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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of I don't know, do you?, by Marilla M. Ricker

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and

-most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you

-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before

-using this eBook.

-

-Title: I don't know, do you?

-

-Author: Marilla M. Ricker

-

-Release Date: February 15, 2021 [eBook #64568]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-Produced by: Carlos Colón, the New York Public Library and the Online

-             Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This

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-             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

-

-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***

-

-

-

-

-  Transcriber's Notes:

-

-  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by

-  =equal signs=.

-

-  Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase.

-

-  Blank pages have been eliminated.

-

-  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the

-  original.

-

-  A few typographical errors have been corrected.

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration: _Marilla M. Ricker._]

-

-

-

-

-                         I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU?

-

-                                  BY

-

-                           MARILLA M. RICKER

-

-

-                            [Illustration]

-

-

-                               DONE INTO

-                   A PRINTED BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS

-                     AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN

-                         EAST AURORA, NEW YORK

-                                MCMXVI

-

-

-

-

-                            Copyright, 1916

-                                  By

-                           Marilla M. Ricker

-

-

-

-

-  You are what you think, and to believe in a Hell for other people

-  is literally to go to Hell yourself.--_Elbert Hubbard._

-

-  A religious man is a man scared.

-

-

-

-

-FOREWORD

-

-

-_There is in the city of Boston a memorial building to Thomas Paine.

-This Paine Memorial was finished and dedicated forty-two years ago. It

-is the finest monument to Thomas Paine on the earth._

-

-_For twenty years Ralph Washburn Chainey has been the Manager of this

-building and the Treasurer of the Paine Memorial Corporation. Under his

-wise and prudent management the building was freed from debt, and today

-it is a monument to the energy and devotion of its Manager as much as

-to the genius and labors of Thomas Paine._

-

-_Ralph Washburn Chainey is only forty-two, and as great an example of

-thrift as Ben Franklin was. Very early in life he acquired the habit of

-thrift--which is the basis of all virtues. He learned early that time

-was money and he is always at work. He is not only able to take care

-of himself, but he can and does take care of others. He is sufficient

-unto himself, and when one is right with himself he is right with all

-the world. I have known him intimately for more than a quarter of a

-century, and if he has faults I have yet to learn what they are._

-

-_In appreciation, therefore, of his great service to the cause of

-Freethought, I dedicate this volume to_

-

-       RALPH WASHBURN CHAINEY

-

-                                            --_Marilla M. Ricker_.

-

-_Dover, New Hampshire December, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen_

-

-

-

-

-  As man advances, as his intellect enlarges, as his knowledge

-  increases, as his ideals become nobler, the Bibles and creeds will

-  lose their authority, the miraculous will be classed with the

-  impossible, and the idea of special providence will be discarded.

-  Thousands of religions have perished, innumerable gods have died,

-  and why should the religion of our time be exempt from the common

-  fate?

-

-                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._

-

-

-

-

-CONTENTS

-

-

-  FOREWORD                                      7

-

-  CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION                  11

-

-  WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES,

-  AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC                     33

-

-  A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER                   55

-

-  THE HOLY GHOST                               65

-

-  HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?                    71

-

-  COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL                  81

-

-  MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT                    85

-

-  AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE ON RELIGION         89

-

-  DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY                 107

-

-

-

-

-  I know of no other book that so fully teaches the subjection and

-  degradation of woman as the Bible.

-

-                                       --_Elizabeth Cady Stanton._

-

-

-  That God had to come to earth to find a mother for his son reveals

-  the poverty of Heaven.

-

-

-

-

-CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION

-

-

-

-

-  Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a

-  true system.

-

-                                                 --_Thomas Paine._

-

-

-  Hell is a place invented by priests and parsons for the sake of

-  being supported.

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION

-

-

-One hundred fifty years ago, there was not a single white man in what

-is now Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. What is now the most

-flourishing part of the United States was then as little known as the

-country in the heart of Africa itself. It was not until Seventeen

-Hundred Seventy-six that Boone left his home in North Carolina to

-become the first settler in Kentucky; and the pioneers of Ohio did not

-settle that territory until twenty years later.

-

-Canada belonged to France one hundred fifty-three years ago, and

-Washington was a modest Virginia Colonel, and the United States was

-the most loyal part of the British Empire, and scarcely a speck on the

-political horizon indicated the struggle that in a few years was to lay

-the foundation of the greatest republic in the world.

-

-One hundred fifty years ago there were but four small newspapers in

-America; steam-engines had not been imagined; and locomotives and

-railroads, and telegraphs and postal cards, and friction-matches,

-and revolvers and percussion-caps, and breechloading-guns and Mauser

-rifles, and stoves and furnaces, and gas and electricity and rubber

-shoes, and Spaulding's glue, and sewing-machines and anthracite coal,

-and photographs, and kerosene-oil, free schools, and spring-beds and

-hair-mattresses, and lever-watches and greenbacks were unknown. The

-spinning-wheel was in almost every family, and clothing was spun and

-woven and made up in the family; and the printing-press was a cumbrous

-machine worked by hand.

-

-Down to Eighteen Hundred Fourteen every paper in the world was printed

-one side at a time, on an ordinary hand-press; and a nail, or a brick,

-or a knife, or a pair of shears or scissors, or a razor, or a woven

-pair of stockings, or an ax or a hoe or a shovel, or a lock and key, or

-a plate of glass of any size, was not made in what is now the United

-States.

-

-In Seventeen Hundred Ninety, there were only seventy-five post-offices

-in the country, and the whole extent of our post-routes was less

-than nineteen hundred miles; cheap postage was unheard of; so were

-envelopes; and had any one suggested the transmission of messages with

-lightning speed, he would have been thought insane. The microscope on

-the one hand and the telescope on the other were in their infancy as

-instruments of science; and geology and chemistry were almost unknown,

-to say nothing of the telephone and all the other various phones, and

-the X-rays, and hundreds of other new things.

-

-In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two there were only six stagecoaches running

-in all England, and these were a novelty. A man named John Crosset

-thought they were so dangerous an innovation that he wrote a pamphlet

-against them. "These coaches," he wrote, "make gentlemen come to London

-upon every small occasion which otherwise they would not do, except

-upon urgent necessity. The conveniency of the passage makes their wives

-come often up, who, rather than come such long journeys on horseback,

-would stay at home. Then when they come to town they must be in the

-'wade' [probably that is where the word _swim_ comes in now], get fine

-clothes, go to plays, and treats, and by these means get such a habit

-of idleness and love of pleasure that they are uneasy ever after."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-We can all see how much improvement there has been in all things but

-_creeds_. Improvements can come, and old things go, but _creeds_ go on

-forever! A creed implies something fixed and immovable. In other words,

-it means you have a "heel-rope on."

-

-The word "creed" is from _credo_, "I believe." We have had a great

-deal of compulsion of belief, and a thousand years of almost absolute

-unanimity. Liberty was dead and the ages were dark. We call them

-the Middle Ages because they were the death between the life that

-was before and the life that came after. Then came a new birth of

-thought--a "Renaissance"--and after this, some reformation in the form

-of a Protestantism.

-

-Since then, the Protestants have continued to protest, not only against

-the old, but against each other. And this is the best thing they have

-done. Thus liberty has been saved, for each would have coerced its

-fellow organization, as did their infamous mother, the Roman Catholic

-Church, before them. From "creed" comes "credulous" and "credulity."

-And they have filled the world with their kind. In the United States

-alone, there are about one hundred forty types. Each is a system of

-credulity pitted against a hundred and thirty-nine others. They all

-rest on authority. They all denounce investigation--unless it has for

-its end the support of their authority.

-

-Hence, with the exception of two or three denominations, to become a

-professed Christian means to accept credulously and without question

-a system of belief about Nature and man and the world which you would

-deny in toto if you reasoned as you do about other things, and which

-you do practically deny by re-explaining and refining it into anything

-but what is stated. Down deep in your heart you do not, and never

-did, believe it in the same honest way in which you form your other

-opinions.

-

-Think for a moment of the Christian idea of the world, its origin, its

-shape, place, importance, and its final end. Does any man or woman who

-has been through a common-school geography believe the ideas implied in

-the common Christian dogmas regarding the world? We must remember that

-the world taught in the geography is not the Christian world.

-

-The world taught in the Christian dogmas is beneath the heavens--not a

-rolling sphere flying through space. It is flat, and the sun and stars

-pass over it daily. It is the chief object of God's creation on which

-to place man. It is God's footstool, and his throne is Heaven above. He

-created it just four thousand and four years before the Christian era

-began. Now we _all_ know that this is _not_ true; that there is no up

-nor down; that the earth is not the center; that it is _not_ flat; that

-the sun does not go round it; that it is a very insignificant little

-orb; that "up in Heaven" is an utterly meaningless expression; and that

-the world is not a creation, but an evolution.

-

-And yet thousands of people credulously cling to creeds which embody

-the notions of barbarous or uncivilized ages.

-

-Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the Bible is a

-revelation of the will and wisdom of an omniscient God; that it is a

-perfect and sufficient rule of faith and practise. What, in the name

-of humanity, causes people to make such statements today? It is like

-trying to light the house with a saucer of tallow in which a rag is

-immersed, instead of using gas or electricity.

-

-Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy xiv: 21, we read, "Ye

-shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it

-unto the sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or

-thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for _thou_ art a holy people unto

-Jehovah thy God." In Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would

-that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them."

-

-Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy, or even the

-moral unity of a volume written by many hands at widely different

-times? Are such people so ignorant that they have not read the Book

-they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots and do not know the

-plainest right and wrong? Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful

-reason for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they the dupes of

-their own credulity, clinging without thought to the beliefs in which

-they have been reared? They are evidently not using commonsense in an

-honest way.

-

-I often hear the Bible spoken of as a holy book, full of a holy

-spirit. I sometimes reply: "Have you read the conduct of Moses, Joshua,

-Samuel, David, Solomon, and other ancient worthies, who were said to be

-men after the heart of the bloodthirsty and avenging Jehovah? How long

-would you keep out of prison if you took them for your models? Have you

-read the Thirty-fifth, Fifty-eighth, Sixty-ninth and One Hundred Ninth

-Psalms? If not, read them, and tell me what you think of them."

-

-There never was any intrinsic reason for believing the Bible except

-that a designing priesthood said so, and stupid people trusted them.

-

-Here, by common consent, people agree to be duped. Ages and ages ago,

-they began to make admissions that two and two might be six, or even

-sixteen, in religion. They had sense enough to say that two and two are

-four in other things. In Divine Revelation they shut their eyes to all

-mistakes and wilful lies. If people should deceive in other matters as

-the priests, parsons and teachers do in religion, they would not escape

-arrest.

-

-Another central doctrine is that of the Atonement. This is derived

-from the moral character of the Jewish God; he governed the world of

-humanity on the principle of primitive society. Men were responsible to

-him in everything. Any infraction of his supposed laws rendered them

-subject to his vengeance. That is why the Jew thought that God sent a

-thunderstorm to punish him for eating pork.

