Chief-Justice Waite, I
+find this:
+
+"The Government of the United States, within the scope of its power,
+operates upon every foot of territory under its jurisdiction. It
+legislates for the whole Nation, and is not embarrassed by State lines."
+
+This was acquiesced in by Justices Clifford, Strong, Bradley, Swayne and
+Miller.
+
+So we are told by the entire Supreme Court in the case of _Tiernan vs.
+Rynker_, 102 U. S., 126, that:
+
+"When the subject to which the power applies is national in its
+character, or of such a nature as to admit of uniformity of regulation,
+the power is exclusive of State authority."
+
+Surely the question of citizenship is "national in its character."
+Surely the question as to what are the rights, privileges and immunities
+of a citizen of the United States is "national in its character."
+
+Unless the declarations and definitions, the patriotic paragraphs, and
+the legal principles made, given, uttered and defined by the Supreme
+Court are but a judicial jugglery of words, the Civil Rights Act is
+upheld by the intent, spirit and language of the 14th Amendment.
+
+It was found that the 13th Amendment did not protect the negro. Then the
+14th was adopted. Still the colored citizen was trodden under foot. Then
+the 15th was adopted. The 13th made him free, and, in my judgment, made
+him a citizen, and clothed him with all the rights of a citizen. That
+was denied, and then the 14th declared that he was a citizen. In my
+judgment, that gave him the right to vote. But that was denied--then
+the 15th was adopted, declaring that his right to vote should never be
+denied.
+
+The 13th Amendment made all free. It broke the chains, pulled up the
+whipping-posts, overturned the auction-blocks, gave the colored mother
+her child, put the shield of the Constitution over the cradle, destroyed
+all forms of involuntary servitude, and in the azure heaven of our flag
+it put the Northern Star.
+
+The 14th Amendment made us all citizens. It is a contract between the
+Republic and each individual--a contract by which the Nation agrees to
+protect the citizen, and the citizen agrees to defend the Nation. This
+amendment placed the crown of sovereignty on every brow.
+
+The 15th Amendment secured the citizen in his right to vote, in his
+right to make and execute the laws, and put these rights above the
+power of any State. This amendment placed the ballot--the sceptre of
+authority--in every sovereign hand.
+
+We are told by the Supreme Court, in the case under discussion, that:
+
+"We must not forget that the province and scope of the 13th and 14th
+Amendments are different;" that the 13th Amendment "simply abolished
+slavery," and that the 14th Amendment "prohibited the States from
+abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United
+States; from depriving them of life, liberty or property, without due
+process of law; and from denying to any the equal protection of the
+laws."
+
+We are told that:
+
+"The amendments are different, and the powers of Congress under them are
+different. What Congress has power to do under one it may not have power
+to do under the other." That "under the 13th Amendment it has only to do
+with slavery and its incidents;" but that "under the 14th Amendment
+it has power to counteract and render nugatory all State laws or
+proceedings which have the effect to abridge any of the privileges or
+immunities of the citizens of the United States, or to deprive them of
+life, liberty or property, without due process of law, or to deny to any
+of them the equal protection of the laws."
+
+Did not Congress have that power under the 13th Amendment? Could the
+States, in spite of the 13th Amendment, deprive free men of life or
+property without due process of law? Does the Supreme Court wish to be
+understood, that until the 14th Amendment was adopted the States had
+the right to rob and kill free men? Yet, in its effort to narrow and
+belittle the 13th Amendment, it has been driven to this absurdity. Did
+not Congress, under the 13th Amendment, have power to destroy slavery
+and involuntary servitude? Did not Congress, under that amendment, have
+the power to protect the lives, liberty and property of free men? And
+did not Congress have the power "to render nugatory all State laws and
+proceedings under which free men were to be deprived of life, liberty or
+property, without due process of law"?
+
+If Congress was not clothed with such power by the 13th Amendment, what
+was the object of that amendment? Was that amendment a mere opinion, or
+a prophecy, or the expression of a hope?
+
+The 14th Amendment provides that:
+
+"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
+process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
+protection of its laws."
+
+We are told by the Supreme Court that Congress has no right to enforce
+the 14th Amendment by direct legislation, but that the legislation under
+that amendment can only be of a "corrective" character--such as may
+be necessary or proper for counteracting and redressing the effect
+of unconstitutional laws passed by the States. In other words, that
+Congress has no duty to perform, except to counteract the effect of
+unconstitutional laws by corrective legislation.
+
+The Supreme Court has also decided, in the present case, that Congress
+has no right to legislate for the purpose of enforcing these clauses
+until the States shall have taken action. What action can the State
+take? If a State passes laws contrary to these provisions or clauses,
+they are void. If a State passes laws in conformity to these
+provisions, certainly Congress is not called on to legislate. Under
+what circumstances, then, can Congress be called upon to act by way
+of "corrective" legislation, as to these particular clauses? What can
+Congress do? Suppose the State passes no law upon the subject, but
+allows citizens of the State--managers of railways, and keepers of
+public inns, to discriminate between their passengers and guests on
+account of race or color--what then?
+
+Again, what is the difference between a State that has no law on the
+subject, and a State that has passed an unconstitutional law? In other
+words, what is the difference between no law and a void law? If the
+"corrective" legislation of Congress is not needed where the State has
+passed an unconstitutional law, is it needed where the State has passed
+no law? What is there in either case to correct? Surely it requires no
+particular legislation on the part of Congress to kill a law that never
+had life.
+
+The States are prohibited by the Constitution from making any
+regulations of foreign commerce. Consequently, all regulations made by
+the States are null and void, no matter what the motive of the States
+may have been, and it requires no law of Congress to annul such laws or
+regulations. This was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States,
+long ago, in what are known as _The License Cases_. The opinion may be
+found in the 5th of Howard, 583.
+
+"The nullity of any act inconsistent with the Constitution, is produced
+by the declaration that the Constitution is supreme."
+
+This was decided by the Supreme Court, the opinion having been delivered
+by Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of _Gibbons vs. Ogden_, 9 Wheat,
+210.
+
+The same doctrine was held in the case of _Henderson et al., vs. Mayor
+of New York, et al._, 92 U. S. 272--the opinion of the Court being
+delivered by Justice Miller.
+
+So it was held in the case of _The Board of Liquidation vs. McComb_--2
+Otto, 541.
+
+"That an unconstitutional law will be treated by the courts as null and
+void"--citing _Osborn vs. The Bank of the United States_, 9 Wheaton,
+859, and _Davis vs. Gray_, 16 Wallace, 220.
+
+Now, if the legislation of Congress must be "corrective," then I ask,
+corrective of what? Certainly not of unconstitutional and void laws.
+That which is void, cannot be corrected. That which is unconstitutional
+is not the subject of correction. Congress either has the right to
+legislate directly, or not at all; because indirect or corrective
+legislation can apply only, according to the Supreme Court, to
+unconstitutional and void laws that have been passed by a Stale; and
+as such laws cannot be "corrected," the doctrine of "corrective
+legislation" dies an extremely natural death.
+
+A State can do one of three things: 1. It can pass an unconstitutional
+law; 2. It can pass a constitutional law; 3. It can fail to pass any
+law. The unconstitutional law, being void, cannot be corrected. The
+constitutional law does not need correction. And where no law has been
+passed, correction is impossible.
+
+The Supreme Court insists that Congress can not take action until the
+State does. A State that fails to pass any law on the subject, has not
+taken action. This leaves the person whose immunities and privileges
+have been invaded, with no redress except such as he may find in the
+State Courts in a suit at law; and if the State Court takes the
+same view that is apparently taken by the Supreme Court in this
+case,--namely, that it is a "social question," one not to be regulated
+by law, and not covered in any way by the Constitution--then,
+discrimination can be made against citizens by landlords and railway
+conductors, and they are left absolutely without remedy.
+
+The Supreme Court asks, in this decision,
+
+"Can the act of a mere individual--the owner of the inn, or public
+conveyance, or place of amusement, refusing the accommodation, be
+justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon
+the applicant, or only as inflicting an ordinary civil injury properly
+cognizable by the laws of the State, and presumably subject to redress
+by those laws, until the contrary appears?"
+
+How is "the contrary to appear"? Suppose a person denied equal
+privileges upon the railway on account of race and color, brings suit
+and is defeated? And suppose the highest tribunal of the State holds
+that the question is of a "social" character--what then? If, to use the
+language of the Supreme Court, it is "an ordinary civil injury,
+imposing no badge of slavery or servitude," then, no Federal question is
+involved.
+
+Why did not the Supreme Court tell us what may be done when "the
+contrary appears"? Nothing is clearer than the intention of the Supreme
+Court in this case--and that is, to decide that denying to a man equal
+accommodations at public inns on account of race or color, is not an
+abridgment of a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States,
+and that such person, so denied, is not in a condition of involuntary
+servitude, or denied the equal protection of the laws. In other
+words--that it is a "social question."
+
+I have been told by one who heard the decision when it was read from the
+bench, that the following phrase was in the opinion:
+
+"_There are certain physiological differences of race that cannot be
+ignored_."
+
+That phrase is a lamp, in the light of which the whole decision should
+be read.
+
+Suppose that in one of the Southern States, the negroes being in a
+decided majority and having entire control, had drawn the color line,
+had insisted that:
+
+"There were certain physiological differences between the races that
+could not be ignored," and had refused to allow white people to enter
+their hotels, to ride in the best cars, or to occupy the aristocratic
+portion of a theatre; and suppose that a white man, thrust from the
+hotels, denied the entrance to cars, had brought his suit in the Federal
+Court. Does any one believe that the Supreme Court would have intimated
+to that man that "there is only a social question involved,--a question
+with which the Constitution and laws have nothing to do, and that he
+must depend for his remedy upon the authors of the injury"? Would a
+white man, under such circumstances, feel that he was in a condition of
+involuntary servitude? Would he feel that he was treated like an
+underling, like a menial, like a serf? Would he feel that he was under
+the protection of the laws, shielded like other men by the Constitution?
+Of course, the argument of color is just as strong on one side as on the
+other. The white man says to the black, "You are not my equal because
+you are black;" and the black man can with the same propriety, reply,
+"You are not my equal because you are white." The difference is just as
+great in the one case as in the other. The pretext that this question
+involves, in the remotest degree, a social question, is cruel, shallow,
+and absurd.
+
+The Supreme Court, some time ago, held that the 4th Section of the Civil
+Rights Act was constitutional. That section declares that:
+
+"No citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or maybe
+prescribed by law, shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit
+juror in any court of the United States or of any State, on account of
+color or previous condition of servitude."
+
+It also provides that:
+
+"If any officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection
+or summoning of jurors, shall exclude, or fail to summon, any citizen
+in the case aforesaid, he shall, on conviction, be guilty of misdemeanor
+and be fined not more than five hundred dollars."
+
+In the case known as _Ex-parte vs. Virginia_--found in 100 U. S. 339--it
+was held that an indictment against a State officer, under this section,
+for excluding persons of color from the jury, could be sustained. Now,
+let it be remembered, there was no law of the State of Virginia, by
+virtue of which a man was disqualified from sitting on the jury by
+reason of race or color. The officer did exclude, and did fail to
+summon, a citizen on account of race or color or previous condition of
+servitude. And the Supreme Court held:
+
+"That whether the Statute-book of the State actually laid down any
+such rule of disqualification or not, the State, through its officer,
+enforced such rule; and that it was against such State action, through
+its officers and agents, that the last clause of the section was
+directed."
+
+The Court further held that:
+
+"This aspect of the law was deemed sufficient to divest it of any
+unconstitutional character."
+
+In other words, the Supreme Court held that the officer was an agent
+of the State, although acting contrary to the statute of the State; and
+that, consequently, such officer, acting outside of law, was amenable
+to the Civil Rights Act, under the 14th Amendment, that referred only
+to States. The question arises: Is a State responsible for the action of
+its agent when acting contrary to law? In other words: Is the principal
+bound by the acts of his agent, that act not being within the scope of
+his authority? Is a State liable--or is the Government liable--for the
+act of any officer, that act not being authorized by law?
+
+It has been decided a thousand times, that a State is not liable for
+the torts and trespasses of its officers. How then can the agent, acting
+outside of his authority, be prosecuted under a law deriving its entire
+validity from a constitutional amendment applying only to States? Does
+an officer, by acting contrary to State law, become so like a State that
+the word State, used in the Constitution, includes him?
+
+So it was held in the case of _Neal vs. Delaware_,--103 U. S.,
+307,--that an officer acting contrary to the laws of the State--in
+defiance of those laws--would be amenable to the Civil Rights Act,
+passed under an amendment to the Constitution now held applicable only
+to States.
+
+It is admitted, and expressly decided in the case of _The U. S. vs.
+Reese et al._, (already quoted) that when the wrongful refusal at an
+election is because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,
+Congress can interfere and provide for the punishment of any individual
+guilty of such refusal, no matter whether such individual acted under or
+against the authority of the State.
+
+With this statement I most heartily agree. I agree that:
+
+"When the wrongful refusal is because of race, color, or previous
+condition of servitude, Congress can interfere and provide for the
+punishment of any individual guilty of such refusal."
+
+That is the key that unlocks the whole question. Congress has
+power--full, complete, and ample,--to protect all citizens from unjust
+discrimination, and from being deprived of equal privileges on account
+of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. And this language is
+just as applicable to the 13th and 14th, as to the 15th Amendment. If
+a citizen is denied the accommodations of a public inn, or a seat in
+a railway car, on account of race or color, or deprived of liberty on
+account of race or color, the Constitution has been violated, and the
+citizen thus discriminated against or thus deprived of liberty, is
+entitled to redress in a Federal Court.
+
+It is held by the Supreme Court that the word "State" does not apply
+to the "people" of the State--that it applies only to the agents of
+the people of the State. And yet, the word "State," as used in the
+Constitution, has been held to include not only the persons in
+office, but the people who elected them--not only the agents, but the
+principals. In the Constitution it is provided that "no State shall
+coin money; and no State shall emit bills of credit." According to this
+decision, any person in any State, unless prevented by State authority,
+has the right to coin money and to emit bills of credit, and Congress
+has no power to legislate upon the subject--provided he does not
+counterfeit any of the coins or current money of the United States.
+Congress would have to deal--not with the individuals, but with the
+State; and unless the State had passed some act allowing persons to coin
+money, or emit bills of credit, Congress could do nothing. Yet, long
+ago, Congress passed a statute preventing any person in any State from
+coining money. No matter if a citizen should coin it of pure gold, of
+the requisite fineness and weight, and not in the likeness of United
+States coins, he would be a criminal. We have a silver dollar, coined by
+the Government, worth eighty-five cents; and yet, if any person, in any
+State, should coin what he called a dollar, not like our money, but with
+a dollar's worth of silver in it, he would be guilty of a crime.
+
+It may be said that the Constitution provides that Congress shall have
+power to coin money, and provide for the punishment of counterfeiting
+the securities and current coin of the United States; in other words,
+that the Constitution gives power to Congress to coin money and denies
+it to the States, not only, but gives Congress the power to legislate
+against counterfeiting. So, in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments,
+power is given to Congress, and power is denied to the States, not
+only, but Congress is expressly authorized to enforce the amendments by
+appropriate legislation. Certainly the power is as broad in the one case
+as in the other; and in both cases, individuals can be reached as well
+as States.
+
+So the Constitution provides that:
+
+"Congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several
+States."
+
+Under this clause Congress deals directly with individuals. The States
+are not engaged in commerce, but the people are; and Congress makes
+rules and regulations for the government of the people so engaged.
+
+The Constitution also provides that:
+
+"Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes."
+
+It was held in the case of _The United States vs. Holliday_, 3 Wall.,
+407, that:
+
+"Commerce with the Indian tribes means commerce with the individuals
+composing those tribes."
+
+And under this clause it has been further decided that Congress has
+the power to regulate commerce not only between white people and Indian
+tribes, but between Indian tribes; and not only that, but between
+individual Indians. _Worcester vs. The State, 6 Pet., 575; The United
+States vs. 4.3 Gallons, 93 U. S., 188; The United States vs. Shawmux, 2
+Saw., 304._
+
+Now, if the word "tribe" includes individual Indians, may not the word
+"State" include citizens?
+
+In this decision it is admitted by the Supreme Court that where a
+subject is submitted to the general legislative power of Congress, then
+Congress has plenary powers of legislation over the whole subject. Let
+us apply these words to the 13th Amendment. In this very decision I find
+that the 13th Amendment:
+
+"By its own unaided force and effect, abolished slavery and established
+universal freedom."
+
+The Court admits that:
+
+"Legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various cases
+and circumstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of
+redress for its violation in letter or spirit."
+
+The Court further admits:
+
+"And such legislation may be primary and direct in its character."
+
+And then gives the reason:
+
+"For the amendment is not a mere prohibition of State laws establishing
+or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or
+involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States."
+
+I now ask, has that subject--that is to say, Liberty,--been submitted to
+the general legislative power of Congress? The 13th Amendment provides
+that Congress shall have power to enforce that amendment by appropriate
+legislation.
+
+In construing the 13th and 14th Amendments and the Civil Rights Act,
+it seems to me that the Supreme Court has forgotten the principle of
+construction that has been laid down so often by courts, and that is
+this: that in construing statutes, courts may look to the history and
+condition of the country as circumstances from which to gather the
+intention of the Legislature. So it seems to me that the Court failed
+to remember the rule laid down by Story in the case of _Prigg vs. The
+Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,_ 16 Pet., 611, a rule laid down in the
+interest of slavery--laid down for the purpose of depriving human beings
+of their liberty:
+
+"Perhaps the safest rule of interpretation, after all, will be found to
+be to look to the nature and objects of the particular powers, duties
+and rights with all the lights and aids of contemporary history, and to
+give to the words of each just such operation and force consistent
+with their legitimate meaning, as may fairly secure and attain the ends
+proposed."
+
+It must be admitted that certain rights were conferred by the 13th
+Amendment. Surely certain rights were conferred by the 14th Amendment;
+and these rights should be protected and upheld by the Federal
+Government. And it was held in the case last cited, that:
+
+"If by one mode of interpretation the right must become shadowy and
+unsubstantial, and without any remedial power adequate to the end, and
+by another mode it will attain its just end and secure its manifest
+purpose--it would seem, upon principles of reasoning absolutely
+irresistable, that the latter ought to prevail. No court of justice can
+be authorized so as to construe any clauses of the Constitution as to
+defeat its obvious ends, when another construction, equally accordant
+with the words and sense thereof, will enforce and protect them."
+
+In the present case, the Supreme Court holds, that Congress can not
+legislate upon this subject until the State has passed some law contrary
+to the Constitution.
+
+I call attention in reply to this, to the case of _Hall vs. De Cuir,_
+95 U. S., 486. The State of Louisiana, in 1869, acting in the spirit of
+these amendments to the Constitution, passed a law requiring that all
+persons engaged within that State in the business of common carriers of
+passengers, should make no discrimination on account of race, color, or
+previous condition of servitude. Under this law, Mrs. De Cuir, a colored
+woman, took passage on a steamer, buying a ticket from New Orleans to
+Hermitage--the entire trip being within the limits of the State. The
+captain of the boat refused to give her equal accommodations with other
+passengers--the refusal being on the ground of her color. She commenced
+suit against the captain in the State Court of Louisiana, and recovered
+judgment for one thousand dollars. The defendant appealed to the Supreme
+Court of that State, and the judgment of the lower court was sustained.
+Thereupon, the captain died, and the case was taken to the Supreme Court
+of the United States by his administrator, on the ground that a Federal
+question was involved.
+
+You will see that this was a case where the State had acted, and had
+acted exactly in accordance with the constitutional amendments, and had
+by law provided that the privileges and immunities of the citizen of
+the United States--residing in the State of Louisiana--should not be
+abridged, and that no distinction should be made on account of race or
+color. But in that case the Supreme Court of the United States solemnly
+decided that the legislation of the State was void--that the State of
+Louisiana had no right to interfere--no right, by law, to protect a
+citizen of the United States from being discriminated against under such
+circumstances.
+
+You will remember that the plaintiff, Mrs. De Cuir, was to be carried
+from New Orleans to Hermitage, and that both places were within the
+State of Louisiana. Notwithstanding this, the Supreme Court held:
+
+"That if the public good required such legislation, it must come from
+Congress and not from the State."
+
+What reason do you suppose was given? It was this: The Constitution
+gives to Congress power to regulate commerce between the States; and
+it appeared from the evidence given in that case, that the boat plied
+between the ports of New Orleans and Vicksburg. Consequently, it was
+engaged in interstate commerce. Therefore, it was under the protection
+of Congress; and being under the protection of Congress, the State had
+no authority to protect its citizens by a law in perfect harmony with
+the Constitution of the United States, while such citizens were within
+the limits of Louisiana. The Supreme Court scorns the protection of a
+State!
+
+In the case recently decided, and about which we are talking to-night,
+the Supreme Court decides exactly the other way. It decides that if the
+public good requires such legislation, it must come from the States, and
+not from Congress; that Congress cannot act until the State has acted,
+and until the State has acted wrong, and that Congress can then only act
+for the purpose of "correcting" such State action. The decision in _Hall
+vs. De Cuir_ was rendered in 1877. The Civil Rights Act was then in
+force, and applied to all persons within the jurisdiction of the United
+States, and provided expressly that:
+
+"All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall
+be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations,
+privileges, and facilities of inns, public conveyances on land or water,
+theatres, and other places of public amusement, without regard to race
+or color."
+
+And yet the Supreme Court said:
+
+"No carrier of passengers can conduct his business with satisfaction to
+himself, or comfort to those employing him, if on one side of a State
+line his passengers, both white and colored, must be permitted to occupy
+the same cabin, and on the other to be kept separate."
+
+What right had the other State to pass a law that passengers should be
+kept separate, on account of race or color? How could such a law have
+been constitutional? The Civil Rights Act applied to all States, and
+to both sides of the lines between all States, and produced absolute
+uniformity--and did not put the captain to the trouble of dividing his
+passengers. The Court further said:
+
+"Uniformity in the regulations by which the carrier is to be governed
+from one end to the other of his route, is a necessity in his business."
+
+The uniformity had been guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act, and the
+statute of the State of Louisiana was in exact conformity with the 14th
+Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. The Court also said:
+
+"And to secure uniformity, Congress, which is untrammeled by State
+lines, has been invested with the exclusive power of determining what
+such regulations shall be."
+
+Yes. Congress has been invested with such power, and Congress has used
+it in passing the Civil Rights Act--and yet, under these circumstances,
+the Court proceeds to imagine the difficulty that a captain would have
+in dividing his passengers as he crosses a State line, keeping them
+apart until he reaches the line of another State, and then bringing
+them together, and so going on through the process of dispersing and
+huddling, to the end of his unfortunate route.
+
+It is held by the Supreme Court, that uniformity of duties is essential
+to the carrier, and so essential, that Congress has control of the whole
+matter. If uniformity is so desirable for the carrier that Congress
+takes control, then uniformity as to the rights of passengers is equally
+desirable; and under the 13th and 14th Amendments, Congress has the
+exclusive power to state what the rights, privileges and immunities of
+passengers shall be. So that, in 1877, the Supreme Court decided that
+the _States could not_ legislate; and in 1883, that _Congress could
+not_, unless the State had. If Congress controls interstate commerce
+upon the navigable waters, it also controls interstate commerce upon the
+railways. And if Congress has exclusive jurisdiction in the one case, it
+has in the other. And if it has exclusive jurisdiction, it does not
+have to wait until States take action. If it does not have to wait until
+States take action, then the Civil Rights Act, in so far as it refers
+to the rights of passengers going from one State to another, must be
+constitutional.
+
+It must be remembered, in this discussion, that the 8th Section of the
+Constitution conferred upon Congress the power:
+
+"To make all laws that may be necessary and proper for carrying into
+execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the
+United States."
+
+So the 2nd Section of the 13th Article provides:
+
+"Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
+legislation."
+
+The same language is used in the 14th and 15th Amendments.
+
+"This clause does not limit--it enlarges--the powers vested in the
+General Government. It is an additional power--not a restriction on
+those already granted. It does not impair the right of the Legislature
+to exercise its best judgment in the selection of measures to carry
+into execution the constitutional powers of the Government. A sound
+construction of the Constitution must allow to the National Legislature
+that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers
+are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform
+the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the
+people. Let the end be legitimate--let it be within the scope of the
+Constitution, and all means which are appropriate--which are plainly
+adapted to that end--are constitutional."
+
+This is the language of Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of
+_M'Caulay, vs. The State_, 4 Wheaton, 316.
+
+"Congress must possess the choice of means, and must be empowered to use
+any means which are in fact conducive to the exercise of a power granted
+by the Constitution." U. S. vs. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358.
+
+Again:
+
+"The power of Congress to pass laws to enforce rights conferred by
+the Constitution is not limited to the express powers of legislation
+enumerated in the Constitution. The powers which are necessary and
+proper as means to carry into effect rights expressly given and duties
+expressly enjoined, are always implied. The end being given, the means
+to accomplish it are given also." _Prigs vs. The Commonwealth_, 16
+Peters, 539.
+
+This decision was delivered by Justice Story, and is the same one
+already referred to, in which liberty was taken from a human being by
+judicial construction. It was held in that case that the 2nd Section
+of the 4th Article of the Constitution, to which I have already called
+attention, contained "a positive and unqualified recognition of
+the right" of the owner in a slave, unaffected by any State law or
+regulation. If this is so, then I assert that the 13th Amendment
+"contains a positive and unqualified recognition of the right" of every
+human being to liberty; that the 14th Amendment "contains a positive and
+unqualified recognition of the right" to citizenship; and that the 15th
+Amendment "contains a positive and unqualified recognition of the right"
+to vote.
+
+Justice Story held in that case that:
+
+"Under and by virtue of that section of the Constitution the owner of a
+slave was clothed with entire authority in every State in the nation to
+seize and recapture his slave."
+
+He also held that:
+
+"In that sense, and to that extent, that clause of the Constitution
+might properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from
+legislation--State or National."
+
+"But," says Justice Story:
+
+"The clause of the Constitution does not stop there, but says that he,
+the slave, shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
+service or labor may be due."
+
+And he holds that:
+
+"Under that clause of the section Congress became clothed with the
+appropriate authority to legislate for its enforcement."
+
+Now let us look at the 13th and 14th Amendments in the light of that
+decision.
+
+First. Liberty and citizenship were given the colored people by this
+amendment. And Justice Story tells us that:
+
+"The power of Congress to enforce rights conferred by the Constitution
+is not limited to the express powers of legislation enumerated in the
+Constitution, but the powers which are necessary to protect such rights
+are always implied."
+
+Language cannot be stronger; words cannot be clearer. But now this
+decision has been reversed by the Supreme Court, and Congress is left
+powerless to protect rights conferred by the Constitution. It has been
+shorn of implied powers. It has duties to perform, and no power to act.
+It has rights to protect, but cannot choose the means. It is entangled
+in its own strength. It is a prisoner in the bastile of judicial
+construction.
+
+Let us go further. Justice Story tells us that:
+
+"The words 'but shall be given up on the claim of the person to whom
+such labor or service may be due,' clothes Congress with the appropriate
+authority to legislate for its enforcement."
+
+In the light of this remark, let us look at the 14th Amendment:
+
+"All persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
+jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
+wherein they reside."
+
+To which are added these words:
+
+"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
+privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall
+any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due
+process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
+protection of the laws."
+
+Now, if the words: "But shall be delivered up on claim of the party to
+whom such service or labor may be due," clothes Congress with power to
+legislate upon the entire subject, then I ask if the words in the
+14th Amendment declaring that "no law shall be made by any State, or
+enforced, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
+of the United States; and that no State shall deprive any person of
+life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any
+person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," does
+not clothe Congress with the power to legislate upon the entire subject?
+
+In the two cases there is only this difference: The first decision was
+made in the interest of human slavery--made to protect property in man;
+and the second decision ought to have been made for exactly the opposite
+purpose. Under the first decision, Congress had the right to select the
+means--but now that is denied. And yet it was decided in _M'Cauley vs.
+The State_, 4 Wheaton, 316, that:
+
+"When the Government has a right to do an act, and has imposed on it the
+duty of performing an act, then it must, according to the dictates of
+reason, be allowed to select the means."
+
+Again:
+
+"The Government has the right to employ freely every means not
+prohibited, for the fulfillment of its acknowledged duties."
+
+_The Legal Tender Cases_--12 Wallace, 457.
+
+It will thus be seen that Congress has the undoubted right to make all
+laws necessary for the exercise of all the powers vested in it by the
+Constitution. When the Constitution imposes a duty upon Congress, it
+grants the necessary means. Congress certainly, then, has the right to
+pass all necessary laws for the enforcement of the 13th, 14th and 15th
+Amendments. Any legislation is "appropriate" that is calculated to
+accomplish the end sought and that is not repugnant to the Constitution.
+Within these limits Congress has the sovereign power of choice. No
+better definition of "appropriate legislation" has been given than
+that by the Supreme Court of California, in the case of The People vs.
+Washington, 38 California, 658:
+
+"Legislation which practically tends to facilitate the securing to
+all, through the aid of the judicial and executive departments of the
+Government, the full enjoyment of personal freedom, is appropriate."
+
+The Supreme Court despairingly asks:
+
+"If this legislation is appropriate for enforcing the prohibitions of
+the Amendment, it is difficult to see where it is to stop. Why may not
+Congress, with equal show of authority, enact a code of laws for
+the enforcement and vindication of all rights of life, liberty and
+property?"
+
+My answer is: The legislation will stop when and where the
+discriminations on account of race, color or previous condition of
+servitude, stop. Whenever an immunity or privilege of a citizen of the
+United States is trodden down by the State, or by an individual, under
+the circumstances mentioned in the Civil Rights Act--that is to say,
+on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude--then
+the Federal Government must interfere. The Government must defend the
+immunities and privileges of its citizens, not only from State invasion,
+but from individual invaders, when that invasion is based upon the
+distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The
+Government has taken upon itself that duty. This duty can be discharged
+by a law making a uniform rule, obligatory not only upon States, but
+upon individuals. All this will stop when the discriminations stop.
+
+After such examination of the authorities as I have been able to make, I
+lay down the following propositions, namely:
+
+1. The sovereignty of a State extends only to that which exists by its
+own authority.
+
+2. The powers of the General Government were not conferred by the people
+of a single State; they were given by the people of the United States;
+and the laws of the United States, in pursuance of the Constitution, are
+supreme over the entire Republic.
+
+3. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of each
+State.
+
+4. The United States is a Government whose authority extends over the
+whole territory of the Union, acting upon all the States and upon all
+the people of all the States.
+
+5. No State can exclude the Federal Government from the exercise of any
+authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, or withhold from it,
+for a moment, the cognizance of any subject which that instrument has
+committed to it.
+
+6. It is the duty of Congress to enforce the Constitution, and it
+has been clothed with power to make all laws necessary and proper for
+carrying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the
+General Government.
+
+7. It is the duty of the Government to protect every citizen of the
+United States in all his rights, everywhere, without regard to race,
+color, or previous condition of servitude; and this the Government has
+the right to do by direct legislation.
+
+8. Every citizen, when his privileges and immunities are invaded by the
+legislature of a State, has the right of appeal from such. State to the
+Supreme Court of the nation.
+
+9. When a State fails to pass any law protecting a citizen from
+discrimination on account of race or color, and fails, in fact, to
+protect such citizen, then such citizen has the right to find redress in
+the Federal Courts.
+
+10. Whenever, in the Constitution, a State is prohibited from doing
+anything that in the nature of the thing can be done by any citizen of
+that State, then the word "State" embraces and includes all the people
+of a State.
+
+11. The 13th Amendment declares that neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude shall exist within the jurisdiction of the United States.
+
+This is not a mere negation--it is a splendid affirmation. The duty is
+imposed upon the General Government by that amendment to see to it that
+neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist.
+
+It is a question absolutely within the power of the Federal Government,
+and the Federal Government is clothed with power to make all necessary
+laws to enforce that amendment against States and persons.
+
+12. The 14th Amendment provides that all persons born or naturalized in
+the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens
+of the United States and of the States wherein they reside. This is also
+an affirmation. It is not a prohibition. The moment that amendment was
+adopted, it became the duty of the United States to protect the citizens
+recognized or created by that amendment. We are no longer citizens
+of the United States because we are citizens of a State, but we are
+citizens of the United States because we have been born or have been
+naturalized within the jurisdiction of the United States. It therefore
+follows, that it is not only the right, but it is the duty, of Congress,
+to pass all laws necessary for the protection of citizens of the United
+States.
+
+13. Congress can not shirk this responsibility by leaving citizens of
+the United States to the care and keeping of the several States.
+
+The recent decision of the Supreme Court cuts, as with a sword, the tie
+that binds the citizen to the nation. Under the old Constitution, it was
+not certainly known who were citizens of the United States. There were
+citizens of the States, and such citizens looked to their several States
+for protection. The Federal Government had no citizens. Patriotism did
+not rest on mutual obligation. Under the 14th Amendment, we are all
+citizens of a common country; and our first duty, our first obligation,
+our highest allegiance, is not to the State in which we reside, but
+to the Federal Government. The 14th Amendment tends to destroy State
+prejudices and lays a foundation for national patriotism.
+
+14. All statutes--all amendments to the Constitution--in derogation of
+natural rights, should be strictly construed.
+
+15. All statutes and amendments for the preservation of natural
+rights should be liberally construed. Every court should, by strict
+construction, narrow the scope of every law that infringes upon any
+natural human right; and every court should, by construction, give the
+broadest meaning to every statute or constitutional provision passed or
+adopted for the preservation of freedom.
+
+16. In construing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the Supreme Court
+need not go back to decisions rendered in the days of slavery--when
+every statute was construed in favor of the sovereignty of the State
+and the rights of the master. These amendments utterly obliterated such
+decisions. The Supreme Court should begin with the amendments. It need
+not look behind them. They are a part of the fundamental organic law of
+the nation. They were adopted to destroy the old statutes, to obliterate
+the infamous clauses in the Constitution, and to lay a new foundation
+for a new nation.
+
+17. Congress has the power to eradicate all forms and incidents of
+slavery and involuntary servitude, by direct and primary legislation
+binding upon States and individuals alike. And when citizens are denied
+the exercise of common rights and privileges--when they are refused
+admittance to public inns and railway cars, on an equality with white
+persons--and when such denial and refusal are based upon race and color,
+such citizens are in a condition of involuntary servitude.
+
+The Supreme Court has failed to take into consideration the intention of
+the framers of these amendments. It has failed to comprehend the spirit
+of the age. It has undervalued the accomplishment of the war. It has
+not grasped in all their height and depth the great amendments to the
+Constitution and the real object of government. To preserve liberty is
+the only use for government. There is no other excuse for legislatures,
+or presidents, or courts, for statutes or decisions. Liberty is not
+simply a means--it is an end. Take from our history, our literature, our
+laws, our hearts--that word, and we are naught but moulded clay. Liberty
+is the one priceless jewel. It includes and holds and is the weal and
+wealth of life. Liberty is the soil and light and rain--it is the plant
+and bud and flower and fruit--and in that sacred word lie all the seeds
+of progress, love and joy.
+
+This decision, in my judgment, is not worthy of the Court by which
+it was delivered. It has given new life to the serpent of State
+Sovereignty. It has breathed upon the dying embers of ignorant hate. It
+has furnished food and drink, breath and blood, to prejudices that
+were perishing of famine, and in the old case of _Civilization vs.
+Barbarism_, it has given the defendant a new trial.
+
+From this decision, John M. Harlan had the breadth of brain, the
+goodness of heart, and the loyalty to logic, to dissent. By the fortress
+of Liberty, one sentinel remains at his post. For moral courage I have
+supreme respect, and I admire that intellectual strength that breaks the
+cords and chains of prejudice and damned custom as though they were but
+threads woven in a spider's loom. This judge has associated his name
+with freedom, and he will be remembered as long as men are free.
+
+We are told by the Supreme Court that:
+
+"Slavery cannot exist without law, any more than property and lands and
+goods can exist without law."
+
+I deny that property exists by virtue of law. I take exactly the
+opposite ground. It was the fact that man had property in lands and
+goods, that produced laws for the protection of such property. The
+Supreme Court has mistaken an effect for a cause. Laws passed for the
+protection of property, sprang from the possession and ownership of the
+thing to be protected. When one man enslaves another, it is a violation
+of all justice--a subversion of the foundation of all law. Statutes
+passed for the purpose of enabling man to enslave his fellow-man,
+resulted from a conspiracy entered into by the representatives of brute
+force. Nothing can be more absurd than to call such a statute, born of
+such a conspiracy a law. According to the idea of the Supreme Court, man
+never had property until he had passed a law upon the subject. The first
+man who gathered leaves upon which to sleep, did not own them, because
+no law had been passed on the leaf subject. The first man who gathered
+fruit--the first man who fashioned a club with which to defend himself
+from wild beasts, according to the Supreme Court, had no property
+in these things, because no laws had been passed, and no courts had
+published their decisions.
+
+So the defenders of monarchy have taken the ground that societies were
+formed by contract--as though at one time men all lived apart, and came
+together by agreement and formed a government. We might just as well
+say that the trees got into groves by contract or conspiracy. Man is a
+social being. By living together there grow out of the relation, certain
+regulations, certain customs. These at last hardened into what we call
+law--into what we call forms of government--and people who wish to
+defend the idea that we got everything from the king, say that our
+fathers made a contract. Nothing can be more absurd. Men did not agree
+upon a form of government and then come together; but being together,
+they made rules for the regulation of conduct. Men did not make some
+laws and then get some property to fit the laws, but having property
+they made laws for its protection.
+
+It is hinted by the Supreme Court that this is in some way a question of
+social equality. It is claimed that social equality cannot be enforced
+by law. Nobody thinks it can. This is not a question of social equality,
+but of equal rights. A colored citizen has the same right to ride upon
+the cars--to be fed and lodged at public inns, and to visit theatres,
+that I have. Social equality is not involved.
+
+The Federal soldiers who escaped from Libby and Andersonville, and who
+in swamps, in storm, and darkness, were rescued and fed by the slave,
+had no scruples about eating with a negro. They were willing to sit
+beneath the same tree and eat with him the food he brought. The white
+soldier was then willing to find rest and slumber beneath the negro's
+roof. Charity has no color. It is neither white nor black. Justice and
+Patriotism are the same. Even the Confederate soldier was willing to
+leave his wife and children under the protection of a man whom he was
+fighting to enslave.
+
+Danger does not draw these nice distinctions as to race or color. Hunger
+is not proud. Famine is exceedingly democratic in the matter of food.
+In the moment of peril, prejudices perish. The man fleeing for his life
+does not have the same ideas about social questions, as he who sits
+in the Capitol, wrapped in official robes. Position is apt to be
+supercilious. Power is sometimes cruel. Prosperity is often heartless.
+
+This cry about social equality is born of the spirit of caste--the most
+fiendish of all things. It is worse than slavery. Slavery is at least
+justified by avarice--by a desire to get something for nothing--by a
+desire to live in idleness upon the labor of others--but the spirit of
+caste is the offspring of natural cruelty and meanness.
+
+Social relations depend upon almost an infinite number of influences
+and considerations. We have our likes and dislikes. We choose our
+companions. This is a natural right. You cannot force into my house
+persons whom I do not want. But there is a difference between a public
+house and a private house. The one is for the public. The private house
+is for the family and those they may invite. The landlord invites the
+entire public, and he must serve those who come if they are fit to be
+received. A railway is public, not private. It derives its powers and
+its rights from the State. It takes private land for public purposes.
+It is incorporated for the good of the public, and the public must be
+served. The railway, the hotel, and the theatre, have a right to make
+a distinction between people of good and bad manners--between the clean
+and the unclean. There are white people who have no right to be in
+any place except a bath-tub, and there are colored people in the same
+condition. An unclean white man should not be allowed to force himself
+into a hotel, or into a railway car--neither should the unclean colored.
+What I claim is, that in public places, no distinction should be made on
+account of race or color. The bad black man should be treated like the
+bad white man, and the good black man like the good white man. Social
+equality is not contended for--neither between white and white, black
+and black, nor between white and black.
+
+In all social relations we should have the utmost liberty--but public
+duties should be discharged and public rights should be recognized,
+without the slightest discrimination on account of race or color.
+Riding in the same cars, stopping at the same inns, sitting in the same
+theatres, no more involve a social question, or social equality, than
+speaking the same language, reading the same books, hearing the same
+music, traveling on the same highway, eating the same food, breathing
+the same air, warming by the same sun, shivering in the same cold,
+defending the same flag, loving the same country, or living in the same
+world.
+
+And yet, thousands of people are in deadly fear about social equality.
+They imagine that riding with colored people is dangerous--that the
+chance acquaintance may lead to marriage. They wish to be protected from
+such consequences by law. They dare not trust themselves. They appeal
+to the Supreme Court for assistance, and wish to be barricaded by a
+constitutional amendment. They are willing that colored women shall
+prepare their food--that colored waiters shall bring it to them--willing
+to ride in the same cars with the porters and to be shown to their
+seats in theatres by colored ushers--willing to be nursed in sickness by
+colored servants. They see nothing dangerous--nothing repugnant, in any
+of these relations,--but the idea of riding in the same car, stopping at
+the same hotel, fills them with fear--fear for the future of our race.
+Such people can be described only in the language of Walt Whitman. "They
+are the immutable, granitic pudding-heads of the world.".
+
+Liberty is not a social question. Civil equality is not social equality.
+We are equal only in rights. No two persons are of equal weight,
+or height. There are no two leaves in all the forests of the earth
+alike--no two blades of grass--no two grains of sand--no two hairs. No
+two any-things in the physical world are precisely alike. Neither mental
+nor physical equality can be created by law, but law recognizes the fact
+that all men have been clothed with equal rights by Nature, the mother
+of us all.
+
+The man who hates the black man because he is black, has the same spirit
+as he who hates the poor man because he is poor. It is the spirit
+of caste. The proud useless despises the honest useful. The parasite
+idleness scorns the great oak of labor on which it feeds, and that lifts
+it to the light.
+
+I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men
+are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are
+superior who have the best heart--the best brain. Superiority is born of
+honesty, of virtue, of charity, and above all, of the love of liberty.
+The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for
+the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenceless. He
+stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
+
+In this country all rights must be preserved, all wrongs redressed,
+through the ballot. The colored man has in his possession in his care, a
+part of the sovereign power of the Republic. At the ballot-box he is
+the equal of judges and senators, and presidents, and his vote, when
+counted, is the equal of any other. He must use this sovereign power for
+his own protection, and for the preservation of his children. The ballot
+is his sword and shield. It is his political providence. It is the rock
+on which he stands, the column against which he leans. He should vote
+for no man who dees not believe in equal rights for all--in the same
+privileges and immunities for all citizens, irrespective of race or
+color.
+
+He should not be misled by party cries, or by vague promises in
+political platforms. He should vote for the men, for the party, that
+will protect him; for congressmen who believe in liberty, for judges who
+worship justice, whose brains are not tangled by technicalities, and whose
+hearts are not petrified by precedents; and for presidents who will
+protect the blackest citizen from the tyranny of the whitest State. As
+you cannot trust the word of some white people, and as some black people
+do not always tell the truth, you must compel all candidates to put
+their principle' in black and white.
+
+Of one thing you can rest assured: The best white people are your
+friends. The humane, the civilized, the just, the most intelligent, the
+grandest, are on your side. The sympathies of the noblest are with
+you. Your enemies are also the enemies of liberty, of progress and of
+justice. The white men who make the white race honorable believe in
+equal rights for you. The noblest living are, the noblest dead were,
+your friends. I ask you to stand with your friends.
+
+Do not hold the Republican party responsible for this decision, unless
+the Republican party endorses it. Had the question been submitted to
+that party, it would have been decided exactly the other way--at least a
+hundred to one. That party gave you the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
+They were given in good faith. These amendments put you on a
+constitutional and political equality with white men. That they have
+been narrowed in their application by the Supreme Court, is not the
+fault of the Republican party. Let us wait and see what the Republican
+party will do. That party has a strange history, and in that history is
+a mingling of cowardice and courage. The army of progress always becomes
+fearful after victory, and courageous after defeat. It has been the
+custom for principle to apologize to prejudice. The Proclamation of
+Emancipation gave liberty only to slaves beyond our lines--those beneath
+our flag were left to wear their chains. We said to the Southern States:
+"Lay down your arms, and you shall keep your slaves." We tried to buy
+peace at the expense of the negro.
+
+We offered to sacrifice the manhood of the North, and the natural rights
+of the colored man, upon the altar of the Union. The rejection of that
+offer saved us from infamy. At one time we refused to allow the loyal
+black man to come within our lines. We would meet him at the outposts,
+receive his information, and drive him back to chain and lash. The
+Government publicly proclaimed that the war was waged to save the Union,
+with slavery. We were afraid to claim that the negro was a man--afraid
+to admit that he was property--and so we called him "contraband." We
+hesitated to allow the negro to fight for his own freedom--hesitated
+to let him wear the uniform of the nation while he battled for the
+supremacy of its flag.
+
+These are some of the inconsistencies of the past. In spite of them we
+advanced. We were educated by events, and at last we clearly saw that
+slavery was rebellion; that the "institution" had borne its natural
+fruit--civil war; that the entire country was responsible for slavery,
+and that slavery was responsible for rebellion. We declared that slavery
+should be extirpated from the Republic. The great armies led by
+the greatest commander of the modern world, shattered, crushed and
+demolished the Rebellion. The North grew grand. The people became
+sublime. The three sacred amendments were adopted. The Republic was
+free.
+
+Then came a period of hesitation, apology and fear. The colored citizen
+was left to his fate. For years the Federal arm, palsied by policy,
+was powerless to protect; and this period of fear, of hesitation, of
+apology, of lack of confidence in the right, has borne its natural
+fruit--this decision of the Supreme Court.
+
+But it is not for me to give you advice. Your conduct has been above
+all praise. You have been as patient as the earth beneath, as the
+stars above. You have been law-abiding and industrious, You have not
+offensively asserted your rights, or offensively borne your wrongs. You
+have been modest and forgiving. You have returned good for evil. When I
+remember that the ancestors of my race were in universities and colleges
+and common schools while you and your fathers were on the auction-block,
+in the slave-pen, or in the field beneath the cruel lash, in States
+where reading and writing were crimes, I am astonished at the progress
+you have made.
+
+All that I--all that any reasonable man--can ask is, that you continue
+doing as you have done. Above all things--educate your children--strive
+to make yourselves independent--work for homes--work for yourselves--and
+wherever it is possible become the masters of yourselves.
+
+Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see your little children with
+books under their arms, going and coming from school.
+
+It is very easy to see why colored people should hate us, but why we
+should hate them is beyond my comprehension. They never sold our wives.
+They never robbed our cradles.. They never scarred our backs. They never
+pursued us with bloodhounds. They never branded our flesh.
+
+It has been said that it is hard to forgive a man to whom we have done
+a great injury. I can conceive of no other reason why we should hate the
+colored people. To us they are a standing reproach. Their history is our
+shame. Their virtues seem to enrage some white people--their patience
+to provoke, and their forgiveness to insult. Turn the tables--change
+places--and with what fierceness, with what ferocity, with what insane
+and passionate intensity we would hate them!
+
+The colored people do not ask for revenge--they simply ask for
+justice. They are willing to forget the past--willing to hide their
+scars--anxious to bury the broken chains, and to forget the miseries and
+hardships, the tears and agonies, of two hundred years.
+
+The old issues are again upon us. Is this a Nation? Have all citizens of
+the United States equal rights, without regard to race or color? Is
+it the duty of the General Government to protect its citizens? Can the
+Federal arm be palsied by the action or non-action of a State?
+
+Another opportunity is given for the people of this country to take
+sides. According to my belief, the supreme thing for every man to do is
+to be absolutely true to himself. All consequences--whether rewards or
+punishments, whether honor and power, or disgrace and poverty, are as
+dreams undreamt. I have made my choice. I have taken my stand. Where my
+brain and heart go, there I will publicly and openly walk. Doing this,
+is my highest conception of duty. Being allowed to do this, is liberty.
+
+If this is not now a free Government; if citizens cannot now be
+protected, regardless of race or color; if the three sacred amendments
+have been undermined by the Supreme Court--we must have another; and if
+that fails, then another; and we must neither stop, nor pause, until
+the Constitution shall become a perfect shield for every right, of every
+human being, beneath our flag.
+
+
+
+
+TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.
+
+Address to the Jury.
+
+     * Within thirty miles of New York, in the city of
+     Morristown, New Jersey, a man was put on trial yesterday for
+     distributing a pamphlet argument against the infallibility
+     of the Bible. The crime which the Indictment alleges Is
+     Blasphemy, for which the statutes of New Jersey provide a
+     penalty of two hundred dollars fine, or twelve months
+     imprisonment, or both. It is the first case of the kind ever
+     tried in New Jersey, although the law dates back to colonial
+     days. Charles B. Reynolds is the man on trial, and the State
+     of New Jersey, through the Prosecuting Attorney of Morris
+     County, is the prosecutor. The Circuit Court, Judge Francis
+     Child, assisted by County Judges Munson and Quimby, sit upon
+     the case. Prosecutor Wilder W. Cutler represents the State,
+     and Robert G. Ingersoll appears for the defendant.
+
+     Mr. Reynolds went to Boonton last summer to hold "free-
+     thought" meetings. Announcing his purpose without any
+     flourish, he secured a piece of ground, pitched a tent upon
+     it, and invited the towns-people to come and hear him. It
+     was understood that he had been a Methodist minister: that,
+     finding it impossible to reconcile his mind to some of the
+     historical parts of the Bible, and unable to accept it in
+     its entirety as a moral guide, he left the church and set
+     out to proclaim his conclusions. The churches in Boonton
+     arrayed themselves against him. The Catholics and Methodists
+     were especially active. Taking this opposition as an excuse,
+     one element of the town invaded his tent. They pelted
+     Reynolds with ancient eggs and vegetables. They chopped away
+     the guy ropes of the tent and slashed the canvas with their
+     knives. When the tent collapsed, the crowd rushed for the
+     speaker to inflict further punishment by plunging him in the
+     duck pond They rummaged the wrecked tent, but in vain. He
+     had made his way ont in the confusion and was no more seen
+     in Boonton.
+
+     But what he had said did not leave Boonton with him, and the
+     pamphlets he had distributed were read by many who probably
+     would not have looked between their covers had his visit
+     been attended by no unusual circumstances. Boonton was still
+     agitated up on the subject when Mr. Reynolds appeared in
+     Morristown. This time he did not try to hold meetings, but
+     had his pamphlets with him.
+
+     Mr. Reynolds appeared in Morristown with the pamphlets on
+     October thirteenth. A Boonton delegation was there,
+     clamoring for his indictment for blasphemy. The Grand Jury
+     heard of his visit and found two indictments against him;
+     one for blasphemy at
+
+     Boonton and the second for blasphemy at Morristown. He
+     furnished a five hundred dollar bond to appear for trial. On
+     account of Colonel Ingersoll's throat troubles the case was
+     adjourned several times through the winter and until Monday
+     last, when it was set peremptorily for trial yesterday.
+
+     The public feeling excited at Boonton was overshadowed by
+     that at Morristown and the neighboring region. For six
+     months no topic was so interesting to the public as this. It
+     monopolized attention at the stores, and became a fruitful
+     subject of gossip in social and church circles. Under such
+     circumstances it was to be expected that everybody who could
+     spare the time would go to court yesterday. Lines of people
+     began to climb the court house hill early in the morning. At
+     the hour of opening court the room set apart for the trial
+     was packed, and distaffs had to be stationed at the foot of
+     the stairs to keep back those who were not early enough.
+     From nine thirty to eleven o'clock the crowd inside talked
+     of blasphemy in all the phases suggested by this case, and
+     the outsiders waited patiently on the lawn and steps and
+     along the dusty approaches to the gray building.
+
+     Eleven o'clock brought the train from New York and on it
+     Colonel Ingersoll. His arrival at the court house with his
+     clerk opened a new chapter in the day's gossip. The event
+     was so absorbing indeed, that the crowd failed entirely to
+     notice an elderly man wearing a black frock snit, a silk
+     hat, with an army badge pinned to his coat, and looking like
+     a merchant of means, who entered the court house a few
+     minutes behind the famous lawyer. The last comer was the
+     defendant.
+
+     All was ready for the case. Within five minutes five jurors
+     were in the box. Then Colonel Ingersoll asked what were his
+     rights about challenges. He was informed that he might make
+     six peremptory challenges and must challenge before the
+     jurors took their seats. The only disqualification the Court
+     would recognize would be the inability of a juror to change
+     his opinion in spite of evidence. Colonel Ingersoll induced
+     the Court to let him examine the five in the box and
+     promptly ejected two Presbyterians.
+
+     Thereafter Colonel Ingersoll examined every juror as soon as
+     presented. He asked particularly about the nature of each
+     man's prejudice, if he had one. To a juror who did not know
+     that he understood the word, the Colonel replied: "I may not
+     define the word legally, but my own idea is that a man is
+     prejudiced when he has made up his mind on a case without
+     knowing anything about it." This juror thought that he came
+     under that category.
+
+     Presbyterians had a rather hard time with the examiner.
+     After twenty men had been examined and the defence had
+     exercised five of its peremptory challenges, the following
+     were sworn as jurymen. * * * *
+
+     The jury having been sworn, Prosecutor Cutler announced that
+     he would try only the indictment for the offence in
+     Morristown. He said that Reynolds was charged with
+     distributing pamphlets containing matter claimed to be
+     blasphemous under the law. If the charge could be proved he
+     asked a verdict of guilty. Then he called sixteen towns-
+     people, to most of whom Reynolds had given a pamphlet.
+
+     Colonel Ingersoll tried to get the Presbyterian witnesses to
+     say that they had read the pamphlet. Not one of them
+     admitted it. Further than this he attempted no
+     cross-examination.
+
+     "I do not know that I shall have any witnesses one way or
+     the other," Colonel Ingersoll said, rising to suggest a
+     recess. "Perhaps after dinner I may feel like making a few
+     remarks."
+
+     "There will be great disappointment if you do not" Judge
+     Child responded, in a tone that meant a word for himself as
+     well as for the other listeners. The spectators nodded
+     approval to this sentiment. At 4:20 o'clock Col. Ingersoll
+     having spoken since 2 o'clock, Judge Child adjourned court
+     until this morning.
+
+     As Colonel Ingersoll left the room a throng pressed after
+     him to offer congratulations. One old man said: "Colonel
+     Ingersoll I am a Presbyterian pastor, but I must say that
+     was the noblest speech in defence of liberty I ever heard!
+     Your hand, sir; your hand,"--The Times, New York, May
+     20,1887.
+
+
+GENTLEMEN of the Jury: I regard this as one of the most important cases
+that can be submitted to a jury. It is not a case that involves a little
+property, neither is it one that involves simply the liberty of one man.
+It involves the freedom of speech, the intellectual liberty of every
+citizen of New Jersey.
+
+The question to be tried by you is whether a man has the right to
+express his honest thought; and for that reason there can be no case of
+greater importance submitted to a jury. And it may be well enough for
+me, at the outset, to admit that there could be no case in which I could
+take a greater--a deeper interest. For my part, I would not wish to live
+in a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to
+others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.
+
+I deny the right of any man, of any number of men, of any church, of
+any State, to put a padlock on the lips--to make the tongue a convict.
+I passionately deny the right of the Herod of authority to kill the
+children of the brain. A man has a right to work with his hands, to
+plow the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the
+harvest. If we have not that right, then all are slaves except those who
+take these rights from their fellow-men. If you have the right to
+work with your hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your
+children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain? Have you not the
+right to read, to observe, to investigate--and when you have so read and
+so investigated, have you not the right to reap that field? And what
+is it to reap that field? It is simply to express what you have
+ascertained--simply to give your thoughts to your fellow-men.
+
+If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy
+of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without
+that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor, miserable
+serfs and slaves. If you have not the right to express your opinions,
+if the defendant has not this right, then no man ever walked beneath
+the blue of heaven that had the right to express his thought. If others
+claim the right, where did they get it? How did they happen to have it,
+and how did you happen to be deprived of it? Where did a church or a
+nation get that right?
+
+Are we not all children of the same Mother? Are we not all compelled to
+think, whether we wish to or not? Can you help thinking as you do? When
+you look out upon the woods, the fields,--when you look at the solemn
+splendors of the night--these things produce certain thoughts in your
+mind, and they produce them necessarily. No man can think as he desires.
+No man controls the action of his brain, any more than he controls the
+action of his heart. The blood pursues its old accustomed ways in spite
+of you. The eyes see, if you open them, in spite of you. The ears hear,
+if they are unstopped, without asking your permission. And the brain
+thinks in spite of you. Should you express that thought? Certainly you
+should, if others express theirs. You have exactly the same right. He
+who takes it from you is a robber.
+
+For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people
+to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why?
+Because brute force is not an argument. You can stand with the lash over
+a man, or you can stand by the prison door, or beneath the gallows, or
+by the stake, and say to this man: "Recant or the lash descends, the
+prison door is locked upon you, the rope is put about your neck, or the
+torch is given to the fagot." And so the man recants. Is he convinced?
+Not at all. Have you produced a new argument? Not the slightest. And
+yet the ignorant bigots of this world have been trying for thousands of
+years to rule the minds of men by brute force. They have endeavored to
+improve the mind by torturing the flesh--to spread religion with the
+sword and torch. They have tried to convince their brothers by putting
+their feet in iron boots, by putting fathers, mothers, patriots,
+philosophers and philanthropists in dungeons. And what has been the
+result? Are we any nearer thinking alike to-day than we were then?
+
+No orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make
+people think its way by force and flame. And yet every church that
+ever was established commenced in the minority, and while it was in the
+minority advocated free speech--every one. John Calvin, the founder
+of the Presbyterian Church, while he lived in France, wrote a book on
+religious toleration in order to show that all men had an equal right to
+think; and yet that man afterward, clothed in a little authority, forgot
+all his sentiments about religious liberty, and had poor Servetus burned
+at the stake, for differing with him on a question that neither of them
+knew anything about. In the minority, Calvin advocated toleration--in
+the majority, he practiced murder.
+
+I want you to understand what has been done in the world to force men
+to think alike. It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who
+wants us to think alike, he would have made us alike. Why did he not do
+so? Why did he make your brain so that you could not by any possibility
+be a Methodist? Why did he make yours so that you could not be a
+Catholic? And why did he make the brain of another so that he is an
+unbeliever--why the brain of another so that he became a Mohammedan--if
+he wanted us all to believe alike?
+
+After all, may be Nature is good enough and grand enough and broad
+enough to give us the diversity born of liberty. May be, after all, it
+would not be best for us all to be just the same. What a stupid world,
+if everybody said yes to everything that everybody else might say.
+
+The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than
+food or clothes--more important than gold or houses or lands--more
+important than art or science--more important than all religions, is the
+liberty of man.
+
+If civilization tends to do away with liberty, then I agree with
+Mr. Buckle that civilization is a curse. Gladly would I give up the
+splendors of the nineteenth century--gladly would I forget every
+invention that has leaped from the brain of man--gladly would I see all
+books ashes, all works of art destroyed, all statues broken, and all
+the triumphs of the world lost--gladly, joyously would I go back to
+the abodes and dens of savagery, if that were necessary to preserve the
+inestimable gem of human liberty. So would every man who has a heart and
+brain.
+
+How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself?
+Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free
+speech. And there never was such a statute that did not stain the book
+that it was in, and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who
+passed it. Never. By making a statute and by defining blasphemy, the
+church sought to prevent discussion--sought to prevent argument--sought
+to prevent a man giving his honest opinion. Certainly a tenet, a dogma,
+a doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your
+speaking against it. In the silence of slavery it exists. It lives
+because lips are locked. It lives because men are slaves.
+
+If I understand myself, I advocate only the doctrines that in my
+judgment will make this world happier and better. If I know myself,
+I advocate only those things that will make a man a better citizen, a
+better father, a kinder husband--that will make a woman a better wife,
+a better mother--doctrines that will fill every home with sunshine and
+with joy. And if I believed that anything I should say to-day would have
+any other possible tendency, I would stop. I am a believer in liberty.
+That is my religion--to give to every other human being every right
+that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the
+right--because it is his right--but instead of granting I declare that
+it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer
+every argument that I urge--in other words, he must have absolute
+freedom of speech.
+
+I am a believer in what I call "intellectual hospitality." A man comes
+to your door. If you are a gentleman and he appears to be a good man,
+you receive him with a smile. You ask after his health. You say: "Take
+a chair; are you thirsty, are you hungry, will you not break bread with
+me?" That is what a hospitable, good man does--he does not set the dog
+on him. Now, how should we treat a new thought? I say that the brain
+should be hospitable and say to the new thought: "Come in; sit down; I
+want to cross-examine you; I want to find whether you are good or bad;
+if good, stay; if bad, I don't want to hurt you--probably you think you
+are all right,--but your room is better than your company, and I will
+take another idea in your place." Why not? Can any man have the egotism
+to say that he has found it all out? No. Every man who has thought,
+knows not only how little he knows, but how little every other human
+being knows, and how ignorant, after all, the world must be.
+
+There was a time in Europe when the Catholic Church had power. And I
+want it distinctly understood with this jury, that while I am opposed
+to Catholicism I am not opposed to Catholics--while I am opposed to
+Presbyterianism I am not opposed to Presbyterians. I do not fight
+people,--I fight ideas, I fight principles, and I never go
+into personalities. As I said, I do not hate Presbyterians, but
+Presbyterianism--that is, I am opposed to their doctrine. I do not hate
+a man that has the rheumatism--I hate the rheumatism when it has a man.
+So I attack certain principles because I think they are wrong, but I
+always want it understood that I have nothing against persons--nothing
+against victims.
+
+There was a time when the Catholic Church was in power in the Old World.
+All at once there arose a man called Martin Luther, and what did the
+dear old Catholics think? "Oh," they said, "that man and his followers
+are going to hell." But they did not go. They were very good people.
+They may have been mistaken--I do not know. I think they were right in
+their opposition to Catholicism--but I have just as much objection to
+the religion they founded as I have to the church they left. But they
+thought they were right, and they made very good citizens, and it turned
+out that their differing from the Mother Church did not hurt them.
+And then after awhile they began to divide, and there arose Baptists;
+and-the other gentlemen, who believed in this law that is now in New
+Jersey, began cutting off their ears so that they could hear better;
+they began putting them in prison so that they would have a chance to
+think. But the Baptists turned out to be good folks--first rate--good
+husbands, good fathers, good citizens. And in a little while, in
+England, the people turned to be Episcopalians, on account of a little
+war that Henry VIII. had with the Pope,--and I always sided with the
+Pope in that war--but it made no difference; and in a little while
+the Episcopalians turned out to be just about like other folks--no
+worse--and, as I know of, no better.
+
+After awhile arose the Puritan, and the Episcopalian said, "We don't
+want anything of him--he is a bad man;" and they finally drove some of
+them away and they settled in New England, and there were among
+them Quakers, than whom there never were better people on the
+earth--industrious, frugal, gentle, kind and loving--and yet these
+Puritans began hanging them. They said: "They are corrupting our
+children; if this thing goes on, everybody will believe in being kind
+and gentle and good, and what will become of us?" They were honest about
+it. So they went to cutting off ears. But the Quakers were good people
+and none of the prophecies were fulfilled.
+
+In a little while there came some Unitarians and they said, "The world
+is going to ruin, sure;"--but the world went on as usual, and the
+Unitarians produced men like Channing--one of the tenderest spirits that
+ever lived--they produced men like Theodore Parker--one of the greatest
+brained and greatest hearted men produced upon this continent--a good
+man--and yet they thought he was a blasphemer--they even prayed for his
+death--on their bended knees they asked their God to take time to kill
+him. Well, they were mistaken. Honest, probably.
+
+After awhile came the Universalists, who said: "God is good. He will not
+damn anybody always, just for a little mistake he made here. This is
+a very short life; the path we travel is very dim, and a great many
+shadows fall in the way, and if a man happens to stub his toe, God will
+not burn him forever." And then all the rest of the sects cried
+out, "Why, if you do away with hell, everybody will murder just for
+pastime--everybody will go to stealing just to enjoy themselves." But
+they did not. The Universalists were good people--just as good as any
+others. Most of them much better. None of the prophecies were fulfilled,
+and yet the differences existed.
+
+And so we go on until we find people who do not believe the Bible at
+all, and when they say they do not, they come within this statute.
+
+Now, gentlemen, I am going to try to show you, first, that this statute
+under which Mr. Reynolds is being tried is unconstitutional--that it is
+not in harmony with the constitution of New Jersey; and I am going to
+try to show you in addition to that, that it was passed hundreds of
+years ago, by men who believed it was right to burn heretics and tie
+Quakers to the end of a cart; men and even modest women--stripped
+naked--and lash them from town to town. They were the men who originally
+passed that statute, and I want to show you that it has slept all this
+time, and I am informed--I do not know how it is--that there never has
+been a prosecution in this State for blasphemy.
+
+Now, gentlemen, what is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is,
+unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in
+one country would be a religious exhortation, in another. It is owing to
+where you are and who is in authority. And let me call your attention
+to the impudence and bigotry of the American Christians. We send
+missionaries to other countries. What for? To tell them that their
+religion is false, that their gods are myths and monsters, that their
+saviors and apostles were impostors, and that our religion is true.
+You send a man from Morristown--a Presbyterian, over to Turkey. He goes
+there, and he tells the Mohammedans--and he has it in a pamphlet and he
+distributes it--that the Koran is a lie, that Mohammed was not a prophet
+of God, that the angel Gabriel is not so large that it is four hundred
+leagues between his eyes--that it is all a mistake--there never was an
+angel so large as that. Then what would the Turks do? Suppose the Turks
+had a law like this statute in New Jersey. They would put the Morristown
+missionary in jail, and he would send home word, and then what would the
+people of Morristown say? Honestly--what do you think they would say?
+They would say, "Why, look at those poor, heathen wretches. We sent a
+man over there armed with the truth, and yet they were so blinded
+by their idolatrous religion, so steeped in superstition, that they
+actually put that man in prison." Gentlemen, does not that show the need
+of more missionaries? I would say, yes.
+
+Now, let us turn the tables. A gentleman comes from Turkey to
+Morristown. He has got a pamphlet. He says, "The Koran is the inspired
+book, Mohammed is the real prophet, your Bible is false and your Savior
+simply a myth." Thereupon the Morristown people put him in jail.
+Then what would the Turks say? They would say, "Morristown needs more
+missionaries," and I would agree with them.
+
+In other words, what we want is intellectual hospitality. Let the
+world talk. And see how foolish this trial is. I have no doubt that the
+prosecuting attorney-agrees with me to-day, that whether this law is
+good or bad, this trial should not have taken place. And let me tell you
+why. Here comes a man into your town and circulates a pamphlet. Now,
+if they had just kept still, very few would ever have heard of it. That
+would have been the end. The diameter of the echo would have been a few
+thousand feet. But in order to stop the discussion of that question,
+they indicted this man, and that question has been more discussed in
+this country since this indictment than all the discussions put together
+since New Jersey was first granted to Charles II.'s dearest brother
+James, the Duke of York.. And what else? A trial here that is to be
+reported and published all over the United States, a trial that will
+give Mr. Reynolds a congregation of fifty millions of people. And yet
+this was done for the purpose of stopping a discussion of this subject.
+I want to show you that the thing is in itself almost idiotic--that it
+defeats itself, and that you cannot crush out these things by force. Not
+only so, but Mr. Reynolds has the right to be defended, and his counsel
+has the right to give his opinions on this subject.
+
+Suppose that we put Mr. Reynolds in jail. The argument has not been sent
+to jail. That is still going the rounds, free as the winds. Suppose you
+keep him at hard labor a year--all the time he is there, hundreds and
+thousands of people will be reading some account, or some fragment, of
+this trial. There is the trouble. If you could only imprison a thought,
+then intellectual tyranny might succeed. If you could only take an
+argument and put a striped suit of clothes on it--if you could only
+take a good, splendid, shining fact and lock it up in some dungeon of
+ignorance, so that its light would never again enter the mind of man,
+then you might succeed in stopping human progress. Otherwise, no.
+
+Let us see about this particular statute. In the first place, the State
+has a constitution. That constitution is a rule, a limitation to the
+power of the Legislature, and a certain breastwork for the protection
+of private rights, and the constitution says to this sea of passions
+and prejudices: "Thus far and no farther." The constitution says to each
+individual: "This shall panoply you; this is your complete coat of mail;
+this shall defend your rights." And it is usual in this country to make
+as a part of each constitution several general declarations--called the
+Bill of Rights. So I find that in the old constitution of New Jersey,
+which was adopted in the year of grace 1776, although the people at that
+time were not educated as they are now--the spirit of the Revolution at
+that time not having permeated all classes of society--a declaration in
+favor of religious freedom. The people were on the eve of a revolution.
+This constitution was adopted on the third day of July, 1776, one day
+before the immortal Declaration of Independence. Now, what do we find
+in this--and we have got to go by this light, by this torch, when we
+examine the statute.
+
+I find in that constitution, in its Eighteenth Section, this: "No person
+shall ever in this State be deprived of the inestimable privilege
+of worshiping God, in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own
+conscience; nor under any pretence whatever be compelled to attend any
+place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he
+be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for the purpose
+of building or repairing any church or churches, contrary to what he
+believes to be true." That was a very great and splendid step. It was
+the divorce of church and state. It no longer allowed the State to levy
+taxes for the support of a particular religion, and it said to every
+citizen of New Jersey: All that you give for that purpose must be
+voluntarily given, and the State will not compel you to pay for the
+maintenance of a church in which you do not believe. So far so good.
+
+The next paragraph was not so good. "There shall be no establishment of
+any one religious sect in this State in preference to another, and no
+Protestant inhabitants of this State shall be denied the enjoyment of
+any civil right merely on account of his religious principles; but all
+persons professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who
+shall demean themselves peaceably, shall be capable of being elected to
+any office of profit or trust, and shall fully and freely enjoy every
+privilege and immunity enjoyed by other citizens."
+
+What became of the Catholics under that clause, I do not know--whether
+they had any right to be elected to office or not under this Act. But
+in 1844, the State having grown civilized in the meantime, another
+constitution was adopted. The word Protestant was then left out.
+There was to be no establishment of one religion over another. But
+Protestantism did not render a man capable of being elected to office
+any more than Catholicism, and nothing is said about any religious
+belief whatever. So far, so good.
+
+"No religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office
+of public trust. No person shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil
+right on account of his religious principles."
+
+That is a very broad and splendid provision. "No person shall be denied
+any civil right on account of his religious principles." That was
+copied from the Virginia constitution, and that clause in the Virginia
+constitution was written by Thomas Jefferson, and under that clause men
+were entitled to give their testimony in the courts of Virginia whether
+they believed in any religion or not, in any bible or not, or in any god
+or not.
+
+That same clause was afterward adopted by the State of Illinois, also by
+many other States, and wherever that clause is, no citizen can be denied
+any civil right on account of his religious principles. It is a broad
+and generous clause. This statute, under which this indictment is drawn,
+is not in accordance with the spirit of that splendid sentiment. Under
+that clause, no man can be deprived of any civil right on account of his
+religious principles, or on account of his belief. And yet, on account
+of this miserable, this antiquated, this barbarous and savage statute,
+the same man who cannot be denied any political or civil right, can be
+sent to the penitentiary as a common felon for simply expressing his
+honest thought. And before I get through I hope to convince you that
+this statute is unconstitutional.
+
+But we will go another step: "Every person may freely speak, write, or
+publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse
+of that right."
+
+That is in the constitution of nearly every State in the Union, and the
+intention of that is to cover slanderous words--to cover a case where a
+man under pretence of enjoying the freedom of speech falsely assails or
+accuses his neighbor. Of course he should be held responsible for that
+abuse.
+
+Then follows the great clause in the constitution of 1844--more
+important than any other clause in that instrument--a clause that shines
+in that constitution like a star at night.--
+
+"No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or
+of the press."
+
+Can anything be plainer--anything be more forcibly stated?
+
+"No law shall be passed to abridge the liberty of speech."
+
+Now, while you are considering this statute, I want you to keep in mind
+this other statement:
+
+"No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or
+of the press."
+
+And right here there is another thing I want to call your attention to.
+There is a constitution higher than any statute. There is a law higher
+than any constitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and no man
+who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of
+any legislature. Above all things, one should maintain his selfrespect,
+and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance
+with your highest ideal.
+
+There is a law higher than men can make. The facts as they exist in this
+poor world--the absolute consequences of certain acts--they are
+above all. And this higher law is the breath of progress, the very
+outstretched wings of civilization, under which we enjoy the freedom
+we have. Keep that in your minds. There never was a legislature great
+enough--there never was a constitution sacred enough, to compel a
+civilized man to stand between a black man and his liberty. There never
+was a constitution great enough to make me stand between any human being
+and his right to express his honest thoughts. Such a constitution is an
+insult to the human soul, and I would care no more for it than I would
+for the growl of a wild beast. But we are not driven to that necessity
+here. This constitution is in accord with the highest and noblest
+aspirations of the heart--"No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge
+the liberty of speech."
+
+Now let us come to this old law--this law that was asleep for a hundred
+years before this constitution was adopted--this law coiled like a
+snake beneath the foundations of the Government--this law, cowardly,
+dastardly--this law passed by wretches who were afraid: to discuss--this
+law passed by men who could not, and who knew they could not, defend
+their creed--and so they said: "Give us the sword of the State and we
+will cleave the heretic down." And this law was made to control the
+minority. When the Catholics were in power they visited that law upon
+their opponents. When the Episcopalians were in power, they tortured and
+burned the poor Catholic who had scoffed and who had denied the truth of
+their religion. Whoever was in power used that, and whoever was out of
+power cursed that--and yet, the moment he got in power he used it: The
+people became civilized--but that law was on the statute book. It simply
+remained. There it was, sound asleep--its lips drawn over its long and
+cruel teeth. Nobody savage enough to waken it. And it slept on, and New
+Jersey has flourished. Men have done well. You have had average health
+in this country. Nobody roused the statute until the defendant in this
+case went to Boonton, and there made a speech in which he gave his
+honest thought, and the people not having an argument handy, threw
+stones. Thereupon Mr. Reynolds, the defendant, published a pamphlet on
+Blasphemy and in it gave a photograph of the Boonton Christians. That is
+his offence. Now let us read this infamous statute:
+
+"_If any person shall willfully blaspheme the holy name of God by
+denying, cursing, or contumeliously reproaching his being_"--
+
+I want to say right here--many a man has cursed the God of another man.
+The Catholics have cursed the God of the Protestant. The Presbyterians
+have cursed the God of the Catholics--charged them with idolatry--cursed
+their images, laughed at their ceremonies. And these compliments have
+been interchanged between all the religions of the world. But I say here
+to-day that no man, unless a raving maniac, ever cursed the God in whom
+he believed. No man, no human being, has ever lived who cursed his own
+idea of God. He always curses the idea that somebody else entertains. No
+human being ever yet cursed what he believed to be infinite wisdom and
+infinite goodness--and you know it. Every man on this jury knows that.
+He feels that that must be an absolute certainty. Then what have they
+cursed? Some God they did not believe in--that is all. And has a man
+that right? I say, yes. He has a right to give his opinion of Jupiter,
+and there is nobody in Morristown who will deny him that right. But
+several thousands years ago it would have been very dangerous for him to
+have cursed Jupiter, and yet Jupiter is just as powerful now as he was
+then, but the Roman people are not powerful, and that is all there was
+to Jupiter--the Roman people.
+
+So there was a time when you could have cursed Zeus, the god of the
+Greeks, and like Socrates, they would have compelled you to drink
+hemlock. Yet now everybody can curse this god. Why? Is the god dead? No.
+He is just as alive as he ever was. Then what has happened? The Greeks
+have passed away. That is all. So in all of our churches here. Whenever
+a church is in the minority it clamors for free speech. When it gets in
+the majority, no. I do not believe the history of the world will show
+that any orthodox church when in the majority ever had the courage to
+face the free lips of the world. It sends for a constable. And is it
+not wonderful that they should do this when they preach the gospel of
+universal forgiveness--when they say, "if a man strike you on one cheek
+turn to him the other also--but if he laughs at your religion, put him
+in the penitentiary"? Is that the doctrine? Is that the law?
+
+Now, read this law. Do you know as I read it I can almost hear John
+Calvin laugh in his grave. That would have been a delight to him. It
+is written exactly as he would have written it. There never was an
+inquisitor who would not have read that law with a malicious smile. The
+Christians who brought the fagots and ran with all their might to be at
+the burning, would have enjoyed that law. You know that when they used
+to burn people for having said something against religion, they used
+to cut their tongues out before they burned them. Why? For fear that if
+they did not, the poor, burning victims might say something that would
+scandalize the Christian gentlemen who were building the fire. All these
+persons would have been delighted with this law.
+
+Let us read a little further:
+
+"--_Or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ_."
+
+Why, whoever did, since the poor man, or the poor God, was crucified?
+How did they come to crucify him? Because they did not believe in free
+speech in Jerusalem. How else? Because there was a law against blasphemy
+in Jerusalem--a law exactly like this. Just think of it. Oh, I tell
+you we have passed too many mile-stones on the shining road of human
+progress to turn back and wallow in that blood, in that mire.
+
+No: Some men have said that he was simply a man. Some believed that he
+was actually a God. Others believed that he was not only a man, but that
+he stood as the representative of infinite love and wisdom. No man ever
+said one word against that Being for saying "Do unto others as ye would
+that others should do unto you." No man ever raised his voice against
+him because he said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
+mercy." And are they the "merciful" who when some man endeavors to
+answer their argument, put him in the penitentiary? No. The trouble is,
+the priests--the trouble is, the ministers--the trouble is, the people
+whose business it was to tell the meaning of these things, quarreled'
+with each other, and they put meanings upon human expressions by malice,
+meanings that the words will not bear. And let me be just to them.
+I believe that nearly all that has been done in this world has been
+honestly done. I believe that the poor savage who kneels down and prays
+to a stuffed snake--prays that his little children may recover from the
+fever--is honest, and it seems to me that a good God would answer his
+prayer if he could, if it was in accordance with wisdom, because the
+poor savage was doing the best he could, and no one can do any better
+than that.
+
+So I believe that the Presbyterians who used to think that nearly
+everybody was going to hell, said exactly what they believed. They were
+honest about it, and I would not send one of them to jail--would never
+think of such a thing--even if he called the unbelievers of the world
+"wretches," "dogs," and "devils." What would I do? I would simply answer
+him--that is all; answer him kindly. I might laugh at him a little, but
+I would answer him in kindness.
+
+So these divisions of the human mind are natural. They are a necessity.
+Do you know that all the mechanics that ever lived--take the best
+ones--cannot make two clocks that will run exactly alike one hour, one
+minute? They cannot make two pendulums that will beat in exactly the
+same time, one beat. If you cannot do that, how are you going to make
+hundreds, thousands, billions of people, each with a different quality
+and quantity of brain, each clad in a robe of living, quivering flesh,
+and each driven by passion's storm over the wild sea of life--how are
+you going to make them all think alike? This is the impossible thing
+that Christian ignorance and bigotry and malice have been trying to do.
+This was the object of the Inquisition and of the foolish Legislature
+that passed this statute.
+
+Let me read you another line from this ignorant statute:--
+
+"_Or the Christian religion_."
+
+Well, what is the Christian religion? "If you scoff at the Christian
+religion--if you curse the Christian religion." Well what is it?
+Gentlemen, you hear Presbyterians every day attack the Catholic
+Church. Is that the Christian religion? The Catholic believes it is the
+Christian religion, and you have to admit that it is the oldest one, and
+then the Catholics turn round and scoff at the Protestants. Is that the
+Christian religion? If so, every Christian religion has been cursed
+by every other Christian religion. Is not that an absurd and foolish
+statute?
+
+I say that the Catholic has the right to attack the Presbyterian and
+tell him, "Your doctrine is all wrong." I think he has the right to say
+to him, "You are leading thousands to hell." If he believes it, he not
+only has the right to say it, but it is his duty to say it; and if the
+Presbyterian really believes the Catholics are all going to the devil,
+it is his duty to say so. Why not? I will never have any religion that
+I cannot defend--that is, that I do not believe I can defend. I may be
+mistaken, because no man is absolutely certain that he knows. We all
+understand that. Every one is liable to be mistaken. The horizon of each
+individual is very narrow, and in his poor sky the stars are few and
+very small.
+
+"_Or the Word of God_--"
+
+What is that?
+
+"_The canonical Scriptures contained in the books of the Old and New
+Testaments_."
+
+Now, what has a man the right to say about that? Has he the right to
+show that the book of Revelation got into the canon by one vote, and one
+only? Has he the right to show that they passed in convention upon what
+books they would put in and what they would not? Has he the right
+to show that there were twenty-eight books called "The Books of the
+Hebrew's"? Has he the right to show that? Has he the right to show that
+Martin Luther said he did not believe there was one solitary word of
+gospel in the Epistle to the Romans? Has he the right to show that some
+of these books were not written till nearly two hundred years afterward?
+Has he the right to say it, if he believes it? I do not say whether this
+is true or not, but has a man the right to say it if he believes it?
+
+Suppose I should read the Bible all through right here in Morristown,
+and after I got through I should make up my mind that it is not a true
+book--what ought I to say? Ought I to clap my hand over my mouth and
+start for another State, and the minute I got over the line say, "It is
+not true, It is not true"? Or, ought I to have the right and privilege
+of saying right here in New Jersey, "My fellow-citizens, I have read
+the book--I do not believe that it is the word of God"? Suppose I read
+it and think it is true, then I am bound to say so. If I should go to
+Turkey and read the Koran and make up my mind that it is false, you
+would all say that I was a miserable poltroon if I did not say so.
+
+By force you can make hypocrites--men who will agree with you from the
+teeth out, and in their hearts hate you. We want no more hypocrites.
+We have enough in every community. And how are you going to keep from
+having more? By having the air free,--by wiping from your statute books
+such miserable and infamous laws as this.
+
+"_The Holy Scriptures_."
+
+Are they holy? Must a man be honest? Has he the right to be sincere?
+There are thousands of things in the Scriptures that everybody believes.
+Everybody believes the Scriptures are right when they say, "Thou shalt
+not steal"--everybody. And when they say "Give good measure, heaped up
+and running over," everybody says, "Good!" So when they say "Love your
+neighbor," everybody applauds that. Suppose a man believes that, and
+practices it, does it make any difference whether he believes in the
+flood or not? Is that of any importance? Whether a man built an ark or
+not--does that make the slightest difference? A man might deny it and
+yet be a very good man. Another might believe it and be a very mean
+man. Could it now, by any possibility, make a man a good father, a good
+husband, a good citizen? Does it make any difference whether you believe
+it or not? Does it make any difference whether or not you believe that a
+man was going through town, and his hair was a little short, like mine,
+and some little children laughed at him, and thereupon two bears from
+the woods came down and tore to pieces about forty of these children? Is
+it necessary to believe that? Suppose a man should say, "I guess that is
+a mistake; they did not copy that right; I guess the man that reported
+that was a little dull of hearing and did not get the story exactly
+right." Any harm in saying that? Is a man to be sent to the penitentiary
+for that? Can you imagine an infinitely good God sending a man to hell
+because he did not believe the bear story?
+
+So I say if you believe the Bible, say so; if you do not believe it, say
+so. And here is the vital mistake, I might almost say, in Protestantism
+itself. The Protestants when they fought the Catholics said: "Read the
+Bible for yourselves--stop taking it from your priests--read the sacred
+volume with your own eyes; it is a revelation from God to his children,
+and you are the children." And then they said: "If after you read it you
+do not believe it, and you say anything against it, we will put you in
+jail, and God will put you in hell." That is a fine position to get a
+man in. It is like a man who invited his neighbor to come and look at
+his pictures, saying: "They are the finest in the place, and I want your
+candid opinion. A man who looked at them the other day said they were
+daubs, and I kicked him downstairs--now I want your candid judgment." So
+the Protestant Church says to a man, "This Bible is a message from your
+Father,--your Father in heaven. Read it. Judge for yourself. But if
+after you have read it you say it is not true, I will put you in the
+penitentiary for one year."
+
+The Catholic Church has a little more sense about that--at least more
+logic. It says: "This Bible is not given to everybody. It is given to
+the world, to be sure, but it must be interpreted by the church. God
+would not give a Bible to the world unless he also appointed some one,
+some organization, to tell the world what it means." They said: "We do
+not want the world filled with interpretations, and all the interpreters
+fighting each other." And the Protestant has gone to the infinite
+absurdity of saying: "Judge for yourself, but if you judge wrong you
+will go to the penitentiary here and to hell hereafter.".
+
+Now, let us see further:
+
+"_Or by profane scoffing expose them to ridicule_"
+
+Think of such a law as that, passed under a constitution that says, "No
+law shall abridge the liberty of speech." But you must not ridicule
+the Scriptures. Did anybody ever dream of passing a law to protect
+Shakespeare from being laughed at? Did anybody ever think of such a
+thing? Did anybody ever want any legislative enactment to keep people
+from holding Robert Burns in contempt? The songs of Burns will be sung
+as long as there is love in the human heart. Do we need to protect him
+from ridicule by a statute? Does he need assistance from New Jersey?
+Is any statute needed to keep Euclid from being laughed at in this
+neighborhood? And is it possible that a work written by an infinite
+Being has to be protected by a legislature? Is it possible that a book
+cannot be written by a God so that it will not excite the laughter of
+the human race?
+
+Why, gentlemen, humor is one of the most valuable things in the human
+brain. It is the torch of the mind--it sheds light. Humor is the
+readiest test of truth--of the natural, of the sensible--and when you
+take from a man all sense of humor, there will only be enough left
+to make a bigot. Teach this man who has no humor--no sense of
+the absurd--the Presbyterian creed, fill his darkened brain with
+superstition and his heart with hatred--then frighten him with the
+threat of hell, and he will be ready to vote for that statute. Such men
+made that law.
+
+Let us read another clause:--
+
+"_And every person so offending shall, on conviction, be fined nor
+exceeding two hundred dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not exceeding
+twelve months, or both_."
+
+I want you to remember that this statute was passed in England hundreds
+of years ago--just in that language. The punishment, however, has
+been somewhat changed. In the good old days when the king sat on the
+throne--in the good old days when the altar was the right-bower of
+the throne--then, instead of saying: "Fined two hundred dollars and
+imprisoned one year," it was: "All his goods shall be confiscated; his
+tongue shall be bored with a hot iron, and upon his forehead he shall
+be branded with the letter B; and for the second offence he shall suffer
+death by burning." Those were the good old days when people maintained
+the orthodox religion in all its purity and in all its ferocity.
+
+The first question for you, gentlemen, to decide in this case is: Is
+this statute constitutional? Is this statute in harmony with, the part
+of the constitution of 1844 which says: "The liberty of speech shall not
+be abridged"? That is for you to say. Is this law constitutional, or
+is it simply an old statute that fell asleep, that was forgotten, that
+people simply failed to repeal? I believe I can convince you, if you
+will think a moment, that our fathers never intended to establish a
+government like that. When they fought for what they believed to be
+religious liberty--when they fought for what they believed to be liberty
+of speech, they believed that all such statutes would be wiped from the
+statute books of all the States.