-

-What explanation besides credulity can be suggested for the

-continuation of this belief century after century? Preachers shout

-it from the pulpits, and Salvation Army people hawk it through the

-streets. Not one of them knows what he is talking about. Each learned

-it from some one who told him to say it. They all do it because it is

-a part of a system which they have inherited, but the reason for which

-they do not know, and have never allowed themselves to seek.

-

-This cringing credulity keeps the masses from using their powers. They

-seem to believe that if they should lose these superstitions they would

-be lost.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-And the dogma regarding Jesus is inextricably mixed up in Christian

-theology with that of the Atonement. One assumption bolsters the

-other. He is made to occupy the central place in this scheme of

-blood-redemption through that other highly rational fable of the

-immaculate conception. If Jesus was not immaculately conceived, then

-Matthew and Luke have deceived; then Jesus is not God; then he is a

-mere man; and if so, he is not the Redeemer. Man could not redeem

-himself according to the first premise of the scheme. Man has been and

-_is_ redeeming himself by learning Nature's laws and through them

-rising to a higher life ever since he reached the stage of humanity.

-Take the theory of the Resurrection. The account of it was written long

-after the assumed occurrence, and by credulous men with superstitious

-inclinations. Men and women of these days, understanding the laws of

-Nature, can not give assent to the crude beliefs which easily commanded

-the minds of ancient times.

-

-Both Protestantism and Catholicism are systems built on essentially the

-same foundation. Remove any of these stones, and the systems will have

-to be rebuilt. If there is no special revelation, there is no special

-scheme of salvation. If there is no vengeful, blood-seeking God, there

-is no theological reconciliation. If there was no fall, there is no

-hopeless depravity. If there was no immaculate conception, there is

-no Redeemer in a special ecclesiastical sense. If there is no total

-depravity, there is no lost world. If there is no lost world, there is

-no yawning Hell. One and all, these fictions have their only ground for

-continuance in a _selfish_ and unreasoning priesthood and clergy, and a

-credulous people.

-

-In the place of the "fall," science has put the "rise" of man. It finds

-the Garden of Eden to have been a jungle. It finds the mythical perfect

-Adam to have been a savage. It finds the Biblical "origin of evil"

-to have been a puerile legend. It finds that sin and evil are made by

-the seeing of higher states. It finds that there was no bad until the

-better was reached. It finds that it is the advancing good which makes

-the existing bad. It finds that among the worst of sinners are those

-who live in and propagate outworn doctrines upon their own and others'

-credulity.

-

-In the olden times, God was made a king--the world was his kingdom.

-His powers, virtues and vices were simply those of earthly kings

-exaggerated. Jewish and Christian liturgies are full of expressions

-showing the attitude of slaves and serfs to a tyrant. Sin has been

-manufactured as heresy and disobedience to the so-called orthodox

-system instead of to the laws of Nature.

-

-Science has shown that the bottomless pit did not even have a top.

-Columbus sailed over the Western edge of the flat Christian world on

-which all this Christian system depended, and found that the material

-Heaven and Hell were unfounded myths; but the preachers and priests

-still threaten _hell_ to the most ignorant and credulous, but they tell

-some of us that there is a _final judgment_.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-In the old days, we used to hear a great deal about judgments. A

-certain honest, good-natured, old farmer in New Hampshire, who was a

-freethinker, but had a very pious wife, lost many cattle when the

-black tongue was an epidemic in the State.

-

-One day the hired man came in and told him the red oxen were dead.

-

-"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, they were 'breechy cusses.' Take

-off their hides and carry them down to Fletcher's. They will bring the

-cash."

-

-An hour or so later the man came back with the news that Lineback and

-his mate were both dead.

-

-"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, I took them of B---- to save a bad

-debt that I never expected to get. Take the hides down to Fletcher's.

-They will bring the cash."

-

-After the lapse of another hour the man came back to tell him that the

-nigh brindle was dead.

-

-"Is he?" said the old man. "Well, he was a very old ox. Take off his

-hide and send it down to Fletcher's. It is worth cash and will bring

-more than two of the others."

-

-Hereupon his wife reminded him that his loss was a judgment of Heaven

-upon him.

-

-"Is it?" said the old chap. "Well, if they will take the judgment in

-cattle, it is the easiest way I can pay it."

-

-But they know no more about final judgments than they did about the

-lake of fire and brimstone which commenced to drain off in Columbus'

-day. Science has vaporized the notion of a future judgment by the same

-method it has that of a past Creation. From the _facts_, it has learned

-_laws_. But credulity is always half-hearted with facts. It does not

-know enough of truth to love it. It is ever glowing over and setting

-up as a dogma the little it knows, or assumes to know, of the truth of

-former times. It has no faith in the newly discovered, because it knows

-nothing of it.

-

-Hence, age after age we see the spectacle of men who have not studied

-the science of their own day denouncing it in pulpit and councils;

-of men who have steeped themselves in the traditions of the past

-pronouncing shallow invectives against the demonstrations of (science)

-the present.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Many church people say immortality must be true, or the great majority

-would not believe in it. But do they? They do not talk or write as if

-they did. If language means anything, I think the majority believe in

-annihilation. Most people speak of the dead body of a man as though

-it were the man. They say, "He was buried at Greenwood," or, "She was

-cremated at Forest Hills." And we hear the "late" Mr. Smith left an

-immense fortune. If Mr. Smith still exists, why do they say the _late_

-Mr. Smith? If people didn't believe that the soul and body are one,

-and that life ceases and mind expires when the body dies, why do they

-say, "They were"? What little the Church has learned has been by _main

-force_ so to speak.

-

-A friend of mine many years ago was a college student. At that time

-they were all compelled to attend the college church. On one occasion

-he heard the preacher, who was also a college professor, make these

-statements:

-

-_First_, that the _elect_ alone would be saved.

-

-_Second_, that among those who by the world were called Christians,

-probably not more than one in a hundred belonged really and truly to

-the _elect_.

-

-_Third_, that the others, by reason of their Christian privileges,

-would suffer more hereafter than the heathen, who had never heard the

-Gospel at all.

-

-The young man made a note of these propositions, and on the strength

-of them drew up a petition to the Faculty soliciting exemption from

-further attendance at church, as only preparing for himself a more

-terrible future.

-

-He said: "The congregation here amounts to six hundred persons,

-and nine of these are the college professors. Now if only one in a

-hundred is to be saved, it follows that three even of the professors

-must be damned, and I, being a mere student, could not expect to be

-saved in preference to a professor." Far, he said, be it from him to

-cherish so presumptuous a hope. Nothing remained for him, therefore,

-but perdition. In this melancholy state of affairs he was anxious to

-abstain from anything that might aggravate his future punishment;

-and as church attendance had been shown to have this influence on the

-_non-elect_, he trusted that the Faculty would for all time exempt him

-from it.

-

-The result was he came very near being expelled from the

-college--simply by heeding their sermons. The professors of some

-colleges have learned something, and do not insist on the students

-attending church.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Ponder for a moment on the many dishonest ways churches have for

-raising money. Think of the amount of money they can raise at a

-church-fair--alias, a confidence-game.

-

-A young man from Kentucky told me that he attended one at Chicago.

-First he went to the table where refreshments were sold. A beautiful

-siren with big black eyes and small white hands spread the edibles

-before him. When he arose from the table he handed her a five-dollar

-bill. She put it in a little box and forgot to give him any change. She

-smiled sweetly at him, and asked him if he would like to walk about the

-room and look at the fancy articles, all to be sold for the good of the

-church.

-

-She took his arm and murmured, "We are not strangers; we both feel

-interested in the church."

-

-"We soon came," said the young man in telling me the story, "to a

-silver tea-set that was to be 'raffled off.' Would I take a chance? Of

-course I did. Then came a cake with a valuable ring concealed in it.

-Would I take a chance in that? Of course I did.

-

-"So things glided on until I concluded if I took many more chances, my

-chances for getting home would be slim. So I refused to tempt fortune

-any further, until the little black-eyed scoundrel took me on a new

-tack. Leaning heavily on my arm, and resting her cheek on my shoulder,

-she said, 'Please take a chance for me.'

-

-"It is needless to add that I took the chance, and kept on taking

-chances for the beautiful and unprincipled wretch that had me in tow,

-until I had not a dollar left. Yes, I was penniless, and then it

-began to dawn on me that she was working me for the success of the

-church. There I was, bankrupt in money and self-respect. I had been

-robbed--yes, robbed, for where is the difference between a pair of

-pistols and a pair of black eyes in a robbery? You part with your money

-because you can not help it.

-

-"I know that Society looks with lenient eyes upon church-fairs, but it

-is my opinion that all robbers will take sentence, and when that little

-Chicago robber receives her sentence, she will take her place by the

-side of Jack Sheppard!"

-

-You see he still believes in Judgments. He is learning by main force.

-

-A very pious woman whose father was a missionary, now living in Hawaii,

-wrote not long ago that professional men flocking to the Islands will

-be disappointed unless they are friends of old families; and the old

-families are descendants of missionaries who went there in the early

-days and took lands and everything else from the natives.

-

-There seems to be nothing like being a descendant from a missionary

-family. These people, equally pious and provident, thought it a

-good scheme to cheat the sinful savages out of all their worldly

-possessions, in order that they might be taught humility and holiness

-through the chastening influence of poverty. So they robbed the

-unregenerate to the glory of God.

-

-Who says it doesn't pay to save the heathen? Think of the ignorance and

-superstition of the majority of the preachers of the present day.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Up in Northern Minnesota, less than fifty years ago, an old Baptist

-was preaching on the death of Moses on the Mount, and his not being

-permitted to go over into the Promised Land. The preacher said:

-

-"I have always felt sorry for Moses. It has seemed so hard to me that

-he could not go over with Caleb and Joshua, the only two of the host

-which he had led out of Egypt, and enjoy with his people the good

-country towards which they had been so long traveling. When as a boy

-I read that in the Bible for the first time, I sat down and cried for

-sympathy with him. But Moses had a hard time from the first. He was no

-sooner born than his life was threatened. His mother had to hide him to

-save it. After three months she could hide him no longer, and so she

-made an ark of bulrushes and set him afloat on the river. Indeed, it

-seemed as though the Lord had all he could do to raise Moses."

-

-But the people of this generation do not take the story of Moses so

-seriously. A bright young girl of ten, on being asked by her Sabbath

-School teacher, "Where did Pharaoh's daughter get Moses?" replied, with

-the accent on the _said_, "She _said_ she 'found him in the bulrushes.'"

-

-I attended a campmeeting in North Carolina. The exhortations and

-prayers would cause a graven image to smile audibly. One old Baptist

-preacher said he always felt so sorry to think that "Ingine corn"

-didn't grow in Palestine, because he would like to think that the

-little Jesus had a good time playing with cob-houses.

-

-But those preachers compare favorably with the Reverend George F. Hall,

-of Decatur, Illinois, and the Reverend Doctor John P. D. John, and the

-Reverend Doctor Frederick Bell, late of the Metropolitan Temple of

-San Francisco, California, who at various times challenged Robert G.

-Ingersoll to debate with them. It shows what ignorance, superstition

-and egotism combined can do.

-

-Darwin said the herding instinct in animals has its base in fear. Sheep

-and cattle go in droves, while a lion simply flocks with his mate.

-Those who wish to lead have always fostered fear, encouraging this

-tendency to herd, promising protection, and offering what they call

-knowledge in return for a luxurious living.

-

-In other words, the men who preach and pray, always want the people

-who _work_ to divide with them. They work on the line that fear will

-compel men to join churches. This joining instinct is a manifestation

-of weakness. By going with a gang they hope to get to Heaven. But the

-moment you eliminate the Devil from Christianity, there is nothing

-left. You can not have a revival, alias an epidemic, of religion,

-without the Devil. If there were no Devil, there would be nothing to

-pray about, and all these people who are gifted in prayer would be

-without a job.

-

-Think of the chaplains of the Army and Navy, in Congress and in the

-Legislatures being turned out to browse for themselves. Think of their

-being obliged to earn an honest living. They could not do it. I am

-amused when I think of the prayers that are exchanged in war times. One

-side will pray that the wrath of Heaven will descend on the other, and

-the other side will return the compliment with ten per cent interest.

-

-I remember when I was a child of reading the prayer of a Hungarian

-officer. He said: "O Lord, I will not ask thee to help us, and I know

-that thou wilt not help the Austrians. But if thou wilt sit on yonder

-hill, thou shalt not be ashamed of thy children."

-

-The famous Bishop Leslie prayed before a battle in Ireland, "O God, for

-our unworthiness we are not fit to claim thy help, but if we are bad,

-our enemies are worse, and if thou seest not meet to help us, we pray

-thee help them not, but stand thou neutral this day, and leave it to

-the arm of flesh."

-

-All this dramatic power would be lost without the Devil. So it behooves

-the Christian churches to hold fast to the Devil. Get a good grip on

-his hoofs, horns and tail, for without him they would be relegated to

-"innocuous desuetude." He should be incorporated as the fourth person

-in the Orthodox Godhead, and respectfully addressed as "Holy Devil."

-

-  _There is no truth in the dogma of the divinity of Jesus, no sense

-  in it, no religion in it. It is the product of mythology and has no

-  claim upon this age._

-

-

-

-

-  This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right

-  you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of

-  Nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.

-

-  The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a

-  traitor to himself and to his fellowmen.

-

-  As far as I am concerned, I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish

-  to take my chances with wind and wave and star. And I had rather

-  go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any

-  orthodox harbor whatever.

-

-                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._

-

-

-

-

-WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC

-

-

-

-

-  The ignorance of the masses insures abundant contributions to the

-  clergy and to religion.--_Ralph W. Chainey._

-

-  The mother who teaches her child to pray makes a mistake.

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC

-

-

-The Millerites--or Second Adventists, as they now call themselves--are

-the first sect that I remember. They are a people of remarkable vigor:

-they have been at work for seventy years to bring this world to an end,

-and although they have been wrong in their arithmetic all these years,

-they rub out the slate and begin again.

-

-And they prove everything by the Bible, as all other denominations do.

-The "time" has been set at least twenty times since I can remember. I

-recollect having awful palpitations in the kneepans upon one of the

-eventful days, and crawling under the barn so as not to be in the

-way. They used to congregate on the height of land near my father's,

-"to go up," and one man climbed upon an old shed, and fell and broke

-his hip; he fainted, and they thought he was dead. As soon as he had

-revived a little, they asked him if he had any requests to make before

-he died. He replied, "I want you to work in 'durn fool' somewhere on

-my tombstone." He recovered, and lived many years, but he was cured of

-Millerism.

-

-A large share of the students of the Second Advent doctrine came into

-this world, not only naked, but without any brains, nor any place

-suitable to put any; and the first business they do is to wonder about

-their souls and talk about being "born again." They never seem to

-realize that to be well born is much more essential than to be "born

-again." I never knew immortality to be secured at the second birth.

-

-I attended one of their meetings this year, and asked one of the

-sisters for their _creed_. She said, "Our creed is the whole Bible,

-from the first book of Genesis to the last word of the last chapter of

-Revelations."

-

-I thought of what a boy said when the Baptist Elder came and took tea

-at his home, and asked a "blessing."

-

-The boy said: "Is that the way you ask a blessing? My father doesn't

-ask it that way."

-

-"How does he ask it?"

-

-"Oh, he sat down to the table the other evening, and looked it all

-over, and said, 'My God, what a supper!'"

-

-And I thought, "My God, what a creed!"

-

-I was tempted to ask the Millerite sister what she thought of the

-discrepancy between the first and the second chapter of Genesis. In the

-first chapter Man and Woman were a simultaneous creation. In the second

-chapter, Woman was an afterthought. But I had the deep sagacity to

-hold my tongue, and leave her and her _creed_ in peace.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The second church that I remember anything about is the Free-Will

-Baptist. My mother was a devout member of that church. I have heard

-thousands of times, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,

-he can not enter into the Kingdom of God." And man included woman--it

-always did, so far as pains and penalties were concerned.

-

-I remember distinctly a sermon I heard on Hell. You younger people can

-not have the faintest idea of the terrific sermons that were preached

-in those days.

-

-That sermon commenced in this wise:

-

-"Now we will look into Hell and see what we can see. It is all red-hot

-like red-hot iron. Streams of burning pitch and sulphur run through it.

-The floor blazes up to the roof. Look at the walls--the enormous stones

-are red-hot. Sparks of fire are always falling down from them. Lift

-up your eyes to the roof of Hell. It is like a sheet of blazing fire.

-Hell is filled with a fog of fire. In Hell, torrents not of water, but

-of fire and brimstone, are rained down. You may have seen a house on

-fire, but you never saw a house made of fire. Hell is a house made of

-fire. The fire of Hell burns the devils, who are spirits, for it was

-prepared for them. But it will burn the body as well as the soul.

-Take a little spark out of Hell--less than the size of a pin-head--and

-throw it into the ocean, and it will not go out. In one moment it

-would dry up all the waters of the ocean, and set the whole world in a

-blaze! Listen to the terrific noise of Hell--to the horrible uproar of

-countless millions of tormented creatures, mad with the fury of Hell!

-Oh, the screams of fear, the groanings of horror, the yells of rage,

-the cries of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair, from

-millions on millions. You hear them roaring like lions, hissing like

-serpents, howling like dogs, and wailing like dragons! And above all,

-you hear the roaring of the thunder of God's anger, which shakes Hell

-to its foundations. Little children, if you go to Hell, there will be a

-devil at your side to strike you. How will you feel after you have been

-struck every minute for a hundred millions of years? Look into this

-inner room of Hell, and see a girl of about sixteen. She stands in the

-middle of a red-hot floor; her feet are bare; sleep can never come to

-her; she can never forget for one moment in all the eternity of years."

-

-And so this description of Hell went on for nearly two hours. Do you

-wonder that I, a child of ten years, said to my father, who was a

-freethinker, infidel, atheist, or whatever else you please to call him:

-"I _hate_ my mother's church. I will _not_ go there again!"

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The next church I became acquainted with was the Calvin Baptist Church.

-That church seemed to think that the most of us were born to be damned

-anyway!

-

-The great Ingersoll had it right when he said it was the

-damned-if-you-do-and-the-damned-if-you-don't church.

-

-The only difference between the Free-Will Baptists and the Calvin

-Baptists that I can see, is, that you are allowed to exercise your

-_will_. The Free-Will Baptists will damn you if you wish to be, and the

-Calvinists will damn you anyway!

-

-The next church to which I was introduced was the Congregationalist,

-alias the Orthodox. Their creed is rather complex from a mathematical

-standpoint. They seem to think that three Gods are one God, and one God

-is three Gods.

-

-I, having been taught that figures don't lie, couldn't understand it,

-until I thought of a boy who said to his teacher when she explained to

-him that figures didn't lie: "You should see my sisters at home, and

-then on the street. You will find that figures do lie."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I then went to Italy, and became conversant with the _outside_

-doings of the Roman Catholic Church. I visited many of them, saw the

-beggars eating crusts at the doors, and the well-fed priests saying

-masses inside; saw the white hand of famine always extended, in

-bitter contrast to the magnificent cathedrals; saw well-dressed,

-intelligent-looking men and women going upstairs on their hands and

-knees, and saw hundreds of them kissing the toe of the bronze statue of

-Saint Peter; saw monks of every shade and description; and all begging

-for the Holy Catholic Church!

-

-I attended a church festival at Rome at the Ara Cœli, where the most

-"Holy Bambino" is kept, a little wooden doll about two feet long. It is

-said to be the image of Jesus. It had a crown of gold on its head and

-was fairly ablaze with diamonds. It has great power to heal the sick.

-It is taken to visit patients in great style--that is, if the patients

-are rich. The Bambino is placed in a coach accompanied by priests in

-full dress. The Great Festival of the Bambino is celebrated annually.

-Military bands and the Soldiers of the Guard dance attendance. Saint

-Gennaro is held to be the guardian saint of Naples. The alleged miracle

-by which the blood of this holy person, contained in a glass tube,

-changes from a solid to a liquid state, is well known. Thousands go to

-see the miracle performed. When the priest first held up the sacred

-vial with its clotted contents we could hear all about us: "Holy

-Gennaro, save and protect us! Bless the City of Naples, and keep it

-free from plagues and earthquakes and other ills. Do this miracle so

-that we can see that thy power and thy favor are still with us." And

-so it went on for an hour or more, until the great throng was nearly

-hysterical.

-

-At last the priest stepped forward, showing that the blood flowed

-freely in the tube, and then such a shout went up from the big crowd as

-one hears only in Southern climes.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I have never been introduced to the Church of England, alias, the

-Episcopalian, but I've always thought if a man had a good voice, and

-understood the mysteries of the corkscrew, he would make a good rector.

-

-I became acquainted with a High-Church Episcopalian woman not long ago,

-and she showed me a prayer-rug and praying-costume imported from Paris.

-I told her that she looked like an angel in it, as she ought after

-going to all that expense and trouble; if she didn't, dressmakers might

-as well give it up and wait for Gabriel. The attitude of prayer threw

-the back breadths of the skirt into graceful prominence, and hence the

-necessity (which will be at once recognized by all the truly _pious_)

-of increased attention to the frills and embroidery required by the

-religious attitude of prayer.

-

-An old farmer in Indiana said he was a "Piscopal."

-

-"To what parish do you belong?"

-

-"I don't know nothing about parishes."

-

-"Who confirmed you?"

-

-"Nobody."

-

-"Then how do you belong to the Episcopalian Church?"

-

-"Well, last Winter I went down to Arkansas visiting, and while I was

-there, I went to a church and it was called 'Piscopal,' and I heard

-them say that they had done the things they ought not to have done, and

-left undone the things they ought to have done, and I says to myself,

-'That is my fix exactly,' and ever since then I've considered myself a

-'Piscopal'!"