+
+Let me tell you another reason why I believe this. We have in this
+country naturalization laws. People may come here irrespective of their
+religion. They must simply swear allegiance to this country--they must
+forswear allegiance to every other potentate, prince and power--but they
+do not have to change their religion. A Hindoo may become a citizen of
+the United States, and the Constitution of the United States, like the
+constitution of New Jersey, guarantees religious liberty. That Hindoo
+believes in a God--in a God that no Christian does believe in.
+He believes in a sacred book that every Christian looks upon as a
+collection of falsehoods. He believes, too, in a Savior--in Buddha. Now,
+I ask you,--when that man comes here and becomes a citizen--when the
+Constitution is about him, above him--has he the right to give his ideas
+about his religion? Has he the right to say in New Jersey: "There is
+no God except the Supreme Brahm--there is no Savior except Buddha, the
+Illuminated, Buddha the Blest"? I say that he has that right--and you
+have no right, because in addition to that he says, "You are mistaken;
+your God is not God; your Bible is not true, and your religion is a
+mistake," to abridge his liberty of speech. He has the right to say it,
+and if he has the right to say it, I insist before this Court and before
+this jury, that he has the right to give his reasons for saying it; and
+in giving those reasons, in maintaining his side, he has the right, not
+simply to appeal to history, not simply to the masonry of logic, but
+he has the right to shoot the arrows of wit, and to use the smile of
+ridicule. Anything that can be laughed out of this world ought not to
+stay in it.
+
+So the Persian--the believer in Zoroaster, in the spirits of Good and
+Evil, and that the spirit of Evil will finally triumph forever--if that
+is his religion--has the right to state it, and the right to give his
+reasons for his belief. How infinitely preposterous for you, one of the
+States of this Union, to invite a Persian or a Hindoo to come to your
+shores. You do not ask him to renounce his God. You ask him to renounce
+the Shah. Then when he becomes a citizen, having the rights of every
+other citizen, he has the right to defend his religion and to denounce
+yours.
+
+There is another thing. What was the spirit of our Government at that
+time? You must look at the leading men. Who were they? What were their
+opinions? Were most of them as guilty of blasphemy as is the defendant
+in this case? Thomas Jefferson--and there is, in my judgment, only one
+name on the page of American history greater than his--only one name
+for which I have a greater and tenderer reverence--and that is Abraham
+Lincoln, because of all men who ever lived and had power, he was the
+most merciful. And that is the way to test a man. How does he use power?
+Does he want to crush his fellow citizens? Does he like to lock somebody
+up in the penitentiary because he has the power of the moment? Does he
+wish to use it as a despot, or as a philanthropist--like a devil,
+or like a man? Thomas Jefferson entertained about the same views
+entertained by the defendant in this case, and he was made President of
+the United States. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence,
+founder of the University of Virginia, writer of that clause in the
+constitution of that State, that made all the citizens equal before the
+law. And when I come to the very sentences here charged as blasphemy, I
+will show you that these were the common sentiments of thousands of very
+great, of very intellectual and admirable men.
+
+I have no time, and it may be this is not the place and the occasion,
+to call your attention to the infinite harm that has been done in almost
+every religious nation by statutes such as this. Where that statute is,
+liberty can not be; and if this statute is enforced by this jury and
+by this Court, and if it is afterwards carried out, and if it could be
+carried out in the States of this Union, there would be an end of all
+intellectual progress. We would go back to the Dark Ages. Every man's
+mind, upon these subjects at least, would become a stagnant pool,
+covered with the scum of prejudice and meanness.
+
+And wherever such laws have been enforced, have the people been friends?
+Here we are to-day in this blessed air--here amid these happy fields.
+Can we imagine, with these surroundings, that a man for having been
+found with a crucifix in his poor little home, had been taken from his
+wife and children and burned--burned by Protestants? You cannot conceive
+of such a thing now. Neither can you conceive that there was a time when
+Catholics found some poor Protestant contradicting one of the dogmas of
+the church, and took that poor honest wretch--while his wife wept--while
+his children clung to his hands--to the public square, drove a stake in
+the ground, put a chain or two about him, lighted the fagots, and let
+the wife whom he loved and his little children see the flames climb
+around his limbs--you cannot imagine that any such infamy was ever
+practiced. And yet I tell you that the same spirit made this detestable,
+infamous, devilish statute.
+
+You can hardly imagine that there was a time when the same kind of men
+that made this law said to another man: "You say this world is round?"
+"Yes, sir; I think it is, because I have seen its shadow on the moon."
+"You have?"--Now, can you imagine a society, outside of hyenas and
+boa-constrictors, that would take that man, put him in the penitentiary,
+in a dungeon, turn the key upon him, and let his name be blotted from
+the book of human life? Years afterward some explorer amid ruins finds
+a few bones. The same spirit that did that, made this statute--the same
+spirit that did that, went before the grand jury in this case--exactly.
+Give the men that had this man indicted, the power, and I would not want
+to live in that particular part of the country. I would not willingly
+live with such men. I would go somewhere else, where the air is free,
+where I could speak my sentiments to my wife, to my children, and to my
+neighbors.
+
+Now, this persecution differs only in degree from the infamies of the
+olden times. What does it mean? It means that the State of New Jersey
+has all the light it wants. And what does that mean? It means that the
+State of New Jersey is absolutely infallible--that it has got its growth
+and does not propose to grow any more. New Jersey knows enough, and it
+will send teachers to the penitentiary.
+
+It is hardly possible that this State has accomplished all that it is
+ever going to accomplish. Religions are for a day. They are the clouds.
+Humanity is the eternal blue. Religions are the waves of the sea. These
+waves depend upon the force and direction of the wind--that is to say,
+of passion; but Humanity is the great sea. And so our religions change
+from day to day, and it is a blessed thing that they do. Why? Because we
+grow, and we are getting a little more civilized every day,--and any
+man that is not willing to let another man express his opinion, is not a
+civilized man, and you know it. Any man that does not give to everybody
+else the rights he claims for himself, is not in honest man.
+
+Here is a man who says, "I am going to join the Methodist Church." What
+right has he? Just the same right to join it that I have not to join
+it--no more, no less. But if you are a Methodist and I am not, it simply
+proves that you do not agree with me, and that I do not agree with
+you--that is all. Another man is a Catholic. He was born a Catholic, or
+is convinced that Catholicism is right. That is his business, and any
+man that would persecute him on that account, is a poor barbarian--a
+savage; any man that would abuse him on that account, is a barbarian--a
+savage.
+
+Then I take the next step. A man does not wish to belong to any church.
+How are you going to judge him? Judge him by the way he treats his wife,
+his children, his neighbors. Does he pay his debts? Does he tell the
+truth? Does he help the poor? Has he got a heart that melts when he
+hears grief's story? That is the way to judge him. I do not care what
+he thinks about the bears, or the flood, about bibles or gods. When some
+poor mother is found wandering in the street with a babe at her breast,
+does he quote Scripture, or hunt for his pocket-book? That is the way
+to judge. And suppose he does not believe in any bible whatever? If
+Christianity is true, that is his misfortune, and everybody should pity
+the poor wretch that is going down the hill. Why kick him? You will get
+your revenge on him through all eternity--is not that enough?
+
+So I say, let us judge each other by our actions, not by theories, not
+by what we happen to believe--because that depends very much on where we
+were born.
+
+If you had been born in Turkey, you probably would have been a
+Mohammedan. If I had been born among the Hindoos, I might have been a
+Buddhist--I can't tell. If I had been raised in Scotland, on oatmeal, I
+might have been a Covenanter--nobody knows. If I had lived in Ireland,
+and seen my poor wife and children driven into the street, I think I
+might have been a Home-ruler--no doubt of it. You see it depends on
+where you were born--much depends on our surroundings.
+
+Of course, there are men born in Turkey who are not Mohammedans, and
+there are men born in this country who are not Christians--Methodists,
+Unitarians, or Catholics, plenty of them, who are unbelievers--plenty of
+them who deny the truth of the Scriptures--plenty of them who say:
+
+"I know not whether there be a God or not." Well, it is a thousand times
+better to say that honestly than to say dishonestly that you believe in
+God.
+
+If you want to know the opinion of your neighbor, you want his honest
+opinion. You do not want to be deceived. You do not want to talk with a
+hypocrite. You want to get straight at his honest mind--and then you are
+going to judge him, not by what he says but by what he does. It is very
+easy to sail along with the majority--easy to sail the way the boats are
+going--easy to float with the stream; but when you come to swim against
+the tide, with the men on the shore throwing rocks at you, you will get
+a good deal of exercise in this world.
+
+And do you know that we ought to feel under the greatest obligation to
+men who have fought the prevailing notions of their day? There is not a
+Presbyterian in Morristown that does not hold up for admiration the
+man that carried the flag of the Presbyterians when they were in the
+minority--not one. There is not a Methodist in this State who does not
+admire John and Charles Wesley and Whitefield, who carried the banner
+of that new and despised sect when it was in the minority. They glory
+in them because they braved public opinion, because they dared to oppose
+idiotic, barbarous and savage statutes like this. And there is not a
+Universalist that does not worship dear old Hosea Ballou--I love him
+myself--because he said to the Presbyterian minister: "You are going
+around trying to keep people out of hell, and I am going around trying
+to keep hell out of the people." Every Universalist admires him and
+loves him because when despised and railed at and spit upon, he stood
+firm, a patient witness for the eternal mercy of God. And there is not a
+solitary Protestant who does not honor Martin Luther--who does not honor
+the Covenanters in poor Scotland, and that poor girl who was tied out
+on the sand of the sea by Episcopalians, and kept there till the rising
+tide drowned her, and all she had to do to save her life was to say,
+"God save the king," but she would not say it without the addition of
+the words, "If it be God's will." No one, who is not a miserable,
+contemptible wretch, can fail to stand in admiration before such
+courage, such self-denial--such heroism. No matter what the attitude of
+your body may be, your soul falls on its knees before such men and such
+women.
+
+Let us take another step. Where would we have been if authority had
+always triumphed? Where would we have been if such statutes had always
+been carried out? We have now a science called astronomy. That science
+has done more to enlarge the horizon of human thought than all things
+else. We now live in an infinite universe. We know that the sun is a
+million times larger than our earth, and we know that there are other
+great luminaries millions of times larger than our sun. We know that
+there are planets so far away that light, traveling at the rate of
+one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second, requires fifteen
+thousand years to reach this grain of sand, this tear, we call the
+earth--and we now know that all the fields of space are sown thick with
+constellations. If that statute had been enforced, that science would
+not now be the property of the human mind. That science is contrary to
+the Bible, and for asserting the truth you become a criminal. For
+what sum of money, for what amount of wealth, would the world have the
+science of astronomy expunged from the brain of man? We learned the
+story of the stars in spite of that statute.
+
+The first men who said the world was round were scourged for scoffing at
+the Scriptures. And even Martin Luther, speaking of one of the greatest
+men that ever lived, said: "Does he think with his little lever to
+overturn the Universe of God?" Martin Luther insisted that such men
+ought to be trampled under foot. If that statute had been carried into
+effect, Galileo would have been impossible. Kepler, the discoverer of
+the three laws, would have died with the great secret locked in his
+brain, and mankind would have been left ignorant, superstitious, and
+besotted. And what else? If that statute had been carried out, the
+world would have been deprived of the philosophy of Spinoza; of the
+philosophy, of the literature, of the wit and wisdom, the justice and
+mercy of Voltaire, the greatest Frenchman that ever drew the breath of
+life--the man who by his mighty pen abolished torture in a nation, and
+helped to civilize a world.
+
+If that statute had been enforced, nearly all the books that enrich the
+libraries of the world could not have been written. If that statute had
+been enforced, Humboldt could not have delivered the lectures now known
+as "The Cosmos." If that statute had been enforced, Charles Darwin would
+not have been allowed to give to the world his discoveries that have
+been of more benefit to mankind than all the sermons ever uttered. In
+England they have placed his sacred dust in the great Abbey. If he had
+lived in New Jersey, and this statute could have been enforced, he would
+have lived one year at least in your penitentiary. Why? That man went
+so far as not simply to deny the truth of your Bible, but absolutely
+to deny the existence of your God. Was he a good man? Yes, one of the
+noblest and greatest of men. Humboldt, the greatest German who ever
+lived, was of the same opinion.
+
+And so I might go on with the great men of to-day. Who are the men
+who are leading the race upward and shedding light in the intellectual
+world? They are the men declared by that statute to be criminals. Mr.
+Spencer could not publish his books in the State of New Jersey. He would
+be arrested, tried, and imprisoned; and yet that man has added to the
+intellectual wealth of the world.
+
+So with Huxley, so with Tyndall, so with Helmholtz--so with the greatest
+thinkers and greatest writers of modern times.
+
+You may not agree with these men--and what does that prove? It simply
+proves that they do not agree with you--that is all. Who is to blame?
+I do not know. They may be wrong, and you may be right; but if they had
+the power, and put you in the penitentiary simply because you differed
+with them, they would be savages; and if you have the power and imprison
+men because they differ from you, why then, of course, you are savages.
+
+No; I believe in intellectual hospitality. I love men that have a little
+horizon to their minds--a little sky, a little scope. I hate anything
+that is narrow and pinched and withered and mean and crawling, and that
+is willing to live on dust. I believe in creating such an atmosphere
+that things will burst into blossom. I believe in good will, good
+health, good fellowship, good feeling--and if there is any God on the
+earth, or in heaven, let us hope that he will be generous and grand. Do
+you not see what the effect will be? I am not cursing you because you
+are a Methodist, and not damning you because you are a Catholic, or
+because you are an Infidel--a good man is more than all of these. The
+grandest of all things is to be in the highest and noblest sense a man.
+
+Now let us see the frightful things that this man, the defendant in this
+case, has done. Let me read the charges against him as set out in this
+indictment.
+
+I shall insist that this statute does not cover any publication--that
+it covers simply speech--not in writing, not in book or pamphlet. Let us
+see:
+
+"_This Bible describes God as so loving that he drowned the whole world
+in his mad fury_."
+
+Well, the great question about that is, is it true? Does the Bible
+describe God as having drowned the whole world with the exception of
+eight people? Does it, or does it not? I do not know whether there is
+anybody in this county who has really read the Bible, but I believe the
+story of the flood is there. It does say that God destroyed all flesh,
+and that he did so because he was angry. He says so, himself, if the
+Bible be true.
+
+The defendant has simply repeated what is in the Bible. The Bible says
+that God is loving, and says that he drowned the world, and that he was
+angry. Is it blasphemy to quote from the "Sacred Scriptures"?
+
+"_Because it was so much worse than he, knowing all things, ever
+supposed it could be._"
+
+Well, the Bible does say that he repented having made man. Now, is
+there any blasphemy in saying that the Bible is true? That is the only
+question. It is a fact that God, according to the Bible, did drown
+nearly everybody. If God knows all things, he must have known at the
+time he made them that he was going to drown them. Is it likely that
+a being of infinite wisdom would deliberately do what he knew he must
+undo? Is it blasphemy to ask that question? Have you a right to think
+about it at all? If you have, you have the right to tell somebody what
+you think--if not, you have no right to discuss it, no right to think
+about it. All you have to do is to read it and believe it--to open your
+mouth like a young robin, and swallow--worms or shingle nails--no matter
+which.
+
+The defendant further blasphemed and said that:--
+
+"_An all-wise, unchangeable God, who got out of patience with a world
+which was just what his own stupid blundering had made it, knew no
+better way out of the muddle than to destroy it by drowning!_"
+
+Is that true? Was not the world exactly as God made it? Certainly. Did
+he not, if the Bible is true, drown the people? He did. Did he know he
+would drown them when he made them? He did. Did he know they ought to
+be drowned when they were made? He did. Where then, is the blasphemy
+in saying so? There is not a minister in this world who could explain
+it--who would be permitted to explain it--under this statute. And yet
+you would arrest this man and put him in the penitentiary. But after you
+lock him in the cell, there remains the question still. Is it possible
+that a good and wise God, knowing that he was going to drown them, made
+millions of people? What did he make them for? I do not know. I do not
+pretend to be wise enough to answer that question. Of course, you cannot
+answer the question. Is there anything blasphemous in that? Would it
+be blasphemy in me to say I do not believe that any God ever made men,
+women and children--mothers, with babes clasped to their breasts, and
+then sent a flood to fill the world with death?
+
+A rain lasting for forty days--the water rising hour by hour, and the
+poor wretched children of God climbing to the tops of their houses--then
+to the tops of the hills. The water still rising--no mercy. The people
+climbing higher and higher, looking to the mountains for salvation--the
+merciless rain still falling, the inexorable flood still rising.
+Children falling from the arms of mothers--no pity. The highest hills
+covered--infancy and old age mingling in death--the cries of women, the
+sobs and sighs lost in the roar of waves--the heavens still relentless.
+The mountains are covered--a shoreless sea rolls round the world, and on
+its billows are billions of corpses.
+
+This is the greatest crime that man has imagined, and this crime is
+called a deed of infinite mercy.
+
+Do you believe that? I do not believe one word of it, and I have the
+right to say to all the world that this is false.
+
+If there be a good God, the story is not true. If there be a wise
+God, the story is not true. Ought an honest man to be sent to the
+penitentiary for simply telling the truth?
+
+Suppose we had a statute that whoever scoffed at science--whoever
+by profane language should bring the rule of three into contempt, or
+whoever should attack the proposition that two parallel lines will never
+include a space, should be sent to the penitentiary--what would you
+think of it? It would be just as wise and just as idiotic as this.
+
+And what else says the defendant?
+
+"_The Bible-God says that his people made him jealous." "Provoked him to
+anger._"
+
+Is that true? It is. If it is true, is it blasphemous?
+
+Let us read another line--
+
+"_And now he will raise the mischief with them; that his anger bums like
+hell_."
+
+That is true. The Bible says of God--"My anger burns to the lowest
+hell." And that is all that the defendant says. Every word of it is
+in the Bible. He simply does not believe it--and for that reason is a
+"blasphemer."
+
+I say to you now, gentlemen,--and I shall argue to the Court,--that
+there is not in what I have read a solitary blasphemous word--not a word
+that has not been said in hundreds of pulpits in the Christian world.
+Theodore Parker, a Unitarian, speaking of this Bible-God said: "Vishnu
+with a necklace of skulls, Vishnu with bracelets of living, hissing
+serpents, is a figure of Love and Mercy compared to the God of the Old
+Testament." That, we might call "blasphemy," but not what I have read.
+
+Let us read on:--
+
+"_He would destroy them all were it not that he feared the wrath of the
+enemy_."
+
+That is in the Bible--word for word. Then the defendant in astonishment
+says:
+
+"_The Almighty God afraid of his enemies!_"
+
+That is what the Bible says. What does it mean? If the Bible is true,
+God was afraid.
+
+"_Can the mind conceive of more horrid blasphemy?_"
+
+Is not that true? If God be infinitely good and wise and powerful, is
+it possible he is afraid of anything? If the defendant had said that God
+was afraid of his enemies, that might have been blasphemy--but this man
+says the Bible says that, and you are asked to say that it is blasphemy.
+Now, up to this point there is no blasphemy, even if you were to enforce
+this infamous statute--this savage law.
+
+"_The Old Testament records for our instruction in morals, the most foul
+and bestial instances of fornication, incest, and polygamy, perpetrated
+by God's own saints, and the New Testament indorses these lecherous
+wretches as examples for all good Christians to follow_.".
+
+Now, is it not a fact that the Old Testament does uphold polygamy?
+Abraham would have gotten into trouble in New Jersey--no doubt of that.
+Sarah could have obtained a divorce in this State--no doubt of that.
+What is the use of telling a falsehood about it? Let us tell the truth
+about the patriarchs.
+
+Everybody knows that the same is true of Moses. We have all heard of
+Solomon--a gentleman with five or six hundred wives, and three or four
+hundred other ladies with whom he was acquainted. This is simply what
+the defendant says. Is there any blasphemy about that? It is only the
+truth. If Solomon were living in the United States to-day, we would put
+him in the penitentiary. You know that under the Edmunds Mormon law
+he would be locked up. If you should present a petition signed by his
+eleven hundred wives, you could not get him out.
+
+So it was with David. There are some splendid things about David, of
+course. I admit that, and pay my tribute of respect to his courage--but
+he happened to have ten or twelve wives too many, so he shut them up,
+put them in a kind of penitentiary and kept them there till they died.
+That would not be considered good conduct even in Morristown. You know
+that. Is it any harm to speak of it? There are plenty of ministers here
+to set it right--thousands of them all over the country, every one with
+his chance to talk all day Sunday and nobody to say a word back. The pew
+cannot reply to the pulpit, you know; it has just to sit there and
+take it. If there is any harm in this, if it is not true, they ought to
+answer it. But it is here, and the only answer is an indictment.
+
+I say that Lot was a bad man. So I say of Abraham, and of Jacob. Did you
+ever know of a more despicable fraud practiced by one brother on another
+than Jacob practiced on Esau? My sympathies have always been with Esau.
+He seemed to be a manly man. Is it blasphemy to say that you do not like
+a hypocrite, a murderer, or a thief, because his name is in the Bible?
+How do you know what such men are mentioned for? May be they are
+mentioned as examples, and you certainly ought not to be led away and
+induced to imagine that a man with seven hundred wives is a pattern
+of domestic propriety, one to be followed by yourself and your sons. I
+might go on and mention the names of hundreds of others who committed
+every conceivable crime, in the name of religion--who declared war, and
+on the field of battle killed men, women and babes, even children yet
+unborn, in the name of the most merciful God. The Bible is filled with
+the names and crimes of these sacred savages, these inspired beasts. Any
+man who says that a God of love commanded the commission of these crimes
+is, to say the least of it, mistaken. If there be a God, then it is
+blasphemous to charge him with the commission of crime.
+
+But let us read further from this indictment:
+
+"The aforesaid printed document contains other scandalous, infamous and
+blasphemous matters and things, to the tenor and effect following, that
+is to say--"
+
+Then comes this particularly blasphemous line:
+
+"_Now, reader, take time and calmly think it over _."
+
+Gentlemen, there are many things I have read that I should not have
+expressed in exactly the same language used by the defendant, and many
+things that I am going to read I might not have said at all, but the
+defendant had the right to say every word with which he is charged in
+this indictment. He had the right to give his honest thought, no matter
+whether any human being agreed with what he said or not, and no matter
+whether any other man approved of the manner in which he said these
+things. I defend his right to speak, whether I believe in what he spoke
+or not, or in the propriety of saying what he did. I should defend a man
+just as cheerfully who had spoken against my doctrine, as one who had
+spoken against the popular superstitions of my time. It would make
+no difference to me how unjust the attack was upon my belief--how
+maliciously ingenious; and no matter how sacred the conviction that
+was attacked, I would defend the freedom of speech. And why? Because no
+attack can be answered by force, no argument can be refuted by a blow,
+or by imprisonment, or by fine. You may imprison the man, but the
+argument is free; you may fell the man to the earth, but the statement
+stands.
+
+The defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the
+Christian world to be sacred. Yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the
+truth, and by truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes.
+The defendant says:
+
+"_Take time to calmly think it over: Was a Jewish girl the mother of
+God, the mother of your God?_"
+
+The defendant probably asked this question, supposing that it must
+be answered by all sensible people in the negative. If the Christian
+religion is true, then a Jewish girl was the mother of Almighty God.
+Personally, if the doctrine is true, I have no fault to find with the
+statement that a Jewish maiden was the mother of God.--Millions believe,
+that this is true--I do not believe,--but who knows? If a God came from
+the throne of the universe, came to this world and became the child of
+a pure and loving woman, it would not lessen, in my eyes, the dignity or
+the greatness of that God.
+
+There is no more perfect picture on the earth, or within the imagination
+of man, than a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms a child,
+the fruit of love.
+
+No matter how the statement is made, the fact remains the same. A Jewish
+girl became the mother of God. If the Bible is true, that is true, and
+to repeat it, even according to your law, is not blasphemous, and to
+doubt it, or to express the doubt, or to deny it, is not contrary to
+your constitution.
+
+To this defendant it seemed improbable that God was ever born of woman,
+was ever held in the lap of a mother; and because he cannot believe
+this, he is charged with blasphemy. Could you pour contempt on
+Shakespeare by saying that his mother was a woman,--by saying that he
+was once a poor, crying, little, helpless child? Of course he was; and
+he afterwards became the greatest human being that ever touched the
+earth,--the only man whose intellectual wings have reached from sky to
+sky; and he was once a crying babe. What of it? Does that cast any scorn
+or contempt upon him? Does this take any of the music from "Midsummer
+Night's Dream"?--any of the passionate wealth from "Antony and
+Cleopatra," any philosophy from "Macbeth," any intellectual grandeur
+from "King Lear"? On the contrary, these great productions of the brain
+show the growth of the dimpled babe, give every mother a splendid
+dream and hope for her child, and cover every cradle with a sublime
+possibility.
+
+The defendant is also charged with having said that: "_God cried and
+screamed_."
+
+Why not? If he was absolutely a child, he was like other children,--like
+yours, like mine. I have seen the time, when absent from home, that I
+would have given more to have heard my children cry, than to have heard
+the finest orchestra that ever made the air burst into flower. What if
+God did cry? It simply shows that his humanity was real and not assumed,
+that it was a tragedy, real, and not a poor pretence. And the defendant
+also says that if the orthodox religion be true, that the
+
+"_God of the Universe kicked, and flung about his little arms, and made
+aimless dashes into space with his little fists_."
+
+Is there anything in this that is blasphemous? One of the best pictures
+I ever saw of the Virgin and Child was painted by the Spaniard, Murillo.
+Christ appears to be a truly natural, chubby, happy babe. Such a
+picture takes nothing from the majesty, the beauty, or the glory of the
+incarnation.
+
+I think it is the best thing about the Catholic Church that it lifts
+up for adoration and admiration, a mother,--that it pays what it calls
+"Divine honors" to a woman. There is certainly goodness in that, and
+where a church has so few practices that are good, I am willing to point
+this one out. It is the one redeeming feature about Catholicism, that it
+teaches the worship of a woman.
+
+The defendant says more about the childhood of Christ. He goes so far as
+to say, that:
+
+"_He was found staring foolishly at his own little toes._"
+
+And why not? The Bible says, that "he increased in wisdom and stature."
+The defendant might have referred to something far more improbable. In
+the same verse in which St. Luke says that Jesus increased in wisdom and
+stature, will be found the assertion that he increased in favor with God
+and man. The defendant might have asked how it was that the love of God
+for God increased.
+
+But the defendant has simply stated that the child Jesus grew, as other
+children grow; that he acted like other children, and if he did, it is
+more than probable that he did stare at his own toes. I have laughed
+many a time to see little children astonished with the sight of their
+feet. They seem to wonder what on earth puts the little toes in motion.
+Certainly there is nothing blasphemous in supposing that the feet of
+Christ amused him, precisely as the feet of other children have amused
+them. There is nothing blasphemous about this; on the contrary, it is
+beautiful. If I believed in the existence of God, the Creator of this
+world, the Being who, with the hand of infinity, sowed the fields of
+space with stars, as a farmer sows his grain, I should like to think of
+him as a little, dimpled babe, overflowing with joy, sitting upon the
+knees of a loving mother. The ministers themselves might take a lesson
+even from the man who is charged with blasphemy, and make an effort to
+bring an infinite God a little nearer to the human heart.
+
+The defendant also says, speaking of the infant Christ, "_He was nursed
+at Mary's breast._"
+
+Yes, and if the story be true, that is the tenderest fact in it. Nursed
+at the breast of woman. No painting, no statue, no words can make a
+deeper and a tenderer impression upon the heart of man than this: The
+infinite God, a babe, nursed at the holy breast of woman.
+
+You see these things do not strike all people the same. To a man
+that has been raised on the orthodox desert, these things are
+incomprehensible. He has been robbed of his humanity. He has no humor,
+nothing but the stupid and the solemn. His fancy sits with folded wings.
+
+Imagination, like the atmosphere of spring, woos every seed of earth
+to seek the blue of heaven, and whispers of bud and flower and fruit.
+Imagination gathers from every field of thought and pours the wealth
+of many lives into the lap of one. To the contracted, to the cast-iron
+people who believe in heartless and inhuman creeds, the words of the
+defendant seem blasphemous, and to them the thought that God was a
+little child is monstrous.
+
+They cannot bear to hear it said that he nursed at the breast of a
+maiden, that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, that he had the joys
+and sorrows of other babes. I hope, gentlemen, that not only you,
+but the attorneys for the prosecution, have read what is known as the
+"Apocryphal New Testament," books that were once considered inspired,
+once admitted to be genuine, and that once formed a part of our New
+Testament. I hope you have read the books of Joseph and Mary, of the
+Shepherd of Hermes, of the Infancy and of Mary, in which many of the
+things done by the youthful Christ are described--books that were once
+the delight of the Christian world; books that gave joy to children,
+because in them they read that Christ made little birds of clay, that
+would at his command stretch out their wings and fly with joy above his
+head. If the defendant in this case had said anything like that, here
+in the State of New Jersey, he would have been indicted; the orthodox
+ministers would have shouted "blasphemy," and yet, these little stories
+made the name of Christ dearer to children.
+
+The church of to-day lacks sympathy; the theologians are without
+affection. After all, sympathy is genius. A man who really sympathizes
+with another understands him. A man who sympathizes with a religion,
+instantly sees the good that is in it, and the man who sympathizes with
+the right, sees the evil that a creed contains.
+
+But the defendant, still speaking of the infant Christ, is charged with
+having said:
+
+"_God smiled when he was comfortable. He lay in a cradle and was rocked
+to sleep._"
+
+Yes, and there is no more beautiful picture than that. Let some great
+religious genius paint a picture of this kind--of a babe smiling with
+content, rocked in the cradle by the mother who bends tenderly and
+proudly above him. There could be no more beautiful, no more touching,
+picture than this. What would I not give for a picture of Shakespeare as
+a babe,--a picture that was a likeness,--rocked by his mother? I would
+give more for this than for any painting that now enriches the walls of
+the world.
+
+The defendant also says, that:
+
+"_God was sick when cutting his teeth._"
+
+And what of that? We are told that he was tempted in all points, as we
+are. That is to say, he was afflicted, he was hungry, he was thirsty,
+he suffered the pains and miseries common to man. Otherwise, he was not
+flesh, he was not human.
+
+"_He caught the measles, the mumps, the scarlet fever and the whooping
+cough_."
+
+Certainly he was liable to have these diseases, for he was, in fact,
+a child. Other children have them. Other children, loved as dearly by
+their mothers as Christ could have been by his, and yet they are taken
+from the little family by fever; taken, it may be, and buried in the
+snow, while the poor mother goes sadly home, wishing that she was lying
+by its side. All that can be said of every word in this address, about
+Christ and about his childhood, amounts to this; that he lived the
+life of a child; that he acted like other children. I have read you
+substantially what he has said, and this is considered blasphemous.
+
+He has said, that:
+
+"_According to the Old Testament, the God of the Christian world
+commanded people to destroy each other._"
+
+If the Bible is true, then the statement of the defendant is true. Is it
+calculated to bring God into contempt to deny that he upheld polygamy,
+that he ever commanded one of his generals to rip open with the sword
+of war, the woman with child? Is it blasphemy to deny that a God of
+infinite love gave such commandments? Is such a denial calculated to
+pour contempt and scorn upon the God of the orthodox?
+
+Is it blasphemous to deny that God commanded his children to murder each
+other? Is it blasphemous to say that he was benevolent, merciful and
+just?
+
+It is impossible to say that the Bible is true and that God is good.
+I do not believe that a God made this world, filled it with people and
+then drowned them. I do not believe that infinite wisdom ever made a
+mistake. If there be any God he was too good to commit such an infinite
+crime, too wise, to make such a mistake. Is this blasphemy? Is it
+blasphemy to say that Solomon was not a virtuous man, or that David was
+an adulterer?
+
+Must we say when this ancient King had one of his best generals placed
+in the front of the battle--deserted him and had him murdered for the
+purpose of stealing his wife, that he was "a man after God's own heart"?
+Suppose the defendant in this case were guilty of something like that?
+Uriah was fighting for his country, fighting the battles of David, the
+King. David wanted to take from him his wife. He sent for Joab, his
+commander-in-chief, and said to him:
+
+"Make a feint to attack a town. Put Uriah at the front of the attacking
+force, and when the people sally forth from the town to defend its gate,
+fall back so that this gallant, noble, patriotic man may be slain."
+
+This was done and the widow was stolen by the King. Is it blasphemy to
+tell the truth and to say exactly what David was? Let us be honest with
+each other; let us be honest with this defendant.
+
+For thousands of years men have taught that the ancient patriarchs were
+sacred, that they were far better than the men of modern times, that
+what was in them a virtue, is in us a crime. Children are taught in
+Sunday schools to admire and respect these criminals of the ancient
+days. The time has come to tell the truth about these men, to call
+things by their proper names, and above all, to stand by the right, by
+the truth, by mercy and by justice. If what the defendant has said is
+blasphemy under this statute then the question arises, is the statute in
+accordance with the constitution? If this statute is constitutional, why
+has it been allowed to sleep for all these years? I take this position:
+Any law made for the preservation of a human right, made to guard a
+human being, cannot sleep long enough to die; but any law that deprives
+a human being of a natural right--if that law goes to sleep, it never
+wakes, it sleeps the sleep of death.
+
+I call the attention of the Court to that remarkable case in England
+where, only a few years ago, a man appealed to trial by battle. The law
+allowing trial by battle had been asleep in the statute book of England
+for more than two hundred years, and yet the court held that, in spite
+of the fact that the law had been asleep--it being a law in favor of a
+defendant--he was entitled to trial by battle. And why? Because it was
+a statute at the time made in defence of a human right, and that statute
+could not sleep long enough or soundly enough to die. In consequence
+of this decision, the Parliament of England passed a special act, doing
+away forever with the trial by battle.
+
+When a statute attacks an individual right, the State must never let it
+sleep. When it attacks the right of the public at large and is allowed
+to pass into a state of slumber, it cannot be raised for the purpose of
+punishing an individual.
+
+Now, gentlemen, a few words more. I take an almost infinite interest
+in this trial, and before you decide, I am exceedingly anxious that you
+should understand with clearness the thoughts I have expressed upon this
+subject I want you to know how the civilized feel, and the position now
+taken by the leaders of the world.
+
+A few years ago almost everything spoken against the grossest possible
+superstition was considered blasphemous. The altar hedged itself about
+with the sword; the Priest went in partnership with the King. In those
+days statutes were leveled against all human speech. Men were convicted
+of blasphemy because they believed in an actual personal God; because
+they insisted that God had body and parts. Men were convicted of
+blasphemy because they denied that God had form. They have been
+imprisoned for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation, and they
+have been torn in pieces for defending that doctrine. There are but few
+dogmas now believed by any Christian church that have not at some time
+been denounced as blasphemous.
+
+When Henry VIII. put himself at the head of the Episcopal Church a
+creed was made, and in that creed there were five dogmas that must,
+of necessity, be believed. Anybody who denied any one, was to be
+punished--for the first offence, with fine, with imprisonment, or
+branding, and for the second offence, with death. Not one of these five
+dogmas is now a part of the creed of the Church of England.
+
+So I could go on for days and weeks and months, showing that hundreds
+and hundreds of religious dogmas, to deny which was death, have been
+either changed or abandoned for others nearly as absurd as the old ones
+were. It may be, however, sufficient to say, that wherever the church
+has had power it has been a crime for any man to speak his honest
+thought. No church has ever been willing that any opponent should give
+a transcript of his mind. Every church in power has appealed to brute
+force, to the sword, for the purpose of sustaining its creed. Not one
+has had the courage to occupy the open field. The church has not been
+satisfied with calling Infidels and unbelievers blasphemers. Each church
+has accused nearly every other church of being a blasphemer. Every
+pioneer has been branded as a criminal. The Catholics called Martin
+Luther a blasphemer, and Martin Luther called Copernicus a blasphemer.
+Pious ignorance always regards intelligence as a kind of blasphemy. Some
+of the greatest men of the world, some of the best, have been put to
+death for the crime of blasphemy, that is to say, for the crime of
+endeavoring to benefit their fellow-men.
+
+As long as the church has the power to close the lips of men, so long
+and no longer will superstition rule this world.
+
+"Blasphemy is the word that the majority hisses into the ear of the
+few."
+
+After every argument of the church has been answered, has been refuted,
+then the church cries, "blasphemy!"
+
+Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth.
+
+Blasphemy is what a withered last year's leaf says to a this year's bud.
+
+Blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice.
+
+Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless.
+
+And let me say now, that the crime of blasphemy, as set out in this
+statute, is impossible. No man can blaspheme a book. No man can commit
+blasphemy by telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme a God, or
+a Holy Ghost, or a Son of God. The Infinite cannot be blasphemed.
+
+In the olden time, in the days of savagery and superstition, when some
+poor man was struck by lightning, or when a blackened mark was left on
+the breast of a wife and mother, the poor savage supposed that some god,
+angered by something he had done, had taken his revenge. What else did
+the savage suppose? He believed that this god had the same feelings,
+with regard to the loyalty of his subjects, that an earthly chief had,
+or an earthly king had, with regard to the loyalty or treachery of
+members of his tribe, or citizens of his kingdom. So the savage said,
+when his country was visited by a calamity, when the flood swept the
+people away, or the storm scattered their poor houses in fragments:
+"We have allowed some Freethinker to live; some one is in our town or
+village who has not brought his gift to the priest, his incense to the
+altar; some man of our tribe or of our country does not respect our
+god." Then, for the purpose of appeasing the supposed god, for the
+purpose of again winning a smile from heaven, for the purpose of
+securing a little sunlight for their fields and homes, they drag the
+accused man from his home, from his wife and children, and with all
+the ceremonies of pious brutality, shed his blood. They did it in
+self-defence; they believed that they were saving their own lives and
+the lives of their children; they did it to appease their god. Most
+people are now beyond that point. Now when disease visits a community,
+the intelligent do not say the disease came because the people were
+wicked; when the cholera comes, it is not because of the Methodists, of
+the Catholics, of the Presbyterians, or of the Infidels. When the wind
+destroys a town in the far West, it is not because somebody there had
+spoken his honest thoughts. We are beginning to see that the wind
+blows and destroys without the slightest reference to man, without the
+slightest care whether it destroys the good or the bad, the irreligious
+or the religious. When the lightning leaps from the clouds it is just as
+likely to strike a good man as a bad man, and when the great serpents of
+flame climb around the houses of men, they burn just as gladly and just
+as joyously, the home of virtue, as they do the den and lair of vice.
+
+Then the reason for all these laws has failed. The laws were made on
+account of a superstition. That superstition has faded from the minds
+of intelligent men, and, as a consequence, the laws based on the
+superstition ought to fail.
+
+There is one splendid thing in nature, and that is that men and nations
+must reap the consequences of their acts--reap them in this world, if
+they live, and in another if there be one. The man who leaves this
+world a bad man, a malicious man, will probably be the same man when
+he reaches another realm, and the man who leaves this shore good,
+charitable and honest, will be good, charitable and honest, no matter
+on what star he lives again. The world is growing sensible upon these
+subjects, and as we grow sensible, we grow charitable.
+
+Another reason has been given for these laws against blasphemy, the most
+absurd reason that can by any possibility be given. It is this: There
+should be laws against blasphemy, because the man who utters blasphemy
+endangers the public peace.
+
+Is it possible that Christians will break the peace? Is it possible
+that they will violate the law? Is it probable that Christians will
+congregate together and make a mob, simply because a man has given an
+opinion against their religion? What is their religion? They say, "If
+a man smites you on one cheek, turn the other also." They say, "We must
+love our neighbors as we love ourselves." Is it possible then, that you
+can make a mob out of Christians,--that these men, who love even their
+enemies, will attack others, and will destroy life, in the name of
+universal love? And yet, Christians themselves say that there ought to
+be laws against blasphemy, for fear that Christians, who are controlled
+by universal love, will become so outraged, when they hear an honest man
+express an honest thought, that they will leap upon him and tear him in
+pieces.
+
+What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my
+thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
+
+To live on the unpaid labor of other men--that is blasphemy.
+
+To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body--that is
+blasphemy.
+
+To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks
+upon the lips--that is blasphemy.
+
+To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you
+believe to be a lie--that is blasphemy.
+
+To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the
+applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob--that is blasphemy.
+
+To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant
+many--that is blasphemy.
+
+To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men--that is
+blasphemy.
+
+To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain--that is
+blasphemy.
+
+To violate your conscience--that is blasphemy.
+
+The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an
+unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
+
+The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and
+against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.
+
+Why should we fear our fellow-men? Why should not each human being have
+the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all
+the world? What harm can come from an honest interchange of thought?
+
+I have been giving you my real ideas. I have spoken freely, and yet
+the sun rose this morning, just the same as it always has. There is no
+particular change visible in the world, and I do not see but that we are
+all as happy to-day as though we had spent yesterday in making somebody
+else miserable. I denounced on yesterday the superstitions of the
+Christian world, and yet, last night I slept the sleep of peace. You
+will pardon me for saying again that I feel the greatest possible
+interest in the result of this trial, in the principle at stake. This is
+my only apology, my only excuse, for taking your time. For years I
+have felt that the great battle for human liberty, the battle that has
+covered thousands of fields with heroic dead, had finally been won. When
+I read the history of this world, of what has been endured, of what has
+been suffered, of the heroism and infinite courage of the intellectual
+and honest few, battling with the countless serfs and slaves of kings
+and priests, of tyranny, of hypocrisy, of ignorance and prejudice, of
+faith and fear, there was in my heart the hope that the great battle had
+been fought, and that the human race, in its march towards the dawn, had
+passed midnight, and that the "great balance weighed up morning." This
+hope, this feeling, gave me the greatest possible joy. When I thought
+of the many who had been burnt, of how often the sons of liberty had
+perished in ashes, of how many o! the noblest and greatest had stood
+upon scaffolds, and of the countless hearts, the grandest that ever
+throbbed in human breasts, that had been broken by the tyranny of church
+and state, of how many of the noble and loving had sighed themselves
+away in dungeons, the only consolation was that the last bastile had
+fallen, that the dungeons of the Inquisition had been torn down and that
+the scaffolds of the world could no longer be wet with heroic blood.
+
+You know that sometimes, after a great battle has been fought, and one
+of the armies has been broken, and its fortifications carried, there
+are occasional stragglers beyond the great field, stragglers who know
+nothing of the fate of their army, know nothing of the victory, and for
+that reason, fight on. There are a few such stragglers in the State of
+New Jersey. They have never heard of the great victory. They do not know
+that in all civilized countries the hosts of superstition have been put
+to flight. They do not know that Freethinkers, Infidels, are to-day the
+leaders of the intellectual armies of the world.
+
+One of the last trials of this character, tried in Great Britain,--and
+that is the country that our ancestors fought in the sacred name of
+liberty,--one of the last trials in that country, a country ruled by a
+state church, ruled by a woman who was born a queen, ruled by dukes and
+nobles and lords, children of ancient robbers--was in the year 1843.
+George Jacob Holyoake, one of the best of the human race, was imprisoned
+on a charge of Atheism, charged with having written a pamphlet and
+having made a speech in which he had denied the existence of the British
+God. The judge who tried him, who passed sentence upon him, went down
+to his grave with a stain upon his intellect and upon his honor. All the
+real intelligence of Great Britain rebelled against the outrage. There
+was a trial after that to which I will call your attention. Judge
+Coleridge, father of the present Chief Justice of England, presided at
+this trial. A poor man by the name of Thomas Pooley, a man who dug wells
+for a living, wrote on the gate of a priest, that, if people would burn
+their Bibles and scatter the ashes on the lands, the crops would be
+better, and that they would also save a good deal of money in tithes. He
+wrote several sentences of a kindred character. He was a curious man. He
+had an idea that the world was a living, breathing animal. He would not
+dig a well beyond a certain depth for fear he might inflict pain upon
+this animal, the earth. He was tried before Judge Coleridge, on that
+charge. An infinite God was about to be dethroned, because an honest
+well-digger had written his sentiments on the fence of a parson. He
+was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Afterward, many
+intelligent people asked for his pardon, on the ground that he was in
+danger of becoming insane. The judge refused to sign the petition. The
+pardon was refused. Long before his sentence expired, he became a raving
+maniac. He was removed to an asylum and there died. Some of the greatest
+men in England attacked that judge, among these, Mr. Buckle, author of
+"The History of Civilization in England," one of the greatest books in
+this world. Mr. Buckle denounced Judge Coleridge. He brought him before
+the bar of English opinion, and there was not a man in England, whose
+opinion was worth anything, who did not agree with Mr. Buckle, and did
+not with him, declare the conviction of Thomas Pooley to be an infamous
+outrage. What were the reasons given? This, among others: The law was
+dead; it had been asleep for many years; it was a law passed during the
+ignorance of the Middle Ages, and a law that came out of the dungeon
+of religious persecution; a law that was appealed to by bigots and by
+hypocrites, to punish, to imprison an honest man.
+
+In many parts of this country, people have entertained the idea that New
+England was still filled with the spirit of Puritanism, filled with
+the descendants of those who killed Quakers in the name of universal
+benevolence, and traded Quaker children in the Barbadoes for rum, for
+the purpose of establishing the fact that God is an infinite father.
+
+Yet, the last trial in Massachusetts on a charge like this, was when
+Abner Kneeland was indicted on a charge of Atheism. He was tried for
+having written this sentence: "The Universalists believe in a God which
+I do not." He was convicted and imprisoned. Chief Justice Shaw upheld
+the decision, and upheld it because he was afraid of public opinion;
+upheld it, although he must have known that the statute under which
+Kneeland was indicted was clearly and plainly in violation of the
+Constitution. No man can read the decision of Justice Shaw without
+being convinced that he was absolutely dominated, either by bigotry,
+or hypocrisy. One of the judges of that court, a noble man, wrote a
+dissenting opinion, and in that dissenting opinion is the argument of
+a civilized, of an enlightened jurist. No man can answer the dissenting
+opinion of Justice Morton. The case against Kneeland was tried more
+than fifty years ago, and there has been none since in the New England
+States; and this case, that we are now trying, is the first ever
+tried in New Jersey. The fact that it is the first, certifies to my
+interpretation of this statute, and it also certifies to the toleration
+and to the civilization of the people of this State. The statute is
+upon your books. You inherited it from your ignorant ancestors, and they
+inherited it from their savage ancestors. The people of New Jersey were
+heirs of the mistakes and of the atrocities of ancient England.
+
+It is too late to enforce a law like this. Why has it been allowed to
+slumber? Who obtained this indictment? Were they actuated by good and
+noble motives? Had they the public weal at heart, or were they simply
+endeavoring to be revenged upon this defendant? Were they willing to
+disgrace the State, in order that they might punish him?
+
+I have given you my definition of blasphemy, and now the question
+arises, what is worship? Who is a worshiper? What is prayer? What is
+real religion? Let me answer these questions.
+
+Good, honest, faithful work, is worship. The man who ploughs the fields
+and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles
+with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce
+of the world; these men are worshipers. The man who goes into the
+forest, leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes
+a home in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate
+a continent, is a worshiper.
+
+Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that
+deserves an answer,--good, honest, noble work.
+
+A woman whose husband has gone down to the gutter, gone down to
+degradation and filth; the woman who follows him and lifts him out of
+the mire and presses him to her noble heart, until he becomes a man once
+more, this woman is a worshiper. Her act is worship.
+
+The poor man and the poor woman who work night and day, in order that
+they may give education to their children, so that they may have a
+better life than their father and mother had; the parents who deny
+themselves the comforts of life, that they may lay up something to help
+their children to a higher place--they are worshipers; and the children
+who, after they reap the benefit of this worship, become ashamed of
+their parents, are blasphemers.
+
+The man who sits by the bed of his invalid wife,--a wife prematurely old
+and gray,--the husband who sits by her bed and holds, her thin, wan hand
+in his as lovingly, and kisses it as rapturously, as passionately, as
+when it was dimpled,--that is worship; that man is a worshiper; that is
+real religion.
+
+Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. He who adds to
+the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer.
+
+Gentlemen, you can never make me believe--no statute can ever convince
+me, that there is any infinite Being in this universe who hates an
+honest man. It is impossible to satisfy me that there is any God, or
+can be any God, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the courage to
+express his thought. Neither can the whole world convince me that any
+man should be punished, either in this world or in the next, for being
+candid with his fellow-men. If you send men to the penitentiary for
+speaking their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten their fellows,
+then the penitentiary will become a place of honor, and the victim will
+step from it--not stained, not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory.
+
+Let us take one more step.
+
+What is holy, what is sacred? I reply that human happiness is holy,
+human rights are holy. The body and soul of man--these are sacred. The
+liberty of man is of far more importance than any book; the rights of
+man more sacred than any religion--than any Scriptures, whether inspired
+or not.
+
+What we want is the truth, and does any one suppose that all of the
+truth is confined in one book--that the mysteries of the whole world are
+explained by one volume?
+
+All that is--all that conveys information to man--all that has been
+produced by the past--all that now exists--should be considered by an
+intelligent man. All the known truths of this world--all the philosophy,
+all the poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the entrancing
+music--the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the words of honest
+men, the trumpet calls to duty--all these make up the bible of the
+world--everything that is noble and true and free, you will find in this
+great book.
+
+If we wish to be true to ourselves,--if we wish to benefit our
+fellow-men--if we wish to live honorable lives--we will give to every
+other human being every right that we claim for ourselves.
+
+There is another thing that should be remembered by you. You are the
+judges of the law, as well as the judges of the facts. In a case like
+this, you are the final judges as to what the law is; and if you acquit,
+no court can reverse your verdict. To prevent the least misconception,
+let me state to you again what I claim:
+
+First. I claim that the constitution of New Jersey declares that:
+
+"_The liberty of speech shall not be abridged_." Second. That this
+statute, under which this indictment is found, is unconstitutional,
+because it does abridge the liberty of speech; it does exactly that
+which the constitution emphatically says shall not be done.
+
+Third. I claim, also, that under this law--even if it be
+constitutional--the words charged in this indictment do not amount to
+blasphemy, read even in the light, or rather in the darkness, of this
+statute.
+
+Do not, I pray you, forget this point. Do not forget, that, no matter
+what the Court may tell you about the law--how good it is, or how bad
+it is--no matter what the Court may instruct you on that subject--do not
+forget one thing, and that is: That the words charged in the indictment
+are the only words that you can take into consideration in this case.
+Remember that no matter what else may be in the pamphlet--no matter what
+pictures or cartoons there may be of the gentlemen in Boonton who mobbed
+this man in the name of universal liberty and love--do not forget that
+you have no right to take one word into account except the exact words
+set out in this indictment--that is to say, the words that I have
+read to you. Upon this point the Court will instruct you that you have
+nothing to do with any other line in that pamphlet; and I now claim,
+that should the Court instruct you that the statute is constitutional,
+still I insist that the words set out in this indictment do not amount
+to blasphemy.
+
+There is still another point. This statute says: "Whoever shall
+_willfully_ speak against." Now, in this case, you must find that the
+defendant "willfully" did so and so--that is to say, that he made the
+statements attributed to him knowing that they were not true. If you
+believe that he was honest in what he said, then this statute does not
+touch him. Even under this statute, a man may give his honest opinion.
+Certainly, there is no law that charges a man with "willfully" being
+honest--"willfully" telling his real opinion--"willfully" giving to his
+fellow-men his thought.
+
+Where a man is charged with larceny, the indictment must set out that
+he took the goods or the property with the intention to steal--with
+what the law calls the _animus furandi_. If he took the goods with
+the intention to steal, then he is a thief; but if he took the goods
+believing them to be his own, then he is guilty of no offence. So in
+this case, whatever was said by the defendant must have been "willfully"
+said. And I claim that if you believe that what the man said was
+honestly said, you cannot find him guilty under this statute.
+
+One more point: This statute has been allowed to slumber so long, that
+no man had the right to awaken it. For more than one hundred years it
+has slept; and so far as New Jersey is concerned, it has been sound
+asleep since 1664. For the first time it is dug out of its grave. The
+breath of life is sought to be breathed into it, to the end that some
+people may wreak their vengeance on an honest man.
+
+Is there any evidence--has there been any--to show that the defendant
+was not absolutely candid in the expression of his opinions? Is there
+one particle of evidence tending, to show that he is not a perfectly
+honest and sincere man? Did the prosecution have the courage to
+attack his reputation? No. The State has simply proved to you that he
+circulated that pamphlet--that is all.
+
+It was claimed, among other things, that the defendant circulated this
+pamphlet among children. There was no such evidence--not the slightest.
+The only evidence about schools, or school-children was, that when the
+defendant talked with the bill-poster,--whose business the defendant was
+interfering with,--he asked him something about the population of the
+town, and about the schools. But according to the evidence, and as a
+matter of fact, not a solitary pamphlet was ever given to any child, or
+to any youth. According to the testimony, the defendant went into two or
+three stores,--laid the pamphlets on a show case, or threw them upon a
+desk--put them upon a stand where papers were sold, and in one instance
+handed a pamphlet to a man. That is all.
+
+In my judgment, however, there would have been no harm in giving this
+pamphlet to every citizen of your place.
+
+Again I say, that a law that has been allowed to sleep for all these
+years--allowed to sleep by reason of the good sense and by reason of
+the tolerant spirit of the State of New Jersey, should not be allowed
+to leap into life because a few are intolerant, or because a few lacked
+good sense and judgment. This snake should not be warmed into vicious
+life by the blood of anger.
+
+Probably not a man on this jury agrees with me about the subject of
+religion. Probably not a member of this jury thinks that I am right in
+the opinions that I have entertained and have so often expressed. Most
+of you belong to some church, and I presume that those who do, have the
+good of what they call Christianity at heart. There maybe among you some
+Methodists. If so, they have read the history of their church, and they
+know that when it was in the minority, it was persecuted, and they know
+that they can not read the history of that persecution without becoming
+indignant. They know that the early Methodists were denounced as
+heretics, as ranters, as ignorant pretenders.
+
+There are also on this jury, Catholics, and they know that there is a
+tendency in many parts of this country to persecute a man now because he
+is a Catholic. They also know that their church has persecuted in
+times past, whenever and wherever it had the power; and they know that
+Protestants, when in power, have always persecuted Catholics; and they
+know, in their hearts, that all persecution, whether in the name of law,
+or religion, is monstrous, savage, and fiendish.
+
+I presume that each one of you has the good of what you call
+Christianity at heart. If you have, I beg of you to acquit this man. If
+you believe Christianity to be a good, it never can do any church any
+good to put a man in jail for the expression of opinion. Any church that
+imprisons a man because he has used an argument against its creed, will
+simply convince the world that it cannot answer the argument.
+
+Christianity will never reap any honor, will never reap any profit,
+from persecution. It is a poor, cowardly, dastardly way of answering
+arguments. No gentleman will do it--no civilized man ever did do it--no
+decent human being ever did, or ever will.
+
+I take it for granted that you have a certain regard, a certain
+affection, for the State in which you live--that you take a pride in the
+Commonwealth of New Jersey. If you do, I beg of you to keep the record
+of your State clean. Allow no verdict to be recorded against the freedom
+of speech. At present there is not to be found on the records of any
+inferior court, or on those of the Supreme tribunal--any case in which a
+man has been punished for speaking his sentiments. The records have not
+been stained--have not been polluted--with such a verdict.
+
+Keep such a verdict from the Reports of your State--from the Records of
+your courts. No jury has yet, in the State of New Jersey, decided that
+the lips of honest men are not free--that there is a manacle upon the
+brain.
+
+For the sake of your State--for the sake of her reputation throughout
+the world--for your own sakes--and those of your children, and their
+children yet to be--say to the world that New Jersey shares in the
+spirit of this age,--that New Jersey is not a survival of the Dark
+Ages,--that New Jersey does not still regard the thumbscrew as an
+instrument of progress,--that New Jersey needs no dungeon to answer the
+arguments of a free man, and does not send to the penitentiary, men who
+think, and men who speak. Say to the world, that where arguments are
+without foundation, New Jersey has confidence enough in the brains of
+her people to feel that such arguments can be refuted by reason.
+
+For the sake of your State, acquit this man. For the sake of something
+of far more value to this world than New Jersey--for the sake of
+something of more importance to mankind than this continent--for the
+sake of Human Liberty, for the sake of Free Speech, acquit this man.
+
+What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, Liberty is to the
+soul of man. Without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death.
+
+In the name of Liberty, I implore--and not only so, but I insist--that
+you shall find a verdict in favor of this defendant. Do not do the
+slightest thing to stay the march of human progress. Do not carry us
+back, even for a moment, to the darkness of that cruel night that good
+men hoped had passed away forever.
+
+Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains
+only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
+
+If another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right
+to think that he thinks wrong. If every man has not the right to think,
+the people of New Jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a
+constitution--no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no court to
+pass its sentence.
+
+In other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right
+to form a judgment. It is impossible that there should be such a thing
+as real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such
+thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions--all
+good, all bad--have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and
+without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue.
+
+Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy--no love, no
+hatred, no justice, no progress.
+
+Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become
+poor, withered, meaningless sounds--but with that word realized--with
+that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.
+
+Understand me. I am not blaming the people. I am not blaming the
+prosecution, or the prosecuting attorney. The officers of the court
+are simply doing what they feel to be their duty. They did not find the
+indictment. That was found by the grand jury. The grand jury did not
+find the indictment of its own motion. Certain people came before the
+grand jury and made their complaint--gave their testimony, and upon that
+testimony, under this statute, the indictment was found.
+
+While I do not blame these people--they not being on trial--I do ask you
+to stand on the side of right.
+
+I cannot conceive of much greater happiness than to discharge a public
+duty, than to be absolutely true to conscience, true to judgment, no
+matter what authority may say, no matter what public opinion may demand.
+A man who stands by the right, against the world, cannot help applauding
+himself, and saying: "I am an honest man."
+
+I want your verdict--a verdict born of manhood, of courage; and I want
+to send a dispatch to-day to a woman who is lying sick. I wish you to
+furnish the words of this dispatch--only two words--and these two words
+will fill an anxious heart with joy. They will fill a soul with light.
+It is a very short message--only two words--and I ask you to furnish
+them: "Not guilty."
+
+You are expected to do this, because I believe you will be true to your
+consciences, true to your best judgment, true to the best interests of
+the people of New Jersey, true to the great cause of Liberty.
+
+I sincerely hope that it will never be necessary again, under the flag
+of the United States--that flag for which has been shed the bravest and
+best blood of the world--under that flag maintained by Washington, by
+Jefferson, by Franklin and by Lincoln--under that flag in defence of
+which New Jersey poured out her best and bravest blood--I hope it will
+never be necessary again for a man to stand before a jury and plead for
+the Liberty of Speech.
+
+     Note: The jury in this case brought in a verdict of guilty.
+     The Judge imposed a fine of twenty-five dollars and costs
+     amounting in all to seventy-five dollars, which Colonel
+     Ingersoll paid, giving his services free.--C. P. Farrell.
+
+
+
+
+GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+"_All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
+governed_."
+
+IN this country it is admitted that the power to govern resides in the
+people themselves; that they are the only rightful source of authority.
+For many centuries before the formation of our Government, before the
+promulgation of the Declaration of Independence, the people had but
+little voice in the affairs of nations. The source of authority was not
+in this world; kings were not crowned by their subjects, and the sceptre
+was not held by the consent of the governed. The king sat on his throne
+by the will of God, and for that reason was not accountable to the
+people for the exercise of his power. He commanded, and the people
+obeyed. He was lord of their bodies, and his partner, the priest, was
+lord of their souls. The government of earth was patterned after the
+kingdom on high. God was a supreme autocrat in heaven, whose will was
+law, and the king was a supreme autocrat on earth whose will was law.
+The God in heaven had inferior beings to do his will, and the king on
+earth had certain favorites and officers to do his. These officers were
+accountable to him, and he was responsible to God.
+
+The Feudal system was supposed to be in accordance with the divine
+plan. The people were not governed by intelligence, but by threats and
+promises, by rewards and punishments. No effort was made to enlighten
+the common people; no one thought of educating a peasant--of developing
+the mind of a laborer. The people were created to support thrones and
+altars. Their destiny was to toil and obey--to work and want. They were
+to be satisfied with huts and hovels, with ignorance and rags, and their
+children must expect no more. In the presence of the king they fell upon
+their knees, and before the priest they groveled in the very dust. The
+poor peasant divided his earnings with the state, because he imagined it
+protected his body; he divided his crust with the church, believing that
+it protected his soul. He was the prey of Throne and Altar--one deformed
+his body, the other his mind--and these two vultures fed upon his toil.
+He was taught by the king to hate the people of other nations, and by
+the priest to despise the believers in all other religions. He was made
+the enemy of all people except his own. He had no sympathy with the
+peasants of other lands, enslaved and plundered like himself., He was
+kept in ignorance, because education is the enemy of superstition,
+and because education is the foe of that egotism often mistaken for
+patriotism.
+
+The intelligent and good man holds in his affections the good and true
+of every land--the boundaries of countries are not the limitations of
+his sympathies. Caring nothing for race, or color, he loves those who
+speak other languages and worship other gods. Between him and those who
+suffer, there is no impassable gulf. He salutes the world, and extends
+the hand of friendship to the human race. He does not bow before a
+provincial and patriotic god--one who protects his tribe or nation, and
+abhors the rest of mankind.
+
+Through all the ages of superstition, each nation has insisted that it
+was the peculiar care of the true God, and that it alone had the true
+religion--that the gods of other nations were false and fraudulent, and
+that other religions were wicked, ignorant and absurd. In this way the
+seeds of hatred had been sown, and in this way have been kindled the
+flames of war. Men have had no sympathy with those of a different
+complexion, with those who knelt at other altars and expressed their
+thoughts in other words--and even a difference in garments placed
+them beyond the sympathy of others. Every peculiarity was the food of
+prejudice and the excuse for hatred.
+
+The boundaries of nations were at last crossed by commerce. People
+became somewhat acquainted, and they found that the virtues and vices
+were quite evenly distributed. At last, subjects became somewhat
+acquainted with kings--peasants had the pleasure of gazing at princes,
+and it was dimly perceived that the differences were mostly in rags and
+names.
+
+In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. They
+declared that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent
+of the governed." This was a contradiction of the then political ideas
+of the world; it was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy--a
+renunciation of the Deity. It was in fact a declaration of the
+independence of the earth. It was a notice to all churches and priests
+that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically
+it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every "sacred
+book," and appealed from the Providence of God to the Providence of Man.
+
+Those who promulgated the Declaration adopted a Constitution for the
+great Republic.
+
+What was the office or purpose of that Constitution?
+
+Admitting that all power came from the people, it was necessary, first,
+that certain means be adopted for the purpose of ascertaining the will
+of the people, and second, it was proper and convenient to designate
+certain departments that should exercise certain powers of the
+Government. There must be the legislative, the judicial and the
+executive departments. Those who make laws should not execute them.
+Those who execute laws should not have the power of absolutely
+determining their meaning or their constitutionality. For these reasons,
+among others, a Constitution was adopted.
+
+This Constitution also contained a declaration of rights. It marked out
+the limitations of discretion, so that in the excitement of passion, men
+shall not go beyond the point designated in the calm moment of reason.
+
+When man is unprejudiced, and his passions subject to reason, it is well
+he should define the limits of power, so that the waves driven by the
+storm of passion shall not overbear the shore.
+
+A constitution is for the government of man in this world. It is the
+chain the people put upon their servants, as well as upon themselves. It
+defines the limit of power and the limit of obedience.
+
+It follows, then, that nothing should be in a constitution that cannot
+be enforced by the power of the state--that is, by the army and navy.
+Behind every provision of the Constitution should stand the force of the
+nation. Every sword, every bayonet, every cannon should be there.
+
+Suppose, then, that we amend the Constitution and acknowledge the
+existence and supremacy of God--what becomes of the supremacy of the
+people, and how is this amendment to be enforced? A constitution does
+not enforce itself. It must be carried out by appropriate legislation.
+Will it be a crime to deny the existence of this constitutional God? Can
+the offender be proceeded against in the criminal courts? Can his lips
+be closed by the power of the state? Would not this be the inauguration
+of religious persecution?
+
+And if there is to be an acknowledgment of God in the Constitution, the
+question naturally arises as to which God is to have this honor. Shall
+we select the God of the Catholics--he who has established an infallible
+church presided over by an infallible pope, and who is delighted with
+certain ceremonies and placated by prayers uttered in exceedingly
+common Latin? Is it the God of the Presbyterian with the Five Points
+of Calvinism, who is ingenious enough to harmonize necessity and
+responsibility, and who in some way justifies himself for damning most
+of his own children? Is it the God of the Puritan, the enemy of joy--of
+the Baptist, who is great enough to govern the universe, and small
+enough to allow the destiny of a soul to depend on whether the body it
+inhabited was immersed or sprinkled?
+
+What God is it proposed to put in the Constitution? Is it the God of the
+Old Testament, who was a believer in slavery and who justified polygamy?
+If slavery was right then, it is right now; and if Jehovah was right
+then, the Mormons are right now. Are we to have the God who issued a
+commandment against all art--who was the enemy of investigation and of
+free speech? Is it the God who commanded the husband to stone his wife
+to death because she differed with him on the subject of religion? Are
+we to have a God who will re-enact the Mosaic code and punish hundreds
+of offences with death? What court, what tribunal of last resort, is
+to define this God, and who is to make known his will? In his presence,
+laws passed by men will be of no value. The decisions of courts will be
+as nothing. But who is to make known the will of this supreme God? Will
+there be a supreme tribunal composed of priests?
+
+Of course all persons elected to office will either swear or affirm to
+support the Constitution. Men who do not believe in this God, cannot
+so swear or affirm. Such men will not be allowed to hold any office of
+trust or honor. A God in the Constitution will not interfere with the
+oaths or affirmations of hypocrites. Such a provision will only exclude
+honest and conscientious unbelievers. Intelligent people know that 110
+one knows whether there is a God or not. The existence of such a Being
+is merely a matter of opinion. Men who believe in the liberty of man,
+who are willing to die for the honor of their country, will be excluded
+from taking any part in the administration of its affairs. Such a
+provision would place the country under the feet of priests.
+
+To recognize a Deity in the organic law of our country would be the
+destruction of religious liberty. The God in the Constitution would have
+to be protected. There would be laws against blasphemy, laws against the
+publication of honest thoughts, laws against carrying books and papers
+in the mails in which this constitutional God should be attacked.
+Our land would be filled with theological spies, with religious
+eavesdroppers, and all the snakes and reptiles of the lowest natures, in
+this sunshine of religious authority, would uncoil and crawl.
+
+It is proposed to acknowledge a God who is the lawful and rightful
+Governor of nations; the one who ordained the powers that be. If
+this God is really the Governor of nations, it is not necessary to
+acknowledge him in the Constitution. This would not add to his power. If
+he governs all nations now, he has always controlled the affairs of men.
+Having this control, why did he not see to it that he was recognized in
+the Constitution of the United States? If he had the supreme authority
+and neglected to put himself in the Constitution, is not this, at least,
+_prima facie_ evidence that he did not desire to be there?
+
+For one, I am not in favor of the God who has "ordained the powers that
+be." What have we to say of Russia--of Siberia? What can we say of the
+persecuted and enslaved? What of the kings and nobles who live on the
+stolen labor of others? What of the priest and cardinal and pope who
+wrest, even from the hand of poverty, the single coin thrice earned?
+
+Is it possible to flatter the Infinite with a constitutional amendment?
+The Confederate States acknowledged God in their constitution, and yet
+they were overwhelmed by a people in whose organic law no reference to
+God is made. All the kings of the earth acknowledge the existence of
+God, and God is their ally; and this belief in God is used as a means to
+enslave and rob, to govern and degrade the people whom they call their
+subjects.
+
+The Government of the United States is secular. It derives its power
+from the consent of man. It is a Government with which God has nothing
+whatever to do--and all forms and customs, inconsistent with the
+fundamental fact that the people are the source of authority, should be
+abandoned. In this country there should be no oaths--no man should be
+sworn to tell the truth, and in no court should there be any appeal
+to any supreme being. A rascal by taking the oath appears to go in
+partnership with God, and ignorant jurors credit the firm instead of the
+man. A witness should tell his story, and if he speaks falsely should
+be considered as guilty of perjury. Governors and Presidents should not
+issue religious proclamations. They should not call upon the people to
+thank God. It is no part of their official duty. It is outside of
+and beyond the horizon of their authority. There is nothing in
+the Constitution of the United States to justify this religious
+impertinence.
+
+For many years priests have attempted to give to our Government a
+religious form. Zealots have succeeded in putting the legend upon our
+money: "In God We Trust;" and we have chaplains in the army and navy,
+and legislative proceedings are usually opened with prayer. All this is
+contrary to the genius of the Republic, contrary to the Declaration
+of Independence, and contrary really to the Constitution of the United
+States. We have taken the ground that the people can govern themselves
+without the assistance of any supernatural power. We have taken the
+position that the people are the real and only rightful source of
+authority. We have solemnly declared that the people must determine what
+is politically right and what is wrong, and that their legally
+expressed will is the supreme law. This leaves no room for national
+superstition--no room for patriotic gods or supernatural beings--and
+this does away with the necessity for political prayers.
+
+The government of God has been tried. It was tried in Palestine several
+thousand years ago, and the God of the Jews was a monster of cruelty and
+ignorance, and the people governed by this God lost their nationality.
+Theocracy was tried through the Middle Ages. God was the Governor--the
+pope was his agent, and every priest and bishop and cardinal was armed
+with credentials from the Most High--and the result was that the noblest
+and best were in prisons, the greatest and grandest perished at the
+stake. The result was that vices were crowned with honor, and virtues
+whipped naked through the streets. The result was that hypocrisy swayed
+the sceptre of authority, while honesty languished in the dungeons of
+the Inquisition.
+
+The government of God was tried in Geneva when John Calvin was his
+representative; and under this government of God the flames climbed
+around the limbs and blinded the eyes of Michael Servetus, because he
+dared to express an honest thought. This government of God was tried
+in Scotland, and the seeds of theological hatred were sown, that bore,
+through hundreds of years, the fruit of massacre and assassination. This
+government of God was established in New England, and the result was
+that Quakers were hanged or burned--the laws of Moses re-enacted and the
+"witch was not suffered to live." The result was that investigation was
+a crime, and the expression of an honest thought a capital offence. This
+government of God was established in Spain, and the Jews were expelled,
+the Moors were driven out, Moriscoes were exterminated, and nothing
+left but the ignorant and bankrupt worshipers of this monster. This
+government of God was tried in the United States when slavery was
+regarded as a divine institution, when men and women were regarded as
+criminals because they sought for liberty by flight, and when others
+were regarded as criminals because they gave them food and shelter. The
+pulpit of that day defended the buying and selling of women and babes,
+and the mouths of slave-traders were filled with passages of Scripture,
+defending and upholding the traffic in human flesh.
+
+We have entered upon a new epoch. This is the century of man. Every
+effort to really better the condition of mankind has been opposed by the
+worshipers of some God. The church in all ages and among all peoples
+has been the consistent enemy of the human race. Everywhere and at all
+times, it has opposed the liberty of thought and expression. It has been
+the sworn enemy of investigation and of intellectual development. It has
+denied the existence of facts, the tendency of which was to undermine
+its power. It has always been carrying fagots to the feet of Philosophy.
+It has erected the gallows for Genius. It has built the dungeon for
+Thinkers. And to-day the orthodox church is as much opposed as it ever
+was to the mental freedom of the human race.
+
+Of course, there is a distinction made between churches and individual
+members. There have been millions of Christians who have been believers
+in liberty and in the freedom of expression--millions who have fought
+for the rights of man--but churches as organizations, have been on
+the other side. It is true that churches have fought churches--that
+Protestants battled with the Catholics for what they were pleased to
+call the freedom of conscience; and it is also true that the moment
+these Protestants obtained the civil power, they denied this freedom of
+conscience to others.
+
+'Let me show you the difference between the theological and the secular
+spirit. Nearly three hundred years ago, one of the noblest of the human
+race, Giordano Bruno, was burned at Rome by the Catholic Church--that
+is to say, by the "Triumphant Beast." This man had committed certain
+crimes--he had publicly stated that there were other worlds than
+this--other constellations than ours. He had ventured the supposition
+that other planets might be peopled. More than this, and worse than
+this, he had asserted the heliocentric theory--that the earth made its
+annual journey about the sun. He had also given it as his opinion that
+matter is eternal. For these crimes he was found unworthy to live, and
+about his body were piled the fagots of the Catholic Church. This man,
+this genius, this pioneer of the science of the nineteenth century,
+perished as serenely as the sun sets. The Infidels of to-day find
+excuses for his murderers. They take into consideration the ignorance
+and brutality of the times. They remember that the world was governed by
+a God who was then the source of all authority. This is the charity of
+Infidelity,--of philosophy. But the church of to-day is so heartless, is
+still so cold and cruel, that it can find no excuse for the murdered.
+
+This is the difference between Theocracy and Democracy--between God and
+man.
+
+If God is allowed in the Constitution, man must abdicate. There is no
+room for both. If the people of the great Republic become superstitious
+enough and ignorant enough to put God in the Constitution of the United
+States, the experiment of self-government will have failed, and the
+great and splendid declaration that "all governments derive their just
+powers from the consent of the governed" will have been denied, and in
+its place will be found this: All power comes from God; priests are his
+agents, and the people are their slaves.
+
+Religion is an individual matter, and each soul should be left entirely
+free to form its own opinions and to judge of its accountability to a
+supposed supreme being. With religion, government has nothing whatever
+to do. Government is founded upon force, and force should never
+interfere with the religious opinions of men. Laws should define the
+rights of men and their duties toward each other, and these laws should
+be for the benefit of man in this world.
+
+A nation can neither be Christian nor Infidel--a nation is incapable of
+having opinions upon these subjects. If a nation is Christian, will all
+the citizens go to heaven? If it is not, will they all be damned? Of
+course it is admitted that the majority of citizens composing a nation
+may believe or disbelieve, and they may call the nation what they
+please. A nation is a corporation. To repeat a familiar saying, "it has
+no soul." There can be no such thing as a Christian corporation. Several
+Christians may form a corporation, but it can hardly be said that the
+corporation thus formed was included in the atonement. For instance:
+Seven Christians form a corporation--that is to say, there are seven
+natural persons and one artificial--can it be said that there are eight
+souls to be saved?
+
+No human being has brain enough, or knowledge enough, or experience
+enough, to say whether there is, or is not, a God. Into this darkness
+Science has not yet carried its torch. No human being has gone beyond
+the horizon of the natural. As to the existence of the supernatural, one
+man knows precisely as much, and exactly as little as another. Upon
+this question, chimpanzees and cardinals, apes and popes, are upon exact
+equality. The smallest insect discernible only by the most powerful
+microscope, is as familiar with this subject, as the greatest genius
+that has been produced by the human race.
+
+Governments and laws are for the preservation of rights and the
+regulation of conduct. One man should not be allowed to interfere with
+the liberty of another. In the metaphysical world there should be no
+interference whatever, The same is true in the world of art. Laws cannot
+regulate what is or is not music, what is or what is not beautiful--and
+constitutions cannot definitely settle and determine the perfection of
+statues, the value of paintings, or the glory and subtlety of thought.
+In spite of laws and constitutions the brain will think. In every
+direction consistent with the well-being and peace of society, there
+should be freedom. No man should be compelled to adopt the theology
+of another; neither should a minority, however small, be forced to
+acquiesce in the opinions of a majority, however large.
+
+If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help--we need not
+waste our energies in his defence. It is enough for us to give to every
+other human being the liberty we claim for ourselves. There may or may
+not be a Supreme Ruler of the universe--but we are certain that man
+exists, and we believe that freedom is the condition of progress; that
+it is the sunshine of the mental and moral world, and that without
+it man will go back to the den of savagery, and will become the fit
+associate of wild and ferocious beasts.
+
+We have tried the government of priests, and we know that such
+governments are without mercy. In the administration of theocracy, all
+the instruments of torture have been invented. If any man wishes to
+have God recognized in the Constitution of our country, let him read
+the history of the Inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of
+millions of men, women and children have been sacrificed to placate the
+wrath, or win the approbation of this God.
+
+There has been in our country a divorce of church and state. This
+follows as a natural sequence of the declaration that "governments
+derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The priest
+was no longer a necessity. His presence was a contradiction of the
+principle on which the Republic was founded. He represented, not the
+authority of the people, but of some "Power from on High," and to
+recognize this other Power was inconsistent with free government. The
+founders of the Republic at that time parted company with the priests,
+and said to them: "You may turn your attention to the other world--we
+will attend to the affairs of this." Equal liberty was given to all. But
+the ultra theologian is not satisfied with this--he wishes to destroy
+the liberty of the people--he wishes a recognition of his God as the
+source of authority, to the end that the church may become the supreme
+power.
+
+But the sun will not be turned backward. The people of the United States
+are intelligent. They no longer believe implicitly in supernatural
+religion. They are losing confidence in the miracles and marvels of the
+Dark Ages. They know the value of the free school. They appreciate the
+benefits of science. They are believers in education, in the free play
+of thought, and there is a suspicion that the priest, the theologian,
+is destined to take his place with the necromancer, the astrologer, the
+worker of magic, and the professor of the black art.
+
+We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the
+theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for
+the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children
+of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in
+rags and skins--they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of
+Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities
+of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences
+and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But
+above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of
+value in the brain of an average man of to-day--of a master-mechanic, of
+a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain
+of the world four hundred years ago.
+
+These blessings did not fall from the skies, These benefits did not
+drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in
+cathedrals or behind altars--neither were they searched for with holy
+candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did
+they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children
+of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience--and for
+them all, man is indebted to man.
+
+Let us hold fast to the sublime declaration of Lincoln. Let us insist
+that this, the Republic, is "A government of the people, by the people,
+and for the people."--The Arena, Boston, Mass., January, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+A REPLY TO BISHOP SPALDING.
+
+     * An unfinished reply to Bishop J. L. Spalding's article
+     "God in the Constitution," which appeared in the Arena.
+     Boston, Mass., April, 1890.
+
+
+BISHOP SPALDING admits that "The introduction of the question of
+religion would not only have brought discord into the Constitutional
+convention, but would have also engendered strife throughout the land."
+Undoubtedly this is true. I am compelled to admit this, for the reason
+that in all times and in all lands the introduction of the question of
+religion has brought discord and has engendered strife.
+
+He also says: "In the presence of such danger, like wise men and
+patriots, they avoided irritating subjects"--the irritating subject
+being the question of religion. I admit that it always has been, and
+promises always to be, an "irritating subject," because it is not a
+subject decided by reason, but by ignorance, prejudice, arrogance
+and superstition. Consequently he says: "It was prudence, then, not
+skepticism, which induced them to leave the question of religion to the
+several States." The Bishop admits that it was prudent for the founders
+of this Government to leave the question of religion entirely to
+the States. It was prudent because the question of religion is
+irritating--because religious questions engender strife and hatred. Now,
+if it was prudent for the framers of the Constitution to leave religion
+out of the Constitution, and allow that question to be settled by the
+several States themselves under that clause preventing the establishment
+of religion or the free exercise thereof, why is it not wise still--why
+is it not prudent now?
+
+My article was written against the introduction of religion into the
+Constitution of the United States. I am opposed to a recognition of God
+and of Jesus Christ in that instrument; and the reason I am opposed to
+it is, that: "The introduction of the question of religion would not
+only bring discord, but would engender strife throughout the land." I am
+opposed to it for the reason that religion is an "irritating subject,"
+and also because if it was prudent when the Constitution was made, to
+leave God out, it is prudent now to keep him out.
+
+The Bishop is mistaken--as bishops usually are--when he says: "Had our
+fathers been skeptics, or anti-theists, they would not have required
+the President and Vice-President, the Senators and Representatives in
+Congress, and all executive and judicial officers of the United States,
+to call God to witness that they intended to perform their duties under
+the Constitution like honest men and loyal citizens."
+
+The framers of the Constitution did no such thing. They allowed every
+officer, from the President down, either to swear or to affirm, and
+those who affirmed did not call God to witness. In other words, our
+Constitution allowed every officer to abolish the oath and to leave God
+out of the question.
+
+The Bishop informs us, however, that: "The causes which would have
+made it unwise to introduce any phase of religious controversy into the
+Constitutional convention have long since ceased to exist." Is there
+as much division now in the religious world as then? Has the Catholic
+Church thrown away the differences between it and the Protestants? Are
+we any better friends to-day than we were in 1789? As a matter of fact,
+is there not now a cause which did not to the same extent exist then?
+Have we not in the United States, millions of people who believe in no
+religion whatever, and who regard all creeds as the work of ignorance
+and superstition?
+
+The trouble about putting God in the Constitution in 1789 was, that they
+could not agree on the God to go in; and the reason why our fathers
+did not unite church and state was, that they could not agree on which
+church was to be the bride. The Catholics of Maryland certainly would
+not have permitted the nation to take the Puritan Church, neither would
+the Presbyterians of Pennsylvania have agreed to this, nor would the
+Episcopalians of New York, or of any Southern State. Each church said:
+"Marry me, or die a bachelor."
+
+The Bishop asks whether there are "still reasons why an express
+recognition of God's sovereignty and providence should not form part of
+the organic law of the land"? I ask, were there any reasons, in 1789,
+why an express recognition of God's sovereignty and providence should
+not form part of the organic law of the land? Did not the Bishop say,
+only a few lines back of that, "that the introduction of the question
+of religion into that body would have brought discord, and would
+have engendered strife throughout the land." What is the "question of
+religion" to which he referred? Certainly "the recognition of God's
+sovereignty and providence," with the addition of describing the God
+as the author of the supposed providence. Thomas Jefferson would have
+insisted on having a God in the Constitution who was not the author of
+the Old and New Testaments. Benjamin Franklin would have asked for the
+same God; and on that question John Adams would have voted yes. Others
+would have voted for a Catholic God--others for an Episcopalian, and so
+on, until the representatives of the various creeds were exhausted.
+
+I took the ground, and I still take the ground, that there is nothing
+in the Constitution that cannot on occasion be enforced by the army and
+navy--that is to say, that cannot be defended and enforced by the sword.
+Suppose God is acknowledged in the Constitution, and somebody denies the
+existence of this God--what are you to do with him? Every man elected to
+office must swear or affirm that he will support the Constitution. Can
+one who does not believe in this God, conscientiously take such oath, or
+make such affirmation?
+
+The effect, then, of such a clause in the Constitution would be to
+drive from public life all except the believers in this God, and this
+providence. The Government would be in fact a theocracy and would resort
+for its preservation to one of the old forms of religious persecution.
+
+I took the ground in my article, and still maintain it, that all
+intelligent people know that no one knows whether there is a God or not.
+This cannot be answered by saying, "that nearly all intelligent men in
+every age, including our own, have believed in God and have held that
+they had rational grounds for such faith." This is what is called a
+departure in pleading--it is a shifting of the issue. I did not say that
+intelligent people do not believe in the existence of God. What I did
+say is, that intelligent people know that no one knows whether there is
+a God or not.
+
+It is not true that we know the conditions of thought. Neither is it
+true that we know that these conditions are unconditioned. There is no
+such thing as the unconditioned conditional. We might as well say that
+the relative is unrelated--that the unrelated is the absolute--and
+therefore that there is no difference between the absolute and the
+relative.
+
+The Bishop says we cannot know the relative without knowing the
+absolute. The probability is that he means that we cannot know the
+relative without admitting the existence of the absolute, and that we
+cannot know the phenomenal without taking the noumenal for granted.
+Still, we can neither know the absolute nor the noumenal for the reason
+that our mind is limited to relations.
+
+
+
+
+CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS.
+
+     * "An Address delivered before the State Bar Association at
+     Albany, N. Y., January 1, 1890."
+
+
+IN this brief address, the object is to suggest--there being no time to
+present arguments at length. The subject has been chosen for the reason
+that it is one that should interest the legal profession, because that
+profession to a certain extent controls and shapes the legislation of
+our country and fixes definitely the scope and meaning of all laws.
+
+Lawyers ought to be foremost in legislative and judicial reform, and
+of all men they should understand the philosophy of mind, the causes of
+human action, and the real science of government.
+
+It has been said that the three pests of a community are: A priest
+without charity; a doctor without knowledge, and, a lawyer without a
+sense of justice.
+
+I.
+
+All nations seem to have had supreme confidence in the deterrent power
+of threatened and inflicted pain. They have regarded punishment as the
+shortest road to reformation. Imprisonment, torture, death, constituted
+a trinity under whose protection society might feel secure.
+
+In addition to these, nations have relied on confiscation and
+degradation, on maimings, whippings, brandings, and exposures to public
+ridicule and contempt. Connected with the court of justice was
+the chamber of torture. The ingenuity of man was exhausted in the
+construction of instruments that would surely reach the most sensitive
+nerve. All this was done in the interest of civilization--for the
+protection of virtue, and the well-being of states. Curiously it was
+found that the penalty of death made little difference. Thieves and
+highwaymen, heretics and blasphemers, went on their way. It was then
+thought necessary to add to this penalty of death, and consequently, the
+convicted were tortured in every conceivable way before execution. They
+were broken on the wheel--their joints dislocated on the rack. They were
+suspended by their legs and arms, while immense weights were placed upon
+their breasts. Their flesh was burned and torn with hot irons. They
+were roasted at slow fires. They were buried alive--given to wild
+beasts--molten lead was poured in their ears--their eye-lids were cut
+off and, the wretches placed with their faces toward the sun--others
+were securely bound, so that they could move neither hand nor foot, and
+over their stomachs were placed inverted bowls; under these bowls rats
+were confined; on top of the bowls were heaped coals of fire, so that
+the rats in their efforts to escape would gnaw into the bowels of the
+victims. They were staked out on the sands of the sea, to be drowned
+by the slowly rising tide--and every means by which human nature can be
+overcome slowly, painfully and terribly, was conceived and carried into
+execution. And yet the number of so-called criminals increased. Enough,
+the fact is that, no matter how severe the punishments were, the crimes
+increased.
+
+For petty offences men were degraded--given to the mercy of the rabble.
+Their ears were cut off, their nostrils slit, their foreheads branded.
+They were tied to the tails of carts and flogged from one town to
+another. And yet, in spite of all, the poor wretches obstinately refused
+to become good and useful citizens.
+
+Degradation has been thoroughly tried, with its maimings and brandings,
+and the result was that those who inflicted the punishments became as
+degraded as their victims.
+
+Only a few years ago there were more than two hundred offences in Great
+Britain punishable by death. The gallows-tree bore fruit through all the
+year, and the hangman was the busiest official in the kingdom--but the
+criminals increased.
+
+Crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to
+prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons,
+with chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and
+racks, with hangmen and headsmen--and yet these frightful means
+and instrumentalities and crimes have accomplished little for the
+preservation of property or life. It is safe to say that governments
+have committed far more crimes than they have prevented.
+
+Why is it that men will suffer and risk so much for the sake of
+stealing? Why will they accept degradation and punishment and infamy as
+their portion? Some will answer this question by an appeal to the dogma
+of original sin; others by saying that millions of men and women are
+under the control of fiends--that they are actually possessed by devils;
+and others will declare that all these people act from choice--that
+they are possessed of free wills, of intelligence--that they know and
+appreciate consequences, and that, in spite of all, they deliberately
+prefer a life of crime.