-

-And I came to the conclusion that that is why the membership of that

-church is so large!

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I know but little about the Methodists, but I do know that John Wesley,

-one of the founders of that church, believed in witchcraft, and was one

-of the latest of its supporters.

-

-History tells us that Brother Wesley preached a sermon entitled, _The

-Cause and Cure of Earthquakes_. He said that earthquakes were caused

-by sin, and the only way to stop them was to believe in his theology

-and teachings, thus showing great knowledge of seismology; but people

-who bank on gullibility are usually safe. I know the Methodists make a

-great hullabaloo about their religion, and appear to think their God is

-deaf.

-

-The Methodist Conference has refused to allow women to be delegates to

-the General Conference. The Methodist sisters should discipline the

-Church.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-What I know about the Universalists I like. They seem to think that

-we are all in the same boat, and that one stands as good a chance as

-another, of which I approve. When I was a child, Sylvanus Cobb, at that

-time the great Universalist preacher, preached in the adjoining town.

-One Sunday, my father and I went to hear him. His sermon caused a great

-commotion, and the Baptist who preached that terrific sermon about Hell

-said to my mother, "There is a wicked man about here preaching that

-everybody is to be saved; but, Sister Young, let us hope for better

-things!"

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I believe that the Unitarians, as a class, think for themselves. I

-approve of that, and the Evangelical Alliance disapproves of them. That

-is in their favor.

-

-I taught school at Lee, New Hampshire, fifty years ago. One of the

-committee was a Unitarian, and one was a Quaker. I was tired of

-selecting suitable reading matter from that obscene old book, the

-Bible, and I suggested that we read from some other book, which we did

-for two mornings, when the Unitarian materialized at the schoolhouse,

-and with much suavity suggested that we read from the Bible every

-morning, and recite the Lord's Prayer; and I, teaching school for my

-bread and butter, bowed to the suggestion, and the next morning said:

-"Pupils, Mr. Smith prefers that we read from the Bible. Therefore, we

-will this morning read the startling and authentic account of Jonah

-whilst he was stopping at the submarine hotel." That is the most

-narrow-minded thing I ever knew about a Unitarian; but I always thought

-Mr. Smith voiced the opinion of the parents of the pupils rather than

-his own.

-

-I am somewhat acquainted with the Church of the Latter-Day Saints,

-alias the Mormons. They are a prudent, industrious, painstaking people,

-and only about two per cent of them ever _did_ practise polygamy, and

-that is a very small proportion for any Christian church. Brigham

-Young never did have but seventeen wives, but Solomon had five hundred

-wives, and one thousand other lady friends, and David, whose honor

-and humility show greater in his psalms than in the history of his

-ordinary, every-day life, was, as the Bible says, a man after God's own

-heart.

-

-I am sure that Brigham Young compared favorably with David. And if God

-interviewed Moses, why shouldn't he have interviewed Joe Smith?

-

-There are more than one thousand religions. They are founded mostly on

-fraud. All their saviors had virgins for mothers, and gods for fathers.

-

-The churches own more than thirteen billions of property, and they are

-_all_ too dishonest to pay honest taxes. Many of the churches couldn't

-be run three weeks without the women. They do all the work, for which

-they get no credit.

-

-The churches claim all the distinguished people, especially after

-they are dead and hence can not deny their claims. They have many

-times claimed that Abraham Lincoln was a churchman. The Honorable

-H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, an old friend of Lincoln, said it is

-false. Lincoln belonged to no church, and at one time said, "I have

-never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in

-giving my assent without mental reservation to the long, complicated

-statements of Christian doctrine, which characterize their articles of

-belief, and confessions of faith." But still they claim him. Honest,

-very!

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-No institution in modern civilization is so tyrannical and so unjust to

-women as is the Christian church. The history of the Church does not

-contain a single suggestion for the equality of woman with man, and

-still the Church claims that woman owes her advancement to the Bible.

-She owes it much more to the dictionary.

-

-History, both ancient and modern, tells us that the condition of women

-is most degraded in those countries where Church and State are in

-closest affiliation (such as, Spain, Italy, Russia and Ireland), and

-most advanced in nations where the power of ecclesiasticism is markedly

-on the wane. It has been proved that, whatever progress woman has made

-in any department of effort, she has accomplished independent of, and

-in opposition to, the so-called inspired and infallible Word of God;

-and that the Bible has been of more injury to her than has any other

-book ever written in the history of the world.

-

-William Root Bliss, in his _Side Glimpses From the Colonial

-Meetinghouse_, tells us many startling truths concerning the Puritans,

-and reminds me of what Chauncey M. Depew said--that the _first_ thing

-the Puritans did, after they landed at Plymouth, was to fall on their

-knees, and the _second_ thing was to fall on the Aborigines.

-

-The business of trading in slaves was not immoral by the estimate of

-public opinion in Colonial times. A deacon of the church in Newport

-esteemed the slave trade, with its rum accessories, as home missionary

-work. It is said that on the first Sunday after the arrival of his

-slaves he was accustomed to offer thanks that an overruling Providence

-had been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of

-benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings of a Gospel dispensation.

-

-At a Bridgewater town meeting of the year Sixteen Hundred Seventy-six,

-a vote was called to see what should be done with the money that was

-made from selling the Indians.

-

-John Bacon of Barnstable directed in his will that his Indian slave

-Dinah be sold and the proceeds used "by my executors in buying Bibles."

-By men who sat in the Colonial meetinghouse, the first fugitive-slave

-law was formed. This law became a part of the Articles of Confederation

-between all the New England Colonies.

-

-The affinity between _rum_ and the religion of Colonial times was

-exemplified in the license granted John Vyall to keep a house of

-entertainment in Boston. He must keep it near the meetinghouse of the

-Second Church, where he extended his invitation to thirsty sinners who

-were going to hear John Mayo or Increase Mather preach.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The importation of slaves began early. The first arrival at Boston

-was by the ship _Desire_, on February Twenty-sixth, Sixteen Hundred

-Thirty-seven, bringing negroes, tobacco and cotton from Barbados. She

-had sailed from Boston eleven months before, carrying Indian captives

-to the Bermudas to be sold as slaves, and thus she became noted as the

-first New England slave-ship.

-

-In time, slaves were brought to Boston direct from Africa.

-

-Advertisements of just-arrived negroes to be sold may be seen in the

-Boston _News Letter_ of the years Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six and

-Seventeen Hundred Twenty-seven. The pious Puritans did not hesitate to

-sell slaves on the auction-block. I find in the Boston _News Letter_

-of September Nineteenth, Seventeen Hundred Fifteen, a notice of an

-auction-sale at Newport, Rhode Island, of several Indians, men and

-boys, and a very likely negro man. They were treated in all respects as

-merchandise, and were rated with horses and cattle.

-

-Peter Faneuil, to whom Boston is indebted for its Cradle of Liberty,

-was deep in the business. In an inventory of the property of Parson

-Williams of Deerfield, in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine, his slaves

-were rated with his horses and cows. "Believe and be baptized" is all

-that was essential. I think many of them would have been improved by

-anchoring them out overnight.

-

-A negro preacher whom I knew came to me when I was in Florida, and

-said: "What shall I preach about tomorrow? I'se done preached myself

-'plumb out.' I'se worked on election sanctification and damnation

-predestination till I can't say another word to save my life."

-

-I said, "Preach a sermon on 'Thou shalt not steal' for a text."

-

-"Yes," he said, "that certainly _is_ a good text, but I am monstros

-'fraid it will produce a coolness in my congregation!"

-

-Doubtless it would produce a coolness in many a congregation today.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Now I want to talk a little about _law_ and its penalty. We want to

-consider the invariable laws of Nature. Let us look at it in the way in

-which we became acquainted with it--through experience.

-

-To the child, law is an educator; he plays with fire and is burned.

-Law and its penalty have done their work. A burnt child dreads the

-fire. On that point his education is complete. He cuts himself with a

-knife; again the law works. Do not play with edged tools is the lesson.

-And so, whenever he comes in contact with external objects, he learns

-something very definite from them; and if he has any sense, he soon

-conforms to the order which he sees in force all around him. He does

-what he can to act in such a way as not to run counter to Nature's

-laws; or, at least, Nature teaches him to do so by repeated suffering

-when he acts otherwise. The law thus far is all in favor of life,

-and is teaching the child to preserve it. He must eat not to starve;

-he must be clothed not to freeze; he must not be burned, or cut, or

-crushed. In one word, he must take care of himself, and be careful of

-external objects, or he must be hurt.

-

-But his education has another connection with law. If he has proper

-parents he learns that he can not lie, or steal, or do many other

-things without suffering a penalty. If he has no home education in

-this matter, the reform-school and the jail step in and take up the

-lesson.

-

-And so the law teaches him that his actions must be of a certain

-quality, both with respect to external Nature and his fellowmen, or

-that he must pay a penalty.

-

-Thus he comes to man's estate, and law has been to him an educator and

-a good one. He has learned that Nature's law means punishment every

-time it is violated, and that man's law, whatever it may attain to,

-_aims_ at the same object as Nature's law.

-

-But neither his education nor his contact with law ends with his

-youth. Hitherto he has obeyed blindly for fear of the penalty. He now

-obeys intelligently, and connected with the penalty to be incurred by

-disobedience is the reward to be obtained through obedience. He finds

-that every act, every thought, of his brings him in direct contact

-with law. He can not elude it by standing still, for no man can stand

-still. He must go forward, or backward. This is an inexorable law;

-with progress, improvement; without progress, what? Rest? Repose?

-No! Deterioration. No man can stand still in this universe for a day

-without losing something. The man who means to do anything in life must

-go forward; if he falters, another goes ahead; and then he learns that

-the penalty of faltering is failure.

-

-Nature works no special miracles in any one's favor. Nature works

-no miracles, anyway. The sun and the moon did _not_ stand still at

-Joshua's command!

-

-No riches and influence can buy exemption from Nature.

-

-Law says to the poor man who is dependent on his daily toil: "You have

-only yourself to rely upon. Take care of your health; be temperate,

-honest and industrious, for sickness, imprisonment, idleness, mean to

-you death."

-

-It says to the rich man: "Inherited wealth has exempted you from

-_daily_ labor of body, but it has not earned for you rest. Go to work;

-do something, or your mind and body will be enfeebled; your sympathies

-will disappear; you will become dry as the summer's dust; you will sink

-into a nonentity."

-

-The whole cry of Nature's law is onward and upward. Evolution is the

-word--there is no God about it. It is not alone the survival of the

-fittest--that is only a part of the process. It is the fittest of one

-generation becoming something better and higher for the next.

-

-It is the fashion now to say that the struggle for existence becomes

-yearly more fierce, but that is not so. The truth is that those who

-struggle become with each survival fitter to struggle, and that for

-which they struggle is placed one step forward. Men used to want

-thousands and hundreds of thousands; now, they want millions and

-hundreds of millions. They used to want general knowledge; now, they

-are all specialists, and cry out that life is too short. Steam used

-to content them; now, electricity does not satisfy them, and they are

-grasping at the possibilities of the mighty currents of air caused by

-the revolutions of the earth itself.