+
+II.
+
+Have we not advanced far enough intellectually to deny the existence of
+chance? Are we not satisfied now that back of every act and thought and
+dream and fancy is an efficient cause? Is anything, or can anything,
+be produced that is not necessarily produced? Can the fatherless and
+motherless exist? Is there not a connection between all events, and is
+not every act related to all other acts? Is it not possible, is it not
+probable, is it not true, that the actions of all men are determined by
+countless causes over which they have no positive control?
+
+Certain it is that men do not prefer unhappiness to joy.
+
+It can hardly be said that man intends permanently to injure himself,
+and that he does what he does in order that he may live a life of
+misery. On the other hand, we must take it for granted that man
+endeavors to better his own condition, and seeks, although by mistaken
+ways, his own well-being. The poorest man would like to be rich--the
+sick desire health--and no sane man wishes to win the contempt
+and hatred of his fellow-men. Every human being prefers liberty to
+imprisonment.
+
+Are the brains of criminals exactly like the brains of honest men? Have
+criminals the same ambitions, the same standards of happiness or of
+well-being? If a difference exists in brain, will that in part account
+for the difference in character? Is there anything in heredity? Are
+vices as carefully transmitted by nature as virtues? Does each man in
+some degree bear burdens imposed by ancestors? We know that diseases of
+flesh and blood are transmitted--that the child is the heir of physical
+deformity. Are diseases of the brain--are deformities of the soul, of
+the mind, also transmitted?
+
+We not only admit, but we assert, that in the physical world there are
+causes and effects. We insist that there is and can be no effect
+without an efficient cause. When anything happens in that world, we are
+satisfied that it was naturally and necessarily produced. The causes may
+be obscure, but we as implicitly believe in their existence as when we
+know positively what they are. In the physical world we have taken the
+ground that there is nothing miraculous--that everything is natural--and
+if we cannot explain it, we account for our inability to explain, by
+our own ignorance. Is it not possible, is it not probable, that what is
+true in the physical world is equally true in the realm of mind--in that
+strange world of passion and desire? Is it possible that thoughts or
+desires or passions are the children of chance, born of nothing? Can we
+conceive of nothing as a force, or as a cause? If, then, there is behind
+every thought and desire and passion an efficient cause, we can, in part
+at least, account for the actions of men.
+
+A certain man under certain conditions acts in a certain way. There are
+certain temptations that he, with his brain, with his experience,
+with his intelligence, with his surroundings cannot withstand. He is
+irresistibly led to do, or impelled to do, certain things; and there
+are other things that he can not do. If we change the conditions of
+this man, his actions will be changed. Develop his mind, give him new
+subjects of thought, and you change the man; and the man being Changed,
+it follows of necessity that his conduct will be different.
+
+In civilized countries the struggle for existence is severe--the
+competition far sharper than in savage lands. The consequence is that
+there are many failures. These failures lack, it may be, opportunity or
+brain or moral force or industry, or something without which, under
+the circumstances, success is impossible. Certain lines of conduct are
+called legal, and certain others criminal, and the men who fail in one
+line may be driven to the other. How do we know that it is possible for
+all people to be honest? Are we certain that all people can tell
+the truth? Is it possible for all men to be generous or candid or
+courageous?
+
+I am perfectly satisfied that there are millions of people incapable of
+committing certain crimes, and it may be true that there are millions
+of others incapable of practicing certain virtues. We do not blame a man
+because he is not a sculptor, a poet, a painter, or a statesman. We say
+he has not the genius. Are we certain that it does not require genius
+to be good? Where is the man with intelligence enough to take into
+consideration the circumstances of each individual case? Who has the
+mental balance with which to weigh the forces of heredity, of want, of
+temptation,--and who can analyze with certainty the mysterious motions
+of the brain? Where and what are the sources of vice and virtue? In what
+obscure and shadowy recesses of the brain are passions born? And what is
+it that for the moment destroys the sense of right and wrong?
+
+Who knows to what extent reason becomes the prisoner of passion--of
+some strange and wild desire, the seeds of which were sown, it may be,
+thousands of years ago in the breast of some savage? To what extent do
+antecedents and surroundings affect the moral sense?
+
+Is it not possible that the tyranny of governments, the injustice
+of nations, the fierceness of what is called the law, produce in the
+individual a tendency in the same direction? Is it not true that the
+citizen is apt to imitate his nation? Society degrades its enemies--the
+individual seeks to degrade his. Society plunders its enemies, and now
+and then the citizen has the desire to plunder his. Society kills its
+enemies, and possibly sows in the heart of some citizen the seeds of
+murder.
+
+III.
+
+Is it not true that the criminal is a natural product, and that society
+unconsciously produces these children of vice? Can we not safely take
+another step, and say that the criminal is a victim, as the diseased
+and insane and deformed are victims? We do not think of punishing a man
+because he is afflicted with disease--our desire is to find a cure. We
+send him, not to the penitentiary, but to the hospital, to an asylum.
+We do this because we recognize the fact that disease is naturally
+produced--that it is inherited from parents, or the result of
+unconscious negligence, or it may be of recklessness--but instead of
+punishing, we pity. If there are diseases of the mind, of the brain, as
+there are diseases of the body; and if these diseases of the mind, these
+deformities of the brain, produce, and necessarily produce, what we
+call vice, why should we punish the-criminal, and pity those who are
+physically diseased?
+
+Socrates, in some respects at least one of the wisest of men, said:
+"It is strange that you should not be angry when you meet a man with an
+ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with an
+ill-conditioned soul."
+
+We know that there are deformed bodies, and we are equally certain that
+there are deformed minds.
+
+Of course, society has the right to protect itself, no matter whether
+the persons who attack its well-being are responsible or not, no matter
+whether they are sick in mind, or deformed in brain. The right of
+self-defence exists, not only in the individual, but in society. The
+great question is, How shall this right of self-defence be exercised?
+What spirit shall be in the nation, or in society--the spirit of
+revenge, a desire to degrade and punish and destroy, or a spirit born of
+the recognition of the fact that criminals are victims?
+
+The world has thoroughly tried confiscation, degradation, imprisonment,
+torture and death, and thus far the world has failed. In this connection
+I call your attention to the following statistics gathered in our own
+country:
+
+In 1850, we had twenty-three millions of people, and between six and
+seven thousand prisoners.
+
+In 1860--thirty-one millions of people, and nineteen thousand prisoners.
+
+In 1870--thirty-eight millions of people, and thirty-two thousand
+prisoners.
+
+In 1880--fifty millions of people, and fifty-eight thousand prisoners.
+
+It may be curious to note the relation between insanity, pauperism and
+crime:
+
+In 1850, there were fifteen thousand insane; in 1860, twenty-four
+thousand; in 1870, thirty-seven thousand; in 1880, ninety-one thousand.
+
+In the light of these statistics, we are not succeeding in doing away
+with crime. There were in 1880, fifty-eight thousand prisoners, and
+in the same year fifty-seven thousand homeless children, and sixty-six
+thousand paupers in almshouses.
+
+Is it possible that we must go to the same causes for these effects?
+
+IV.
+
+There is no reformation in degradation. To mutilate a criminal is to say
+to all the world that he is a criminal, and to render his reformation
+substantially impossible. Whoever is degraded by society becomes its
+enemy. The seeds of malice are sown in his heart, and to the day of his
+death he will hate the hand that sowed the seeds.
+
+There is also another side to this question. A punishment that degrades
+the punished will degrade the man who inflicts the punishment, and will
+degrade the government that procures the infliction. The whipping-post
+pollutes, not only the whipped, but the whipper, and not only the
+whipper, but the community at large. Wherever its shadow falls it
+degrades.
+
+If, then, there is no reforming power in degradation--no deterrent
+power--for the reason that the degradation of the criminal degrades
+the community, and in this way produces more criminals, then the next
+question is, Whether there is any reforming power in torture? The
+trouble with this is that it hardens and degrades to the last degree the
+ministers of the law. Those who are not affected by the agonies of the
+bad will in a little time care nothing for the sufferings of the good.
+There seems to be a little of the wild beast in men--a something that
+is fascinated by suffering, and that delights in inflicting pain. When
+a government tortures, it is in the same state of mind that the criminal
+was when he committed his crime. It requires as much malice in those
+who execute the law, to torture a criminal, as it did in the criminal to
+torture and kill his victim. The one was a crime by a person, the other
+by a nation.
+
+There is something in injustice, in cruelty, that tends to defeat
+itself. There were never as many traitors in England as when the
+traitor was drawn and quartered--when he was tortured in every possible
+way--when his limbs, torn and bleeding, were given to the fury of
+mobs or exhibited pierced by pikes or hung in chains. These frightful
+punishments produced intense hatred of the government, and traitors
+continued to increase until they became powerful enough to decide what
+treason was and who the traitors were, and to inflict the same torments
+on others.
+
+Think for a moment of what man has suffered in the cause of crime. Think
+of the millions that have been imprisoned, impoverished and degraded
+because they were thieves and forgers, swindlers and cheats. Think for
+a moment of what they have endured--of the difficulties under which they
+have pursued their calling, and it will be exceedingly hard to believe
+that they were sane and natural people possessed of good brains,
+of minds well-poised, and that they did what they did from a choice
+unaffected by heredity and the countless circumstances that tend to
+determine the conduct of human beings.
+
+The other day I was asked these questions: "Has there been as much
+heroism displayed for the right as for the wrong? Has virtue had as many
+martyrs as vice?"
+
+For hundreds of years the world has endeavored to destroy the good by
+force. The expression of honest thought was regarded as the greatest of
+crimes. Dungeons were filled by the noblest and the best, and the
+blood of the bravest was shed by the sword or consumed by flame. It was
+impossible to destroy the longing in the heart of man for liberty and
+truth. Is it not possible that brute force and cruelty and revenge,
+imprisonment, torture and death are as impotent to do away with vice as
+to destroy virtue?
+
+In our country there has been for many years a growing feeling that
+convicts should neither be degraded nor tortured. It was provided in the
+Constitution of the United States that "cruel and unusual punishments
+should not be inflicted." Benjamin Franklin took great interest in
+the treatment of prisoners, being a thorough believer in the reforming
+influence of justice, having no confidence whatever in punishment for
+punishment's sake.
+
+To me it has always been a mystery how the average man, knowing
+something of the weakness of human nature, something of the temptations
+to which he himself has been exposed--remembering the evil of his
+life, the things he would have done had there been opportunity, had
+he absolutely known that discovery would be impossible--should have
+feelings of hatred toward the imprisoned.
+
+Is it possible that the average man assaults the criminal in a spirit
+of self-defence? Does he wish to convince his neighbors that the evil
+thought and impulse were never in his mind? Are his words a shield that
+he uses to protect himself from suspicion? For my part, I sympathize
+sincerely with all failures, with the victims of society, with those who
+have fallen, with the imprisoned, with the hopeless, with those who have
+been stained by verdicts of guilty, and with those who, in the moment of
+passion have destroyed, as with a blow, the future of their lives.
+
+How perilous, after all, is the state of man. It is the work of a life
+to build a great and splendid character. It is the work of a moment to
+destroy it utterly, from turret to foundation stone. How cruel hypocrisy
+is!
+
+Is there any remedy? Can anything be done for the reformation of the
+criminal?
+
+He should be treated with kindness. Every right should be given him,
+consistent with the safety of society. He should neither be degraded
+nor robbed. The State should set the highest and noblest example. The
+powerful should never be cruel, and in the breast of the supreme there
+should be no desire for revenge.
+
+A man in a moment of want steals the property of another, and he is
+sent to the penitentiary--first, as it is claimed, for the purpose of
+deterring others; and secondly, of reforming him. The circumstances of
+each individual case are rarely inquired into. Investigation stops when
+the simple fact of the larceny has been ascertained. No distinctions are
+made except as between first and subsequent offences. Nothing is allowed
+for surroundings.
+
+All will admit that the industrious must be protected. In this world it
+is necessary to work. Labor is the foundation of all prosperity. Larceny
+is the enemy of industry. Society has the right to protect itself.
+The question is, Has it the right to punish?--has it the right to
+degrade?--or should it endeavor to reform the convict?
+
+A man is taken to the penitentiary. He is clad in the garments of
+a convict. He is degraded--he loses his name--he is designated by a
+number. He is no longer treated as a human being--he becomes the slave
+of the State. Nothing is done for his improvement--nothing for his
+reformation. He is driven like a beast of burden; robbed of his labor;
+leased, it may be, by the State to a contractor, who gets out of his
+hands, out of his muscles, out of his poor brain, all the toil that he
+can. He is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. At night he
+is alone in his cell. The relations that should exist between men are
+destroyed. He is a convict. He is no longer worthy to associate even
+with his keepers. The jailer is immensely his superior, and the man who
+turns the key upon him at night regards himself, in comparison, as a
+model of honesty, of virtue and manhood. The convict is pavement on
+which those who watch him walk. He remains for the time of his sentence,
+and when that expires he goes forth a branded man. He is given money
+enough to pay his fare back to the place from whence he came.
+
+What is the condition of this man? Can he get employment? Not if he
+honestly states who he is and where he has been. The first thing he does
+is to deny his personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by telling
+falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good conduct. The average
+man does not wish to employ an ex-convict, because the average man has
+no confidence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. He believes
+that the convict who comes out is worse than the convict who went in.
+He knows that in the penitentiary the heart of this man has been
+hardened--that he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual
+humiliation--that he has been treated like a ferocious beast; and so he
+believes that this ex-convict has in his heart hatred for society, that
+he feels he has been degraded and robbed. Under these circumstances,
+what avenue is opened to the ex-convict? If he changes his name, there
+will be some detective, some officer of the law, some meddlesome wretch,
+who will betray his secret. He is then discharged. He seeks employment
+again, and he must seek it by again telling what is not true. He is
+again detected and again discharged. And finally he becomes convinced
+that he cannot live as an honest man. He naturally drifts back into the
+society of those who have had a like experience; and the result is
+that in a little while he again stands in the dock, charged with the
+commission of another crime. Again he is sent to the penitentiary--and
+this is the end. He feels that his day is done, that the future has only
+degradation for him.
+
+The men in the penitentiaries do not work for themselves. Their labor
+belongs to others. They have no interest in their toil--no reason for
+doing the best they can--and the result is that the product of their
+labor is poor. This product comes in competition with the work of
+mechanics, honest men, who have families to support, and the cry is that
+convict labor takes the bread from the mouths of virtuous people.
+
+VI.
+
+Why should the State take without compensation the labor of these men;
+and why should they, after having been imprisoned for years, be turned
+out without the means of support? Would it not be far better, far
+more economical, to pay these men for their labor, to lay aside their
+earnings from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year--to
+put this money at interest, so that when the convict is released after
+five years of imprisonment he will have several hundred dollars of his
+own--not merely money enough to pay his way back to the place from which
+he was sent, but enough to make it possible for him to commence business
+on his own account, enough to keep the wolf of crime from the door of
+his heart?
+
+Suppose the convict comes out with five hundred dollars. This would be
+to most of that class a fortune. It would form a breastwork, a fortress,
+behind which the man could fight temptation. This would give him food
+and raiment, enable him to go to some other State or country where he
+could redeem himself. If this were done, thousands of convicts would
+feel under immense obligation to the Government. They would think of the
+penitentiary as the place in which they were saved--in which they were
+redeemed--and they would feel that the verdict of guilty rescued them
+from the abyss of crime. Under these circumstances, the law would appear
+beneficent, and the heart of the poor convict, instead of being filled
+with malice, would overflow with gratitude. He would see the propriety
+of the course pursued by the Government. He would recognize and feel and
+experience the benefits of this course, and the result would be good,
+not only to him, but to the nation as well.
+
+If the convict worked for himself, he would do the best he could, and
+the wares produced in the penitentiaries would not cheapen the labor of
+other men.
+
+VII.
+
+There are, however, men who pursue crime as a vocation--as a
+profession--men who have been convicted again and again, and who will
+persist in using the liberty of intervals to prey upon the rights of
+others. What shall be done with these men and women?
+
+Put one thousand hardened thieves on an island--compel them to produce
+what they eat and use--and I am almost certain that a large majority
+would be opposed to theft. Those who worked would not permit those
+who did not, to steal the result of their labor. In other words,
+self-preservation would be the dominant idea, and these men would
+instantly look upon the idlers as the enemies of their society.
+
+Such a community would be self-supporting. Let women of the same class
+be put by themselves. Keep the sexes absolutely apart. Those who are
+beyond the power of reformation should not have the liberty to reproduce
+themselves. Those who cannot be reached by kindness--by justice--those
+who under no circumstances are willing to do their share, should be
+separated. They should dwell apart, and dying, should leave no heirs.
+
+What shall be done with the slayers of their fellow-men--with murderers?
+Shall the nation take life?
+
+It has been contended that the death penalty deters others--that it has
+far more terror than imprisonment for life. What is the effect of the
+example set by a nation? Is not the tendency to harden and degrade not
+only those who inflict and those who witness, but the entire community
+as well?
+
+A few years ago a man was hanged in Alexandria, Virginia. One who
+witnessed the execution, on that very day, murdered a peddler in the
+Smithsonian grounds at Washington. He was tried and executed, and one
+who witnessed his hanging went home, and on the same day murdered his
+wife.
+
+The tendency of the extreme penalty is to prevent conviction. In the
+presence of death it is easy for a jury to find a doubt. Technicalities
+become important, and absurdities, touched with mercy, have the
+appearance for a moment of being natural and logical. Honest and
+conscientious men dread a final and irrevocable step. If the penalty
+were imprisonment for life, the jury would feel that if any mistake were
+made it could be rectified; but where the penalty is death a mistake is
+fatal. A conscientious man takes into consideration the defects of human
+nature--the uncertainty of testimony, and the countless shadows that
+dim and darken the understanding, and refuses to find a verdict that, if
+wrong, cannot be righted.
+
+The death penalty, inflicted by the Government, is a perpetual excuse
+for mobs.
+
+The greatest danger in a Republic is a mob, and as long as States
+inflict the penalty of death, mobs will follow the example. If the State
+does not consider life sacred, the mob, with ready rope, will strangle
+the suspected. The mob will say: "The only difference is in the trial;
+the State does the same--we know the man is guilty--why should time
+be wasted in technicalities?" In other words, why may not the mob do
+quickly that which the State does slowly?
+
+Every execution tends to harden the public heart--tends to lessen
+the sacredness of human life. In many States of this Union the mob is
+supreme. For certain offences the mob is expected to lynch the supposed
+criminal. It is the duty of every citizen--and as it seems to me
+especially of every lawyer--to do what he can to destroy the mob spirit.
+One would think that men would be afraid to commit any crime in a
+community where the mob is in the ascendency, and yet, such are the
+contradictions and subtleties of human nature, that it is exactly the
+opposite. And there is another thing in this connection--the men who
+constitute the mob are, as a rule, among the worst, the lowest, and the
+most depraved.
+
+A few years ago, in Illinois, a man escaped from jail, and, in escaping,
+shot the sheriff. He was pursued, overtaken--lynched. The man who put
+the rope around his neck was then out on bail, having been indicted for
+an assault to murder. And after the poor wretch was dead, another man
+climbed the tree from which he dangled and, in derision, put a cigar in
+the mouth of the dead; and this man was on bail, having been indicted
+for larceny.
+
+Those who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their fellow-men for
+having committed crimes, are, for the most part, at heart, criminals
+themselves.
+
+As long as nations meet on the fields of war--as long as they sustain
+the relations of savages to each other--as long as they put the laurel
+and the oak on the brows of those who kill--just so long will citizens
+resort to violence, and the quarrels of individuals be settled by dagger
+and revolver.
+
+VIII.
+
+If we are to change the conduct of men, we must change their conditions.
+Extreme poverty and crime go hand in hand. Destitution multiplies
+temptations and destroys the finer feelings. The bodies and souls of men
+are apt to be clad in like garments. If the body is covered with rags,
+the soul is generally in the same condition. Selfrespect is gone--the
+man looks down--he has neither hope nor courage. He becomes sinister--he
+envies the prosperous--hates the fortunate, and despises himself.
+
+As long as children are raised in the tenement and gutter, the prisons
+will be full. The gulf between the rich and poor will grow wider and
+wider. One will depend on cunning, the other on force. It is a great
+question whether those who live in luxury can afford to allow others to
+exist in want. The value of property depends, not on the prosperity
+of the few, but on the prosperity of a very large majority. Life and
+property must be secure, or that subtle thing called "value" takes its
+leave. The poverty of the many is a perpetual menace. If we expect a
+prosperous and peaceful country, the citizens must have homes. The more
+homes, the more patriots, the more virtue, and the more security for all
+that gives worth to life.
+
+We need not repeat the failures of the old world. To divide lands among
+successful generals, or among favorites of the crown, to give vast
+estates for services rendered in war, is no worse than to allow men of
+great wealth to purchase and hold vast tracts of land. The result is
+precisely the same--that is to say, a nation composed of a few landlords
+and of many tenants--the tenants resorting from time to time to mob
+violence, and the landlords depending upon a standing army. The property
+of no man, however, should be taken for either private or public use
+without just compensation and in accordance with law. There is in the
+State what is known as the right of eminent domain. The State reserves
+to itself the power to take the land of any private citizen for a public
+use, paying to that private citizen a just compensation to be legally
+ascertained. When a corporation wishes to build a railway, it exercises
+this right of eminent domain, and where the owner of land refuses to
+sell a right of way, or land for the establishment of stations or shops,
+and the corporation proceeds to condemn the land to ascertain its value,
+and when the amount thus ascertained is paid, the property vests in the
+corporation. This power is exercised because in the estimation of the
+people the construction of a railway is a public good.
+
+I believe that this power should be exercised in another direction. It
+would be well as it seems to me, for the Legislature to fix the amount
+of land that a private citizen may own, that will not be subject to be
+taken for the use of which I am about to speak. The amount to be thus
+held will depend upon many local circumstances, to be decided by each
+State for itself. Let me suppose that the amount of land that may be
+held for a farmer for cultivation has been fixed at one hundred and
+sixty acres--and suppose that A has several thousand acres. B wishes to
+buy one hundred and sixty acres or less of this land, for the purpose
+of making himself a home. A refuses to sell. Now, I believe that the law
+should be so that B can invoke this right of eminent domain, and
+file his petition, have the case brought before a jury, or before
+commissioners, who shall hear the evidence and determine the value, and
+on the payment of the amount the land shall belong to B.
+
+I would extend the same law to lots and houses in cities and
+villages--the object being to fill our country with the owners of homes,
+so that every child shall have a fireside, every father and mother a
+roof, provided they have the intelligence, the energy and the industry
+to acquire the necessary means.
+
+Tenements and flats and rented lands are, in my judgment, the enemies of
+civilization. They make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. They put a
+few in palaces, but they put many in prisons.
+
+I would go a step further than this. I would exempt homes of a certain
+value not only from levy and sale, but from every kind of taxation,
+State and National--so that these poor people would feel that they were
+in partnership with nature--that some of the land was absolutely theirs,
+and that no one could drive them from their home--so that mothers could
+feel secure. If the home increased in value, and exceeded the limit,
+then taxes could be paid on the excess; and if the home were sold, I
+would have the money realized exempt for a certain time in order that
+the family should have the privilege of buying another home.
+
+The home, after all, is the unit of civilization, of good government;
+and to secure homes for a great majority of our citizens, would be to
+lay the foundation of our Government deeper and broader and stronger
+than that of any nation that has existed among men.
+
+IX.
+
+No one places a higher value upon the free school than I do; and no one
+takes greater pride in the prosperity of our colleges and universities.
+But at the same time, much that is called education simply unfits men
+successfully to fight the battle of life. Thousands are to-day studying
+things that will be of exceedingly little importance to them or to
+others. Much valuable time is wasted in studying languages that long ago
+were dead, and histories in which there is no truth.
+
+There was an idea in the olden time--and it is not yet dead--that
+whoever was educated ought not to work; that he should use his head
+and not his hands. Graduates were ashamed to be found engaged in manual
+labor, in ploughing fields, in sowing or in gathering grain. To this
+manly kind of independence they preferred the garret and the precarious
+existence of an unappreciated poet, borrowing their money from their
+friends, and their ideas from the dead. The educated regarded the useful
+as degrading--they were willing to stain their souls to keep their hands
+white.
+
+The object of all education should be to increase the use fulness of
+man--usefulness to himself and others. Every human being should be
+taught that his first duty is to take care of himself, and that to be
+self-respecting he must be self-supporting. To live on the labor of
+others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by
+borrowing or begging, is wholly dishonorable. Every man should be taught
+some useful art. His hands should be educated as well as his head. He
+should be taught to deal with things as they are--with life as it
+is. This would give a feeling of independence, which is the firmest
+foundation of honor, of character. Every man knowing that he is useful,
+admires himself.
+
+In all the schools children should be taught to work in wood and
+iron, to understand the construction and use of machinery, to become
+acquainted with the great forces that man is using to do his work. The
+present system of education teaches names, not things. It is as though
+we should spend years in learning the names of cards, without playing a
+game.
+
+In this way boys would learn their aptitudes--would ascertain what they
+were fitted for--what they could do. It would not be a guess, or an
+experiment, but a demonstration. Education should increase a boy's
+chances for getting a living. The real good of it is to get food and
+roof and raiment, opportunity to develop the mind and the body and live
+a full and ample life.
+
+The more real education, the less crime--and the more homes, the fewer
+prisons.
+
+X.
+
+The fear of punishment may deter some, the fear of exposure others; but
+there is no real reforming power in fear or punishment. Men cannot be
+tortured into greatness, into goodness. All this, as I said before, has
+been thoroughly tried. The idea that punishment was the only relief,
+found its limit, its infinite, in the old doctrine of eternal pain; but
+the believers in that dogma stated distinctly that the victims never
+would be, and never could be, reformed.
+
+As men become civilized they become capable of greater pain and of
+greater joy. To the extent that the average man is capable of enjoying
+or suffering, to that extent he has sympathy with others. The average
+man, the more enlightened he becomes, the more apt he is to put himself
+in the place of another. He thinks of his prisoner, of his employee, of
+his tenant--and he even thinks beyond these; he thinks of the community
+at large. As man becomes civilized he takes more and more into
+consideration circumstances and conditions. He gradually loses faith in
+the old ideas and theories that every man can do as he wills, and in the
+place of the word "wills," he puts the word "must." The time comes
+to the intelligent man when in the place of punishments he thinks of
+consequences, results--that is to say, not something inflicted by some
+other power, but something necessarily growing out of what is done. The
+clearer men perceive the consequences of actions, the better they will
+be. Behind consequences we place no personal will, and consequently do
+not regard them as inflictions, or punishments. Consequences, no matter
+how severe they may be, create in the mind no feeling of resentment, no
+desire for revenge.' We do not feel bitterly toward the fire because it
+burns, or the frost that freezes, or the flood that overwhelms, or the
+sea that drowns--because we attribute to these things no motives, good
+or bad. So, when through the development of the intellect man perceives
+not only the nature, but the absolute certainty of consequences, he
+refrains from certain actions, and this may be called reformation
+through the intellect--and surely there is no better reformation than
+this. Some may be, and probably millions have been, reformed, through
+kindness, through gratitude--made better in the sunlight of charity.
+In the atmosphere of kindness the seeds of virtue burst into bud
+and flower. Cruelty, tyranny, brute force, do not and can not by any
+possibility better the heart of man. He who is forced upon his knees has
+the attitude, but never the feeling, of prayer.
+
+I am satisfied that the discipline of the average prison hardens and
+degrades. It is for the most part a perpetual exhibition of arbitrary
+power. There is really no appeal. The cries of the convict are not heard
+beyond the walls. The protests die in cells, and the poor prisoner feels
+that the last tie between him and his fellow-men has been broken. He is
+kept in ignorance of the outer world. The prison is a cemetery, and his
+cell is a grave.
+
+In many of the penitentiaries there are instruments of torture, and now
+and then a convict is murdered. Inspections and investigations go
+for naught, because the testimony of a convict goes for naught. He is
+generally prevented by fear from telling his wrongs; but if he speaks,
+he is not believed--he is regarded as less than a human being, and so
+the imprisoned remain without remedy. When the visitors are gone, the
+convict who has spoken is prevented from speaking again.
+
+Every manly feeling, every effort toward real reformation, is trampled
+under foot, so that when the convict's time is out there is little left
+on which to build. He has been humiliated to the last degree, and his
+spirit has so long been bent by authority and fear that even the desire
+to stand erect has almost faded from the mind. The keepers feel that
+they are safe, because no matter what they do, the convict when released
+will not tell the story of his wrongs, for if he conceals his shame, he
+must also hide their guilt.
+
+Every penitentiary should be a real reformatory. That should be the
+principal object for the establishment of the prison. The men in charge
+should be of the kindest and noblest. They should be filled with divine
+enthusiasm for humanity, and every means should be taken to convince
+the prisoner that his good is sought--that nothing is done for
+revenge--nothing for a display of power, and nothing for the
+gratification of malice. He should feel that the warden is his unselfish
+friend. When a convict is charged with a violation of the rules--with
+insubordination, or with any offence, there should be an investigation
+in due and proper form, giving the convict an opportunity to be heard.
+He should not be for one moment the victim of irresponsible power. He
+would then feel that he had some rights, and that some little of
+the human remained in him still. They should be taught things of
+value--instructed by competent men. Pains should be taken, not to
+punish, not to degrade, but to benefit and ennoble.
+
+We know, if we know anything, that men in the penitentiaries are not
+altogether bad, and that many out are not altogether good; and we feel
+that in the brain and heart of all, there are the seeds of good and bad.
+We know, too, that the best are liable to fall, and it may be that the
+worst, under certain conditions, may be capable of grand and heroic
+deeds. Of one thing we may be assured--and that is, that criminals will
+never be reformed by being robbed, humiliated and degraded.
+
+Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as
+dishonorable success outranks honest effort--as long as society bows and
+cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to
+fill the jails.
+
+XI.
+
+All the penalties, all the punishments, are inflicted under a belief
+that man can do right under all circumstances--that his conduct is
+absolutely under his control, and that his will is a pilot that can,
+in spite of winds and tides, reach any port desired. All this is, in my
+judgment, a mistake. It is a denial of the integrity of nature. It is
+based upon the supernatural and miraculous, and as long as this mistake
+remains the corner-stone of criminal jurisprudence, reformation will be
+impossible.
+
+We must take into consideration the nature of man--the facts of
+mind--the power of temptation--the limitations of the intellect--the
+force of habit--the result of heredity--the power of passion--the
+domination of want--the diseases of the brain--the tyranny of
+appetite--the cruelty of conditions--the results of association--the
+effects of poverty and wealth, of helplessness and power.
+
+Until these subtle things are understood--until we know that man, in
+spite of all, can certainly pursue the highway of the right, society
+should not impoverish and degrade, should not chain and kill those who,
+after all, may be the helpless victims of unknown causes that are deaf
+and blind.
+
+We know something of ourselves--of the average man--of his thoughts,
+passions, fears and aspirations--something of his sorrows and his joys,
+his weakness, his liability to fall--something of what he resists--the
+struggles, the victories and the failures of his life. We know something
+of the tides and currents of the mysterious sea--something of the
+circuits of the wayward winds--but we do not know where the wild storms
+are born that wreck and rend. Neither do we know in what strange realm
+the mists and clouds are formed that darken all the heaven of the mind,
+nor from whence comes the tempest of the brain in which the will to
+do, sudden as the lightning's flash, seizes and holds the man until the
+dreadful deed is done that leaves a curse upon the soul.
+
+We do not know. Our ignorance should make us hesitate. Our weakness
+should make us merciful.
+
+I cannot more fittingly close this address than by quoting the prayer
+of the Buddhist: "I pray thee to have pity on the vicious--thou hast
+already had pity on the virtuous by making them so."
+
+
+
+
+A WOODEN GOD.
+
+To the Editor:
+
+To-day Messrs. Wright, Dickey, O'Connor, and Murch, of the select
+committee on the causes of the present depression of labor, presented
+the majority special report upon Chinese immigration.
+
+These gentlemen are in great fear for the future of our most holy and
+perfectly authenticated religion, and have, like faithful watchmen,
+from the walls and towers of Zion, hastened to give the alarm. They have
+informed Congress that "Joss has his temple of worship in the Chinese
+quarters, in San Francisco. Within the walls of a dilapidated structure
+is exposed to the view of the faithful the god of the Chinaman, and here
+are his altars of worship. Here he tears up his pieces of paper; here he
+offers up his prayers; here he receives his religious consolations,
+and here is his road to the celestial land;" that "Joss is located in a
+long, narrow room in a building in a back alley, upon a kind of altar;"
+that "he is a wooden image, looking as much like an alligator as like a
+human being;" that the Chinese "think there is such a place as heaven;"
+that "all classes of Chinamen worship idols;" that "the temple is open
+every day at all hours;" that "the Chinese have no Sunday;" that this
+heathen god has "huge jaws, a big red tongue, large white teeth, a
+half-dozen arms, and big, fiery eyeballs. About him are placed offerings
+of meat and other eatables--a sacrificial offering."
+
+*A letter to the Chicago Times, written at Washington, D. C., March
+27,1880.
+
+No wonder that these members of the committee were shocked at such an
+image of God, knowing as they did that the only true God was correctly
+described by the inspired lunatic of Patmos in the following words:
+
+"And there sat in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks one like
+unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt
+about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white
+like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and
+his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his
+voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven
+stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword: and his
+countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength."
+
+Certainly a large mouth filled with white teeth is preferable to one
+used as the scabbard of a sharp, two-edged sword. Why should these
+gentlemen object to a god with big, fiery eyeballs, when their own Deity
+has eyes like a flame of fire?
+
+Is it not a little late in the day to object to people because they
+sacrifice meat and other eatables to their god? We all know that for
+thousands of years the "real" God was exceedingly fond of roasted meat;
+that he loved the savor of burning flesh, and delighted in the perfume
+of fresh, warm blood.
+
+The following account of the manner in which the "living God" desired
+that his chosen people should sacrifice, tends to show the degradation
+and religious blindness of the Chinese:
+
+"Aaron therefore went unto the altar, and slew the calf of the sin
+offering, which was for himself. And the sons of Aaron brought the blood
+unto him: and he dipped his finger in the blood, and put it upon the
+horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at the bottom of the altar:
+But the fat, and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver of the sin
+offering, he burnt upon the altar; as the Lord commanded Moses. And the
+flesh and the hide he burnt with fire without the camp. And he slew the
+burnt offering; and Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which
+he sprinkled round about upon the altar. * * * And he brought the meat
+offering, and took a handful thereof, and burnt it upon the altar. * * *
+He slew also the bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offering,
+which was for the people: and Aaron's sons presented unto him the
+blood, which he sprinkled upon the altar round about, and the fat of the
+bullock and of the ram, the rump, and that which covereth the inwards
+and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver, and they put the fat upon
+the breasts, and he burnt the fat upon the altar. And the breast and the
+right shoulder Aaron waved for a wave offering before the Lord, as Moses
+commanded."
+
+If the Chinese only did something like this, we would know that they
+worshiped the "living" God. The idea that the supreme head of the
+"American system of religion" can be placated with a little meat and
+"ordinary eatables" is simply preposterous. He has always asked for
+blood, and has always asserted that without the shedding of blood there
+is no remission of sin.
+
+The world is also informed by these gentlemen that "the idolatry of
+the Chinese produces a demoralizing effect upon our American youth by
+bringing sacred things into disrespect, and making religion a theme of
+disgust and contempt."
+
+In San Francisco there are some three hundred thousand people. Is it
+possible that a few Chinese can bring our "holy religion" into disgust
+and contempt? In that city there are fifty times as many churches as
+joss-houses. Scores of sermons are uttered every week; religious books
+and papers are plentiful as leaves in autumn, and somewhat dryer;
+thousands of Bibles are within the reach of all. And there, too, is the
+example of a Christian city.
+
+Why should we send missionaries to China if we can not convert the
+heathen when they come here? When missionaries go to a foreign land,
+the poor, benighted people have to take their word for the blessings
+showered upon a Christian people; but when the heathen come here they
+can see for themselves. What was simply a story becomes a demonstrated
+fact. They come in contact with people who love their enemies. They see
+that in a Christian land men tell the truth; that they will not take
+advantage of strangers; that they are just and patient, kind and tender;
+that they never resort to force; that they have no prejudice on account
+of color, race, or religion; that they look upon mankind as brethren;
+that they speak of God as a universal Father, and are willing to work,
+and even to suffer, for the good not only of their own countrymen, but
+of the heathen as well. All this the Chinese see and know, and why
+they still cling to the religion of their country is to me a matter of
+amazement.
+
+We all know that the disciples of Jesus do unto others as they would
+that others should do unto them, and that those of Confucius do not unto
+others anything that they would not that others should do unto them.
+Surely, such peoples ought to live together in perfect peace.
+
+Rising with the subject, growing heated with a kind of holy indignation,
+these Christian representatives of a Christian people most solemnly
+declare that:
+
+"Anyone who is really endowed with a correct knowledge of our religious
+system, which acknowledges the existence of a living God and an
+accountability to him, and a future state of reward and punishment, who
+feels that he has an apology for this abominable pagan worship is not a
+fit person to be ranked as a good citizen of the American Union. It is
+absurd to make any apology for its toleration. It must be abolished,
+and the sooner the decree goes forth by the power of this Government the
+better it will be for the interests of this land."
+
+I take this, the earliest opportunity, to inform these gentlemen
+composing a majority of the committee, that we have in the United States
+no "religious system"; that this is a secular Government. That it has
+no religious creed; that it does not believe or disbelieve in a future
+state of reward and punishment; that it neither affirms nor denies
+the existence of a "living God"; and that the only god, so far as this
+Government is concerned, is the legally expressed will of a majority of
+the people. Under our flag the Chinese have the same right to worship a
+wooden god that you have to worship any other. The Constitution protects
+equally the church of Jehovah and the house of Joss. Whatever their
+relative positions may be in heaven, they stand upon a perfect equality
+in the United States.
+
+This Government is an Infidel Government. We have a Constitution with
+man put in and God left out; and it is the glory of this country that we
+have such a Constitution.
+
+It may be surprising to you that I have an apology for pagan worship,
+yet I have. And it is the same one that I have for the writers of this
+report. I account for both by the word _superstition_. Why should
+we object to their worshiping God as they please? If the worship is
+improper, the protestation should come not from a committee of Congress,
+but from God himself. If he is satisfied that is sufficient.
+
+Our religion can only be brought into contempt by the actions of those
+who profess to be governed by its teachings. This report will do more
+in that direction than millions of Chinese could do by burning pieces of
+paper before a wooden image. If you wish to impress the Chinese with the
+value of your religion, of what you are pleased to call "The American
+system," show them that Christians are better than heathens. Prove to
+them that what you are pleased to call the "living God" teaches higher
+and holier things, a grander and purer code of morals than can be found
+upon pagan pages. Excel these wretches in industry, in honesty, in
+reverence for parents, in cleanliness, in frugality; and above all by
+advocating the absolute liberty of human thought.
+
+Do not trample upon these people because they have a different
+conception of things about which even this committee knows nothing.
+
+Give them the same privilege you enjoy of making a God after their own
+fashion. And let them describe him as they will. Would you be willing
+to have them remain, if one of their race, thousands of years ago, had
+pretended to have seen God, and had written of him as follows:
+
+"There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth
+devoured: coals were kindled by it, * * * and he rode upon a cherub and
+did fly."
+
+Why should you object to these people on account of their religion? Your
+objection has in it the spirit of hate and intolerance. Of that spirit
+the Inquisition was born. That spirit lighted the fagot, made the
+thumbscrew, put chains upon the limbs, and lashes upon the backs of men.
+The same spirit bought and sold, captured and kidnapped human beings;
+sold babes, and justified all the horrors of slavery.
+
+Congress has nothing to do with the religion of the people. Its members
+are not responsible to God for the opinions of their constituents, and
+it may tend to the happiness of the constituents for me to state that
+they are in no way responsible for the religion of the members.
+Religion is an individual, not a national, matter. And where the nation
+interferes with the right of conscience, the liberties of the people are
+devoured by the monster superstition.
+
+If you wish to drive out the Chinese, do not make a pretext of religion.
+Do not pretend that you are trying to do God a favor. Injustice in his
+name is doubly detestable. The assassin can not sanctify his dagger by
+falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered
+as a prayer. Religion, used to intensify the hatred of men toward men
+under the pretence of pleasing God, has cursed this world.
+
+A portion of this most remarkable report is intensely religious. There
+is in it almost the odor of sanctity; and when reading it, one is
+impressed with the living piety of its authors. But on the twenty-fifth
+page there are a few passages that must pain the hearts of true
+believers.
+
+Leaving their religious views, the members immediately betake themselves
+to philosophy and prediction. Listen:
+
+"The Chinese race and the American citizen, whether native-born or one
+who is eligible to our naturalization laws and becomes a citizen, are in
+a state of antagonism. They cannot, or will not, ever meet upon common
+ground, and occupy together the same social level. This is impossible.
+The pagan and the Christian travel different paths. This one believes in
+a living God; and that one in a type of monsters and the worship of wood
+and stone. Thus in the religion of the two races of men they are as wide
+apart as the poles of the two hemispheres. They cannot now and never
+will approach the same religious altar. The Christian will not recede
+to barbarism, nor will the Chinese advance to the enlightened belt
+(whatever it is) of civilization. * * * He cannot be converted to those
+modern ideas of religious worship which have been accepted by Europe and
+which crown the American system."
+
+Christians used to believe that through their religion all the nations
+of the earth were finally to be blest. In accordance with that belief
+missionaries have been sent to every land, and untold wealth has been
+expended for what has been called the spread of the gospel.
+
+I am almost sure that I have read somewhere that "Christ died for _all_
+men," and that "God is no respecter of persons." It was once taught that
+it was the duty of Christians to tell all people the "tidings of
+great joy." I have never believed these things myself, but have always
+contended that an honest merchant was the best missionary. Commerce
+makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches and the other
+impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other
+where falsehoods are believed. For myself, I have but little confidence
+in any business or enterprise or investment that promises dividends only
+after the death of the stockholders.
+
+But I am astonished that four Christian statesmen, four members of
+Congress, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, who seriously
+object to people on account of their religious convictions, should
+still assert that the very religion in which they believe--and the
+only religion established by the "living God," head of the American
+system--is not adapted to the spiritual needs of one-third of the human
+race. It is amazing that these four gentlemen have, in the defence
+of the Christian religion, announced the discovery that it is wholly
+inadequate for the civilization of mankind; that the light of the cross
+can never penetrate the darkness of China; "that all the labors of
+the missionary, the example of the good, the exalted character of our
+civilization, make no impression upon the pagan life of the Chinese;"
+and that even the report of this committee will not tend to elevate,
+refine, and Christianize the yellow heathen of the Pacific coast. In the
+name of religion these gentlemen have denied its power, and mocked at
+the enthusiasm of its founder. Worse than this, they have predicted for
+the Chinese a future of ignorance and idolatry in this world, and, if
+the "American system" of religion is true, hell-fire in the next.
+
+For the benefit of these four philosophers and prophets I will give a
+few extracts from the writings of Confucius, that will, in my judgment,
+compare favorably with the best passages of their report:
+
+"My doctrine is that man must be true to the principles of his nature,
+and the benevolent exercise of them toward others.
+
+With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and with my bended arm for
+a pillow, I still have joy.
+
+Riches and honor acquired by injustice are to me but floating clouds.
+
+The man who, in view of gain, thinks of righteousness; who, in view of
+danger, forgets life, and who remembers an old agreement, however far
+back it extends, such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
+
+Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness.
+
+There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's
+life: Reciprocity is that word."
+
+When the ancestors of the four Christian Congressmen were barbarians,
+when they lived in caves, gnawed bones, and worshiped dried snakes, the
+infamous Chinese were reading these sublime sentences of Confucius. When
+the forefathers of these Christian statesmen were hunting toads to
+get the jewels out of their heads, to be used as charms, the wretched
+Chinese were calculating eclipses, and measuring the circumference
+of the earth. When the progenitors of these representatives of the
+"American system of religion" were burning women charged with nursing
+devils, the people "incapable of being influenced by the exalted
+character of our civilization," were building asylums for the insane.
+
+Neither should it be forgotten that, for thousands of years, the Chinese
+have honestly practiced the great principle known as Civil Service
+Reform--a something that even the administration of Mr. Hayes has
+reached only through the proxy of promise.
+
+If we wish to prevent the immigration of the Chinese, let us reform our
+treaties with the vast empire from whence they came. For thousands of
+years the Chinese secluded themselves from the rest of the world. They
+did not deem the Christian nations fit to associate with. We forced
+ourselves upon them. We called, not with cards, but with cannon. The
+English battered down the door in the names of opium and Christ. This
+infamy was regarded as another triumph for the gospel. At last, in
+self-defence, the Chinese allowed Christians to touch their shores.
+Their wise men, their philosophers, protested, and prophesied that time
+would show that Christians could not be trusted. This report proves that
+the wise men were not only philosophers, but prophets.
+
+Treat China as you would England. Keep a treaty while it is in force.
+Change it if you will, according to the laws of nations, but on no
+account excuse a breach of national faith by pretending that we are
+dishonest for God's sake.
+
+
+
+
+SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.
+
+A NEW party is struggling for recognition--a party with leaders who are
+not politicians, with followers who are not seekers after place. Some of
+those who suffer and some of those who sympathize, have combined.
+Those who feel that they are oppressed are organized for the purpose of
+redressing their wrongs. The workers for wages, and the seekers for
+work have uttered a protest. This party is an instrumentality for the
+accomplishment of certain things that are very near and very dear to the
+hearts of many millions.
+
+The object to be attained is a fairer division of profits between
+employers and employed. There is a feeling that in some way the workers
+should not want--that the industrious should not be the indigent. There
+is a hope that men and women and children are not forever to be the
+victims of ignorance and want--that the tenement house is not always to
+be the home of the poor, or the gutter the nursery of their babes.
+
+As yet, the methods for the accomplishment of these aims have not been
+agreed upon. Many theories have been advanced and none has been adopted.
+The question is so vast, so complex, touching human interests in so many
+ways, that no one has yet been great enough to furnish a solution, or,
+if any one has furnished a solution, no one else has been wise enough to
+understand it.
+
+'The hope of the future is that this question will finally be
+understood. It must not be discussed in anger. If a broad and
+comprehensive view is to be taken, there is no place for hatred or for
+prejudice. Capital is not to blame. Labor is not to blame. Both have
+been caught in the net of circumstances. The rich are as generous as
+the poor would be if they should change places. Men acquire through the
+noblest and the tenderest instincts. They work and save not only for
+themselves, but for their wives and for their children. There is but
+little confidence in the charity of the world. The prudent man in his
+youth makes preparation for his age. The loving father, having struggled
+himself, hopes to save his children from drudgery and toil.
+
+In every country there are classes--that is to say, the spirit of caste,
+and this spirit will exist until the world is truly civilized. Persons
+in most communities are judged not as individuals, but as members of a
+class. Nothing is more natural, and nothing more heartless. These lines
+that divide hearts on account of clothes or titles, are growing more and
+more indistinct, and the philanthropists, the lovers of the human race,
+believe that the time is coming when they will be obliterated. We may
+do away with kings and peasants, and yet there may still be the rich
+and poor, the intelligent and foolish, the beautiful and deformed,
+the industrious and idle, and it may be, the honest and vicious. These
+classifications are in the nature of things. They are produced for the
+most part by forces that are now beyond the control of man--but the old
+rule, that men are disreputable in the proportion that they are useful,
+will certainly be reversed. The idle lord was always held to be the
+superior of the industrious peasant, the devourer better than the
+producer, and the waster superior to the worker.
+
+While in this country we have no titles of nobility, we have the rich
+and the poor--no princes, no peasants, but millionaires and mendicants.
+The individuals composing these classes are continually changing. The
+rich of to-day may be the poor of to-morrow, and the children of the
+poor may take their places. In this country, the children of the poor
+are educated substantially in the same schools with those of the rich.
+All read the same papers, many of the same books, and all for many years
+hear the same questions discussed. They are continually being educated,
+not only at schools, but by the press, by political campaigns, by
+perpetual discussions on public questions, and the result is that those
+who are rich in gold are often poor in thought, and many who have
+not whereon to lay their heads have within those heads a part of the
+intellectual wealth of the world.
+
+Years ago the men of wealth were forced to contribute toward the
+education of the children of the poor. The support of schools by general
+taxation was defended on the ground that it was a means of providing for
+the public welfare, of perpetuating the institutions of a free country
+by making better men and women. This policy has been pursued until at
+last the schoolhouse is larger than the church, and the common people
+through education have become uncommon. They now know how little is
+really known by what are called the upper classes--how little after all
+is understood by kings, presidents, legislators, and men of culture.
+They are capable not only of understanding a few questions, but they
+have acquired the art of discussing those that no one understands.
+With the facility of politicians they can hide behind phrases, make
+barricades of statistics, and _chevaux-de-frise_ of inferences and
+assertions. They understand the sophistries of those who have governed.
+
+In some respects these common people are the superiors of the so-called
+aristocracy. While the educated have been turning their attention to the
+classics, to the dead languages, and the dead ideas and mistakes that
+they contain--while they have been giving their attention to ceramics,
+artistic decorations, and compulsory prayers, the common people have
+been compelled to learn the practical things--to become acquainted with
+facts--by doing the work of the world. The professor of a college is
+no longer a match for a master mechanic. The master mechanic not only
+understands principles, but their application. He knows things as they
+are. He has come in contact with the actual, with realities. He knows
+something of the adaptation of means to ends, and this is the highest
+and most valuable form of education. The men who make locomotives, who
+construct the vast engines that propel ships, necessarily know more than
+those who have spent their lives in conjugating Greek verbs, looking for
+Hebrew roots, and discussing the origin and destiny of the universe.
+
+Intelligence increases wants. By education the necessities of the people
+become increased. The old wages will not supply the new wants. Man longs
+for a harmony between the thought within and the things without. When
+the soul lives in a palace the body is not satisfied with rags and
+patches. The glaring inequalities among men, the differences in
+condition, the suffering and the poverty, have appealed to the good
+and great of every age, and there has been in the brain of the
+philanthropist a dream--a hope, a prophecy, of a better day.
+
+It was believed that tyranny was the foundation and cause of the
+differences between men--that the rich were all robbers and the poor all
+victims, and that if a society or government could be founded on equal
+rights and privileges, the inequalities would disappear, that all would
+have food and clothes and reasonable work and reasonable leisure, and
+that content would be found by every hearth.
+
+There was a reliance on nature--an idea that men had interfered with the
+harmonious action of great principles which if left to themselves would
+work out universal wellbeing for the human race. Others imagined that
+the inequalities between men were necessary--that they were part of a
+divine plan, and that all would be adjusted in some other world--that
+the poor here would be the rich there, and the rich here might be in
+torture there. Heaven became the reward of the poor, of the slave, and
+hell their revenge.
+
+When our Government was established it was declared that all men are
+endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which
+were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was then believed
+that if all men had an equal opportunity, if they were allowed to make
+and execute their own laws, to levy their own taxes, the frightful
+inequalities seen in the despotisms and monarchies of the old world
+would entirely disappear. This was the dream of 1776. The founders of
+the Government knew how kings and princes and dukes and lords and barons
+had lived upon the labor of the peasants. They knew the history of those
+ages of want and crime, of luxury and suffering. But in spite of
+our Declaration, in spite of our Constitution, in spite of universal
+suffrage, the inequalities still exist. We have the kings and
+princes, the lords and peasants, in fact, if not in name. Monopolists,
+corporations, capitalists, workers for wages, have taken their places,
+and we are forced to admit that even universal suffrage cannot clothe
+and feed the world.
+
+For thousands of years men have been talking and writing about the great
+law of supply and demand--and insisting that in some way this mysterious
+law has governed and will continue to govern the activities of the human
+race. It is admitted that this law is merciless--that when the demand
+fails, the producer, the laborer, must suffer, must perish--that the
+law feels neither pity nor malice--it simply acts, regardless of
+consequences. Under this law capital will employ the cheapest. The
+single man can work for less than the married. Wife and children are
+luxuries not to be enjoyed under this law. The ignorant have fewer wants
+than the educated, and for this reason can afford to work for less.
+The great law will give employment to the single and to the ignorant in
+preference to the married and intelligent. The great law has nothing
+to do with food or clothes, with filth or crime. It cares nothing for
+homes, for penitentiaries, or asylums. It simply acts--and some men
+triumph, some succeed, some fail, and some perish.
+
+Others insist that the curse of the world is monopoly. And yet, as
+long as some men are stronger than others, as long as some are more
+intelligent than others, they must be, to the extent of such advantage,
+monopolists. Every man of genius is a monopolist.
+
+We are told that the great remedy against monopoly--that is to say,
+against extortion, is free and unrestricted competition. But after all,
+the history of this world shows that the brutalities of competition are
+equaled only by those of monopoly. The successful competitor becomes a
+monopolist, and if competitors fail to destroy each other, the instinct
+of self-preservation suggests a combination. In other words, competition
+is a struggle between two or more persons or corporations for the
+purpose of determining which shall have the uninterrupted privilege of
+extortion.
+
+In this country the people have had the greatest reliance on
+competition. If a railway company charged too much a rival road was
+built. As a matter of fact, we are indebted for half the railroads of
+the United States to the extortion of the other half, and the same may
+truthfully be said of telegraph lines. As a rule, while the exactions
+of monopoly constructed new roads and new lines, competition has either
+destroyed the weaker, or produced the pool which is a means of keeping
+both monopolies alive, or of producing a new monopoly with greater
+needs, supplied by methods more heartless than the old. When a rival
+road is built the people support the rival because the fares and
+freights are somewhat less. Then the old and richer monopoly inaugurates
+war, and the people, glorying in the benefits of competition, are absurd
+enough to support the old. In a little while the new company, unable to
+maintain the contest, left by the people at the mercy of the stronger,
+goes to the wall, and the triumphant monopoly proceeds to make the
+intelligent people pay not only the old price, but enough in addition to
+make up for the expenses of the contest.
+
+Is there any remedy for this? None, except with the people themselves.
+When the people become intelligent enough to support the rival at a
+reasonable price; when they know enough to allow both roads to live;
+when they are intelligent enough to recognize a friend and to stand by
+that friend as against a known enemy, this question will be at least on
+the edge of a solution.
+
+So far as I know, this course has never been pursued except in one
+instance, and that is the present war between the Gould and Mackay
+cables. The Gould system had been charging from sixty to eighty cents a
+word, and the Mackay system charged forty. Then the old monopoly tried
+to induce the rival to put the prices back to sixty. The rival refused,
+and thereupon the Gould combination dropped to twelve and a half, for
+the purpose of destroying the rival. The Mackay cable fixed the tariff
+at twenty-five cents, saying to its customers, "You are intelligent
+enough to understand what this war means. If our cables are defeated,
+the Gould system will go back not only to the old price, but will add
+enough to reimburse itself for the cost of destroying us. If you really
+wish for competition, if you desire a reasonable service at a reasonable
+rate, you will support us." Fortunately an exceedingly intelligent class
+of people does business by the cables. They are merchants, bankers, and
+brokers, dealing with large amounts, with intricate, complicated, and
+international questions. Of necessity, they are used to thinking for
+themselves. They are not dazzled into blindness by the glare of the
+present. They see the future. They are not duped by the sunshine of a
+moment or the promise of an hour. They see beyond the horizon of a
+penny saved. These people had intelligence enough to say, "The rival who
+stands between us and extortion is our friend, and our friend shall not
+be allowed to die."
+
+Does not this tend to show that people must depend upon themselves, and
+that some questions can be settled by the intelligence of those who buy,
+of those who use, and that customers are not entirely helpless?
+
+Another thing should not be forgotten, and that is this: there is the
+same war between monopolies that there is between individuals, and the
+monopolies for many years have been trying to destroy each other. They
+have unconsciously been working for the extinction of monopolies. These
+monopolies differ as individuals do. You find among them the rich and
+the poor, the lucky and the unfortunate, millionaires and tramps. The
+great monopolies have been devouring the little ones.
+
+Only a few years ago, the railways in this country were controlled by
+local directors and local managers. The people along the lines were
+interested in the stock. As a consequence, whenever any legislation was
+threatened hostile to the interests of these railways, they had local
+friends who used their influence with legislators, governors and juries.
+During this time they were protected, but when the hard times came many
+of these companies were unable to pay their interest. They suddenly
+became Socialists. They cried out against their prosperous rivals. They
+felt like joining the Knights of Labor. They began to talk about rights
+and wrongs. But in spite of their cries, they have passed into the hands
+of the richer roads--they were seized by the great monopolies. Now the
+important railways are owned by persons living in large cities or in
+foreign countries. They have no local friends, and when the time conies,
+and it may come, for the General Government to say how much these
+companies shall charge for passengers and freight, they will have no
+local friends. It may be that the great mass of the people will then be
+on the other side. So that after all, the great corporations have been
+busy settling the question against themselves.
+
+Possibly a majority of the American people believe to-day that in some
+way all these questions between capital and labor can be settled by
+constitutions, laws, and judicial decisions. Most people imagine that a
+statute is a sovereign specific for any evil. But while the theory has
+all been one way, the actual experience has been the other--just as the
+free traders have all the arguments and the protectionists most of the
+facts.
+
+The truth is, as Mr. Buckle says, that for five hundred years all real
+advance in legislation has been made by repealing laws. Of one thing
+we must be satisfied, and that is that real monopolies have never
+been controlled by law, but the fact that such monopolies exist, is
+a demonstration that the law has been controlled. In our country,
+legislators are for the most part controlled by those who, by their
+wealth and influence, elect them. The few, in reality, cast the votes of
+the many, and the few influence the ones voted for by the many. Special
+interests, being active, secure special legislation, and the object of
+special legislation is to create a kind of monopoly--that is to say, to
+get some advantage. Chiefs, barons, priests, and kings ruled, robbed,
+destroyed, and duped, and their places have been taken by corporations,
+monopolists, and politicians. The large fish still live on the little
+ones, and the fine theories have as yet failed to change the condition
+of mankind.
+
+Law in this country is effective only when it is the recorded will of a
+majority. When the zealous few get control of the Legislature, and laws
+are passed to prevent Sabbath-breaking, or wine-drinking, they succeed
+only in putting their opinions and provincial prejudices in legal
+phrase. There was a time when men worked from fourteen to sixteen hours
+a day. These hours have not been lessened, they have not been shortened
+by law. The law has followed and recorded, but the law is not a leader
+and not a prophet. It appears to be impossible to fix wages--just as
+impossible as to fix the values of all manufactured things, including
+works of art. The field is too great, the problem too complicated, for
+the human mind to grasp.
+
+To fix the value of labor is to fix all values--labor being the
+foundation of all values. The value of labor cannot be fixed unless we
+understand the relations that all things bear to each other and to man.
+If labor were a legal tender--if a judgment for so many dollars could be
+discharged by so many days of labor,--and the law was that twelve hours
+of work should be reckoned as one day, then the law could change the
+hours to ten or eight, and the judgments could be paid in the shortened
+days. But it is easy to see that in all contracts made after the
+passage of such a law, the difference in hours would be taken into
+consideration.
+
+We must remember that law is not a creative force. It produces nothing.
+It raises neither corn nor wine. The legitimate object of law is to
+protect the weak, to prevent violence and fraud, and to enforce honest
+contracts, to the end that each person may be free to do as he desires,
+provided only that he does not interfere with the rights of others. Our
+fathers tried to make people religious by law. They failed. Thousands
+are now trying to make people temperate in the same manner. Such efforts
+always have been and probably always will be failures. People who
+believe that an infinite God gave to the Hebrews a perfect code of laws,
+must admit that even this code failed to civilize the inhabitants of
+Palestine.
+
+It seems impossible to make people just or charitable or industrious
+or agreeable or successful, by law, any more than you can make them
+physically perfect or mentally sound. Of course we admit that good
+people intend to make good laws, and that good laws faithfully and
+honestly executed, tend to the preservation of human rights and to the
+elevation of the race, but the enactment of a law not in accordance with
+a sentiment already existing in the minds and hearts of the people--the
+very people who are depended upon to enforce this law--is not a help,
+but a hindrance. A real law is but the expression, in an authoritative
+and accurate form, of the judgment and desire of the majority. As
+we become intelligent and kind, this intelligence and kindness find
+expression in law.
+
+But how is it possible to fix the wages of every man? To fix wages is to
+fix prices, and a government to do this intelligently, would necessarily
+have to have the wisdom generally attributed to an infinite Being. It
+would have to supervise and fix the conditions of every exchange of
+commodities and the value of every conceivable thing. Many things can be
+accomplished by law, employeers may be held responsible for injuries to
+the employed. The mines can be ventilated. Children can be rescued
+from the deformities of toil--burdens taken from the backs of wives and
+mothers--houses made wholesome, food healthful--that is to say, the weak
+can be protected from the strong, the honest from the vicious, honest
+contracts can be enforced, and many rights protected.
+
+The men who have simply strength, muscle, endurance, compete not only
+with other men of strength, but with the inventions of genius. What
+would doctors say if physicians of iron could be invented with curious
+cogs and wheels, so that when a certain button was touched the proper
+prescription would be written? How would lawyers feel if a lawyer could
+be invented in such a way that questions of law, being put in a kind of
+hopper and a crank being turned, decisions of the highest court could be
+prophesied without failure? And how would the ministers feel if somebody
+should invent a clergyman of wood that would to all intents and purposes
+answer the purpose?
+
+Invention has filled the world with the competitors not only of
+laborers, but of mechanics--mechanics of the highest skill. To-day the
+ordinary laborer is for the most part a cog in a wheel. He works with
+the tireless--he feeds the insatiable. When the monster stops, the
+man is out of employment, out of bread; He has not saved anything. The
+machine that he fed was not feeding him, was not working for him--the
+invention was not for his benefit. The other day I heard a man say
+that it was almost impossible for thousands of good mechanics to get
+employment, and that, in his judgment, the Government ought to furnish
+work for the people. A few minutes after, I heard another say that he
+was selling a patent for cutting out clothes, that one of his machines
+could do the work of twenty tailors, and that only the week before he
+had sold two to a great house in New York, and that over forty cutters
+had been discharged.
+
+On every side men are being discharged and machines are being invented
+to take their places. When the great factory shuts down, the workers who
+inhabited it and gave it life, as thoughts do the brain, go away and it
+stands there like an empty skull. A few workmen, by the force of
+habit, gather about the closed doors and broken windows and talk about
+distress, the price of food and the coming winter. They are convinced
+that they have not had their share of what their labor created. They
+feel certain that the machines inside were not their friends. They look
+at the mansion of the employeer and think of the places where they live.
+They have saved nothing--nothing but themselves. The employeer seems to
+have enough. Even when employeers fail, when they become bankrupt, they
+are far better off than the laborers ever were. Their worst is better
+than the toilers' best.
+
+The capitalist comes forward with his specific. He tells the workingman
+that he must be economical--and yet, under the present system, economy
+would only lessen wages. Under the great law of supply and demand every
+saving, frugal, self-denying workingman is unconsciously doing what
+little he can to reduce the compensation of himself and his fellows. The
+slaves who did not wish to run away helped fasten chains on those who
+did. So the saving mechanic is a certificate that wages are high enough.
+Does the great law demand that every worker live on the least possible
+amount of bread? Is it his fate to work one day, that he may get enough
+food to be able to work another? Is that to be his only hope--that and
+death?
+
+Capital has always claimed and still claims the right to combine.
+Manufacturers meet and determine upon prices, even in spite of the great
+law of supply and demand. Have the laborers the same right to consult
+and combine? The rich meet in the bank, the clubhouse, or parlor.
+Workingmen, when they combine, gather in the street. All the organized
+forces of society are against them. Capital has the army and the navy,
+the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments. When the
+rich combine, it is for the purpose of "exchanging ideas." When the poor
+combine, it is a "conspiracy." If they act in concert, if they really do
+something, it is a "mob." If they defend themselves, it is "treason."
+How is it that the rich control the departments of government? In this
+country the political power is equally divided among the men. There are
+certainly more poor than there are rich. Why should the rich control?
+Why should not the laborers combine for the purpose of controlling the
+executive, legislative, and judicial departments? Will they ever find
+how powerful they are?
+
+In every country there is a satisfied class--too satisfied to care. They
+are like the angels in heaven, who are never disturbed by the miseries
+of earth. They are too happy to be generous. This satisfied class asks
+no questions and answers none. They believe the world is as it should
+be. All reformers are simply disturbers of the peace. When they talk
+low, they should not be listened to; when they talk loud, they should be
+suppressed.
+
+The truth is to-day what it always has been--what it always will
+be--those who feel are the only ones who think. A cry comes from the
+oppressed, from the hungry, from the down-trodden, from the unfortunate,
+from men who despair and from women who weep. There are times when
+mendicants become revolutionists--when a rag becomes a banner, under
+which the noblest and bravest battle for the right.
+
+How are we to settle the unequal contest between men and machines? Will
+the machine finally go into partnership with the laborer? Can these
+forces of nature be controlled for the benefit of her suffering
+children? Will extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? Will the workers
+become intelligent enough and strong enough to be the owners of the
+machines? Will these giants, these Titans, shorten or lengthen the hours
+of labor? Will they give leisure to the industrious, or will they make
+the rich richer, and the poor poorer?
+
+Is man involved in the "general scheme of things"? Is there no pity, no
+mercy? Can man become intelligent enough to be generous, to be just;
+or does the same law or fact control him that controls the animal and
+vegetable world? The great oak steals the sunlight from the smaller
+trees. The strong animals devour the weak--everything eating something
+else--everything at the mercy of beak and claw and hoof and tooth--of
+hand and club, of brain and greed--inequality, injustice, everywhere.
+
+The poor horse standing in the street with his dray, overworked,
+over-whipped, and under-fed, when he sees other horses groomed to
+mirrors, glittering with gold and silver, scorning with proud feet the
+very earth, probably indulges in the usual socialistic reflections, and
+this same horse, worn out and old, deserted by his master, turned into
+the dusty road, leans his head on the topmost rail, looks at donkeys in
+a field of clover, and feels like a Nihilist.
+
+In the days of savagery the strong devoured the weak--actually ate
+their flesh. In spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of
+all advance in science, literature and art, the strong, the cunning, the
+heartless still live on the weak, the unfortunate, and foolish. True,
+they do not eat their flesh, they do not drink their blood, but they
+live on their labor, on their self-denial, their weariness and want.
+The poor man who deforms himself by toil, who labors for wife and child
+through all his anxious, barren, wasted life--who goes to the grave
+without even having had one luxury--has been the food of others. He has
+been devoured by his fellow-men. The poor woman living in the bare
+and lonely room, cheerless and fireless, sewing night and day to keep
+starvation from a child, is slowly being eaten by her fellow-men. When
+I take into consideration the agony of civilized life--the number of
+failures, the poverty, the anxiety, the tears, the withered hopes, the
+bitter realities, the hunger, the crime, the humiliation, the shame--I
+am almost forced to say that cannibalism, after all, is the most
+merciful form in which man has ever lived upon his fellow-man.
+
+Some of the best and purest of our race have advocated what is known
+as Socialism. They have not only taught, but, what is much more to
+the purpose, have believed that a nation should be a family; that the
+government should take care of all its children; that it should provide
+work and food and clothes and education for all, and that it should
+divide the results of all labor equitably with all.
+
+Seeing the inequalities among men, knowing of the destitution and crime,
+these men were willing to sacrifice, not only their own liberties, but
+the liberties of all.
+
+Socialism seems to be one of the worst possible forms of slavery.
+Nothing, in my judgment, would so utterly paralyze all the forces, all
+the splendid ambitions and aspirations that now tend to the civilization
+of man. In ordinary systems of slavery there are some masters, a few are
+supposed to be free; but in a socialistic state all would be slaves.
+
+If the government is to provide work it must decide for the worker
+what he must do. It must say who shall chisel statues, who shall
+paint pictures, who shall compose music, and who shall practice the
+professions. Is any government, or can any government, be capable
+of intelligently performing these countless duties? It must not only
+control work, it must not only decide what each shall do, but it must
+control expenses, because expenses bear a direct relation to products.
+Therefore the government must decide what the worker shall eat and
+wherewithal he shall be clothed; the kind of house in which he shall
+live; the manner in which it shall be furnished, and, if this government
+furnishes the work, it must decide on the days or the hours of leisure.
+More than this, it must fix values; it must decide not only who shall
+sell, but who shall buy, and the price that must be paid--and it must
+fix this value not simply upon the labor, but on everything that can be
+produced, that can be exchanged or sold.
+
+Is it possible to conceive of a despotism beyond this?
+
+The present condition of the world is bad enough, with its poverty and
+ignorance, but it is far better than it could by any possibility be
+under any government like the one described. There would be less hunger
+of the body, but not of the mind. Each man would simply be a citizen of
+a large penitentiary, and, as in every well regulated prison, somebody
+would decide what each should do. The inmates of a prison retire
+early; they rise with the sun; they have something to eat; they are not
+dissipated; they have clothes; they attend divine service; they have but
+little to say about their neighbors; they do not suffer from cold; their
+habits are excellent, and yet, no one envies their condition. Socialism
+destroys the family. The children belong to the state. Certain officers
+take the places of parents. Individuality is lost.
+
+The human race cannot afford to exchange its liberty for any possible
+comfort. You remember the old fable of the fat dog that met the lean
+wolf in the forest. The wolf, astonished to see so prosperous an animal,
+inquired of the dog where he got his food, and the dog told him that
+there was a man who took care of him, gave him his breakfast, his
+dinner, and his supper with the utmost regularity, and that he had all
+that he could eat and very little to do. The wolf said, "Do you think
+this man would treat me as he does you?" The dog replied, "Yes, come
+along with me." So they jogged on together toward the dog's home. On the
+way the wolf happened to notice that some hair was worn off the dog's
+neck, and he said, "How did the hair become worn?" "That is," said the
+dog, "the mark of the collar--my master ties me at night." "Oh," said
+the wolf, "Are you chained? Are you deprived of your liberty? I believe
+I will go back. I prefer hunger."
+
+It is impossible for any man with a good heart to be satisfied with this
+world as it now is. No one can truly enjoy even what he earns--what he
+knows to be his own, knowing that millions of his fellow-men are in
+misery and want. When we think of the famished we feel that it is almost
+heartless to eat. To meet the ragged and shivering makes one almost
+ashamed to be well dressed and warm--one feels as though his heart was
+as cold as their bodies.
+
+In a world filled with millions and millions of acres of land waiting to
+be tilled, where one man can raise the food for hundreds, millions are
+on the edge of famine. Who can comprehend the stupidity at the bottom of
+this truth?
+
+Is there to be no change? Are "the law of supply and demand," invention
+and science, monopoly and competition, capital and legislation always to
+be the enemies of those who toil?
+
+Will the workers always be ignorant enough and stupid enough to give
+their earnings for the useless? Will they support millions of soldiers
+to kill the sons of other workingmen? Will they always build temples
+for ghosts and phantoms, and live in huts and dens themselves? Will they
+forever allow parasites with crowns, and vampires with mitres, to
+live upon their blood? Will they remain the slaves of the beggars they
+support? How long will they be controlled by friends who seek favors,
+and by reformers who want office? Will they always prefer famine in the
+city to a feast in the fields? Will they ever feel and know that
+they have no right to bring children into this world that they cannot
+support? Will they use their intelligence for themselves, or for others?
+Will they become wise enough to know that they cannot obtain their own
+liberty by destroying that of others? Will they finally see that every
+man has a right to choose his trade, his profession, his employment,
+and has the right to work when, and for whom, and for what he will?
+Will they finally say that the man who has had equal privileges with all
+others has no right to complain, or will they follow the example
+that has been set by their oppressors? Will they learn that force, to
+succeed, must have a thought behind it, and that anything done, in order
+that it may endure, must rest upon the corner-stone of justice?
+
+Will they, at the command of priests, forever extinguish the spark that
+sheds a little light in every brain? Will they ever recognize the fact
+that labor, above all things, is honorable--that it is the foundation of
+virtue? Will they understand that beggars cannot be generous, and that
+every healthy man must earn the right to live? Will honest men stop
+taking off their hats to successful fraud? Will industry, in the
+presence of crowned idleness, forever fall upon its knees, and will the
+lips unstained by lies forever kiss the robed impostor's hand?--North
+American Review, March, 1887.
+
+
+
+
+ART AND MORALITY.
+
+ART is the highest form of expression, and exists for the sake of
+expression. Through art thoughts become visible. Back of forms are the
+desire, the longing, the brooding creative instinct, the maternity of
+mind and the passion that give pose and swell, outline and color.
+
+Of course there is no such thing as absolute beauty or absolute
+morality. We now clearly perceive that beauty and conduct are relative.
+We have outgrown the provincialism that thought is back of substance,
+as well as the old Platonic absurdity, that ideas existed before the
+subjects of thought. So far, at least, as man is concerned, his thoughts
+have been produced by his surroundings, by the action and interaction
+of things upon his mind; and so far as man is concerned, things have
+preceded thoughts. The impressions that these things make upon us
+are what we know of them. The absolute is beyond the human mind. Our
+knowledge is confined to the relations that exist between the totality
+of things that we call the universe, and the effect upon ourselves.
+
+Actions are deemed right or wrong, according to experience and the
+conclusions of reason. Things are beautiful by the relation that certain
+forms, colors, and modes of expression bear to us. At the foundation of
+the beautiful will be found the fact of happiness, the gratification of
+the senses, the delight of intellectual discovery and the surprise and
+thrill of appreciation. That which we call the beautiful, wakens into
+life through the association of ideas, of memories, of experiences, of
+suggestions of pleasure past and the perception that the prophecies of
+the ideal have been and will be fulfilled.
+
+Art cultivates and kindles the imagination, and quickens the conscience.
+It is by imagination that we put ourselves in the place of another. When
+the wings of that faculty are folded, the master does not put himself in
+the place of the slave; the tyrant is not locked in the dungeon, chained
+with his victim. The inquisitor did not feel the flames that devoured
+the martyr. The imaginative man, giving to the beggar, gives to himself.
+Those who feel indignant at the perpetration of wrong, feel for the
+instant that they are the victims; and when they attack the aggressor
+they feel that they are defending themselves. Love and pity are the
+children of the imagination.
+
+Our fathers read with great approbation the mechanical sermons in rhyme
+written by Milton, Young and Pollok. Those theological poets wrote
+for the purpose of convincing their readers that the mind of man
+is diseased, filled with infirmities, and that poetic poultices and
+plasters tend to purify and strengthen the moral nature of the human
+race. Nothing to the true artist, to the real genius, is so contemptible
+as the "medicinal view."
+
+Poems were written to prove that the practice of virtue was an
+investment for another world, and that whoever followed the advice found
+in those solemn, insincere and lugubrious rhymes, although he might
+be exceedingly unhappy in this world, would with great certainty be
+rewarded in the next. These writers assumed that there was a kind of
+relation between rhyme and religion, between verse and virtue; and that
+it was their duty to call the attention of the world to all the snares
+and pitfalls of pleasure. They wrote with a purpose. They had a distinct
+moral end in view. They had a plan. They were missionaries, and their
+object was to show the world how wicked it was and how good they, the
+writers, were. They could not conceive of a man being so happy that
+everything in nature partook of his feeling; that all the birds were
+singing for him, and singing by reason of his joy; that everything
+sparkled and shone and moved in the glad rhythm of his heart. They could
+not appreciate this feeling. They could not think of this joy guiding
+the artist's hand, seeking expression in form and color. They did not
+look upon poems, pictures, and statues as results, as children of the
+brain fathered by sea and sky, by flower and star, by love and light.
+They were not moved by gladness. They felt the responsibility of
+perpetual duty. They had a desire to teach, to sermonize, to point
+out and exaggerate the faults of others and to describe the virtues
+practiced by themselves. Art became a colporteur, a distributer of
+tracts, a mendicant missionary whose highest ambition was to suppress
+all heathen joy.
+
+Happy people were supposed to have forgotten, in a reckless moment, duty
+and responsibility. True poetry would call them back to a realization of
+their meanness and their misery. It was the skeleton at the feast, the
+rattle of whose bones had a rhythmic sound. It was the forefinger of
+warning and doom held up in the presence of a smile.
+
+These moral poets taught the "unwelcome truths," and by the paths of
+life put posts on which they painted hands pointing at graves. They
+loved to see the pallor on the cheek of youth, while they talked, in
+solemn tones, of age, decrepitude and lifeless clay.
+
+Before the eyes of love they thrust, with eager hands, the skull of
+death. They crushed the flowers beneath their feet and plaited crowns of
+thorns for every brow.
+
+According to these poets, happiness was inconsistent with virtue. The
+sense of infinite obligation should be perpetually present. They assumed
+an attitude of superiority. They denounced and calumniated the reader.
+They enjoyed his confusion when charged with total depravity. They loved
+to paint the sufferings of the lost, the worthlessness of human life,
+the littleness of mankind, and the beauties of an unknown world. They
+knew but little of the heart. They did not know that without passion
+there is no virtue, and that the really passionate are the virtuous.
+
+Art has nothing to do directly with morality or immorality. It is its
+own excuse for being; it exists for itself.
+
+The artist who endeavors to enforce a lesson, becomes a preacher; and
+the artist who tries by hint and suggestion to enforce the immoral,
+becomes a pander.
+
+There is an infinite difference between the nude and the naked, between
+the natural and the undressed. In the presence of the pure, unconscious
+nude, nothing can be more contemptible than those forms in which are
+the hints and suggestions of drapery, the pretence of exposure, and the
+failure to conceal. The undressed is vulgar--the nude is pure.
+
+The old Greek statues, frankly, proudly nude, whose free and perfect
+limbs have never known the sacrilege of clothes, were and are as free
+from taint, as pure, as stainless, as the image of the morning star
+trembling in a drop of perfumed dew.
+
+Morality is the harmony between act and circumstance. It is the melody
+of conduct. A wonderful statue is the melody of proportion. A great
+picture is the melody of form and color. A great statue does not suggest
+labor; it seems to have been created as a joy. A great painting suggests
+no weariness and no effort; the greater, the easier it seems. So a great
+and splendid life seems to have been without effort. There is in it no
+idea of obligation, no idea of responsibility or of duty. The idea of
+duty changes to a kind of drudgery that which should be, in the perfect
+man, a perfect pleasure.
+
+The artist, working simply for the sake of enforcing a moral, becomes
+a laborer. The freedom of genius is lost, and the artist is absorbed in
+the citizen. The soul of the real artist should be moved by this melody
+of proportion as the body is unconsciously swayed by the rhythm of a
+symphony. No one can imagine that the great men who chiseled the statues
+of antiquity intended to teach the youth of Greece to be obedient
+to their parents. We cannot believe that Michael Angelo painted his
+grotesque and somewhat vulgar "Day of Judgment" for the purpose of
+reforming Italian thieves. The subject was in all probability selected
+by his employeer, and the treatment was a question of art, without
+the slightest reference to the moral effect, even upon priests. We are
+perfectly certain that Corot painted those infinitely poetic
+landscapes, those cottages, those sad poplars, those leafless vines on
+weather-tinted walls, those quiet pools, those contented cattle, those
+fields flecked with light, over which bend the skies, tender as the
+breast of a mother, without once thinking of the ten commandments. There
+is the same difference between moral art and the product of true genius,
+that there is between prudery and virtue.
+
+The novelists who endeavor to enforce what they are pleased to
+call "moral truths," cease to be artists. They create two kinds of
+characters--types and caricatures. The first never has lived, and the
+second never will. The real artist produces neither. In his pages you
+will find individuals, natural people, who have the contradictions and
+inconsistencies inseparable from humanity. The great artists "hold the
+mirror up to nature," and this mirror reflects with absolute accuracy.
+The moral and the immoral writers--that is to say, those who have some
+object besides that of art--use convex or concave mirrors, or those with
+uneven surfaces, and the result is that the images are monstrous and
+deformed. The little novelist and the little artist deal either in the
+impossible or the exceptional. The men of genius touch the universal.
+Their words and works throb in unison with the great ebb and flow of
+things. They write and work for all races and for all time.
+
+It has been the object of thousands of reformers to destroy
+the passions, to do away with desires; and could this object be
+accomplished, life would become a burden, with but one desire--that is
+to say, the desire for extinction. Art in its highest forms increases
+passion, gives tone and color and zest to life. But while it increases
+passion, it refines. It extends the horizon. The bare necessities of
+life constitute a prison, a dungeon. Under the influence of art the
+walls expand, the roof rises, and it becomes a temple.
+
+Art is not a sermon, and the artist is not a preacher. Art accomplishes
+by indirection. The beautiful refines. The perfect in art suggests the
+perfect in conduct. The harmony in music teaches, without intention, the
+lesson of proportion in life. The bird in his song has no moral purpose,
+and yet the influence is humanizing. The beautiful in nature acts
+through appreciation and sympathy. It does not browbeat, neither does
+it humiliate. It is beautiful without regard to you. Roses would be
+unbearable if in their red and perfumed hearts were mottoes to the
+effect that bears eat bad boys and that honesty is the best policy.
+
+Art creates an atmosphere in which the proprieties, the amenities, and
+the virtues unconsciously grow. The rain does not lecture the seed. The
+light does not make rules for the vine and flower.
+
+The heart is softened by the pathos of the perfect.
+
+The world is a dictionary of the mind, and in this dictionary of things
+genius discovers analogies, resemblances, and parallels amid opposites,
+likeness in difference, and corroboration in contradiction. Language
+is but a multitude of pictures. Nearly every word is a work of art, a
+picture represented by a sound, and this sound represented by a mark,
+and this mark gives not only the sound, but the picture of something in
+the outward world and the picture of something within the mind, and with
+these words which were once pictures, other pictures are made.
+
+The greatest pictures and the greatest statues, the most wonderful and
+marvelous groups, have been painted and chiseled with words. They are as
+fresh to-day as when they fell from human lips. Penelope still ravels,
+weaves, and waits; Ulysses' bow is bent, and through the level rings
+the eager arrow flies. Cordelia's tears are falling now. The greatest
+gallery of the world is found in Shakespeare's book. The pictures and
+the marbles of the Vatican and Louvre are faded, crumbling things,
+compared with his, in which perfect color gives to perfect form the glow
+and movement of passion's highest life.
+
+Everything except the truth wears, and needs to wear, a mask. Little
+souls are ashamed of nature. Prudery pretends to have only those
+passions that it cannot feel. Moral poetry is like a respectable canal
+that never overflows its banks. It has weirs through which slowly
+and without damage any excess of feeling is allowed to flow. It makes
+excuses for nature, and regards love as an interesting convict. Moral
+art paints or chisels feet, faces, and rags. It regards the body as
+obscene. It hides with drapery that which it has not the genius purely
+to portray. Mediocrity becomes moral from a necessity which it has
+the impudence to call virtue. It pretends to regard ignorance as the
+foundation of purity and insists that virtue seeks the companionship of
+the blind.
+
+Art creates, combines, and reveals. It is the highest manifestation of
+thought, of passion, of love, of intuition. It is the highest form of
+expression, of history and prophecy. It allows us to look at an unmasked
+soul, to fathom the abysses of passion, to understand the heights and
+depths of love.
+
+Compared with what is in the mind of man, the outward world almost
+ceases to excite our wonder. The impression produced by mountains, seas,
+and stars is not so great, so thrilling, as the music of Wagner.
+The constellations themselves grow small when we read "Troilus and
+Cres-sida," "Hamlet," or "Lear." What are seas and stars in the presence
+of a heroism that holds pain and death as naught? What are seas and
+stars compared with human hearts? What is the quarry compared with the
+statue?
+
+Art civilizes because it enlightens, develops, strengthens, ennobles. It
+deals with the beautiful, with the passionate, with the ideal. It is the
+child of the heart. To be great, it must deal with the human. It must be
+in accordance with the experience, with the hopes, with the fears, and
+with the possibilities of man. No one cares to paint a palace, because
+there is nothing in such a picture to touch the heart. It tells of
+responsibility, of the prison, of the conventional. It suggests a
+load--it tells of apprehension, of weariness and ennui. The picture of
+a cottage, over which runs a vine, a little home thatched with content,
+with its simple life, its natural sunshine and shadow, its trees bending
+with fruit, its hollyhocks and pinks, its happy children, its hum of
+bees, is a poem--a smile in the desert of this world.
+
+The great lady, in velvet and jewels, makes but a poor picture. There is
+not freedom enough in her life. She is constrained. She is too far away
+from the simplicity of happiness. In her thought there is too much of
+the mathematical. In all art you will find a touch of chaos, of liberty;
+and there is in all artists a little of the vagabond--that is to say,
+genius.
+
+The nude in art has rendered holy the beauty of woman. Every Greek
+statue pleads for mothers and sisters. From these marbles come strains
+of music. They have filled the heart of man with tenderness and worship.
+They have kindled reverence, admiration and love. The Venus de Milo,
+that even mutilation cannot mar, tends only to the elevation of our
+race. It is a miracle of majesty and beauty, the supreme idea of the
+supreme woman. It is a melody in marble. All the lines meet in a kind
+of voluptuous and glad content. The pose is rest itself. The eyes are
+filled with thoughts of love. The breast seems dreaming of a child.
+
+The prudent is not the poetic; it is the mathematical. Genius is the
+spirit of abandon; it is joyous, irresponsible. It moves in the swell
+and curve of billows; it is careless of conduct and consequence. For a
+moment, the chain of cause and effect seems broken; the soul is free. It
+gives an account not even to itself. Limitations are forgotten; nature
+seems obedient to the will; the ideal alone exists; the universe is a
+symphony.
+
+Every brain is a gallery of art, and every soul is, to a greater or less
+degree, an artist. The pictures and statues that now enrich and adorn
+the walls and niches of the world, as well as those that illuminate
+the pages of its literature, were taken originally from the private
+galleries of the brain.
+
+The soul--that is to say the artist--compares the pictures in its own
+brain with the pictures that have been taken from the galleries of
+others and made visible. This soul, this artist, selects that which is
+nearest perfection in each, takes such parts as it deems perfect, puts
+them together, forms new pictures, new statues, and in this way creates
+the ideal.
+
+To express desires, longings, ecstasies, prophecies and passions in form
+and color; to put love, hope, heroism and triumph in marble; to paint
+dreams and memories with words; to portray the purity of dawn, the
+intensity and glory of noon, the tenderness of twilight, the splendor
+and mystery of night, with sounds; to give the invisible to sight and
+touch, and to enrich the common things of earth with gems and jewels of
+the mind--this is Art.--North American Review, March, 1888.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.
+
+"Let determined things to destiny hold unbewailed their way." THERE is
+a continual effort in the mind of man to find the harmony that he knows
+must exist between all known facts. It is hard for the scientist to
+implicitly believe anything that he suspects to be inconsistent with a
+known fact. He feels that every fact is a key to many mysteries--that
+every fact is a detective, not only, but a perpetual witness. He knows
+that a fact has a countless number of sides, and that all these sides
+will match all other facts, and he also suspects that to understand one
+fact perfectly--like the fact of the attraction of gravitation--would
+involve a knowledge of the universe.
+
+It requires not only candor, but courage, to accept a fact. When a new
+fact is found it is generally denied, resisted, and calumniated by the
+conservatives until denial becomes absurd, and then they accept it with
+the statement that they always supposed it was true.
+
+The old is the ignorant enemy of the new. The old has pedigree and
+respectability; it is filled with the spirit of caste; it is associated
+with great events, and with great names; it is intrenched; it has an
+income--it represents property. Besides, it has parasites, and the
+parasites always defend themselves.
+
+Long ago frightened wretches who had by tyranny or piracy amassed great
+fortunes, were induced in the moment of death to compromise with God
+and to let their money fall from their stiffening hands into the greedy
+palms of priests. In this way many theological seminaries were endowed,
+and in this way prejudices, mistakes, absurdities, known as religious
+truths, have been perpetuated. In this way the dead hypocrites have
+propagated and supported their kind.
+
+Most religions--no matter how honestly they originated--have been
+established by brute force. Kings and nobles have used them as a
+means to enslave, to degrade and rob. The priest, consciously and
+unconsciously, has been the betrayer of his followers.
+
+Near Chicago there is an ox that betrays his fellows. Cattle--twenty or
+thirty at a time--are driven to the place of slaughter. This ox leads
+the way--the others follow. When the place is reached, this Bishop
+Dupanloup turns and goes back for other victims.
+
+This is the worst side: There is a better.
+
+Honest men, believing that they have found the whole truth--the real
+and only faith--filled with enthusiasm, give all for the purpose of
+propagating the "divine creed." They found colleges and universities,
+and in perfect, pious, ignorant sincerity, provide that the creed, and
+nothing but the creed, must be taught, and that if any professor teaches
+anything contrary to that, he must be instantly dismissed--that is to
+say, the children must be beaten with the bones of the dead.
+
+These good religious souls erect guide-boards with a provision to the
+effect that the guide-boards must remain, whether the roads are changed
+or not, and with the further provision that the professors who keep and
+repair the guide-boards must always insist that the roads have not been
+changed.
+
+There is still another side.
+
+Professors do not wish to lose their salaries. They love their families
+and have some regard for themselves. There is a compromise between their
+bread and their brain. On pay-day they believe--at other times they have
+their doubts. They settle with their own consciences by giving old words
+new meanings. They take refuge in allegory, hide behind parables,
+and barricade themselves with oriental imagery. They give to the most
+frightful passages a spiritual meaning--and while they teach the old
+creed to their followers, they speak a new philosophy to their equals.
+
+There is still another side.
+
+A vast number of clergymen and laymen are perfectly satisfied. They have
+no doubts. They believe as their fathers and mothers did. The "scheme of
+salvation" suits them because they are satisfied that they are embraced
+within its terms. They give themselves no trouble. They believe because
+they do not understand. They have no doubts because they do not think.
+They regard doubt as a thorn in the pillow of orthodox slumber. Their
+souls are asleep, and they hate only those who disturb their dreams.
+These people keep their creeds for future use. They intend to have them
+ready at the moment of dissolution. They sustain about the same relation
+to daily life that the small-boats carried by steamers do to ordinary
+navigation--they are for the moment of shipwreck. Creeds, like
+life-preservers, are to be used in disaster.
+
+We must also remember that everything in nature--bad as well as
+good--has the instinct of self-preservation. All lies go armed, and
+all mistakes carry concealed weapons. Driven to the last corner, even
+non-resistance appeals to the dagger.
+
+Vast interests--political, social, artistic, and individual--are
+interwoven with all creeds. Thousands of millions of dollars have been
+invested; many millions of people obtain their bread by the propagation
+and support of certain religious doctrines, and many millions have been
+educated for that purpose and for that alone. Nothing is more natural
+than that they should defend themselves--that they should cling to a
+creed that gives them roof and raiment.
+
+Only a few years ago Christianity was a complete system. It included
+and accounted for all phenomena; it was a philosophy satisfactory to the
+ignorant world; it had an astronomy and geology of its own; it answered
+all questions with the same readiness and the same inaccuracy; it had
+within its sacred volumes the history of the past, and the prophecies of
+all the future; it pretended to know all that was, is, or ever will be
+necessary for the well-being of the human race, here and hereafter.
+
+When a religion has been founded, the founder admitted the truth of
+everything that was generally believed that did not interfere with his
+system. Imposture always has a definite end in view, and for the sake of
+the accomplishment of that end, it will admit the truth of anything and
+everything that does not endanger its success.
+
+The writers of all sacred books--the inspired prophets--had no reason
+for disagreeing with the common people about the origin of things, the
+creation of the world, the rising and setting of the sun, and the
+uses of the stars, and consequently the sacred books of all ages have
+indorsed the belief general at the time. You will find in our sacred
+books the astronomy, the geology, the philosophy and the morality of
+the ancient barbarians. The religionist takes these general ideas as his
+foundation, and upon them builds the supernatural structure. For many
+centuries the astronomy, geology, philosophy and morality of our Bible
+were accepted. They were not questioned, for the reason that the world
+was too ignorant to question.
+
+A few centuries ago the art of printing was invented. A new world was
+discovered. There was a complete revolution in commerce. The arts
+were born again. The world was filled with adventure; millions became
+self-reliant; old ideas were abandoned--old theories were put aside--and
+suddenly, the old leaders of thought were found to be ignorant, shallow
+and dishonest. The literature of the classic world was discovered
+and translated into modern languages. The world was circumnavigated;
+Copernicus discovered the true relation sustained by our earth to the
+solar system, and about the beginning of the seventeenth century many
+other wonderful discoveries were made. In 1609, a Hollander found that
+two lenses placed in a certain relation to each other magnified objects
+seen through them. This discovery was the foundation of astronomy. In
+a little while it came to the knowledge of Galileo; the result was a
+telescope, with which man has read the volume of the skies.
+
+On the 8th day of May, 1618, Kepler discovered the greatest of his three
+laws. These were the first great blows struck for the enfranchisement of
+the human mind. A few began to suspect that the ancient Hebrews were not
+astronomers. From that moment the church became the enemy of science.
+In every possible way the inspired ignorance was defended--the lash, the
+sword, the chain, the fagot and the dungeon were the arguments used by
+the infuriated church.
+
+To such an extent was the church prejudiced against the new philosophy,
+against the new facts, that priests refused to look through the
+telescope of Galileo.
+
+At last it became evident to the intelligent world that the inspired
+writings, literally translated, did not contain the truth--the Bible was
+in danger of being driven from the heavens.
+
+The church also had its geology. The time when the earth was created had
+been definitely fixed and was certainly known. This fact had not only
+been stated by inspired writers, but their statement had been indorsed
+by priests, by bishops, cardinals, popes and ecumenical councils; that
+was settled.
+
+But a few men had learned the art of seeing. There were some eyes not
+always closed in prayer. They looked at the things about them; they
+observed channels that had been worn in solid rock by streams; they saw
+the vast territories that had been deposited by rivers; their attention
+was called to the slow inroads upon continents by seas--to the deposits
+by volcanoes--to the sedimentary rocks--to the vast reefs that had been
+built by the coral, and to the countless evidences of age, of the
+lapse of time--and finally it was demonstrated that this earth had been
+pursuing its course about the sun for millions and millions of ages.
+
+The church disputed every step, denied every fact, resorted to every
+device that cunning could suggest or ingenuity execute, but the conflict
+could not be maintained. The Bible, so far as geology was concerned, was
+in danger of being driven from the earth.
+
+Beaten in the open field, the church began to equivocate, to evade, and
+to give new meanings to inspired words. Finally, falsehood having failed
+to harmonize the guesses of barbarians with the discoveries of genius,
+the leading churchmen suggested that the Bible was not written to teach
+astronomy, was not written to teach geology, and that it was not a
+scientific book, but that it was written in the language of the people,
+and that as to unimportant things it contained the general beliefs of
+its time.
+
+The ground was then taken that, while it was not inspired in its
+science, it was inspired in its morality, in its prophecy, in its
+account of the miraculous, in the scheme of salvation, and in all that
+it had to say on the subject of religion.
+
+The moment it was suggested that the Bible was not inspired in
+everything within its lids, the seeds of suspicion were sown. The priest
+became less arrogant. The church was forced to explain. The pulpit had
+one language for the faithful and another for the philosophical, i. e.,
+it became dishonest with both.
+
+The next question that arose was as to the origin of man.
+
+The Bible was being driven from the skies. The testimony of the stars
+was against the sacred volume. The church had also been forced to admit
+that the world was not created at the time mentioned in the Bible--so
+that the very stones of the earth rose and united with the stars in
+giving testimony against the sacred volume.
+
+As to the creation of the world, the church resorted to the artifice
+of saying that "days" in reality meant long periods of time; so that
+no matter how old the earth was, the time could be spanned by six
+periods--in other words, that the years could not be too numerous to be
+divided by six.
+
+But when it came to the creation of man, this evasion, or artifice, was
+impossible. The Bible gives the date of the creation of man, because
+it gives the age at which the first man died, and then it gives the
+generations from Adam to the flood, and from the flood to the birth of
+Christ, and in many instances the actual age of the principal ancestor
+is given. So that, according to this account--according to the inspired
+figures--man has existed upon the earth only about six thousand years.
+There is no room left for any people beyond Adam.
+
+If the Bible is true, certainly Adam was the first man; consequently,
+we know, if the sacred volume be true, just how long man has lived and
+labored and suffered on this earth.
+
+The church cannot and dare not give up the account of the creation of
+Adam from the dust of the earth, and of Eve from the rib of the man. The
+church cannot give up the story of the Garden of Eden--the serpent--the
+fall and the expulsion; these must be defended because they are vital.
+Without these absurdities, the system known as Christianity cannot
+exist. Without the fall, the atonement is a _non sequitur._ Facts
+bearing upon these questions were discovered and discussed by the
+greatest and most thoughtful of men. Lamarck, Humboldt, Haeckel, and
+above all, Darwin, not only asserted, but demonstrated, that man is not
+a special creation. If anything can be established by observation, by
+reason, then the fact has been established that man is related to all
+life below him--that he has been slowly produced through countless
+years--that the story of Eden is a childish myth--that the fall of man
+is an infinite absurdity.
+
+If anything can be established by analogy and reason, man has existed
+upon the earth for many millions of ages. We know now, if we know
+anything, that people not only existed before Adam, but that they
+existed in a highly civilized state; that thousands of years before the
+Garden of Eden was planted men communicated to each other their ideas
+by language, and that artists clothed the marble with thoughts and
+passions.
+
+This is a demonstration that the origin of man given in the Old
+Testament is untrue--that the account was written by the ignorance, the
+prejudice and the egotism of the olden time.
+
+So, if anything outside of the senses can be known, we do know that
+civilization is a growth--that man did not commence a perfect being, and
+then degenerate, but that from small beginnings he has slowly risen, to
+the intellectual height he now occupies.
+
+The church, however, has not been willing to accept these truths,
+because they contradict the sacred word. Some of the most ingenious
+of the clergy have been endeavoring for years to show that there is no
+conflict--that the account in Genesis is in perfect harmony with the
+theories of Charles Darwin, and these clergymen in some way manage to
+retain their creed and to accept a philosophy that utterly destroys it.
+
+But in a few years the Christian world will be forced to admit that
+the Bible is not inspired in its astronomy, in its geology, or in its
+anthropology--that is to say, that the inspired writers knew nothing of
+the sciences, knew nothing of the origin of the earth, nothing of the
+origin of man--in other words, nothing of any particular value to the
+human race.
+
+It is, however, still insisted that the Bible is inspired in its
+morality. Let us examine this question.
+
+We must admit, if we know anything, if we feel anything, if conscience
+is more than a word, if there is such a thing as right and such a thing
+as wrong beneath the dome of heaven--we must admit that slavery is
+immoral. If we are honest, we must also admit that the Old Testament
+upholds slavery. It will be cheerfully admitted that Jehovah was opposed
+to the enslavement of one Hebrew by another. Christians may quote the
+commandment "Thou shalt not steal" as being opposed to human slavery,
+but after that commandment was given, Jehovah himself told his chosen
+people that they might "buy their bondmen and bondwomen of the heathen
+round about, and that they should be their bondmen and their bondwomen
+forever." So all that Jehovah meant by the commandment "Thou shalt not
+steal" was that one Hebrew should not steal from another Hebrew, but
+that all Hebrews might steal from the people of any other race or creed.
+
+It is perfectly apparent that the Ten Commandments were made only for
+the Jews, not for the world, because the author of these commandments
+commanded the people to whom they were given to violate them nearly all
+as against the surrounding people.
+
+A few years ago it did not occur to the Christian world that slavery was
+wrong. It was upheld by the church. Ministers bought and sold the very
+people for whom they declared that Christ had died. Clergymen of the
+English church owned stock in slave-ships, and the man who denounced
+slavery was regarded as the enemy of morality, and thereupon was duly
+mobbed by the followers of Jesus Christ. Churches were built with the
+results of labor stolen from colored Christians. Babes were sold from
+mothers and a part of the money given to send missionaries from America
+to heathen lands with the tidings of great joy. Now every intelligent
+man on the earth, every decent man, holds in abhorrence the institution
+of human slavery.
+
+So with the institution of polygamy. If anything on the earth is
+immoral, that is. If there is anything calculated to destroy home, to do
+away with human love, to blot out the idea of family life, to cover
+the hearthstone with serpents, it is the institution of polygamy. The
+Jehovah of the Old Testament was a believer in that institution.
+
+Can we now say that the Bible is inspired in its morality? Consider for
+a moment the manner in which, under the direction of Jehovah, wars were
+waged. Remember the atrocities that were committed. Think of a war where
+everything was the food of the sword. Think for a moment of a deity
+capable of committing the crimes that are described and gloated over in
+the Old Testament. The civilized man has outgrown the sacred cruelties
+and absurdities.
+
+There is still another side to this question.
+
+A few centuries ago nothing was more natural than the unnatural.
+Miracles were as plentiful as actual events. In those blessed days, that
+which actually occurred was not regarded of sufficient importance to
+be recorded. A religion without miracles would have excited derision.
+A creed that did not fill the horizon--that did not account for
+everything--that could not answer every question, would have been
+regarded as worthless.
+
+After the birth of Protestantism, it could not be admitted by the
+leaders of the Reformation that the Catholic Church still had the power
+of working miracles. If the Catholic Church was still in partnership
+with God, what excuse could have been made for the Reformation? The
+Protestants took the ground that the age of miracles had passed.
+This was to justify the new faith. But Protestants could not say
+that miracles had never been performed, because that would take the
+foundation not only from the Catholics but from themselves; consequently
+they were compelled to admit that miracles were performed in the
+apostolic days, but to insist that, in their time, man must rely upon
+the facts in nature. Protestants were compelled to carry on two kinds of
+war; they had to contend with those who insisted that miracles had never
+been performed; and in that argument they were forced to insist upon the
+necessity for miracles, on the probability that they were performed, and
+upon the truthfulness of the apostles. A moment afterward, they had to
+answer those who contended that miracles were performed at that time;
+then they brought forward against the Catholics the same arguments that
+their first opponents had brought against them.
+
+This has made every Protestant brain "a house divided against itself."
+This planted in the Reformation the "irrepressible conflict."
+
+But we have learned more and more about what we call Nature--about
+what we call facts. Slowly it dawned upon the mind that force is
+indestructible--that we cannot imagine force as existing apart from
+matter--that we cannot even think of matter existing apart from
+force--that we cannot by any possibility conceive of a cause without an
+effect, of an effect without a cause, of an effect that is not also
+a cause. We find no room between the links of cause and effect for a
+miracle. We now perceive that a miracle must be outside of Nature--that
+it can have no father, no mother--that is to say, that it is an
+impossibility.
+
+The intellectual world has abandoned the miraculous.
+
+Most ministers are now ashamed to defend a miracle. Some try to explain
+miracles, and yet, if a miracle is explained, it ceases to exist. Few
+congregations could keep from smiling were the minister to seriously
+assert the truth of the Old Testament miracles.
+
+Miracles must be given up. That field must be abandoned by the religious
+world. The evidence accumulates every day, in every possible direction
+in which the human mind can investigate, that the miraculous is simply
+the impossible.
+
+Confidence in the eternal constancy of Nature increases day by day. The
+scientist has perfect confidence in the attraction of gravitation--in
+chemical affinities--in the great fact of evolution, and feels
+absolutely certain that the nature of things will remain forever the
+same.
+
+We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood;
+that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply
+transparent falsehoods.
+
+The real miracles are the facts in nature. No one can explain the
+attraction of gravitation. No one knows why soil and rain and light
+become the womb of life. No one knows why grass grows, why water runs,
+or why the magnetic needle points to the north. The facts in nature are
+the eternal and the only mysteries. There is nothing strange about the
+miracles of superstition. They are nothing but the mistakes of ignorance
+and fear, or falsehoods framed by those who wished to live on the labor
+of others.
+
+In our time the champions of Christianity, for the most part, take the
+exact ground occupied by the Deists. They dare not defend in the open
+field the mistakes, the cruelties, the immoralities and the absurdities
+of the Bible. They shun the Garden of Eden as though the serpent was
+still there. They have nothing to say about the fall of man. They are
+silent as to the laws upholding slavery and polygamy. They are ashamed
+to defend the miraculous. They talk about these things to Sunday schools
+and to the elderly members of their congregations; but when doing battle
+for the faith, they misstate the position of their opponents and then
+insist that there must be a God, and that the soul is immortal.
+
+We may admit the existence of an infinite Being; we may admit the
+immortality of the soul, and yet deny the inspiration of the Scriptures
+and the divine origin of the Christian religion. These doctrines, or
+these dogmas, have nothing in common. The pagan world believed in God
+and taught the dogma of immortality. These ideas are far older than
+Christianity, and they have been almost universal.
+
+Christianity asserts more than this. It is based upon the inspiration
+of the Bible, on the fall of man, on the atonement, on the dogma of the
+Trinity, on the divinity of Jesus Christ, on his resurrection from the
+dead, on his ascension into heaven.
+
+Christianity teaches not simply the immortality of the soul--not simply
+the immortality of joy--but it teaches the immortality of pain,
+the eternity of sorrow. It insists that evil, that wickedness, that
+immorality and that every form of vice are and must be perpetuated
+forever. It believes in immortal convicts, in eternal imprisonment and
+in a world of unending pain. It has a serpent for every breast and a
+curse for nearly every soul. This doctrine is called the dearest hope of
+the human heart, and he who attacks it is denounced as the most infamous
+of men.
+
+Let us see what the church, within a few years, has been compelled
+substantially to abandon,--that is to say, what it is now almost ashamed
+to defend.
+
+First, the astronomy of the sacred Scriptures; second, the geology;
+third, the account given of the origin of man; fourth, the doctrine
+of original sin, the fall of the human race; fifth, the mathematical
+contradiction known as the Trinity; sixth, the atonement--because it was
+only on the ground that man is accountable for the sin of another,
+that he could be justified by reason of the righteousness of another;
+seventh, that the miraculous is either the misunderstood or the
+impossible; eighth, that the Bible is not inspired in its morality, for
+the reason that slavery is not moral, that polygamy is not good, that
+wars of extermination are not merciful, and that nothing can be more
+immoral than to punish the innocent on account of the sins of the
+guilty; and ninth, the divinity of Christ.
+
+All this must be given up by the really intelligent, by those not afraid
+to think, by those who have the courage of their convictions and the
+candor to express their thoughts. What then is left?
+
+Let me tell you. Everything in the Bible that is true, is left; it still
+remains and is still of value. It cannot be said too often that the
+truth needs no inspiration; neither can it be said too often that
+inspiration cannot help falsehood. Every good and noble sentiment
+uttered in the Bible is still good and noble. Every fact remains. All
+that is good in the Sermon on the Mount is retained. The Lord's
+Prayer is not affected. The grandeur of self-denial, the nobility of
+forgiveness, and the ineffable splendor of mercy are with us still. And
+besides, there remains the great hope for all the human race.
+
+What is lost? All the mistakes, all the falsehoods, all the absurdities,
+all the cruelties and all the curses contained in the Scriptures.
+We have almost lost the "hope" of eternal pain--the "consolation" of
+perdition; and in time we shall lose the frightful shadow that has
+fallen upon so many hearts, that has darkened so many lives.
+
+The great trouble for many years has been, and still is, that the clergy
+are not quite candid. They are disposed to defend the old creed.
+They have been educated in the universities of the Sacred
+Mistake--universities that Bruno would call "the widows of true
+learning." They have been taught to measure with a false standard; they
+have weighed with inaccurate scales. In youth, they became convinced of
+the truth of the creed. This was impressed upon them by the solemnity of
+professors who spoke in tones of awe. The enthusiasm of life's morning
+was misdirected. They went out into the world knowing nothing of value.
+They preached a creed outgrown. Having been for so many years
+entirely certain of their position, they met doubt with a spirit of
+irritation--afterward with hatred. They are hardly courageous enough to
+admit that they are wrong.
+
+Once the pulpit was the leader--it spoke with authority. By its side
+was the sword of the state, with the hilt toward its hand. Now it is
+apologized for--it carries a weight. It is now like a living man to
+whom has been chained a corpse. It cannot defend the old, and it has not
+accepted the new. In some strange way it imagines that morality cannot
+live except in partnership with the sanctified follies and falsehoods of
+the past.
+
+The old creeds cannot be defended by argument. They are not within
+the circumference of reason--they are not embraced in any of the facts
+within the experience of man. All the subterfuges have been exposed; all
+the excuses have been shown to be shallow, and at last the church must
+meet, and fairly meet, the objections of our time.
+
+Solemnity is no longer an argument. Falsehood is no longer sacred.
+People are not willing to admit that mistakes are divine. Truth is more
+important than belief--far better than creeds, vastly more useful than
+superstitions. The church must accept the truths of the present, must
+admit the demonstrations of science, or take its place in the mental
+museums with the fossils and monstrosities of the past.
+
+The time for personalities has passed; these questions cannot be
+determined by ascertaining the character of the disputants; epithets
+are no longer regarded as arguments; the curse of the church produces
+laughter; theological slander is no longer a weapon; argument must be
+answered with argument, and the church must appeal to reason, and by
+that standard it must stand or fall. The theories and discoveries of
+Darwin cannot be answered by the resolutions of synods, or by quotations
+from the Old Testament.
+
+The world has advanced. The Bible has remained the same. We must go back
+to the book--it cannot come to us--or we must leave it forever. In order
+to remain orthodox we must forget the discoveries, the inventions,
+the intellectual efforts of many centuries; we must go back until our
+knowledge--or rather our ignorance--will harmonize with the barbaric
+creeds.
+
+It is not pretended that all the creeds have not been naturally
+produced. It is admitted that under the same circumstances the same
+religions would again ensnare the human race. It is also admitted that
+under the same circumstances the same efforts would be made by the great
+and intellectual of every age to break the chains of superstition.
+
+There is no necessity of attacking people--we should combat error.
+We should hate hypocrisy, but not the hypocrite--larceny, but not the
+thief--superstition, but not its victim. We should do all within our
+power to inform, to educate, and to benefit our fellow-men.
+
+There is no elevating power in hatred. There is no reformation in
+punishment. The soul grows greater and grander in the air of kindness,
+in the sunlight of intelligence.
+
+We must rely upon the evidence of our senses, upon the conclusions of
+our reason.
+
+For many centuries the church has insisted that man is totally depraved,
+that he is naturally wicked, that all of his natural desires are
+contrary to the will of God. Only a few years ago it was solemnly
+asserted that our senses were originally honest, true and faithful, but
+having been debauched by original sin, were now cheats and liars; that
+they constantly deceived and misled the soul; that they were traps and
+snares; that no man could be safe who relied upon his senses, or upon
+his reason;--he must simply rely upon faith; in other words, that the
+only way for man to really see was to put out his eyes.
+
+There has been a rapid improvement in the intellectual world. The
+improvement has been slow in the realm of religion, for the reason that
+religion was hedged about, defended and barricaded by fear, by prejudice
+and by law. It was considered sacred. It was illegal to call its truth
+in question. Whoever disputed the priest became a criminal; whoever
+demanded a reason, or an explanation, became a blasphemer, a scoffer, a
+moral leper.
+
+The church defended its mistakes by every means within its power.
+
+But in spite of all this there has been advancement, and there are
+enough of the orthodox clergy left to make it possible for us to measure
+the distance that has been traveled by sensible people.
+
+The world is beginning to see that a minister should be a teacher, and
+that "he should not endeavor to inculcate a particular system of dogmas,
+but to prepare his hearers for exercising their own judgments."
+
+As a last resource, the orthodox tell the thoughtful that they are not
+"spiritual"--that they are "of the earth, earthy"--that they cannot
+perceive that which is spiritual. They insist that "God is a spirit, and
+must be worshiped in spirit."
+
+But let me ask, What is it to be spiritual? In order to be really
+spiritual, must a man sacrifice this world for the sake of another?
+Were the selfish hermits, who deserted their wives and children for
+the miserable purpose of saving their own little souls, spiritual? Were
+those who put their fellow-men in dungeons, or burned them at the state*
+on account of a difference of opinion, all spiritual people? Did John
+Calvin give evidence of his spirituality by burning Servetus? Were
+they spiritual people who invented and used instruments of torture--who
+denied the liberty of thought and expression--who waged wars for the
+propagation of the faith? Were they spiritual people who insisted that
+Infinite Love could punish his poor, ignorant children forever? Is it
+necessary to believe in eternal torment to understand the meaning of the
+word spiritual? Is it necessary to hate those who disagree with you,
+and to calumniate those whose argument you cannot answer, in order to be
+spiritual? Must you hold a demonstrated fact in contempt; must you deny
+or avoid what you know to be true, in order to substantiate the fact
+that you are spiritual?
+
+What is it to be spiritual? Is the man spiritual who searches for the
+truth--who lives in accordance with his highest ideal--who loves his
+wife and children--who discharges his obligations--who makes a happy
+fireside for the ones he loves--who succors the oppressed--who gives his
+honest opinions--who is guided by principle--who is merciful and just?
+
+Is the man spiritual who loves the beautiful--who is thrilled by music,
+and touched to tears in the presence of the sublime, the heroic and the
+self-denying? Is the man spiritual who endeavors by thought and deed to
+ennoble the human race?
+
+The defenders of the orthodox faith, by this time, should know that the
+foundations are insecure.
+
+They should have the courage to defend, or the candor to abandon. If the
+Bible is an inspired book, it ought to be true. Its defenders must admit
+that Jehovah knew the facts not only about the earth, but about the
+stars, and that the Creator of the universe knew all about geology and
+astronomy even four thousand years ago.
+
+The champions of Christianity must show that the Bible tells the truth
+about the creation of man, the Garden of Eden, the temptation, the
+fall and the flood. They must take the ground that the sacred book is
+historically correct; that the events related really happened; that the
+miracles were actually performed; that the laws promulgated from Sinai
+were and are wise and just, and that nothing is upheld, commanded,
+indorsed, or in any way approved or sustained that is not absolutely
+right. In other words, if they insist that a being of infinite goodness
+and intelligence is the author of the Bible, they must be ready to show
+that it is absolutely perfect. They must defend its astronomy, geology,
+history, miracle and morality.
+
+If the Bible is true, man is a special creation, and if man is a special
+creation, millions of facts must have conspired, millions of ages ago,
+to deceive the scientific world of to-day.
+
+If the Bible is true, slavery is right, and the world should go back to
+the barbarism of the lash and chain. If the Bible' is true, polygamy is
+the highest form of virtue. If the Bible is true, nature has a master,
+and the miraculous is independent of and superior to cause and effect.
+If the Bible is true, most of the children of men are destined to suffer
+eternal pain. If the Bible is true, the science known as astronomy is a
+collection of mistakes--the telescope is a false witness, and light is
+a luminous liar. If the Bible is true, the science known as geology is
+false and every fossil is a petrified perjurer.
+
+The defenders of orthodox creeds should have the courage to candidly
+answer at least two questions: First, Is the Bible inspired? Second,
+Is the Bible true? And when they answer these questions, they should
+remember that if the Bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and that if
+not true, inspiration can do it no good.--North American Review, August,
+1888.
+
+
+
+
+WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
+
+I.
+
+"With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls."
+
+THE same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious questions
+as in others. There is no subject--and can be none--concerning which any
+human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence. Neither
+is there any intelligent being who can, by any possibility, be flattered
+by the exercise of ignorant credulity. The man who, without prejudice,
+reads and understands the Old and New Testaments will cease to be an
+orthodox Christian. The intelligent man who investigates the religion of
+any country without fear and without prejudice will not and cannot be a
+believer.
+
+Most people, after arriving at the conclusion that Jehovah is not God,
+that the Bible is not an inspired book, and that the Christian religion,
+like other religions, is the creation of man, usually say: "There must
+be a Supreme Being, but Jehovah is not his name, and the Bible is not
+his word. There must be somewhere an over-ruling Providence or Power."
+
+This position is just as untenable as the other. He who cannot harmonize
+the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah, cannot
+harmonize the cruelties of Nature with the goodness and wisdom of a
+supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account for pestilence and
+famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery, for the triumph of the
+strong over the weak, for the countless victories of injustice. He will
+find it impossible to account for martyrs--for the burning of the good,
+the noble, the loving, by the ignorant, the malicious, and the infamous.
+
+How can the Deist satisfactorily account for the sufferings of women and
+children? In what way will he justify religious persecution--the flame
+and sword of religious hatred? Why did his God sit idly on his throne
+and allow his enemies to wet their swords in the blood of his friends?
+Why did he not answer the prayers of the imprisoned, of the helpless?
+And when he heard the lash upon the naked back of the slave, why did he
+not also hear the prayer of the slave? And when children were sold from
+the breasts of mothers, why was he deaf to the mother's cry?
+
+It seems to me that the man who knows the limitations of the mind, who
+gives the proper value to human testimony, is necessarily an Agnostic.
+He gives up the hope of ascertaining first or final causes, of
+comprehending the supernatural, or of conceiving of an infinite
+personality. From out the words Creator, Preserver, and Providence, all
+meaning falls.
+
+The mind of man pursues the path of least resistance, and the
+conclusions arrived at by the individual depend upon the nature and
+structure of his mind, on his experience, on hereditary drifts and
+tendencies, and on the countless things that constitute the difference
+in minds. One man, finding himself in the midst of mysterious phenomena,
+comes to the conclusion that all is the result of design; that back of
+all things is an infinite personality--that is to say, an infinite man;
+and he accounts for all that is by simply saying that the universe was
+created and set in motion by this infinite personality, and that it is
+miraculously and supernaturally governed and preserved. This man
+sees with perfect clearness that matter could not create itself, and
+therefore he imagines a creator of matter. He is perfectly satisfied
+that there is design in the world, and that consequently there must
+have been a designer. It does not occur to him that it is necessary to
+account for the existence of an infinite personality. He is perfectly
+certain that there can be no design without a designer, and he is
+equally certain that there can be a designer who was not designed. The
+absurdity becomes so great that it takes the place of a demonstration.
+He takes it for granted that matter was created and that its creator was
+not. He assumes that a creator existed from eternity, without cause,
+and created what is called matter out of nothing; or, whereas there was
+nothing, this creator made the something that we call substance.
+
+Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite
+personality? Can it imagine a beginningless being, infinitely powerful
+and intelligent? If such a being existed, then there must have been an
+eternity during which nothing did exist except this being; because, if
+the Universe was created, there must have been a time when it was not,
+and back of that there must have been an eternity during which nothing
+but an infinite personality existed. Is it possible to imagine an
+infinite intelligence dwelling for an eternity in infinite nothing?
+How could such a being be intelligent? What was there to be intelligent
+about? There was but one thing to know, namely, that there was nothing
+except this being. How could such a being be powerful? There was nothing
+to exercise force upon. There was nothing in the universe to suggest an
+idea. Relations could not exist--except the relation between infinite
+intelligence and infinite nothing.
+
+The next great difficulty is the act of creation. My mind is so that I
+cannot conceive of something being created out of nothing. Neither can
+I conceive of anything being created without a cause. Let me go one
+step further. It is just as difficult to imagine something being created
+with, as without, a cause. To postulate a cause does not in the least
+lessen the difficulty. In spite of all, this lever remains without a
+fulcrum.
+
+We cannot conceive of the destruction of substance. The stone can be
+crushed to powder, and the powder can be ground to such a fineness that
+the atoms can only be distinguished by the most powerful microscope, and
+we can then imagine these atoms being divided and subdivided again
+and again and again; but it is impossible for us to conceive of the
+annihilation of the least possible imaginable fragment of the least
+atom of which we can think. Consequently the mind can imagine neither
+creation nor destruction. From this point it is very easy to reach the
+generalization that the indestructible could not have been created.
+
+These questions, however, will be answered by each individual according
+to the structure of his mind, according to his experience, according
+to his habits of thought, and according to his intelligence or his
+ignorance, his prejudice or his genius.
+
+Probably a very large majority of mankind believe in the existence of
+supernatural beings, and a majority of what are known as the civilized
+nations, in an infinite personality. In the realm of thought majorities
+do not determine. Each brain is a kingdom, each mind is a sovereign.
+
+The universality of a belief does not even tend to prove its truth. A
+large majority of mankind have believed in what is known as God, and an
+equally large majority have as implicitly believed in what is known as
+the Devil. These beings have been inferred from phenomena. They were
+produced for the most part by ignorance, by fear, and by selfishness.
+Man in all ages has endeavored to account for the mysteries of life and
+death, of substance, of force, for the ebb and flow of things, for earth
+and star. The savage, dwelling in his cave, subsisting on roots
+and reptiles, or on beasts that could be slain with club and stone,
+surrounded by countless objects of terror, standing by rivers, so far as
+he knew, without source or end, by seas with but one shore, the prey of
+beasts mightier than himself, of diseases strange and fierce, trembling
+at the voice of thunder, blinded by the lightning, feeling the earth
+shake beneath him, seeing the sky lurid with the volcano's glare,--fell
+prostrate and begged for the protection of the Unknown.
+
+In the long night of savagery, in the midst of pestilence and famine,
+through the long and dreary winters, crouched in dens of darkness,
+the seeds of superstition were sown in the brain of man. The savage
+believed, and thoroughly believed, that everything happened in reference
+to him; that he by his actions could excite the anger, or by his worship
+placate the wrath, of the Unseen. He resorted to flattery and prayer. To
+the best of his ability he put in stone, or rudely carved in wood, his
+idea of this god. For this idol he built a hut, a hovel, and at last a
+cathedral. Before these images he bowed, and at these shrines, whereon
+he lavished his wealth, he sought protection for himself and for
+the ones he loved. The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They
+pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between
+the helpless multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of
+truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon
+the labor of the deceived they lived.
+
+The Christian of to-day wonders at the savage who bowed before his idol;
+and yet it must be confessed that the god of stone answered prayer and
+protected his worshipers precisely as the Christian's God answers prayer
+and protects his worshipers to-day.
+
+My mind is so that it is forced to the conclusion that substance is
+eternal; that the universe was without beginning and will be without
+end; that it is the one eternal existence; that relations are transient
+and evanescent; that organisms are produced and vanish; that forms
+change,--but that the substance of things is from eternity to eternity.
+It may be that planets are born and die, that constellations will fade
+from the infinite spaces, that countless suns will be quenched,--but the
+substance will remain.
+
+The questions of origin and destiny seem to be beyond the powers of the
+human mind.
+
+Heredity is on the side of superstition. All our ignorance pleads
+for the old. In most men there is a feeling that their ancestors were
+exceedingly good and brave and wise, and that in all things pertaining
+to religion their conclusions should be followed. They believe that
+their fathers and mothers were of the best, and that that which
+satisfied them should satisfy their children. With a feeling of
+reverence they say that the religion of their mother is good enough
+and pure enough and reasonable enough for them. In this way the love of
+parents and the reverence for ancestors have unconsciously bribed the
+reason and put out, or rendered exceedingly dim, the eyes of the mind.
+
+There is a kind of longing in the heart of the old to live and die where
+their parents lived and died--a tendency to go back to the homes of
+their youth. Around the old oak of manhood grow and cling these vines.
+Yet it will hardly do to say that the religion of my mother is good
+enough for me, any more than to say the geology or the astronomy or
+the philosophy of my mother is good enough for me. Every human being is
+entitled to the best he can obtain; and if there has been the slightest
+improvement on the religion of the mother, the son is entitled to that
+improvement, and he should not deprive himself of that advantage by
+the mistaken idea that he owes it to his mother to perpetuate, in a
+reverential way, her ignorant mistakes.
+
+If we are to follow the religion of our fathers and mothers, our fathers
+and mothers should have followed the religion of theirs. Had this been
+done, there could have been no improvement in the world of thought. The
+first religion would have been the last, and the child would have died
+as ignorant as the mother. Progress would have been impossible, and on
+the graves of ancestors would have been sacrificed the intelligence of
+mankind.
+
+We know, too, that there has been the religion of the tribe, of the
+community, and of the nation, and that there has been a feeling that
+it was the duty of every member of the tribe or community, and of every
+citizen of the nation, to insist upon it that the religion of that
+tribe, of that community, of that nation, was better than that of any
+other. We know that all the prejudices against other religions, and
+all the egotism of nation and tribe, were in favor of the local
+superstition. Each citizen was patriotic enough to denounce the
+religions of other nations and to stand firmly by his own. And there
+is this peculiarity about man: he can see the absurdities of other
+religions while blinded to those of his own. The Christian can see
+clearly enough that Mohammed was an impostor. He is sure of it, because
+the people of Mecca who were acquainted with him declared that he was
+no prophet; and this declaration is received by Christians as a
+demonstration that Mohammed was not inspired. Yet these same Christians
+admit that the people of Jerusalem who were acquainted with Christ
+rejected him; and this rejection they take as proof positive that Christ
+was the Son of God.
+
+The average man adopts the religion of his country, or, rather, the
+religion of his country adopts him. He is dominated by the egotism of
+race, the arrogance of nation, and the prejudice called patriotism. He
+does not reason--he feels. He does not investigate--he believes. To him
+the religions of other nations are absurd and infamous, and their gods
+monsters of ignorance and cruelty. In every country this average man is
+taught, first, that there is a supreme being; second, that he has made
+known his will; third, that he will reward the true believer; fourth,
+that he will punish the unbeliever, the scoffer, and the blasphemer;
+fifth, that certain ceremonies are pleasing to this god; sixth, that
+he has established a church; and seventh, that priests are his
+representatives on earth. And the average man has no difficulty in
+determining that the God of his nation is the true God; that the will of
+this true God is contained in the sacred scriptures of his nation;
+that he is one of the true believers, and that the people of other
+nations--that is, believing other religions--are scoffers; that the only
+true church is the one to which he belongs; and that the priests of his
+country are the only ones who have had or ever will have the slightest
+influence with this true God. All these absurdities to the average man
+seem self-evident propositions; and so he holds all other creeds in
+scorn, and congratulates himself that he is a favorite of the one true
+God.
+
+If the average Christian had been born in Turkey, he would have been a
+Mohammedan; and if the average Mohammedan had been born in New England
+and educated at Andover, he would have regarded the damnation of the
+heathen as the "tidings of great joy."
+
+Nations have eccentricities, peculiarities, and hallucinations, and
+these find expression in their laws, customs, ceremonies, morals, and
+religions. And these are in great part determined by soil, climate, and
+the countless circumstances that mould and dominate the lives and
+habits of insects, individuals, and nations. The average man believes
+implicitly in the religion of his country, because he knows nothing of
+any other and has no desire to know. It fits him because he has been
+deformed to fit it, and he regards this fact of fit as an evidence of
+its inspired truth.
+
+Has a man the right to examine, to investigate, the religion of his own
+country--the religion of his father and mother? Christians admit that
+the citizens of all countries not Christian have not only this right,
+but that it is their solemn duty. Thousands of missionaries are sent to
+heathen countries to persuade the believers in other religions not only
+to examine their superstitions, but to renounce them, and to adopt
+those of the missionaries. It is the duty of a heathen to disregard the
+religion of his country and to hold in contempt the creed of his father
+and of his mother. If the citizens of heathen nations have the right
+to examine the foundations of their religion, it would seem that the
+citizens of Christian nations have the same right. Christians, however,
+go further than this; they say to the heathen: You must examine your
+religion, and not only so, but you must reject it; and, unless you do
+reject it, and, in addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be
+eternally damned. Then these same Christians say to the inhabitants of
+a Christian country: You must not examine; you must not investigate; but
+whether you examine or not, you must believe, or you will be eternally
+damned.
+
+If there be one true religion, how is it possible to ascertain which
+of all the religions the true one is? There is but one way. We must
+impartially examine the claims of all. The right to examine involves the
+necessity to accept or reject. Understand me, not the right to accept
+or reject, but the necessity. From this conclusion there is no possible
+escape. If, then, we have the right to examine, we have the right to
+tell the conclusion reached. Christians have examined other religions
+somewhat, and they have expressed their opinion with the utmost
+freedom--that is to say, they have denounced them all as false and
+fraudulent; have called their gods idols and myths, and their priests
+impostors.
+
+The Christian does not deem it worth while to read the Koran. Probably
+not one Christian in a thousand ever saw a copy of that book. And yet
+all Christians are perfectly satisfied that the Koran is the work of an
+impostor, No Presbyterian thinks it is worth his while to examine the
+religious systems of India; he knows that the Brahmins are mistaken, and
+that all their miracles are falsehoods. No Methodist cares to read the
+life of Buddha, and no Baptist will waste his time studying the ethics
+of Confucius. Christians of every sort and kind take it for granted that
+there is only one true religion, and that all except Christianity are
+absolutely without foundation. The Christian world believes that all
+the prayers of India are unanswered; that all the sacrifices upon the
+countless altars of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome were without effect.
+They believe that all these mighty nations worshiped their gods in vain;
+that their priests were deceivers or deceived; that their ceremonies
+were wicked or meaningless; that their temples were built by ignorance
+and fraud, and that no God heard their songs of praise, their cries of
+despair, their words of thankfulness; that on account of their religion
+no pestilence was stayed; that the earthquake and volcano, the flood
+and storm went on their ways of death--while the real God looked on and
+laughed at their calamities and mocked at their fears.
+
+We find now that the prosperity of nations has depended, not upon their
+religion, not upon the goodness or providence of some god, but on soil
+and climate and commerce, upon the ingenuity, industry, and courage
+of the people, upon the development of the mind, on the spread of
+education, on the liberty of thought and action; and that in this
+mighty panorama of national life, reason has built and superstition has
+destroyed.
+
+Being satisfied that all believe precisely as they must, and that
+religions have been naturally produced, I have neither praise nor blame
+for any man. Good men have had bad creeds, and bad men have had good
+ones. Some of the noblest of the human race have fought and died for the
+wrong. The brain of man has been the trysting-place of contradictions.
+
+Passion often masters reason, and "the state of man, like to a little
+kingdom, suffers then the nature of an insurrection."
+
+In the discussion of theological or religious questions, we have almost
+passed the personal phase, and we are now weighing arguments instead of
+exchanging epithets and curses. They who really seek for truth must be
+the best of friends. Each knows that his desire can never take the place
+of fact, and that, next to finding truth, the greatest honor must be won
+in honest search.
+
+We see that many ships are driven in many ways by the same wind. So
+men, reading the same book, write many creeds and lay out many roads to
+heaven. To the best of my ability, I have examined the religions of many
+countries and the creeds of many sects. They are much alike, and the
+testimony by which they are substantiated is of such a character that to
+those who believe is promised an eternal reward. In all the sacred books
+there are some truths, some rays of light, some words of love and
+hope. The face of savagery is sometimes softened by a smile--the human
+triumphs, and the heart breaks into song. But in these books are also
+found the words of fear and hate, and from their pages crawl serpents
+that coil and hiss in all the paths of men.
+
+For my part, I prefer the books that inspiration has not claimed. Such
+is the nature of my brain that Shakespeare gives me greater joy than all
+the prophets of the ancient world. There are thoughts that satisfy the
+hunger of the mind. I am convinced that Humboldt knew more of geology
+than the author of Genesis; that Darwin was a greater naturalist than he
+who told the story of the flood; that Laplace was better acquainted with
+the habits of the sun and moon than Joshua could have been, and that
+Haeckel, Huxley, and Tyndall know more about the earth and stars, about
+the history of man, the philosophy of life--more that is of use, ten
+thousand times--than all the writers of the sacred books.
+
+I believe in the religion of reason--the gospel of this world; in the
+development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to
+the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end
+that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe
+the world.
+
+Let us be honest with ourselves. In the presence of countless mysteries;
+standing beneath the boundless heaven sown thick with constellations;
+knowing that each grain of sand, each leaf, each blade of grass, asks
+of every mind the answer-less question; knowing that the simplest thing
+defies solution; feeling that we deal with the superficial and the
+relative, and that we are forever eluded by the real, the absolute,--let
+us admit the limitations of our minds, and let us have the courage and
+the candor to say: We do not know.
+
+North American Review, December, 1889.
+
+II.
+
+THE Christian religion rests on miracles. There are no miracles in the
+realm of science. The real philosopher does not seek to excite wonder,
+but to make that plain which was wonderful. He does not endeavor to
+astonish, but to enlighten. He is perfectly confident that there are
+no miracles in nature. He knows that the mathematical expression of the
+same relations, contents, areas, numbers and proportions must forever
+remain the same. He knows that there are no miracles in chemistry; that
+the attractions and repulsions, the loves and hatreds, of atoms are
+constant. Under like conditions, he is certain that like will always
+happen; that the product ever has been and forever will be the
+same; that the atoms or particles unite in definite, unvarying
+proportions,--so many of one kind mix, mingle, and harmonize with just
+so many of another, and the surplus will be forever cast out. There are
+no exceptions. Substances are always true to their natures. They have no
+caprices, no prejudices, that can vary or control their action. They are
+"the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."
+
+In this fixedness, this constancy, this eternal integrity, the
+intelligent man has absolute confidence. It is useless to tell him that
+there was a time when fire would not consume the combustible, when water
+would not flow in obedience to the attraction of gravitation, or that
+there ever was a fragment of a moment during which substance had no
+weight.
+
+Credulity should be the servant of intelligence. The ignorant have not
+credulity enough to believe the actual, because the actual appears to be
+contrary to the evidence of their senses. To them it is plain that the
+sun rises and sets, and they have not credulity enough to believe in the
+rotary motion of the earth--that is to say, they have not intelligence
+enough to comprehend the absurdities involved in their belief, and the
+perfect harmony between the rotation of the earth and all known facts.
+They trust their eyes, not their reason. Ignorance has always been
+and always will be at the mercy of appearance. Credulity, as a rule,
+believes everything except the truth. The semi-civilized believe in
+astrology, but who could convince them of the vastness of astronomical
+spaces, the speed of light, or the magnitude and number of suns and
+constellations? If Hermann, the magician, and Humboldt, the philosopher,
+could have appeared before savages, which would have been regarded as a
+god?
+
+When men knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of the correlation of force,
+and of its indestructibility, they were believers in perpetual motion.
+So when chemistry was a kind of sleight-of-hand, or necromancy,
+something accomplished by the aid of the supernatural, people talked
+about the transmutation of metals, the universal solvent, and the
+philosopher's stone. Perpetual motion would be a mechanical miracle; and
+the transmutation of metals would be a miracle in chemistry; and if we
+could make the result of multiplying two by two five, that would be a
+miracle in mathematics. No one expects to find a circle the diameter of
+which is just one fourth of the circumference. If one could find such a
+circle, then there would be a miracle in geometry.
+
+In other words, there are no miracles in any science. The moment we
+understand a question or subject, the miraculous necessarily disappears.
+If anything actually happens in the chemical world, it will, under like
+conditions, happen again.
+
+No one need take an account of this result from the mouths of others:
+all can try the experiment for themselves. There is no caprice, and no
+accident.
+
+It is admitted, at least by the Protestant world, that the age of
+miracles has passed away, and, consequently, miracles cannot at present
+be established by miracles; they must be substantiated by the testimony
+of witnesses who are said by certain writers--or, rather, by uncertain
+writers--to have lived several centuries ago; and this testimony is
+given to us, not by the witnesses themselves, not by persons who say
+that they talked with those witnesses, but by unknown persons who did
+not give the sources of their information.
+
+The question is: Can miracles be established except by miracles? We know
+that the writers may have been mistaken. It is possible that they may
+have manufactured these accounts themselves. The witnesses may have told
+what they knew to be untrue, or they may have been honestly deceived,
+or the stories may have been true as at first told. Imagination may have
+added greatly to them, so that after several centuries of accretion a
+very simple truth was changed to a miracle.
+
+We must admit that all probabilities must be against miracles, for
+the reason that that which is probable cannot by any possibility be
+a miracle. Neither the probable nor the possible, so far as man is
+concerned, can be miraculous. The probability therefore says that the
+writers and witnesses were either mistaken or dishonest.
+
+We must admit that we have never seen a miracle ourselves, and we must
+admit that, according to our experience, there are no miracles. If we
+have mingled with the world, we are compelled to say that we have known
+a vast number of persons--including ourselves--to be mistaken, and many
+others who have failed to tell the exact truth. The probabilities are on
+the side of our experience, and, consequently, against the miraculous;
+and it is a necessity that the free mind moves along the path of least
+resistance.
+
+The effect of testimony depends on the intelligence and honesty of
+the witness and the intelligence of him who weighs. A man living in a
+community where the supernatural is expected, where the miraculous is
+supposed to be of almost daily occurrence, will, as a rule, believe that
+all wonderful things are the result of supernatural agencies. He will
+expect providential interference, and, as a consequence, his mind will
+pursue the path of least resistance, and will account for all phenomena
+by what to him is the easiest method. Such people, with the best
+intentions, honestly bear false witness. They have been imposed upon by
+appearances, and are victims of delusion and illusion.
+
+In an age when reading and writing were substantially unknown, and when
+history itself was but the vaguest hearsay handed down from dotage to
+infancy, nothing was rescued from oblivion except the wonderful, the
+miraculous. The more marvelous the story, the greater the interest
+excited. Narrators and hearers were alike ignorant and alike honest. At
+that time nothing was known, nothing suspected, of the orderly course of
+nature--of the unbroken and unbreakable chain of causes and effects. The
+world was governed by caprice. Everything was at the mercy of a being,
+or beings, who were themselves controlled by the same passions that
+dominated man. Fragments of facts were taken for the whole, and the
+deductions drawn were honest and monstrous.
+
+It is probably certain that all of the religions of the world have been
+believed, and that all the miracles have found credence in countless
+brains; otherwise they could not have been perpetuated. They were not
+all born of cunning. Those who told were as honest as those who heard.
+This being so, nothing has been too absurd for human credence.
+
+All religions, so far as I know, claim to have been miraculously
+founded, miraculously preserved, and miraculously propagated. The
+priests of all claimed to have messages from God, and claimed to have
+a certain authority, and the miraculous has always been appealed to for
+the purpose of substantiating the message and the authority.
+
+If men believe in the supernatural, they will account for all phenomena
+by an appeal to supernatural means or power. We know that formerly
+everything was accounted for in this way except some few simple things
+with which man thought he was perfectly acquainted. After a time men
+found that under like conditions like would happen, and as to those
+things the supposition of supernatural interference was abandoned; but
+that interference was still active as to all the unknown world. In other
+words, as the circle of man's knowledge grew, supernatural interference
+withdrew and was active only just beyond the horizon of the known.
+
+Now, there are some believers in universal special providence--that is,
+men who believe in perpetual interference by a supernatural power,
+this interference being for the purpose of punishing or rewarding, of
+destroying or preserving, individuals and nations.
+
+Others have abandoned the idea of providence in ordinary matters, but
+still believe that God interferes on great occasions and at critical
+moments, especially in the affairs of nations, and that his presence
+is manifest in great disasters. This is the compromise position. These
+people believe that an infinite being made the universe and impressed
+upon it what they are pleased to call "laws," and then left it to run in
+accordance with those laws and forces; that as a rule it works well,
+and that the divine maker interferes only in cases of accident, or at
+moments when the machine fails to accomplish the original design.
+
+There are others who take the ground that all is natural; that there
+never has been, never will be, never can be any interference from
+without, for the reason that nature embraces all, and that there can be
+no without or beyond.
+
+The first class are Theists pure and simple; the second are Theists
+as to the unknown, Naturalists as to the known; and the third are
+Naturalists without a touch or taint of superstition.
+
+What can the evidence of the first class be worth? This question
+is answered by reading the history of those nations that believed
+thoroughly and implicitly in the supernatural. There is no conceivable
+absurdity that was not established by their testimony. Every law or
+every fact in nature was violated. Children were bom without parents;
+men lived for thousands of years; others subsisted without food,
+without sleep; thousands and thousands were possessed with evil spirits
+controlled by ghosts and ghouls; thousands confessed themselves guilty
+of impossible offences, and in courts, with the most solemn forms,
+impossibilities were substantiated by the oaths, affirmations, and
+confessions of men, women, and children.
+
+These delusions were not confined to ascetics and peasants, but they
+took possession of nobles and kings; of people who were at that time
+called intelligent; of the then educated. No one denied these wonders,
+for the reason that denial was a crime punishable generally with death.
+Societies, nations, became insane--victims of ignorance, of dreams, and,
+above all, of fears. Under these conditions human testimony is not and
+cannot be of the slightest value. We now know that nearly all of the
+history of the world is false, and we know this because we have arrived
+at that phase or point of intellectual development where and when
+we know that effects must have causes, that everything is naturally
+produced, and that, consequently, no nation could ever have been great,
+powerful, and rich unless it had the soil, the people, the intelligence,
+and the commerce. Weighed in these scales, nearly all histories are
+found to be fictions.
+
+The same is true of religions. Every intelligent American is satisfied
+that the religions of India, of Egypt, of Greece and Rome, of the
+Aztecs, were and are false, and that all the miracles on which they rest
+are mistakes. Our religion alone is excepted. Every intelligent Hindoo
+discards all religions and all miracles except his own. The question
+is: When will people see the defects in their own theology as clearly as
+they perceive the same defects in every other?
+
+All the so-called false religions were substantiated by miracles, by
+signs and wonders, by prophets and martyrs, precisely as our own. Our
+witnesses are no better than theirs, and our success is no greater. If
+their miracles were false, ours cannot be true. Nature was the same in
+India and in Palestine.
+
+One of the corner-stones of Christianity is the miracle of inspiration,
+and this same miracle lies at the foundation of all religions. How can
+the fact of inspiration be established? How could even the inspired man
+know that he was inspired? If he was influenced to write, and did write,
+and did express thoughts and facts that to him were absolutely new, on
+subjects about which he had previously known nothing, how could he know
+that he had been influenced by an infinite being? And if he could know,
+how could he convince others?
+
+What is meant by inspiration? Did the one inspired set down only the
+thoughts of a supernatural being? Was he simply an instrument, or did
+his personality color the message received and given? Did he mix his
+ignorance with the divine information, his prejudices and hatreds with
+the love and justice of the Deity? If God told him not to eat the flesh
+of any beast that dieth of itself, did the same infinite being also tell
+him to sell this meat to the stranger within his gates?
+
+A man says that he is inspired--that God appeared to him in a dream, and
+told him certain things. Now, the things said to have been communicated
+may have been good and wise; but will the fact that the communication
+is good or wise establish the inspiration? If, on the other hand, the
+communication is absurd or wicked, will that conclusively show that the
+man was not inspired? Must we judge from the communication? In other
+words, is our reason to be the final standard?
+
+How could the inspired man know that the communication was received from
+God? If God in reality should appear to a human being, how could this
+human being know who had appeared? By what standard would he judge? Upon
+this question man has no experience; he is not familiar enough with the
+supernatural to know gods even if they exist. Although thousands have
+pretended to receive messages, there has been no message in which there
+was, or is, anything above the invention of man. There are just as
+wonderful things in the uninspired as in the inspired books, and the
+prophecies of the heathen have been fulfilled equally with those of the
+Judean prophets. If, then, even the inspired man cannot certainly know
+that he is inspired, how is it possible for him to demonstrate his
+inspiration to others? The last solution of this question is that
+inspiration is a miracle about which only the inspired can have the
+least knowledge, or the least evidence, and this knowledge and this
+evidence not of a character to absolutely convince even the inspired.
+
+There is certainly nothing in the Old or the New Testament that could
+not have been written by uninspired human beings. To me there is nothing
+of any particular value in the Pentateuch. I do not know of a solitary
+scientific truth contained in the five books commonly attributed to
+Moses. There is not, as far as I know, a line in the book of Genesis
+calculated to make a human being better. The laws contained in Exodus,
+Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are for the most part puerile and
+cruel. Surely there is nothing in any of these books that could not have
+been produced by uninspired men. Certainly there is nothing calculated
+to excite intellectual admiration in the book of Judges or in the wars
+of Joshua; and the same may be said of Samuel, Chronicles, and Kings.
+The history is extremely childish, full of repetitions of useless
+details, without the slightest philosophy, without a generalization bom
+of a wide survey. Nothing is known of other nations; nothing imparted of
+the slightest value; nothing about education, discovery, or invention.
+And these idle and stupid annals are interspersed with myth and miracle,
+with flattery for kings who supported priests, and with curses and
+denunciations for those who would not hearken to the voice of the
+prophets. If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the
+memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost.
+
+Is it possible that the writer or writers of First and Second Kings
+were inspired, and that Gibbon wrote "The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire" without supernatural assistance? Is it possible that the author
+of Judges was simply the instrument of an infinite God, while John W.
+Draper wrote "The Intellectual Development of Europe" without one ray
+of light from the other world? Can we believe that the author of Genesis
+had to be inspired, while Darwin experimented, ascertained, and reached
+conclusions for himself.
+
+Ought not the work of a God to be vastly superior to that of a man? And
+if the writers of the Bible were in reality inspired, ought not that
+book to be the greatest of books? For instance, if it were contended
+that certain statues had been chiselled by inspired men, such statues
+should be superior to any that uninspired man has made. As long as it is
+admitted that the Venus de Milo is the work of man, no one will believe
+in inspired sculptors--at least until a superior statue has been found.
+So in the world of painting. We admit that Corot was uninspired. Nobody
+claims that Angelo had supernatural assistance. Now, if some one should
+claim that a certain painter was simply the instrumentality of God,
+certainly the pictures produced by that painter should be superior to
+all others.
+
+I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to
+conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the
+tragedy of Lear was the work of an uninspired man. We are all liable to
+be mistaken, but the Iliad seems to me a greater work than the Book of
+Esther, and I prefer it to the writings of Haggai and Hosea. Æschylus is
+superior to Jeremiah, and Shakespeare rises immeasurably above all the
+sacred books of the world.
+
+It does not seem possible that any human being ever tried to establish a
+truth--anything that really happened--by what is called a miracle. It
+is easy to understand how that which was common became wonderful by
+accretion,--by things added, and by things forgotten,--and it is easy
+to conceive how that which was wonderful became by accretion what was
+called supernatural. But it does not seem possible that any intelligent,
+honest man ever endeavored to prove anything by a miracle.
+
+As a matter of fact, miracles could only satisfy people who demanded no
+evidence; else how could they have believed the miracle? It also appears
+to be certain that, even if miracles had been performed, it would be
+impossible to establish that fact by human testimony. In other words,
+miracles can only be established by miracles, and in no event could
+miracles be evidence except to those who were actually present; and in
+order for miracles to be of any value, they would have to be perpetual.
+It must also be remembered that a miracle actually performed could by
+no possibility shed any light on any moral truth, or add to any human
+obligation.
+
+If any man has, ever been inspired, this is a secret miracle, known to
+no person, and suspected only by the man claiming to be inspired. It
+would not be in the power of the inspired to give satisfactory evidence
+of that fact to anybody else.
+
+The testimony of man is insufficient to establish the supernatural.
+Neither the evidence of one man nor of twelve can stand when
+contradicted by the experience of the intelligent world. If a book
+sought to be proved by miracles is true, then it makes no difference
+whether it was inspired or not; and if it is not true, inspiration
+cannot add to its value.
+
+The truth is that the church has always--unconsciously, perhaps--offered
+rewards for falsehood. It was founded upon the supernatural, the
+miraculous, and it welcomed all statements calculated to support
+the foundation. It rewarded the traveller who found evidences of the
+miraculous, who had seen the pillar of salt into which the wife of Lot
+had been changed, and the tracks of Pharaoh's chariots on the sands of
+the Red Sea. It heaped honors on the historian who filled his pages with
+the absurd and impossible. It had geologists and astronomers of its own
+who constructed the earth and the constellations in accordance with the
+Bible. With sword and flame it destroyed the brave and thoughtful men
+who told the truth. It was the enemy of investigation and of reason.
+Faith and fiction were in partnership.
+
+To-day the intelligence of the world denies the miraculous. Ignorance
+is the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of Christianity has
+crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric must fall. The natural
+is true. The miraculous is false.
+
+North American Review, March, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.
+
+
+PROFESSOR HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.
+
+IN the February number of the Nineteenth Century, 1889, is an article
+by Professor Huxley, entitled "Agnosticism." It seems that a church
+congress was held at Manchester in October, 1888, and that the Principal
+of King's College brought the topic of Agnosticism before the assembly
+and made the following statement:
+
+"But if this be so, for a man to urge as an escape from this article
+of belief that he has no means of a scientific knowledge of an unseen
+world, or of the future, is irrelevant. His difference from Christians
+lies, not in the fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but
+that he does not believe the authority on which they are stated. He
+may prefer to call himself an Agnostic, but his real name is an older
+one--he is an infidel; that is to say, an unbeliever. The word infidel,
+perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance. Perhaps it is right that it
+should. It is, and it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have
+to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ."
+
+Let us examine this statement, putting it in language that is easily
+understood; and for that purpose we will divide it into several
+paragraphs.
+
+First.--"For a man to urge that he has no means of a scientific
+knowledge of the unseen world, or of the future, is irrelevant."
+
+Is there any other knowledge than a scientific knowledge? Are there
+several kinds of knowing? Is there such a thing as scientific ignorance?
+If a man says, "I know nothing of the unseen world because I have no
+knowledge upon that subject," is the fact that he has no knowledge
+absolutely irrelevant? Will the Principal of King's College say that
+having no knowledge is the reason he knows? When asked to give your
+opinion upon any subject, can it be said that your ignorance of that
+subject is irrelevant? If this be true, then your knowledge of the
+subject is also irrelevant?
+
+Is it possible to put in ordinary English a more perfect absurdity? How
+can a man obtain any knowledge of the unseen world? He certainly cannot
+obtain it through the medium of the senses. It is not a world that he
+can visit. He cannot stand upon its shores, nor can he view them from
+the ocean of imagination. The Principal of King's College, however,
+insists that these impossibilities are irrelevant.
+
+No person has come back from the unseen world. No authentic message has
+been delivered. Through all the centuries, not one whisper has broken
+the silence that lies beyond the grave. Countless millions have sought
+for some evidence, have listened in vain for some word.
+
+It is most cheerfully admitted that all this does not prove the
+non-existence of another world--all this does not demonstrate that death
+ends all. But it is the justification of the Agnostic, who candidly
+says, "I do not know."
+
+Second.--The Principal of King's College states that the difference
+between an Agnostic and a Christian "lies, not in the fact that he has
+no knowledge of these things, but that he does not believe the authority
+on which they are stated."
+
+Is this a difference in knowledge, or a difference in belief--that is to
+say, a difference in credulity?
+
+The Christian believes the Mosaic account. He reverently hears and
+admits the truth of all that he finds within the Scriptures. Is this
+knowledge? How is it possible to know whether the reputed authors of the
+books of the Old Testament were the real ones? The witnesses are dead.
+The lips that could testify are dust. Between these shores roll the
+waves of many centuries. Who knows whether such a man as Moses existed
+or not? Who knows the author of Kings and Chronicles? By what testimony
+can we substantiate the authenticity of the prophets, or of the
+prophecies, or of the fulfillments? Is there any difference between the
+knowledge of the Christian and of the Agnostic? Does the Principal of
+King's College know any more as to the truth of the Old Testament than
+the man who modestly calls for evidence? Has not a mistake been made? Is
+not the difference one of belief instead of knowledge? And is not
+this difference founded on the difference in credulity? Would not
+an infinitely wise and good being--where belief is a condition to
+salvation--supply the evidence? Certainly the Creator of man--if such
+exist--knows the exact nature of the human mind--knows the evidence
+necessary to convince; and, consequently, such a being would act in
+accordance with such conditions.
+
+There is a relation between evidence and belief. The mind is so
+constituted that certain things, being in accordance with its nature,
+are regarded as reasonable, as probable.
+
+There is also this fact that must not be overlooked: that is, that just
+in the proportion that the brain is developed it requires more evidence,
+and becomes less and less credulous. Ignorance and credulity go hand in
+hand. Intelligence understands something of the law of average, has an
+idea of probability. It is not swayed by prejudice, neither is it driven
+to extremes by suspicion. It takes into consideration personal motives.
+It examines the character of the witnesses, makes allowance for the
+ignorance of the time,--for enthusiasm, for fear,--and comes to its
+conclusion without fear and without passion.
+
+What knowledge has the Christian of another world? The senses of the
+Christian are the same as those of the Agnostic.
+
+He hears, sees, and feels substantially the same. His vision is limited.
+He sees no other shore and hears nothing from another world.
+
+Knowledge is something that can be imparted. It has a foundation
+in fact. It comes within the domain of the senses. It can be told,
+described, analyzed, and, in addition to all this, it can be classified.
+Whenever a fact becomes the property of one mind, it can become the
+property of the intellectual world. There are words in which the
+knowledge can be conveyed.
+
+The Christian is not a supernatural person, filled with supernatural
+truths. He is a natural person, and all that he knows of value can be
+naturally imparted. It is within his power to give all that he has to
+the Agnostic.
+
+The Principal of King's College is mistaken when he says that the
+difference between the Agnostic and the Christian does not lie in the
+fact that the Agnostic has no knowledge, "but that he does not believe
+the authority on which these things are stated."
+
+The real difference is this: the Christian says that he has knowledge;
+the Agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the Christian accuses the
+Agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit
+the limitations of his mind. To the Agnostic every fact is a torch, and
+by this light, and this light only, he walks.
+
+It is also true that the Agnostic does not believe the authority relied
+on by the Christian. What is the authority of the Christian? Thousands
+of years ago it is supposed that certain men, or, rather, uncertain men,
+wrote certain things. It is alleged by the Christian that these men were
+divinely inspired, and that the words of these men are to be taken as
+absolutely true, no matter whether or not they are verified by modern
+discovery and demonstration.
+
+How can we know that any human being was divinely inspired? There has
+been no personal revelation to us to the effect that certain people were
+inspired--it is only claimed that the revelation was to them. For this
+we have only their word, and about that there is this difficulty: we
+know nothing of them, and, consequently, cannot, if we desire, rely upon
+their character for truth. This evidence is not simply hearsay--it
+is far weaker than that. We have only been told that they said these
+things; we do not know whether the persons claiming to be inspired
+wrote these things or not; neither are we certain that such persons ever
+existed. We know now that the greatest men with whom we are acquainted
+are often mistaken about the simplest matters. We also know that men
+saying something like the same things, in other countries and in ancient
+days, must have been impostors. The Christian has no confidence in the
+words of Mohammed; the Mohammedan cares nothing about the declarations
+of Buddha; and the Agnostic gives to the words of the Christian the
+value only of the truth that is in them. He knows that these sayings get
+neither truth nor worth from the person who uttered them. He knows
+that the sayings themselves get their entire value from the truth they
+express. So that the real difference between the Christian and the
+Agnostic does not lie in their knowledge,--for neither of them has any
+knowledge on this subject,--but the difference does lie in credulity,
+and in nothing else. The Agnostic does not rely on the authority of
+Moses and the prophets. He finds that they were mistaken in most matters
+capable of demonstration. He finds that their mistakes multiply in the
+proportion that human knowledge increases. He is satisfied that the
+religion of the ancient Jews is, in most things, as ignorant and cruel
+as other religions of the ancient world. He concludes that the efforts,
+in all ages, to answer the questions of origin and destiny, and to
+account for the phenomena of life, have all been substantial failures.
+
+In the presence of demonstration there is no opportunity for the
+exercise of faith. Truth does not appeal to credulity--it appeals to
+evidence, to established facts, to the constitution of the mind. It
+endeavors to harmonize the new fact with all that we know, and to bring
+it within the circumference of human experience.
+
+The church has never cultivated investigation. It has never said: Let
+him who has a mind to think, think; but its cry from the first until now
+has been: Let him who has ears to hear, hear.
+
+The pulpit does not appeal to the reason of the pew; it speaks by
+authority and it commands the pew to believe, and it not only commands,
+but it threatens.
+
+The Agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to
+establish what is known as the miraculous. We would not believe to-day
+the testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised.
+The church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. If we
+cannot believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who
+have been dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing?
+
+Third.--The Principal of King's College, growing somewhat severe,
+declares that "he may prefer to call himself an Agnostic, but his real
+name is an older one--he is an infidel; that is to say, an unbeliever."
+
+This is spoken in a kind of holy scorn. According to this gentleman, an
+unbeliever is, to a certain extent, a disreputable person.
+
+In this sense, what is an unbeliever? He is one whose mind is so
+constituted that what the Christian calls evidence is not satisfactory
+to him. Is a person accountable for the constitution of his mind, for
+the formation of his brain? Is any human being responsible for the
+weight that evidence has upon him? Can he believe without evidence? Is
+the weight of evidence a question of choice? Is there such a thing as
+honestly weighing testimony? Is the result of such weighing necessary?
+Does it involve moral responsibility? If the Mosaic account does not
+convince a man that it is true, is he a wretch because he is candid
+enough to tell the truth? Can he preserve his manhood only by making a
+false statement?
+
+The Mohammedan would call the Principal of King's College an
+unbeliever,--so would the tribes of Central Africa,--and he would return
+the compliment, and all would be equally justified. Has the Principal of
+King's College any knowledge that he keeps from the rest of the world?
+Has he the confidence of the Infinite? Is there anything praiseworthy in
+believing where the evidence is sufficient, or is one to be praised for
+believing only where the evidence is insufficient? Is a man to be blamed
+for not agreeing with his fellow-citizen? Were the unbelievers in the
+pagan world better or worse than their neighbors? It is probably true
+that some of the greatest Greeks believed in the gods of that nation,
+and it is equally true that some of the greatest denied their existence.
+If credulity is a virtue now, it must have been in the days of Athens.
+If to believe without evidence entities one to eternal reward in this
+century, certainly the same must have been true in the days of the
+Pharaohs.
+
+An infidel is one who does not believe in the prevailing religion. We
+now admit that the infidels of Greece and Rome were right. The gods that
+they refused to believe in are dead. Their thrones are empty, and long
+ago the sceptres dropped from their nerveless hands. To-day the world
+honors the men who denied and derided these gods.
+
+Fourth.--The Principal of King's College ventures to suggest that "the
+word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance; perhaps it is
+right that it should."
+
+A few years ago the word infidel did carry "an unpleasant significance."
+A few years ago its significance was so unpleasant that the man to
+whom the word was applied found himself in prison or at the stake. In
+particularly kind communities he was put in the stocks, pelted with
+offal, derided by hypocrites, scorned by ignorance, jeered by cowardice,
+and all the priests passed by on the other side.
+
+There was a time when Episcopalians were regarded as infidels; when a
+true Catholic looked upon a follower of Henry VIII. as an infidel, as
+an unbeliever; when a true Catholic held in detestation the man who
+preferred a murderer and adulterer--a man who swapped religions for the
+sake of exchanging wives--to the Pope, the head of the universal church.
+
+It is easy enough to conceive of an honest man denying the claims of
+a church based on the caprice of an English king. The word infidel
+"carries an unpleasant significance" only where the Christians are
+exceedingly ignorant, intolerant, bigoted, cruel, and unmannerly.
+
+The real gentleman gives to others the rights that he claims for
+himself. The civilized man rises far above the bigotry of one who has
+been "born again." Good breeding is far gentler than "universal love."
+
+It is natural for the church to hate an unbeliever--natural for the
+pulpit to despise one who refuses to subscribe, who refuses to give. It
+is a question of revenue instead of religion. The Episcopal Church has
+the instinct of self-preservation. It uses its power, its influence, to
+compel contribution. It forgives the giver.
+
+Fifth.--The Principal of King's College insists that "it is, and it
+ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say plainly that
+he does not believe in Jesus Christ."
+
+Should it be an unpleasant thing for a man to say plainly what he
+believes? Can this be unpleasant except in an uncivilized community--a
+community in which an uncivilized church has authority?
+
+Why should not a man be as free to say that he does not believe as to
+say that he does believe? Perhaps the real question is whether all men
+have an equal right to express their opinions. Is it the duty of the
+minority to keep silent? Are majorities always right? If the minority
+had never spoken, what to-day would have been the condition of this
+world? Are the majority the pioneers of progress, or does the pioneer,
+as a rule, walk alone? Is it his duty to close his lips? Must the
+inventor allow his inventions to die in the brain? Must the discoverer
+of new truths make of his mind a tomb? Is man under any obligation to
+his fellows? Was the Episcopal religion always in the majority? Was it
+at any time in the history of the world an unpleasant thing to be
+called a Protestant? Did the word Protestant "carry an unpleasant
+significance"? Was it "perhaps right that it should"? Was Luther a
+misfortune to the human race?
+
+If a community is thoroughly civilized, why should it be an unpleasant
+thing for a man to express his belief in respectful language? If the
+argument is against him, it might be unpleasant; but why should simple
+numbers be the foundation of unpleasantness? If the majority have the
+facts,--if they have the argument,--why should they fear the mistakes of
+the minority? Does any theologian hate the man he can answer?
+
+It is claimed by the Episcopal Church that Christ was in fact God; and
+it is further claimed that the New Testament is an inspired account of
+what that being and his disciples did and said. Is there any obligation
+resting on any human being to believe this account? Is it within the
+power of man to determine the influence that testimony shall have upon
+his mind?
+
+If one denies the existence of devils, does he, for that reason, cease
+to believe in Jesus Christ? Is it not possible to imagine that a great
+and tender soul living in Palestine nearly twenty centuries ago was
+misunderstood? Is it not within the realm of the possible that his
+words have been inaccurately reported? Is it not within the range of the
+probable that legend and rumor and ignorance and zeal have deformed his
+life and belittled his character?
+
+If the man Christ lived and taught and suffered, if he was, in reality,
+great and noble, who is his friend--the one who attributes to him feats
+of jugglery, or he who maintains that these stories were invented by
+zealous ignorance and believed by enthusiastic credulity?
+
+If he claimed to have wrought miracles, he must have been either
+dishonest or insane; consequently, he who denies miracles does what
+little he can to rescue the reputation of a great and splendid man.
+
+The Agnostic accepts the good he did, the truth he said, and rejects
+only that which, according to his judgment, is inconsistent with truth
+and goodness.
+
+The Principal of King's College evidently believes in the necessity of
+belief. He puts conviction or creed or credulity in place of character.
+According to his idea, it is impossible to win the approbation of God by
+intelligent investigation and by the expression of honest conclusions.
+He imagines that the Infinite is delighted with credulity, with belief
+without evidence, faith without question.
+
+Man has but little reason, at best; but this little should be used. No
+matter how small the taper is, how feeble the ray of light it casts, it
+is better than darkness, and no man should be rewarded for extinguishing
+the light he has.
+
+We know now, if we know anything, that man in this, the nineteenth
+century, is better capable of judging as to the happening of any event,
+than he ever was before. We know that the standard is higher to-day--we
+know that the intellectual light is greater--we know that the human mind
+is better equipped to deal with all questions of human interest, than at
+any other time within the known history of the human race.
+
+It will not do to say that "our Lord and his apostles must at least be
+regarded as honest men." Let this be admitted, and what does it prove?
+Honesty is not enough. Intelligence and honesty must go hand in hand.
+We may admit now that "our Lord and his apostles" were perfectly honest
+men; yet it does not follow that we have a truthful account of what they
+said and of what they did. It is not pretended that "our Lord" wrote
+anything, and it is not known that one of the apostles ever wrote
+a word. Consequently, the most that we can say is that somebody has
+written something about "our Lord and his apostles." Whether that
+somebody knew or did not know is unknown to us. As to whether what is
+written is true or false, we must judge by that which is written.
+
+First of all, is it probable? is it within the experience of mankind?
+We should judge of the gospels as we judge of other histories, of other
+biographies. We know that many biographies written by perfectly honest
+men are not correct. We know, if we know anything, that honest men can
+be mistaken, and it is not necessary to believe everything that a man
+writes because we believe he was honest. Dishonest men may write the
+truth.
+
+At last the standard or criterion is for each man to judge according to
+what he believes to be human experience. We are satisfied that nothing
+more wonderful has happened than is now happening. We believe that
+the present is as wonderful as the past, and just as miraculous as the
+future. If we are to believe in the truth of the Old Testament, the
+word evidence loses its meaning; there ceases to be any standard of
+probability, and the mind simply accepts or denies without reason.
+
+We are told that certain miracles were performed for the purpose of
+attesting the mission and character of Christ. How can these miracles
+be verified? The miracles of the Middle Ages rest upon substantially the
+same evidence. The same may be said of the wonders of all countries and
+of all ages. How is it a virtue to deny the miracles of Mohammed and to
+believe those attributed to Christ?
+
+You may say of St. Augustine that what he said was true or false. We
+know that much of it was false; and yet we are not justified in saying
+that he was dishonest. Thousands of errors have been propagated by
+honest men. As a rule, mistakes get their wings from honest people. The
+testimony of a witness to the happening of the impossible gets no weight
+from the honesty of the witness. The fact that falsehoods are in the
+New Testament does not tend to prove that the writers were knowingly
+untruthful. No man can be honest enough to substantiate, to the
+satisfaction of reasonable men, the happening of a miracle.
+
+For this reason it makes not the slightest difference whether the
+writers of the New Testament were honest or not. Their character is not
+involved. Whenever a man rises above his contemporaries, whenever he
+excites the wonder of his fellows, his biographers always endeavor to
+bridge over the chasm between the people and this man, and for that
+purpose attribute to him the qualities which in the eyes of the
+multitude are desirable.
+
+Miracles are demanded by savages, and, consequently, the savage
+biographer attributes miracles to his hero. What would we think now of a
+man who, in writing the life of Charles Darwin, should attribute to him
+supernatural powers? What would we say of an admirer of Humboldt who
+should claim that the great German could cast out devils? We would feel
+that Darwin and Humboldt had been belittled; that the biographies were
+written for children and by men who had not outgrown the nursery.
+
+If the reputation of "our Lord" is to be preserved--if he is to stand
+with the great and splendid of the earth--if he is to continue a
+constellation in the intellectual heavens, all claim to the miraculous,
+to the supernatural, must be abandoned.
+
+No one can overestimate the evils that have been endured by the human
+race by reason of a departure from the standard of the natural. The
+world has been governed by jugglery, by sleight-of-hand. Miracles,
+wonders, tricks, have been regarded as of far greater importance than
+the steady, the sublime and unbroken march of cause and effect. The
+improbable has been established by the impossible. Falsehood has
+furnished the foundation for faith.
+
+Is the human body at present the residence of evil spirits, or have
+these imps of darkness perished from the world? Where are they? If the
+New Testament establishes anything, it is the existence of innumerable
+devils, and that these satanic beings absolutely took possession of
+the human mind. Is this true? Can anything be more absurd? Does any
+intellectual man who has examined the question believe that depraved
+demons live in the bodies of men? Do they occupy space? Do they live
+upon some kind of food? Of what shape are they? Could they be classified
+by a naturalist? Do they run or float or fly? If to deny the existence
+of these supposed beings is to be an infidel, how can the word infidel
+"carry an unpleasant significance"?
+
+Of course it is the business of the principals of most colleges, as well
+as of bishops, cardinals, popes, priests, and clergymen to insist upon
+the existence of evil spirits. All these gentlemen are employeed to
+counteract the influence of these supposed demons. Why should they take
+the bread out of their own mouths? Is it to be expected that they will
+unfrock themselves?
+
+The church, like any other corporation, has the instinct of
+self-preservation. It will defend itself; it will fight as long as it
+has the power to change a hand into a fist.
+
+The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of
+morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels,
+or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his
+scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied
+that "the miraculous" is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses
+were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that
+credulity had possession of their minds, that "the miraculous" was
+expected, that it was their daily food.
+
+All this is very clearly and delightfully stated by Professor Huxley,
+and it hardly seems possible that any intelligent man can read what he
+says without feeling that the foundation of all superstition has
+been weakened. The article is as remarkable for its candor as for its
+clearness. Nothing is avoided--everything is met. No excuses are given..
+He has left all apologies for the other side. When you have finished
+what Professor Huxley has written, you feel that your mind has been
+in actual contact with the mind of another, that nothing has been
+concealed; and not only so, but you feel that this mind is not only
+willing, but anxious, to know the actual truth.
+
+To me, the highest uses of philosophy are, first, to free the mind of
+fear, and, second, to avert all the evil that can be averted, through
+intelligence--that is to say, through a knowledge of the conditions of
+well-being.
+
+We are satisfied that the absolute is beyond our vision, beneath our
+touch, above our reach. We are now convinced that we can deal only with
+phenomena, with relations, with appearances, with things that impress
+the senses, that can be reached by reason, by the exercise of our
+faculties. We are satisfied that the reasonable road is "the straight
+road," the only "sacred way."
+
+Of course there is faith in the world--faith in this world--and always
+will be, unless superstition succeeds in every land. But the faith of
+the wise man is based upon facts. His faith is a reasonable conclusion
+drawn from the known. He has faith in the progress of the race, in the
+triumph of intelligence, in the coming sovereignty of science. He has
+faith in the development of the brain, in the gradual enlightenment of
+the mind. And so he works for the accomplishment of great ends, having
+faith in the final victory of the race.
+
+He has honesty enough to say that he does not know. He perceives and
+admits that the mind has limitations. He doubts the so-called wisdom of
+the past. He looks for evidence, and he endeavors to keep his mind
+free from prejudice. He believes in the manly virtues, in the judicial
+spirit, and in his obligation to tell his honest thoughts.
+
+It is useless to talk about a destruction of consolations. That which is
+suspected to be untrue loses its power to console. A man should be brave
+enough to bear the truth.
+
+Professor Huxley has stated with great clearness the attitude of
+the Agnostic. It seems that he is somewhat severe on the Positive
+Philosophy, While it is hard to see the propriety of worshiping Humanity
+as a being, it is easy to understand the splendid dream of August Comte.
+Is the human race worthy to be worshiped by itself--that is to say,
+should the individual worship himself? Certainly the religion of
+humanity is better than the religion of the inhuman. The Positive
+Philosophy is better far than Catholicism. It does not fill the heavens
+with monsters, nor the future with pain.
+
+It may be said that Luther and Comte endeavored to reform the Catholic
+Church. Both were mistaken, because the only reformation of which that
+church is capable is destruction. It is a mass of superstition.
+
+The mission of Positivism is, in the language of its founder, "to
+generalize science and to systematize sociality." It seems to me that
+Comte stated with great force and with absolute truth the three phases
+of intellectual evolution or progress.
+
+First.--"In the supernatural phase the mind seeks causes--aspires to
+know the essence of things, and the How and Why of their operation. In
+this phase, all facts are regarded as the productions of supernatural
+agents, and unusual phenomena are interpreted as the signs of the
+pleasure or displeasure of some god."
+
+Here at this point is the orthodox world of to-day. The church still
+imagines that phenomena should be interpreted as the signs of the
+pleasure or displeasure of God. Nearly every history is deformed with
+this childish and barbaric view.
+
+Second.--The next phase or modification, according to Comte, is the
+metaphysical. "The supernatural agents are dispensed with, and in
+their places we find abstract forces or entities supposed to inhere in
+substances and capable of engendering phenomena."
+
+In this phase people talk about laws and principles as though laws and
+principles were forces capable of producing phenomena.
+
+Third.--"The last stage is the Positive. The mind, convinced of the
+futility of all enquiry into causes and essences, restricts itself to
+the observation and classification of phenomena, and to the discovery of
+the invariable relations of succession and similitude--in a word, to the
+discovery of the relations of phenomena."
+
+Why is not the Positive stage the point reached by the Agnostic? He
+has ceased to inquire into the origin of things. He has perceived the
+limitations of the mind. He is thoroughly convinced of the uselessness
+and futility and absurdity of theological methods, and restricts himself
+to the examination of phenomena, to their relations, to their effects,
+and endeavors to find in the complexity of things the true conditions of
+human happiness.
+
+Although I am not a believer in the philosophy of Auguste Comte, I
+cannot shut my eyes to the value of his thought; neither is it possible
+for me not to applaud his candor, his intelligence, and the courage
+it required even to attempt to lay the foundation of the Positive
+Philosophy.
+
+Professor Huxley and Frederic Harrison are splendid soldiers in the
+army of Progress. They have attacked with signal success the sacred and
+solemn stupidities of superstition. Both have appealed to that which is
+highest and noblest in man. Both have been the destroyers of prejudice.
+Both have shed light, and both have won great victories on the fields
+of intellectual conflict. They cannot afford to waste time in attacking
+each other.
+
+After all, the Agnostic and the Positivist have the same end in
+view--both believe in living for this world.
+
+The theologians, finding themselves unable to answer the arguments
+that have been urged, resort to the old subterfuge--to the old cry that
+Agnosticism takes something of value from the life of man. Does the
+Agnostic take any consolation from the world? Does he blot out, or dim,
+one star in the heaven of hope? Can there be anything more consoling
+than to feel, to know, that Jehovah is not God--that the message of the
+Old Testament is not from the infinite?
+
+Is it not enough to fill the brain with a happiness unspeakable to know
+that the words, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," will
+never be spoken to one of the children of men?
+
+Is it a small thing to lift from the shoulders of industry the burdens
+of superstition? Is it a little thing to drive the monster of fear from
+the hearts of men?--North American Review, April, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+ERNEST RENAN.
+
+     "Blessed are those
+     Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled
+     That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
+     To sound what stop she please."
+
+
+ERNEST RENAN is dead. Another source of light; another force of
+civilization; another charming personality; another brave soul, graceful
+in thought, generous in deed; a sculptor in speech, a colorist in
+words--clothing all in the poetry born of a delightful union of heart
+and brain--has passed to the realm of rest.
+
+Reared under the influences of Catholicism, educated for the priesthood,
+yet by reason of his natural genius, he began to think. Forces that
+utterly subjugate and enslave the mind of mediocrity sometimes rouse to
+thought and action the superior soul.
+
+Renan began to think--a dangerous thing for a Catholic to do. Thought
+leads to doubt, doubt to investigation, investigation to truth--the
+enemy of all superstition.
+
+He lifted the Catholic extinguisher from the light and flame of reason.
+He found that his mental vision was improved. He read the Scriptures
+for himself, examined them as he did other books not claiming to be
+inspired. He found the same mistakes, the same prejudices, the same
+miraculous impossibilities in the book attributed to God that he found
+in those known to have been written by men.
+
+Into the path of reason, or rather into the highway, Renan was led by
+Henriette, his sister, to whom he pays a tribute that has the perfume of
+a perfect flower.