-

-The law of progress is not limited to the mind. The body shares in

-it. Men are stronger, larger, longer-lived than they have ever been.

-Even with the animals, finer, better breeds are constantly producing

-themselves under law.

-

-This law of the survival of the fittest and the elevation of the type

-of the fittest pronounced against slavery, and a nation paid the

-penalty in blood, as Spain has, and other nations will pay it. It has

-pronounced against the subjection of women, and let those who stand in

-the way, beware, lest some ruin crush them as it falls!

-

-The type of sympathy has become higher and tenderer. Sweet hands of

-mercy are now stretched down even to the brutes. Let those lovers of

-the past who can see no progress in the present, who would question

-this onward tendency, and the result of law, let them remember

-that they must run rapidly to keep from being overwhelmed by the

-_expansionists_.

-

-Nature's law teaches us that like begets like. You plant a grain of

-wheat, and you reap wheat. You breed Morgan stock and the foal is of

-Morgan blood. The child is the offspring of certain parents, and it

-inherits their blood. If parents choose to unfit themselves to be

-healthy parents, who shall be blamed?

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Shall gravitation cease as I go by? Teach children that no amount of

-so-called religion will compensate for rheumatism; that Christianity

-has nothing to do with morality; that "vicarious atonement" is a fraud,

-and a lie; that to be born well and strong is the highest birth; that

-to be honest and pay one's debts spells peace of mind; that the Bible

-is no more inspired than the dictionary; that _sin_ is a transgression

-of the laws of life, and that the blood of all the bulls and goats

-and lambs of ancient times, and the blood of Christ or any other man,

-never had, and never can have, the least effect in making a life what

-it would have been had it obeyed the laws of life. If you have marred

-your life, you must bear the consequences. If you have made a mistake,

-be more careful in the future. Let the thought that the past is

-irretrievable make you more careful in the present and for the future.

-

-And, above all, teach children that prayer is idiotic. There may be

-one God or twenty. I do not know or care. I am not afraid, and no

-priest or parson can make me believe that my title to a future life, if

-there be one, is defective. And the great and good man Thomas Paine,

-who wrote the _Age of Reason_, and said, "The world is my country, and

-to do good my religion," is a good enough god for me. And the great

-Ingersoll, who said, "I belong to the great Church that holds the world

-within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every

-race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed

-and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul," is

-in my opinion an excellent god--as good as any that ever lived, from

-Confucius to Christ. A friend of mine said to me, "Ingersoll should

-have been a Christian." I replied, "The dog-collar of Christianity did

-not belong on his neck: he preached the truth; he preferred that to the

-Bible. I can not imagine the great Ingersoll preaching from II Kings

-xiv: 35."

-

-  _When I was a child I heard very little about Christmas and nothing

-  about Lent and Easter. I was taught to be honest and truthful and

-  to pay one hundred cents on a dollar. In my opinion there is no

-  Bible extant so good as Ingersoll's Complete Works._

-

-

-

-

-A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER

-

-

-

-

-  Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear

-  believes--courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and

-  prays--courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats--courage

-  advances. Fear is barbarism--courage is civilization. Fear believes

-  in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion--courage

-  is science.

-

-  There are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. All

-  progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing

-  the laws of the ghosts.

-

-                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER

-

-A LABOR OF FOLLY

-

-_From the Portsmouth "Times"_

-

-

-Our old friend, Marilla M. Ricker, of Dover, lifelong advocate of

-"woman's rights," zealous champion of "freethought," admirer of Bob

-Ingersoll, worshiper of Tom Paine, and collaborator of Elbert Hubbard,

-who fears neither God, man nor the Devil, because she does not believe

-particularly in any of them, is engaged in a labor of folly, in that

-she is fighting the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul.

-

-In the prosecution of her warfare she has gone into print and issued

-a pamphlet in which she takes issue, primarily, with one Elder E. A.

-Kenyon upon his proposition of a universal consciousness that "if a man

-die he shall live again," and even goes so far as to assert that the

-majority of mankind believe in annihilation. Moreover, she pronounces

-the doctrine of personal immortality "a most selfish and harmful one,"

-"pernicious in its results," and operating for the enslavement of

-mankind, filling the world with gloom and making of man a crawling

-coward.

-

-We invite no controversy with Marilla, and will have none. We concede

-her right to believe anything, or nothing, to say what she thinks,

-write what she pleases, get it printed where she may, and circulate

-it as she can; but our advice to the dear sister is to "let up" on

-this contention, wherein she is out-Ingersolling Ingersoll. He did not

-believe in immortality, but he did not deny it. He claimed that he did

-not know, and that no man could know it to be a fact; but he never

-sought to blot out hope. And the truth is that but for this hope of

-immortal existence, entertained by the vast majority of the race, in

-all lands and ages, life would not be worth living, and men and women

-everywhere would lie down and perish in despair. It is this hope, or

-faith, or consciousness--however we may express it--of life beyond

-the grave, or the immortality of the soul, that inspires mankind to

-all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for progress and

-development here. Without it there would be no incentive effort beyond

-that which impels the brute. Without it, in fact, man would be mere

-brute, and nothing else.

-

-That the horrid doctrines of Calvinism were dinned into Mrs. Ricker's

-ears in childhood, and the fear of eternal torment held up before her,

-instead of the infinite love of a God of Mercy and Justice, may have

-impelled her to repudiate all idea of God or Justice, or life to

-come; but she ought to be intelligent enough to sift the error from

-the truth and cling to the latter. If not, she should at least be

-willing to allow others to do so. She may repudiate the old Calvinism,

-or even Christianity itself. She may become a Mohammedan, a Buddhist,

-an Agnostic or an out-and-out "heathen" if she will. She may accept

-annihilation as the universal fate of humanity; but she should be

-willing to allow mankind in general its indulgence in that one "Great

-Hope," which has illumined with immortal splendor the darkest passages

-of human life, and sustains the soul of man and woman in the severest

-trials and conflicts of earth.

-

-

-THE REJOINDER

-

-(_From the Portsmouth "Times"_)

-

-I was amused when I read in the Portsmouth _Times_ an article from my

-friend Metcalf, entitled, A _Labor of Folly_. The genial Henry said

-I was a lifelong advocate of "woman's rights," which is true. And an

-admirer of Ingersoll. Could any one help admire that great and good

-man? And a worshiper of Thomas Paine. Worship is rather a strong word

-to apply to me, but I think the man who said, "The world is my country,

-and to do good my religion," and who did more than any other man to

-put the stars on our flag and to give that flag to the breeze, should

-be loved and respected.

-

-He, the aforesaid Henry, said I collaborated with Elbert Hubbard. I am

-proud of that, whether it is true or not.

-

-I consider Hubbard the most brilliant writer in this country.

-

-Henry also said I feared neither God, man nor the Devil, because I did

-not believe particularly in any of them. If he would add an "o" to

-God and make it good, take the "d" from devil and make it evil, then

-I would have something tangible to write about besides man, in whom I

-believe.

-

-Henry also said that I was engaged in a "labor of folly," fighting the

-doctrine of the immortality of the soul.

-

-I simply expressed my opinion on the subject. My friend Henry wrote me

-not long ago that there was no earthly need of a Freethought paper;

-that thought was as free as air always and everywhere. I take issue

-with him there, and I call his attention to the _Little Journey_ to

-the home of Copernicus--of January, Nineteen Hundred Five--by Elbert

-Hubbard. Copernicus was the founder of modern astronomy.

-

-If Henry will read his life he can see what freethought meant at that

-time. I also call his attention to Giordano Bruno. He can see what

-happened to him and how free thought was at that time. Henry said I

-could write what I pleased, and get it printed where I could.

-

-That was well added, for I could not in the year Nineteen Hundred Nine,

-in the city of Dover, New Hampshire, get my article on Immortality

-printed in the only paper in the city; so you see how freethought is up

-to date.

-

-I certainly "take issue" with Henry, "That the hope or consciousness

-of life beyond the grave, or immortality of the soul, inspires mankind

-to all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for progress and

-development here."

-

-Robert Ingersoll did not believe in immortality, but he was a great,

-tender-hearted man, full of kindness, full of generous impulses. No man

-ever loved the true, the good and the beautiful more than he. He would

-take the case of a poor man into court without pay; he would give a

-young reporter an interview when he could sell every word he spoke for

-a dollar; he would present the proceeds of a lecture to some worthy

-object as though he were throwing a nickel to an organ-grinder; and

-when there was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.

-

-I do not believe in individual immortality, but I do the best I can,

-pay one hundred cents on the dollar, and I am not afraid to die. I

-know thousands who believe as I do.

-

-John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed in the immortality

-of the soul--so do his followers. He also believed that sin was the

-cause of earthquakes, and the only way to stop them was to believe in

-the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't know much about seismology, but he

-certainly had faith, plus.

-

-John Calvin founded the Presbyterian Church; he believed in the

-immortality of the soul. So do his followers; but Calvin was a murderer.

-

-Henry, it is absurd to say that without hope of immortality we should

-be degraded to brutes; in my opinion it is not true. What we want is a

-religion that will pay debts; that will practise honesty in business

-life; that will treat employees with justice and consideration;

-that will render employers full and faithful work; that will keep

-bank-cashiers true, officeholders patriotic, and reliable citizens

-interested in the purity of politics (and the woman citizen will

-be)--such a religion is real, vital and effective. But a religion that

-embraces vicarious atonement, miraculous conception, regeneration by

-faith, baptism, individual immortality and other monkey business is, in

-my opinion, degrading, absurd and unworthy.

-

-Henry, you say you want no controversy with me. I enjoy controversy,

-but if you are averse to it I'll stop and we will unite in singing one

-stanza of that Christian hymn:

-

-    King David and King Solomon

-      Led merry, merry lives

-    With their many, many lady friends

-      And their many, many wives;

-    But when old age came o'er them

-      With its many, many qualms,

-    (It was said)

-    King Solomon wrote the Proverbs

-      And King David wrote the Psalms.

-

-But did they?

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-  Where religion is afraid of liberty, liberty should be afraid of

-  religion.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._

-

-  So long as man believes that he has an immortal soul, he will fear

-  the future.

-

-

-

-

-THE HOLY GHOST

-

-

-

-

-  For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men

-  and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great

-  ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between

-  Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor,

-  to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this

-  world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle,

-  to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have

-  said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!"

-

-                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-THE HOLY GHOST

-

-

-Of all the weird, fanciful and fabulous stories appertaining to

-the gods and other pious frauds, that concerning the Holy Ghost

-ranks them all! Now listen to what the Bible has to say about

-that mythical personage--alias, the Holy Ghost. You will see that

-scarcely any two references to it agree in assigning it the same

-character or attributes. (It reminds me of what an old lady said at a

-prayer-meeting: "Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to me that there

-are no two of a mind here tonight, nor hardly one!")