+
+"I was," writes Renan, "brought up by women and priests, and therein
+lies the whole explanation of my good qualities and of my defects."
+In most that he wrote is the tenderness of woman, only now and then a
+little touch of the priest showing itself, mostly in a reluctance to
+spoil the ivy by tearing down some prison built by superstition.
+
+In spite of the heartless "scheme" of things he still found it in his
+heart to say, "When God shall be complete, He will be just," at the same
+time saying that "nothing proves to us that there exists in the world
+a central consciousness--a soul of the universe--and nothing proves the
+contrary." So, whatever was the verdict of his brain, his heart asked
+for immortality. He wanted his dream, and he was willing that others
+should have theirs. Such is the wish and will of all great souls.
+
+He knew the church thoroughly and anticipated what would finally
+be written about him by churchmen: "Having some experience of
+ecclesiastical writers I can sketch out in advance the way my biography
+will be written in Spanish in some Catholic review, of Santa Fé, in the
+year 2,000. Heavens! how black I shall be! I shall be so all the more,
+because the church when she feels that she is lost will end with malice.
+She will bite like a mad dog."
+
+He anticipated such a biography because he had thought for himself, and
+because he had expressed his thoughts--because he had declared that "our
+universe, within the reach of our experience, is not governed by any
+intelligent reason. God, as the common herd understand him, the living
+God, the acting God--the God-Providence, does not show himself in the
+universe"--because he attacked the mythical and the miraculous in the
+life of Christ and sought to rescue from the calumnies of ignorance and
+faith a serene and lofty soul.
+
+The time has arrived when Jesus must become a myth or a man. The idea
+that he was the infinite God must be abandoned by all who are not
+religiously insane. Those who have given up the claim that he was God,
+insist that he was divinely appointed and illuminated; that he was
+a perfect man--the highest possible type of the human race and,
+consequently, a perfect example for all the world.
+
+As time goes on, as men get wider or grander or more complex ideas of
+life, as the intellectual horizon broadens, the idea that Christ was
+perfect may be modified.
+
+The New Testament seems to describe several individuals under the same
+name, or at least one individual who passed through several stages or
+phases of religious development. Christ is described as a devout Jew,
+as one who endeavored to comply in all respects with the old law. Many
+sayings are attributed to him consistent with this idea. He certainly
+was a Hebrew in belief and feeling when he said, "Swear not by Heaven,
+because it is God's throne, nor by earth, for it is his footstool; nor
+by Jerusalem, for it is his holy city." These reasons were in exact
+accordance with the mythology of the Jews. God was regarded simply as
+an enormous man, as one who walked in the garden in the cool of the
+evening, as one who had met man face to face, who had conversed with
+Moses for forty days upon Mount Sinai, as a great king, with a throne
+in the heavens, using the earth to rest his feet upon, and regarding
+Jerusalem as his holy city.
+
+Then we find plenty of evidence that he wished to reform the religion
+of the Jews; to fulfill the law, not to abrogate it Then there is still
+another change: he has ceased his efforts to reform that religion and
+has become a destroyer. He holds the Temple in contempt and repudiates
+the idea that Jerusalem is the holy city. He concludes that it is
+unnecessary to go to some mountain or some building to worship or to
+find God, and insists that the heart is the true temple, that ceremonies
+are useless, that all pomp and pride and show are needless, and that it
+is enough to worship God under heaven's dome, in spirit and in truth.
+
+It is impossible to harmonize these views unless we admit that Christ
+was the subject of growth and change; that in consequence of growth and
+change he modified his views; that, from wanting to preserve Judaism as
+it was, he became convinced that it ought to be reformed. That he then
+abandoned the idea of reformation, and made up his mind that the only
+reformation of which the Jewish religion was capable was destruction. If
+he was in fact a man, then the course he pursued was natural; but if he
+was God, it is perfectly absurd. If we give to him perfect knowledge,
+then it is impossible to account for change or growth. If, on the other
+hand, the ground is taken that he was a perfect man, then, it might be
+asked, Was he perfect when he wished to preserve, or when he wished to
+reform, or when he resolved to destroy, the religion of the Jews? If
+he is to be regarded as perfect, although not divine, when did he reach
+perfection?
+
+It is perfectly evident that Christ, or the character that bears that
+name, imagined that the world was about to be destroyed, or at least
+purified by fire, and that, on account of this curious belief, he became
+the enemy of marriage, of all earthly ambition and of all enterprise.
+With that view in his mind, he said to himself, "Why should we waste our
+energies in producing food for destruction? Why should we endeavor to
+beautify a world that is so soon to perish?" Filled with the thought of
+coming change, he insisted that there was but one important thing, and
+that was for each man to save his soul. He should care nothing for the
+ties of kindred, nothing for wife or child or property, in the shadow of
+the coming disaster. He should take care of himself. He endeavored, as
+it is said, to induce men to desert all they had, to let the dead, bury
+the dead, and follow him. He told his disciples, or those he wished to
+make his disciples, according to the Testament, that it was their duty
+to desert wife and child and property, and if they would so desert
+kindred and wealth, he would reward them here and hereafter.
+
+We know now--if we know anything--that Jesus was mistaken about the
+coming of the end, and we know now that he was greatly controlled in
+his ideas of life, by that mistake. Believing that the end was near,
+he said, "Take no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat or what ye
+shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." It was in view of the
+destruction of the world that he called the attention of his disciples
+to the lily that toiled not and yet excelled Solomon in the glory of its
+raiment. Having made this mistake, having acted upon it, certainly we
+cannot now say that he was perfect in knowledge.
+
+He is regarded by many millions as the impersonation of patience, of
+forbearance, of meekness and mercy, and yet, according to the account,
+he said many extremely bitter words, and threatened eternal pain.
+
+We also know, if the account be true, that he claimed to have
+supernatural power, to work miracles, to cure the blind and to raise the
+dead, and we know that he did nothing of the kind. So if the writers of
+the New Testament tell the truth as to what Christ claimed, it is absurd
+to say that he was a perfect man. If honest, he was deceived, and those
+who are deceived are not perfect.
+
+There is nothing in the New Testament, so far as we know, that touches
+on the duties of nation to nation, or of nation to its citizens; nothing
+of human liberty; not one word about education; not the faintest hint
+that there is such a thing as science; nothing calculated to stimulate
+industry, commerce, or invention; not one word in favor of art, of music
+or anything calculated to feed or clothe the body, nothing to develop
+the brain of man.
+
+When it is assumed that the life of Christ, as described in the New
+Testament, is perfect, we at least take upon ourselves the burden of
+deciding what perfection is. People who asserted that Christ was divine,
+that he was actually God, reached the conclusion, without any laborious
+course of reasoning, that all he said and did was absolute perfection.
+They said this because they had first been convinced that he was divine.
+The moment his divinity is given up and the assertion is made that he
+was perfect, we are not permitted to reason in that way. They said he
+was God, therefore perfect. Now, if it is admitted that he was human,
+the conclusion that he was perfect does not follow. We then take the
+burden upon ourselves of deciding what perfection is. To decide what is
+perfect is beyond the powers of the human mind.
+
+Renan, in spite of his education, regarded Christ as a man, and did the
+best he could to account for the miracles that had been attributed
+to him, for the legends that had gathered about his name, and the
+impossibilities connected with his career, and also tried to account for
+the origin or birth of these miracles, of these legends, of these myths,
+including the resurrection and ascension. I am not satisfied with all
+the conclusions he reached or with all the paths he traveled. The
+refraction of light caused by passing through a woman's tears is hardly
+a sufficient foundation for a belief in so miraculous a miracle as the
+bodily ascension of Jesus Christ.
+
+There is another thing attributed to Christ that seems to me conclusive
+evidence against the claim of perfection. Christ is reported to have
+said that all sins could be forgiven except the sin against the Holy
+Ghost. This sin, however, is not defined. Although Christ died for the
+whole world, that through him all might be saved, there is this one
+terrible exception: There is no salvation for those who have sinned, or
+who may hereafter sin, against the Holy Ghost. Thousands of persons are
+now in asylums, having lost their reason because of their fear that they
+had committed this unknown, this undefined, this unpardonable sin.
+
+It is said that a Roman Emperor went through a form of publishing his
+laws or proclamations, posting them so high on pillars that they could
+not be read, and then took the lives of those who ignorantly violated
+these unknown laws. He was regarded as a tyrant, as a murderer. And
+yet, what shall we say of one who declared that the sin against the
+Holy Ghost was the only one that could not be forgiven, and then left an
+ignorant world to guess what that sin is? Undoubtedly this horror is an
+interpolation.
+
+There is something like it in the Old Testament. It is asserted by
+Christians that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law and
+of all civilization, and you will find lawyers insisting that the Mosaic
+Code was the first information that man received on the subject of law;
+that before that time the world was without any knowledge of justice or
+mercy. If this be true the Jews had no divine laws, no real
+instruction on any legal subject until the Ten Commandments were given.
+Consequently, before that time there had been proclaimed or published
+no law against the worship of other gods or of idols. Moses had been on
+Mount Sinai talking with Jehovah. At the end of the dialogue he received
+the Tables of Stone and started down the mountain for the purpose of
+imparting this information to his followers. When he reached the camp
+he heard music. He saw people dancing, and he found that in his absence
+Aaron and the rest of the people had cast a molten calf which they were
+then worshiping. This so enraged Moses that he broke the Tables of Stone
+and made preparations for the punishment of the Jews. Remember that
+they knew nothing about this law, and, according to the modern Christian
+claims, could not have known that it was wrong to melt gold and silver
+and mould it in the form of a calf. And yet Moses killed about thirty
+thousand of these people for having violated a law of which they had
+never heard; a law known only to one man and one God. Nothing could be
+more unjust, more ferocious, than this; and yet it can hardly be said to
+exceed in cruelty the announcement that a certain sin was unpardonable
+and then fail to define the sin. Possibly, to inquire what the sin is,
+is the sin.
+
+Renan regards Jesus as a man, and his work gets its value from the
+fact that it is written from a human standpoint. At the same time he,
+consciously or unconsciously, or may be for the purpose of sprinkling
+a little holy water on the heat of religious indignation, now and then
+seems to speak of him as more than human, or as having accomplished
+something that man could not.
+
+He asserts that "the Gospels are in part legendary; that they contain
+many things not true; that they are full of miracles and of the
+supernatural." At the same time he insists that these legends, these
+miracles, these supernatural things do not affect the truth of the
+probable things contained in these writings. He sees, and sees clearly,
+that there is no evidence that Matthew or Mark or Luke or John wrote the
+books attributed to them; that, as a matter of fact, the mere title
+of "according to Matthew," "according to Mark," shows that they were
+written by others who claimed them to be in accordance with the stories
+that had been told by Matthew or by Mark. So Renan takes the ground that
+the Gospel of Luke is founded on anterior documents and "is the work of
+a man who selected, pruned and combined, and that the same man wrote the
+Acts of the Apostles and in the same way."
+
+The gospels were certainly written long after the events described, and
+Renan finds the reason for this in the fact that the Christians believed
+that the world was about to end; that, consequently, there was no need
+of composing books; it was only necessary for them to preserve in their
+hearts during the little margin of time that remained a lively image of
+Him whom they soon expected to meet in the clouds. For this reason
+the gospels themselves had but little authority for 150 years, the
+Christians relying on oral traditions. Renan shows that there was
+not the slightest scruple about inserting additions in the gospels,
+variously combining them, and in completing some by taking parts from
+others; that the books passed from hand to hand, and that each one
+transcribed in the margin of his copy the words and parables he had
+found elsewhere which touched him; that it was not until human tradition
+became weakened that the text bearing the names of the apostles became
+authoritative.
+
+Renan has criticised the gospels somewhat in the same spirit that he
+would criticise a modern work. He saw clearly that the metaphysics
+filling the discourses of John were deformities and distortions, full of
+mysticism, having nothing to do really with the character of Jesus. He
+shows too "that the simple idea of the Kingdom of God, at the time the
+Gospel according to St. John was written, had faded away; that the
+hope of the advent of Christ was growing dim, and that from belief the
+disciples passed into discussion, from discussion to dogma, from dogma
+to ceremony," and, finding that the new Heaven and the new Earth were
+not coming as expected, they turned their attention to governing the old
+Heaven and the old Earth. The disciples were willing to be humble for
+a few days, with the expectation of wearing crowns forever. They were
+satisfied with poverty, believing that the wealth of the world was to
+be theirs. The coming of Christ, however, being for some unaccountable
+reason delayed, poverty and humility grew irksome, and human nature
+began to assert itself.
+
+In the Gospel of John you will find the metaphysics of the church. There
+you find the Second Birth. There you find the doctrine of the atonement
+clearly set forth. There you find that God died for the whole world, and
+that whosoever believeth not in him is to be damned. There is nothing of
+the kind in Matthew. Matthew makes Christ say that, if you will forgive
+others, God will forgive you. The Gospel "according to Mark" is the
+same. So is the Gospel "according to Luke." There is nothing about
+salvation through belief, nothing about the atonement. In Mark, in the
+last chapter, the apostles are told to go into all the world and preach
+the gospel, with the statement that whoever believed and was baptised
+should be saved, and whoever failed to believe should be damned. But we
+now know that that is an interpolation. Consequently, Matthew, Mark and
+Luke never had the faintest conception of the "Christian religion." They
+knew nothing of the atonement, nothing of salvation by faith--nothing.
+So that if a man had read only Matthew, Mark and Luke, and had strictly
+followed what he found, he would have found himself, after death, in
+perdition.
+
+Renan finds that certain portions of the Gospel "according to John" were
+added later; that the entire twenty-first chapter is an interpolation;
+also, that many places bear the traces of erasures and corrections. So
+he says that it would be "impossible for any one to compose a life of
+Jesus, with any meaning in it, from the discourses which John attributes
+to him, and he holds that this Gospel of John is full of preaching,
+Christ demonstrating himself; full of argumentation, full of stage
+effect, devoid of simplicity, with long arguments after each miracle,
+stiff and awkward discourses, the tone of which is often false and
+unequal." He also insists that there are evidently "artificial portions,
+variations like that of a musician improvising on a given theme."
+
+In spite of all this, Renan, willing to soothe the prejudice of his
+time, takes the ground that the four canonical gospels are authentic,
+that they date from the first century, that the authors were, generally
+speaking, those to whom they are attributed; but he insists that their
+historic value is very diverse. This is a back-handed stroke. Admitting,
+first, that they are authentic; second, that they were written about
+the end of the first century; third, that they are not of equal value,
+disposes, so far as he is concerned, of the dogma of inspiration.
+
+One is at a loss to understand why four gospels should have been
+written. As a matter of fact there can be only one true account of any
+occurrence, or of any number of occurrences. Now, it must be taken for
+granted, that an inspired account is true. Why then should there be four
+inspired accounts? It may be answered that all were not to write
+the entire story. To this the reply is that all attempted to cover
+substantially the same ground.
+
+Many years ago the early fathers thought it necessary to say why there
+were four inspired books, and some of them said, because there were four
+cardinal directions and the gospels fitted the north, south, east and
+west. Others said that there were four principal winds--a gospel for
+each wind. They might have added that some animals have four legs.
+
+Renan admits that the narrative portions have not the same authority;
+"that many legends proceeded from the zeal of the second Christian
+generation; that the narrative of Luke is historically weak; that
+sentences attributed to Jesus have been distorted and exaggerated;
+that the book was written outside of Palestine and after the siege of
+Jerusalem; that Luke endeavors to make the different narratives agree,
+changing them for that purpose; that he softens the passages which had
+become embarrassing; that he exaggerated the marvelous, omitted errors
+in chronology; that he was a compiler, a man who had not been an
+eye-witness himself, and who had not seen eye-witnesses, but who labors
+at texts and wrests their sense to make them agree." This certainly is
+very far from inspiration. So "Luke interprets the documents according
+to his own idea; being a kind of anarchist, opposed to property, and
+persuaded that the triumph of the poor was approaching; that he was
+especially fond of the anecdotes showing the conversion of sinners, the
+exaltation of the humble, and that he modified ancient traditions to
+give them this meaning."
+
+Renan reached the conclusion that the gospels are neither biographies
+after the manner of Suetonius nor fictitious legends in the style of
+Philostratus, but that they are legendary biographies like the legends
+of the saints, the lives of Plotinus and Isidore, in which historical
+truth and the desire to present models of virtue are combined in various
+degrees; that they are "inexact" that they "contain numerous errors and
+discordances." So he takes the ground that twenty or thirty years after
+Christ, his reputation had greatly increased, that "legends had begun
+to gather about Him like clouds," that "death added to His perfection,
+freeing Him from all defects in the eyes of those who had loved Him,
+that His followers wrested the prophecies so that they might fit Him.
+They said, 'He is the Messiah.' The Messiah was to do certain things;
+therefore Jesus did certain things. Then an account would be given of
+the doing." All of which of course shows that there can be maintained no
+theory of inspiration.
+
+It is admitted that where individuals are witnesses of the same
+transaction, and where they agree upon the vital points and disagree
+upon details, the disagreement may be consistent with their honesty,
+as tending to show that they have not agreed upon a story; but if
+the witnesses are inspired of God then there is no reason for their
+disagreeing on anything, and if they do disagree it is a demonstration
+that they were not inspired, but it is not a demonstration that they
+are not honest. While perfect agreement may be evidence of rehearsal,
+a failure to perfectly agree is not a demonstration of the truth or
+falsity of a story; but if the witnesses claim to be inspired, the
+slightest disagreement is a demonstration that they were not inspired.
+
+Renan reaches the conclusion, proving every step that he takes, that
+the four principal documents--that is to say, the four gospels--are in
+"flagrant contradiction one with another." He attacks, and with perfect
+success, the miracles of the Scriptures, and upon this subject says:
+"Observation, which has never once been falsified, teaches us that
+miracles never happen, but in times and countries in which they are
+believed and before persons disposed to believe them. No miracle ever
+occurred in the presence of men capable of testing its miraculous
+character." He further takes the ground that no contemporary miracle
+will bear inquiry, and that consequently it is probable that the
+miracles of antiquity which have been performed in popular gatherings
+would be shown to be simple illusion, were it possible to criticise them
+in detail. In the name of universal experience he banishes miracles
+from history. These were brave things to do, things that will bear good
+fruit. As long as men believe in miracles, past or present they remain
+the prey of superstition. The Catholic is taught that miracles were
+performed anciently not only, but that they are still being performed.
+This is consistent inconsistency. Protestants teach a double doctrine:
+That miracles used to be performed, that the laws of nature used to be
+violated, but that no miracle is performed now. No Protestant will
+admit that any miracle was performed by the Catholic Church. Otherwise,
+Protestants could not be justified in leaving a church with whom the
+God of miracles dwelt. So every Protestant has to adopt two kinds of
+reasoning: that the laws of Nature used to be violated and that miracles
+used to be performed, but that since the apostolic age Nature has had
+her way and the Lord has allowed facts to exist and to hold the field.
+A supernatural account, according to Renan, "always implies credulity or
+imposture,"--probably both.
+
+It does not seem possible to me that Christ claimed for himself what
+the Testament claims for him. These claims were made by admirers, by
+followers, by missionaries.
+
+When the early Christians went to Rome they found plenty of demigods. It
+was hard to set aside the religion of a demigod by telling the story of
+a man from Nazareth. These missionaries, not to be outdone in ancestry,
+insisted--and this was after the Gospel "according to St. John" had been
+written--that Christ was the Son of God. Matthew believed that he was
+the son of David, and the Messiah, and gave the genealogy of Joseph, his
+father, to support that claim.
+
+In the time of Christ no one imagined that he was of divine origin. This
+was an after-growth. In order to place themselves on an equality with
+Pagans they started the claim of divinity, and also took the second step
+requisite in that country: First, a god for his father, and second, a
+virgin for his mother. This was the Pagan combination of greatness, and
+the Christians added to this that Christ was God.
+
+It is hard to agree with the conclusion reached by Renan, that Christ
+formed and intended to form a church. Such evidence, it seems to me,
+is hard to find in the Testament. Christ seemed to satisfy himself,
+according to the Testament, with a few statements, some of them
+exceedingly wise and tender, some utterly impracticable and some
+intolerant.
+
+If we accept the conclusions reached by Renan we will throw away, the
+legends without foundation; the miraculous legends; and everything
+inconsistent with what we know of Nature. Very little will be left--a
+few sayings to be found among those attributed to Confucius, to Buddha,
+to Krishna, to Epictetus, to Zeno, and to many others. Some of these
+sayings are full of wisdom, full of kindness, and others rush to such
+extremes that they touch the borders of insanity. When struck on one
+cheek to turn the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure
+the triumph of brutality. To agree not to resist evil is to become
+an accomplice of all injustice. We must not take from industry, from
+patriotism, from virtue, the right of self-defence.
+
+Undoubtedly Renan gave an honest transcript of his mind, the road his
+thought had followed, the reasons in their order that had occurred to
+him, the criticisms born of thought, and the qualifications, softening
+phrases, children of old sentiments and emotions that had not entirely
+passed away. He started, one might say, from the altar and, during a
+considerable part of the journey, carried the incense with him. The
+farther he got away, the greater was his clearness of vision and the
+more thoroughly he was convinced that Christ was merely a man, an
+idealist. But, remembering the altar, he excused exaggeration in the
+"inspired" books, not because it was from heaven, not because it was
+in harmony with our ideas of veracity, but because the writers of the
+gospel were imbued with the Oriental spirit of exaggeration, a spirit
+perfectly understood by the people who first read the gospels, because
+the readers knew the habits of the writers.
+
+It had been contended for many years that no one could pass judgment
+on the veracity of the Scriptures who did not understand Hebrew. This
+position was perfectly absurd. No man needs to be a student of Hebrew
+to know that the shadow on the dial did not go back several degrees to
+convince a petty king that a boil was not to be fatal. Renan, however,
+filled the requirement. He was an excellent Hebrew scholar. This was a
+fortunate circumstance, because it answered a very old objection.
+
+The founder of Christianity was, for his own sake, taken from the divine
+pedestal and allowed to stand like other men on the earth, to be judged
+by what he said and did, by his theories, by his philosophy, by his
+spirit.
+
+No matter whether Renan came to a correct conclusion or not, his work
+did a vast deal of good. He convinced many that implicit reliance could
+not be placed upon the gospels, that the gospels themselves are of
+unequal worth; that they were deformed by ignorance and falsehood, or,
+at least, by mistake; that if they wished to save the reputation of
+Christ they must not rely wholly on the gospels, or on what is found
+in the New Testament, but they must go farther and examine all legends
+touching him. Not only so, but they must throw away the miraculous, the
+impossible and the absurd.
+
+He also has shown that the early followers of Christ endeavored to add
+to the reputation of their Master by attributing to him the miraculous
+and the foolish; that while these stories added to his reputation at
+that time, since the world has advanced they must be cast aside or the
+reputation of the Master must suffer.
+
+It will not do now to say that Christ himself pretended to do miracles.
+This would establish the fact at least that he was mistaken. But we are
+compelled to say that his disciples insisted that he was a worker of
+miracles. This shows, either that they were mistaken or untruthful.
+
+We all know that a sleight-of-hand performer could gain a greater
+reputation among savages than Darwin or Humboldt; and we know that the
+world in the time of Christ was filled with barbarians, with people who
+demanded the miraculous, who expected it; with people, in fact, who had
+a stronger belief in the supernatural than in the natural; people who
+never thought it worth while to record facts. The hero of such people,
+the Christ of such people, with his miracles, cannot be the Christ of
+the thoughtful and scientific.
+
+Renan was a man of most excellent temper; candid; not striving for
+victory, but for truth; conquering, as far as he could, the old
+superstitions; not entirely free, it may be, but believing himself to be
+so. He did great good. He has helped to destroy the fictions of faith.
+He has helped to rescue man from the prison of superstition, and this is
+the greatest benefit that man can bestow on man.
+
+He did another great service, not only to Jews, but to Christendom,
+by writing the history of "The People of Israel." Christians for many
+centuries have persecuted the Jews. They have charged them with the
+greatest conceivable crime--with having crucified an infinite God.
+This absurdity has hardened the hearts of men and poisoned the minds of
+children. The persecution of the Jews is the meanest, the most senseless
+and cruel page in history. Every civilized Christian should feel on
+his cheeks the red spots of shame as he reads the wretched and infamous
+story.
+
+The flame of this prejudice is fanned and fed in the Sunday schools
+of our day, and the orthodox minister points proudly to the atrocities
+perpetrated against the Jews by the barbarians of Russia as evidences of
+the truth of the inspired Scriptures. In every wound God puts a tongue
+to proclaim the truth of his book.
+
+If the charge that the Jews killed God were true, it is hardly
+reasonable to hold those who are now living responsible for what their
+ancestors did nearly nineteen centuries ago.
+
+But there is another point in connection with this matter: If Christ was
+God, then the Jews could not have killed him without his consent; and,
+according to the orthodox creed, if he had not been sacrificed, the
+whole world would have suffered eternal pain. Nothing can exceed the
+meanness of the prejudice of Christians against the Jewish people. They
+should not be held responsible for their savage ancestors, or for their
+belief that Jehovah was an intelligent and merciful God, superior to all
+other gods. Even Christians do not wish to be held responsible for
+the Inquisition, for the Torquemadas and the John Calvins, for the
+witch-burners and the Quaker-whippers, for the slave-traders and
+child-stealers, the most of whom were believers in our "glorious
+gospel," and many of whom had been bom the second time.
+
+Renan did much to civilize the Christians by telling the truth in a
+charming and convincing way about the "People of Israel." Both sides are
+greatly indebted to him: one he has ably defended, and the other greatly
+enlightened.
+
+Having done what good he could in giving what he believed was light to
+his fellow-men, he had no fear of becoming a victim of God's wrath, and
+so he laughingly said: "For my part I imagine that if the Eternal in his
+severity were to send me to hell I should succeed in escaping from it.
+I would send up to my Creator a supplication that would make him smile.
+The course of reasoning by which I would prove to him that it was
+through his fault that I was damned would be so subtle that he would
+find some difficulty in replying. The fate which would suit me best is
+Purgatory--a charming place, where many delightful romances begun on
+earth must be continued."
+
+Such cheerfulness, such good philosophy, with cap and bells, such banter
+and blasphemy, such sound and solid sense drive to madness the priest
+who thinks the curse of Rome can fright the world. How the snake of
+superstition writhes when he finds that his fangs have lost their
+poison.
+
+He was one of the gentlest of men--one of the fairest in discussion,
+dissenting from the views of others with modesty, presenting his own
+with clearness and candor. His mental manners were excellent. He was
+not positive as to the "unknowable." He said "Perhaps." He knew that
+knowledge is good if it increases the happiness of man; and he felt that
+superstition is the assassin of liberty and civilization. He lived a
+life of cheerfulness, of industry, devoted to the welfare of mankind.
+
+He was a seeker of happiness by the highway of the natural, a destroyer
+of the dogmas of mental deformity, a worshiper of Liberty and the
+Ideal. As he lived, he died--hopeful and serene--and now, standing in
+imagination by his grave, we ask: Will the night be eternal? The brain
+says, Perhaps; while the heart hopes for the Dawn.--North American
+Review, November, 1892.
+
+
+
+
+TOLSTOÏ AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."
+
+COUNT TOLSTOÏ is a man of genius. He is acquainted with Russian life
+from the highest to the lowest--that is to say, from the worst to the
+best. He knows the vices of the rich and the virtues of the poor. He is
+a Christian, a real believer in the Old and New Testaments, an honest
+follower of the Peasant of Palestine. He denounces luxury and ease, art
+and music; he regards a flower with suspicion, believing that beneath
+every blossom lies a coiled serpent. He agrees with Lazarus and
+denounces Dives and the tax-gatherers. He is opposed, not only to
+doctors of divinity, but of medicine.
+
+From the Mount of Olives he surveys the world.
+
+He is not a Christian like the Pope in the Vatican, or a cardinal in a
+palace, or a bishop with revenues and retainers, or a millionaire who
+hires preachers to point out the wickedness of the poor, or the director
+of a museum who closes the doors on Sunday. He is a Christian something
+like Christ.
+
+To him this life is but a breathing-spell between the verdict and the
+execution; the sciences are simply sowers of the seeds of pride, of
+arrogance and vice. Shocked by the cruelties and unspeakable horrors of
+war, he became a non-resistant and averred that he would not defend his
+own body or that of his daughter from insult and outrage. In this he
+followed the command of his Master: "Resist not evil." He passed,
+not simply from war to peace, but from one extreme to the other, and
+advocated a doctrine that would leave the basest of mankind the rulers
+of the world. This was and is the error of a great and tender soul.
+
+He did not accept all the teachings of Christ at once. His progress has
+been, judging from his writings, somewhat gradual; but by accepting one
+proposition he prepared himself for the acceptance of another. He is
+not only a Christian, but has the courage of his convictions, and goes
+without hesitation to the logical conclusion. He has another exceedingly
+rare quality; he acts in accordance with his belief. His creed is
+translated into deed. He opposes the doctors of divinity, because they
+darken and deform the teachings of the Master. He denounces the doctors
+of medicine, because he depends on Providence and the promises of Jesus
+Christ. To him that which is called progress is, in fact, a profanation,
+and property is a something that the organized few have stolen from the
+unorganized many. He believes in universal labor, which is good, each
+working for himself. He also believes that each should have only the
+necessaries of life--which is bad. According to his idea, the world
+ought to be filled with peasants. There should be only arts enough to
+plough and sow and gather the harvest, to build huts, to weave coarse
+cloth, to fashion clumsy and useful garments, and to cook the simplest
+food. Men and women should not adorn their bodies. They should not make
+themselves desirable or beautiful.
+
+But even under such circumstances they might, like the Quakers, be proud
+of humility and become arrogantly meek.
+
+Tolstoi would change the entire order of human development. As a matter
+of fact, the savage who adorns himself or herself with strings of
+shells, or with feathers, has taken the first step towards civilization.
+The tatooed is somewhat in advance of the unfrescoed. At the bottom of
+all this is the love of approbation, of the admiration of their fellows,
+and this feeling, this love, cannot be torn from the human heart.
+
+In spite of ourselves we are attracted by what to us is beautiful,
+because beauty is associated with pleasure, with enjoyment. The love of
+the well-formed, of the beautiful, is prophetic of the perfection of the
+human race. It is impossible to admire the deformed. They may be loved
+for their goodness or genius, but never because of their deformity.
+There is within us the love of proportion. There is a physical basis for
+the appreciation of harmony, which is also a kind of proportion.
+
+The love of the beautiful is shared with man by most animals. The wings
+of the moth are painted by love, by desire. This is the foundation of
+the bird's song. This love of approbation, this desire to please, to
+be admired, to be loved, is in some way the cause of all heroic,
+self-denying, and sublime actions.
+
+Count Tolstoï, following parts of the New Testament, regards love
+as essentially impure. He seems really to think that there is a love
+superior to human love; that the love of man for woman, of woman for
+man, is, after all, a kind of glittering degradation; that it is better
+to love God than woman; better to love the invisible phantoms of the
+skies than the children upon our knees--in other words, that it is far
+better to love a heaven somewhere else than to make one here. He seems
+to think that women adorn themselves simply for the purpose of getting
+in their power the innocent and unsuspecting men. He forgets that
+the best and purest of human beings are controlled, for the most part
+unconsciously, by the hidden, subtle tendencies of nature. He seems to
+forget the great fact of "natural selection," and that the choice of one
+in preference to all others is the result of forces beyond the control
+of the individual. To him there seems to be no purity in love, because
+men are influenced by forms, by the beauty of women; and women, knowing
+this fact, according to him, act, and consequently both are equally
+guilty. He endeavors to show that love is a delusion; that at best it
+can last but for a few days; that it must of necessity be succeeded by
+indifference, then by disgust, lastly by hatred; that in every Garden of
+Eden is a serpent of jealousy, and that the brightest days end with the
+yawn of ennui.
+
+Of course he is driven to the conclusion that life in this world is
+without value, that the race can be perpetuated only by vice, and that
+the practice of the highest virtue would leave the world without
+the form of man. Strange as it may sound to some, this is the same
+conclusion reached by his Divine Master: "They did eat, they drank, they
+married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered
+the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all." "Every one that hath
+forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
+or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold,
+and shall inherit everlasting life."
+
+According to Christianity, as it really is and really was, the Christian
+should have no home in this world--at least none until the earth has
+been purified by fire. His affections should be given to God; not to
+wife and children, not to friends or country. He is here but for a
+time on a journey, waiting for the summons. This life is a kind of
+dock running out into the sea of eternity, on which he waits for
+transportation. Nothing here is of any importance; the joys of life are
+frivolous and corrupting, and by losing these few gleams of happiness in
+this world he will bask forever in the unclouded rays of infinite joy.
+Why should a man risk an eternity of perfect happiness for the sake of
+enjoying himself a few days with his wife and children? Why should he
+become an eternal outcast for the sake of having a home and fireside
+here?
+
+The "Fathers" of the church had the same opinion of marriage. They
+agreed with Saint Paul, and Tolstoï agrees with them. They had the same
+contempt for wives and mothers, and uttered the same blasphemies against
+that divine passion that has filled the world with art and song.
+
+All this is to my mind a kind of insanity; nature soured or
+withered--deformed so that celibacy is mistaken for virtue. The
+imagination becomes polluted, and the poor wretch believes that he is
+purer than his thoughts, holier than his desires, and that to outrage
+nature is the highest form of religion. But nature imprisoned,
+obstructed, tormented, always has sought for and has always found
+revenge. Some of these victims, regarding the passions as low and
+corrupting, feeling humiliated by hunger and thirst, sought through
+maimings and mutilations the purification of the soul.
+
+Count Tolstoi in "The Kreutzer Sonata," has drawn, with a free hand, one
+of the vilest and basest of men for his hero. He is suspicious, jealous,
+cruel, infamous. The wife is infinitely too good for such a wild
+unreasoning beast, and yet the writer of this insane story seems to
+justify the assassin. If this is a true picture of wedded life in
+Russia, no wonder that Count Tolstoï looks forward with pleasure to the
+extinction of the human race.
+
+Of all passions that can take possession of the heart or brain jealousy
+is the worst. For many generations the chemists sought for the secret by
+which all metals could be changed to gold, and through which the basest
+could become the best. Jealousy seeks exactly the opposite. It endeavors
+to transmute the very gold of love into the dross of shame and crime.
+
+The story of "The Kreutzer Sonata" seems to have been written for the
+purpose of showing that woman is at fault; that she has no right to
+be attractive, no right to be beautiful; and that she is morally
+responsible for the contour of her throat, for the pose of her body, for
+the symmetry of her limbs, for the red of her lips, and for the dimples
+in her cheeks.
+
+The opposite of this doctrine is nearer true. It would be far better to
+hold people responsible for their ugliness than for their beauty. It may
+be true that the soul, the mind, in some wondrous way fashions the body,
+and that to that extent every individual is responsible for his looks.
+It may be that the man or woman thinking high thoughts will give,
+necessarily, a nobility to expression and a beauty to outline.
+
+It is not true that the sins of man can be laid justly at the feet of
+woman. Women are better than men; they have greater responsibilities;
+they bear even the burdens of joy. This is the real reason why their
+faults are considered greater.
+
+Men and women desire each other, and this desire is a condition of
+civilization, progress, and happiness, and of everything of real value.
+But there is this profound difference in the sexes: in man this desire
+is the foundation of love, while in woman love is the foundation of this
+desire.
+
+Tolstoï seems to be a stranger to the heart of woman.
+
+Is it not wonderful that one who holds self-denial in such high esteem
+should say, "That life is embittered by the fear of one's children, and
+not only on account of their real or imaginary illnesses, but even by
+their very presence"?
+
+Has the father no real love for the children? Is he not paid a thousand
+times through their caresses, their sympathy, their love? Is there no
+joy in seeing their minds unfold, their affections develop? Of course,
+love and anxiety go together. That which we love we wish to protect. The
+perpetual fear of death gives love intensity and sacredness. Yet
+Count Tolstoï gives us the feelings of a father incapable of natural
+affection; of one who hates to have his children sick because the
+orderly course of his wretched life is disturbed. So, too, we are told
+that modern mothers think too much of their children, care too much for
+their health, and refuse to be comforted when they die. Lest these words
+may be thought libellous, the following extract is given;
+
+"In old times women consoled themselves with the belief, The Lord hath
+given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
+They consoled themselves with the thought that the soul of the departed
+had returned to him who gave it; that it was better to die innocent
+than to live in sin. If women nowadays had such a comfortable faith to
+support them, they might take their misfortunes less hard."
+
+The conclusion reached by the writer is that without faith in God,
+woman's love grovels in the mire.
+
+In this case the mire is made by the tears of mothers falling on the
+clay that hides their babes.
+
+The one thing constant, the one peak that rises above all clouds, the
+one window in which the light forever burns, the one star that darkness
+cannot quench, is woman's love.
+
+This one fact justifies the existence and the perpetuation of the human
+race. Again I say that women are better than men; their hearts are more
+unreservedly given; in the web of their lives sorrow is inextricably
+woven with the greatest joys; self-sacrifice is a part of their nature,
+and at the behest of love and maternity they walk willingly and joyously
+down to the very gates of death.
+
+Is there nothing in this to excite the admiration, the adoration, of a
+modern reformer? Are the monk and nun superior to the father and mother?
+
+The author of "The Kreutzer Sonata" is unconsciously the enemy of
+mankind. He is filled with what might be called a merciless pity, a
+sympathy almost malicious. Had he lived a few centuries ago, he might
+have founded a religion; but the most he can now do is, perhaps, to
+create the necessity for another asylum.
+
+Count Tolstoi objects to music--not the ordinary kind, but to great
+music, the music that arouses the emotions, that apparently carries us
+beyond the limitations of life, that for the moment seems to break the
+great chain of cause and effect, and leaves the soul soaring and free.
+"Emotion and duty," he declares, "do not go hand in hand." All art
+touches and arouses the emotional nature. The painter, the poet, the
+sculptor, the composer, the orator, appeal to the emotions, to the
+passions, to the hopes and fears. The commonplace is transfigured;
+the cold and angular facts of existence take form and color; the
+blood quickens; the fancies spread their wings; the intellect grows
+sympathetic; the river of life flows full and free; and man becomes
+capable of the noblest deeds. Take emotion from the heart of man and
+the idea of obligation would be lost; right and wrong would lose their
+meaning, and the word "ought" would never again be spoken. We are
+subject to conditions, liable to disease, pain, and death. We are
+capable of ecstasy. Of these conditions, of these possibilities, the
+emotions are born.
+
+Only the conditionless can be the emotionless.
+
+We are conditioned beings; and if the conditions are changed, the result
+may be pain or death or greater joy. We can only live within certain
+degrees of heat. If the weather were a few degrees hotter or a few
+degrees colder, we could not exist. We need food and roof and raiment.
+Life and happiness depend on these conditions. We do not certainly know
+what is to happen, and consequently our hopes and fears are constantly
+active--that is to say, we are emotional beings. The generalization of
+Tolstoï, that emotion never goes hand in hand with duty, is almost the
+opposite of the truth. The idea of duty could not exist without emotion.
+Think of men and women without love, without desires, without passions?
+Think of a world without art or music--a world without beauty, without
+emotion.
+
+And yet there are many writers busy pointing out the loathsomeness of
+love and their own virtues. Only a little while ago an article appeared
+in one of the magazines in which all women who did not dress according
+to the provincial prudery of the writer were denounced as impure.
+Millions of refined and virtuous wives and mothers were described as
+dripping with pollution because they enjoyed dancing and were so well
+formed that they were not obliged to cover their arms and throats to
+avoid the pity of their associates. And yet the article itself is far
+more indelicate than any dance or any dress, or even lack of dress. What
+a curious opinion dried apples have of fruit upon the tree!
+
+Count Tolstoï is also the enemy of wealth, of luxury. In this he follows
+the New Testament. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
+needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." He gathers
+his inspiration from the commandment, "Sell all that thou hast and give
+to the poor."
+
+Wealth is not a crime any more than health or bodily or intellectual
+strength. The weak might denounce the strong, the sickly might envy the
+healthy, just as the poor may denounce or envy the rich. A man is not
+necessarily a criminal because he is wealthy. He is to be judged, not
+by his wealth, but by the way he uses his wealth. The strong man can use
+his strength, not only for the benefit of himself, but for the good of
+others. So a man of intelligence can be a benefactor of the human race.
+Intelligence is often used to entrap the simple and to prey upon the
+unthinking, but we do not wish to do away with intelligence. So strength
+is often used to tyrannize over the weak, and in the same way wealth may
+be used to the injury of mankind. To sell all that you have and give to
+the poor is not a panacea for poverty. The man of wealth should help
+the poor man to help himself. Men cannot receive without giving some
+consideration, and if they have not labor or property to give, they
+give their manhood, their self-respect. Besides, if all should obey this
+injunction, "Sell what thou hast and give to the poor," who would buy?
+We know that thousands and millions of rich men lack generosity and have
+but little feeling for their fellows. The fault is not in the money, not
+in the wealth, but in the individuals. They would be just as bad were
+they poor. The only difference is that they would have less power. The
+good man should regard wealth as an instrumentality, as an opportunity,
+and he should endeavor to benefit his fellow-men, not by making them the
+recipients of his charity, but by assisting them to assist themselves.
+The desire to clothe and feed, to educate and protect, wives and
+children, is the principal reason for making money--one of the great
+springs of industry, prudence, and economy.
+
+Those who labor have a right to live. They have a right to what they
+earn. He who works has a right to home and fireside and to the comforts
+of life. Those who waste the spring, the summer, and the autumn of their
+lives must bear the winter when it comes. Many of our institutions are
+absurdly unjust. Giving the land to the few, making tenants of the many,
+is the worst possible form of socialism--of paternal government. In
+most of the nations of our day the idlers and non-producers are either
+beggars or aristocrats, paupers or princes, and the great middle
+laboring class support them both. Rags and robes have a liking for each
+other. Beggars and kings are in accord; they are all parasites, living
+on the same blood, stealing the same labor--one by beggary, the other by
+force. And yet in all this there can be found no reason for denouncing
+the man who has accumulated. One who wishes to tear down his bams and
+build greater has laid aside something to keep the wolf of want from the
+door of home when he is dead.
+
+Even the beggars see the necessity of others working, and the nobility
+see the same necessity with equal clearness. But it is hardly reasonable
+to say that all should do the same kind of work, for the reason that all
+have not the same aptitudes, the same talents. Some can plough,
+others can paint; some can reap and mow, while others can invent the
+instruments that save labor; some navigate the seas; some work in mines;
+while others compose music that elevates and refines the heart of the
+world.
+
+But the worst thing in "The Kreutzer Sonata" is the declaration that a
+husband can by force compel the wife to love and obey him. Love is not
+the child of fear; it is not the result of force. No one can love on
+compulsion. Even Jehovah found that it was impossible to compel the Jews
+to love him. He issued his command to that effect, coupled with threats
+of pain and death, but his chosen people failed to respond.
+
+Love is the perfume of the heart; it is not subject to the will of
+husbands or kings or God.
+
+Count Tolstoï would establish slavery in every house; he would make
+every husband a tyrant and every wife a trembling serf. No wonder that
+he regards such marriage as a failure. He is in exact harmony with the
+curse of Jehovah when he said unto the woman: "I will greatly multiply
+thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
+children, and thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule
+over thee."
+
+This is the destruction of the family, the pollution of home, the
+crucifixion of love.
+
+Those who are truly married are neither masters nor servants. The idea
+of obedience is lost in the desire for the happiness of each. Love is
+not a convict, to be detained with bolts and chains. Love is the highest
+expression of liberty. Love neither commands nor obeys.
+
+The curious thing is that the orthodox world insists that all men and
+women should obey the injunctions of Christ; that they should take him
+as the supreme example, and in all things follow his teachings. This is
+preached from countless pulpits, and has been for many centuries. And
+yet the man who does follow the Savior, who insists that he will not
+resist evil, who sells what he has and gives to the poor, who deserts
+his wife and children for the love of God, is regarded as insane.
+
+Tolstoï, on most subjects, appears to be in accord with the founder of
+Christianity, with the apostles, with the writers of the New Testament,
+and with the Fathers of the church; and yet a Christian teacher of a
+Sabbath school decides, in the capacity of Postmaster-General, that "The
+Kreutzer Sonata" is unfit to be carried in the mails.
+
+Although I disagree with nearly every sentence in this book, regard the
+story as brutal and absurd, the view of life presented as cruel, vile,
+and false, yet I recognize the right of Count Tolstoï to express his
+opinions on all subjects, and the right of the men and women of America
+to read for themselves.
+
+As to the sincerity of the author, there is not the slightest doubt. He
+is willing to give all that he has for the good of his fellow-men. He
+is a soldier in what he believes to be a sacred cause, and he has the
+courage of his convictions. He is endeavoring to organize society in
+accordance with the most radical utterances that have been attributed
+to Jesus Christ. The philosophy of Palestine is not adapted to an
+industrial and commercial age. Christianity was born when the nation
+that produced it was dying. It was a requiem--a declaration that life
+was a failure, that the world was about to end, and that the hopes of
+mankind should be lifted to another sphere. Tolstoï stands with his back
+to the sunrise and looks mournfully upon the shadow. He has uttered many
+tender, noble, and inspiring words. There are many passages in his works
+that must have been written when his eyes were filled with tears. He has
+fixed his gaze so intently on the miseries and agonies of life that he
+has been driven to the conclusion that nothing could be better than the
+effacement of the human race.
+
+Some men, looking only at the faults and tyrannies of government, have
+said: "Anarchy is better." Others, looking at the misfortunes, the
+poverty, the crimes, of men, have, in a kind of pitying despair, reached
+the conclusion that the best of all is death. These are the opinions of
+those who have dwelt in gloom--of the self-imprisoned.
+
+By comparing long periods of time, we see that, on the whole, the race
+is advancing; that the world is growing steadily, and surely, better;
+that each generation enjoys more and suffers less than its predecessor.
+We find that our institutions have the faults of individuals. Nations
+must be composed of men and women; and as they have their faults,
+nations cannot be perfect. The institution of marriage is a failure to
+the extent, and only to the extent, that the human race is a failure.
+Undoubtedly it is the best and the most important institution that has
+been established by the civilized world. If there is unhappiness in that
+relation, if there is tyranny upon one side and misery upon the other,
+it is not the fault of marriage. Take homes from the world and only wild
+beasts are left.
+
+We cannot cure the evils of our day and time by a return to savagery.
+It is not necessary to become ignorant to increase our happiness. The
+highway of civilization leads to the light. The time will come when the
+human race will be truly enlightened, when labor will receive its due
+reward, when the last institution begotten of ignorance and savagery
+will disappear. The time will come when the whole world will say that
+the love of man for woman, of woman for man, of mother for child, is the
+highest, the noblest, the purest, of which the heart is capable.
+
+Love, human love, love of men and women, love of mothers fathers, and
+babes, is the perpetual and beneficent force. Not the love of phantoms,
+the love that builds cathedrals and dungeons, that trembles and prays,
+that kneels and curses; but the real love, the love that felled the
+forests, navigated the seas, subdued the earth, explored continents,
+built countless homes, and founded nations--the love that kindled the
+creative flame and wrought the miracles of art, that gave us all there
+is of music, from the cradle-song that gives to infancy its smiling
+sleep to the great symphony that bears the soul away with wings of
+fire--the real love, mother of every virtue and of every joy.--North
+American Review, September, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS PAINE.
+
+A MAGAZINE ARTICLE.
+
+     "A great man's memory may outlive his life half a year,
+     But, by'r lady, he must build churches then."
+
+
+EIGHTY-THREE years ago Thomas Paine ceased to defend himself. The moment
+he became dumb all his enemies found a tongue. He was attacked on every
+hand. The Tories of England had been waiting for their revenge. The
+believers in kings, in hereditary government, the nobility of every
+land, execrated his memory. Their greatest enemy was dead. The believers
+in human slavery, and all who clamored for the rights of the States
+as against the sovereignty of a Nation, joined in the chorus of
+denunciation. In addition to this, the believers in the inspiration of
+the Scriptures, the occupants of orthodox pulpits, the professors in
+Christian colleges, and the religious historians, were his sworn and
+implacable foes.
+
+This man had gratified no ambition at the expense of his fellow-men;
+he had desolated no country with the flame and sword of war; he had not
+wrung millions from the poor and unfortunate; he had betrayed no trust,
+and yet he was almost universally despised. He gave his life for the
+benefit of mankind. Day and night for many, many weary years, he labored
+for the good of others, and gave himself body and soul to the great
+cause of human liberty. And yet he won the hatred of the people for
+whose benefit, for whose emancipation, for whose civilization, for whose
+exaltation he gave his life.
+
+Against him every slander that malignity could coin and hypocrisy pass
+was gladly and joyously taken as genuine, and every truth with regard to
+his career was believed to be counterfeit. He was attacked by thousands
+where he was defended by one, and the one who defended him was instantly
+attacked, silenced, or destroyed.
+
+At last his life has been written by Moncure D. Conway, and the real
+history of Thomas Paine, of what he attempted and accomplished, of what
+he taught and suffered, has been intelligently, truthfully and candidly
+given to the world. Henceforth the slanderer will be without excuse.
+
+He who reads Mr. Conway's pages will find that Thomas Paine was more
+than a patriot--that he was a philanthropist--a lover not only of his
+country, but of all mankind. He will find that his sympathies were
+with those who suffered, without regard to religion or race, country or
+complexion. He will find that this great man did not hesitate to attack
+the governing class of his native land--to commit what was called
+treason against the king, that he might do battle for the rights of
+men; that in spite of the prejudices of birth, he took the side of the
+American Colonies; that he gladly attacked the political abuses and
+absurdities that had been fostered by altars and thrones for many
+centuries; that he was for the people against nobles and kings, and that
+he put his life in pawn for the good of others.
+
+In the winter of 1774, Thomas Paine came to America. After a time he was
+employeed as one of the writers on the _Pennsylvania Magazine._
+
+Let us see what he did, calculated to excite the hatred of his
+fellow-men.
+
+The first article he ever wrote in America, and the first ever published
+by him anywhere, appeared in that magazine on the 8th of 'March, 1775.
+It was an attack on American slavery--a plea for the rights of the
+negro. In that article will be found substantially all the arguments
+that can be urged against that most infamous of all institutions. Every
+is full of humanity, pity, tenderness, and love of justice.
+
+Five days after this article appeared the American Anti-Slavery Society
+was formed. Certainly this should not excite our hatred. To-day the
+civilized world agrees with the essay written by Thomas Paine in 1775.
+
+At that time great interests were against him. The owners of slaves
+became his enemies, and the pulpits, supported by slave labor, denounced
+this abolitionist.
+
+The next article published by Thomas Paine, in the same magazine, and
+for the next month, was an attack on the practice of dueling, showing
+that it was barbarous, that it did not even tend to settle the right or
+wrong of a dispute, that it could not be defended on any just grounds,
+and that its influence was degrading and cruel. The civilized world now
+agrees with the opinions of Thomas Paine upon that barbarous practice.
+
+In May, 1775, appeared in the same magazine another article written by
+Thomas Paine, a Protest Against Cruelty to Animals. He began the work
+that was so successfully and gloriously carried out by Henry Bergh,
+one of the noblest, one of the grandest, men that this continent has
+produced.
+
+The good people of this world agree with Thomas Paine.
+
+In August of the same year he wrote a plea for the Rights of Woman, the
+first ever published in the New World. Certainly he should not be hated
+for that.
+
+He was the first to suggest a union of the colonies. Before the
+Declaration of Independence was issued, Paine had written of and about
+the Free and Independent States of America. He had also spoken of the
+United Colonies as the "Glorious Union," and he was the first to write
+these words: "The United States of America."
+
+In May, 1775, Washington said: "If you ever hear of me joining in any
+such measure (as separation from Great Britain) you have my leave to set
+me down for everything wicked." He had also said; "It is not the wish or
+interest of the government (meaning Massachusetts), or of any other upon
+this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence."
+And in the same year Benjamin Franklin assured Chatham that no one in
+America was in favor of separation. As a matter of fact, the people
+of the colonies wanted a redress of their grievances--they were not
+dreaming of separation, of independence.
+
+In 1775 Paine wrote the pamphlet known as "Common Sense." This was
+published on the 10th of January, 1776. It was the first appeal for
+independence, the first cry for national life, for absolute separation.
+No pamphlet, no book, ever kindled such a sudden conflagration,--a
+purifying flame, in which the prejudices and fears of millions were
+consumed. To read it now, after the lapse of more than a hundred years,
+hastens the blood. It is but the meagre truth to say that Thomas Paine
+did more for the cause of separation, to sow the seeds of independence,
+than any other man of his time. Certainly we should not despise him for
+this. The Declaration of Independence followed, and in that declaration
+will be found not only the thoughts, but some of the expressions of
+Thomas Paine.
+
+During the war, and in the very darkest hours, Paine wrote what is
+called "The Crisis," a series of pamphlets giving from time to time
+his opinion of events, and his prophecies. These marvelous publications
+produced an effect nearly as great as the pamphlet "Common Sense." These
+strophes, written by the bivouac fires, had in them the soul of battle.
+
+In all he wrote, Paine was direct and natural. He touched the very heart
+of the subject. He was not awed by names or titles, by place or power.
+He never lost his regard for truth, for principle--never wavered in his
+allegiance to reason, to what he believed to be right. His arguments
+were so lucid, so unanswerable, his comparisons and analogies so apt, so
+unexpected, that they excited the passionate admiration of friends
+and the unquenchable hatred of enemies. So great were these appeals to
+patriotism, to the love of liberty, the pride of independence, the glory
+of success, that it was said by some of the best and greatest of that
+time that the American cause owed as much to the pen of Paine as to the
+sword of Washington.
+
+On the 2d day of November, 1779, there was introduced into the Assembly
+of Pennsylvania an act for the abolition of slavery. The preamble was
+written by Thomas Paine. To him belongs the honor and glory of having
+written the first Proclamation of Emancipation in America--Paine the
+first, Lincoln the last.
+
+Paine, of all others, succeeded in getting aid for the struggling
+colonies from France. "According to Lamartine, the King, Louis XVI.,
+loaded Paine with favors, and a gift of six millions was confided into
+the hands of Franklin and Paine. On the 25th of August, 1781, Paine
+reached Boston bringing two million five hundred thousand livres in
+silver, and in convoy a ship laden with clothing and military stores."
+
+"In November, 1779, Paine was elected clerk to the General Assembly
+of Pennsylvania. In 1780, the Assembly received a letter from General
+Washington in the field, saying that he feared the distresses in the
+army would lead to mutiny in the ranks. This letter was read by Paine to
+the Assembly. He immediately wrote to Blair McClenaghan, a Philadelphia
+merchant, explaining the urgency, and inclosing five hundred dollars,
+the amount of salary due him as clerk, as his contribution towards
+a relief fund. The merchant called a meeting the next day, and read
+Paine's letter. A subscription list was immediately circulated, and in
+a short time about one million five hundred thousand dollars was raised.
+With this capital the Pennsylvania bank--afterwards the bank of North
+America--was established for the relief of the army."
+
+In 1783 "Paine wrote a memorial to Chancellor Livingston, Secretary of
+Foreign Affairs, Robert Morris, Minister of Finance, and his assistant,
+urging the necessity of adding a Continental Legislature to Congress, to
+be elected by the several States. Robert Morris invited the Chancellor
+and a number of eminent men to meet Paine at dinner, where his plea
+for a stronger Union was discussed and approved. This was probably the
+earliest of a series of consultations preliminary to the Constitutional
+Convention."
+
+"On the 19th of April, 1783, it being the eighth anniversary of the
+Battle of Lexington, Paine printed a little pamphlet entitled 'Thoughts
+on Peace and the Probable Advantages Thereof.'" In this pamphlet
+he pleads for "a supreme Nationality absorbing all cherished
+sovereignties." Mr. Conway calls this pamphlet Paine's "Farewell
+Address," and gives the following extract:
+
+"It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with
+which it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition in which
+the country was in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural
+reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of
+striking out into the only line that could save her,--a Declaration
+of Independence.--made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be
+silent; and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered
+her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of
+literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great
+cause of mankind.... But as the scenes of war are closed, and every
+man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take leave of the
+subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and
+through all its turns and windings; and whatever country I may hereafter
+be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and
+acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my
+power to be of some use to mankind."
+
+Paine had made some enemies, first, by attacking African slavery, and,
+second, by insisting upon the sovereignty of the Nation.
+
+During the Revolution our forefathers, in order to justify making war
+on Great Britain, were compelled to take the ground that all men are
+entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In no other way
+could they justify their action. After the war, the meaner instincts
+began to take possession of the mind, and those who had fought for
+their own liberty were perfectly willing to enslave others. We must
+also remember that the Revolution was begun and carried on by a noble
+minority--that the majority were really in favor of Great Britain and
+did what they dared to prevent the success of the American cause. The
+minority, however, had control of affairs. They were active, energetic,
+enthusiastic, and courageous, and the majority were overawed, shamed,
+and suppressed. But when peace came, the majority asserted themselves
+and the interests of trade and commerce were consulted. Enthusiasm
+slowly died, and patriotism was mingled with the selfishness of traffic.
+
+But, after all, the enemies of Paine were few, the friends were many.
+He had the respect and admiration of the greatest and the best, and was
+enjoying the fruits of his labor.
+
+The Revolution was ended, the colonies were free. They had been united,
+they formed a Nation, and the United States of America had a place on
+the map of the world.
+
+Paine was not a politician. He had not labored for seven years to get an
+office. His services were no longer needed in America. He concluded to
+educate the English people, to inform them of their rights, to expose
+the pretences, follies and fallacies, the crimes and cruelties of
+nobles, kings, and parliaments. In the brain and heart of this man were
+the dream and hope of the universal republic. He had confidence in the
+people. He hated tyranny and war, despised the senseless pomp and vain
+show of crowned robbers, laughed at titles, and the "honorable" badges
+worn by the obsequious and servile, by fawners and followers; loved
+liberty with all his heart, and bravely fought against those who could
+give the rewards of place and gold, and for those who could pay only
+with thanks.
+
+Hoping to hasten the day of freedom, he wrote the "Rights of Man"--a
+book that laid the foundation for all the real liberty that the English
+now enjoy--a book that made known to Englishmen the Declaration of
+Nature, and convinced millions that all are children of the same
+mother, entitled to share equally in her gifts. Every Englishman who
+has outgrown the ideas of 1688 should remember Paine with love and
+reverence. Every Englishman who has sought to destroy abuses, to lessen
+or limit the prerogatives of the crown, to extend the suffrage, to do
+away with "rotten boroughs," to take taxes from knowledge, to increase
+and protect the freedom of speech and the press, to do away with
+bribes under the name of pensions, and to make England a government of
+principles rather than of persons, has been compelled to adopt the creed
+and use the arguments of Thomas Paine. In England every step toward
+freedom has been a triumph of Paine over Burke and Pitt. No man ever
+rendered a greater service to his native land.
+
+The book called the "Rights of Man" was the greatest contribution that
+literature had given to liberty. It rests on the bed-rock. No attention
+is paid to precedents except to show that they are wrong. Paine was not
+misled by the proverbs that wolves had written for sheep. He had the
+intelligence to examine for himself, and the courage to publish his
+conclusions. As soon as the "Rights of Man" was published the Government
+was alarmed. Every effort was made to suppress it. The author was
+indicted; those who published, and those who sold, were arrested and
+imprisoned. But the new gospel had been preached--a great man had shed
+light--a new force had been born, and it was beyond the power of nobles
+and kings to undo what the author-hero had done.
+
+To avoid arrest and probable death, Paine left England. He had sown with
+brave hand the seeds of thought, and he knew that he had lighted a fire
+that nothing could extinguish until England should be free.
+
+The fame of Thomas Paine had reached France in many ways--principally
+through Lafayette. His services in America were well known. The pamphlet
+"Common Sense" had been published in French, and its effect had been
+immense. "The Rights of Man" that had created, and was then creating,
+such a stir in England, was also known to the French. The lovers of
+liberty everywhere were the friends and admirers of Thomas Paine. In
+America, England, Scotland, Ireland, and France he was known as the
+defender of popular rights. He had preached a new gospel. He had given a
+new Magna Charta to the people.
+
+So popular was Paine in France that he was elected by three
+constituencies to the National Convention. He chose to represent Calais.
+From the moment he entered French territory he was received with almost
+royal honors. He at once stood with the foremost, and was welcomed
+by all enlightened patriots. As in America, so in France, he knew no
+idleness--he was an organizer and worker. The first thing he did was to
+found the first Republican Society, and the next to write its Manifesto,
+in which the ground was taken that France did not need a king; that the
+people should govern themselves. In this Manifesto was this argument:
+
+"What kind of office must that be in a government which requires
+neither experience nor ability to execute? that may be abandoned to the
+desperate chance of birth; that may be filled with an idiot, a madman,
+a tyrant, with equal effect as with the good, the virtuous, the wise? An
+office of this nature is a mere nonentity; it is a place of show, not of
+use."
+
+He said:
+
+"I am not the personal enemy of kings. Quite the contrary. No man wishes
+more heartily than myself to see them all in the happy and honorable
+state of private individuals; but I am the avowed, open and intrepid
+enemy of what is called monarchy; and I am such by principles which
+nothing can either alter or corrupt, by my attachment to humanity, by
+the anxiety which I feel within myself for the dignity and honor of the
+human race."
+
+One of the grandest things done by Thomas Paine was his effort to save
+the life of Louis XVI. The Convention was in favor of death. Paine was a
+foreigner. His career had caused some jealousies. He knew the danger he
+was in--that the tiger was already crouching for a spring--but he
+was true to his principles. He was opposed to the death penalty. He
+remembered that Louis XVI. had been the friend of America, and he very
+cheerfully risked his life, not only for the good of France, not only to
+save the king, but to pay a debt of gratitude. He asked the Convention
+to exile the king to the United States. He asked this as a member of the
+Convention and as a citizen of the United States. As an American he felt
+grateful not only to the king, but to every Frenchman. He, the adversary
+of all kings, asked the Convention to remember that kings were men, and
+subject to human frailties. He took still another step, and said: "As
+France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let us
+also be the first to abolish the punishment of death."
+
+Even after the death of Louis had been voted, Paine made another appeal.
+With a courage born of the highest possible sense of duty he said:
+
+"France has but one ally--the United States of America. That is the only
+nation that can furnish France with naval provisions, for the kingdoms
+of Northern Europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. It happens
+that the person now under discussion is regarded in America as a
+deliverer of their country. I can assure you that his execution will
+there spread universal sorrow, and it is in your power not thus to wound
+the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the French language I would
+descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to respite
+the execution of your sentence on Louis. Ah, citizens, give not the
+tyrant of England the triumph of seeing the man perish on the scaffold
+who helped my dear brothers of America to break his chains."
+
+This was worthy of the man who had said: "Where Liberty is _not_, there
+is my country."
+
+Paine was second on the committee to prepare the draft of a constitution
+for France to be submitted to the Convention. He was the real author,
+not only of the draft of the Constitution, but of the Declaration of
+Rights.
+
+In France, as in America, he took the lead. His first thoughts seemed
+to be first principles. He was clear because he was profound. People
+without ideas experience great difficulty in finding words to express
+them.
+
+From the moment that Paine cast his vote in favor of mercy--in favor of
+life--the shadow of the guillotine was upon him. He knew that when he
+voted for the King's life, he voted for his own death. Paine remembered
+that the king had been the friend of America, and to him ingratitude
+seemed the worst of crimes. He worked to destroy the monarch, not the
+man; the king, not the friend. He discharged his duty and accepted
+death. This was the heroism of goodness--the sublimity of devotion.
+
+Believing that his life was near its close, he made up his mind to give
+to the world his thoughts concerning "revealed religion." This he
+had for some time intended to do, but other matters had claimed his
+attention. Feeling that there was no time to be lost, he wrote the first
+part of the "Age of Reason," and gave the manuscript to Joel Barlow.
+Six hours after, he was arrested. The second part was written in prison
+while he was waiting for death.
+
+Paine clearly saw that men could not be really free, or defend the
+freedom they had, unless they were free to think and speak. He knew that
+the church was the enemy of liberty, that the altar and throne were in
+partnership, that they helped each other and divided the spoils.
+
+He felt that, being a man, he had the right to examine the creeds and
+the Scriptures for himself, and that, being an honest man, it was his
+duty and his privilege to tell his fellow-men the conclusions at which
+he arrived.
+
+He found that the creeds of all orthodox churches were absurd and cruel,
+and that the Bible was no better. Of course he found that there were
+some good things in the creeds and in the Bible. These he defended, but
+the infamous, the inhuman, he attacked.
+
+In matters of religion he pursued the same course that he had in things
+political. He depended upon experience, and above all on reason. He
+refused to extinguish the light in his own soul. He was true to himself,
+and gave to others his honest thoughts. He did not seek wealth, or
+place, or fame. He sought the truth.
+
+He had felt it to be his duty to attack the institution of slavery in
+America, to raise his voice against dueling, to plead for the rights
+of woman, to excite pity for the sufferings of domestic animals,
+the speechless friends of man; to plead the cause of separation, of
+independence, of American nationality, to attack the abuses and crimes
+of mon-archs, to do what he could to give freedom to the world.
+
+He thought it his duty to take another step. Kings asserted that they
+derived their power, their right to govern, from God. To this assertion
+Paine replied with the "Rights of Man." Priests pretended that they were
+the authorized agents of God. Paine replied with the "Age of Reason."
+
+This book is still a power, and will be as long as the absurdities
+and cruelties of the creeds and the Bible have defenders. The "Age of
+Reason" affected the priests just as the "Rights of Man" affected nobles
+and kings. The kings answered the arguments of Paine with laws, the
+priests with lies. Kings appealed to force, priests to fraud. Mr. Conway
+has written in regard to the "Age of Reason" the most impressive and the
+most interesting chapter in his book.
+
+Paine contended for the rights of the individual,--tor the jurisdiction
+of the soul. Above all religions he placed Reason, above all kings, Men,
+and above all men, Law.
+
+The first part of the "Age of Reason" was written in the shadow of a
+prison, the second part in the gloom of death. From that shadow, from
+that gloom, came a flood of light. This testament, by which the wealth
+of a marvelous brain, the love of a great and heroic heart were given to
+the world, was written in the presence of the scaffold, when the writer
+believed he was giving his last message to his fellow-men.
+
+The "Age of Reason" was his crime.
+
+Franklin, Jefferson, Sumner and Lincoln, the four greatest statesmen
+that America has produced, were believers in the creed of Thomas Paine.
+
+The Universalists and Unitarians have found their best weapons, their
+best arguments, in the "Age of Reason."
+
+Slowly, but surely, the churches are adopting not only the arguments,
+but the opinions of the great Reformer.
+
+Theodore Parker attacked the Old Testament and Calvinistic theology
+with the same weapons and with a bitterness excelled by no man who has
+expressed his thoughts in our language.
+
+Paine was a century in advance of his time. If he were living now
+his sympathy would be with Savage, Chadwick, Professor Briggs and the
+"advanced theologians." He, too, would talk about the "higher criticism"
+and the latest definition of "inspiration." These advanced thinkers
+substantially are repeating the "Age of Reason." They still wear the
+old uniform--clinging to the toggery of theology--but inside of their
+religious rags they agree with Thomas Paine.
+
+Not one argument that Paine urged against the inspiration of the Bible,
+against the truth of miracles, against the barbarities and infamies of
+the Old Testament, against the pretensions of priests and the claims of
+kings, has ever been answered.
+
+His arguments in favor of the existence of what he was pleased to call
+the God of Nature were as weak as those of all Theists have been. But
+in all the affairs of this world, his clearness of vision, lucidity
+of expression, cogency of argument, aptness of comparison, power
+of statement and comprehension of the subject in hand, with all its
+bearings and consequences, have rarely, if ever, been excelled.
+
+He had no reverence for mistakes because they were old. He did not
+admire the castles of Feudalism even when they were covered with ivy. He
+not only said that the Bible was not inspired, but he demonstrated that
+it could not all be true. This was "brutal." He presented arguments so
+strong, so clear, so convincing, that they could not be answered. This
+was "vulgar."
+
+He stood for liberty against kings, for humanity against creeds and
+gods. This was "cowardly and low." He gave his life to free and civilize
+his fellow-men. This was "infamous."
+
+Paine was arrested and imprisoned in December, 1793. He was, to say the
+least, neglected by Gouverneur Morris and Washington. He was released
+through the efforts of James Monroe, in November, 1794. He was called
+back to the Convention, but too late to be of use. As most of the actors
+had suffered death, the tragedy was about over and the curtain was
+falling. Paine remained in Paris until the "Reign of Terror" was ended
+and that of the Corsican tyrant had commenced.
+
+Paine came back to America hoping to spend the remainder of his life
+surrounded by those for whose happiness and freedom he had labored so
+many years. He expected to be rewarded with the love and reverence of
+the American people.
+
+In 1794 James Monroe had written to Paine these words:
+
+"It is unnecessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, I
+speak of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare.
+They have not forgot the history of their own Revolution and the
+difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its
+several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the
+merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The
+crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I hope never will stain,
+our national character. You are considered by them as not only having
+rendered important services in our own Revolution, but as being on a
+more extensive scale the friend of human rights and a distinguished and
+able advocate of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine we are
+not and cannot be indifferent."
+
+In the same year Mr. Monroe wrote a letter to the Committee of General
+Safety, asking for the release of Mr. Paine, in which, among other
+things, he said:
+
+"The services Thomas Paine rendered to his country in its struggle
+for freedom have implanted in the hearts of his countrymen a sense of
+gratitude never to be effaced as long as they shall deserve the title of
+a just and generous people."
+
+On reaching America, Paine found that the sense of gratitude had been
+effaced. He found that the Federalists hated him with all their hearts
+because he believed in the rights of the people and was still true
+to the splendid principles advocated during the darkest days of the
+Revolution. In almost every pulpit he found a malignant and implacable
+foe, and the pews were filled with his enemies. The slaveholders
+hated him. He was held responsible even for the crimes of the French
+Revolution. He was regarded as a blasphemer, an Atheist, an enemy of God
+and man. The ignorant citizens of Bordentown, as cowardly as orthodox,
+longed to mob the author of "Common Sense" and "The Crisis." They
+thought he had sold himself to the Devil because he had defended God
+against the slanderous charges that he had inspired the writers of the
+Bible--because he had said that a being of infinite goodness and purity
+did not establish slavery and polygamy.
+
+Paine had insisted that men had the right to think for themselves. This
+so enraged the average American citizen that he longed for revenge.
+
+In 1802 the people of the United States had exceedingly crude ideas
+about the liberty of thought and expression Neither had they any
+conception of religious freedom. Their highest thought on that subject
+was expressed by the word "toleration," and even this toleration
+extended only to the various Christian sects. Even the vaunted religious
+liberty of colonial Maryland was only to the effect that one kind of
+Christian should not fine, imprison and kill another kind of Christian,
+but all kinds of Christians had the right, and it was their duty, to
+brand, imprison and kill Infidels of every kind.
+
+Paine had been guilty of thinking for himself and giving his conclusions
+to the world without having asked the consent of a priest--just as he
+had published his political opinions without leave of the king. He had
+published his thoughts on religion and had appealed to reason--to the
+light in every mind, to the humanity, the pity, the goodness which he
+believed to be in every heart. He denied the right of kings to make laws
+and of priests to make creeds. He insisted that the people should make
+laws, and that every human being should think for himself. While some
+believed in the freedom of religion, he believed in the religion of
+freedom.
+
+If Paine had been a hypocrite, if he had concealed his opinions, if he
+had defended slavery with quotations from the "sacred Scriptures"--if
+he had cared nothing for the liberties of men in other lands--if he had
+said that the state could not live without the church--if he had sought
+for place instead of truth, he would have won wealth and power, and his
+brow would have been crowned with the laurel of fame.
+
+He made what the pious call the "mistake" of being true to himself--of
+living with an unstained soul. He had lived and labored for the people.
+The people were untrue' to him. They returned evil for good, hatred for
+benefits received, and yet this great chivalric soul remembered their
+ignorance and loved them with all his heart, and fought their oppressors
+with all his strength.
+
+We must remember what the churches and creeds were in that day, what the
+theologians really taught, and what the people believed. To save a few
+in spite of their vices, and to damn the many without regard to their
+virtues, and all for the glory of the Damner:--_this was Calvinism_. "He
+that hath ears to hear, let him hear," but he that hath a brain to think
+must not think. He that believeth without evidence is good, and he that
+believeth in spite of evidence is a saint. Only the wicked doubt, only
+the blasphemer denies. _This was orthodox Christianity_.
+
+Thomas Paine had the courage, the sense, the heart, to denounce these
+horrors, these absurdities, these infinite infamies. He did what he
+could to drive these theological vipers, these Calvinistic cobras, these
+fanged and hissing serpents of superstition from the heart of man.
+
+A few civilized men agreed with him then, and the world has progressed
+since 1809. Intellectual wealth has accumulated; vast mental estates
+have been left to the world. Geologists have forced secrets from the
+rocks, astronomers from the stars, historians from old records and lost
+languages. In every direction the thinker and the investigator have
+ventured and explored, and even the pews have begun to ask questions of
+the pulpits. Humboldt has lived, and Darwin and Haeckel and Huxley, and
+the armies led by them, have changed the thought of the world.
+
+The churches of 1809 could not be the friends of Thomas Paine. No church
+asserting that belief is necessary to salvation ever was, or ever will
+be, the champion of true liberty. A church founded on slavery--that
+is to say, on blind obedience, worshiping irresponsible and arbitrary
+power, must of necessity be the enemy of human freedom.
+
+The orthodox churches are now anxious to save the little that Paine left
+of their creed. If one now believes in God, and lends a little financial
+aid, he is considered a good and desirable member. He need not define
+God after the manner of the catechism. He may talk about a "Power that
+works for righteousness," or the tortoise Truth that beats the rabbit
+Lie in the long run, or the "Unknowable," or the "Unconditioned," or
+the "Cosmic Force," or the "Ultimate Atom," or "Protoplasm," or the
+"What"--provided he begins this word with a capital.
+
+We must also remember that there is a difference between independence
+and liberty. Millions have fought for independence--to throw off some
+foreign yoke--and yet were at heart the enemies of true liberty. A man
+in jail, sighing to be free, may be said to be in favor of liberty, but
+not from principle; but a man who, being free, risks or gives his life
+to free the enslaved, is a true soldier of liberty.
+
+Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of
+his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on
+every side, execrated, shunned and abhorred--his virtues denounced as
+vices--his services forgotten--his character blackened, he preserved the
+poise and balance of his soul. He was a victim of the people, but his
+convictions remained unshaken. He was still a soldier in the army
+of freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were
+impatiently waiting for his death. Even those who loved their enemies
+hated him, their friend--the friend of the whole world--with all their
+hearts.
+
+On the 8th of June, 1809, death came--Death, almost his only friend.
+
+At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military
+display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the
+bounty of the dead--On horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart
+dominated the creed of his head--and, following on foot, two negroes
+filled with gratitude--constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine.
+
+He who had received the gratitude of many millions, the thanks of
+generals and statesmen--he who had been the friend and companion of the
+wisest and best--he who had taught a people to be free, and whose words
+had inspired armies and enlightened nations, was thus given back to
+Nature, the mother of us all.
+
+If the people of the great Republic knew the life of this generous, this
+chivalric man, the real story of his services, his sufferings and his
+triumphs--of what he did to compel the robed and crowned, the priests
+and kings, to give back to the people liberty, the jewel of the soul; if
+they knew that he was the first to write, "The Religion of Humanity";
+if they knew that he, above all others, planted and watered the seeds
+of independence, of union, of nationality, in the hearts of our
+forefathers--that his words were gladly repeated by the best and bravest
+in many lands; if they knew that he attempted, by the purest means, to
+attain the noblest and loftiest ends--that he was original, sincere,
+intrepid, and that he could truthfully say: "The world is my country, to
+do good my religion"--if the people only knew all this--the truth--they
+would repeat the words of Andrew Jackson: "Thomas Paine needs no
+monument made with hands; he has erected a monument in the hearts of all
+lovers of liberty."--North American Review, August, 1893.
+
+
+
+
+THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS.
+
+     "Well, while I am a beggar, I will rail,
+     And say there is no sin but to be rich."
+
+
+MR. A. lived in the kingdom of--------. He was a sincere professional
+philanthropist. He was absolutely certain that he loved his fellow-men,
+and that his views were humane and scientific. He concluded to turn his
+attention to taking care of people less fortunate than himself.
+
+With this object in view he investigated the common people that lived
+about him, and he found that they were extremely ignorant, that many of
+them seemed to take no particular interest in life or in business, that
+few of them had any theories of their own, and that, while many had
+muscle, there was only now and then one who had any mind worth speaking
+of. Nearly all of them were destitute of ambition. They were satisfied
+if they got something to eat, a place to sleep, and could now and
+then indulge in some form of dissipation. They seemed to have great
+confidence in to-morrow--trusted to luck, and took no thought for the
+future. Many of them were extravagant, most of them dissipated, and a
+good many dishonest.
+
+Mr. A. found that many of the husbands not only failed to support their
+families, but that some of them lived on the labor of their wives; that
+many of the wives were careless of their obligations, knew nothing about
+the art of cooking; nothing about keeping house; and that parents, as a
+general thing, neglected their children or treated them with cruelty. He
+also found that many of the people were so shiftless that they died of
+want and exposure.
+
+After having obtained this information Mr. A. made up his mind to do
+what little he could to better their condition. He petitioned the king
+to assist him, and asked that he be allowed to take control of five
+hundred people in consideration that he would pay a certain amount into
+the treasury of the kingdom. The king being satisfied that Mr. A.
+could take care of these people better than they were taking care of
+themselves, granted the petition.
+
+Mr. A., with the assistance of a few soldiers, took these people from
+their old homes and haunts to a plantation of his own. He divided
+them into groups, and over each group placed a superintendent. He
+made certain rules and regulations for their conduct. They were only
+compelled to work from twelve to fourteen hours a day, leaving ten hours
+for sleep and recreation. Good and substantial food was provided. Their
+houses were comfortable and their clothing sufficient. Their work was
+laid out from day to day and from month to month, so that they knew
+exactly what they were to do in each hour of every day. These rules
+were made for the good of the people, to the end that they might not
+interfere with each other, that they might attend to their duties, and
+enjoy themselves in a reasonable way. They were not allowed to waste
+their time, or to use stimulants or profane language. They were told to
+be respectful to the superintendents, and especially to Mr. A.; to be
+obedient, and, above all, to accept the position in which Providence had
+placed them, without complaining, and to cheerfully perform their tasks.
+
+Mr. A. had found out all that the five hundred persons had earned the
+year before they were taken control of by him--just how much they had
+added to the wealth of the world. He had statistics taken for the
+year before with great care showing the number of deaths, the cases of
+sickness and of destitution, the number who had committed suicide, how
+many had been convicted of crimes and misdemeanors, how many days they
+had been idle, and how much time and money they had spent in drink and
+for worthless amusements.
+
+During the first year of their enslavement he kept like statistics. He
+found that they had earned several times as much; that there had been no
+cases of destitution, no drunkenness; that no crimes had been committed;
+that there had been but little sickness, owing to the regular course
+of their lives; that few had been guilty of misdemeanors, owing to
+the certainty of punishment; and that they had been so watched and
+superintended that for the most part they had traveled the highway of
+virtue and industry.
+
+Mr. A. was delighted, and with a vast deal of pride showed these
+statistics to his friends. He not only demonstrated that the five
+hundred people were better off than they had been before, but that his
+own income was very largely increased. He congratulated himself that he
+had added to the well-being of these people not only, but had laid the
+foundation of a great fortune for himself. On these facts and these
+figures he claimed not only to be a philanthropist, but a philosopher;
+and all the people who had a mind to go into the same business agreed
+with him.
+
+Some denounced the entire proceeding as unwarranted, as contrary to
+reason and justice. These insisted that the five hundred people had
+a right to live in their own way provided they did not interfere with
+others; that they had the right to go through the world with little food
+and with poor clothes, and to live in huts, if such was their choice.
+But Mr. A. had no trouble in answering these objectors. He insisted
+that well-being is the only good, and that every human being is under
+obligation, not only to take care of himself, but to do what little
+he can towards taking care of others; that where five hundred people
+neglect to take care of themselves, it is the duty of somebody else, who
+has more intelligence and more means, to take care of them; that the man
+who takes five hundred people and improves their condition, gives
+them on the average better food, better clothes, and keeps them out of
+mischief, is a benefactor.
+
+"These people," said Mr. A., "were tried. They were found incapable of
+taking care of themselves. They lacked intelligence or will or honesty
+or industry or ambition or something, so that in the struggle for
+existence they fell behind, became stragglers, dropped by the wayside,
+died in gutters; while many were destined to end their days either in
+dungeons or on scaffolds. Besides all this, they were a nuisance to
+their prosperous fellow-citizens, a perpetual menace to the peace of
+society. They increased the burden of taxation; they filled the ranks
+of the criminal classes, they made it necessary to build more jails, to
+employ more policemen and judges; so that I, by enslaving them, not
+only assisted them, not only protected them against themselves, not only
+bettered their condition, not only added to the well-being of-society at
+large, but greatly increased my own fortune."
+
+Mr. A. also took the ground that Providence, by giving him superior
+intelligence, the genius of command, the aptitude for taking charge
+of others, had made it his duty to exercise these faculties for the
+well-being of the people and for the glory of God. Mr. A. frequently
+declared that he was God's steward. He often said he thanked God that he
+was not governed by a sickly sentiment, but that he was a man of sense,
+of judgment, of force of character, and that the means employeed by him
+were in accordance with the logic of facts.
+
+Some of the people thus enslaved objected, saying that they had the same
+right to control themselves that Mr. A. had to control himself. But it
+only required a little discipline to satisfy them that they were wrong.
+Some of the people were quite happy, and declared that nothing gave them
+such perfect contentment as the absence of all responsibility. Mr. A.
+insisted that all men had not been endowed with the same capacity; that
+the weak ought to be cared for by the strong; that such was evidently
+the design of the Creator, and that he intended to do what little he
+could to carry that design into effect.
+
+Mr. A. was very successful. In a few years he had several thousands of
+men, women, and children working for him. He amassed a large fortune.
+He felt that he had been intrusted with this money by Providence. He
+therefore built several churches, and once in a while gave large sums to
+societies for the spread of civilization. He passed away regretted by a
+great many people--not including those who had lived under his immediate
+administration. He was buried with great pomp, the king being one of the
+pall-bearers, and on his tomb was this:
+
+HE WAS THE PROVIDENCE OF THE POOR.
+
+
+II.
+
+     "And, being rich, my virtue then shall be
+     To say there is no vice but beggary."
+
+Mr. B. did not believe in slavery. He despised the institution with
+every drop of his blood, and was an advocate of universal freedom. He
+held all the ideas of Mr. A. in supreme contempt, and frequently spent
+whole evenings in denouncing the inhumanity and injustice of the whole
+business. He even went so far as to contend that many of A.'s slaves had
+more intelligence than A. himself, and that, whether they had
+intelligence or not, they had the right to be free. He insisted that Mr.
+A.'s philanthropy was a sham; that he never bought a human being for the
+purpose of bettering that being's condition; that he went into the
+business simply to make money for himself; and that his talk about his
+slaves committing less crime than when they were free was simply to
+justify the crime committed by himself in enslaving his fellow-men.
+
+Mr. B. was a manufacturer, and he employeed some five or six thousand
+men. He used to say that these men were not forced to work for him; that
+they were at perfect liberty to accept or reject the terms; that, so far
+as he was concerned, he would just as soon commit larceny or robbery as
+to force a man to work for him. "Every laborer under my roof," he used
+to say, "is as free to choose as I am."
+
+Mr B. believed in absolutely free trade; thought it an outrage to
+interfere with the free interplay of forces; said that every man should
+buy, or at least have the privilege of buying, where he could buy
+cheapest, and should have the privilege of selling where he could get
+the most. He insisted that a man who has labor to sell has the right to
+sell it to the best advantage, and that the purchaser has the right to
+buy it at the lowest price. He did not enslave men--he hired them. Some
+said that he took advantage of their necessities; but he answered
+that he created no necessities, that he was not responsible for their
+condition, that he did not make them poor, that he found them poor and
+gave them work, and gave them the same wages that he could employ others
+for. He insisted that he was absolutely just to all; he did not give one
+man more than another, and he never refused to employ a man on account
+of the man's religion or politics; all that he did was simply to employ
+that man if the man wished to be employed, and give him the wages, no
+more and no less, that some other man of like capacity was willing to
+work for.
+
+Mr. B. also said that the price of the article manufactured by him
+fixed the wages of the persons employed, and that he, Mr. B., was not
+responsible for the price of the article he manufactured; consequently
+he was not responsible for the wages of the workmen. He agreed to pay
+them a certain price, he taking the risk of selling his articles, and he
+paid them regularly just on the day he agreed to pay them, and if they
+were not satisfied with the wages, they were at perfect liberty to
+leave. One of his private sayings was: "The poor ye have always with
+you." And from this he argued that some men were made poor so that
+others could be generous. "Take poverty and suffering from the world,"
+he said, "and you destroy sympathy and generosity."
+
+Mr. B. made a large amount of money. Many of his workmen complained
+that their wages did not allow them to live in comfort. Many had large
+families, and therefore but little to eat. Some of them lived in crowded
+rooms. Many of the children were carried off by disease; but Mr. B. took
+the ground that all these people had the right to go, that he did not
+force them to remain, that if they were not healthy it was not his
+fault, and that whenever it pleased Providence to remove a child, or one
+of the parents, he, Mr. B., was not responsible.
+
+Mr. B. insisted that many of his workmen were extravagant; that they
+bought things that they did not need; that they wasted in beer and
+tobacco, money that they should save for funerals; that many of them
+visited places of amusement when they should have been thinking about
+death, and that others bought toys to please the children when
+they hardly had bread enough to eat. He felt that he was in no way
+accountable for this extravagance, nor for the fact that their wages did
+not give them the necessaries of life, because he not only gave them the
+same wages that other manufacturers gave, but the same wages that other
+workmen were willing to work for.
+
+Mr. B. said,--and he always said this as though it ended the
+argument,--and he generally stood up to say it: "The great law of supply
+and demand is of divine origin; it is the only law that will work in
+all possible or conceivable cases; and this law fixes the price of all
+labor, and from it there is no appeal. If people are not satisfied
+with the operation of the law, then let them make a new world for
+themselves."
+
+Some of Mr. B.'s friends reported that on several occasions, forgetting
+what he had said on others, he did declare that his confidence was
+somewhat weakened in the law of supply and demand; but this was only
+when there seemed to be an over-production of the things he was engaged
+in manufacturing, and at such times he seemed to doubt the absolute
+equity of the great law.
+
+Mr. B. made even a larger fortune than Mr. A., because when his workmen
+got old he did not have to care for them, when they were sick he paid no
+doctors, and when their children died he bought no coffins. In this way
+he was relieved of a large part of the expenses that had to be borne by
+Mr. A. When his workmen became too old, they were sent to the poorhouse;
+when they were sick, they were assisted by charitable societies; and
+when they died, they were buried by pity.
+
+In a few years Mr. B. was the owner of many millions. He also considered
+himself as one of God's stewards; felt that Providence had given him the
+intelligence to combine interests, to carry out great schemes, and
+that he was specially raised up to give employment to many thousands
+of people. He often regretted that he could do no more for his laborers
+without lessening his own profits, or, rather, without lessening his
+fund for the blessing of mankind--the blessing to begin immediately
+after his death. He was so anxious to be the providence of posterity
+that he was sometimes almost heartless in his dealings with
+contemporaries. He felt that it was necessary for him to be economical,
+to save every dollar that he could, because in this way he could
+increase the fund that was finally to bless mankind. He also felt that
+in this way he could lay the foundations of a permanent fame--that
+he could build, through his executors, an asylum to be called the "B.
+Asylum," that he could fill a building with books to be called the
+"B. Library," and that he could also build and endow an institution of
+learning to be called the "B. College," and that, in addition, a
+large amount of money could be given for the purpose of civilizing the
+citizens of less fortunate countries, to the end that they might become
+imbued with that spirit of combination and manufacture that results in
+putting large fortunes in the hands of those who have been selected by
+Providence, on account of their talents, to make a better distribution
+of wealth than those who earned it could have done.
+
+Mr. B. spent many thousands of dollars to procure such legislation as
+would protect him from foreign competition. He did not believe the law
+of supply and demand would work when interfered with by manufacturers
+living in other countries.
+
+Mr. B., like Mr. A., was a man of judgment. He had what is called a
+level head, was not easily turned aside from his purpose, and felt that
+he was in accord with the general sentiment of his time. By his own
+exertions he rose from poverty to wealth. He was born in a hut and died
+in a palace. He was a patron of art and enriched his walls with the
+works of the masters. He insisted that others could and should follow
+his example. For those who failed or refused he had no sympathy. He
+accounted for their poverty and wretchedness by saying: "These paupers
+have only themselves to blame." He died without ever having lost a
+dollar. His funeral was magnificent, and clergymen vied with each other
+in laudations of the dead. Over his dust rises a monument of marble with
+the words:
+
+HE LIVED FOR OTHERS.
+
+
+III
+
+     "But there are men who steal, and vainly try
+     To gild the crime with pompous charity."
+
+There was another man, Mr. C., who also had the genius for combination.
+He understood the value of capital, the value of labor; knew exactly
+how much could be done with machinery; understood the economy of things;
+knew how to do everything in the easiest and shortest way. And he, too,
+was a manufacturer and had in his employ many thousands of men, women,
+and children. He was what is called a visionary, a sentimentalist,
+rather weak in his will, not very obstinate, had but little egotism; and
+it never occurred to him that he had been selected by Providence, or any
+supernatural power, to divide the property of others. It did not seem
+to him that he had any right to take from other men their labor without
+giving them a full equivalent. He felt that if he had more intelligence
+than his fellow-men he ought to use that intelligence not only for his
+own good but for theirs; that he certainly ought not to use it for the
+purpose of gaining an advantage over those who were his intellectual
+inferiors. He used to say that a man strong intellectually had no more
+right to take advantage of a man weak intellectually than the physically
+strong had to rob the physically weak.
+
+He also insisted that we should not take advantage of each other's
+necessities; that you should not ask a drowning man a greater price for
+lumber than you would if he stood on the shore; that if you took into
+consideration the necessities of your fellow-man, it should be only to
+lessen the price of that which you would sell to him, not to increase
+it. He insisted that honest men do not take advantage of their fellows.
+He was so weak that he had not perfect confidence in the great law
+of supply and demand as applied to flesh and blood. He took into
+consideration another law of supply and demand; he knew that the
+workingman had to be supplied with food, and that his nature demanded
+something to eat, a house to live in, clothes to wear.
+
+Mr. C. used to think about this law of supply and demand as applicable
+to individuals. He found that men would work for exceedingly small wages
+when pressed for the necessaries of life; that under some circumstances
+they would give their labor for half of what it was worth to the
+employer, because they were in a position where they must do something
+for wife or child. He concluded that he had no right to take advantage
+of the necessities of others, and that he should in the first place
+honestly find what the work was worth to him, and then give to the man
+who did the work that amount.
+
+Other manufacturers regarded Mr. C. as substantially insane, while
+most of his workmen looked upon him as an exceedingly good-natured
+man, without any particular genius for business. Mr. C., however,
+cared little about the opinions of others, so long as he maintained his
+respect for himself.
+
+At the end of the first year he found that he had made a large profit,
+and thereupon he divided this profit with the people who had earned
+it. Some of his friends said to him that he ought to endow some public
+institution; that there should be a college in his native town; but Mr.
+C. was of such a peculiar turn of mind that he thought justice ought
+to go before charity, and a little in front of egotism, and a desire
+to immortalize one's self. He said that it seemed to him that of all
+persons in the world entitled to this profit were the men who had earned
+it, the men who had made it by their labor, by days of actual toil. He
+insisted that, as they had earned it, it was really theirs, and if it
+was theirs, they should have it and should spend it in their own way.
+Mr. C. was told that he would make the workmen in other factories
+dissatisfied, that other manufacturers would become his enemies, and
+that his course would scandalize some of the greatest men who had
+done so much for the civilization of the world and for the spread of
+intelligence. Mr. C. became extremely unpopular with men of talent, with
+those who had a genius for business. He, however, pursued his way, and
+carried on his business with the idea that the men who did the work were
+entitled to a fair share of the profits; that, after all, money was not
+as sacred as men, and that the law of supply and demand, as understood,
+did not apply to flesh and blood.
+
+Mr. C. said: "I cannot be happy if those who work for me are defrauded.
+If I feel I am taking what belongs to them, then my life becomes
+miserable. To feel that I have done justice is one of the necessities of
+my nature. I do not wish to establish colleges. I wish to establish
+no public institution. My desire is to enable those who work for me to
+establish a few thousand homes for themselves. My ambition is to
+enable them to buy the books they really want to read. I do not wish to
+establish a hospital, but I want to make it possible for my workmen
+to have the services of the best physicians--physicians of their own
+choice.
+
+"It is not for me to take their money and use it for the good of others
+or for my own glory. It is for me to give what they have earned to them.
+After I have given them the money that belongs to them, I can give them
+my advice--I can tell them how I hope they will use it; and after I have
+advised them, they will use it as they please. You cannot make great
+men and great women by suppression. Slavery is not the school in
+which genius is born. Every human being must make his own mistakes for
+himself, must learn for himself, must have his own experience; and if
+the world improves, it must be from choice, not from force; and every
+man who does justice, who sets the example of fair dealing, hastens the
+coming of universal honesty, of universal civilization."
+
+Mr. C. carried his doctrine out to the fullest extent, honestly and
+faithfully. When he died, there were at the funeral those who had worked
+for him, their wives and their children. Their tears fell upon his
+grave. They planted flowers and paid to him the tribute of their love.
+Above his silent dust they erected a monument with this inscription:
+
+HE ALLOWED OTHERS TO LIVE FOR THEMSELVES.
+
+North American Review, December, 1831.
+
+
+
+
+SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?
+
+
+THE average American, like the average man of any country, has but
+little imagination. People who speak a different language, or worship
+some other god, or wear clothing unlike his own, are beyond the horizon
+of his sympathy. He cares but little or nothing for the sufferings or
+misfortunes of those who are of a different complexion or of another
+race. His imagination is not powerful enough to recognize the human
+being, in spite of peculiarities. Instead of this he looks upon every
+difference as an evidence of inferiority, and for the inferior he has
+but little if any feeling. If these "inferior people" claim equal
+rights he feels insulted, and for the purpose of establishing his own
+superiority tramples on the rights of the so-called inferior.
+
+In our own country the native has always considered himself as much
+better than the immigrant, and as far superior to all people of a
+different complexion. At one time our people hated the Irish, then the
+Germans, then the Italians, and now the Chinese. The Irish and Germans,
+however, became numerous. They became citizens, and, most important of
+all, they had votes. They combined, became powerful, and the political
+parties sought their aid. They had something to give in exchange for
+protection--in exchange for political rights. In consequence of this
+they were flattered by candidates, praised by the political press, and
+became powerful enough not only to protect themselves, but at last to
+govern the principal cities in the United States. As a matter of fact
+the Irish and the Germans drove the native Americans out of the trades
+and from the lower forms of labor. They built the railways and canals.
+They became servants. Afterward the Irish and the Germans were driven
+from the canals and railways by the Italians.
+
+The Irish and Germans improved their condition. They went into other
+businesses, into the higher and more lucrative trades. They entered
+the professions, turned their attention to politics, became merchants,
+brokers, and professors in colleges. They are not now building railroads
+or digging on public works. They are contractors, legislators, holders
+of office, and the Italians and Chinese are doing the old work.
+
+If matters had been allowed to work in a natural way, without the
+interference of mobs or legislators, the Chinese would have driven the
+Italians to better employments, and all menial labor would, in time, be
+done by the Mongolians.
+
+In olden times each nation hated all others. This was considered natural
+and patriotic. Spain, after many centuries of war, expelled the Moors,
+then the Moriscoes, and then the Jews. And Spain, in the name of
+religion and patriotism, succeeded in driving from its territory its
+industry, its taste and its intelligence, and by these mistakes became
+poor, ignorant and weak. France started on the same path when the
+Huguenots were expelled, and even England at one time deported the Jews.
+In those days a difference of race or religion was sufficient to justify
+any absurdity and any cruelty.
+
+In our country, as a matter of fact, there is but little prejudice
+against emigrants coming from Europe, except among naturalized citizens;
+but nearly all foreign-born citizens are united in their prejudice
+against the Chinese.
+
+The truth is that the Chinese came to this country by invitation. Under
+the Burlingame Treaty, China and the United States recognized:
+
+"The inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and
+allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of free migration and
+emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from one country
+to the other for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent
+residents."
+
+And it was provided:
+
+"That the citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China
+and Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States should
+reciprocally enjoy the same privileges, immunities and exemptions, in
+respect to travel or residence, as shall be enjoyed by the citizens or
+subjects of the most favored nation, in the country in which they shall
+respectively be visiting or residing."
+
+So, by the treaty of 1880, providing for the limitation or suspension of
+emigration of Chinese labor, it was declared:
+
+"That the limitation or suspension should apply only to Chinese who
+emigrated to the United States as laborers; but that Chinese laborers
+who were then in the United States should be allowed to go and come of
+their own free will and should be accorded all the rights, privileges,
+immunities and exemptions, which were accorded to the citizens and
+subjects of the most favored nations."
+
+It will thus be seen that all Chinese laborers who came to this country
+prior to the treaty of 1880 were to be treated the same as the citizens
+and subjects of the most favored nation; that is to say, they were to be
+protected by our laws the same as we protect our own citizens.
+
+These Chinese laborers are inoffensive, peaceable and law-abiding.
+They are honest, keeping their contracts, doing as they agree. They
+are exceedingly industrious, always ready to work and always giving
+satisfaction to their employers. They do not interfere with other
+people. They cannot become citizens. They have no voice in the making or
+the execution of the laws. They attend to their own business. They have
+their own ideas, customs, religion and ceremonies--about as foolish as
+our own; but they do not try to make converts or to force their dogmas
+on others. They are patient, uncomplaining, stoical and philosophical.
+They earn what they can, giving reasonable value for the money they
+receive, and as a rule, when they have amassed a few thousand dollars,
+they go back to their own country. They do not interfere with our
+ideas, our ways or customs. They are silent workers, toiling without any
+object, except to do their work and get their pay. They do not establish
+saloons and run for Congress. Neither do they combine for the purpose
+of governing others. Of all the people on our soil they are the least
+meddlesome. Some of them smoke opium, but the opium-smoker does not beat
+his wife. Some of them play games of chance, but they are not members of
+the Stock Exchange. They eat the bread that they earn; they neither beg
+nor steal, but they are of no use to parties or politicians except as
+they become fuel to supply the flame of prejudice. They are not citizens
+and they cannot vote. Their employers are about the only friends they
+have.
+
+In the Pacific States the lowest became their enemies and asked for
+their expulsion. They denounced the Chinese and those who gave
+them work. The patient followers of Confucius were treated as
+outcasts--stoned by boys in the streets and mobbed by the fathers. Few
+seemed to have any respect for their rights or their feelings. They were
+unlike us. They wore different clothes. They dressed their hair in
+a peculiar way, and therefore they were beyond our sympathies. These
+ideas, these practices, demoralized many communities; the laboring
+people became cruel and the small politicians infamous.
+
+When the rights of even one human being are held in contempt the rights
+of all are in danger. We cannot destroy the liberties of others without
+losing our own. By exciting the prejudices of the ignorant we at last
+produce a contempt for law and justice, and sow the seeds of violence
+and crime.
+
+Both of the great political parties pandered to the leaders of the
+crusade against the Chinese for the sake of electoral votes, and in the
+Pacific States the friends of the Chinese were forced to keep still
+or to publicly speak contrary to their convictions. The orators of
+the "Sand Lots" were in power, and the policy of the whole country was
+dictated by the most ignorant and prejudiced of our citizens. Both
+of the great parties ratified the outrages committed by the mobs, and
+proceeded with alacrity to violate the treaties and solemn obligations
+of the Government. These treaties were violated, these obligations were
+denied, and thousands of Chinamen were deprived of their rights, of
+their property, and hundreds were maimed or murdered. They were driven
+from their homes. They were hunted like wild beasts. All this was done
+in a country that sends missionaries to China to tell the benighted
+savages of the blessed religion of the United States.
+
+At first a demand was made that the Chinese should be driven out, then
+that no others should be allowed to come, and laws with these objects in
+view were passed, in spite of the treaties, preventing the coming of any
+more. For a time that satisfied the haters of the Mongolian. Then came
+a demand for more stringent legislation, so that many of the Chinese
+already here could be compelled to leave. The answer or response to this
+demand is what is known as the Geary Law.
+
+By this act it is provided, among other things, that any Chinaman
+convicted of not being lawfully in the country shall be removed to
+China, after having been imprisoned at hard labor for not exceeding one
+year. This law also does away with bail on _habeas corpus_, proceedings
+where the right to land has been denied to a Chinaman. It also compels
+all Chinese laborers to obtain, within one year after the passage of the
+law, certificates of residence from the revenue collectors, and if found
+without such certificate they shall be held to be unlawfully in the
+United States.
+
+It is further provided that if a Chinaman claims that he failed to get
+such certificate by "accident, sickness or other unavoidable cause,"
+then he must clearly establish such claim to the satisfaction of the
+judge "by at least one credible white witness."
+
+If we were at war with China then we might legally consider every
+Chinaman as an enemy, but we were and are at peace with that country.
+The Geary Act was passed by Congress and signed by the President simply
+for the sake of votes. The Democrats in Congress voted for it to save
+the Pacific States to the Democratic column; and a Republican President
+signed it so that the Pacific States should vote the Republican ticket.
+Principle was forgotten, or rather it was sacrificed, in the hope of
+political success. It was then known, as now, that China is a peaceful
+nation, that it does not believe in war as a remedy, that it relies
+on negotiation and treaty. It is also known that the Chinese in
+this country were helpless, without friends, without power to defend
+themselves. It is possible that many members of Congress voted in
+favor of the Act believing that the Supreme Court would hold it
+unconstitutional, and that in the meantime it might be politically
+useful.
+
+The idea of imprisoning a man at hard labor for a year, and this man
+a citizen of a friendly nation, for the crime of being found in this
+country without a certificate of residence, must be abhorrent to the
+mind of every enlightened man. Such punishment for such an "offence" is
+barbarous and belongs to the earliest times of which we know. This law
+makes industry a crime and puts one who works for his bread on a level
+with thieves and the lowest criminals, treats him as a felon, and
+clothes him in the stripes of a convict,--and all this is done at the
+demand of the ignorant, of the prejudiced, of the heartless, and because
+the Chinese are not voters and have no political power.
+
+The Chinese are not driven away because there is no room for them. Our
+country is not crowded. There are many millions of acres waiting for
+the plow. There is plenty of room here under our flag for five hundred
+millions of people. These Chinese that we wish to oppress and imprison
+are people who understand the art of irrigation. They can redeem the
+deserts. They are the best of gardeners. They are modest and willing to
+occupy the lowest seats. They only ask to be day-laborers, washers and
+ironers. They are willing to sweep and scrub. They are good cooks. They
+can clear lands and build railroads. They do not ask to be masters--they
+wish only to serve. In every capacity they are faithful; but in this
+country their virtues have made enemies, and they are hated because of
+their patience, their honesty and their industry.
+
+The Geary Law, however, failed to provide the ways and means for
+carrying it into effect, so that the probability is it will remain a
+dead letter upon the statute book. The sum of money required to carry it
+out is too large, and the law fails to create the machinery and name the
+persons authorized to deport the Chinese. Neither is there any mode of
+trial pointed out. According to the law there need be no indictment by
+a grand jury, no trial by a jury, and the person found guilty of being
+here without a certificate of residence can be imprisoned and treated as
+a felon without the ordinary forms of trial.
+
+This law is contrary to the laws and customs of nations. The punishment
+is unusual, severe, and contrary to our Constitution, and under its
+provisions aliens--citizens of a friendly nation--can be imprisoned
+without due process of law. The law is barbarous, contrary to the spirit
+and genius of American institutions, and was passed in violation of
+solemn treaty stipulations.
+
+The Congress-that passed it is the same that closed the gates of the
+World's Fair on the "blessed Sabbath," thinking it wicked to look at
+statues and pictures on that day. These representatives of the people
+seem to have had more piety than principle.
+
+After the passage of such a law by the United States is it not indecent
+for us to send missionaries to China? Is there not work enough for them
+at home? We send ministers to China to convert the heathen; but when we
+find a Chinaman on our soil, where he can be saved by our example, we
+treat him as a criminal.
+
+It is to the interest of this country to maintain friendly relations
+with China. We want the trade of nearly one-fourth of the human race.
+We want to pay for all we get from that country in articles of our
+own manufacture. We lost the trade of Mexico and the South American
+Republics because of slavery, because we hated people in whose veins was
+found a drop of African blood, and now we are losing the trade of China
+by pandering to the prejudices of the ignorant and cruel.
+
+After all, it pays to do right. This is a hard truth to
+learn--especially for a nation. A great nation should be bound by the
+highest conception of justice and honor. Above all things it should be
+true to its treaties, its contracts, its obligations. It should
+remember that its responsibilities are in accordance with its power and
+intelligence.
+
+Our Government is founded on the equality of human rights--on the idea,
+the sacred truth, that all are entitled to life, liberty and the
+pursuit of happiness. Our country is an asylum for the oppressed of
+all nations--of all races. Here, the Government gets its power from
+the consent of the governed. After the abolition of slavery these
+great truths were not only admitted, but they found expression in our
+Constitution and laws.
+
+Shall we now go back to barbarism?
+
+Russia is earning the hatred of the civilized world by driving the Jews
+from their homes. But what can the United States say? Our mouths are
+closed by the Geary Law. We are in the same business. Our law is as
+inhuman as the order or ukase of the Czar.
+
+Let us retrace our steps, repeal the law and accomplish what we justly
+desire by civilized means. Let us treat China as we would England; and,
+above all, let us respect the rights of men,--North American Review,
+July, 1893.
+
+
+
+
+A WORD ABOUT EDUCATION.
+
+THE end of life--the object of life--is happiness. Nothing can be better
+than that--nothing higher. In order to be really happy, man must be in
+harmony with his surroundings, with the conditions of well-being. In
+order to know these surroundings, he must be educated, and education is
+of value only as it contributes to the wellbeing of man, and only
+that is education which increases the power of man to gratify his real
+wants--wants of body and of mind.
+
+The educated man knows the necessity of finding out the facts in nature,
+the relations between himself and his fellow-men, between himself and
+the world, to the end that he may take advantage of these facts and
+relations for the benefit of himself and others. He knows that a man may
+understand Latin and Greek, Hebrew and Sanscrit, and be as ignorant of
+the great facts and forces in nature as a native of Central Africa.
+
+The educated man knows something that he can use, not only for the
+benefit of himself, but for the benefit of others. Every skilled
+mechanic, every good farmer, every man who knows some of the real
+facts in nature that touch him, is to that extent an educated man. The
+skilled mechanic and the intelligent farmer may not be what we call
+"scholars," and what we call scholars may not be educated men.
+
+Man is in constant need. He must protect himself from cold and heat,
+from sun and storm. He needs food and raiment for the body, and he needs
+what we call art for the development and gratification of his brain.
+Beginning with what are called the necessaries of life, he rises to
+what are known as the luxuries, and the luxuries become necessaries, and
+above luxuries he rises to the highest wants of the soul.
+
+The man who is fitted to take care of himself, in the conditions he may
+be placed, is, in a very important sense, an educated man. The savage
+who understands the habits of animals, who is a good hunter and fisher,
+is a man of education, taking into consideration his circumstances. The
+graduate of a university who cannot take care of himself--no matter how
+much he may have studied--is not an educated man.
+
+In our time, an educated man, whether a mechanic, a farmer, or one who
+follows a profession, should know something about what the world has
+discovered. He should have an idea of the outlines of the sciences. He
+should have read a little, at least, of the best that has been written.
+He should know something of mechanics, a little about politics,
+commerce, and metaphysics; and in addition to all this, he should know
+how to make something. His hands should be educated, so that he can, if
+necessary, supply his own wants by supplying the wants of others.
+
+There are mental misers--men who gather learning all their lives and
+keep it to themselves. They are worse than hoarders of gold, because
+when they die their learning dies with them, while the metal miser is
+compelled to leave his gold for others.
+
+The first duty of man is to support himself--to see to it that he
+does not become a burden. His next duty is to help others if he has a
+surplus, and if he really believes they deserve to be helped.
+
+It is not necessary to have what is called a university education in
+order to be useful or to be happy, any more than it is necessary to be
+rich, to be happy. Great wealth is a great burden, and to have more than
+you can use, is to care for more than you want. The happiest are those
+who are prosperous, and who by reasonable endeavor can supply their
+reasonable wants and have a little surplus year by year for the winter
+of their lives.
+
+So, it is no use to learn thousands and thousands of useless facts, or
+to fill the brain with unspoken tongues. This is burdening yourself with
+more than you can use. The best way is to learn the useful.
+
+We all know that men in moderate circumstances cau have just as
+comfortable houses as the richest, just as comfortable clothing, just
+as good food. They can see just as fine paintings, just as marvelous
+statues, and they can hear just as good music. They can attend the same
+theatres and the same operas. They can enjoy the same sunshine, and
+above all, can love and be loved just as well as kings and millionaires.
+
+So the conclusion of the whole matter is, that he is educated who knows
+how to take care of himself; and that the happy man is the successful
+man, and that it is only a burden to have more than you want, or to
+learn those things that you cannot use.--The High School Register,
+Omaha, Nebraska, January. 1891.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.
+
+IF I had the power to produce exactly what I want for next Christmas,
+I would have all the kings and emperors resign and allow the people to
+govern themselves.
+
+I would have all the nobility drop their titles and give their lands
+back to the people. I would have the Pope throw away his tiara, take off
+his sacred vestments, and admit that he is not acting for God--is
+not infallible--but is just an ordinary Italian. I would have all the
+cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and clergymen admit that they
+know nothing about theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about
+the destiny of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods
+or angels. I would have them tell all their "flocks" to think for
+themselves, to be manly men and womanly women, and to do all in their
+power to increase the sum of human happiness.
+
+I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools
+of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would
+teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as
+demonstrated truths.
+
+I would like to see all the politicians changed to statesmen,--to men
+who long to make their country great and free,--to men who care more for
+public good than private gain--men who long to be of use.
+
+I would like to see all the editors of papers and magazines agree to
+print the truth and nothing but the truth, to avoid all slander and
+misrepresentation, and to let the private affairs of the people alone.
+
+I would like to see drunkenness and prohibition both abolished.
+
+I would like to see corporal punishment done away with in every home, in
+every school, in every asylum, reformatory, and prison. Cruelty hardens
+and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.
+
+I would like to see the millionaires unite and form a trust for the
+public good.
+
+I would like to see a fair division of profits between capital and
+labor, so that the toiler could save enough to mingle a little June with
+the December of his life.
+
+I would like to see an international court established in which to
+settle disputes between nations, so that armies could be disbanded and
+the great navies allowed to rust and rot in perfect peace.
+
+I would like to see the whole world free--free from injustice--free from
+superstition.
+
+This will do for next Christmas. The following Christmas, I may want
+more.--The Arena, Boston, December, 1897.
+
+
+
+
+FOOL FRIENDS.
+
+NOTHING hurts a man, nothing hurts a party so terribly as fool friends.
+
+A fool friend is the sewer of bad news, of slander and all base and
+unpleasant things.
+
+A fool friend always knows every mean thing that has been said against
+you and against the party.
+
+He always knows where your party is losing, and the other is making
+large gains.
+
+He always tells you of the good luck your enemy has had.
+
+He implicitly believes every story against you, and kindly suspects your
+defence.
+
+A fool friend is always full of a kind of stupid candor.
+
+He is so candid that he always believes the statement of an enemy.
+
+He never suspects anything on your side.
+
+Nothing pleases him like being shocked by horrible news concerning some
+good man.
+
+He never denies a lie unless it is in your favor.
+
+He is always finding fault with his party, and is continually begging
+pardon for not belonging to the other side.
+
+He is frightfully anxious that all his candidates should stand well with
+the opposition.
+
+He is forever seeing the faults of his party and the virtues of the
+other.
+
+He generally shows his candor by scratching the ticket.
+
+He always searches every nook and comer of his conscience to find a
+reason for deserting a friend or a principle.
+
+In the moment of victory he is magnanimously on your side.
+
+In defeat he consoles you by repeating prophecies made after the event.
+
+The fool friend regards your reputation as common prey for all the
+vultures, hyenas and jackals.
+
+He takes a sad pleasure in your misfortunes.
+
+He forgets his principles to gratify your enemies.
+
+He forgives your maligner, and slanders you with all his heart.
+
+He is so friendly that you cannot kick him.
+
+He generally talks for you but always bets the other way.
+
+
+
+
+INSPIRATION
+
+WE are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of God.
+What is meant by the word "inspired" is not exactly known; but whatever
+else it may mean, certainly it means that the "inspired" must be the
+true. If it is true, there is in fact no need of its being inspired--the
+truth will take care of itself.
+
+The church is forced to say that the Bible differs from all other books;
+it is forced to say that it contains the actual will of God. Let us then
+see what inspiration really is. A man looks at the sea, and the sea
+says something to him. It makes an impression upon his mind. It awakens
+memory, and this impression depends upon the man's experience--upon
+his intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a
+different brain; he has had a different experience. The sea may speak
+to him of joy; to the other of grief and tears. The sea cannot tell the
+same thing to any two human beings, because no two human beings have had
+the same experience.
+
+Another, standing upon the shore, listening to what the great Greek
+tragedian called "The multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: Every
+drop has visited all the shores of the earth; every one has been frozen
+in the vast and icy North; every one has fallen in snow, has been
+whirled by storms around mountain peaks; every one has been kissed to
+vapor by the sun; every one has worn the seven-hued garment of light;
+every one has fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs and laughed
+in brooks while lovers wooed upon the banks, and every one has rushed
+with mighty rivers back to the sea's embrace. Everything in Nature tells
+a different story to all eyes that see, and to all ears that hear.
+
+Once in my life, and once only, I heard Horace Greeley deliver a
+lecture. I think the title was "Across the Continent." At last he
+reached the mammoth trees of California, and I thought, "Here is an
+opportunity for the old man to indulge his fancy. Here are trees that
+have outlived a thousand human governments. There are limbs above his
+head older than the pyramids. While man was emerging from barbarism
+to something like civilization, these trees were growing. Older than
+history, every one appeared to be a memory, a witness, and a prophecy.
+The same wind that filled the sails of the Argonauts had swayed these
+trees." But these trees said nothing of this kind to Mr. Greeley. Upon
+these subjects not a word was told him. Instead, he took his pencil, and
+after figuring awhile, remarked: "One of these trees, sawed into inch
+boards, would make more than three hundred thousand feet of lumber."
+
+I was once riding in the cars in Illinois. There had been a violent
+thunder storm. The rain had ceased, the sun was going down. The
+great clouds had floated toward the west, and there they assumed most
+wonderful architectural shapes. There were temples and palaces domed
+and turreted, and they were touched with silver, with amethyst and gold.
+They looked like the homes of the Titans, or the palaces of the gods.
+A man was sitting near me. I touched him and said, "Did you ever see
+anything so beautiful?" He looked out. He saw nothing of the cloud,
+nothing of the sun, nothing of the color; he saw only the country, and
+replied, "Yes, it is beautiful; I always did like rolling land."
+
+On another occasion I was riding in a stage. There had been a snow, and
+after the snow a sleet, and all the trees were bent, and all the boughs
+were arched. Every fence, every log cabin, had been transfigured,
+touched with a glory almost beyond this world. The great fields were a
+pure and perfect white; the forests, drooping beneath their load of gems,
+made wonderful caves, from which one almost expected to see troops of
+fairies come. The whole world looked like a bride, jeweled from head to
+foot. A German on the back seat, hearing our talk, and our exclamations
+of wonder, leaned forward, looked out of the stage window, and said,
+"Y-a-a-s; it looks like a clean table cloth!"
+
+So, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a
+violet, the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we
+have thought, the more we remember,--the more the statue, the star,
+the painting, the violet, has to tell. Nature says to me all that I am
+capable of understanding--gives all that I can receive.
+
+As with star or flower or sea, so with a book. A man reads Shakespeare.
+What does he get from him? All that he has the mind to understand. He
+gets his little cup full. Let another read him who knows nothing of the
+drama, nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get?
+Almost nothing. Shakespeare has a different story for each reader. He
+is a world in which each recognizes his acquaintances--he may know a
+few--he may know all.
+
+The impression that Nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea
+and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. Leaving out
+for the moment the impression gained from ancestors, the hereditary
+fears and drifts and trends--the natural food of thought must be the
+impression made upon the brain by coming in contact, through the medium
+of the five senses, with what we call the outward world. The brain is
+natural. Its food is natural. The result--thought--must be natural. The
+supernatural can be constructed with no material except the natural. Of
+the supernatural we can have no conception.
+
+"Thought" may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and
+denominated as unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural.
+It may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. Above
+the natural, man cannot rise. There can be deformed ideas, as there are
+deformed persons. There can be religious monstrosities and misshapen,
+but they must be naturally produced. Some people have ideas about
+what they are pleased to call the supernatural; what they call the
+supernatural is simply the deformed. The world is to each man according
+to each man. It takes the world as it really is, and that man to make
+that man's world, and that man's world cannot exist without that man.
+
+You may ask, and what of all this? I reply: As with everything in
+Nature, so with the Bible. It has a different story for each reader. Is
+then, the Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It
+is. Can God, then, through the Bible, make the same revelation to two
+persons? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads it is the man who
+inspires. Inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. God should
+have "inspired" readers as well as writers.
+
+You may reply, God knew that his book would be understood differently
+by each one; really intended that it should be understood as it is
+understood by each. If this is so, then my understanding of the Bible
+is the real revelation to me. If this is so, I have no right to take the
+understanding of another. I must take the revelation made to me through
+my understanding, and by that revelation I must stand. Suppose, then,
+that I do read this Bible honestly, carefully, and when I get through I
+am compelled to say, "The book is not true!"
+
+If this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that
+God has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not
+true is the revelation made to me, and by which I am bound. If the book
+and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault
+is it that the book and the brain do not agree? Either God should have
+written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his
+book.
+
+The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of him who
+reads.--The Truth Seeker Annual, New York, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.
+
+THOUSANDS of Christians have asked: How was it possible for Christ and
+his apostles to deceive the people of Jerusalem? How came the miracles
+to be believed? Who had the impudence to say that lepers had been
+cleansed, and that the dead had been raised? How could such impostors
+have escaped exposure?
+
+I ask: How did Mohammed deceive the people of Mecca? How has the
+Catholic Church imposed upon millions of people? Who can account for the
+success of falsehood?
+
+Millions of people are directly interested in the false. They live by
+lying. To deceive is the business of their lives. Truth is a cripple;
+lies have wings. It is almost impossible to overtake and kill and bury
+a lie. If you do, some one will erect a monument over the grave, and the
+lie is born again as an epitaph. Let me give you a case in point.
+
+A few days ago the Matlock _Register_, a paper published in England,
+printed the following:
+
+CONVERSION OF THE ARCH ATHEIST.
+
+"Mr. Isaac Loveland, of Shoreham, desires us to insert the following:--
+
+"November 27, 1886.
+
+"Dear Mr. Loveland.--A day or two since, I received from Mr.
+Hine the exhilarating intelligence that through his lectures on the
+'Identity of the British Nation with Lost Israel,' in Canada and the
+United States, that Col. Bob Ingersoll, the arch Atheist, has been
+converted to Christianity, and has joined the Episcopal Church. Praise
+the Lord!!! 5,000 of his followers _have been won for Christ_ through
+Mr. Hine's grand mission work, the other side of the Atlantic. The
+Colonel's cousin, the Rev. Mr. Ingersoll, wrote to Mr. Hine soon after
+he began lecturing in America, informing him that his lectures had made
+a great impression on the Colonel and other Atheists. I noted it at the
+time in the Messenger. Bradlaugh will yet be converted; his brother has
+been, and has joined a British Israel Identity Association. This is
+progress, and shows what an energetic, determined man (like Mr. Hine),
+who is earnest in his faith, can do.
+
+"Very faithfully yours,
+
+"H. HODSON RUGG.
+
+"Grove-road, St. John's Wood, London."
+
+How can we account for an article like that? Who made up this story? Who
+had the impudence to publish it?
+
+As a matter of fact, I never saw Mr. Hine, never heard of him until this
+extract was received by me in the month of December. I never read a word
+about the "Identity of Lost Israel with the British Nation." It is a
+question in which I never had, and never expect to have, the slightest
+possible interest.
+
+Nothing can be more preposterous than that the Englishman in whose veins
+can be found the blood of the Saxon, the Dane, the Norman, the Piet, the
+Scot and the Celt, is the descendant of "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." The
+English language does not bear the remotest resemblance to the Hebrew,
+and yet it is claimed by the Reverend Hod-son Rugg that not only myself,
+but five thousand other Atheists, were converted by the Rev. Mr. Hine,
+because of his theory that Englishmen and Americans are simply Jews in
+disguise.
+
+This letter, in my judgment, was published to be used by missionaries in
+China, Japan, India and Africa.
+
+If stories like this can be circulated about a living man, what may we
+not expect concerning the dead who have opposed the church?
+
+Countless falsehoods have been circulated about all the opponents of
+superstition. Whoever attacks the popular falsehoods of his time will
+find that a lie defends itself by telling other lies. Nothing is so
+prolific, nothing can so multiply itself, nothing can lay and hatch as
+many eggs, as a good, healthy, religious lie.
+
+And nothing is more wonderful than the credulity of the believers in the
+supernatural. They feel under a kind of obligation to believe everything
+in favor of their religion, or against any form of what they are pleased
+to call "Infidelity."
+
+The old falsehoods about Voltaire, Paine, Hume, Julian, Diderot and
+hundreds of others, grow green every spring. They are answered; they
+are demonstrated to be without the slightest foundation; but they
+rarely die. And when one does die there seems to be a kind of Cæsarian
+operation, so that in each instance although the mother dies the child
+lives to undergo, if necessary, a like operation, leaving another child,
+and sometimes two.
+
+There are thousands and thousands of tongues ready to repeat what the
+owners know to be false, and these lies are a part of the stock in
+trade, the valuable assets, of superstition. No church can afford to
+throw its property away. To admit that these stories are false now, is
+to admit that the church has been busy lying for hundreds of years, and
+it is also to admit that the word of the church is not and cannot be
+taken as evidence of any fact.
+
+A few years ago, I had a little controversy with the editor of the New
+York _Observer_, the Rev. Irenaeus Prime, (who is now supposed to be
+in heaven enjoying the bliss of seeing Infidels in hell), as to whether
+Thomas Paine recanted his religious opinions. I offered to deposit a
+thousand dollars for the benefit of a charity, if the reverend doctor
+would substantiate the charge that Paine recanted. I forced the New York
+_Observer_ to admit that Paine did not recant, and compelled that paper
+to say that "Thomas Paine died a blaspheming Infidel."
+
+A few months afterward an English paper was sent to me--a religious
+paper--and in that paper was a statement to the effect that the editor
+of the New York _Observer_ had claimed that Paine recanted; that I had
+offered to give a thousand dollars to any charity that Mr. Prime might
+select, if he would establish the fact that Paine did recant; and that
+so overwhelming was the testimony brought forward by Mr. Prime, that I
+admitted that Paine did recant, and paid the thousand dollars.
+
+This is another instance of what might be called the truth of history.
+
+I wrote to the editor of that paper, telling the exact facts, and
+offering him advertising rates to publish the denial, and in addition,
+stated that if he would send me a copy of his paper with the denial, I
+would send him twenty-five dollars for his trouble. I received no reply,
+and the lie is in all probability still on its travels, going from
+Sunday school to Sunday school, from pulpit to pulpit, from hypocrite
+to savage,--that is to say, from missionary to Hottentot--without the
+slightest evidence of fatigue--fresh and strong, and in its cheeks the
+roses and lilies of perfect health.
+
+Some person, expecting to add another gem to his crown of glory, put
+in circulation the story that one of my daughters had joined the
+Presbyterian Church,--a story without the slightest foundation--and
+although denied a hundred times, it is still being printed and
+circulated for the edification of the faithful. Every few days I receive
+some letter of inquiry as to this charge, and I have industriously
+denied it for years, but up to the present time, it shows no signs of
+death--not even of weakness.
+
+Another religious gentleman put in print the charge that my son, having
+been raised in the atmosphere of Infidelity, had become insane and died
+in an asylum. Notwithstanding the fact that I never had a son, the story
+still goes right on, and is repeated day after day without the semblance
+of a blush.
+
+Now, if all this is done while I am alive and well, and while I have all
+the facilities of our century for spreading the denials, what will be
+done after my lips are closed?
+
+The mendacity of superstition is almost enough to make a man believe in
+the supernatural.
+
+And so I might go on for a hundred columns. Billions of falsehoods have
+been told and there are trillions yet to come. The doctrines of Malthus
+have nothing to do with this particular kind of reproduction.
+
+"And there are also many other falsehoods which the church has told, the
+which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world
+itself could not contain the books that should be written."--The Truth
+Seeker, New York, February, 19,1887.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO EDIT A LIBERAL PAPER.
+
+A LIBERAL paper should be edited by a Liberal man.
+
+And by the word Liberal I mean, not only free, not only one who thinks
+for himself, not only one who has escaped from the prisons of customs
+and creed, but one who is candid, intelligent and kind.
+
+This Liberal editor should not forever play upon one string, no matter
+how wonderful the music. He should not have his attention forever fixed
+upon one question--that is to say, he should not look through a reversed
+telescope and narrow his horizon to that degree that he sees only one
+thing.
+
+To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know
+that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and
+cannot exist--all this is but the beginning of wisdom. This only lays
+the foundation for unprejudiced observation. To kill weeds, to fell
+forests, to drive away or exterminate wild beasts--this is preparatory
+to doing something of greater value. Of course the weeds must be killed,
+the forests must be felled, and the beasts must be destroyed before the
+building of homes and the cultivation of fields.
+
+A Liberal paper should not discuss theological questions alone.
+Intelligent people everywhere have given up most of the old
+superstitions. They have pretty well made up their minds what is false,
+and they want to know some others.
+
+That is to say, liberal toward everything that is true. For this reason,
+a Liberal paper should keep abreast of the discoveries of the human
+mind. No science should be neglected; no fact should be overlooked.
+Inventions should be described and understood. And not only this, but
+the beautiful in thought, in form and color, should be preserved. The
+paper should be filled with things calculated to interest thoughtful,
+intelligent and serious people. There should be a column for children as
+well as for men.
+
+Above all, it should be perfectly kind and candid. In discussion there
+is no place for hatred, no opportunity for slander. A personality
+is always out of place. An angry man can neither reason himself, nor
+perceive the reason of what another says. The orthodox world has always
+dealt in personalities. Every minister can answer the argument of an
+opponent by attacking the character of the opponent. This example should
+never be followed by a Liberal man. Nobody can be bad enough to prove
+that the Bible is uninspired, and nobody can be good enough to prove
+that it is the word of God. These facts have no relation. They neither
+stand nor fall together.
+
+Nothing should be asserted that is not known. Nothing should be denied,
+the falsity of which has not been, or cannot be, demonstrated. Opinions
+are simply given for what they are worth. They are guesses, and one
+guesser should give to another guesser all the right of guessing that he
+claims for himself. Upon the great questions of origin, of destiny, of
+immortality, of punishment and reward in other worlds, every honest man
+must say, "I do not know." Upon these questions, this is the creed of
+intelligence. Nothing is harder to bear than the egotism of ignorance
+and the arrogance of superstition. The man who has some knowledge of
+the difficulties surrounding these subjects, who knows something of the
+limitations of the human mind, must, of necessity, be mentally modest.
+And this condition of mental modesty is the only one consistent with
+individual progress.
+
+Above all, and over all, a Liberal paper should teach the absolute
+freedom of the mind, the utter independence of the individual, the
+perfect liberty of speech. We should remember that the world is as it
+must be; that the present is the necessary offspring of the past; that
+the future must be what the present makes it, and that the real work of
+the reformer, of the philanthropist, is to change the conditions of the
+present, to the end that the future may be better.
+
+Secular Thought, Toronto, January 8,1887.
+
+
+
+
+SECULARISM.
+
+
+SEVERAL people have asked me the meaning of this term.
+
+Secularism is the religion of humanity; it embraces the affairs of this
+world; it is interested in everything that touches the welfare of a
+sentient being; it advocates attention to the particular planet in which
+we happen to live; it means that each individual counts for something;
+it is a declaration of intellectual independence; it means that the pew
+is superior to the pulpit, that those who bear the burdens shall have
+the profits and that they who fill the purse shall hold the strings.
+It is a protest against theological oppression, against ecclesiastical
+tyranny, against being the serf, subject or slave of any phantom, or of
+the priest of any phantom. It is a protest against wasting this life for
+the sake of one that we know not of. It proposes to let the gods take
+care of themselves. It is another name for common sense; that is to say,
+the adaptation of means to such ends as are desired and understood.
+
+Secularism believes in building a home here, in this world. It trusts
+to individual effort, to energy, to intelligence, to observation and
+experience rather than to the unknown and the supernatural. It desires
+to be happy on this side of the grave.
+
+Secularism means food and fireside, roof and raiment, reasonable work
+and reasonable leisure, the cultivation of the tastes, the acquisition
+of knowledge, the enjoyment of the arts, and it promises for the human
+race comfort, independence, intelligence, and above all, liberty. It
+means the abolition of sectarian feuds, of theological hatreds. It means
+the cultivation of friendship and intellectual hospitality. It means
+the living for ourselves and each other; for the present instead of
+the past, for this world rather than for another. It means the right to
+express your thought in spite of popes, priests, and gods. It means that
+impudent idleness shall no longer live upon the labor of honest men.
+It means the destruction of the business of those who trade in fear. It
+proposes to give serenity and content to the human soul. It will put out
+the fires of eternal pain. It is striving to do away with violence and
+vice, with ignorance, poverty and disease. It lives for the ever present
+to-day, and the ever coming to-morrow. It does not believe in praying
+and receiving, but in earning and deserving. It regards work as worship,
+labor as prayer, and wisdom as the savior of mankind. It says to every
+human being, Take care of yourself so that you may be able to help
+others; adorn your life with the gems called good deeds; illumine your
+path with the sunlight called friendship and love.
+
+Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no
+mysteries, no mummeries, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no
+miracles, and no persecutions. It considers the lilies of the field, and
+takes thought for the morrow. It says to the whole world, Work that you
+may eat, drink, and be clothed; work that you may enjoy; work that you
+may not want; work that you may give and never need.--The Independent
+Pulpit, Waco, Texas, 1887.
+
+
+
+
+CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN FARM."
+
+
+IF one wishes to know what orthodox religion really is--I mean that
+religion unsoftened by Infidelity, by doubt--let him read "John Ward,
+Preacher." This book shows exactly what the love of God will do in the
+heart of man. This shows what the effect of the creed of Christendom is,
+when absolutely believed. In this case it is the woman who is free
+and the man who is enslaved. In "Robert Els-mere" the man is breaking
+chains, while the woman prefers the old prison with its ivy-covered
+walls.
+
+Why should a man allow human love to stand between his soul and the
+will of God--between his soul and eternal joy? Why should not the true
+believer tear every blossom of pity, of charity, from his heart, rather
+than put in peril his immortal soul?
+
+An orthodox minister has a wife with a heart. Having a heart she cannot
+believe in the orthodox creed. She thinks God better than he is. She
+flatters the Infinite. This endangers the salvation of her soul. If she
+is upheld in this the souls of others may be lost. Her husband feels not
+only accountable for her soul, but for the souls of others that may
+be injured by what she says, and by what she does. He is compelled to
+choose between his wife and his duty, between the woman and God. He is
+not great enough to go with his heart. He is selfish enough to side with
+the administration, with power. He lives a miserable life and dies a
+miserable death.
+
+The trouble with Christianity is that it has no element of
+compromise--it allows no room for charity so far as belief is concerned.
+Honesty of opinion is not even a mitigating circumstance. You are not
+asked to understand--you are commanded to believe. There is no common
+ground. The church carries no flag of truce. It does not say, Believe
+you must, but, You must believe. No exception can be made in favor of
+wife or mother, husband or child. All human relations, all human love
+must, if necessary, be sacrificed with perfect cheerfulness. "Let the
+dead bury their dead--follow thou me. Desert wife and child. Human love
+is nothing--nothing but a snare. You must love God better than wife,
+better than child." John Ward endeavored to live in accordance with this
+heartless creed.
+
+Nothing can be more repulsive than an orthodox life--than one who lives
+in exact accordance with the creed. It is hard to conceive of a more
+terrible character than John Calvin. It is somewhat difficult to
+understand the Puritans, who made themselves unhappy by way of
+recreation, and who seemed to enjoy themselves when admitting their
+utter worthlessness and in telling God how richly they deserved to be
+eternally damned. They loved to pluck from the tree of life every bud,
+every blossom, every leaf. The bare branches, naked to the wrath of God,
+excited their admiration. They wondered how birds could sing, and the
+existence of the rainbow led them to suspect the seriousness of the
+Deity. How can there be any joy if man believes that he acts and lives
+under an infinite responsibility, when the only business of this life
+is to avoid the horrors of the next? Why should the lips of men feel
+the ripple of laughter if there is a bare possibility that the creed of
+Christendom is true?
+
+I take it for granted that all people believe as they must--that all
+thoughts and dreams have been naturally produced--that what we call the
+unnatural is simply the uncommon. All religions, poems, statues, vices
+and virtues, have been wrought by nature with the instrumentalities
+called men. No one can read "John Ward, Preacher," without hating with
+all his heart the creed of John Ward; and no one can read the creed of
+John Ward, preacher, without pitying with all his heart John Ward; and
+no one can read this book without feeling how much better the wife was
+than the husband--how much better the natural sympathies are than the
+religions of our day, and how much superior common sense is to what is
+called theology.
+
+When we lay down the book we feel like saying: No matter whether God
+exists or not; if he does, he can take care of himself; if he does, he
+does not take care of us; and whether he lives or not we must take care
+of ourselves. Human love is better than any religion. It is better to
+love your wife than to love God. It is better to make a happy home here
+than to sunder hearts with creeds. This book meets the issues far more
+frankly, with far greater candor. This book carries out to its logical
+sequence the Christian creed. It shows how uncomfortable a true believer
+must be, and how uncomfortable he necessarily makes those with whom he
+comes in contact. It shows how narrow, how hard, how unsympathetic,
+how selfish, how unreasonable, how unpoetic, the creed of the orthodox
+church is.
+
+In "Robert Elsmere" there is plenty of evidence of reading and
+cultivation, of thought and talent. So in "John Ward, Preacher," there
+is strength, purpose, logic, power of statement, directness and courage.
+But "The Story of an African Farm" has but little in common with the
+other two.
+
+It is a work apart--belonging to no school, and not to be judged by the
+ordinary rules and canons of criticism. There are some puerilities and
+much philosophy, trivialities and some of the profoundest reflections.
+In addition to this, there is a vast and wonderful sympathy.
+
+The following upon love is beautiful and profound: "There is a love that
+begins in the head and goes down to the heart, and grows slowly, but it
+lasts till death and asks less than it gives. There is another love that
+blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the sweetness of life and bitter
+with the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour; but it is worth
+having lived a whole life for that hour. It is a blood-red flower, with
+the color of sin, but there is always the scent of a god about it."
+
+There is no character in "Robert Elsmere" or in "John Ward, Preacher,"
+comparable for a moment to Lyndall in the "African Farm." In her there
+is a splendid courage. She does not blame others for her own faults;
+she accepts. There is that splendid candor that you find in Juliet in
+"Measure for Measure." She is asked:
+
+"Love you the man that wronged you?"
+
+And she replies:
+
+"Yes; as I love the woman that wronged him."
+
+The death of this wonderful girl is extremely pathetic.
+
+None but an artist could have written it:
+
+"Then slowly, without a sound, the beautiful eyes closed. The dead
+face that the glass reflected was a thing of marvellous beauty and
+tranquillity. The gray dawn crept in over it and saw it lying there."
+
+So the story of the hunter is wonderfully told. This hunter climbs above
+his fellows--day by day getting away from human sympathy, away from
+ignorance. He lost at last his fellow-men, and truth was just as far
+away as ever. Here he found the bones of another hunter, and as he
+looked upon the poor remains the wild faces said:
+
+"So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever.
+He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when
+you are asleep, neither do your hands ache nor your heart."
+
+So the death of Waldo is most wonderfully told. The book is filled with
+thought, and with thoughts of the writer--nothing is borrowed. It is
+original, true and exceedingly sad. It has the pathos of real life.
+There is in it the hunger of the heart, the vast difference between the
+actual and the ideal:
+
+"I like to feel that strange life beating up against me. I like to
+realize forms of life utterly unlike my own. When my own life feels
+small and I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see it in
+a picture, in an instant, a multitude of disconnected, unlike phases of
+human life--a mediaeval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet
+orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit
+trees; little Malay boys playing naked on a shining sea-beach; a Hindoo
+philosopher alone under his banyan tree, thinking, thinking, thinking,
+so that in the thought of God he may lose himself; a troop of
+Bacchanalians dressed in white, with crowns of vine-leaves, dancing
+along the Roman streets; a martyr on the night of his death looking
+through the narrow window to the sky and feeling that already he has the
+wings that shall bear him up; an epicurean discoursing at a Roman
+bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of happiness; a Kafir
+witch-doctor seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on
+the hillside come the sound of dogs barking and the voices of women
+and children; a mother giving bread and milk to her children in little
+wooden basins and singing the evening song. I like to see it all; I
+feel it run through me--that life belongs to me; it makes my little life
+larger, it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in."
+
+The author, Olive Schreiner, has a tropic zone in her heart. She
+sometimes prattles like a child, then suddenly, and without warning, she
+speaks like a philosopher--like one who had guessed the riddle of the
+Sphinx. She, too, is overwhelmed with the injustice of the world--with
+the negligence of nature--and she finds that it is impossible to find
+repose for heart or brain in any Christian creed.
+
+These books show what the people are thinking--the tendency of modern
+thought. Singularly enough the three are written by women. Mrs. Ward,
+the author of "Robert Elsmere," to say the least is not satisfied with
+the Episcopal Church. She feels sure that its creed is not true. At the
+same time, she wants it denied in a respectful tone of voice, and she
+really pities people who are compelled to give up the consolation of
+eternal punishment, although she has thrown it away herself and the
+tendency of her book is to make other people do so. It is what the
+orthodox call "a dangerous book." It is a flank movement calculated
+to suggest a doubt to the unsuspecting reader, to some sheep who has
+strayed beyond the shepherd's voice.
+
+It is hard for any one to read "John Ward, Preacher," without hating
+Puritanism with all his heart and without feeling certain that nothing
+is more heartless than the "scheme of salvation;" and whoever finishes
+"The Story of an African Farm" will feel that he has been brought in
+contact with a very great, passionate and tender soul. Is it possible
+that women, who have been the Caryatides of the church, who have borne
+its insults and its burdens, are to be its destroyers?
+
+Man is a being capable of pleasure and pain. The fact that he can enjoy
+himself--that he can obtain good--gives him courage--courage to defend
+what he has, courage to try to get more. The fact that he can suffer
+pain sows in his mind the seeds of fear. Man is also filled with
+curiosity. He examines. He is astonished by the uncommon. He is forced
+to take an interest in things because things affect him. He is liable at
+every moment to be injured. Countless things attack him. He must defend
+himself. As a consequence his mind is at work; his experience in some
+degree tells him what may happen; he prepares; he defends himself from
+heat and cold. All the springs of action lie in the fact that he can
+suffer and enjoy. The savage has great confidence in his senses. He
+has absolute confidence in his eyes and ears. It requires many years of
+education and experience before he becomes satisfied that things are
+not always what they appear. It would be hard to convince the average
+barbarian that the sun does not actually rise and set--hard to convince
+him that the earth turns. He would rely upon appearances and would
+record you as insane.
+
+As man becomes civilized, educated, he finally has more confidence in
+his reason than in his eyes. He no longer believes that a being called
+Echo exists. He has found out the theory of sound, and he then knows
+that the wave of air has been returned to his ear, and the idea of a
+being who repeats his words fades from his mind; he begins then to
+rely, not upon appearances, but upon demonstration, upon the result of
+investigation. At last he finds that he has been deceived in a thousand
+ways, and he also finds that he can invent certain instruments that are
+far more accurate than his senses--instruments that add power to his
+sight, to his hearing and to the sensitiveness of his touch. Day by day
+he gains confidence in himself.
+
+There is in the life of the individual, as in the life of the race,
+a period of credulity, when not only appearances are accepted without
+question, but the declarations of others. The child in the cradle or
+in the lap of its mother, has implicit confidence in fairy
+stories--believes in giants and dwarfs, in beings who can answer wishes,
+who create castles and temples and gardens with a thought. So the race,
+in its infancy, believed in such beings and in such creations. As the
+child grows, facts take the place of the old beliefs, and the same is
+true of the race.
+
+As a rule, the attention of man is drawn first, not to his own mistakes,
+not to his own faults, but to the mistakes and faults of his neighbors.
+The same is true of a nation--it notices first the eccentricities and
+peculiarities of other nations. This is especially true of religious
+systems. Christians take it for granted that their religion is true,
+that there can be about that no doubt, no mistake. They begin to examine
+the religions of other nations. They take it for granted that all
+these other religions are false. They are in a frame of mind to notice
+contradictions, to discover mistakes and to apprehend absurdities. In
+examining other religions they use their common sense. They carry in the
+hand the lamp of probability. The miracles of other Christs, or of the
+founders of other religions, appear unreasonable--they find that
+they are not supported by evidence. Most of the stories excite their
+laughter. Many of the laws seem cruel, many of the ceremonies absurd.
+These Christians satisfy themselves that they are right in their first
+conjecture--that is, that other religions are all made by men. Afterward
+the same arguments they have used against other religions were found to
+be equally forcible against their own. They find that the miracles of
+Buddha rest upon the same kind of evidence as the miracles in the Old
+Testament, as the miracles in the New--that the evidence in the one case
+is just as weak and unreliable as in the other. They also find that it
+is just as easy to account for the existence of Christianity as for the
+existence of any other religion, and they find that the human mind in
+all countries has traveled substantially the same road and has arrived
+at substantially the same conclusions.
+
+It may be truthfully said that Christianity by the examination of other
+religions laid the foundation for its own destruction. The moment
+it examined another religion it became a doubter, a sceptic, an
+investigator. It began to call for proof. This course being pursued in
+the examination of Christianity itself, reached the result that had been
+reached as to other religions. In other words, it was impossible for
+Christians successfully to attack other religions without showing that
+their own religion could be destroyed. The fact that only a few years
+ago we were all provincial should be taken into consideration. A few
+years ago nations were unacquainted with each other--no nation had
+any conception of the real habits, customs, religions and ideas of any
+other. Each nation imagined itself to be the favored of heaven--the only
+one to whom God had condescended to make known his will--the only one in
+direct communication with angels and deities. Since the circumnavigation
+of the globe, since the invention of the steam engine, the discovery of
+electricity, the nations of the world have become acquainted with each
+other, and we now know that the old ideas were born of egotism, and that
+egotism is the child of ignorance and savagery.
+
+Think of the egotism of the ancient Jews, who imagined that they were
+"the chosen people"--the only ones in whom God took the slightest
+interest! Imagine the egotism of the Catholic Church, claiming that it
+is the only church--that it is continually under the guidance of the
+Holy Ghost, and that the pope is infallible and occupies the place of
+God. Think of the egotism of the Presbyterian, who imagines that he
+is one of "the elect," and that billions of ages before the world was
+created, God, in the eternal counsel of his own good pleasure, picked
+out this particular Presbyterian, and at the same time determined to
+send billions and billions to the pit of eternal pain. Think of
+the egotism of the man who believes in special providence. The old
+philosophy, the old religion, was made in about equal parts of ignorance
+and egotism. This earth was the universe. The sun rose and set simply
+for the benefit of "God's chosen people." The moon and stars were made
+to beautify the night, and all the countless hosts of heaven were for no
+other purpose than to decorate what might be called the ceiling of the
+earth. It was also believed that this firmament was solid--that up there
+the gods lived, and that they could be influenced by the prayers and
+desires of men.
+
+We have now found that the earth is only a grain of sand, a speck, an
+atom in an infinite universe. We now know that the sun is a million
+times larger than the earth, and that other planets are millions of
+times larger than the sun; and when we think of these things, the old
+stories of the Garden of Eden and Sinai and Calvary seem infinitely out
+of proportion.
+
+At last we have reached a point where we have the candor and the
+intelligence to examine the claims of our own religion precisely as we
+examine those of other countries. We have produced men and women
+great enough to free themselves from the prejudices born of
+provincialism--from the prejudices, we might almost say, of patriotism.
+A few people are great enough not to be controlled by the ideas of the
+dead--great enough to know that they are not bound by the mistakes of
+their ancestors--and that a man may actually love his mother without
+accepting her belief. We have even gone further than this, and we are
+now satisfied that the only way to really honor parents is to tell our
+best and highest thoughts. These thoughts ought to be in the mind when
+reading the books referred to. There are certain tendencies, certain
+trends of thought, and these tendencies--these trends--bear fruit; that
+is to say, they produce the books about which I have spoken as well as
+many others.
+
+
+
+
+THE LIBEL LAWS
+
+Question. Have you any suggestions to make in regard to remodeling the
+libel laws?
+
+Answer. I believe that every article appearing in a paper should
+be signed by the writer. If it is libelous, then the writer and the
+publisher should both be held responsible in damages. The law on
+this subject, if changed, should throw greater safeguards around the
+reputation of the citizen. It does not seem to me that the papers have
+any right to complain. Probably a good many suits are brought that
+should not be instituted, but just think of the suits that are not
+brought.
+
+Personally I have no complaint to make, as it would be very hard to find
+anything in any paper against me, but it has never occurred to me that
+the press needed any greater liberty than it now enjoys.
+
+It might be a good thing for a paper to publish each week, a list of
+mistakes, if this could be done without making that edition too large.
+But certainly when a false and scandalous charge has been made by
+mistake or as the result of imposition, great pains should be taken to
+give the retraction at once and in a way to attract attention.
+
+I suppose the papers are liable to be imposed upon--liable to print
+thousands of articles to which the attention of the editor or proprietor
+was not called. Still, that is not the fault of the man whose character
+is attacked. On the whole I think the papers have the advantage of the
+average citizen as the law now is.
+
+If all articles had to be signed by the writer, I am satisfied the
+writer would be more careful and less liable to write anything of a
+libelous nature. I am willing to admit that I have given but little
+attention to the subject, probably for the reason that I have never been
+a sufferer.
+
+It would hardly do to hold only the writer responsible. Suppose a man
+writes a libelous article, leaves the country, and then the article is
+published; is there no remedy? A suit for libel is not much of a remedy,
+I admit, but it is some. It is like the bayonet in war. Very few are
+injured by bayonets, but a good many are afraid that they may be.
+
+--The Herald, New York, October 26,1888.
+
+
+
+
+REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.
+
+
+I HAVE read the report of the Rev. R. Heber Newton's sermon and I
+am satisfied, first, that Mr. Newton simply said what he thoroughly
+believes to be true, and second, that some of the conclusions at which
+he arrives are certainly correct. I do not regard Mr. Newton as a
+heretic or sceptic. Every man who reads the Bible must, to a greater or
+less extent, think for himself. He need not tell his thoughts; he has
+the right to keep them to himself. But if he undertakes to tell them,
+then he should be absolutely honest.
+
+The Episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the world. For
+many, years the foremost members and clergymen in that church have been
+giving some new meanings to the old words and phrases. Words are no
+more exempt from change than other things in nature. A word at one time
+rough, jagged, harsh and cruel, is finally worn smooth. A word known
+as slang, picked out of the gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes
+respectable and finally is found in the mouths of the best and purest.
+
+We must remember that in the world of art the picture depends not alone
+on the painter, but on the one who sees it. So words must find some part
+of their meaning in the man who hears or the man who reads. In the old
+times the word "hell" gave to the hearer or reader the picture of a vast
+pit filled with an ocean of molten brimstone, in which innumerable souls
+were suffering the torments of fire, and where millions of devils were
+engaged in the cheerful occupation of increasing the torments of the
+damned. This was the real old orthodox view.
+
+As man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and less vivid.
+Finally, some expressed their doubts about the brimstone, and others
+began to think that if the Devil was, and is, really an enemy of God he
+would not spend his time punishing sinners to please God. Why should
+the Devil be in partnership with his enemy, and why should he inflict
+torments on poor souls who were his own friends, and who shared with him
+the feeling of hatred toward the Almighty?
+
+As men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn in their
+minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not have created
+persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures, or that they were
+to suffer eternal punishment, because there could be no possible object
+in eternal punishment--no reformation, no good to be accomplished--and
+certainly the sight of all this torment would not add to the joy of
+heaven, neither would it tend to the happiness of God.
+
+So the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a consequence
+and not an infliction. Then they took another step and concluded that
+every soul, in every world, in every age, should have at least the
+chance of doing right. And yet persons so believing still used the word
+"hell," but the old meaning had dropped out.
+
+So with regard to the atonement. At one time it was regarded as a kind
+of bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many souls. This was a
+barbaric view. Afterward, the mind developing a little, the idea got in
+the brain that the life of Christ was worth its moral effect. And yet
+these people use the word "atonement," but the bargain idea has been
+lost.
+
+Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is given to that
+word depends upon the man who uses it--depends for the most part on the
+age in which he lives, the country in which he was born. The same is
+true of the word "freedom." Millions and millions of people boasted that
+they were the friends of freedom, while at the same time they enslaved
+their fellow-men. So, in the name of justice every possible crime has
+been perpetrated and in the name of mercy every instrument of torture
+has been used.
+
+Mr. Newton realizes the fact that everything in the world changes; that
+creeds are influenced by civilization, by the acquisition of knowledge,
+by the progress of the sciences and arts--in other words, that there
+is a tendency in man to harmonize his knowledge and to bring about a
+reconciliation between what he knows and what he believes. This will be
+fatal to superstition, provided the man knows anything.
+
+Mr. Newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing confidence in
+the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks common sense; that
+the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and that it is impossible
+to feel that the innocent can rightfully suffer for the guilty, or that
+the suffering of innocence can in any way justify the crimes of the
+wicked. I think he is mistaken, however, when he says that the early
+church softened or weakened the barbaric passions. I think the early
+church was as barbarous as any institution that ever gained a footing
+in this world. I do not believe that the creed of the early church, as
+understood, could soften anything. A church that preaches the eternity
+of punishment has within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to
+make it grow.
+
+So Mr. Newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the organized
+Christianity of to-day is not the leader in social progress. No one now
+goes to a synod to find a fact in science or on any subject. A man in
+doubt does not ask the average minister; he regards him as behind the
+times. He goes to the scientist, to the library. He depends upon the
+untrammelled thought of fearless men.
+
+The church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich, of the
+respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the men who,
+having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to succeed.
+The spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as it is in the
+average club. There is the same exclusive feeling, and this feeling in
+the next world is to be heightened and deepened to such an extent that a
+large majority of our fellow-men are to be eternally excluded.
+
+The peasants of Europe--the workingmen--do not go to the church for
+sympathy. If they do they come home empty, or rather empty hearted.
+So, in our own country the laboring classes, the mechanics, are not
+depending on the churches to right their wrongs. They do not expect the
+pulpits to increase their wages. The preachers get their money from
+the well-to-do--from the employeer class--and their sympathies are with
+those from whom they receive their wages.
+
+The ministers attack the pleasures of the world. They are not so much
+scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating meat on
+Friday. They regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins. They are not
+touching the real, vital issues of the day, and their hearts do not
+throb in unison with the hearts of the struggling, the aspiring, the
+enthusiastic and the real believers in the progress of the human race.
+
+It is all well enough to say that we should depend on Providence, but
+experience has taught us that while it may do no harm to say it, it will
+do no good to do it. We have found that man must be the Providence of
+man, and that one plow will do more, properly pulled and properly held,
+toward feeding the world, than all the prayers that ever agitated the
+air.
+
+So, Mr. Newton is correct in saying, as I understand him to say, that
+the hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox religion.
+Neither, in my judgment, has the belief in the existence of a God
+anything in fact to do with real religion. The old doctrine that God
+wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon
+all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished
+the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the
+worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of
+the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes
+hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have
+every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.
+
+Man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself; that special
+providence is a mistake. This being so, the old religions must go down,
+and in their place man must depend upon intelligence, industry, honesty;
+upon the facts that he can ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his
+own efforts. Then religion becomes a thing of this world--a religion to
+put a roof above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home, a
+religion that rewards virtue here.
+
+If Mr. Newton's sermon is in accordance with the Episcopal creed, I
+congratulate the creed. In any event, I think Mr. Newton deserves great
+credit for speaking his thought. Do not understand that I imagine that
+he agrees with me. The most I will say is that in some things I agree
+with him, and probably there is a little too much truth and a little too
+much humanity in his remarks to please the bishop.
+
+There is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been persecuted for
+thinking God bad. When any one has said that he believed God to be so
+good that he would, in his own time and way, redeem the entire human
+race, and that the time would come when every soul would be brought home
+and sit on an equality with the others around the great fireside of
+the universe, that man has been denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked
+wretch.--New York Herald, December 13,1888.
+
+
+
+
+AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+MY family and I regard Christmas as a holiday--that is to say, a day
+of rest and pleasure--a day to get acquainted with each other, a day to
+recall old memories, and for the cultivation of social amenities. The
+festival now called Christmas is far older than Christianity. It was
+known and celebrated for thousands of years before the establishment of
+what is known as our religion. It is a relic of sun-worship. It is the
+day on which the sun triumphs over the hosts of darkness, and thousands
+of years before the New Testament was written, thousands of years before
+the republic of Rome existed, before one stone of Athens was laid,
+before the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt, before the religion of Brahma,
+before Sanscrit was spoken, men and women crawled out of their caves,
+pushed the matted hair from their eyes, and greeted the triumph of the
+sun over the powers of the night.
+
+There are many relics of this worship--among which is the shaving of the
+priest's head, leaving the spot shaven surrounded by hair, in imitation
+of the rays of the sun. There is still another relic--the ministers of
+our day close their eyes in prayer. When men worshiped the sun--when
+they looked at that luminary and implored its assistance--they shut
+their eyes as a matter of necessity. Afterward the priests looking
+at their idols glittering with gems, shut their eyes in flattery,
+pretending that they could not bear the effulgence of the presence; and
+to-day, thousands of years after the old ideas have passed away, the
+modern parson, without knowing the origin of the custom, closes his eyes
+when he prays.
+
+There are many other relics and souvenirs of the dead worship of the
+sun, and this festival was adopted by Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and by
+Christians. As a matter of fact, Christianity furnished new steam for an
+old engine, infused a new spirit into an old religion, and, as a matter
+of course, the old festival remained.
+
+For all of our festivals you will find corresponding pagan festivals.
+For instance, take the eucharist, the communion, where persons partake
+of the body and blood of the Deity. This is an exceedingly old custom.
+Among the ancients they ate cakes made of corn, in honor of Ceres and
+they called these cakes the flesh of the goddess, and they drank wine in
+honor of Bacchus, and called this the blood of their god. And so I could
+go on giving the pagan origin of every Christian ceremony and custom.
+The probability is that the worship of the sun was once substantially
+universal, and consequently the festival of Christ was equally wide
+spread.
+
+As other religions have been produced, the old customs have been adopted
+and continued, so that the result is, this festival of Christmas is
+almost world-wide. It is popular because it is a holiday. Overworked
+people are glad of days that bring rest and recreation and allow them to
+meet their families and their friends. They are glad of days when they
+give and receive gifts--evidences of friendship, of remembrance and
+love. It is popular because it is really human, and because it is
+interwoven with our customs, habits, literature, and thought.
+
+For my part I am willing to have two or three a year--the more holidays
+the better. Many people have an idea that I am opposed to Sunday. I am
+perfectly willing to have two a week. All I insist on is that these days
+shall be for the benefit of the people, and that they shall be kept not
+in a way to make folks miserable or sad or hungry, but in a way to make
+people happy, and to add a little to the joy of life. Of course, I am
+in favor of everybody keeping holidays to suit himself, provided he does
+not interfere with others, and I am perfectly willing that everybody
+should go to church on that day, provided he is willing that I should go
+somewhere else.--The Tribune, New York, December, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?
+
+
+THE object of the Freethinker is to ascertain the truth--the conditions
+of well-being--to the end that this life will be made of value. This is
+the affirmative, positive, and constructive side.
+
+Without liberty there is no such thing as real happiness. There may be
+the contentment of the slave--of one who is glad that he has passed the
+day without a beating--one who is happy because he has had enough to
+eat--but the highest possible idea of happiness is freedom.
+
+All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are
+demanded--certain things must be believed--certain things must
+be done--and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this
+superstition must give up all idea of individuality or hope of
+intellectual growth and progress.
+
+The religionist informs us that there is somewhere in the universe an
+orthodox God, who is endeavoring to govern the world, and who for this
+purpose resorts to famine and flood, to earthquake and pestilence--and
+who, as a last resort, gets up a revival of religion. That is called
+"affirmative and positive."
+
+The man of sense knows that no such God exists, and thereupon he affirms
+that the orthodox doctrine is infinitely absurd. This is called a
+"negation." But to my mind it is an affirmation, and is a part of the
+positive side of Freethought.
+
+A man who compels this Deity to abdicate his throne renders a vast and
+splendid service to the human race.
+
+As long as men believe in tyranny in heaven they will practice tyranny
+on earth. Most people are exceedingly imitative, and nothing is so
+gratifying to the average orthodox man as to be like his God.
+
+These same Christians tell us that nearly everybody is to be punished
+forever, while a few fortunate Christians who were elected and selected
+billions of ages before the world was created, are to be happy. This
+they call the "tidings of great joy." The Freethinker denounces this
+doctrine as infamous beyond the power of words to express. He says, and
+says clearly, that a God who would create a human being, knowing that
+that being was to be eternally miserable, must of necessity be an
+infinite fiend.
+
+The free man, into whose brain the serpent of superstition has not
+crept, knows that the dogma of eternal pain is an infinite falsehood. He
+also knows--if the dogma be true--that every decent human being should
+hate, with every drop of his blood, the creator of the universe. He also
+knows--if he knows anything--that no decent human being could be happy
+in heaven with a majority of the human race in hell. He knows that
+a mother could not enjoy the society of Christ with her children in
+perdition; and if she could, he knows that such a mother is simply
+a wild beast. The free man knows that the angelic hosts, under such
+circumstances, could not enjoy themselves unless they had the hearts of
+boa-constrictors.
+
+It will thus be seen that there is an affirmative, a positive, a
+constructive side to Freethought.
+
+What is the positive side?
+
+First: A denial of all orthodox falsehoods--an exposure of all
+superstitions. This is simply clearing the ground, to the end that seeds
+of value may be planted. It is necessary, first, to fell the trees, to
+destroy the poisonous vines, to drive out the wild beasts. Then comes
+another phase--another kind of work. The Freethinker knows that the
+universe is natural--that there is no room, even in infinite space, for
+the miraculous, for the impossible. The Freethinker knows, or feels that
+he knows, that there is no sovereign of the universe, who, like some
+petty king or tyrant, delights in showing his authority. He feels that
+all in the universe are conditioned beings, and that only those are
+happy who live in accordance with the conditions of happiness, and this
+fact or truth or philosophy embraces all men and all gods--if there be
+gods.
+
+The positive side is this: That every good action has good
+consequences--that it bears good fruit forever--and that every bad
+action has evil consequences, and bears bad fruit. The Freethinker also
+asserts that every man must bear the consequences of his actions--that
+he must reap what he sows, and that he cannot be justified by the
+goodness of another, or damned for the wickedness of another.
+
+There is still another side, and that is this: The Freethinker knows
+that all the priests and cardinals and popes know nothing of the
+supernatural--they know nothing about gods or angels or heavens or
+hells--nothing about inspired books or Holy Ghosts, or incarnations or
+atonements. He knows that all this is superstition pure and simple.
+He knows also that these people--from pope to priest, from bishop to
+parson, do not the slightest good in this world--that they live upon the
+labor of others--that they earn nothing themselves--that they contribute
+nothing toward the happiness, or well-being, or the wealth of mankind.
+He knows that they trade and traffic in ignorance and fear, that they
+make merchandise of hope and grief--and he also knows that in every
+religion the priest insists on five things--First: There is a God.
+Second: He has made known his will. Third: He has selected me to explain
+this message. Fourth: We will now take up a collection; and Fifth: Those
+who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned.
+
+The positive side of Freethought is to find out the truth--the facts of
+nature--to the end that we may take advantage of those truths, of those
+facts--for the purpose of feeding and clothing and educating mankind.
+
+In the first place, we wish to find that which will lengthen human
+life--that which will prevent or kill disease--that which will do away
+with pain--that which will preserve or give us health.
+
+We also want to go in partnership with these forces of nature, to the
+end that we may be well fed and clothed--that we may have good houses
+that protect us from heat and cold. And beyond this--beyond these simple
+necessities--there are still wants and aspirations, and free-thought
+will give us the highest possible in art--the most wonderful and
+thrilling in music--the greatest paintings, the most marvelous
+sculpture--in other words, free-thought will develop the brain to
+its utmost capacity. Freethought is the mother of art and science, of
+morality and happiness.
+
+It is charged by the worshipers of the Jewish myth, that we destroy,
+that we do not build.
+
+What have we destroyed? We have destroyed the idea that a monster
+created and governs this world--the declaration that a God of infinite
+mercy and compassion upheld slavery and polygamy and commanded the
+destruction of men, women, and babes. We have destroyed the idea that
+this monster created a few of his children for eternal joy, and the vast
+majority for everlasting pain. We have destroyed the infinite absurdity
+that salvation depends upon belief, that investigation is dangerous, and
+that the torch of reason lights only the way to hell. We have taken a
+grinning devil from every grave, and the curse from death--and in the
+place of these dogmas, of these infamies, we have put that which is
+natural and that which commends itself to the heart and brain.
+
+Instead of loving God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of
+the sky--the religion of this world--the religion of the family--the
+love of husband for wife, of wife for husband--the love of all for
+children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other;
+let us live for this world, without regard for the past and without fear
+for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit
+of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the
+same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there.
+
+Nothing can be more absurd than the idea that we can do something to
+please or displease an infinite Being. If our thoughts and actions can
+lessen or increase the happiness of God, then to that extent God is the
+slave and victim of man.
+
+The energies of the world have been wasted in the service of a
+phantom--millions of priests have lived on the industry of others and no
+effort has been spared to prevent the intellectual freedom of mankind.
+
+We know, if we know anything, that supernatural religion has no
+foundation except falsehood and mistake. To expose these falsehoods--to
+correct these mistakes--to build the fabric of civilization on the
+foundation of demonstrated truth--is the task of the Freethinker. To
+destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction--to correct
+charts that lure to reef and wreck--to drive the fiend of fear from the
+mind--to protect the cradle from the serpent of superstition and dispel
+the darkness of ignorance with the sun of science--is the task of the
+Freethinker.
+
+What constructive work has been done by the church? Christianity gave us
+a flat world a few thousand years ago--a heaven above it where Jehovah
+dwells and a hell below it where most people will dwell. Christianity
+took the ground that a certain belief was necessary to salvation and
+that this belief was far better and of more importance than the practice
+of all the virtues. It became the enemy of investigation--the bitter and
+relentless foe of reason and the liberty of thought. It committed every
+crime and practiced every cruelty in the propagation of its creed. It
+drew the sword against the freedom of the world. It established schools
+and universities for the preservation of ignorance. It claimed to have
+within its keeping the source and standard of all truth. If the church
+had succeeded the sciences could not have existed.
+
+Freethought has given us all we have of value. It has been the great
+constructive force. It is the only discoverer, and every science is its
+child.--The Truth Seeker, New York 1890.
+
+
+
+
+THE IMPROVED MAN.
+
+THE Improved Man will be in favor of universal liberty, that is to say, he
+will be opposed to all kings and nobles, to all privileged classes.
+He will give to all others the rights he claims for himself. He will
+neither bow nor cringe, nor accept bowing and cringing from others. He
+will be neither master nor slave, neither prince nor peasant--simply
+man.
+
+He will be the enemy of all caste, no matter whether its foundation be
+wealth, title or power, and of him it will be said: "Blessed is that man
+who is afraid of no man and of whom no man is afraid."
+
+The Improved Man will be in favor of universal education. He will
+believe it the duty of every person to shed all the light he can, to the
+end that no child may be reared in darkness. By education he will mean
+the gaining of useful knowledge, the development of the mind along the
+natural paths that lead to human happiness.
+
+He will not waste his time in ascertaining the foolish theories of
+extinct peoples or in studying the dead languages for the sake of
+understanding the theologies of ignorance and fear, but he will turn his
+attention to the affairs of life, and will do his utmost to see to it
+that every child has an opportunity to learn the demonstrated facts of
+science, the true history of the world, the great principles of right
+and wrong applicable to human conduct--the things necessary to the
+preservation of the individual and of the state, and such arts and
+industries as are essential to the preservation of all.
+
+He will also endeavor to develop the mind in the direction of the
+beautiful--of the highest art--so that the palace in which the mind
+dwells may be enriched and rendered beautiful, to the end that these
+stones, called facts, may be changed into statues.
+
+The Improved Man will believe only in the religion of this world. He
+will have nothing to do with the miraculous and supernatural. He will
+find that there is no room in the universe for these things. He will
+know that happiness is the only good, and that everything that tends to
+the happiness of sentient beings is good, and that to do the things--and
+no other--that add to the happiness of man is to practice the highest
+possible religion. His motto will be: "Sufficient unto each world is the
+evil thereof." He will know that each man should be his own priest, and
+that the brain is the real cathedral. He will know that in the realm
+of mind there is no authority--that majorities in this mental world can
+settle nothing--that each soul is the sovereign of its own world, and
+that it cannot abdicate without degrading itself. He will not bow to
+numbers or force; to antiquity or custom. He, standing under the flag of
+nature, under the blue and stars, will decide for himself. He will not
+endeavor by prayers and supplication, by fastings and genuflections, to
+change the mind of the "Infinite" or alter the course of nature, neither
+will he employ others to do those things in his place. He will have no
+confidence in the religion of idleness, and will give no part of what he
+earns to support parson or priest, archbishop or pope. He will know that
+honest labor is the highest form of prayer. He will spend no time
+in ringing bells or swinging censers, or in chanting the litanies
+of barbarism, but he will appreciate all that is artistic--that is
+beautiful--that tends to refine and ennoble the human race. He will not
+live a life of fear. He will stand in awe neither of man nor ghosts. He
+will enjoy not only the sunshine of life, but will bear with fortitude
+the darkest days. He will have no fear of death. About the grave, there
+will be no terrors, and his life will end as serenely as the sun rises.
+
+The Improved Man will be satisfied that the supernatural does not
+exist--that behind every fact, every thought and dream is an efficient
+cause. He will know that every human action is a necessary product,
+and he will also know that men cannot be reformed by punishment, by
+degradation or by revenge. He will regard those who violate the laws
+of nature and the laws of States as victims of conditions, of
+circumstances, and he will do what he can for the wellbeing of his
+fellow-men.
+
+The Improved Man will not give his life to the accumulation of wealth.
+He will find no happiness in exciting the envy of his neighbors. He will
+not care to live in a palace while others who are good, industrious and
+kind are compelled to huddle in huts and dens. He will know that great
+wealth is a great burden, and that to accumulate beyond the actual
+needs of a reasonable human being is to increase not wealth, but
+responsibility and trouble.
+
+The Improved Man will find his greatest joy in the happiness of others
+and he will know that the home is the real temple. He will believe in
+the democracy of the fireside, and will reap his greatest reward in
+being loved by those whose lives he has enriched.
+
+The Improved Man will be self-poised, independent, candid and free.
+He will be a scientist. He will observe, investigate, experiment and
+demonstrate. He will use his sense and his senses. He will keep his mind
+open as the day to the hints and suggestions of nature. He will always
+be a student, a learner and a listener--a believer in intellectual
+hospitality. In the world of his brain there will be continuous summer,
+perpetual seed-time and harvest. Facts will be the foundation of his
+faith. In one hand he will carry the torch of truth, and with the other
+raise the fallen.--The World, New York, February 28,1890.
+
+
+
+
+EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.
+
+
+I HARDLY know enough on the subject to give an opinion as to the
+time when eight hours are to become a day's work, but I am perfectly
+satisfied that eight hours will become a labor day.
+
+The working people should be protected by law; if they are not, the
+capitalists will require just as many hours as human nature can bear.
+We have seen here in America street-car drivers working sixteen and
+seventeen hours a day. It was necessary to have a strike in order to
+get to fourteen, another strike to get to twelve, and nobody could blame
+them for keeping on striking till they get to eight hours.
+
+For a man to get up before daylight and work till after dark, life is
+of no particular importance. He simply earns enough one day to prepare
+himself to work another. His whole life is spent in want and toil, and
+such a life is without value.
+
+Of course, I cannot say that the present effort is going to succeed--all
+I can say is that I hope it will. I cannot see how any man who does
+nothing--who lives in idleness--can insist that others should work ten
+or twelve hours a day. Neither can I see how a man who lives on the
+luxuries of life can find it in his heart, or in his stomach, to say
+that the poor ought to be satisfied with the crusts and crumbs they get.
+
+I believe there is to be a revolution in the relations between labor
+and capital. The laboring people a few generations ago were not very
+intellectual. There were no schoolhouses, no teachers except the church,
+and the church taught obedience and faith--told the poor people that
+although they had a hard time here, working for nothing, they would be
+paid in Paradise with a large interest. Now the working people are more
+intelligent--they are better educated--they read and write. In order to
+carry on the works of the present, many of them are machinists of the
+highest order. They must be reasoners. Every kind of mechanism insists
+upon logic. The working people are reasoners--their hands and heads are
+in partnership. They know a great deal more than the capitalists. It
+takes a thousand times the brain to make a locomotive that it does to
+run a store or a bank. Think of the intelligence in a steamship and
+in all the thousand machines and devices that are now working for the
+world. These working people read. They meet together--they discuss. They
+are becoming more and more independent in thought. They do not believe
+all they hear. They may take their hats off their heads to the priests,
+but they keep their brains in their heads for themselves.
+
+The free school in this country has tended to put men on an equality,
+and the mechanic understands his side of the case, and is able to
+express his views. Under these circumstances there must be a revolution.
+That is to say, the relations between capital and labor must be changed,
+and the time must come when they who do the work--they who make the
+money--will insist on having some of the profits.
+
+I do not expect this remedy to come entirely from the Government, or
+from Government interference. I think the Government can aid in passing
+good and wholesome laws--laws fixing the length of a labor day; laws
+preventing the employment of children; laws for the safety and security
+of workingmen in mines and other dangerous places. But the laboring
+people must rely upon themselves; on their intelligence, and especially
+on their political power. They are in the majority in this country.
+They can if they wish--if they will stand together--elect Congresses
+and Senates, Presidents and Judges. They have it in their power to
+administer the Government of the United States.
+
+The laboring man, however, ought to remember that all who labor are
+their brothers, and that all women who labor are their sisters, and
+whenever one class of workingmen or working women is oppressed all other
+laborers ought to stand by the oppressed class. Probably the worst paid
+people in the world are the working-women. Think of the sewing women in
+this city--and yet we call ourselves civilized! I would like to see all
+working people unite for the purpose of demanding justice, not only for
+men, but for women.
+
+All my sympathies are on the side of those who toil--of those who
+produce the real wealth of the world--of those who carry the burdens of
+mankind.
+
+Any man who wishes to force his brother to work--to toil--more than
+eight hours a day is not a civilized man.
+
+My hope for the workingman has its foundation in the fact that he is
+growing more and more intelligent. I have also the same hope for the
+capitalist. The time must come when the capitalist will clearly and
+plainly see that his interests are identical with those of the laboring
+man. He will finally become intelligent enough to know that his
+prosperity depends on the prosperity of those who labor. When both
+become intelligent the matter will be settled.
+
+Neither labor nor capital should resort to force.--The Morning Journal,
+April 27, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+THE JEWS.
+
+
+WHEN I was a child, I was taught that the Jews were an exceedingly
+hard-hearted and cruel people, and that they were so destitute of the
+finer feelings that they had a little while before that time crucified
+the only perfect man who had appeared upon the earth; that this perfect
+man was also perfect God, and that the Jews had really stained their
+hands with the blood of the Infinite.
+
+When I got somewhat older, I found that nearly all people had been
+guilty of substantially the same crime--that is, that they had destroyed
+the progressive and the thoughtful; that religionists had in all ages
+been cruel; that the chief priests of all people had incited the mob, to
+the end that heretics--that is to say, philosophers--that is to say, men
+who knew that the chief priests were hypocrites--might be destroyed.
+
+I also found that Christians had committed more of these crimes than all
+other religionists put together.
+
+I also became acquainted with a large number of Jewish people, and I
+found them like other people, except that, as a rule, they were more
+industrious, more temperate, had fewer vagrants among them, no beggars,
+very few criminals; and in addition to all this, I found that they were
+intelligent, kind to their wives and children, and that, as a rule, they
+kept their contracts and paid their debts.
+
+The prejudice was created almost entirely by religious, or rather
+irreligious, instruction. All children in Christian countries are taught
+that all the Jews are to be eternally damned who die in the faith
+of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; that it is not enough to believe in
+the inspiration of the Old Testament--not enough to obey the Ten
+Commandments--not enough to believe the miracles performed in the days
+of the prophets, but that every Jew must accept the New Testament
+and must be a believer in Christianity--that is to say, he must be
+regenerated--or he will simply be eternal kindling wood.