-

-In John xiv: 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a person or personal

-God. In Luke iii: 22, the Holy Ghost changes and assumes the form of

-a dove. In Matthew xiii: 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit. In John

-i: 32, the Holy Ghost is presented as an inanimate senseless object.

-In I John v: 7, the Holy Ghost becomes a God--the third member of

-the Trinity. In Acts ii: 1, the Holy Ghost is averred to be a mighty

-rushing wind. In Acts x: 38, the Holy Ghost, we infer from its mode

-of application, is an ointment. In John xx: 22, the Holy Ghost is the

-breath, as we legitimately infer by its being breathed into the mouth

-of the recipient after the ancient Oriental custom. In Acts ii: 3, we

-learn the Holy Ghost "sat upon each of them." In Acts ii: 1, the Holy

-Ghost appears as cloven tongues of fire. In Luke ii: 26, the Holy Ghost

-is the author of a revelation or inspiration. In Mark i: 8, the Holy

-Ghost is a medium or element for baptism. In Acts xxviii: 25, the Holy

-Ghost appears with vocal organs and speaks. In Hebrews vi: 4, the Holy

-Ghost is dealt out or imparted by measure. In Luke iii: 22 the Holy

-Ghost appears with a tangible body. In Luke i: 5, we are taught that

-people are filled with the Holy Ghost. In Matthew xi: 15, the Holy Ghost

-falls upon the people as a ponderable substance. In Luke iv: 1, the Holy

-Ghost is a God within a God--Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.

-

-These are only a few quotations. There are many more, but we can all

-see what a multifarious personage, or rather _he_, _she_, or _it_ the

-Holy Ghost is.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I remember hearing much about the unpardonable sin against the Holy

-Ghost. The sin against the Holy Ghost consisted in resisting its

-operations in the second birth--that is, the regeneration of the heart

-or soul by the Holy Ghost. And it was considered unpardonable simply

-because as the pardoning and cleansing process consisted in, or was at

-least always accompanied with, baptism by water, in which operation

-the Holy Ghost was the agent in effecting the "new birth," therefore,

-when the ministrations or operations of this indispensable agent were

-resisted or rejected, there was no channel, no means, no possible mode

-left for the sinner to find a renewed acceptance with God.

-

-When a person sinned against the Father or the Son, he could find a

-door of forgiveness through the baptizing processes, spiritual or

-elementary, of the Holy Ghost. But an offense committed against this

-third limb of the Godhead had the effect of closing and barring the

-door so that there could be no forgiveness, either in this life or in

-that which is to come.

-

-To sin against the Holy Ghost was to tear down the scaffold by which

-the door of Heaven was to be reached. This _sin_ against the Holy Ghost

-has caused thousands of the disciples of the Christian faith the most

-agonizing hours of alarm and despair.

-

-It has always been my opinion that many people who thought they had

-sinned against the Holy Ghost simply had dyspepsia.

-

-  _If people should deceive in other matters as the priests, parsons

-  and teachers do in religion, they would not escape arrest._

-

-

-

-

-  The destruction of religions and superstition means the upbuilding

-  of charity and ethics.--_Ralph W. Chainey._

-

-  Superstition is nothing but a misplaced fear of some fancied

-  supernatural phantasm of divinity.

-

-

-

-

-HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?

-

-

-

-

-  All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce,

-  climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention,

-  discovery, art and science. The Church has been the enemy of

-  progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man

-  from thinking for himself. To prevent thought is to prevent all

-  advancement except in the direction of faith.

-

-                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?

-

-

-I receive many letters from various people telling me that Christ is

-mine if I will only take him. I am always amused at the solicitations

-of these people and feel as President Taft did when Peary "laid the

-Pole" at his feet. Taft replied he had no idea what he should do with

-it. I should not know what to do with Christ if I took him.

-

-What can they mean by taking Christ? The word Christ is used to

-designate a certain individual who died, if he ever lived, nearly two

-thousand years ago. Now to take this person we should have to take

-him from the earth where he was buried. I am at a loss to comprehend

-what Christians mean when they offer Christ to any one. What right has

-an individual today to offer another a person who has been dead two

-thousand years? I fail to see any sense in such an offer.

-

-Certain men and women go about the world asking people to come to

-Christ, to accept Christ. What do they mean--do they know?

-

-In my opinion the supreme dogma of Christianity is the divinity of

-Jesus. If Jesus was a man, all that was related of his divine acts

-in the four Gospels is false. How would a person like the Nazarene

-peasant be accepted today were he to play the part of a god?

-

-Suppose a person who had lived in our neighborhood should come to us

-and say, "I am God, and I want you to help me save the world; quit your

-work and follow me." What would you think of him? Would any one pay

-the least attention to him, except to think he was insane and have him

-placed in an asylum for safety?

-

-The people who are preaching the divinity of Jesus know nothing about

-him except what they read in a book that was written by unknown

-authors. Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology. He is the only

-solution of the divine problem that Christianity has to offer. Is

-not the direction of the world's most rational thought away from the

-Christian notion of Jesus? In my opinion it is.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Let us look at the once famous stronghold of New England Orthodoxy, the

-Andover Theological Seminary, which was chartered on June Nineteenth,

-Eighteen Hundred Seven, and opened for instruction on September

-Twenty-eighth, Eighteen Hundred Eight. I think it was about seven years

-ago that it was transferred to Cambridge and became a part of Harvard

-University. At that time the school consisted of seven instructors,

-twelve students and a library of sixty-five thousand books, with an

-endowment of eight hundred fifty thousand dollars in productive funds

-and an annual income of thirty-five thousand dollars.

-

-It has been said that the highways were scoured every Summer for

-students, and enticing scholarships held out, but to no avail. No

-students materialized.

-

-Why is this? In my opinion it is the rising generation's

-dissatisfaction with traditional theology; they have outgrown it.

-Ingersoll said that once in five years the President of the Seminary

-summoned his professors before him to make oath that they had learned

-absolutely nothing during the preceding five years and would not learn

-anything for the next five years. And that promise was not subject to

-recall.

-

-But even Andover couldn't remain in that condition. In Eighteen Hundred

-Eighty-six it announced its new system of "progressive orthodoxy." This

-created a division between the Old School and the New, and marked the

-beginning of the end of Andover; and after much litigation it consented

-to be "gathered in" by Harvard or "swallowed," or perhaps they would

-say "merged."

-

-They have now a new building located upon land adjacent to that of

-Harvard University, and the last account from the "Great Seminary" was

-that they had twenty-four pupils. The library of the Seminary and

-that of the Harvard Divinity School have been combined and are housed

-together in Bartlett Hall.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The defenders of the Gospel of Christ don't seem to be increasing;

-on the contrary, there seems to be great depression in matters

-ecclesiastical these days, even in puritanical New England. It

-plainly shows that the young men of the present day are not anxious

-to wear the "Dog-Collar of Christianity," and as far as I've heard no

-Christian arose to remark that the morals of the "Reverend" Clarence

-Richeson were contaminated by reading the words of Thomas Paine, Robert

-Ingersoll, Elbert Hubbard or Lemuel K. Washburn. The Reverend Clarence

-seemed to be a product of the Christian Bible, and talked to the last

-of his God and his Bible.

-

-What is left of Christianity? Who wrote the Christian Bible? The

-smallest child in a Sunday School would answer the question by saying

-"God," but the most learned person on the globe would say, "I do

-not know." It is being admitted by thinking persons that answers to

-religious questions possess nothing more than a religious value. When

-a person is graduated from a Sunday School he is wiser than he will be

-after he has lived forty years, provided he learns anything by living.

-

-"God" is a term used to express what man does not know, but it does

-not seem to me necessary to assign to the Bible divine authorship, as

-it can be accounted for on other grounds. It is certain that men and

-women have written books. It is not certain that there is a God and,

-if so, that he has written a book. If man could write the Bible, there

-seems to be no need for God to do so. It is a fact that no one knows

-who wrote a word of the Bible, and yet it will require many more years

-to kill the foolish superstition that God inspired certain men to write

-this book.

-

-Nothing grows slower than truth, and nothing faster than superstition.

-Falsehood was never known to commit suicide. Unknown men wrote the

-Christian Bible, not an unknown God.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Not many years ago I saw that a teacher in the Holyoke (Massachusetts)

-High School was dismissed for saying that Jesus was one of a family of

-ten. Jesus is a word that paralyzes the mental faculties. As to the

-accuracy of the statement we have only the Gospels for authority. At

-any rate, if Matthew and Mark are reliable he had four brothers and

-sisters.

-

-In Matthew xiii: 54 we read: "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not

-his mother called Mary, and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon,

-and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"

-

-Mark confirms Matthew about the size of Mary's family.

-

-I tried to learn something concerning this case, but silence a yard

-wide lay all about it. I fancy the teacher was silenced in some way.

-Leastwise I could learn nothing.

-

-It doesn't take much to silence a teacher, or it didn't fifty years

-ago, especially if she were dependent upon teaching for her bread and

-butter, which I was.

-

-I, at one time, tried to substitute one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's books

-to be read in school in the morning instead of the Christian Bible. I

-was informed by one of the committee that the Bible must be read every

-morning and the Ten Commandments repeated. The next morning I selected

-the "truthful" and startling account of Jonah whilst he was sojourning

-at the Submarine Hotel. I at that time made up my mind that if I were

-ever financially independent I'd say what I thought concerning the

-Christian religion, and no one doubts that I've done so.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology. It can be but a few years

-at most when faith in Jesus as God will be the mark of intellectual

-stupidity. It seems to me that mankind will soon be sensible enough to

-dismiss this dogma to eternal oblivion.

-

-It is the last relic of heathen mythology that clings to modern

-civilization. The Christian church is put to its utmost ingenuity to

-hide the absurdity in this dogma.

-

-The dogma of the divinity of Jesus rests upon fictitious events, and

-hence its fate is sealed.

-

-Many persons regard any one that calls Jesus a man as a blasphemer.

-There is a great amount of pious nonsense in the world, and there

-is more connected with Jesus than with any other character whom

-Christendom honors.

-

-The reverence paid to Jesus by Christians is the homage of idolatry.

-

-The first thing for people to do is to get rid of the silly notion that

-there is anything holy in the name of Jesus any more than in the name

-of Hercules, Bacchus or Adonis. All the gods of the past are myths to

-the present. Jesus stands in the way of the world's advancement. The

-path of civilization is over his grave. The mind has been fettered by

-worship of this myth. We want to get rid of the Christian superstition.

-

-  _Isn't it astonishing that many children should be taught about the

-  "resurrection" before they can spell cat?_

-

-

-

-

-  Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there

-  is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty

-  born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of

-  theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance.

-  Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master,

-  and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.

-

-  When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain

-  thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to

-  insure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession.

-  He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers

-  and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people

-  who will be glorified and people who will be damned.