+
+The church has taught, and still teaches, that every Jew is an outcast;
+that he is to-day busily fulfilling prophecy; that he is a wandering
+witness in favor of "the glad tidings of great joy;" that Jehovah is
+seeing to it that the Jews shall not exist as a nation--that they shall
+have no abiding place, but that they shall remain scattered, to the end
+that the inspiration of the Bible may be substantiated.
+
+Dr. John Hall of this city, a few years ago, when the Jewish people were
+being persecuted in Russia, took the ground that it was all fulfillment
+of prophecy, and that whenever a Jewish maiden was stabbed to death, God
+put a tongue in every wound for the purpose of declaring the truth of
+the Old Testament.
+
+Just as long as Christians take these positions, of course they will do
+what they can to assist in the fulfillment of what they call prophecy,
+and they will do their utmost to keep the Jewish people in a state
+of exile, and then point to that fact as one of the corner-stones of
+Christianity.
+
+My opinion is that in the early days of Christianity all sensible Jews
+were witnesses against the faith, and in this way excited the hostility
+of the orthodox. Every sensible Jew knew that no miracles had been
+performed in Jerusalem. They all knew that the sun had not been
+darkened, that the graves had not given up their dead, that the veil
+of the temple had not been rent in twain--and they told what they knew.
+They were then denounced as the most infamous of human beings, and this
+hatred has pursued them from that day to this.
+
+There is no other chapter in history so infamous, so bloody, so cruel,
+so relentless, as the chapter in which is told the manner in which
+Christians--those who love their enemies--have treated the Jewish
+people. This story is enough to bring the blush of shame to the cheek,
+and the words of indignation to the lips of every honest man.
+
+Nothing can be more unjust than to generalize about nationalities, and
+to speak of a race as worthless or vicious, simply because you have met
+an individual who treated you unjustly. There are good people and bad
+people in all races, and the individual is not responsible for the
+crimes of the nation, or the nation responsible for the actions of the
+few. Good men and honest men are found in every faith, and they are not
+honest or dishonest because they are Jews or Gentiles, but for entirely
+different reasons.
+
+Some of the best people I have ever known are Jews, and some of the
+worst people I have known are Christians. The Christians were not bad
+simply because they were Christians, neither were the Jews good because
+they were Jews. A man is far above these badges of faith and race. Good
+Jews are precisely the same as good Christians, and bad Christians are
+wonderfully like bad Jews.
+
+Personally, I have either no prejudices about religion, or I have equal
+prejudice against all religions. The consequence is that I judge of
+people not by their creeds, not by their rites, not by their mummeries,
+but by their actions.
+
+In the first place, at the bottom of this prejudice lies the coiled
+serpent of superstition. In other words, it is a religious question.
+It seems impossible for the people of one religion to like the people
+believing in another religion. They have different gods, different
+heavens, and a great variety of hells. For the followers of one god to
+treat the followers of another god decently is a kind of treason. In
+order to be really true to his god, each follower must not only hate all
+other gods, but the followers of all other gods.
+
+The Jewish people should outgrow their own superstitions. It is time
+for them to throw away the idea of inspiration. The intelligent jew of
+to-day knows that the Old Testament was written by barbarians., and he
+knows that the rites and ceremonies are simply absurd. He knows that
+no intelligent man should care anything about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
+three dead barbarians. In other words, the Jewish people should leave
+their superstition and rely on science and philosophy.
+
+The Christian should do the same. He, by this time, should know that his
+religion is a mistake, that his creed has no foundation in the eternal
+verities. The Christian certainly should give up the hopeless task of
+converting the Jewish people, and the Jews should give up the useless
+task of converting the Christians. There is no propriety in swapping
+superstitions--neither party can afford to give any boot.
+
+When the Christian throws away his cruel and heartless superstitions,
+and when the Jew throws away his, then they can meet as man to man.
+
+In the meantime, the world will go on in its blundering way, and I shall
+know and feel that everybody does as he must, and that the Christian,
+to the extent that he is prejudiced, is prejudiced by reason of his
+ignorance, and that consequently the great lever with which to raise all
+mankind into the sunshine of philosophy, is intelligence.
+
+
+
+
+CRUMBLING CREEDS.
+
+THERE is a desire in each brain to harmonize the knowledge that it has.
+If a man knows, or thinks he knows, a few facts, he will naturally use
+those facts for the purpose of determining the accuracy of his opinions
+on other subjects. This is simply an effort to establish or prove the
+unknown by the known--a process that is constantly going on in the minds
+of all intelligent people.
+
+It is natural for a man not governed by fear, to use what he knows
+in one department of human inquiry, in every other department that he
+investigates. The average of intelligence has in the last few years
+greatly increased. Man may have as much credulity as he ever had, on
+some subjects, but certainly on the old subjects he has less. There
+is not as great difference to-day between the members of the learned
+professions and the common people. Man is governed less and less by
+authority. He cares but little for the conclusions of the universities.
+He does not feel bound by the actions of synods or ecumenical
+councils--neither does he bow to the decisions of the highest tribunals,
+unless the reasons given for the decision satisfy his intellect. One
+reason for this is, that the so-called "learned" do not agree among
+themselves--that the universities dispute each other--that the synod
+attacks the ecumenical council--that the parson snaps his fingers at the
+priest, and even the Protestant bishop holds the pope in contempt. If
+the learned cau thus disagree, there is no reason why the common people
+should hold to one opinion. They are at least called upon to decide as
+between the universities or synods; and in order to decide, they must
+examine both sides, and having examined both sides, they generally have
+an opinion of their own.
+
+There was a time when the average man knew nothing of medicine--he
+simply opened his mouth and took the dose. If he died, it was simply a
+dispensation of Providence--if he got well, it was a triumph of science.
+Now this average man not only asks the doctor what is the matter with
+him--not only asks what medicine will be good for him,--but insists
+on knowing the philosophy of the cure--asks the doctor why he gives
+it--what result he expects--and, as a rule, has a judgment of his own.
+
+So in law. The average business man has an exceedingly good idea of the
+law affecting his business. There is nothing now mysterious about what
+goes on in courts or in the decisions of judges--they are published in
+every direction, and all intelligent people who happen to read these
+opinions have their ideas as to whether the opinions are right or wrong.
+They are no longer the victims of doctors, or of lawyers, or of courts.
+
+The same is true in the world of art and literature. The average man has
+an opinion of his own. He is no longer a parrot repeating what somebody
+else says. He not only has opinions, but he has the courage to express
+them. In literature the old models fail to satisfy him. He has the
+courage to say that Milton is tiresome--that Dante is prolix--that they
+deal with subjects having no human interest. He laughs at Young's "Night
+Thoughts" and Pollok's "Course of Time"--knowing that both are filled
+with hypocrisies and absurdities. He no longer falls upon his knees
+before the mechanical poetry of Mr. Pope. He chooses--and stands by his
+own opinion. I do not mean that he is entirely independent, but that he
+is going in that direction.
+
+The same is true of pictures. He prefers the modern to the old masters.
+He prefers Corot to Raphael. He gets more real pleasure from Millet and
+Troyon than from all the pictures of all the saints and donkeys of the
+Middle Ages.
+
+In other words, the days of authority are passing away.
+
+The same is true in music. The old no longer satisfies, and there is a
+breadth, color, wealth, in the new that makes the old poor and barren in
+comparison.
+
+To a far greater extent this advance, this individual independence, is
+seen in the religious world. The religion of our day--that is to say,
+the creeds--at the time they were made, were in perfect harmony with the
+knowledge, or rather with the ignorance, of man in all other departments
+of human inquiry. All orthodox creeds agreed with the sciences of
+their day--with the astronomy and geology and biology and political
+conceptions of the Middle Ages. These creeds were declared to be the
+absolute and eternal truth. They could not be changed without abandoning
+the claim that made them authority. The priests, through a kind of
+unconscious self-defence, clung to every word. They denied the truth of
+all discovery. They measured every assertion in every other
+department by their creeds. At last the facts against them became
+so numerous--their congregations became so intelligent--that it
+was necessary to give new meanings to the old words. The cruel was
+softened--the absurd was partially explained, and they kept these old
+words, although the original meanings had fallen out. They became empty
+purses, but they retained them still.
+
+Slowly but surely came the time when this course could not longer be
+pursued. The words must be thrown away--the creeds must be changed--they
+were no longer believed--only occasionally were they preached. The
+ministers became a little ashamed--they began to apologize. Apology is
+the prelude to retreat.
+
+Of all the creeds, the Presbyterian, the old Congregational, were the
+most explicit, and for that reason the most absurd. When these creeds
+were written, those who wrote them had perfect confidence in their
+truth. They did not shrink because of their cruelty. They cared nothing
+for what others called absurdity. They failed not to declare what they
+believed to be "the whole counsel of God."
+
+At that time, cruel punishments were inflicted by all governments.
+People were torn asunder, mutilated, burned. Every atrocity was
+perpetrated in the name of justice, and the limit of pain was the limit
+of endurance. These people imagined that God would do as they would do.
+If they had had it in their power to keep the victim alive for years in
+the flames, they would most cheerfully have supplied the fagots.
+They believed that God could keep the victim alive forever, and that
+therefore his punishment would be eternal. As man becomes civilized he
+becomes merciful, and the time came when civilized Presbyterians and
+Congregationalists read their own creeds with horror.
+
+I am not saying that the Presbyterian creed is any worse than the
+Catholic. It is only a little more specific. Neither am I saying that it
+is more horrible than the Episcopal. It is not. All orthodox creeds are
+alike infamous. All of them have good things, and all of them have bad
+things. You will find in every creed the blossom of mercy and the oak of
+justice, but under the one and around the other are coiled the serpents
+of infinite cruelty.
+
+The time came when orthodox Christians began dimly to perceive that
+God ought at least to be as good as they were. They felt that they
+were incapable of inflicting eternal pain, and they began to doubt the
+propriety of saying that God would do that which a civilized Christian
+would be incapable of.
+
+We have improved in all directions for the same reasons. We have better
+laws now because we have a better sense of justice. We are believing
+more and more in the government of the people. Consequently we are
+believing more and more in the education of the people, and from that
+naturally results greater individuality and a greater desire to hear the
+honest opinions of all.
+
+The moment the expression of opinion is allowed in any department,
+progress begins. We are using our knowledge in every direction. The
+tendency is to test all opinions by the facts we know. All claims are
+put in the crucible of investigation--the object being to separate the
+true from the false. He who objects to having his opinions thus tested
+is regarded as a bigot.
+
+If the professors of all the sciences had claimed that the knowledge
+they had was given by inspiration--that it was absolutely true, and that
+there was no necessity of examining further, not only, but that it was
+a kind of blasphemy to doubt--all the sciences would have remained
+as stationary as religion has. Just to the extent that the Bible was
+appealed to in matters of science, science was retarded; and just to
+the extent that science has been appealed to in matters of religion,
+religion has advanced--so that now the object of intelligent
+religionists is to adopt a creed that will bear the test and criticism
+of science.
+
+Another thing may be alluded to in this connection. All the countries
+of the world are now, and have been for years, open to us. The ideas
+of other people--their theories, their religions--are now known; and we
+have ascertained that the religions of all people have exactly the
+same foundation as our own--that they all arose in the same way, were
+substantiated in the same way, were maintained by the same means, having
+precisely the same objects in view.
+
+For many years, the learned of the religious world were examining the
+religions of other countries, and in that work they established certain
+rules of criticism--pursued certain lines of argument--by which they
+overturned the claims of those religions to supernatural origin. After
+this had been successfully done, others, using the same methods on our
+religion, pursuing the same line of argument, succeeded in overturning
+ours. We have found that all miracles rest on the same basis--that all
+wonders were born of substantially the same ignorance and the same fear.
+
+The intelligence of the world is far better distributed than ever
+before. The historical outlines of all countries are well known.
+The arguments for and against all systems of religion are generally
+understood. The average of intelligence is far higher than ever before.
+All discoveries become almost immediately the property of the whole
+civilized world, and all thoughts are distributed by the telegraph and
+press with such rapidity, that provincialism is almost unknown. The
+egotism of ignorance and seclusion is passing away. The prejudice of
+race and religion is growing feebler, and everywhere, to a greater
+extent than ever before, the light is welcome.
+
+These are a few of the reasons why creeds are crumbling, and why such a
+change has taken place in the religious world.
+
+Only a few years ago the pulpit was an intellectual power. The pews
+listened with wonder, and accepted without question. There was something
+sacred about the preacher. He was different from other mortals. He had
+bread to eat which they knew not of. He was oracular, solemn, dignified,
+stupid.
+
+The pulpit has lost its position. It speaks no longer with authority.
+The pews determine what shall be preached. They pay only for that which
+they wish to buy--for that which they wish to hear. Of course in every
+church there is an advance guard and a conservative party, and nearly
+every minister is obliged to preach a little for both. He now and then
+says a radical thing for one part of his congregation, and takes it
+mostly back on the next Sabbath, for the sake of the others. Most of
+them ride two horses, and their time is taken up in urging one forward
+and in holding the other back.
+
+The great reason why the orthodox creeds have become unpopular is, that
+all teach the dogma of eternal pain.
+
+In old times, when men were nearly wild beasts, it was natural enough
+for them to suppose that God would do as they would do in his place, and
+so they attributed to this God infinite cruelty, infinite revenge. This
+revenge, this cruelty, wore the mask of justice. They took the ground
+that God, having made man, had the right to do with him as he pleased.
+At that time they were not civilized to the extent of seeing that a God
+would not have the right to make a failure, and that a being of infinite
+wisdom and power would be under obligation to do the right, and that
+he would have no right to create any being whose life would not be a
+blessing. The very fact that he made man, would put him under obligation
+to see to it that life should not be a curse.
+
+The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the
+savagery of the men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with
+torture, with flaying alive and with burnings. The men who burned
+their fellow-men for a moment, believed that God would burn his enemies
+forever.
+
+No civilized men ever believed in this dogma. The belief in eternal
+punishment has driven millions from the church. It was easy enough for
+people to imagine that the children of others had gone to hell; that
+foreigners had been doomed to eternal pain; but when it was brought
+home--when fathers and mothers bent above their dead who had died in
+their sins--when wives shed their tears on the faces of husbands who had
+been born but once--love suggested doubts and love fought the dogma of
+eternal revenge.
+
+This doctrine is as cruel as the hunger of hyenas, and is infamous
+beyond the power of any language to express--yet a creed with this
+doctrine has been called "the glad tidings of great joy"--a consolation
+to the weeping world. It is a source of great pleasure to me to know
+that all intelligent people are ashamed to admit that they believe
+it--that no intelligent clergyman now preaches it, except with a preface
+to the effect that it is probably untrue.
+
+I have been blamed for taking this consolation from the world--for
+putting out, or trying to put out, the fires of hell; and many orthodox
+people have wondered how I could be so wicked as to deprive the world of
+this hope.
+
+The church clung to the doctrine because it seemed a necessary excuse
+for the existence of the church. The ministers said: "No hell, no
+atonement; no atonement, no fall of man; no fall of man, no inspired
+book; no inspired book, no preachers; no preachers, no salary; no hell,
+no missionaries; no sulphur, no salvation."
+
+At last, the people are becoming enlightened enough to ask for a better
+philosophy. The doctrine of hell is now only for the poor, the ragged,
+the ignorant. Well-dressed people won't have it. Nobody goes to hell
+in a carriage--they foot it. Hell is for strangers and tramps. No soul
+leaves a brown-stone front for hell--they start from the tenements, from
+jails and reformatories. In other words, hell is for the poor. It is
+easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a poor man
+to get into heaven, or for a rich man to get into hell. The ministers
+stand by their supporters. Their salaries are paid by the well-to-do,
+and they can hardly afford to send the subscribers to hell. Every creed
+in which is the dogma of eternal pain is doomed. Every church teaching
+the infinite lie must fall, and the sooner the better.--The Twentieth
+Century, N, Y., April 21,1890.
+
+
+
+
+OUR SCHOOLS.
+
+
+I BELIEVE that education is the only lever capable of raising mankind.
+If we wish to make the future of the Republic glorious we must educate
+the children of the present. The greatest blessing conferred by our
+Government is the free school. In importance it rises above everything
+else that the Government does. In its influence it is far greater.
+
+The schoolhouse is infinitely more important than the church, and if
+all the money wasted in the building of churches could be devoted to
+education we should become a civilized people. Of course, to the extent
+that churches disseminate thought they are good, and to the extent that
+they provoke discussion they are of value, but the real object should be
+to become acquainted with nature--with the conditions of happiness--to
+the end that man may take advantage of the forces of nature. I believe
+in the schools for manual training, and that every child should be
+taught not only to think, but to do, and that the hand should be
+educated with the brain. The money expended on schools is the best
+investment made by the Government.
+
+The schoolhouses in New York are not sufficient. Many of them are small,
+dark, unventilated, and unhealthy. They should be the finest public
+buildings in the city. It would be far better for the Episcopalians to
+build a university than a cathedral. Attached to all these schoolhouses
+there should be grounds for the children--places for air and sunlight.
+They should be given the best. They are the hope of the Republic and, in
+my judgment, of the world.
+
+We need far more schoolhouses than we have, and while money is being
+wasted in a thousand directions, thousands of children are left to be
+educated in the gutter. It is far cheaper to build schoolhouses than
+prisons, and it is much better to have scholars than convicts.
+
+The Kindergarten system should be adopted, especially for the young;
+attending school is then a pleasure--the children do not run away from
+school, but to school. We should educate the children not simply in
+mind, but educate their eyes and hands, and they should be taught
+something that will be of use, that will help them to make a living,
+that will give them independence, confidence--that is to say, character.
+
+The cost of the schools is very little, and the cost of land--giving the
+children, as I said before, air and light--would amount to nothing.
+
+There is another thing: Teachers are poorly paid. Only the best should
+be employeed, and they should be well paid. Men and women of the highest
+character should have charge of the children, because there is a vast
+deal of education in association, and it is of the utmost importance
+that the children should associate with real gentlemen--that is to say,
+with real men; with real ladies--that is to say, with real women.
+
+Every schoolhouse should be inviting, clean, well ventilated,
+attractive. The surroundings should be delightful. Children forced to
+school, learn but little. The schoolhouse should not be a prison or the
+teachers turnkeys.
+
+I believe that the common school is the bread of life, and all should
+be commanded to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. It would have
+been far better to have expelled those who refused to eat.
+
+The greatest danger to the Republic is ignorance. Intelligence is the
+foundation of free government.--The World, New York, September 7, 1800.
+
+
+
+
+VIVISECTION.
+
+     *A letter written to Philip G. Peabody. May 27, 1800.
+
+
+VIVISECTION is the Inquisition--the Hell--of Science.
+
+All the cruelty which the human--or rather the inhuman--heart is capable
+of inflicting, is in this one word. Below this there is no depth. This
+word lies like a coiled serpent at the bottom of the abyss.
+
+We can excuse, in part, the crimes of passion. We take into
+consideration the fact that man is liable to be caught by the whirlwind,
+and that from a brain on fire the soul rushes to a crime. But
+what excuse can ingenuity form for a man who deliberately--with an
+unaccelerated pulse--with the calmness of John Calvin at the murder
+of Servetus--seeks, with curious and cunning knives, in the living,
+quivering flesh of a dog, for all the throbbing nerves of pain? The
+wretches who commit these infamous crimes pretend that they are working
+for the good of man; that they are actuated by philanthropy; and that
+their pity for the sufferings of the human race drives out all pity for
+the animals they slowly torture to death. But those who are incapable
+of pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men.
+A physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces--laying bare the
+nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with forceps--would
+not hesitate to try experiments with men and women for the gratification
+of his curiosity.
+
+To settle some theory, he would trifle with the life of any patient
+in his power. By the same reasoning he will justify the vivisection of
+animals and patients. He will say that it is better that a few animals
+should suffer than that one human being should die; and that it is far
+better that one patient should die, if through the sacrifice of that
+one, several may be saved.
+
+Brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart without brain.
+
+Have these scientific assassins discovered anything of value? They may
+have settled some disputes as to the action of some organ, but have they
+added to the useful knowledge of the race?
+
+It is not necessary for a man to be a specialist in order to have and
+express his opinion as to the right or wrong of vivisection. It is not
+necessary to be a scientist or a naturalist to detest cruelty and to
+love mercy. Above all the discoveries of the thinkers, above all the
+inventions of the ingenious, above all the victories won on fields of
+intellectual conflict, rise human sympathy and a sense of justice.
+
+I know that good for the human race can never be accomplished by
+torture. I also know that all that has been ascertained by vivisection
+could have been done by the dissection of the dead. I know that all the
+torture has been useless. All the agony inflicted has simply hardened
+the hearts of the criminals, without enlightening their minds.
+
+It may be that the human race might be physically improved if all the
+sickly and deformed babes were killed, and if all the paupers, liars,
+drunkards, thieves, villains, and vivisectionists were murdered. All
+this might, in a few ages, result in the production of a generation
+of physically perfect men and women; but what would such beings be
+worth,--men and women healthy and heartless, muscular and cruel--that is
+to say, intelligent wild beasts?
+
+Never can I be the friend of one who vivisects his fellow-creatures. I
+do not wish to touch his hand.
+
+When the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when the fountain of
+tears is dry,--the soul becomes a serpent crawling in the dust of a
+desert.
+
+
+
+
+THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.
+
+
+I SUPPOSE the Government has a right to ask all of these questions, and
+any more it pleases, but undoubtedly the citizen would have the right
+to refuse to answer them. Originally the census was taken simply for
+the purpose of ascertaining the number of people--first, as a basis of
+representation; second, as a basis of capitation tax; third, as a basis
+to arrive at the number of troops that might be called from each State;
+and it may be for some other purposes, but I imagine that all are
+embraced in the foregoing.
+
+The Government has no right to invade the privacy of the citizen; no
+right to inquire into his financial condition, as thereby his credit
+might be injured; no right to pry into his affairs, into his diseases,
+or his deformities; and, while the Government may have the right to ask
+these questions, I think it was foolish to instruct the enumerators to
+ask them, and that the citizens have a perfect right to refuse to
+answer them. Personally, I have no objection to answering any of these
+questions, for the reason that nothing is the matter with me that money
+will not cure.
+
+I know that it is thought advisable by many to find out the amount of
+mortgages in the United States, the rate of interest that is being paid,
+the general indebtedness of individuals, counties, cities and States,
+and I see no impropriety in finding this out in any reasonable way.
+But I think it improper to insist on the debtor exposing his financial
+condition. My opinion is that Mr. Porter only wants what is perfectly
+reasonable, and if left to himself, would ask only those questions that
+all people would willingly answer.
+
+I presume we can depend on medical statistics--on the reports of
+hospitals, etc., in regard to diseases and deformities, without
+interfering with the patients. As to the financial standing of people,
+there are already enough of spies in this country attending to that
+business. I don't think there is any danger of the courts compelling a
+man to answer these questions. Suppose a man refuses to tell whether
+he has a chronic disease or not, and he is brought up before a United
+States Court for contempt. In my opinion the judge would decide that the
+man could not be compelled to answer. It is bad enough to have a chronic
+disease without publishing it to the world. All intelligent people, of
+course, will be desirous of giving all useful information of a character
+that cannot be used to their injury, but can be used for the benefit of
+society at large.
+
+If, however, the courts shall decide that the enumerators have the right
+to ask these questions, and that everybody must answer them, I doubt
+if the census will be finished for many years. There are hundreds and
+thousands of people who delight in telling all about their diseases,
+when they were attacked, what they have taken, how many doctors have
+given them up to die, etc., and if the enumerators will stop to listen,
+the census of 1890 will not be published until the next century.--The
+World, New York, June 8, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS
+
+
+AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the God of day
+over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over Delilah, and
+Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris
+rises from the dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more.
+Again Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of
+light, destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival of Thor,
+of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a miracle escapes from the
+tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage
+of Cadmus, and Chrishna eludes the tyrant.
+
+This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be
+universal.
+
+This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all
+religions--the worship of the sun.
+
+Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most
+reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most
+reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.
+
+The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of
+happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying, the
+all-loving.
+
+This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for revenge.
+
+All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness, of shadow,
+of night. And so I say again, this is the festival of Light. This is the
+anniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the hosts of Darkness.
+
+Let us all hope for the triumph of Light--of Right and Reason--for the
+victory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over Superstition.
+
+And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the Sun.--The
+Journal, New York, December 25,1892.
+
+
+
+
+SPIRITUALITY.
+
+
+IF there is an abused word in our language, it is "spirituality."
+
+It has been repeated over and over for several hundred years by pious
+pretenders and snivelers as though it belonged exclusively to them.
+
+In the early days of Christianity, the "spiritual" renounced the world
+with all its duties and obligations. They deserted their wives and
+children. They became hermits and dwelt in caves. They spent their
+useless years in praying for their shriveled and worthless souls. They
+were too "spiritual" to love women, to build homes and to labor for
+children. They were too "spiritual" to earn their bread, so they became
+beggars and stood by the highways of Life and held out their hands and
+asked alms of Industry and Courage. They were too "spiritual" to be
+merciful. They preached the dogma of eternal pain and gloried in "the
+wrath to come." They were too "spiritual" to be civilized, so they
+persecuted their fellow-men for expressing their honest thoughts. They
+were so "spiritual" that they invented instruments of torture, founded
+the Inquisition, appealed to the whip, the rack, the sword and the
+fagot. They tore the flesh of their fellow-men with hooks of iron,
+buried their neighbors alive, cut off their eyelids, dashed out the
+brains of babes and cut off the breasts of mothers. These "spiritual"
+wretches spent day and night on their knees, praying for their own
+salvation and asking God to curse the best and noblest of the world.
+
+John Calvin was intensely "spiritual" when he warmed his fleshless hands
+at the flames that consumed Servetus.
+
+John Knox was constrained by his "spirituality" to utter low and
+loathsome calumnies against all women. All the witch-burners and
+Quaker-maimers and mutilators were so "spiritual" that they constantly
+looked heavenward and longed for the skies.
+
+These lovers of God--these haters of men--looked upon the Greek marbles
+as unclean, and denounced the glories of Art as the snares and pitfalls
+of perdition.
+
+These "spiritual" mendicants hated laughter and smiles and dimples, and
+exhausted their diseased and polluted imaginations in the effort to make
+love loathsome.
+
+From almost every pulpit was heard the denunciation of all that adds
+to the wealth, the joy and glory of life. It became the fashion for the
+"spiritual" to malign every hope and passion that tends to humanize
+and refine the heart. Man was denounced as totally depraved. Woman was
+declared to be a perpetual temptation--her beauty a snare and her touch
+pollution.
+
+Even in our own time and country some of the ministers, no matter how
+radical they claim to be, retain the aroma, the odor, or the smell of
+the "spiritual."
+
+They denounce some of the best and greatest--some of the benefactors
+of the race--for having lived on the low plane of usefulness--and for
+having had the pitiful ambition to make their fellows happy in this
+world.
+
+Thomas Paine was a groveling wretch because he devoted his life to the
+preservation of the rights of man, and Voltaire lacked the "spiritual"
+because he abolished torture in France and attacked, with the enthusiasm
+of a divine madness, the monster that was endeavoring to drive the hope
+of liberty from the heart of man.
+
+Humboldt was not "spiritual" enough to repeat with closed eyes
+the absurdities of superstition, but was so lost to all the "skyey
+influences" that he was satisfied to add to the intellectual wealth of
+the world.
+
+Darwin lacked "spirituality," and in its place had nothing but
+sincerity, patience, intelligence, the spirit of investigation and
+the courage to give his honest conclusions to the world. He contented
+himself with giving to his fellow-men the greatest and the sublimest
+truths that man has spoken since lips have uttered speech.
+
+But we are now told that these soldiers of science, these heroes of
+liberty, these sculptors and painters, these singers of songs, these
+composers of music, lack "spirituality" and after all were only common
+clay.
+
+This word "spirituality" is the fortress, the breastwork, the rifle-pit
+of the Pharisee. It sustains the same relation to sincerity that Dutch
+metal does to pure gold.
+
+There seems to be something about a pulpit that poisons the
+occupant--that changes his nature--that causes him to denounce what he
+really loves and to laud with the fervor of insanity a joy that he
+never felt--a rapture that never thrilled his soul. Hypnotized by his
+surroundings, he unconsciously brings to market that which he supposes
+the purchasers desire.
+
+In every church, whether orthodox or radical, there are two parties--one
+conservative, looking backward, one radical, looking forward, and
+generally a minister "spiritual" enough to look both ways.
+
+A minister who seems to be a philosopher on the street, or in the home
+of a sensible man, cannot withstand the atmosphere of the pulpit.
+The moment he stands behind the Bible cushion, like Bottom, he is
+"translated" and the Titania of superstition "kisses his large, fair
+ears."
+
+Nothing is more amusing than to hear a clergyman denounce
+worldliness--ask his hearers what it will profit them to build railways
+and palaces and lose their own souls--inquire of the common folks
+before him why they waste their precious years in following trades and
+professions, in gathering treasures that moths corrupt and rust devours,
+giving their days to the vulgar business of making money,--and then see
+him take up a collection, knowing perfectly well that only the worldly,
+the very people he has denounced, can by any possibility give a dollar.
+
+"Spirituality" for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance
+and greed.
+
+Some people imagine that they are "spiritual" when they are sickly.
+
+It may be well enough to ask: What is it to be really spiritual?
+
+The spiritual man lives to his ideal. He endeavors to make others happy.
+He does not despise the passions that have filled the world with art and
+glory. He loves his wife and children--home and fireside. He cultivates
+the amenities and refinements of life. He is the friend and champion of
+the oppressed. His sympathies are with the poor and the suffering. He
+attacks what he believes to be wrong, though defended by the many, and
+he is willing to stand for the right against the world. He enjoys the
+beautiful. In the presence of the highest creations of Art his eyes are
+suffused with tears. When he listens to the great melodies, the divine
+harmonies, he feels the sorrows and the raptures of death and love. He
+is intensely human. He carries in his heart the burdens of the world.
+He searches for the deeper meanings. He appreciates the harmonies of
+conduct, the melody of a perfect life.
+
+He loves his wife and children better than any god. He cares more for
+the world he lives in than for any other. He tries to discharge the
+duties of this life, to help those that he can reach. He believes in
+being useful--in making money to feed and clothe and educate the ones he
+loves--to assist the deserving and to support himself. He does not wish
+to be a burden on others. He is just, generous and sincere.
+
+Spirituality is all of this world. It is a child of this earth, born and
+cradled here. It comes from no heaven, but it makes a heaven where it
+is.
+
+There is no possible connection between superstition and the spiritual,
+or between theology and the spiritual.
+
+The spiritually-minded man is a poet. If he does not write poetry,
+he lives it. He is an artist. If he does not paint pictures or chisel
+statues, he feels them, and their beauty softens his heart. He fills the
+temple of his soul with all that is beautiful, and he worships at the
+shrine of the Ideal.
+
+In all the relations of life he is faithful and true. He asks for
+nothing that he does not earn. He does not wish to be happy in heaven
+if he must receive happiness as alms He does not rely on the goodness of
+another. He is not ambitious to become a winged pauper.
+
+Spirituality is the perfect health of the soul. It is noble, manly,
+generous, brave, free-spoken, natural, superb.
+
+Nothing is more sickening than the "spiritual" whine--the pretence
+that crawls at first and talks about humility and then suddenly becomes
+arrogant and says: "I am 'spiritual.' I hold in contempt the vulgar joys
+of this life. You work and toil and build homes and sing songs and weave
+your delicate robes. You love women and children and adorn yourselves.
+You subdue the earth and dig for gold. You have your theatres, your
+operas and all the luxuries of life; but I, beggar that I am, Pharisee
+that I am, am your superior because I am 'spiritual.'"
+
+Above all things, let us be sincere.--The Conservator, Philadelphia,
+1891.
+
+
+
+
+SUMTER'S GUN.
+
+
+1861--April 12th--1891
+
+FOR about three-quarters of a century the statesmen, that is to say, the
+politicians, of the North and South', had been busy making compromises,
+adopting constitutions and enacting laws; busy making speeches, framing
+platforms and political pretences, to the end that liberty and slavery
+might dwell in peace and friendship under the same flag.
+
+Arrogance on one side, hypocrisy on the other.
+
+Right apologized to Wrong for the sake of the Union.
+
+The sources of justice were poisoned, and patriotism became the defender
+of piracy. In the name of humanity mothers were robbed of their babes.
+
+Thirty years ago to-day a shot was fired, and in a moment all the
+promises, all the laws, all the constitutional amendments, and all
+the idiotic and heartless decisions of courts, and all the speeches of
+orators inspired by the hope of place and power, were blown into rags
+and ravelings, pieces and patches.
+
+The North and South had been masquerading as friends, and in a moment,
+while the sound of that shot was ringing in their ears, they faced each
+other as enemies.
+
+The roar of that cannon announced the birth of a new epoch. The echoes
+of that shot went out, not only over the bay of Charleston, but over the
+hills, the prairies and forests of the continent.
+
+These echoes said marvelous things and uttered prophecies that none were
+wise enough to understand.
+
+Who at that time had the slightest conception of the immediate future?
+Who then was great enough to see the end? Who then was wise enough
+to know that the echoes would be kept alive and repeated for years by
+thousands and thousands of cannon, by millions of muskets, on the fields
+of ruthless war?
+
+At that time Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, was barely a month in
+the President's chair, and that shot made him the most commanding and
+majestic figure of the nineteenth century--a figure that stands alone.
+
+Who could have guessed the names of the heroes to be repeated by
+countless lips before the echoes of that shot should have died away?
+
+There was at that time a young man at Galena, silent, unobtrusive,
+unknown; and yet, the moment that shot was fired he was destined to lead
+the greatest host ever marshaled on a field of war, destined to receive
+the final sword of the Rebellion.
+
+There was another, in the Southwest, who heard one of the echoes of that
+shot, and who afterward marched from Atlanta to the sea; and another,
+far away by the Pacific, who also heard one of the echoes, and who
+became one of the immortal three.
+
+But, above all, the echoes were heard by millions of men and women in
+the fields of unpaid toil, and they knew not the meaning, but felt that
+they had heard a prophecy of freedom. And the echoes told of death
+and glory for many thousands--of the agonies of women--the sobs of
+orphans--the sighs of the imprisoned, and the glad shouts of the
+delivered, the enfranchised, the redeemed.
+
+They who fired that gun did not dream that they were giving liberty to
+millions of people, including themselves, white as well as black, North
+as well as South, and that before the echoes should die away, all the
+shackles would be broken, all the constitutions and statutes of slavery
+repealed, and all the compromises merged and lost in a great compact
+made to preserve the liberties of all.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.
+
+
+ONE HUNDRED years after Christ had died suppose some one had asked a
+Christian, What hospitals have you built? What asylums have you founded?
+They would have said "None." Suppose three hundred years after the death
+of Christ the same questions had been asked the Christian, he would have
+said "None, not one." Two hundred years more and the answer would
+have been the same. And at that time the Christian could have told the
+questioner that the Mohammedans had built asylums before the Christians.
+He could also have told him that there had been orphan asylums in China
+for hundreds and hundreds of years, hospitals in India, and hospitals
+for the sick at Athens.
+
+Here it may be well enough to say that all hospitals and asylums are
+not built for charity. They are built because people do not want to be
+annoyed by the sick and the insane. If a sick man should come down the
+street and sit upon your doorstep, what would you do with him? You
+would have to take him into your house or leave him to suffer. Private
+families do not wish to take the burden of the sick. Consequently,
+in self-defence, hospitals are built so that any wanderer coming to a
+house, dying, or suffering from any disease, may immediately be packed
+off to a hospital and not become a burden upon private charity. The fact
+that many diseases are contagious rendered hospitals necessary for the
+preservation of the lives of the citizens. The same thing is true of the
+asylums. People do not, as a rule, want to take into their families, all
+the children who happen to have no fathers and mothers. So they endow
+and build an asylum where those children can be sent--and where they
+can be whipped according to law. Nobody wants an insane stranger in
+his house. The consequence is, that the community, to get rid of these
+people, to get rid of the trouble, build public institutions and send
+them there.
+
+Now, then, to come to the point, to answer the interrogatory often flung
+at us from the pulpit, What institutions have Infidels built? In the
+first place, there have not been many Infidels for many years and, as
+a rule, a known Infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the
+Christians are so forgiving and loving they boycott him. If the average
+Infidel, freely stating his opinion, could get through the world
+himself, for the last several hundred years, he has been in good luck.
+But as a matter of fact there have been some Infidels who have done
+some good, even from a Christian standpoint. The greatest charity ever
+established in the United States by a man--not by a community to get rid
+of a nuisance, but by a man who wished to do good and wished that
+good to last after his death--is the Girard College in the city of
+Philadelphia. Girard was an Infidel. He gained his first publicity by
+going like a common person into the hospitals and taking care of those
+suffering from contagious diseases--from cholera and smallpox. So there
+is a man by the name of James Lick, an Infidel, who has given the finest
+observatory ever given to the world. And it is a good thing for an
+Infidel to increase the sight of men. The reason people are theologians
+is because they cannot see. Mr. Lick has increased human vision, and
+I can say right here that nothing has been seen through the telescope,
+calculated to prove the astronomy of Joshua. Neither can you see with
+that telescope a star that bears a Christian name. The reason is
+that Christianity was opposed to astronomy. So astronomers took their
+revenge, and now there is not one star that glitters in all the vast
+firmament of the boundless heavens that has a Christian name. Mr.
+Carnegie has been what they call a public-spirited man. He has given
+millions of dollars for libraries and other institutions, and he
+certainly is not an orthodox Christian.
+
+Infidels, however, have done much better even than that. They have
+increased the sum of human knowledge. John W. Draper, in his work on
+"The Intellectual Development of Europe," has done more good to the
+American people and to the civilized world than all the priests in it.
+He was an Infidel. Buckle is another who has added to the sum of human
+knowledge. Thomas Paine, an Infidel, did more for this country than any
+other man who ever lived in it.
+
+Most of the colleges in this country have, I admit, been founded
+by Christians, and the money for their support has been donated by
+Christians, but most of the colleges of this country have simply
+classified ignorance, and I think the United States would be more
+learned than it is to-day if there never had been a Christian college in
+it. But whether Christians gave or Infidels gave has nothing to do with
+the probability of the Jonah story or with the probability that the mark
+on the dial went back ten degrees to prove that a little Jewish king was
+not going to die of a boil. And if the Infidels are all stingy and the
+Christians are all generous it does not even tend to prove that three
+men were in a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than was its wont
+without even scorching their clothes.
+
+The best college in this country--or, at least, for a long time the
+best--was the institution founded by Ezra Cornell. That is a school
+where people try to teach what they know instead of what they guess. Yet
+Cornell University was attacked by every orthodox college in the United
+States at the time it was founded, because they said it was without
+religion.
+
+Everybody knows that Christianity does not tend to generosity.
+Christianity says: "Save your own soul, whether anybody else saves his
+or not." Christianity says: "Let the great ship go down. You get into
+the little life-boat of the gospel and paddle ashore, no matter what
+becomes of the rest." Christianity says you must love God, or something
+in the sky, better than you love your wife and children. And the
+Christian, even when giving, expects to get a very large compound
+interest in another world. The Infidel who gives, asks no return except
+the joy that comes from relieving the wants of another.
+
+Again the Christians, although they have built colleges, have built them
+for the purpose of spreading their superstitions, and have poisoned the
+minds of the world, while the Infidel teachers have filled the world
+with light. Darwin did more for mankind than if he had built a thousand
+hospitals. Voltaire did more than if he had built a thousand asylums for
+the insane. He will prevent thousands from going insane that otherwise
+might be driven into insanity by the "glad tidings of great joy."
+Haeckel is filling the world with light.
+
+I am perfectly willing that the results of the labors of Christians and
+the labors of Infidels should be compared. Then let it be understood
+that Infidels have been in this world but a very short time. A few years
+ago there were hardly any. I can remember when I was the only Infidel in
+the town where I lived. Give us time and we will build colleges in which
+something will be taught that is of use. We hope to build temples that
+will be dedicated to reason and common sense, and where every effort
+will be made to reform mankind and make them better and better in this
+world.
+
+I am saying nothing against the charity of Christians; nothing against
+any kindness or goodness. But I say the Christians, in my judgment, have
+done more harm than they have done good. They may talk of the asylums
+they have built, but they have not built asylums enough to hold the
+people who have been driven insane by their teachings. Orthodox religion
+has opposed liberty. It has opposed investigation and free thought. If
+all the churches in Europe had been observatories, if the cathedrals had
+been universities where facts were taught and where nature was studied,
+if all the priests had been real teachers, this world would have been
+far, far beyond what it is to-day.
+
+There is an idea that Christianity is positive, and Infidelity is
+negative. If this be so, then falsehood is positive and truth is
+negative. What I contend is that Infidelity is a positive religion; that
+Christianity is a negative religion. Christianity denies and Infidelity
+admits. Infidelity stands by facts; it demonstrates by the conclusions
+of the reason. Infidelity does all it can to develop the brain and the
+heart of man. That is positive. Religion asks man to give up this
+world for one he knows nothing about. That is negative. I stand by the
+religion of reason. I stand by the dogmas of demonstration.
+
+
+
+
+CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.
+
+
+IN my judgment, no human being was ever made better, nobler, by being
+whipped or clubbed.
+
+Mr. Brockway, according to his own testimony, is simply a savage. He
+belongs to the Dark Ages--to the Inquisition, to the torture-chamber,
+and he needs reforming more than any prisoner under his control. To
+put any man within his power is in itself a crime. Mr. Brockway is a
+believer in cruelty--an apostle of brutality. He beats and bruises flesh
+to satisfy his conscience--his sense of duty. He wields the club himself
+because he enjoys the agony he inflicts.
+
+When a poor wretch, having reached the limit of endurance, submits or
+becomes unconscious, he is regarded as reformed. During the remainder of
+his term he trembles and obeys. But he is not reformed. In his heart is
+the flame of hatred, the desire for revenge; and he returns to society
+far worse than when he entered the prison.
+
+Mr. Brockway should either be removed or locked up, and the Elmira
+Reformatory should be superintended by some civilized man--some man with
+brain enough to know, and heart enough to feel.
+
+I do not believe that one brute, by whipping, beating and lacerating
+the flesh of another, can reform him. The lash will neither develop the
+brain nor cultivate the heart. There should be no bruising, no scarring
+of the body in families, in schools, in reformatories, or prisons. A
+civilized man does not believe in the methods of savagery. Brutality
+has been tried for thousands of years and through all these years it has
+been a failure.
+
+Criminals have been flogged, mutilated and maimed, tortured in a
+thousand ways, and the only effect was to demoralize, harden and
+degrade society and increase the number of crimes. In the army and navy,
+soldiers and sailors were flogged to death, and everywhere by church and
+state the torture of the helpless was practiced and upheld.
+
+Only a few years ago there were two hundred and twenty-three offences
+punished with death in England. Those who wished to reform this savage
+code were denounced as the enemies of morality and law. They were
+regarded as weak and sentimental.
+
+At last the English code was reformed through the efforts of men who
+had brain and heart. But it is a significant fact that no bishop of
+the Episcopal Church, sitting in the House of Lords, ever voted for the
+repeal of one of those savage laws. Possibly this fact throws light
+on the recent poetic and Christian declaration by Bishop Potter to the
+effect that "there are certain criminals who can only be made to realize
+through their hides the fact that the State has laws to which the
+individual must be obedient."
+
+This orthodox remark has the true apostolic ring, and is in perfect
+accord with the history of the church. But it does not accord with the
+intelligence and philanthropy of our time. Let us develop the brain by
+education, the heart by kindness. Let us remember that criminals
+are produced by conditions, and let us do what we can to change the
+conditions and to reform the criminals.
+
+
+
+
+LAW'S DELAY.
+
+
+THE object of a trial is not to convict--neither is it to acquit. The
+object is to ascertain the truth by legal testimony and in accordance
+with law.
+
+In this country we give the accused the benefit of all reasonable
+doubts. We insist that his guilt shall be really established by
+competent testimony.
+
+We also allow the accused to take exceptions to the rulings of the judge
+before whom he is tried, and to the verdict of the jury, and to have
+these exceptions passed upon by a higher court.
+
+We also insist that he shall be tried by an impartial jury, and that
+before he can be found guilty all the jurors must unite in the verdict.
+
+Some people, not on trial for any crime, object to our methods. They
+say that time is wasted in getting an impartial jury; that more time is
+wasted because appeals are allowed, and that by reason of insisting on a
+strict compliance with law in all respects, trials sometimes linger for
+years, and that in many instances the guilty escape.
+
+No one, so far as I know, asks that men shall be tried by partial and
+prejudiced jurors, or that judges shall be allowed to disregard the law
+for the sake of securing convictions, or that verdicts shall be allowed
+to stand unsupported by sufficient legal evidence. Yet they talk as
+if they asked for these very things. We must remember that revenge is
+always in haste, and that justice can always afford to wait until the
+evidence is actually heard.
+
+There should be no delay except that which is caused by taking the time
+to find the truth. Without such delay courts become mobs, before which,
+trials in a legal sense are impossible. It might be better, in a city
+like New York, to have the grand jury in almost perpetual session,
+so that a man charged with crime could be immediately indicted and
+immediately tried. So, the highest court to which appeals are taken
+should be in almost constant session, in order that all appeals might be
+quickly decided.
+
+But we do not wish to take away the right of appeal. That right tends to
+civilize the trial judge, reduces to a minimum his arbitrary power, puts
+his hatreds and passions in the keeping and control of his intelligence.
+That right of appeal has an excellent effect on the jury, because they
+know that their verdict may not be the last word. The appeal, where the
+accused is guilty, does not take the sword from the State, but it is a
+shield for the innocent.
+
+In England there is no appeal. The trials are shorter, the judges more
+arbitrary, the juries subservient, and the verdict often depends on the
+prejudice of the judge. The judge knows that he has the last guess--that
+he cannot be reviewed--and in the passion often engendered by the
+conflict of trial he acts much like a wild beast.
+
+The case of Mrs. Maybrick is exactly in point, and shows how dangerous
+it is to clothe the trial judge with supreme power.
+
+Without doubt there is in this country too much delay, and this, it
+seems to me, can be avoided without putting the life or liberty of
+innocent persons in peril. Take only such time as may be necessary to
+give the accused a fair trial, before an impartial jury, under and in
+accordance with the established forms of law, and to allow an appeal to
+the highest court.
+
+The State in which a criminal cannot have an impartial trial is not
+civilized. People who demand the conviction of the accused without
+regard to the forms of law are savages.
+
+But there is another side to this question. Many people are losing
+confidence in the idea that punishment reforms the convict, or that
+capital punishment materially decreases capital crimes.
+
+My own opinion is that ordinary criminals should, if possible, be
+reformed, and that murderers and desperate wretches should be imprisoned
+for life. I am inclined to believe that our prisons make more criminals
+than they reform; that places like the Reformatory at Elmira plant and
+cultivate the seeds of crime.
+
+The State should never seek revenge; neither should it put in peril the
+life or liberty of the accused for the sake of a hasty trial, or by the
+denial of appeal.
+
+In my judgment, defective as our criminal courts and methods are, they
+are far better than the English.
+
+Our judges are kinder, more humane; our juries nearer independent, and
+our methods better calculated to ascertain the truth.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.
+
+     * A newspaper dispatch from Lawrence, Kansas, published
+     yesterday, stated that Col. Robert O. Ingersoll had been
+     invited by the law students of the Kansas State University
+     to address them at the commencement exercises, and that the
+     faculty council had objected and had invited Chauncey M.
+     Depew instead.
+
+     The dispatch also stared that the council had notified
+     representatives of the law school that if they insisted on
+     the great Agnostic speaking before the school, the faculty
+     would take heroic measures to thwart their design.
+
+     It was also stated that the law students had made it clearly
+     understood that the lecture Ingersoll had been invited to
+     deliver was to be on the subject of law, and that his views
+     on religion, the Bible and the Deity were not to be alluded
+     to, and they considered that the faculty council had
+     "subjected them to an insult," and had gone out of its way,
+     also, to affront Colonel Ingersoll without cause.
+
+     Colonel Ingersoll, when seen yesterday and questioned about
+     the matter, took it, as he does all things of that nature,
+     philosophically and in a true manly spirit.
+
+     Chauncey M. Depew was seen at his residence, No. 43 West
+     Fifty-fourth Street, last night and asked if he had been
+     invited to address the students of the Kansas University in
+     the place of Colonel Ingersoll. He said he had not.
+
+     "Would you go if you were invited?" he was asked.
+
+     "No; I would not," he answered. "You see, I am so busy here;
+     besides, my social and semi-political engagements are such
+     that I would not have time to go to such a distant point,
+     anyhow.
+
+     "No, I do not care to express any opinion regarding the
+     action of the faculty council of the Kansas University, but
+     I consider Colonel Ingersoll one of the greatest intellects
+     of the century, from whose teaching all can profit."--The
+     Journal, New York, January 24, im.
+
+
+UNIVERSITIES are naturally conservative. They know that if suspected of
+being really scientific, orthodox Christians will keep their sons away,
+so they pander to the superstitions of the times.
+
+Most of the universities are exceedingly poor, and poverty is the
+enemy of independence. Universities, like people, have the instinct of
+self-preservation. The University of Kansas is like the rest.
+
+The faculty of Cornell, upon precisely the same question, took exactly
+the same action, and the faculty of the University of Missouri did
+the same. These institutions must be the friends and defenders of
+superstition.
+
+The Vanderbilt College, or University of Tennessee, discharged Professor
+Winchell because he differed with the author of Genesis on geology.
+
+These colleges act as they must, and we should blame nobody. If Humboldt
+and Darwin were now alive they would not be allowed to teach in these
+institutions of "learning."
+
+We need not find fault with the president and professors. They want
+to keep their places. The probability is that they would like to do
+better--that they desire to be free, and, if free, would, with all their
+hearts, welcome the truth. Still, these universities seem to do good.
+The minds of their students are developed to that degree, that they
+naturally turn to me as the defender of their thoughts.
+
+This gives me great hope for the future. The young, the growing, the
+enthusiastic, are on my side. All the students who have selected me are
+my friends, and I thank them with all my heart.
+
+
+
+
+A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.
+
+     * Col. Robert G. Ingersoll represents what is intellectually
+     highest among the whole world's opponents of religion. He
+     counts theology as the science of a superstition. He decries
+     religion as it exists, and holds that the broadest thing a
+     man, or all human nature, can do is to acknowledge ignorance
+     when it cannot know. He accepts nothing on faith. He is the
+     American who is forever asking, "Why?"--who demands a reason
+     and material proof before believing.
+
+     As Christianity's corner-stone is faith, he rejects
+     Christianity, and argues that all men who are broad enough
+     to know when to narrow their ideas down to fact or
+     demonstrable theory must reject it. Believe as he does or
+     not, all Americans must be interested in him. His mind is
+     marvelous, his tongue is silvern, his logic is invincible--
+     as logic.
+
+     Col. Ingersoll is a shining example of the oft-quoted fact
+     that, given mental ability, health and industry, a young man
+     may make for himself whatever place in life he desires and
+     is fitted to fill. His early advantages were limited, for
+     his father, a Congregational minister whose field of labor
+     often changed, was a man of far too small an income to send
+     his sons to college. Whatever of mental training the young
+     man had he was obliged to get by reason of his own exertion,
+     and his splendid triumphs as an orator, and his solid
+     achievements as a lawyer are all the result of his own
+     efforts. The only help he had was that which is the common
+     heritage of all American young men--the chance to fight even
+     handed for success. It is not surprising, therefore, that
+     Col. Ingersoll feels a deep interest in every bright young
+     man of his acquaintance who is struggling manfully for the
+     glittering prize so brilliantly won by the great Agnostic
+     himself. He does not believe, however, that the young man
+     who goes out mto the world nowadays to seek his fortune has
+     so easy a battle to fight as had the young men of thirty
+     years ago. In conversation with the writer Col. Ingersoll
+     spoke earnestly upon this subject.
+
+     Col. Ingersoll's views regarding the Bible and Christianity
+     were not generally understood by the public for some time
+     after he had become famous as an orator, although he  began
+     to diverge from orthodoxy when quite young, and was as
+     pronounced an Agnostic when he went into the army, as he is
+     now.
+
+     Col. Ingersoll is an inch less than six feet tall, and
+     weighs ten more than two hundred pounds. He will be sixty-
+     one next August, and his hair is snowy. His shoulders are
+     broad and as straight as they were eighteen years ago when
+     he electrified a people and place! his own name upon the
+     list of a nation's greatest orators with his matchless
+     "Plumed Knight" speech in nominating
+
+     James G. Blaine for the presidency. His blue eyes look
+     straight into yours when he speaks to you, and his sentences
+     are punctuated by engaging little tricks of facial
+     expression--now the brow is criss-crossed with the lines of
+     a frown, sometimes quizzical and sometimes indignant--next,
+     the smooth-shaven lips break into a curving smile, which may
+     grow into a broad grin if the point just made were a
+     humorous one, and this is quite likely to be followed by a
+     look of sueh intense earnestness that you wonder if he will
+     ever smile again. And all the time his eyes flash,
+     illuminating, sometimes anticipatory, glances that add
+     immensely to the clearness with which the thought he is
+     expressing is set before you. He delights to tell a story,
+     and he never tells any but good ones, but--and in this he is
+     like Lincoln--he is apt to use his stories to drive some
+     proposition home. This is almost invariably true, even when
+     he sets out to spin a yarn for the story's simple sake. His
+     mentality seems to be duplex, quadruplex, multiplex, if you
+     please--and while his lips and tongue are effectively
+     delivering the story, his wonderful brain is, seemingly,
+     unconsciously applying the point of the story to the proving
+     of a pet theory, and when the tale has been told the verbal
+     application follows.
+
+     His birthplace was Dresden, N. Y. His early boyhood was
+     passed in New York State and his youth and young manhood in
+     Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin.
+
+     His handgrasp is hearty and his manner and words are the
+     very essence of straightforward directness. I called at his
+     office once when the Colonel was closeted with a person who
+     wished to retain him in a law case involving a good deal of
+     money. After a bit I was told that I could see him, and as I
+     entered he was saying: "The case can't be won, for you are
+     in the wrong. I don't want it."
+
+     "But," pleaded the would-be client, "It seems to me that a
+     good deal can be done in such a case by the way it is
+     handled before the jury, and I thought if you were to be the
+     man I might get a verdict."
+
+     "No, sir," was the reply, and the words fell like the lead
+     of a plumb line; "I won't take it. Good morning, sir."
+
+     It has been sometimes said, indulgently, of Col. Ingersoll
+     that he is indolent, but no one can hold that view who is at
+     all familiar with him or his work. As a matter of fact, his
+     industry is phenomenal, though, indeed, it is not carried on
+     after the fashion of less brainy men. When he has an
+     important case ahead of him his devotion to the mastery of
+     its details absorbs him at once and completely. It sometimes
+     becomes necessary for him to take up a line of chemical
+     inquiry entirely new to him; again, to elaborate
+     genealogical researches are necessary; still again, it may
+     be essential for him to thoroughly inform himself concerning
+     hitherto uninvestigated local historical records. But
+     whatever is needful to be studied he studies, and so
+     thoroughly that his mind becomes saturated with the
+     knowledge required. And once acquired no sort of information
+     ever leaves him, for he has a memory quite as marvelous as
+     any other of his altogether marvelous characteristics.
+
+     It is the same when he has an address to prepare. Every
+     authority that can be consulted upon the subject to be
+     treated in the address, is consulted, and often the material
+     that suggests some of the most telling points is one which
+     no one but Ingersoll himself would think of referring to.
+     Here again his wonderful memory stands him in good stead for
+     he has packed away within the convolutions of his brain a
+     lot of facts that bear upon almost every conceivable branch
+     of human thought or investigation.
+
+     His memory is quite as retentive of the features of a man he
+     has seen as of other matters; it retains voices also, as a
+     war time friend of his discovered last summer. It was a busy
+     day with the Colonel, who had given instructions to his
+     office boy that under no circumstances was he to be
+     disturbed; so when his old friend called he was told that
+     Col. Ingersoll could not see him "But," said the visitor: "I
+     must see him. I haven't seen him for twenty years; I am
+     going out of town this afternoon, and I wouldn't miss
+     talking with him for a few minutes for a good deal of
+     money."
+
+     "Well," said the boy, "he wasn't to be disturbed by
+     anybody."
+
+     At this moment the door of the Colonel's private office
+     opened, and the Colonel's portly form appeared upon the
+     scene.
+
+     "Why, Maj. Blank," he said, "come in. I did tell the boy I
+     wouldn't see anybody, but you are more important than the
+     biggest law case in the world."
+
+     The Colonel's memory had retained the sound of the major's
+     voice, and because of that, the latter was not obliged to
+     leave New York without seeing and renewing his old
+     acquaintance.
+
+     Col. Ingersoll's retorts are as quick as a flash-light and
+     as searching. One of them was so startling and so effective
+     as to give a certain famous long drawn out railroad suit the
+     nickname. "The Ananias and Sapphira ease." Ingersoll was
+     speaking and had made certain statements highly damaging to
+     the other side, in such a way as to thoroughly anger a
+     member of the opposing counsel, who suddenly interrupted the
+     speaker with the abrupt and sarcastic remark:
+
+     "I suppose the Colonel, in the nature of things, never heard
+     of the story of Ananias ana Sapphira."
+
+     There were those present who expected to witness an angry
+     outburst on the part of Ingersoll in response to this plain
+     implication that his statement had not the quality of
+     veracity, but they were disappointed. Ingersoll didn't even
+     get angry. He turned slightly, fixed his limpid blue eyes
+     upon the speaker, and looked cherubically. Then he gently
+     drawled out.
+
+     "Oh, yes, I have, yes, I have. And I've watched the
+     gentleman who has just spoken all through this case with a
+     curious Interest. I've been expecting every once in a while
+     to see him drop dead, but he seems to be all right down to
+     the present moment."
+
+     Ingersoll never gets angry when he is interrupted, even if
+     it is in the middle of an address or a lecture. A man
+     interrupted him in Cincinnati once, cutting right into one
+     of the lecturer's most resonant periods with a yell:
+
+     "That's a lie. Bob lngersoll, and you know it."
+
+     The audience was in an uproar in an instant, and cries of
+     "Put him out!" "Throw him down stairs!" and the like were
+     heard from all parts of the house. Ingersoll stopped talking
+     for a moment, and held up his hands, smiling.
+
+     "Don't hurt the man," he said. "He thinks he is right. But
+     let me explain this thing for his especial benefit."
+
+     Then he reasoned the matter out in language so simple and
+     plain that no one of any intelligence whatever could fail to
+     comprehend. The man was not ejected, but sat through the
+     entire address, and at the close asked the privilege of
+     begging the lecturer's pardon.
+
+     Like most men of genius, Colonel lngersoll is a passionate
+     lover of music, and the harmonies of Wagner seem to him to
+     be the very acme of musical expression....
+
+     Notwithstanding his thoroughly heretical beliefs or lack of
+     beliefs, or, as he would say, because of them, Colonel
+     lngersoll is a very tender-hearted man. No one has ever made
+     so strong an argument against vivisection in the alleged
+     interests of science as lngersoll did in a speech a few
+     years ago. To the presentation of his views against the
+     refinements of scientific cruelty he brought his most vivid
+     imagination, his most careful thought and his most
+     impassioned oratory.
+
+     Colonel Ingersoll's popularity with those who know him is
+     proverbial. The clerks in his offices not only admire him
+     for his ability and his achievements, but they esteem him
+     for his kindliness of heart and his invariable courtesy in
+     his intercourse with them. His offices are located in one of
+     the buildings devoted to corporations and professional men
+     on the lower part of Nassau street and consist of three
+     rooms. The one used by the head of the firm is farthest from
+     the entrance. All are furnished in solid black walnut. In
+     the Colonel's room there is a picture of his loved brother
+     Ebon, and hanging below the frame thereof is the tin sign
+     that the two brothers hung out for a shingle when they went
+     into the law business in Peoria. There are also pictures of
+     a judge or two. The desks in all the rooms are littered with
+     papers. Books are piled to the ceiling. Everywhere there is
+     an air of personal freedom. There is no servility either to
+     clients or the head of the business, but there is everywhere
+     an informal courtesy somewhat akin to that which is born of
+     a fueling of great comradeship.
+
+     Of the Colonel's ideal home life the world has often been
+     told. He lives during the winter at his town house in Fifth
+     Avenue; in the summer at Dobbs Ferry, a charming place a few
+     miles up the Hudson from New York.--Boston Herald, July,
+     1894.
+
+
+A FEW years ago there were many thousand miles of railroads to be built,
+a great many towns and cities to be located, constructed and filled;
+vast areas of uncultivated land were waiting for the plow, vast forests
+the axe, and thousands of mines were longing to be opened. In those days
+every young man of energy and industry had a future. The professions
+were not overcrowded; there were more patients than doctors, more
+litigants than lawyers, more buyers of goods than merchants. The young
+man of that time who was raised on a farm got a little education, taught
+school, read law or medicine--some of the weaker ones read theology--and
+there seemed to be plenty of room, plenty of avenues to success and
+distinction.
+
+So, too, a few years ago a political life was considered honorable,
+and so in politics there were many great careers. So, hundreds of towns
+wanted newspapers, and in each of those towns there was an opening for
+some energetic young man. At that time the plant cost but little; a few
+dollars purchased the press--the young publisher could get the paper
+stock on credit.
+
+Now the railroads have all been built; the canals are finished; the
+cities have been located; the outside property has been cut into lots,
+and sold and mortgaged many times over. Now it requires great capital
+to go into business. The individual is counting for less and less; the
+corporation, the trust, for more and more. Now a great merchant employs
+hundreds of clerks; a few years ago most of those now clerks would have
+been merchants. And so it seems to be in nearly every department of
+life. Of course, I do not know what inventions may leap from the brains
+of the future; there may be millions and millions of fortunes yet to be
+made in that direction, but of that I am not speaking.
+
+So, I think that a few years ago the chances were far more numerous and
+favorable to young men who wished to make a name for themselves, and to
+succeed in some department of human energy than now.
+
+In savage life a living is very easy to get. Most any savage can hunt
+or fish; consequently there are few failures. But in civilized life
+competition becomes stronger and sharper; consequently, the percentage
+of failures increases, and this seems to be the law. The individual is
+constantly counting for less. It may be that, on the average, people
+live better than they did formerly, that they have more to eat, drink
+and wear; but the individual horizon has lessened; it is not so wide and
+cloudless as formerly. So I say that the chances for great fortunes, for
+great success, are growing less and less.
+
+I think a young man should do that which is easiest for him to do,
+provided there is an opportunity; if there is none, then he should
+take the next. The first object of every young man should be to be
+self-supporting, no matter in what direction--be independent. He should
+avoid being a clerk and he should avoid giving his future into the hands
+of any one person. He should endeavor to get a business in which the
+community will be his patron, and whether he is to be a lawyer, a doctor
+or a day-laborer depends on how much he has mixed mind with muscle.
+
+If a young man imagines that he has an aptitude for public
+speaking--that is, if he has a great desire to make his ideas known to
+the world--the probability is that the desire will choose the way, time
+and place for him to make the effort.
+
+If he really has something to say, there will be plenty to listen. If he
+is so carried away with his subject, is so in earnest that he becomes an
+instrumentality of his thought--so that he is forgotten by himself; so
+that he cares neither for applause nor censure--simply caring to present
+his thoughts in the highest and best and most comprehensive way, the
+probability is that he will be an orator.
+
+I think oratory is something that cannot be taught. Undoubtedly a man
+can learn to be a fair talker. He can by practice learn to present his
+ideas consecutively, clearly and in what you may call "form," but there
+is as much difference between this and an oration as there is between a
+skeleton and a living human being clad in sensitive, throbbing flesh.
+
+There are millions of skeleton makers, millions of people who can
+express what may be called "the bones" of a discourse, but not one in a
+million who can clothe these bones.
+
+You can no more teach a man to be an orator than you can teach him to be
+an artist or a poet of the first class. When you teach him, there is the
+same difference between the man who is taught, and the man who is what
+he is by virtue of a natural aptitude, that there is between a pump
+and a spring--between a canal and a river--between April rain and
+water-works. It is a question of capacity and feeling--not of education.
+There are some things that you can tell an orator not to do. For
+instance, he should never drink water while talking, because the
+interest is broken, and for the moment he loses control of his audience.
+He should never look at his watch for the same reason. He should never
+talk about himself. He should never deal in personalities. He should
+never tell long stories, and if he tells any story he should never say
+that it is a true story, and that he knew the parties. This makes it a
+question of veracity instead of a question of art. He should never clog
+his discourse with details. He should never dwell upon particulars--he
+should touch universals, because the great truths are for all time.
+
+If he wants to know something, if he wishes to feel something, let him
+read Shakespeare. Let him listen to the music of Wagner, of Beethoven,
+or Schubert. If he wishes to express himself in the highest and most
+perfect form, let him become familiar with the great paintings of the
+world--with the great statues--all these will lend grace, will give
+movement and passion and rhythm to his words. A great orator puts into
+his speech the perfume, the feelings, the intensity of all the great and
+beautiful and marvelous things that he has seen and heard and felt. An
+orator must be a poet, a metaphysician, a logician--and above all, must
+have sympathy with all.
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.
+
+IT was thought at one time by many that science would do away with
+poetry--that it was the enemy of the imagination. We know now that is
+not true. We know that science goes hand in hand with imagination. We
+know that it is in the highest degree poetic and that the old ideas once
+considered so beautiful are flat and stale. Compare Kepler's laws with
+the old Greek idea that the planets were boosted or pushed by angels.
+The more we know, the more beauty, the more poetry we find. Ignorance is
+not the mother of the poetic or artistic.
+
+So, some people imagine that science will do away with sentiment. In my
+judgment, science will not only increase sentiment but sense.
+
+A person will be attracted to another for a thousand reasons, and why
+a person is attracted to another, may, and in some degree will, depend
+upon the intellectual, artistic and ethical development of each.
+
+The handsomest girl in Zululand might not be attractive to Herbert
+Spencer, and the fairest girl in England might not be able to hasten the
+pulse of a Choctaw brave. This does not prove that there is any lack
+of sentiment. Men are influenced according to their capacity, their
+temperament, their knowledge.
+
+Some men fall in love with a small waist, an arched instep or curly
+hair, without the slightest regard to mind or muscle. This we call
+sentiment.
+
+Now, educate such men, develop their brains, enlarge their intellectual
+horizon, teach them something of the laws of health, and then they may
+fall in love with women because they are developed grandly in body and
+mind. The sentiment is still there--still controls--but back of the
+sentiment is science.
+
+Sentiment can never be destroyed, and love will forever rule the human
+race.
+
+Thousands, millions of people fear that science will destroy not only
+poetry, not only sentiment, but religion. This fear is idiotic. Science
+will destroy superstition, but it will not injure true religion. Science
+is the foundation of real religion. Science teaches us the consequences
+of actions, the rights and duties of all. Without science there can be
+no real religion.
+
+Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of
+science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The
+more we know the safer all good things are.
+
+Do I think that the marriage of the sickly and diseased ought to be
+prevented by law?
+
+I have not much confidence in law--in law that I know cannot be carried
+out. The poor, the sickly, the diseased, as long as they are ignorant,
+will marry and help fill the world with wretchedness and want.
+
+We must rely on education instead of legislation.
+
+We must teach the consequences of actions. We must show the sickly and
+diseased what their children will be. We must preach the gospel of the
+body. I believe the time will come when the public thought will be so
+great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate
+disease--to leave a legacy of agony.
+
+I believe the time will come when men will refuse to fill the future
+with consumption and insanity. Yes, we shall study ourselves. We shall
+understand the conditions of health and then we shall say: We are under
+obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children.
+
+Even if I should get to heaven and have a harp, I know that I could
+not bear to see my descendants still on the earth, diseased, deformed,
+crazed--all suffering the penalties of my ignorance. Let us have more
+science and more sentiment--more knowledge and more conscience--more
+liberty and more love.
+
+
+
+
+SOWING AND REAPING.
+
+
+I HAVE read the sermon on "Sowing and Reaping," and I now understand Mr.
+Moody better than I did before. The other day, in New York, Mr. Moody
+said that he implicitly believed the story of Jonah and really thought
+that he was in the fish for three days.
+
+When I read it I was surprised that a man living in the century of
+Humboldt, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and Haeckel, should believe such an
+absurd and idiotic story.
+
+Now I understand the whole thing. I can account for the amazing
+credulity of this man. Mr. Moody never read one of my lectures. That
+accounts for it all, and no wonder that he is a hundred years behind the
+times. He never read one of my lectures; that is a perfect explanation.
+
+Poor man! He has no idea of what he has lost. He has been living on
+miracles and mistakes, on falsehood and foolishness, stuffing his mind
+with absurdities when he could have had truth, facts and good, sound
+sense.
+
+Poor man!
+
+Probably Mr. Moody has never read one word of Darwin and so he still
+believes in the Garden of Eden and the talking snake and really thinks
+that Jehovah took some mud, moulded the form of a man, breathed in its
+nostrils, stood it up and called it Adam, and that he then took one
+of Adam's ribs and some more mud and manufactured Eve. Probably he has
+never read a word written by any great geologist and consequently still
+believes in the story of the flood. Knowing nothing of astronomy, he
+still thinks that Joshua stopped the sun.
+
+Poor man! He has neglected Spencer and has no idea of evolution. He
+thinks that man has, through all the ages, degenerated, the first pair
+having been perfect. He does not believe that man came from lower forms
+and has gradually journeyed upward.
+
+He really thinks that the Devil outwitted God and vaccinated the human
+race with the virus of total depravity.
+
+Poor man!
+
+He knows nothing of the great scientists--of the great thinkers, of the
+emancipators of the human race; knows nothing of Spinoza, of Voltaire,
+of Draper, Buckle, of Paine or Renan.
+
+Mr. Moody ought to read something besides the Bible--ought to find
+out what the really intelligent have thought. He ought to get some
+new ideas--a few facts--and I think that, after he did so, he would be
+astonished to find how ignorant and foolish he had been. He is a good
+man. His heart is fairly good, but his head is almost useless.
+
+The trouble with this sermon, "Sowing and Reaping," is that he
+contradicts it. I believe that a man must reap what he sows, that every
+human being must bear the natural consequences of his acts. Actions are
+good or bad according to their consequences. That is my doctrine.
+
+There is no forgiveness in nature. But Mr. Moody tells us that a man may
+sow thistles and gather figs, that having acted like a fiend tor seventy
+years, he can, between his last dose of medicine and his last breath,
+repent; that he can be washed clean by the blood of the lamb, and that
+myriads of angels will carry his soul to heaven--in other words, that
+this man will not reap what he sowed, but what Christ sowed, that this
+man's thistles will be changed to figs.
+
+This doctrine, to my mind, is not only absurd, but dishonest and
+corrupting.
+
+This is one of the absurdities in Mr. Moody's theology. The other is
+that a man can justly be damned for the sin of another.
+
+Nothing can exceed the foolishness of these two ideas--first: "Man can
+be justly punished forever for the sin of Adam." Second: "Man can be
+justly rewarded with eternal joy for the goodness of Christ."
+
+Yet the man who believes this, preaches a sermon in which he says that
+a man must reap what he sows. Orthodox Christians teach exactly the
+opposite. They teach that no matter what a man sows, no matter how
+wicked his life has been, that he can by repentance change the crop.
+That all his sins shall be forgotten and that only the goodness of
+Christ will be remembered.
+
+Let us see how this works:
+
+Mr. A. has lived a good and useful life, kept his contracts, paid his
+debts, educated his children, loved his wife and made his home a heaven,
+but he did not believe in the inspiration of Mr. Moody's Bible. He died
+and his soul was sent to hell. Mr. Moody says that as a man sows so
+shall he reap.
+
+Mr. B. lived a useless and wicked life. By his cruelty he drove his wife
+to insanity, his children became vagrants and beggars, his home was a
+perfect hell, he committed many crimes, he was a thief, a burglar, a
+murderer. A few minutes before he was hanged he got religion and his
+soul went from the scaffold to heaven. And yet Mr. Moody says that as a
+man sows so shall he reap.
+
+Mr. Moody ought to have a little philosophy--a little good sense.
+
+So Mr. Moody says that only in this life can a man secure the reward of
+repentance.
+
+Just before a man dies, God loves him--loves him as a mother loves her
+babe--but a moment after he dies, he sends his soul to hell. In the
+other world nothing can be done to reform him. The society of God and
+the angels can have no good effect. Nobody can be made better in heaven.
+This world is the only place where reform is possible. Here, surrounded
+by the wicked in the midst of temptations, in the darkness of ignorance,
+a human being may reform if he is fortunate enough to hear the words
+of some revival preacher, but when he goes before his maker--before the
+Trinity--he has no chance. God can do nothing for his soul except to
+send it to hell.
+
+This shows that the power for good is confined to people in this world
+and that in the next world God can do nothing to reform his children.
+This is theology. This is what they call "Tidings of great joy."
+
+Every orthodox creed is savage, ignorant and idiotic.
+
+In the orthodox heaven there is no mercy, no pity. In the orthodox hell
+there is no hope, no reform. God is an eternal jailer, an everlasting
+turnkey.
+
+And yet Christians now say that while there may be no fire in hell--no
+actual flames--yet the lost souls will feel forever the tortures of
+conscience.
+
+What will conscience trouble the people in hell about? They tell us that
+they will remember their sins.
+
+Well, what about the souls in heaven? They committed awful sins, they
+made their fellow-men unhappy. They took the lives of others--sent many
+to eternal torment. Will they have no conscience? Is hell the only place
+where souls regret the evil they have done? Have the angels no regret,
+no remorse, no conscience?
+
+If this be so, heaven must be somewhat worse than hell.
+
+In old times, if people wanted to know anything they asked the preacher.
+Now they do if they don't.
+
+The Bible has, with intelligent men, lost its authority.
+
+The miracles are now regarded by sensible people as the spawn of
+ignorance and credulity. On every hand people are looking for facts--for
+truth--and all religions are taking their places in the museum of myths.
+
+Yes, the people are becoming civilized, and so they are putting out the
+fires of hell. They are ceasing to believe in a God who seeks eternal
+revenge.
+
+The people are becoming sensible. They are asking for evidence. They
+care but little for the winged phantoms of the air--for the ghosts and
+devils and supposed gods. The people are anxious to be happy here and
+they want a little heaven in this life.
+
+Theology is a curse. Science is a blessing. We do not need preachers,
+but teachers; not priests, but thinkers; not churches, but schools; not
+steeples, but observatories. We want knowledge.
+
+Let us hope that Mr. Moody will read some really useful books.
+
+
+
+
+SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?
+
+SHOULD parents, who are Infidels, unbelievers or Atheists, send their
+children to Sunday schools and churches to give them the benefit of
+Christian education?
+
+Parents who do not believe the Bible to be an inspired book should
+not teach their children that it is. They should be absolutely honest.
+Hypocrisy is not a virtue, and, as a rule, lies are less valuable than
+facts.
+
+An unbeliever should not allow the mind of his child to be deformed,
+stunted and shriveled by superstition. He should not allow the child's
+imagination to be polluted. Nothing is more outrageous than to take
+advantage of the helplessness of childhood to sow in the brain the seeds
+of falsehoods, to imprison the soul in the dungeon of Fear, to teach
+dimpled infancy the infamous dogma of eternal pain--filling life with
+the glow and glare of hell.
+
+No unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the orthodox
+inquisitions. He should defend the mind from attack as he would the
+body. He should recognize the rights of the soul. In the orthodox Sunday
+schools, children are taught that it is a duty to believe--that evidence
+is not essential--that faith is independent of facts and that religion
+is superior to reason. They are taught not to use their natural
+sense--not to tell what they really think--not to entertain a doubt--not
+to ask wicked questions, but to accept and believe what their teachers
+say. In this way the minds of the children are invaded, corrupted and
+conquered. Would an educated man send his child to a school in which
+Newton's statement in regard to the attraction of gravitation was
+denied--in which the law of falling bodies, as given by Galileo, was
+ridiculed--Kepler's three laws declared to be idiotic, and the rotary
+motion of the earth held to be utterly absurd?
+
+Why then should an intelligent man allow his child to be taught the
+geology and astronomy of the Bible? Children should be taught to seek
+for the truth--to be honest, kind, generous, merciful and just. They
+should be taught to love liberty and to live to the ideal.
+
+Why then should an unbeliever, an Infidel, send his child to an orthodox
+Sunday school where he is taught that he has no right to seek for the
+truth--no right to be mentally honest, and that he will be damned for
+an honest doubt--where he is taught that God was ferocious,
+revengeful, heartless as a wild beast--that he drowned millions of his
+children--that he ordered wars of extermination and told his soldiers
+to kill gray-haired and trembling age, mothers and children, and to
+assassinate with the sword of war the babes unborn?
+
+Why should an unbeliever in the Bible send his child to an orthodox
+Sunday school where he is taught that God was in favor of slavery
+and told the Jews to buy of the heathen and that they should be their
+bondmen and bondwomen forever; where he is taught that God upheld
+polygamy and the degradation of women?
+
+Why should an unbeliever, who believes in the uniformity of Nature, in
+the unbroken and unbreakable chain of cause and effect, allow his child
+to be taught that miracles have been performed; that men have gone
+bodily to heaven; that millions have been miraculously fed with manna
+and quails; that fire has refused to burn clothes and flesh of men; that
+iron has been made to float; that the earth and moon have been stopped
+and that the earth has not only been stopped, but made to turn the other
+way; that devils inhabit the bodies of men and women; that diseases have
+been cured with words, and that the dead, with a touch, have been made
+to live again?
+
+The thoughtful man knows that there is not the slightest evidence that
+these miracles ever were performed. Why should he allow his children to
+be stuffed with these foolish and impossible falsehoods? Why should
+he give his lambs to the care and keeping of the wolves and hyenas of
+superstition?
+
+Children should be taught only what somebody knows. Guesses should not
+be palmed off on them as demonstrated facts. If a Christian lived in
+Constantinople he would not send his children to the mosque to be taught
+that Mohammed was a prophet of God and that the Koran is an inspired
+book. Why? Because he does not believe in Mohammed or the Koran. That is
+reason enough. So, an Agnostic, living in New York, should not allow his
+children to be taught that the Bible is an inspired book. I use the word
+"Agnostic" because I prefer it to the word Atheist. As a matter of fact,
+no one knows that God exists and no one knows that God does not exist.
+To my mind there is no evidence that God exists--that this world is
+governed by a being of infinite goodness, wisdom and power, but I do
+not pretend to know. What I insist upon is that children should not be
+poisoned--should not be taken advantage of--that they should be treated
+fairly, honestly--that they should be allowed to develop from the inside
+instead of being crammed from the outside--that they should be taught
+to reason, not to believe--to think, to investigate and to use their
+senses, their minds.
+
+Would a Catholic send his children to a school to be taught that
+Catholicism is superstition and that Science is the only savior of
+mankind?
+
+Why then should a free and sensible believer in Science, in the
+naturalness of the universe, send his child to a Catholic school?
+
+Nothing could be more irrational, foolish and absurd.
+
+My advice to all Agnostics is to keep their children from the orthodox
+Sunday schools, from the orthodox churches, from the poison of the
+pulpits.
+
+Teach your children the facts you know. If you do not know, say so. Be
+as honest as you are ignorant. Do all you can to develop their minds, to
+the end that they may live useful and happy lives.
+
+Strangle the serpent of superstition that crawls and hisses about
+the cradle. Keep your children from the augurs, the soothsayers, the
+medicine-men, the priests of the supernatural. Tell them that all
+religions have been made by folks and that all the "sacred books" were
+written by ignorant men.
+
+Teach them that the world is natural. Teach them to be absolutely
+honest. Do not send them where they will contract diseases of the
+mind--the leprosy of the soul. Let us do all we can to make them
+intelligent.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?
+
+     * Written for The Boston Investigator.
+
+
+YOU ask me what I would "substitute for the Bible as a moral guide.".
+
+I know that many people regard the Bible as the only moral guide
+and believe that in that book only can be found the true and perfect
+standard of morality.
+
+There are many good precepts, many wise sayings and many good
+regulations and laws in the Bible, and these are mingled with bad
+precepts, with foolish sayings, with absurd rules and cruel laws.
+
+But we must remember that the Bible is a collection of many books
+written centuries apart, and that it in part represents the growth and
+tells in part the history of a people. We must also remember that the
+writers treat of many subjects. Many of these writers have nothing to
+say about right or wrong, about vice or virtue.
+
+The book of Genesis has nothing about morality. There is not a line in
+it calculated to shed light on the path of conduct. No one can call that
+book a moral guide. It is made up of myth and miracle, of tradition and
+legend.
+
+In Exodus we have an account of the manner in which Jehovah delivered
+the Jews from Egyptian bondage.
+
+We now know that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians; that the
+entire story is a fiction. We know this, because there is not found in
+Hebrew a word of Egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language
+of the Egyptians a word of Hebrew origin. This being so, we know that
+the Hebrews and Egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of
+years.
+
+Certainly Exodus was not written to teach morality. In that book you
+cannot find one word against human slavery. As a matter of fact, Jehovah
+was a believer in that institution.
+
+The killing of cattle with disease and hail, the murder of the
+first-born, so that in every house was death, because the king refused
+to let the Hebrews go, certainly was not moral; it was fiendish. The
+writer of that book regarded all the people of Egypt, their children,
+their flocks and herds, as the property of Pharaoh, and these people and
+these cattle were killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but
+simply for the purpose of punishing the king. Is it possible to get any
+morality out of this history?
+
+All the laws found in Exodus, including the Ten Commandments, so far as
+they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all
+the peoples of the world.
+
+Murder is, and always was, a crime, and always will be, as long as a
+majority of people object to being murdered.
+
+Industry always has been and always will be the enemy of larceny.
+
+The nature of man is such that he admires the teller of truth and
+despises the liar. Among all tribes, among all people, truth-telling has
+been considered a virtue and false swearing or false speaking a vice.
+
+The love of parents for children is natural, and this love is found
+among all the animals that live. So the love of children for parents is
+natural, and was not and cannot be created by law. Love does not spring
+from a sense of duty, nor does it bow in obedience to commands.
+
+So men and women are not virtuous because of anything in books or
+creeds.
+
+All the Ten Commandments that are good were old, were the result of
+experience. The commandments that were original with Jehovah were
+foolish.
+
+The worship of "any other God" could not have been worse than the
+worship of Jehovah, and nothing could have been more absurd than the
+sacredness of the Sabbath.
+
+If commandments had been given against slavery and polygamy, against
+wars of invasion and extermination, against religious persecution in all
+its forms, so that the world could be free, so that the brain might be
+developed and the heart civilized, then we might, with propriety, call
+such commandments a moral guide.
+
+Before we can truthfully say that the Ten Commandments constitute a
+moral guide, we must add and subtract. We must throw away some, and
+write others in their places.
+
+The commandments that have a known application here, in this world, and
+treat of human obligations are good, the others have no basis in fact,
+or experience.
+
+Many of the regulations found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
+Deuteronomy, are good. Many are absurd and cruel.
+
+The entire ceremonial of worship is insane.
+
+Most of the punishment for violations of laws are un-philosophic and
+brutal.... The fact is that the Pentateuch upholds nearly all crimes,
+and to call it a moral guide is as absurd as to say that it is merciful
+or true.
+
+Nothing of a moral nature can be found in Joshua or Judges. These books
+are filled with crimes, with massacres and murders. They are about the
+same as the real history of the Apache Indians.
+
+The story of Ruth is not particularly moral.
+
+In first and second Samuel there is not one word calculated to develop
+the brain or conscience.
+
+Jehovah murdered seventy thousand Jews because David took a census of
+the people. David, according to the account, was the guilty one, but
+only the innocent were killed.
+
+In first and second Kings can be found nothing of ethical value. All
+the kings who refused to obey the priests were denounced, and all the
+crowned wretches who assisted the priests, were declared to be the
+favorites of Jehovah. In these books there cannot be found one word in
+favor of liberty.
+
+There are some good Psalms, and there are some that are infamous. Most
+of these Psalms are selfish. Many of them, are passionate appeals for
+revenge.
+
+The story of Job shocks the heart of every good man. In this book there
+is some poetry, some pathos, and some philosophy, but the story of this
+drama called Job, is heartless to the last degree. The children of
+Job are murdered to settle a little wager between God and the Devil.
+Afterward, Job having remained firm, other children are given in the
+place of the murdered ones. Nothing, however, is done for the children
+who were murdered.
+
+The book of Esther is utterly absurd, and the only redeeming feature in
+the book is that the name of Jehovah is not mentioned.
+
+I like the Song of Solomon because it tells of human love, and that is
+something I can understand. That book in my judgment, is worth all the
+ones that go before it, and is a far better moral guide.
+
+There are some wise and merciful Proverbs. Some are selfish and some are
+flat and commonplace.
+
+I like the book of Ecclesiastes because there you find some sense, some
+poetry, and some philosophy. Take away the interpolations and it is a
+good book.
+
+Of course there is nothing in Nehemiah or Ezra to make men better,
+nothing in Jeremiah or Lamentations calculated to lessen vice, and only
+a few passages in Isaiah that can be used in a good cause.
+
+In Ezekiel and Daniel we find only ravings of the insane.
+
+In some of the minor prophets there is now and then a good verse, now
+and then an elevated thought.
+
+You can, by selecting passages from different books, make a very good
+creed, and by selecting passages from different books, you can make a
+very bad creed.
+
+The trouble is that the spirit of the Old Testament, its disposition,
+its temperament, is bad, selfish and cruel. The most fiendish things are
+commanded, commended and applauded.
+
+The stories that are told of Joseph, of Elisha, of Daniel and Gideon,
+and of many others, are hideous; hellish.
+
+On the whole, the Old Testament cannot be considered a moral guide.
+
+Jehovah was not a moral God. He had all the vices, and he lacked all the
+virtues. He generally carried out his threats, but he never faithfully
+kept a promise.
+
+At the same time, we must remember that the Old Testament is a natural
+production, that it was written by savages who were slowly crawling
+toward the light. We must give them credit for the noble things they
+said, and we must be charitable enough to excuse their faults and even
+their crimes.
+
+I know that many Christians regard the Old Testament as the foundation
+and the New as the superstructure, and while many admit that there are
+faults and mistakes in the Old Testament, they insist that the New is
+the flower and perfect fruit.
+
+I admit that there are many good things in the New Testament, and if we
+take from that book the dogmas of eternal pain, of infinite revenge, of
+the atonement, of human sacrifice, of the necessity of shedding blood;
+if we throw away the doctrine of non-resistance, of loving enemies,
+the idea that prosperity is the result of wickedness, that poverty is a
+preparation for Paradise, if we throw all these away and take the good,
+sensible passages, applicable to conduct, then we can make a fairly good
+moral guide,--narrow, but moral.
+
+Of course, many important things would be left out. You would have
+nothing about human rights, nothing in favor of the family, nothing for
+education, nothing for investigation, for thought and reason, but still
+you would have a fairly good moral guide.
+
+On the other hand, if you would take the foolish passages, the extreme
+ones, you could make a creed that would satisfy an insane asylum.
+
+If you take the cruel passages, the verses that inculcate eternal
+hatred, verses that writhe and hiss like serpents, you can make a creed
+that would shock the heart of a hyena.