-

-                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._

-

-

-

-

-COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

-

-

-

-

-  We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no devils.--_Robert

-  Ingersoll._

-

-  The world is my country and to do good is my religion.--_Thomas

-  Paine._

-

-  The presence of a hypocrite is a sure indication that there is a

-  Bible and a prayer-book not very far away.

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

-

-

-It is difficult to sketch this many-sided man. He was full of pity and

-sympathy for the poor and unfortunate. He was great enough to applaud

-the good, and good enough to forgive the erring. He could charm a child

-with his speech, or sway thousands by his magic words. He was the

-supreme philosopher of commonsense.

-

-He knew how to answer a fool, but he never forgot to be courteous to

-an opponent. He would take the case of a poor man into court without

-pay; he would give a young reporter an interview when he could sell

-every word he spoke for a dollar; he would present the proceeds of a

-lecture to some worthy object as though he were throwing a nickel to

-an organ-grinder; he would lead a reform with a dozen workers if he

-believed them in the right, just as if he had a million followers;

-and where there was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.

-Ingersoll was the truest American that America ever bore.

-

-He was the orator of her rivers and mountains, of her hills and dales,

-of her forests and flowers, of her struggles and victories, of her

-free institutions, of her Stars and Stripes--the orator of the home,

-of wife and child, of love and liberty. The head, heart and hand of

-Ingersoll were perfectly united and worked together. As he thought

-he acted; when he had anything to say, he said it aloud. He was not

-ashamed of his thoughts. He did not hide or go around the corner, or

-beat about the bush. He spoke honestly what he saw, what he thought,

-what he knew.

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT

-

-

-

-

-  The entire New Testament is the work of Catholic

-  Churchmen.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._

-

-  God is not a fact; nothing that can be seen, heard or felt; nothing

-  that can be found out or in. God is a verbal content.

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT

-

-

-The best thing Mark Twain ever said was, "I should like to see the

-ballot in the hands of every woman." Freethinkers should also remember

-him with gratitude; he said enough from our point of view to warrant

-that. "Give me my glasses," were his last words. It will be but a short

-time before some pious evangelical hypocrite will add, "I want to

-read my Bible!" They are already writing about his "highest sphere of

-thought," namely, his religious thought.

-

-I remember when a Presbyterian deacon said of him, "I would rather

-bury a daughter of mine than have her marry such a fellow." The church

-people are all anxious to avoid their own history concerning Mark Twain

-and many other people.

-

-The Reverend Doctor Twitchell said at Mark's funeral that a simple soul

-had gone trustingly to the beyond. He didn't mention where the beyond

-was, and he prayed to the Christian God that courage in the faith of

-immortality be given to those who mourn.

-

-Through all these Christian notices runs an undercurrent that Mark

-Twain was only secondarily a humorist. I knew him somewhat in the old

-days and have heard him lecture. He certainly laughed superstition from

-the minds of thousands, and the most of his books bear witness to his

-broad and liberal views.

-

-The Reverend Doctor Van Dyke mixed much religious sophistry with

-his remarks at the funeral of Twain, but the reverend doctor is a

-theological acrobat.

-

-He preached once on the Atonement, and said there are a thousand

-true doctrines of the Atonement, which is saying substantially that

-no doctrine specifically is true--for instance, the doctrine of the

-Westminster Confession, to which Van Dyke pledged loyalty when he

-was ordained a Presbyterian minister. He at that time ripped up the

-Westminster settlement, and reopened the whole question for discussion.

-

-Any preacher who believes in the geology of Moses, the astronomy of

-Joshua, and the mathematics of the Trinity, must do an immense amount

-of "side-stepping."

-

-  _Christianity is only a bubble of superstition, and Jesus is

-  reduced to a toy god of the Sunday School._

-

-

-

-

-AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE ON RELIGION

-

-

-

-

-  Religion is inherited fear.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._

-

-  In my opinion a steeple is no more to be excluded from taxation

-  than a smokestack.

-

-  Faith is the cross on which man crucifies his liberty.

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE

-

-

-We are living in the Twentieth Century of what is called the Christian

-Era, and we have not outgrown the superstitions of the First Century.

-And worse than this, we have not had the courage to abandon the

-fictions of the Book of Genesis for the truths of modern science. Just

-what the world is afraid of, that it fears to trust its senses, its

-reason, its knowledge, surpasses my understanding.

-

-One of the first things that men and women should learn is, that there

-is nothing in the universe to be afraid of; that all the malignant

-deities are dead; that the ancient gods that presided over the destiny

-of earth and of earthly things have all fallen from the sky; that in

-the realm of Nature everything is natural, and that no man is pursued

-by a god of wrath and vengeance who would punish him for his unbelief.

-Every god that can not hear the truth without getting mad should be

-dethroned. Every priest who can not join in singing the songs of

-civilization should be warned to look out for the engine while the bell

-rings.

-

-This world of ours is a world to be enjoyed, but it can not be enjoyed

-if we fear every manifestation of Nature and if we put a cruel god

-behind every cloud.

-

-Let us live without fear, without superstition, without religion.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-There is nothing above, beneath or around you that cares whether you

-are a Christian or an unbeliever. The real reason why a priest hates an

-unbeliever is that he can not get a dollar out of him. He damns those

-who know better than to swallow his say-sos. But it still remains a

-fact that an infidel can raise as many bushels of potatoes to the acre

-as can the Roman Catholic. The sun will not wrong an honest man. The

-stars will not punish a single human being for telling the truth. The

-sky will not persecute a person who gives his thoughts, his talents,

-his time, to finding ways to help mankind.

-

-Everything that man believes in that can not be found, that can not be

-proved, that can not stand the test of commonsense: everything that

-contradicts Nature, that is opposed to established facts, that is

-contrary to the laws of the universe, must be given up.

-

-We must have a new man: the man born of woman, not the man made by

-God; the man who has been growing better ever since his advent on

-earth, not the man who has been growing worse; the man who started

-with nothing and has conquered the earth, the sea and the air; not

-the man who began perfect and has not got halfway back; the man who

-made the telescope, the steam-engine, the power-loom, the telephone and

-the wireless telegraph; not the man who made the thumbscrew, the rack,

-the ducking-stool and the stocks; the man who has carried the torch

-of liberty to enlighten the world, not the man who has carried the

-crucifix to enslave mankind.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It is quite common to be told what Moses said or what Jesus said. Now,

-if all that these two Hebrew gentlemen (who in my opinion never lived)

-said, is preserved in the Bible, I appeal from what they said to those

-who know more. I assert that Moses said a lot of stuff that isn't so,

-and a lot more that never was so, and that all that Jesus is said to

-have said is practically worthless to the world today; that there is

-not in all of his utterances a single word that will help man to get a

-living, a single word that will aid man in his struggle for knowledge;

-that there is not a statement of a single scientific fact, or a plea

-for human liberty in all his language. He told his generation nothing

-that was not already known, except a mess of superstitious nonsense

-about angels and devils, heavens and hells. His so-called gospel of

-salvation was to follow him, and he landed on a cross.

-

-The truth is this: the world has outgrown Moses and Jesus. It does

-not take commands from either. This age believes in work, not worship;

-in deeds, not prayers; in men, not monks; in liberty, not in pious

-obedience; in human rights, not in submission; in knowledge, not in

-revelation.

-

-For hundreds of years man was bound by a religious faith, and the

-priest was his cruel master. He dared not doubt; he dared not rebel;

-he dared not dream of freedom; but there came a time when religious

-tyranny could no longer be borne. Then Mankind cried out to the Church:

-Give back man's brain to man; restore to him the mind you have robbed

-him of; take from his head and heart the paralyzing fear that makes him

-a coward and a slave, and leave to him the liberty with which Nature

-dowered him, that his mind may discover and preserve those mighty

-thoughts which make man brave, honest, free and happy.

-

-That cry was heard far. It was heard by glad ears, and liberty sprang

-from the ground like the warriors from the fabled dragon-teeth of

-Cadmus. The war between liberty and tyranny, between fact and fable,

-between truth and falsehood, between man and priest, was on, and for

-centuries this war has raged, nor is it yet over. Freedom still lies

-bleeding, but victory for the right will sooner or later be won.

-

-That victory will not be complete until every man will dare to say:

-Let come what will come, no man, be he priest, minister or judge, shall

-sit upon the throne of my mind, and decide for me what is right, true

-or good. I am my own master, my own teacher, my own guide. I will keep

-my reason free from control and will never surrender my own convictions

-to the dictates of another.

-

-Nature has made every man commander of his own destiny.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-But we are yet victims of ecclesiastical villainy. The priest is still

-the worst enemy of mankind. His church is like that monster of fiction

-which lived on little children. In the name of the children I protest

-against the action of the Church in stealing their tender brains, in

-making them slaves of superstition before they are old enough to know

-to what they are doomed.

-

-The age of consent to a religious faith should be determined by law,

-if necessary. Today any boy or girl may be the victim of a designing

-priest or clergyman, or of a designing religious system.

-

-No person under eighteen years of age should be allowed to join a

-church or consent to a statement of faith. Mental purity should be

-guarded and protected as well as physical purity.

-

-While the Church is powerful in numbers and while its religion is

-supported by wealth and fashion, the world is becoming more and more

-emancipated from its pernicious influence. The light that truth gives

-is still ahead of us, but _it is there_, and some day the world will

-grow warmer under its rays and men become better and kinder to one

-another.

-

-A hundred years ago the God worshiped in orthodox churches went about

-drowning little boys and girls who went skating on Sundays. Those were

-the "good old days" when men and women had religion for breakfast,

-dinner and supper, and took it to bed with them. It takes a long time

-to get such a horrible religion out of the system.

-

-Men and women still have a mean faith, a faith which can see others

-damned with satisfaction if they can only be saved. Nothing but a mean

-religion could make men and women as mean as that. I would rather

-starve than preach the doctrine of endless pain for a human being--or

-even for a dog. I believe that this world is hard and dark and cruel

-enough without borrowing suffering from another world to make darker

-and harder the road of life and add torture to the nights of pain and

-misery.

-

-A church must be sunk pretty low when it lives on the fears and tears

-of mankind; but what lower depths of degradation does it sound when it

-can deliberately create fears and tears that it may live and thrive

-in its vile and cruel business! A human being without pity should be

-shunned and despised; but a human being who can fill the heart with

-terror should not be allowed in a civilized community.

-

-The mind today wants to get out into the open, into the free daylight,

-wants to walk the earth, look at the stars and sky, feel the warmth of

-the sun and smell the odor of the ground; it has become tired of being

-shut up in a faith, in a creed, in a church; tired of being kept in

-the darkness of the past, in the tomb of dead thoughts, in the moldy

-caskets of unreal things, and in the dungeon of fear.

-

-The mind is striving to break the chains of the priest and be free from

-the bonds of the Church.