+
+It may be that no book contains better passages than the New Testament,
+but certainly no book contains worse.
+
+Below the blossom of love you find the thorn of hatred; on the lips that
+kiss, you find the poison of the cobra.
+
+The Bible is not a moral guide.
+
+Any man who follows faithfully all its teachings is an enemy of society
+and will probably end his days in a prison or an asylum.
+
+What is morality?
+
+In this world we need certain things. We have many wants. We are exposed
+to many dangers. We need food, fuel, raiment and shelter, and besides
+these wants, there is, what may be called, the hunger of the mind.
+
+We are conditioned beings, and our happiness depends upon conditions.
+There are certain things that diminish, certain things that increase,
+well-being. There are certain things that destroy and there are others
+that preserve.
+
+Happiness, including its highest forms, is after all the only good, and
+everything, the result of which is to produce or secure happiness, is
+good, that is to say, moral. Everything that destroys or diminishes
+well-being is bad, that is to say, immoral. In other words, all that is
+good is moral, and all that is bad is immoral.
+
+What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible
+answer is one word: Intelligence.
+
+We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want
+the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical,
+of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We
+want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human
+mind.
+
+These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached,
+the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would
+form the best conceivable moral guide.
+
+We cannot depend on what are called "inspired books," or the religions
+of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and
+according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some
+supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with
+intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation,
+of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise
+eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith.
+
+This is not only absurd, but it is immoral.
+
+These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things
+holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat
+on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy
+in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to
+express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against
+some god. To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ,
+is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question
+or doubt miracles, is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the
+obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the
+unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous.
+It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be
+governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe.
+These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural
+conceptions of virtue.
+
+All "inspired books," teaching that what the supernatural commands
+is right, and right because commanded, and that what the supernatural
+prohibits is wrong, and wrong because prohibited, are absurdly
+unphilosophic.
+
+And all "inspired books," teaching that only those who obey the
+commands of the supernatural are, or can be, truly virtuous, and that
+unquestioning faith will be rewarded with eternal joy, are grossly
+immoral.
+
+Again I say: Intelligence is the only moral guide.
+
+
+
+
+GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.
+
+
+THE Governor of New Hampshire, undoubtedly a good and sincere man,
+issued a Fast-Day Proclamation to the people of his State, in which I
+find the following paragraph:
+
+"The decline of the Christian religion, particularly in our rural
+communities, is a marked feature of the times, and steps should be taken
+to remedy it. No matter what our belief may be in religious matters,
+every good citizen knows that when the restraining influences of
+religion are withdrawn from a community, its decay, moral, mental
+and financial, is swift and sure. To me this is one of the strongest
+evidences of the fundamental truth of Christianity. I suggest to-day,
+as far as possible on Fast-Day, union meetings be held, made up of all
+shades of belief, including all who are interested in the welfare of our
+State, and that in your prayers and other devotions and in your mutual
+councils you remember and consider the problem of the condition of
+religion in the rural communities. There are towns where no church bell
+sends forth its solemn call from January to January. There are villages
+where children grow to manhood unchristened. There are communities where
+the dead are laid away without the benison of the name of the Christ,
+and where marriages are solemnized only by Justices of the Peace. This
+is a matter worthy of your thoughtful consideration, citizens of New
+Hampshire. It does not augur well for the future. You can afford to
+devote one day in the year to your fellow-men, to work and thought and
+prayer for your children and your children's children."
+
+These words of the Governor have caused surprise, discussion and danger.
+Many ministers have denied that Christianity is declining, and have
+attacked the Governor with the malice of meekness and the savagery of
+humility. The question is: Is Christianity declining?
+
+In order to answer this question we must state what Christianity is.
+
+Christians tell us that there are certain fundamental truths that must
+be believed.
+
+We must believe in God, the creator and governor of the universe; in
+Jesus Christ, his only begotten son; in the Holy Ghost; in the atonement
+made by Christ; in salvation by faith; in the second birth; in heaven
+for believers, in hell for deniers and doubters, and in the
+inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. They must also believe in a
+prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, in special providence, and
+in addition to all this they must practice a few ceremonies. This, I
+believe, is a fair skeleton of Christianity. Of course I cannot give
+an exact definition. Christians do not and never have agreed among
+themselves. They have been disputing and fighting for many centuries,
+and to-day they are as far apart as ever.
+
+A few years ago Christians believed the "fundamental truths" They had
+no doubts. They knew that God existed; that he made the world. They
+knew when he commenced to work at the earth and stars and knew when he
+finished. They knew that he, like a potter, mixed and moulded clay into
+the shape of a man and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life.
+They knew that he took from this man a rib and framed the first woman.
+
+It must be admitted that sensible Christians have outgrown this belief.
+Jehovah the gardener, the potter, the tailor, has been dethroned. The
+story of creation is believed only by the provincial, the stupid, the
+truly orthodox. People who have read Darwin and Haeckel and had sense
+enough to understand these great men, laugh at the legends of the Jews.
+
+A few years ago most Christians believed that Christ was the son of God,
+and not only the son of God, but God himself.
+
+This belief is slowly fading from the minds of Christians, from the
+minds of those who have minds.
+
+Many Christians now say that Christ was simply a man--a perfect man.
+Others say that he was divine, but not actually God--a union of God and
+man. Some say that while Christ was not God, he was as nearly like God
+as it is possible for man to be.
+
+The old belief that he was actually God--that he sacrificed himself unto
+himself--that he deserted himself; that he bore the burden of his
+own wrath; that he made it possible to save a few of his children by
+shedding his own blood; that he could not forgive the sins of men until
+they murdered him--this frightful belief is slowly dying day by
+day. Most ministers are ashamed to preach these cruel and idiotic
+absurdities. The Christ of our time is not the Christ of the New
+Testament--not the Christ of the Middle Ages; nor of Luther, Wesley or
+the Puritan fathers.
+
+The Christ who was God--who was his own son and his own father--who
+was born of a virgin, cast out devils, rose from the dead, and ascended
+bodily to heaven--is not the Christ of to-day.
+
+The Holy Ghost has never been accurately defined or described. He has
+always been a winged influence--a divine aroma; a disembodied essence;
+a spiritual climate; an enthusiastic flame; a something sensitive and
+unforgiving; the real father of Jesus Christ.
+
+A few years ago the clergy had a great deal to say about the Holy Ghost,
+but now the average minister, while he alludes to this shadowy deity
+to round out a prayer, seems ta have but little confidence in him. This
+deity is and always has been extremely vague. He has been represented
+in the form of a dove; but this form is not associated with much
+intelligence.
+
+Formerly it was believed that all men were by nature wicked, and that it
+would be perfectly just for God to damn the entire human race. In fact,
+it was thought that God, feeling that he had to damn all his children,
+invented a scheme by which some could be saved and at the same time
+justice could be satisfied. God knew that without the shedding of blood
+there could be no remission of sin. For many centuries he was satisfied
+with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves. But the sins continued to
+increase. A greater sacrifice was necessary. So God concluded to make
+the greatest possible sacrifice--to shed his own blood, that is to say,
+to have it shed by his chosen people. This was the atonement--the scheme
+of salvation--a scheme that satisfied justice and partially defeated the
+Devil.
+
+No intelligent Christians believe in this atonement. It is utterly
+unphilosophic. The idea that man made salvation possible by murdering
+God is infinitely absurd. This makes salvation the blossom of a
+crime--the blessed fruit of murder. According to this the joys of heaven
+are born of the agonies of innocence. If the Jews had been civilized--if
+they had believed in freedom of conscience and had listened kindly and
+calmly to the teachings of Christ, the whole world, including Christ's
+mother, would have gone to hell.
+
+Our fathers had two absurdities. They balanced each other. They said
+that God could justly damn his children for the sin of Adam, and that he
+could justly save his children on account of the sufferings and virtues
+of Christ; that is to say, on account of his own sufferings and virtues.
+
+This view of the atonement has mostly been abandoned. It is now
+preached, not that Christ bought souls with his blood, but that he has
+ennobled souls by his example. The supernatural part of the atonement
+has, by the more intelligent, been thrown away. So the idea of imputed
+sin--of vicarious vice--has been by many abandoned.
+
+Salvation by faith is growing weak. People are beginning to see that
+character is more important than belief; that virtue is above all
+creeds. Civilized people no longer believe in a God who will damn an
+honest, generous man. They see that it is not honest to offer a reward
+for belief. The promise of reward is not evidence. It is an attempt to
+bribe.
+
+If God wishes his children to believe, he should furnish evidence.
+He should not endeavor to make promises and threats take the place
+of facts. To offer a reward for credulity is dishonest and
+immoral--infamous.
+
+To say that good people who never heard of Christ ought to be damned for
+not believing on him is a mixture of idiocy and savagery.
+
+People are beginning to perceive that happiness is a result, not a
+reward; that happiness must be earned; that it is not alms. It is also
+becoming apparent that sins cannot be forgiven; that no power can step
+between actions and consequences; that men must "reap what they sow;"
+that a man who has lived a cruel life cannot, by repenting between the
+last dose of medicine and the last breath, be washed in the blood of the
+Lamb, and become an angel--an angel entitled to an eternity of joy.
+
+All this is absurd, but you may say that it is not cruel. But to say
+that a man who has lived a useful life; who has made a happy home; who
+has lifted the fallen, succored the oppressed and battled to uphold
+the right; to say that such a man, because he failed to believe without
+evidence, will suffer eternal pain, is to say that God is an infinite
+wild beast.
+
+Salvation for credulity means damnation for investigation.
+
+At one time the "second birth" was regarded as a divine mystery--as a
+miracle--a something done by a supernatural power; probably by the Holy
+Ghost. Now ministers are explaining this mystery. A change of heart is a
+change of ideas. About this there is nothing miraculous.
+
+This happens to most men and women--happens many times in the life
+of one man. If this happens without excitement--as the result of
+thought--it is called reformation. If it occurs in a revival--if it is
+the result of fright--it is called the "second birth."
+
+A few years ago Christians believed in the inspiration of the Bible.
+They had no doubts. The Bible was the standard. If some geologist found
+a fact inconsistent with the Scriptures he was silenced with a text.
+If some doubter called attention to a contradiction in the Bible he was
+denounced as an ungodly and blaspheming wretch. Christians then knew
+that the universe was only about six thousand years old, and any man who
+denied this was an enemy of Christ and a friend of the Devil.
+
+All this has changed. The Bible is no longer the standard. Science has
+dethroned the inspired volume. Even theologians are taking facts
+into consideration. Only ignorant bigots now believe in the plenary
+inspiration of the Bible.
+
+The intelligent ministers know that the Holy Scriptures are filled with
+mistakes, contradictions and interpolations. They no longer believe in
+the flood, in Babel, in Lot's wife or in the fire and brimstone storm.
+They are not sure about the burning bush, the plagues of Egypt, the
+division of the Red Sea or the miracles in the wilderness. All these
+wonders are growing foolish. They belong to the Mother Goose of the
+past, and many clergymen are ashamed to say that they believe them. So,
+the lengthening of the day in order that General Joshua might have more
+time to kill, the journey of Elijah to heaven, the voyage of Jonah
+in the fish, and many other wonders of a like kind, have become so
+transparently false that even a theologian refuses to believe.
+
+The same is true of many of the miracles of the New Testament. No
+sensible man now believes that Christ cast devils and unclean spirits
+out of the bodies of men and women. A few years ago all Christians
+believed all these devil miracles with all the mind they had. A few
+years ago only Infidels denied these miracles, but now the theologians
+who are studying the "Higher Criticism" are reaching the conclusions of
+Voltaire and Paine. They have just discovered that the objections made
+to the Bible by the Deists are supported by the facts.
+
+At the same time these "Higher Critics," while they admit that the Bible
+is not true, still insist that it is inspired.
+
+The other evening I attended Forepaugh & Sell's Circus at Madison Square
+Garden and saw a magnificent panorama of performances. While looking at
+a man riding a couple of horses I thought of the "Higher Critics." They
+accept Darwin and cling to Genesis. They admit that Genesis is false in
+fact, and then assert that in a higher sense it is absolutely true.
+
+A lie bursts into blossom and has the perfume of truth. These critics
+declare that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and then establish
+the truth of the declaration by showing that it is filled with
+contradictions, absurdities and false prophecies.
+
+The horses they ride, sometimes get so far apart that it seems to me
+that walking would be easier on the legs.
+
+So, I saw at the circus the "Snake Man." I saw him tie himself into all
+kinds of knots; saw him make a necktie of his legs; saw him throw back
+his head and force it between his knees; saw him twist and turn as
+though his bones were made of rubber, and as I watched him I thought of
+the mental doublings and contortions of the preachers who have answered
+me.
+
+Let Christians say what they will, the Bible is no longer the actual
+word of God; it is no longer perfect; it is no longer quite true.
+
+The most that is now claimed for the Bible by the "Higher Critics" is,
+that some passages are inspired; that some passages are true, and that
+God has left man free to pick these passages out.
+
+The ministers are preaching Infidelity. What would Lyman Beecher have
+thought of a man like Dr. Abbott? he would have consigned him to hell.
+What would John Wesley have thought of a Methodist like Dr. Cadman? He
+would have denounced him as a child of the Devil. What would Calvin have
+thought of a Presbyterian like Professor Briggs? He would have burned
+him at the stake, and through the smoke and flame would have shouted,
+"You are a dog of Satan." How would Jeremy Taylor have treated an
+Episcopalian like Heber Newton?
+
+The Governor of New Hampshire is right when he says that Christianity
+has declined. The flames of faith are flickering, zeal is cooling and
+even bigotry is beginning to see the other side. I admit that there
+are still millions of orthodox Christians whose minds are incapable of
+growth, and who care no more for facts than a monitor does for bullets.
+Such obstructions on the highway of progress are removed only by death.
+
+The dogma of eternal pain is no longer believed by the reasonably
+intelligent. People who have a sense of justice know that eternal
+revenge cannot be enjoyed by infinite goodness. They know that hell
+would make heaven impossible. If Christians believed in hell as they
+once did, the fagots would be lighted again, heretics would be stretched
+on the rack, and all the instruments of torture would again be stained
+with innocent blood. Christianity has declined because intelligence has
+increased.
+
+Men and women who know something of the history of man, of the horrors
+of plague, famine and flood, of earthquake, volcano and cyclone, of
+religious persecution and slavery, have but little confidence in special
+providence. They do not believe that a prayer was ever answered.
+
+Thousands of people who accept Christ as a moral guide have thrown, away
+the supernatural.
+
+Christianity does not satisfy the brain and heart. It contains too many
+absurdities. It is unphilosophic, unnatural, impossible. Not to resist
+evil is moral suicide. To love your enemies is impossible. To desert
+wife and children for the sake of heaven is cowardly and selfish. To
+promise rewards for belief is dishonest. To threaten torture for honest
+unbelief is infamous. Christianity is declining because men and women
+are growing better.
+
+The Governor was not satisfied with saying that Christianity had
+declined, but he added this: "Every good citizen knows that when the
+restraining influences of religion are withdrawn from a community, its
+decay, moral, mental and financial is swift and sure."
+
+The restraining influences of religion have never been withdrawn from
+Spain or Portugal, from Austria or Italy. The "restraining influences"
+are still active in Russia. Emperor William relies on them in Germany,
+and the same influences are very busy taking care of Ireland. If these
+influences should be withdrawn from Spain there would be "mental, moral
+and financial decay." Is not this statement perfectly absurd?
+
+The fact is that religion has reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a
+hand organ and Ireland to exile. What are the restraining influences of
+religion? I admit that religion can prevent people from eating meat on
+Friday, from dancing in Lent, from going to the theatre on holy days and
+from swearing in public. In other words, religion can restrain people
+from committing artificial offences. But the real question is: Can
+religion restrain people from committing natural crimes?
+
+The church teaches that God can and will forgive sins.
+
+Christianity sells sin on a credit. It says to men and women, "Be good;
+do right; but no matter how many crimes you commit you can be forgiven."
+How can such a religion be regarded as a restraining influence! There
+was a time when religion had power; when the church ruled Christendom;
+when popes crowned and uncrowned kings. Was there at that time moral,
+mental and financial growth? Did the nations thus restrained by
+religion, prosper? When these restraining influences were weakened, when
+popes were humbled, when creeds were denied, did morality, intelligence
+and prosperity begin to decay?
+
+What are the restraining influences of religion? Did anybody ever hear
+of a policeman being dismissed because a new church had been organized?
+
+Christianity teaches that the man who does right carries a cross. The
+exact opposite of this is true. The cross is carried by the man who
+does wrong. I believe in the restraining influences of intelligence.
+Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind. If you wish
+to make men moral and prosperous develop the brain. Men must be taught
+to rely on themselves. To supplicate the supernatural is a waste of
+time.
+
+The only evils that have been caused by the decline of Christianity,
+as pointed out by the Governor, are that in some villages they hear no
+solemn bells, that the dead are buried without Christian ceremony, that
+marriages are contracted before Justices of the Peace, and that children
+go unchristened.
+
+These evils are hardly serious enough to cause moral, mental and
+financial decay. The average church bell is not very musical--not
+calculated to develop the mind or quicken the conscience. The absence of
+the ordinary funeral sermon does not add to the horror of death, and
+the failure to hear a minister say, as he stands by the grave, "One star
+differs in glory from another star. There is a difference between the
+flesh of fowl and fish. Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt
+good manners," does not necessarily increase the grief of the mourners.
+So far as children are concerned, if they are vaccinated, it does not
+make much difference whether they are christened or not.
+
+Marriage is a civil contract, and God is not one of the contracting
+parties. It is a contract with which the church has no business to
+interfere. Marriage with us is regulated by law. The real marriage--the
+uniting of hearts, the lighting of the sacred flame in each--is the work
+of Nature, and it is the best work that nature does. The ceremony of
+marriage gives notice to the world that the real marriage has taken
+place. Ministers have no real interest in marriages outside of the fees.
+Certainly marriages by Justices of the Peace cannot cause the mental,
+moral and financial decay of a State.
+
+The things pointed out by the Governor were undoubtedly produced by
+the decline of Christianity, but they are not evils, and they cannot
+possibly injure the people morally, mentally or financially. The
+Governor calls on the people to think, work and pray. With two-thirds of
+this I agree. If the people of New Hampshire will think and work without
+praying they will grow morally, mentally and financially. If they pray
+without working and thinking, they will decay.
+
+Prayer is beggary--an effort to get something for nothing. Labor is the
+honest prayer.
+
+I do not think that the good and true in Christianity are declining. The
+good and true are more clearly perceived and more precious than ever.
+The supernatural, the miraculous part of Christianity is declining.
+The New Testament has been compelled to acknowledge the jurisdiction of
+reason. If Christianity continues to decline at the same rate and ratio
+that it has declined in this generation, in a few years all that is
+supernatural in the Christian religion will cease to exist. There is a
+conflict--a battle between the natural and the supernatural. The natural
+was baffled and beaten for thousands of years. The flag of defeat was
+carried by the few, by the brave and wise, by the real heroes of our
+race. They were conquered, captured, imprisoned, tortured and burned.
+Others took their places. The banner was kept in the air. In spite of
+countless defeats the army of the natural increased. It began to gain
+victories. It did not torture and kill the conquered. It enlightened
+and blessed. It fought ignorance with science, cruelty with kindness,
+slavery with justice, and all vices with virtues. In this great conflict
+we have passed midnight. When the morning comes its rays will gild but
+one flag--the flag of the natural.
+
+All over Christendom religions are declining. Only children and the
+intellectually undeveloped have faith--the old faith that defies facts.
+Only a few years ago to be excommunicated by the pope blanched the
+cheeks of the bravest. Now the result would be laughter. Only a few
+years ago, for the sake of saving heathen souls, priests would brave all
+dangers and endure all hardships.
+
+I once read the diary of a priest--one who long ago went down the
+Illinois River, the first white man to be borne on its waters. In this
+diary he wrote that he had just been paid for all that he had suffered.
+He had added a gem to the crown of his glory--had saved a soul for
+Christ. He had baptized a papoose.
+
+That kind of faith has departed from the world.
+
+The zeal that flamed in the hearts of Calvin, Luther and Knox, is
+cold and dead. Where are the Wesleys and Whitfields? Where are the old
+evangelists, the revivalists who swayed the hearts of their hearers with
+words of flame? The preachers of our day have lost the Promethean fire.
+They have lost the tone of certainty, of authority. "Thus saith the
+Lord" has dwindled to "perhaps." Sermons, messages from God, promises
+radiant with eternal joy, threats lurid with the flames of hell--have
+changed to colorless essays; to apologies and literary phrases; to
+inferences and peradventures.
+
+"The blood-dyed vestures of the Redeemer are not waving in triumph over
+the ramparts of sin and rebellion," but over the fortresses of faith
+float the white flags of truce. The trumpets no longer sound for battle,
+but for parley. The fires of hell have been extinguished, and heaven
+itself is only a dream. The "eternal verities" have changed to doubts.
+The torch of inspiration, choked with ashes, has lost its flame. There
+is no longer in the church "a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty
+wind;" no "cloven tongues like as of fire;" no "wonders in the heaven
+above," and no "signs in the earth beneath." The miracles have faded
+away and the sceptre is passing from superstition to science--science,
+the only possible savior of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.
+
+     * Written for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Number of  the
+     New York Truth Seeker, September 3, 1898.
+
+
+I CONGRATULATE _The Truth Seeker_ on its twenty-fifth birthday. It has
+fought a good fight. It has always been at the front. It has carried the
+flag, and its flag is a torch that sheds light.
+
+Twenty-five years ago the people of this country, for the most part,
+were quite orthodox. The great "fundamental" falsehoods of Christianity
+were generally accepted. Those who were not Christians, as a rule,
+admitted that they ought to be; that they ought to repent and join the
+church, and this they generally intended to do.
+
+The ministers had few doubts. The most of them had been educated not
+to think, but to believe. Thought was regarded as dangerous, and the
+clergy, as a rule, kept on the safe side. Investigation was discouraged.
+It was declared that faith was the only road that led to eternal joy.
+
+Most of the schools and colleges were under sectarian control, and the
+presidents and professors were defenders of their creeds. The people
+were crammed with miracles and stuffed with absurdities. They were
+taught that the Bible was the "inspired" word of God, that it was
+absolutely perfect, that the contradictions were only apparent, and
+that it contained no mistakes in philosophy, none in science. The great
+scheme of salvation was declared to be the result of infinite wisdom and
+mercy. Heaven and hell were waiting for the human race. Only those could
+be saved who had faith and who had been born twice.
+
+Most of the ministers taught the geology of Moses, the astronomy of
+Joshua, and the philosophy of Christ. They regarded scientists as
+enemies, and their principal business was to defend miracles and deny
+facts. They knew, however, that men were thinking, investigating in
+every direction, and they feared the result. They became a little
+malicious--somewhat hateful. With their congregations they relied
+on sophistry, and they answered their enemies with epithets, with
+misrepresentations and slanders; and yet their minds were filled with a
+vague fear, with a sickening dread. Some of the people were reading and
+some were thinking. Lyell had told them something about geology, and in
+the light of facts they were reading Genesis again. The clergy called
+Lyell an Infidel, a blasphemer, but the facts seemed to care nothing
+for opprobrious names. Then the "called," the "set apart," the "Lord's
+anointed" began changing the "inspired" word. They erased the word "day"
+and inserted "period," and then triumphantly exclaimed: "The world was
+created in six periods." This answer satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and
+honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.
+
+More and more was being found about the history of life, of living
+things, the order in which the various forms had appeared and the
+relations they had sustained to each other. Beneath the gaze of
+the biologist the fossils were again clothed with flesh, submerged
+continents and islands reappeared, the ancient forest grew once more,
+the air was filled with unknown birds, the seas with armored monsters,
+and the land with beasts of many forms that sought with tooth and claw
+each other's flesh.
+
+Haeckel and Huxley followed life through all its changing forms from
+monad up to man. They found that men, women, and children had been on
+this poor world for hundreds of thousands of years.
+
+The clergy could not dodge these facts, this conclusion, by calling
+"days" periods, because the Bible gives the age of Adam when he died,
+the lives and ages to the flood, to Abraham, to David, and from David to
+Christ, so that, according to the Bible, man at the birth of Christ had
+been on this earth four thousand and four years and no more.
+
+There was no way in which the sacred record could be changed, but of
+course the dear ministers could not admit the conclusion arrived at by
+Haeckel and Huxley. If they did they would have to give up original sin,
+the scheme of the atonement, and the consolation of eternal fire.
+
+They took the only course they could. They promptly and solemnly, with
+upraised hands, denied the facts, denounced the biologists as irreverent
+wretches, and defended the Book. With tears in their voices they talked
+about "Mother's Bible," about the "faith of the fathers," about the
+prayers that the children had said, and they also talked about the
+wickedness of doubt. This satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest
+ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.
+
+The works of Humboldt had been translated, and were being read; the
+intellectual horizon was enlarged, and the fact that the endless chain
+of cause and effect had never been broken, that Nature had never been
+interfered with, forced its way into many minds. This conception of
+nature was beyond the clergy. They did not believe it; they could not
+comprehend it. They did not answer Humboldt, but they attacked him with
+great virulence. They measured his works by the Bible, because the Bible
+was then the standard.
+
+In examining a philosophy, a system, the ministers asked: "Does it agree
+with the sacred book?" With the Bible they separated the gold from the
+dross. Every science had to be tested by the Scriptures. Humboldt did
+not agree with Moses. He differed from Joshua. He had his doubts about
+the flood. That was enough.
+
+Yet, after all, the ministers felt that they were standing on thin
+ice, that they were surrounded by masked batteries, and that something
+unfortunate was liable at any moment to happen. This increased their
+efforts to avoid, to escape. The truth was that they feared the truth.
+They were afraid of facts. They became exceedingly anxious for morality,
+for the young, for the inexperienced. They were afraid to trust human
+nature. They insisted that without the Bible the world would rush to
+crime. They warned the thoughtless of the danger of thinking. They knew
+that it would be impossible for civilization to exist without the Bible.
+They knew this because their God had tried it. He gave no Bible to the
+antediluvians, and they became so bad that he had to destroy them.
+He gave the Jews only the Old Testament, and they were dispersed.
+Irreverent people might say that Jehovah should have known this without
+a trial, but after all that has nothing to do with theology.
+
+Attention had been called to the fact that two accounts of creation are
+in Genesis, and that they do not agree and cannot be harmonized, and
+that, in addition to that, the divine historian had made a mistake as
+to the order of creation; that according to one account Adam was made
+before the animals, and Eve last of all, from Adam's rib; and by the
+other account Adam and Eve were made after the animals, and both at the
+same time. A good many people were surprised to find that the Creator
+had written contradictory accounts of the creation, and had forgotten
+the order in which he created.
+
+Then there was another difficulty. Jehovah had declared that on Tuesday,
+or during the second period, he had created the "firmament" to divide
+the waters which were below the firmament from the waters above the
+firmament. It was found that there is no firmament; that the moisture
+in the air is the result of evaporation, and that there was nothing to
+divide the waters above, from the waters below. So that, according to
+the facts, Jehovah did nothing on the second day or period, because the
+moisture above the earth is not prevented from falling by the firmament,
+but because the mist is lighter than air.
+
+The preachers, however, began to dodge, to evade, to talk about
+"oriental imagery." They declared that Genesis was a "sublime poem,"
+a divine "panorama of creation," an "inspired vision;" that it was
+not intended to be exact in its details, but that it was true in a far
+higher sense, in a poetical sense, in a spiritual sense, conveying a
+truth much higher, much grander than simple, fact. The contradictions
+were covered with the mantle of oriental imagery. This satisfied
+bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was
+not satisfied.
+
+People were reading Darwin. His works interested not only the
+scientific, but the intelligent in all the walks of life. Darwin was the
+keenest observer of all time, the greatest naturalist in all the world.
+He was patient, modest, logical, candid, courageous, and absolutely
+truthful. He told the actual facts. He colored nothing. He was anxious
+only to ascertain the truth. He had no prejudices, no theories, no
+creed. He was the apostle of the real.
+
+The ministers greeted him with shouts of derision. From nearly all the
+pulpits came the sounds of ignorant laughter, one of the saddest of all
+sounds. The clergy in a vague kind of way believed the Bible account
+of creation; they accepted the Miltonic view; they believed that all
+animals, including man, had been made of clay, fashioned by Jehovah's
+hands, and that he had breathed into all forms, not only the breath of
+life, but instinct and reason. They were not in the habit of descending
+to particulars; they did not describe Jehovah as kneading the clay or
+modeling his forms like a sculptor, but what they did say included these
+things.
+
+The theory of Darwin contradicted all their ideas on the subject, vague
+as they were. He showed that man had not appeared at first as man, that
+he had not fallen from perfection, but had slowly risen through many
+ages from lower forms. He took food, climate, and all conditions into
+consideration, and accounted for difference of form, function, instinct,
+and reason, by natural causes. He dispensed with the supernatural. He
+did away with Jehovah the potter.
+
+Of course the theologians denounced him as a blasphemer, as a dethroner
+of God. They even went so far as to smile at his ignorance. They said:
+"If the theory of Darwin is true the Bible is false, our God is a myth,
+and our religion a fable."
+
+In that they were right.
+
+Against Darwin they rained texts of Scripture like shot and shell.
+They believed that they were victorious and their congregations were
+delighted. Poor little frightened professors in religious colleges sided
+with the clergy. Hundreds of backboneless "scientists" ranged themselves
+with the enemies of Darwin. It began to look as though the church was
+victorious.
+
+Slowly, steadily, the ideas of Darwin gained ground. He began to be
+understood. Men of sense were reading what he said. Men of genius were
+on his side. In a little while the really great in all departments of
+human thought declared in his favor. The tide began to turn. The smile
+on the face of the theologian became a frozen grin. The preachers began
+to hedge, to dodge. They admitted that the Bible was not inspired for
+the purpose of teaching science--only inspired about religion, about the
+spiritual, about the divine. The fortifications of faith were crumbling,
+the old guns had been spiked, and the armies of the "living God" were in
+retreat.
+
+Great questions were being discussed, and freely discussed. People
+were not afraid to give their opinions, and they did give their honest
+thoughts. Draper had shown in his "Intellectual Development of Europe"
+that Catholicism had been the relentless enemy of progress, the bitter
+foe of all that is really useful. The Protestants were delighted with
+this book.
+
+Buckle had shown in his "History of Civilization in England" that
+Protestantism had also enslaved the mind, had also persecuted to the
+extent of its power, and that Protestantism in its last analysis was
+substantially the same as the creed of Rome.
+
+This book satisfied the thoughtful.
+
+Hegel in his first book had done a great work and it did great good in
+spite of the fact that his second book was almost a surrender. Lecky in
+his first volume of "The History of Rationalism" shed a flood of
+light on the meanness, the cruelty, and the malevolence of "revealed
+religion," and this did good in spite of the fact that he almost
+apologizes in the second volume for what he had said in the first.
+
+The Universalists had done good. They had civilized a great many
+Christians. They declared that eternal punishment was infinite revenge,
+and that the God of hell was an infinite savage.
+
+Some of the Unitarians, following the example of Theodore Parker,
+denounced Jehovah as a brutal, tribal God. All these forces worked
+together for the development of the orthodox brain.
+
+Herbert Spencer was being read and understood. The theories of this
+great philosopher were being adopted. He overwhelmed the theologians
+with facts, and from a great height he surveyed the world. Of course he
+was attacked, but not answered.
+
+Emerson had sowed the seeds of thought--of doubt--in many minds, and
+from many directions the world was being flooded with intellectual
+light. The clergy became apologetic; they spoke with less certainty;
+with less emphasis, and lost a little confidence in the power of
+assertion. They felt the necessity of doing something, and they began to
+harmonize as best they could the old lies and the new truths. They tried
+to get the wreck ashore, and many of them were willing to surrender if
+they could keep their side-arms; that is to say, their salaries.
+
+Conditions had been reversed. The Bible had ceased to be the standard.
+Science was the supreme and final test.
+
+There was no peace for the pulpit; no peace for the shepherds. Students
+of the Bible in England and Germany had been examining the inspired
+Scriptures. They had been trying to find when and by whom the books of
+the Bible were written. They found that the Pentateuch was not written
+by Moses; that the authors of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings,
+Chronicles, Esther, and Job were not known; that the Psalms were
+not written by David; that Solomon had nothing to do with Proverbs,
+Ecclesiastes, or the Song; that Isaiah was the work of at least three
+authors; that the prophecies of Daniel were written after the happening
+of the events prophesied. They found many mistakes and contradictions,
+and some of them went so far as to assert that the Hebrews had never
+been slaves in Egypt; that the story of the plagues, the exodus, and the
+pursuit was only a myth.
+
+The New Testament fared no better than the Old. These critics found that
+nearly all of the books of the New Testament had been written by unknown
+men; that it was impossible to fix the time when they were written; that
+many of the miracles were absurd and childish, and that in addition
+to all of this, the gospels were found filled with mistakes, with
+interpolations' and contradictions; that the writers of Matthew, Mark,
+and Luke did not understand the Christian religion as it was understood
+by the author of the gospel according to John.
+
+Of course, the critics were denounced from most of the pulpits, and the
+religious papers, edited generally by men who had failed as preachers,
+were filled with bitter denials and vicious attacks. The religious
+editors refused to be enlightened. They fought under the old flag. When
+dogmas became too absurd to be preached, they were taught in the Sunday
+schools; when worn out there, they were given to the missionaries;
+but the dear old religious weeklies, the Banners, the Covenants, the
+Evangelists, continued to feed their provincial subscribers with known
+mistakes and refuted lies.
+
+There is another fact that should be taken into consideration. All
+religions are provincial. Mingled with them all and at the foundation of
+all are the egotism of ignorance, of isolation, the pride of race, and
+what is called patriotism. Every religion is a natural product--the
+result of conditions. When one tribe became acquainted with another,
+the ideas of both were somewhat modified. So when nations and races come
+into contact a change in thought, in opinion, is a necessary result.
+
+A few years ago nations were strangers, and consequently hated each
+other's institutions and religions. Commerce has done a great work in
+destroying provincialism. To trade commodities is to exchange ideas.
+So the press, the steamships, the railways, cables, and telegraphs
+have brought the nations together and enabled them to compare their
+prejudices, their religions, laws and customs.
+
+Recently many scholars have been studying the religions of the world
+and have found them much the same. They have also found that there is
+nothing original in Christianity; that the legends, miracles, Christs,
+and conditions of salvation, the heavens, hells, angels, devils, and
+gods were the common property of the ancient world. They found that
+Christ was a new name for an old biography; that he was not a life, but
+a legend; not a man, but a myth.
+
+People began to suspect that our religion had not been supernaturally
+revealed, while others, far older and substantially the same, had been
+naturally produced. They found it difficult to account for the fact that
+poor, ignorant savages had in the darkness of nature written so well
+that Jehovah thousands of years afterwards copied it and adopted it as
+his own. They thought it curious that God should be a plagiarist.
+
+These scholars found that all the old religions had recognized the
+existence of devils, of evil spirits, who sought in countless ways to
+injure the children of men. In this respect they found that the sacred
+books of other nations were just the same as our Bible, as our New
+Testament.
+
+Take the Devil from our religion and the entire fabric falls. No Devil,
+no fall of man. No Devil, no atonement. No Devil, no hell.
+
+The Devil is the keystone of the arch.
+
+And yet for many years the belief in the existence of the Devil--of
+evil spirits--has been fading from the minds of intelligent people. This
+belief has now substantially vanished. The minister who now seriously
+talks about a personal Devil is regarded with a kind of pitying
+contempt.
+
+The Devil has faded from his throne and the evil spirits have vanished
+from the air.
+
+The man who has really given up a belief in the existence of the Devil
+cannot believe in the inspiration of the New Testament--in the divinity
+of Christ. If Christ taught anything, if he believed in anything, he
+taught a belief in the existence of the Devil..His principal business
+was casting out devils. He himself was taken possession of by the Devil
+and carried to the top of the temple.
+
+Thousands and thousands of people have ceased to believe the account in
+the New Testament regarding devils, and yet continue to believe in the
+dogma of "inspiration" and the divinity of Christ.
+
+In the brain of the average Christian, contradictions dwell in unity.
+
+While a belief in the existence of the Devil has almost faded away, the
+belief in the existence of a personal God has been somewhat weakened.
+The old belief that back of nature, back of all substance and force, was
+and is a personal God, an infinite intelligence who created and
+governs the world, began to be questioned. The scientists had shown
+the indestructibility of matter and force. Büchner's great work had
+convinced most readers that matter and force could not have been
+created. They also became satisfied that matter cannot exist apart from
+force and that force cannot exist apart from matter.
+
+They found, too, that thought is a form of force, and that consequently
+intelligence could not have existed before matter, because without
+matter, force in any form cannot and could not exist.
+
+The creator of anything is utterly unthinkable.
+
+A few years ago God was supposed to govern the world. He rewarded the
+people with sunshine, with prosperity and health, or he punished with
+drought and flood, with plague and storm. He not only attended to the
+affairs of nations, but he watched the actions of individuals. He sank
+ships, derailed trains, caused conflagrations, killed men and women with
+his lightnings, destroyed some with earthquakes, and tore the homes and
+bodies of thousands into fragments with his cyclones.
+
+In spite of the church, in spite of the ministers, the people began to
+lose confidence in Providence. The right did not seem always to triumph.
+Virtue was not always rewarded and vice was not always punished. The
+good failed; the vicious succeeded; the strong and cruel enslaved the
+weak; toil was paid with the lash; babes were sold from the breasts of
+mothers, and Providence seemed to be absolutely heartless.
+
+In other words, people began to think that the God of the Christians and
+the God of nature were about the same, and that neither appeared to take
+any care of the human race.
+
+The Deists of the last century scoffed at the Bible God. He was too
+cruel, too savage. At the same time they praised the God of nature. They
+laughed at the idea of inspiration and denied the supernatural origin of
+the Scriptures.
+
+Now, if the Bible is not inspired, then it is a natural production, and
+nature, not God, should be held responsible for the Scriptures. Yet the
+Deists denied that God was the author and at the same time asserted the
+perfection of nature.
+
+This shows that even in the minds of Deists contradictions dwell in
+unity.
+
+Against all these facts and forces, these theories and tendencies, the
+clergy fought and prayed. It is not claimed that they were consciously
+dishonest, but it is claimed that they were prejudiced--that they were
+incapable of examining the other side--that they were utterly destitute
+of the philosophic spirit. They were not searchers for the facts,
+but defenders of the creeds, and undoubtedly they were the product of
+conditions and surroundings, and acted as they must.
+
+In spite of everything a few rays of light penetrated the orthodox mind.
+Many ministers accepted some of the new facts, and began to mingle
+with Christian mistakes a few scientific truths. In many instances they
+excited the indignation of their congregations. Some were tried for
+heresy and driven from their pulpits, and some organized new churches
+and gathered about them a few people willing to listen to the sincere
+thoughts of an honest man.
+
+The great body of the church, however, held to the creed--not quite
+believing it, but still insisting that it was true.
+
+In private conversation they would apologize and admit that the old
+ideas were outgrown, but in public they were as orthodox as ever. In
+every church, however, there were many priests who accepted the new
+gospel; that is to say, welcomed the truth.
+
+To-day it may truthfully be said that the Bible in the old sense is
+no longer regarded as the inspired word of God. Jehovah is no longer
+accepted or believed in as the creator of the universe. His place
+has been taken by the Unknown, the Unseen, the Invisible, the
+Incomprehensible Something, the Cosmic Dust, the First Cause, the
+Inconceivable, the Original Force, the Mystery. The God of the Bible,
+the gentleman who walked in the cool of the evening, who talked face to
+face with Moses, who revenged himself on unbelievers and who gave laws
+written with his finger on tables of stone, has abdicated. He has become
+a myth.
+
+So, too, the New Testament has lost its authority. People reason about
+it now as they do about other books, and even orthodox ministers
+pick out the miracles that ought to be believed, and when anything is
+attributed to Christ not in accordance with their views, they take the
+liberty of explaining it away by saying "interpolation."
+
+In other words, we have lived to see Science the standard instead of the
+Bible. We have lived to see the Bible tested by Science, and, what is
+more, we have lived to see reason the standard not only in religion,
+but in all the domain of science. Now all civilized scientists appeal to
+reason. They get their facts, and then reason from the foundation.
+Now the theologian appeals to reason. Faith is no longer considered a
+foundation. The theologian has found that he must build upon the truth
+and that he must establish this truth by satisfying human reason.
+
+This is where we are now.
+
+What is to be the result? Is progress to stop? Are we to retrace our
+steps? Are we going back to superstition? Are we going to take authority
+for truth?
+
+Let me prophesy.
+
+In modern times we have slowly lost confidence in the supernatural
+and have slowly gained confidence in the natural. We have slowly lost
+confidence in gods and have slowly gained confidence in man. For
+the cure of disease, for the stopping of plague, we depend on the
+natural--on science. We have lost confidence in holy water and religious
+processions. We have found that prayers are never answered.
+
+In my judgment, all belief in the supernatural will be driven from the
+human mind. All religions must pass away. The augurs, the soothsayers,
+the seers, the preachers, the astrologers and alchemists will all lie
+in the same cemetery and one epitaph will do for them all. In a little
+while all will have had their day. They were naturally produced and
+they will be naturally destroyed. Man at last will depend entirely upon
+himself--on the development of the brain--to the end that he may take
+advantage of the forces of nature--to the end that he may supply the
+wants of his body and feed the hunger of his mind.
+
+In my judgment, teachers will take the place of preachers and the
+interpreters of nature will be the only priests.
+
+
+
+
+POLITICAL MORALITY.
+
+
+THE room of the House Committee on Elections was crowded this morning
+with committeemen and spectators to listen to an argument by Col. Robert
+G. Ingersoll in the contested election case of Strobach against Herbert,
+of the IId Alabama district. Colonel Ingersoll appeared for Strobach,
+the contestant. While most of his argument was devoted to the dry
+details of the testimony, he entered into some discussion of the general
+principles involved in contested election cases, and spoke with great
+eloquence and force.
+
+The mere personal controversy, as between Herbert and Strobach, is
+not worth talking about. It is a question as to whether or not the
+republican system is a failure. Unless the will of the majority can be
+ascertained, and surely ascertained, through the medium of the ballot,
+the foundation of this Government rests upon nothing--the Government
+ceases to be. I would a thousand time rather a Democrat should come
+to Congress from this district, or from any district, than that a
+Republican should come who was not honestly elected. I would a thousand
+times rather that this country should honestly go to destruction than
+dishonestly and fraudulently go anywhere. We want it settled whether
+this form of government is or is not a failure. That is the real
+question, and it is the question at issue in every one of these cases.
+Has Congress power and has Congress the sense to say to-day, that no man
+shall sit as a maker of laws for the people who has not been honestly
+elected? Whenever you admit a man to Congress and allow him to vote and
+make laws, you poison the source of justice--you poison the source of
+power; and the moment the people begin to think that many members of
+Congress are there through fraud, that moment they cease to have respect
+for the legislative department of this Government--that moment they
+cease to have respect for the sovereignty of the people represented by
+fraud.
+
+Now, as I have said, I care nothing about the personal part of it, and,
+maybe you will not believe me, but I care nothing about the political
+part. The question is, Who has the right on his side? Who is honestly
+entitled to this seat? That is infinitely more important than any
+personal or party question. My doctrine is that a majority of the people
+must control--that we have in this country a king, that we have in this
+country a sovereign, just as truly as they can have in any other, and,
+as a matter of fact, a republic is the only country that does in truth
+have a sovereign, and that sovereign is the legally expressed will of
+the people. So that any man that puts in a fraudulent vote is a traitor
+to that sovereign; any man that knowingly counts an illegal vote is a
+traitor to that sovereign, and is not fit to be a citizen of the great
+Republic. Any man who fraudulently throws out a vote, knowing it to be a
+legal vote, tampers with the source of power, and is, in fact, false to
+our institutions. Now, these are the questions to be decided, and I want
+them decided, not because this case happens to come from the South any
+more than if it came from the North. It is a matter that concerns the
+whole country. We must decide it. There must be a law on the subject. We
+have got to lay down a stringent rule that shall apply to these cases.
+There should be--there must be--such a thing as political morality so
+far as voting is concerned.--New York Tribune, May 13, 1883.
+
+
+
+
+A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
+
+
+     * Printed from manuscript notes found among Colonel
+     Ingersoll's papers, evidently written in the early '80's.
+     While much of the argument and criticism will be found
+     embodied in his various lectures magazine articles and
+     contributions to the press, it was thought too valuable in
+     its present form to be left out of a complete edition of his
+     works, on account of too much repetition. Undoubtedly it was
+     the author's intention to go through the Bible in this same
+     manner and to publish in book form. "A few Reasons for
+     doubting the Inspiration of the Bible."
+
+
+THE Old Testament must have been written nearly two thousand years
+before the invention of printing. There were but few copies, and
+these were in the keeping of those whose interest might have prompted
+interpolations, and whose ignorance might have led to mistakes.
+
+Second. The written Hebrew was composed entirely of consonants, without
+any points or marks standing for vowels, so that anything like accuracy
+was impossible. Anyone can test this for himself by writing an English
+sentence, leaving out the vowels. It will take far more inspiration to
+read than to write a book with consonants alone.
+
+Third. The books composing the Old Testament were not divided into
+chapters or verses, and no system of punctuation was known. Think of
+this a moment and you will see how difficult it must be to read such a
+book.
+
+Fourth. There was not among the Jews any dictionary of their language,
+and for this reason the accurate meaning of words could not be
+preserved. Now the different meanings of words are preserved so that by
+knowing the age in which a writer lived we can ascertain with reasonable
+certainty his meaning.
+
+Fifth. The Old Testament was printed for the first time in 1488. Until
+this date it existed only in manuscript, and was constantly exposed to
+erasures and additions.
+
+Sixth. It is now admitted by the most learned in the Hebrew language
+that in our present English version of the Old Testament there are
+at least one hundred thousand errors. Of course the believers in
+inspiration assert that these errors are not sufficient in number to
+cast the least suspicion upon any passages upholding what are called the
+"fundamentals."
+
+Seventh. It is not certainly known who in fact wrote any of the books of
+the Old Testament. For instance, it is now generally conceded that Moses
+was not the author of the Pentateuch.
+
+Eighth. Other books, not now in existence, are referred to in the Old
+Testament as of equal authority, such as the books of Jasher, Nathan,
+Ahijah, Iddo, Jehu, Sayings of the Seers.
+
+Ninth. The Christians are not agreed among themselves as to what books
+are inspired. The Catholics claim as inspired the books of Maccabees,
+Tobit, Esdras, etc. Others doubt the inspiration of Esther,
+Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.
+
+Tenth. In the book of Esther and the Song of Solomon the name of God is
+not mentioned, and no reference is made to any supreme being, nor to any
+religious duty. These omissions would seem sufficient to cast a little
+doubt upon these books.
+
+Eleventh. Within the present century manuscript copies of the Old
+Testament have been found throwing new light and changing in many
+instances the present readings. In consequence a new version is now
+being made by a theological syndicate composed of English and American
+divines, and after this is published it may be that our present Bible
+will fall into disrepute.
+
+Twelfth. The fact that language is continually changing, that words are
+constantly dying and others being born; that the same word has a variety
+of meanings during its life, shows hew hard it is to preserve the
+original ideas that might have been expressed in the Scriptures, for
+thousands of years, without dictionaries, without the art of printing,
+and without the light of contemporaneous literature.
+
+Thirteenth. Whatever there was of the Old Testament seems to have been
+lost from the time of Moses until the days of Josiah, and it is probable
+that nothing like the Bible existed in any permanent form among the Jews
+until a few hundred years before Christ. It is said that Ezra gave
+the Pentateuch to the Jews, but whether he found or originated it is
+unknown. So it is claimed that Nehemiah gathered up the manuscripts
+about the kings and prophets, while the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs,
+Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and some others were either collected or written
+long after. The Jews themselves did not agree as to what books were
+really inspired.
+
+Fourteenth. In the Old Testament we find several contradictory
+laws about the same thing, and contradictory accounts of the same
+occurrences. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus we find the first
+account of the giving of the Ten Commandments. In the thirty-fourth
+chapter another account is given. These two accounts could never have
+been written by the same person. Read these two accounts and you will
+be forced to admit that one of them cannot be true. So there are two
+histories of the creation, of the flood, and of the manner in which Saul
+became king.
+
+Fifteenth. It is now generally admitted that Genesis must have been
+written by two persons, and the parts written by each can be separated,
+and when separated they are found to contradict each other in many
+important particulars.
+
+Sixteenth. It is also admitted that copyists made verbal changes not
+only, but pieced out fragments; that the speeches of Elihu in the book
+of Job were all interpolated, and that most of the prophecies were made
+by persons whose names we have never known.
+
+Seventeenth. The manuscripts of the Old Testament were not alike, and
+the Greek version differed from the Hebrew, and there was no absolutely
+received text of the Old Testament until after the commencement of the
+Christian era. Marks and points to denote vowels were invented probably
+about the seventh century after Christ. Whether these vowels were put in
+the proper places or not is still an open question.
+
+Eighteenth. The Alexandrian version, or what is known as the Septuagint,
+translated by seventy learned Jews, assisted by "miraculous power,"
+about two hundred years before Christ, could not have been, it is said,
+translated from the Hebrew text that we now have. The differences can
+only be accounted for by supposing that they had a different Hebrew
+text. The early Christian Churches adopted the Septuagint, and were
+satisfied for a time. But so many errors were found, and so many were
+scanning every word in search of something to sustain their peculiar
+views, that several new versions appeared, all different somewhat from
+the Hebrew manuscripts, from the Septuagint, and from each other.
+All these versions were in Greek. The first Latin Bible originated in
+Africa, but no one has ever found out which Latin manuscript was the
+original. Many were produced, and all differed from each other. These
+Latin versions were compared with each other and with the Hebrew, and
+a new Latin version was made in the fifth century, but the old Latin
+versions held their own for about four hundred years, and no one yet
+knows which were right. Besides these there were Egyptian, Ethiopie,
+Armenian, and several others, all differing from each other as well as
+from all others in the world.
+
+It was not until the fourteenth century that the Bible was translated
+into German, and not until the fifteenth that Bibles were printed in
+the principal languages of Europe. Of these Bibles there were several
+kinds--Luther's, the Dort, King James's, Genevan, French, besides the
+Danish and Swedish. Most of these differed from each other, and gave
+rise to infinite disputes and crimes without number. The earliest
+fragment of the Bible in the "Saxon" language known to exist was written
+sometime in the seventh century. The first Bible was printed in England
+in 1538. In 1560 the first English Bible was printed that was divided
+into verses. Under Henry VIII. the Bible was revised; again under Queen
+Elizabeth, and once again under King James. This last was published in
+1611, and is the one now in general use.
+
+Nineteenth. No one in the world has learning enough, nor has he time
+enough even if he had the learning, and could live a thousand years, to
+find out what books really belong to and constitute the Old Testament,
+the authors of these books, when they were written, and what they really
+mean. And until a man has the learning and the time to do all this he
+cannot certainly tell whether he believes the Bible or not.
+
+Twentieth. If a revelation from God was actually necessary to the
+happiness of man here and to his salvation hereafter, it is not easy to
+see why such revelation was not given to all the nations of the
+earth. Why were the millions of Asia, Egypt, and America left to the
+insufficient light of nature. Why was not a written, or what is still
+better, a printed revelation given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of
+Eden? And why were the Jews themselves without a Bible until the days
+of Ezra the scribe? Why was nature not so made that it would give light
+enough? Why did God make men and leave them in darkness--a darkness that
+he, knew would fill the world with want and crime, and crowd with damned
+souls the dungeons of his hell? Were the Jews the only people who needed
+a revelation? It may be said that God had no time to waste with other
+nations, and gave the Bible to the Jews that other nations through them
+might learn of his existence and his will. If he wished other nations
+to be informed, and revealed himself to but one, why did he not choose
+a people that mingled with others? Why did he give the message to those
+who had no commerce, who were obscure and unknown, and who regarded
+other nations with the hatred born of bigotry and weakness? What would
+we now think of a God who made his will known to the South Sea
+Islanders for the benefit of the civilized world? If it was of such vast
+importance for man to know that there is a God, why did not God make
+himself known? This fact could have been revealed by an infinite being
+instantly to all, and there certainly was no necessity of telling it
+alone to the Jews, and allowing millions for thousands of years to die
+in utter ignorance.
+
+Twenty-first. The Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Tartars, Africans, Eskimo,
+Persians, Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Polynesians, and many other peoples,
+are substantially ignorant of the Bible. All the Bible societies of
+the world have produced only about one hundred and twenty millions of
+Bibles, and there are about fourteen hundred million people. There
+are hundreds of languages and tongues in which no Bible has yet been
+printed. Why did God allow, and why does he still allow, a vast majority
+of his children to remain in ignorance of his will?
+
+Twenty-second. If the Bible is the foundation of all civilization, of
+all just ideas of right and wrong, of our duties to God and each other,
+why did God not give to each nation at least one copy to start with? He
+must have known that no nation could get along successfully without a
+Bible, and he also knew that man could not make one for himself. Why,
+then, were not the books furnished? He must have known that the light
+of nature was not sufficient to reveal the scheme of the atonement, the
+necessity of baptism, the immaculate conception, transubstantiation, the
+arithmetic of the Trinity, or the resurrection of the dead.
+
+Twenty-third. It is probably safe to say that not one-third of the
+inhabitants of this world ever heard of the Bible, and not one-tenth
+ever read it. It is also safe to say that no two persons who ever read
+it agreed as to its meaning, and it is not likely that even one person
+has ever understood it. Nothing is more needed at the present time than
+an inspired translator. Then we shall need an inspired commentator,
+and the translation and the commentary should be written in an inspired
+universal language, incapable of change, and then the whole world should
+be inspired to understand this language precisely the same. Until these
+things are accomplished, all written revelations from God will fill the
+world with contending sects, contradictory creeds and opinions.
+
+Twenty-fourth. All persons who know anything of constitutions and laws
+know how impossible it is to use words that will convey the same ideas
+to all. The best statesmen, the profoundest lawyers, differ as widely
+about the real meaning of treaties and statutes as do theologians about
+the Bible. When the differences of lawyers are left to courts, and the
+courts give written decisions, the lawyers will again differ as to the
+real meaning of the opinions. Probably no two lawyers in the United
+States understand our Constitution alike. To allow a few men to tell
+what the Constitution means, and to hang for treason all who refuse to
+accept the opinions of these few men, would accomplish in politics what
+most churches have asked for in religion.
+
+Twenty-fifth. Is it very wicked to deny that the universe was created
+of nothing by an infinite being who existed from all eternity? The human
+mind is such that it cannot possibly conceive of creation, neither can
+it conceive of an infinite being who dwelt in infinite space an infinite
+length of time.
+
+Twenty-sixth. The idea that the universe was made in six days, and is
+but about six thousand years old, is too absurd for serious refutation.
+Neither will it do to say that the six days were six periods, because
+this does away with the Sabbath, and is in direct violation of the text.
+
+Twenty-seventh. Neither is it reasonable that this God made man out of
+dust, and woman out of one of the ribs of the man; that this pair were
+put in a garden; that they were deceived by a snake that had the power
+of speech; that they were turned out of this garden to prevent them from
+eating of the tree of life and becoming immortal; that God himself made
+them clothes; that the sons of God intermarried with the daughters
+of men; that to destroy all life upon the earth a flood was sent that
+covered the highest mountains; that Noah and his sons built an ark and
+saved some of all animals as well as themselves; that the people tried
+to build a tower that would reach to heaven; that God confounded their
+language, and in this way frustrated their design.
+
+Twenty-eighth. It is hard to believe that God talked to Abraham as one
+man talks to another; that he gave him land that he pointed out; that he
+agreed to give him land that he never did; that he ordered him to murder
+his own son; that angels were in the habit of walking about the earth
+eating veal dressed with butter and milk, and making bargains about the
+destruction of cities.
+
+Twenty-ninth. Certainly a man ought not to be eternally damned for
+entertaining an honest doubt about a woman having been turned into
+a pillar of salt, about cities being destroyed by storms of fire and
+brimstone, and about people once having lived for nearly a thousand
+years.
+
+Thirtieth. Neither is it probable that God really wrestled with Jacob
+and put his thigh out of joint, and that for that reason the
+Jews refused "to eat the sinew that shrank," as recounted in the
+thirty-second chapter of Genesis; that God in the likeness of a flame
+inhabited a bush; that he amused himself by changing the rod of Moses
+into a serpent, and making his hand leprous as snow.
+
+Thirty-first. One can scarcely be blamed for hesitating to believe that
+God met Moses at a hotel and tried to kill him that afterward he made
+this same Moses a god to Pharaoh, and gave him his brother Aaron for a
+prophet;2 that he turned all the ponds and pools and streams and all the
+rivers into blood,3 and all the water in vessels of wood and stone; that
+the rivers thereupon brought forth frogs;4 that the frogs covered the
+whole land of Egypt; that he changed dust into lice, so that all the
+men, women, children, and animals were covered with them;6 that he sent
+swarms of flies upon the Egyptians;8 that he destroyed the innocent
+cattle with painful diseases; that he covered man and beast with blains
+and boils;7 that he so covered the magicians of Egypt with boils that
+they could not stand before Moses for the purpose of performing the
+same feats, that he destroyed every beast and every man that was in
+the fields, and every herb, and broke every tree with storm of hail and
+fire;9 that he sent locusts that devoured every herb that escaped the
+hail, and devoured every tree that grew;10 that he caused thick darkness
+over the land and put lights in the houses of the Jews;11 that he
+destroyed all of the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh
+upon the throne to the firstborn of the maidservant that sat behind the
+mill,"12 together with the firstborn of all beasts, so that there was
+not a house in which the dead were not."
+
+     1 Ex. iv, 24.    5 Ex. viii, 16, 17.  9 Ex. ix, 25.
+
+     2 Ex. vii. 1.    6 Ex. viii, 21.     10 Ex. x, 15.
+
+     3 Ex. viii, 19.  7 Ex. ix, 9.        11 Ex. x, 22, 23.
+
+     4 Ex. viii, 3.   8 Ex. ix, 11.       12 Ex. xi, 5.
+
+     13 Ex. xii, 29.
+
+Thirty-second. It is very hard to believe that three millions of people
+left a country and marched twenty or thirty miles all in one day. To
+notify so many people would require a long time, and then the sick, the
+halt, and the old would be apt to impede the march. It seems impossible
+that such a vast number--six hundred thousand men, besides women and
+children--could have been cared for, could have been fed and clothed,
+and the sick nursed, especially when we take into consideration that
+"they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they
+prepared for themselves any victual." 1
+
+Thirty-third. It seems cruel to punish a man forever for denying that
+God went before the Jews by day "in a pillar of a cloud to lead' them
+the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by
+day and night," or for denying that Pharaoh pursued the Jews with six
+hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and that the six
+hundred thousand men of war of the Jews were sore afraid when they saw
+the pursuing hosts. It does seems strange that after all the water in a
+country had been turned to blood--after it had been overrun with frogs
+and devoured with flies; after all the cattle had died with the murrain,
+and the rest had been killed by the fire and hail and the remainder had
+suffered with boils, and the firstborn of all that were left had died;
+that after locusts had devoured every herb and eaten up every tree of
+the field, and the firstborn had died, from the firstborn of the king
+on the throne to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon; that after
+three millions of people had left, carrying with them the jewels of
+silver and gold and the raiment of their oppressors, the Egyptians still
+had enough soldiers and chariots and horses left to pursue and destroy
+an army of six hundred thousand men, if God had not interfered.
+
+     1 Ex. xii, 37-39
+
+Thirty-fourth. It certainly ought to satisfy God to torment a man for
+four or five thousand years for insisting that it is but a small thing
+for an infinite being to vanquish an Egyptian army; that it was rather a
+small business to trouble people with frogs, flies, and vermin; that it
+looked almost malicious to cover people with boils and afflict cattle
+with disease; that a real good God would not torture innocent beasts
+on account of something the owners had done; that it was absurd to do
+miracles before a king to induce him to act in a certain way, and then
+harden his heart so that he would refuse; and that to kill all the
+firstborn of a nation was the act of a heartless fiend.
+
+Thirty-fifth. Certainly one ought to be permitted to doubt that twelve
+wells of water were sufficient for three millions of people, together
+with their flocks and herds,1 and to inquire a little into the nature of
+manna that was cooked by baking and seething and yet would melt in the
+sun,2 and that would swell or shrink so as to make an exact omer, no
+matter how much or how little there really was.3 Certainly it is not a
+crime to say that water cannot be manufactured by striking a rock with a
+stick, and that the fate of battle cannot be decided by lifting one hand
+up or letting it fall.4 Must we admit that God really did come down upon
+Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people; that he commanded that all
+who should go up into the Mount or touch the border of it should be put
+to death, and that even the beasts that came near it should be killed?5
+Is it wrong to laugh at this? Is it sinful to say that God never spoke
+from the top of a mountain covered with clouds these words to Moses, "Go
+down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze,
+and many of them perish; and let the priests also, which come near to
+the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them"?6
+
+     1 Ex. xv, 27.      3 Ex. xix. 12.       5 Ex. xix, 13, 13.
+
+     2 Ex. xvi, 23, 21  4 Ex. xvii, 11, 13.  6 Ex. xix, 21, 22
+
+Can it be that an infinite intelligence takes delight in scaring
+savages, and that he is happy only when somebody trembles? Is it
+reasonable to suppose that God surrounded himself with thunderings and
+lightnings and thick darkness to tell the priests that they should not
+make altars of hewn stones, nor with stairs? And that this God at the
+same time he gave the Ten Commandments ordered the Jews to break the
+most of them? According to the Bible these infamous words came from the
+mouth of God while he was wrapped and clothed in darkness and clouds
+upon the Mount of Sinai:
+
+If thou buy an Hebrew servant six years he shall serve: and in the
+seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself he
+shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out
+with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him
+sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and
+he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love
+my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his
+master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the
+door or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through
+with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.2 And if a man smite his
+servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be
+surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall
+not be punished; for he is his money.3
+
+Do you really think that a man will be eternally damned for endeavoring
+to wipe from the record of God those barbaric words?
+
+Thirty-sixth. Is it because of total depravity that some people refuse
+to believe that God went into partnership with insects and granted
+letters of marque and reprisal to hornets;4 that he wasted forty
+days and nights furnishing Moses with plans and specifications for a
+tabernacle, an ark, a mercy seat and two cherubs of gold, a table,
+four rings, some dishes and spoons, one candlestick, three bowls, seven
+lamps, a pair of tongs, some snuff dishes (for all of which God had
+patterns), ten curtains with fifty loops, a roof for the tabernacle of
+rams' skins dyed red, a lot of boards, an altar with horns, ash pans,
+basins, and flesh hooks, and fillets of silver and pins of brass; that
+he told Moses to speak unto all the wise-hearted that he had filled with
+wisdom, that they might make a suit of clothes for Aaron, and that
+God actually gave directions that an ephod "shall have the two
+shoulder-pieces thereof joined at the two edges thereof."
+
+     1 Ex. xix, 25, 26.  3 Ex. xxi, 20, 21
+
+     2 Ex. xxi, 2-6,     4 Ex, xxiii, 28
+
+And gave all the orders concerning mitres, girdles, and onyx stones,
+ouches, emeralds, breastplates, chains, rings, Urim and Thummim, and the
+hole in the top of the ephod like the hole of a habergeon?1
+
+Thirty-seventh. Is there a Christian missionary who could help laughing
+if in any heathen country he had seen the following command of God
+carried out? "And thou shalt take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons
+shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the
+ram and take of his blood and put it upon the tip of the right ear of
+Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb
+of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot."2 Does
+one have to be born again to appreciate the beauty and solemnity of such
+a performance? Is not the faith of the most zealous Christian somewhat
+shaken while reading the recipes for cooking mutton, veal, beef, birds,
+and unleavened dough, found in the cook book that God made for Aaron and
+his sons?
+
+Thirty-eighth. Is it to be wondered at that some people have doubted the
+statement that God told Moses how to make some ointment, hair oil, and
+perfume, and then made it a crime punishable with death to make any like
+them? Think of a God killing a man for imitating his ointment!3 Think of
+a God saying that he made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the
+seventh day and was refreshed!4 Think of this God threatening to destroy
+the Jews, and being turned from his purpose because Moses told him that
+the Egyptians might mock him!5
+
+    1 Ex. xxvii and xxviii.  3 Ex. xxx, 23.  5 Ex. xxxii, 11, 12
+
+    2 Ex. xxix, 19, 20       4 Ex. xxxi, 17.
+
+Thirty-ninth. What must we think of a man impudent enough to break in
+pieces tables of stone upon which God had written with his finger? What
+must we think of the goodness of a man that would issue the following
+order: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by
+his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and
+slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man
+his neighbor. Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every
+man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a
+blessing this day"?1 Is it true that the God of the Bible demanded human
+sacrifice? Did it please him for man to kill his neighbor, for brother
+to murder his brother, and for the father to butcher his sou? If there
+is a God let him cause it to be written in the book of his memory,
+opposite my name, that I refuted this slander and denied this lie.
+
+Fortieth. Can it be true that God was afraid to trust himself with the
+Jews for fear he would consume them? Can it be that in order to keep
+from devouring them he kept away and sent one of his angels in his
+place?2 Can it be that this same God talked to Moses "face to face, as a
+man speaketh unto his friend," when it is declared in the same chapter,
+by God himself, "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see
+me, and live"?3
+
+Forty-first. Why should a man, because he has done a bad action, go and
+kill a sheep? How can man make friends with God by cutting the throats
+of bullocks and goats? Why should God delight in the shedding of blood?
+Why should he want his altar sprinkled with blood, and the horns of his
+altar tipped with blood, and his priests covered with blood? Why should
+burning flesh be a sweet savor in the nostrils of God? Why did he compel
+his priests to be butchers, cutters and stabbers?
+
+     1 Ex. xxxii, 27-29.  2 Ex. xxxiii, 2, 3.
+
+     3 Ex. xxxiii, 11, 20.
+
+Why should the same God kill a man for eating the fat of an ox, a sheep,
+or a goat?
+
+Forty-second. Could it be a consolation to a man when dying to think
+that he had always believed that God told Aaron to take two goats and
+draw cuts to see which goat should be killed and which should be a
+scapegoat?1 And that upon the head of the scapegoat Aaron should lay
+both his hands and confess over him all the iniquities of the children
+of Israel, and all their transgressions, and put them all on the head
+of the goat, and send him away by the hand of a fit man into the
+wilderness; and that the goat should bear upon him all the iniquities
+of the people into a land not inhabited?2 How could a goat carry away
+a load of iniquities and transgressions? Why should he carry them to a
+land uninhabited? Were these sins contagious? About how many sins
+could an average goat carry? Could a man meet such a goat now without
+laughing?
+
+Forty-third. Why should God object to a man wearing a garment made of
+woolen and linen? Why should he care whether a man rounded the corners
+of his beard?3 Why should God prevent a man from offering the sacred
+bread merely because he had a flat nose, or was lame, or had five
+fingers on one hand, or had a broken foot, or was a dwarf? If he
+objected to such people, why did he make them?4
+
+Forty-fourth. Why should we believe that God insisted upon the sacrifice
+of human beings? Is it a sin to deny this, and to deny the inspiration
+of a book that teaches it? Read the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth
+verses of the last chapter of Leviticus, a book in which there is more
+folly and cruelty, more stupidity and tyranny, than in any other book in
+this world except some others in the same Bible. Read the thirty-second
+chapter of Exodus and you will see how by the most infamous of crimes
+man becomes reconciled to this God.
+
+     1 Lev, xvi, 8.  2 Lev. xvi, 21, 22.  3 Lev. xix, 19, 27,
+
+     4 Lev. xxi, 18-20.
+
+You will see that he demands of fathers the blood of their sons. Read
+the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the third chapter of Numbers, "And
+I, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel,"
+etc.
+
+How, in the desert of Sinai, did the Jews obtain curtains of fine linen?
+How did these absconding slaves make cherubs of gold? Where did they get
+the skins of badgers, and how did they dye them red? How did they make
+wreathed chains and spoons, basins and tongs? Where did they get the
+blue cloth and their purple? Where did they get the sockets of brass?
+How did they coin the shekel of the sanctuary? How did they overlay
+boards with gold? Where did they get the numberless instruments and
+tools necessary to accomplish all these things? Where did they get the
+fine flour and the oil? Were all these found in the desert of Sinai?
+Is it a sin to ask these questions? Are all these doubts born of a
+malignant and depraved heart? Why should God in this desert prohibit
+priests from drinking wine, and from eating moist grapes? How could
+these priests get wine?
+
+Do not these passages show that these laws were made long after the Jews
+had left the desert, and that they were not given from Sinai? Can you
+imagine a God silly enough to tell a horde of wandering savages upon a
+desert that they must not eat any fruit of the trees they planted until
+the fourth year?
+
+Forty-fifth. Ought a man to be despised and persecuted for denying that
+God ordered the priests to make women drink dirt and water to test their
+virtue? 1 Or for denying that over the tabernacle there was a cloud
+during the day and fire by night, and that the cloud lifted up when God
+wished the Jews to travel, and that until it was lifted they remained in
+their tents?2
+
+     1 Num. v, 12-31.  2 Num. ix, 16-18.
+
+Can it be possible that the "ark of the covenant" traveled on its own
+account, and that "when the ark set forward" the people followed, as is
+related in the tenth chapter of the holy book of Numbers?
+
+Forty-sixth. Was it reasonable for God to give the Jews manna, and
+nothing else, year after year? He had infinite power, and could just as
+easily have given them something good, in reasonable variety, as to
+have fed them on manna until they loathed the sight of it, and longingly
+remembered the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic of
+Egypt. And yet when the poor people complained of the diet and asked for
+a little meat, this loving and merciful God became enraged, sent them
+millions of quails in his wrath, and while they were eating, while the
+flesh was yet between their teeth, before it was chewed, this amiable
+God smote the people with a plague and killed all those that lusted
+after meat. In a few days after, he made up his mind to kill the rest,
+but was dissuaded when Moses told him that the Canaanites would laugh at
+him.1 No wonder the poor Jews wished they were back in Egypt. No wonder
+they had rather be the slaves of Pharaoh than the chosen people of God.
+No wonder they preferred the wrath of Egypt to the love of heaven. In my
+judgment, the Jews would have fared far better if Jehovah had let them
+alone, or had he even taken the side of the Egyptians.
+
+When the poor Jews were told by their spies that the Canaanites were
+giants, they, seized with fear, said, "Let us go back to Egypt." For
+this, their God doomed all except Joshua and Caleb to a wandering
+death. Hear the words of this most merciful God: "But as for you, your
+carcasses they shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall
+wander in the wilderness forty years and bear your sins until your
+carcasses be wasted in the wilderness."2 And yet this same God promised
+to give unto all these people a land flowing with milk and honey.
+
+     1 Num. xiv, 15, 16.  2 Num. xiv. 32-33.
+
+Forty-seventh. "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness
+they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.
+
+"And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and
+Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
+
+"And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be
+done to him.
+
+"And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death; all
+the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
+
+"And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him
+with stones, and he died." 1
+
+When the last stone was thrown, and he that was a man was but a mangled,
+bruised, and broken mass, this God turned, and, _touched with pity_,
+said: "Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they
+make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their
+generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a riband
+of blue."2
+
+In the next chapter, this Jehovah, whose loving kindness is over all his
+works, because Korah, Dathan, and Abiram objected to being starved to
+death in the wilderness, made the earth open and swallow not only them,
+but their wives and their little ones. Not yet satisfied, he sent a
+plague and killed fourteen thousand seven hundred more. There never was
+in the history of the world such a cruel, revengeful, bloody, jealous,
+fickle, unreasonable, and fiendish ruler, emperor, or king as Jehovah.
+No wonder the children of Israel cried out, "Behold we die, we perish,
+we all perish."
+
+Forty-eighth. I cannot believe that a dry stick budded, blossomed, and
+bore almonds; that the ashes of a red heifer are a purification for
+sin;3 that God gave the cities into the hands of the Jews because they
+solemnly agreed to murder all the inhabitants; that God became enraged
+and induced snakes to bite his chosen people; that God told Balaam to go
+with the Princess of Moab, and then got angry because he did go; that an
+animal ever saw an angel and conversed with a man.
+
+     1 Num. xv, 32-36.  2 Num. xv, 38,  3 Num. xix, 2-10.
+
+I cannot believe that thrusting a spear through the body of a woman ever
+stayed a plague;1 that any good man ever ordered his soldiers to slay
+the men and keep the maidens alive for themselves; that God commanded
+men not to show mercy to each other; that he induced men to obey his
+commandments by promising them that he would assist them in murdering
+the wives and children of their neighbors; or that he ever commanded a
+man to kill his wife because she differed with him about religion;2 or
+that God was mistaken about hares chewing the cud;3 or that he objected
+to the people raising horses 4 or that God wanted a camp kept clean
+because he walked through it at night;5 or that he commanded widows to
+spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law;6 or that he ever threatened
+to give anybody the itch;7 or that he ever secretly buried a man and
+allowed the corpse to write an account of the funeral.
+
+Forty-ninth. Does it necessarily follow that a man wishes to commit some
+crime if he refuses to admit that the river Jordan cut itself in two
+and allowed the lower end to run away? Or that seven priests could blow
+seven ram's horns loud enough to throw down the walls of a city;8 or
+that God, after Achan had confessed that he had secreted a garment and
+a wedge of gold, became good natured as soon as Achan and his sons and
+daughters had been stoned to death and their bodies burned?10 Is it not
+a virtue to abhor such a God?
+
+     1 Num. XXV, 8.       4 Deut. xvii, 16.       7 Deut. xxviii, 27.
+
+     2 Deut. xiii, 6-10.  5 Deut. xxiii, 13, 14.  8 Josh, iii, 16.
+
+     3 Deut. xiv, 7.      6 Deut. xxv, 9.,        9 Josh. vi, 20.
+
+                         10 Josh, vii, 24, 25.
+
+Must we believe that God sanctioned and commanded all the cruelties
+and horrors described in the Old Testament; that he waged the most
+relentless and heartless wars; that he declared mercy a crime; that to
+spare life was to excite his wrath; that he smiled when maidens were
+violated, laughed when mothers were ripped open with a sword, and
+shouted with joy when babes were butchered in their mothers' arms? Read
+the infamous book of Joshua, and then worship the God who inspired it if
+you can.
+
+Fiftieth. Can any sane man believe that the sun stood still in the midst
+of heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day, and that the moon
+stayed?1 That these miracles were performed in the interest of massacre
+and bloodshed; that the Jews destroyed men, women, and children by the
+million, and practiced every cruelty that the ingenuity of their God
+could suggest? Is it possible that these things really happened? Is it
+possible that God commanded them to be done? Again I ask you to read
+the book of Joshua. After reading all its horrors you will feel a grim
+satisfaction in the dying words of Joshua to the children of Israel:
+"Know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any
+of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps
+unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye
+perish from off this good land."2
+
+Think of a God who boasted that he gave the Jews a land for which they
+did not labor, cities which they did not build, and allowed them to eat
+of oliveyards and vineyards which they did not plant.3 Think of a God
+who murders some of his children for the benefit of the rest, and then
+kills the rest because they are not thankful enough. Think of a God who
+had the power to stop the sun and moon, but could not defeat an army
+that had iron chariots.4
+
+     1 Josh, x, 13.  2 Josh, xiii, 13.  3 Josh. xxiv, 13.
+
+     4 Judges i, 19.
+
+Fifty-first. Can we blame the Hebrews for getting tired of their God?
+Never was a people so murdered, starved, stoned, burned, deceived,
+humiliated, robbed, and outraged. Never was there so little liberty
+among men. Never did the meanest king so meddle, eavesdrop, spy out,
+harass, torment, and persecute his people. Never was ruler so jealous,
+unreasonable, contemptible, exacting, and ignorant as this God of the
+Jews. Never was such ceremony, such mummery, such stuff about bullocks,
+goats, doves, red heifers, lambs, and unleavened dough--never was such
+directions about kidneys and blood, ashes and fat, about curtains,
+tongs, fringes, ribands, and brass pins--never such details for killing
+of animals and men and the sprinkling of blood and the cutting of
+clothes. Never were such unjust laws, such punishments, such damned
+ignorance and infamy! Fifty-second. Is it not wonderful that the creator
+of all worlds, infinite in power and wisdom, could not hold his own
+against the gods of wood and stone? Is it not strange that after he had
+appeared to his chosen people, delivered them from slavery, fed them
+by miracles, opened the sea for a path, led them by cloud and fire,
+and overthrown their pursuers, they still preferred a calf of their
+own making? Is it not beyond belief that this God, by statutes and
+commandments, by punishments and penalties, by rewards and promises,
+by wonders and plagues, by earthquakes and pestilence, could not in the
+least civilize the Jews--could not get them beyond a point where they
+deserved killing? What shall we think of a God who gave his entire time
+for forty years to the work of converting three millions of people, and
+succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough
+to enter the promised land? Was there ever in the history of man so
+detestible an administration of public affairs? Is it possible that
+God sold his children to the king of Mesopotamia; that he sold them to
+Jabin, king of Canaan, to the Philistines, and to the children of Ammon?
+Is it possible that an angel of the Lord devoured unleavened cakes and
+broth with fire that came out of the end of a stick as he sat under an
+oak-tree?1 Can it be true that God made known his will by making dew
+fall on wool without wetting the ground around it?2 Do you really
+believe that men who lap water like a dog make the best soldiers?3 Do
+you think that a man could hold a lamp in his left hand, a trumpet in
+his right hand, blow his trumpet, shout "the sword of the Lord and of
+Gideon," and break pitchers at the same time? 4
+
+Fifty-third. Read the story of Jephthah and his daughter, and then tell
+me what you think of a father who would sacrifice his daughter to God,
+and what you think of a God who would receive such a sacrifice. This one
+story should be enough to make every tender and loving father hold this
+book in utter abhorrence. Is it necessary, in order to be saved, that
+one must believe that an angel of God appeared unto Manoah in the
+absence of her husband; that this angel afterward went up in a flame of
+fire; that as a result of this visit a child was born whose strength was
+in his hair? a child that made beehives of lions, incendiaries of foxes,
+and had a wife that wept seven days to get the answer to his riddle?
+Will the wrath of God abide forever upon a man for doubting the story
+that Samson killed a thousand men with a new jawbone? Is there enough
+in the Bible to save a soul with this story left out? Is hell hungry for
+those who deny that water gushed from a "hollow place" in a dry bone? Is
+it evidence of a new heart to believe that one man turned over a house
+so large that over three thousand people were on the roof? For my part,
+I cannot believe these things, and if my salvation depends upon my
+credulity I am as good as damned already. I cannot believe that the
+Philistines took back the ark with a present of five gold mice, and that
+thereupon God relented.5
+
+     1 Judges vi, 21.   2 Judges vi, 37.  3 Judges vii, 5.
+
+     4 Judges vii, 20.  5 I Sam. vi. 4.
+
+I can not believe that God killed fifty thousand men for looking into a
+box.1 It seems incredible, after all the Jews had done, after all their
+wars and victories, even when Saul was king, that there was not among
+them one smith who could make a sword or spear, and that they were
+compelled to go to the Philistines to sharpen every plowshare, coulter,
+and mattock.2 Can you believe that God said to Saul, "Now go and smite
+Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not;
+but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling"? Can you believe that
+because Saul took the king alive after killing every other man, woman,
+and child, the ogre called Jehovah was displeased and made up his mind
+to hurl Saul from the throne and give his place to another?3 I cannot
+believe that the Philistines all ran away because one of their number
+was killed with a stone. I cannot justify the conduct of Abigail, the
+wife of Nabal, who took presents to David. David hardly did right when
+he said to this woman, "I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted
+thy person." It could hardly have been chance that made Nabal so deathly
+sick next morning and killed him in ten days. All this looks wrong,
+especially as David married his widow before poor Nabal was fairly
+cold.4
+
+Fifty-fourth. Notwithstanding all I have heard of Katie King, I cannot
+believe that a witch at Endor materialized the ghost of Samuel and
+caused it to appear with a cloak on.5 I cannot believe that God
+tempted David to take the census, and then gave him his choice of three
+punishments: First, Seven years of famine; Second, Flying three months
+before their enemies; Third, A pestilence of three days; that David
+chose the pestilence, and that God destroyed seventy thousand men.6
+
+     1 I Sam. vi, 19.        3 I Sam. xv.   5 I Sam. xxviii.
+
+     2 I Sam. xiii, 19, 20.  4 I Sam. xxv.  6 2 Sam. xxiv.
+
+Why should God kill the people for what David did? Is it a sin to be
+counted? Can anything more brutally hellish be conceived? Why should man
+waste prayers upon such a God?
+
+Fifty-fifth. Must we admit that Elijah was fed by ravens; that they
+brought him bread and flesh every morning and evening? Must we believe
+that this same prophet could create meal and oil, and induce a departed
+soul to come back and take up its residence once more in the body? That
+he could get rain by praying for it; that he could cause fire to burn
+up a sacrifice and altar, together with twelve barrels of water?1 Can we
+believe that an angel of the Lord turned cook and prepared two suppers
+in one night for Elijah, and that the prophet ate enough to last him
+forty days and forty nights?* Is it true that when a captain with fifty
+men went after Elijah, this prophet caused fire to come down from heaven
+and consume them all? Should God allow such wretches to manage his fire?
+Is it true that Elijah consumed another captain with fifty men in the
+same way?3 Is it a fact that a river divided because the water was
+struck with a cloak? Did a man actually go to heaven in a chariot
+of fire drawn by horses of fire, or was he carried to Paradise by a
+whirlwind? Must we believe, in order to be good and tender fathers and
+mothers, that because some "little children" mocked at an old man with
+a bald head, God--the same God who said, "Suffer little children to come
+unto me"--sent two she-bears out of the wood and tare forty-two of these
+babes? Think of the mothers that watched and waited for their children.
+Think of the wailing when these mangled ones were found, when they
+were brought back and pressed to the breasts of weeping women. What an
+amiable gentleman Mr. Elisha must have been.4
+
+Fifty-sixth. It is hard to believe that a prophet by lying on a dead
+body could make it sneeze seven times.5
+
+     1 I Kings xviii.  3 2 Kings i.  5 2 Kings iv.
+
+     2 I Kings xix.    4 2 Kings ii.
+
+It is hard to believe that being dipped seven times in the Jordan could
+cure the leprosy.1 Would a merciful God curse children, and children's
+children yet unborn, with leprosy for a father's fault?2 Is it possible
+to make iron float in water?3 Is it reasonable to say that when a corpse
+touched another corpse it came to life?4 Is it a sign that a man wants
+to commit a crime because he refuses to believe that a king had a boil
+and that God caused the sun to go backward in heaven so that the shadow
+on a sun-dial went back ten degrees as a sign that the aforesaid would
+get well?5 Is it true that this globe turned backward, that its motion
+was reversed as a sign to a Jewish king? If it did not, this story is
+false, and that part of the Bible is not true even if it is inspired.
+
+Fifty-seventh. How did the Bible get lost?5 Where was the precious
+Pentateuch from Moses to Josiah? How was it possible for the Jews to get
+along without the directions as to fat and caul and kidney contained
+in Leviticus? Without that sacred book in his possession a priest might
+take up ashes and carry them out without changing his pantaloons. Such
+mistakes kindled the wrath of God.
+
+As soon as the Pentateuch was found Josiah began killing wizards and
+such as had familiar spirits.
+
+Fifty-eighth. I cannot believe that God talked to Solomon, that he
+visited him in the night and asked him what he should give him; I cannot
+believe that he told him, "I will give thee riches and wealth and honor,
+such as none of the kings have had before thee, neither shall there any
+after thee have the like."7 If Jehovah said this he was mistaken. It is
+not true that Solomon had fourteen hundred chariots of war in a country
+without roads. It is not true that he made gold and silver at Jerusalem
+as plenteous as stones. There were several kings in his day, and
+thousands since, that could have thrown away the value of Palestine
+without missing the amount.
+
+     1 2 Kings v.      3 2 Kings, vi. 6.    5 2 Kings xx, 1-11.
+
+     2 2 Kings v. 27.  4 2 Kings xiii, 21.  6 2 Kings xxii, 8.
+
+     7 2 Chron. i, 7, 12.
+
+The Holy Land was and is a wretched country. There are no monuments, no
+ruins attesting former wealth and greatness. The Jews had no commerce,
+knew nothing of other nations, had no luxuries, never produced a
+painter, a sculptor, architect, scientist, or statesman until after the
+destruction of Jerusalem. As long as Jehovah attended to their affairs
+they had nothing but civil war, plague, pestilence, and famine. After he
+abandoned, and the Christians ceased to persecute them, they became the
+most prosperous of people. Since Jehovah, in anger and disgust, cast
+them away they have produced painters, sculptors, scientists, statesmen,
+composers, and philosophers.
+
+Fifty-ninth. I cannot admit that Hiram, the King of Tyre, wrote a letter
+to Solomon in which he admitted that the "God of Israel made heaven and
+earth." 1 This King was not a Jew. It seems incredible that Solomon had
+eighty thousand men hewing timber for the temple, with seventy thousand
+bearers of burdens, and thirty-six hundred overseers.2
+
+Sixtieth. I cannot believe that God shuts up heaven and prevents rain,
+or that he sends locusts to devour a land, or pestilence to destroy the
+people.3 I cannot believe that God told Solomon that his eyes and heart
+should perpetually be in the house that Solomon had built.4
+
+Sixty-first. I cannot believe that Solomon passed all the kings of the
+earth in riches; that all the kings of the earth sought his presence
+and brought presents of silver and gold, raiment, harness, spices, and
+mules--a rate year by year.5 Is it possible that Shishak, a King of
+Egypt, invaded Palestine with seventy thousand horsemen and twelve
+hundred chariots of war?6
+
+     1 2 Chron. ii, 12.  3 2 Chron. vii, 13.  5 2 Chron. ix, 22-24.
+
+     2 2 Chron. ii, 18.  4 2 Chron. vii, 16.  6 2 Chron. xii, 2, 3.
+
+I cannot believe that in a battle between Jeroboam and Abijah, the army
+of Abijah actually slew in one day five hundred thousand chosen men.1
+Does anyone believe that Zerah, the Ethiopian, invaded Palestine with a
+million men?2 I cannot believe that Jehoshaphat had a standing army
+of nine hundred and sixty thousand men.3 I cannot believe that God
+advertised for a liar to act as his messenger.4 I cannot believe that
+King Amaziah did right in the sight of the Lord, and that he broke in
+pieces ten thousand men by casting them from a precipice.5 I cannot
+think that God smote a king with leprosy because he tried to burn
+incense.6 I cannot think that Pekah slew one hundred and twenty thousand
+men in one day.7
+
+     1 2 Chron. xiii, 17. 3 2 Chron. xvii, 14-19.  5 2 Chron. xxv, 12.
+
+     2 2 Chron. xiv, 9.   4 2 Chron. xviii, 19-22. 6 2 Chron. xxvi, 19.
+
+     7 2 Chron. xxviii, 6.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+11 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
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