-

-You can not have men free where the priest demands and claims their

-obedience. The greatest menace to our national institutions is the

-power that controls men; that controls their thoughts, their actions

-and their destinies. Liberty can survive only where men are free:

-free to think, free to read, free to speak and free to act. The mind

-must not be bound by any vow of obedience. One man, no matter what

-his office, what his position, what his rank, has no right to compel

-another's obedience. This is the worst oppression on earth.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-What is needed in this country is more men who dare think and speak

-for themselves; who dare belong to no church; who dare work for the

-right as they see it, and speak the truth as they understand it; who

-dare live their own lives independent of fashion's demands or society's

-usages; who dare put liberty above conformity, and who dare defy

-customs, law and religion in their zeal to help their fellow-beings.

-

-There is more than one liberty--more than the liberty to do right--that

-is partly won for every civilized being. There is another liberty that

-is dangerous and that persists even where civilization exists--the

-liberty to take another's liberty from him. This liberty is usually

-taken from another in the name of God and what is called holy; but

-there is nothing on earth so holy as liberty, and he who takes it from

-another robs him of the dearest right possessed by man. Binding a human

-being with the chains of faith before that being is old enough to judge

-whether the faith is reasonable or true is the assassination of freedom.

-

-The greatest danger which confronts our nation today is not political

-but religious, and the preservation of our free institutions does not

-depend upon our army and navy, but upon the emancipation of the human

-mind from ecclesiastical slavery. As Thomas Paine well said, "Spiritual

-freedom is the root of political liberty." You can not have free

-schools, free speech and a free press where the mind is not free.

-

-There is too much faith in this country and too little sense. Men have

-given up about everything they possess to be saved; but it is more

-necessary, and more commendable in the workingmen of this nation, to

-save their dollars than to save their souls.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-A subject that needs to be investigated quite as much as, if not more

-than, the high cost of living is the high cost of worship. There may be

-some justice in the criticism of the price of meats. We must remember,

-however, that we do get something for our money when we buy meat, but

-let us not forget that we get absolutely nothing for the money spent

-for worship. Money given to the Church is lost to the world. It is

-not used to improve homes; to help the poor and needy; to alleviate

-suffering; to bring hope to the sick or to give a few comforts to old

-age. It goes into the pocket of ecclesiastical greed.

-

-This country just at present is suffering from those twin curses of

-humanity--religion and Bull-Mooseism. The priest and Bull-Mooseism

-are the two worst trouble-makers in this country. To get rid of this

-precious pair of knaves would be to bring peace on earth and hasten the

-dawn.

-

-I don't know which is the bigger knave, the priest or the Bull-Mooser,

-but I do know that the priest is engaged in the meaner business of the

-two.

-

-When a man tries to sell me a mouse-trap to catch elephants, I am

-suspicious of his mental sanity; and when a man tells me that eternal

-happiness can be won by enlisting in his salvation army, I question

-his moral sanity. I know that religion is offered at cut rates, but

-there is no discount on morality. You can not have the reward of good

-behavior unless you behave. You may save your soul by saying, "I

-believe," but you have to _do_ something to save your body.

-

-There is too much of this "believe-in-me" business. You don't want to

-believe in any one you know nothing about. The faith of a little child

-in its parents is beautiful, but the faith of a grown-up man in a

-priest is idiotic. Faith has ruined more than it has saved. With faith

-goes obedience, and he or she who obeys is lost.

-

-There is no honest call today to believe, because there is opportunity

-to know. Faith is hatched in the nest of imposition. He who yields

-obedience is a fool, and he who demands it is a scoundrel.

-

-In this age, as in the past, a lie made "holy" is allowed to

-assassinate the truth. Nothing is cursing this nation; nothing is

-cursing human life; nothing is cursing honest effort and brave striving

-so much as what is called holiness. It is holy to believe all you are

-told; holy to wear the robes of hypocrisy; holy to rob the poor in the

-name of God, and holy to put the poison of faith to the lips of a

-child. It is holy to repudiate Nature and make a lie of your body, your

-mind, your life. To purify the dwelling-place of man, it is necessary

-to drive from the earth everything that religion has made holy.

-

-The only really sacred things were holy before a church was ever built,

-before there was a priest on the globe.

-

-Human love and the home which human love built for its offspring were

-the first holy things which men and women knew, and it is this human

-love of ours which is holier than mosque, temple or church; holier than

-priestly robe or ecclesiastical rite; holier by far than all the holy

-things of faith.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The Church has always lived by robbing the home; the priest has always

-lived on the wages of the toiler. The gods of religion have never done

-aught to lighten the heavy load on the shoulders of labor. The priest

-has said to mankind that his Lord left this consolation to the world:

-"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give

-you rest."

-

-What the priest really means is this: Come unto me and I will do the

-rest; and by the time he has done it, there is nothing of manhood left.

-

-The priest also teaches that his Lord and Master said, "Ask and ye

-shall receive," and adds, "The Lord will provide." How many poor

-wretches have believed those words; but their outstretched hands

-withered away day by day, and at last dropped empty by their sides.

-There they lay white and cold, holding not the bread they fondly

-expected, but holding the hand of death.

-

-It may be pious and it may be beautiful to say, "The Lord will

-provide," but it is a lie just the same. When, the other day, the

-bodies of a mother and her two children were being carried to the

-grave with the words, "starved to death," written on their faces, but

-not written on their caskets, it was a sufficient refutation of the

-religious teaching that "The Lord will provide." It is the plain,

-unvarnished truth that the Lord will _not_ even provide the coffin for

-the poor victim of such a false, deceptive, religious faith.

-

-In olden times it was customary for the Church to say, God's light

-lights the world. Not so today. God's light has gone out. It is man's

-light that lights the world and the Church too. Our enlightenment is

-human, not divine. No altar of religion burns with the fire of truth.

-Science carries the torch of knowledge: liberty is the way and truth is

-the goal.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-On our earth gods no longer make their homes. It was not safe for them

-to live any more. Their sons may once have married the daughters of

-men, but they can not get a license to do so today. Parents will not

-stand for it.

-

-So the gods have gone, bag and baggage. Where they have gone, no one

-knows. The skies give no sign that they are hiding up there. The

-telescope has found _seventy million stars, but not one god_.

-

-It is time for the pulpit to stop repeating the old superstitions about

-God and about what he has done for man. He has never done any more

-for man than he is doing today; never spoken to man any more than he

-is speaking today; never revealed himself to anybody any more than he

-stands revealed to you and me and to every human being everywhere.

-

-Every word that ever came from the mouth of God man put in his mouth,

-and every book revealed by God was written by man.

-

-Half the work of man for the next one hundred years will be to kill the

-lies told about what God has done.

-

-Whether there is in all the vast universe a higher and nobler being

-than man, I don't know. Whether there is in all the vast universe a

-better place for man to live than on this earth, I don't know. And no

-one knows any more about these matters than I do.

-

-We have found out much that is not so; now we want to find out all

-we can that is so. And it is of no use to go to the Church to learn

-anything. The Church is only a place where falsehoods are kept in cold

-storage. The man who thinks and studies is the man who is helping the

-world most, not the man who preaches and prays. To find the truth one

-needs to get as far from the Church as possible.

-

-Christians of all denominations have lots of pity for the man without

-a church. Let me assure these persons that the man without a church

-doesn't want one. As a rule, he is satisfied with what he has. He

-has a home, which is better than a church. If those persons who are

-pitying men and women for not having a church would, instead, pity

-the man without a home, and pity him enough to help him get one, they

-would show much better sense and manifest a truer sympathy with their

-fellow-beings.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I can not see any good in painting a thing white that is black, or

-calling a thing beautiful that is ugly. There are persons who talk as

-though they believed that a Northeast storm was sunshine. I am not made

-that way. I am as ready and as willing as anybody to acknowledge the

-good in Nature, or the good in life, but I do not believe in lying, in

-saying that wrong is right, or that suffering is to be enjoyed. There

-are lots of hard things in our life, and it does not alter facts to

-call them by some other name. A man dying with a cancer can not be made

-to believe that he is having a good time.

-

-The most that any man can do who goes through this earthly existence

-is to use his fellow-mortals right and square; to give them an honest

-day's work when he works for them and an honest day's pay when he hires

-them; to say nothing to hurt them and everything he can to assist them;

-to help them out of trouble and not get them into trouble. If one does

-this, and does no more than this, he has done what beats every religion

-on earth.

-

-We have got to deal with men and women as they are and where they are.

-The man who is natural; the man who has not been made a fool of by a

-priest or parson; the man who has not swapped his commonsense for a

-foolish belief; the man who has not had his mind stuffed with religious

-dope, knows that this life on earth is the important life, and that it

-is a higher work to determine his fate here than anywhere else.

-

-There is not a person living who would not be well and strong and

-happy here rather than hereafter. I would rather have the power to

-make every cripple straight and whole; every poor, unfortunate man

-and woman prosperous and contented; every sick person well, every

-bad person good, and every slave to vice master of his appetite and

-passions, in this life on earth, than to save the human wrecks, the

-human unfortunates, the human victims of vice and crime, for another

-life somewhere else.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-What men and women want is happiness, not Heaven. They want a good

-home on this globe, not a loafing-place in Abraham's bosom. They want

-the opportunity to enjoy the good things of this life, not the promise

-that they will hear the angels sing. They want better wages for their

-work, better treatment from their employers, and better things to

-eat and drink and wear. They want better things here, not hereafter.

-They want to be happy while they are living on earth, not have the

-assurance of happiness after they are dead. If I ever attempt to write

-my creed, I shall say: I believe in so much that I can hardly expect to

-express all of my faith in one statement. I am all the time believing

-in something new. But there is one thing that I most heartily believe

-in now and have believed in ever since I was a child, and that is,

-SUNSHINE--external and internal and eternal sunshine.

-

-Sunshine is the joy of the universe, and joy is the sunshine of the

-human heart. Let us be bright and cheerful. Let us be happy. Let us

-give to the world the sunshine of our hearts.

-

-  _A male trinity is repulsive; Father, Mother and Child is the

-  sacred triad. The Christian trinity is a monster._

-

-

-

-

-DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY

-

-

-

-

-  Nature has no need of a Holy Ghost.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._

-

-  All progress has been due to the Devil. He was the first

-  investigator.--_Ingersoll._

-

-  God takes care of the weed. Man must take care of the corn.

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY

-

-

-There is a great deal of exaggerated rhetoric employed in praising what

-is called "Christian Morality." I have examined with considerable care

-everything that may justly come within the meaning of this expression,

-and I am bound to say, out of respect for the truth, that such morality

-does not deserve praise and can not be praised by the honest lips of an

-honest person.

-

-I am perfectly aware that I have made a statement which challenges the

-sincerity of the Christian pulpit, but every one knows that there is

-not a minister in Christendom whose practise agrees with his preaching.

-

-While it is common to hear a clergyman in pious ecstasy exhaust the

-vocabulary of laudation in his praises of the beautiful morals of the

-"Sermon on the Mount," it is exceedingly rare to see one of these

-parsons sacrifice his commonsense to the nonsense of Jesus.

-

-We are learning that the theological morality of the Christian faith is

-not the right kind of morality to make manhood and womanhood. The great

-weakness of Christian morality is this: It depends upon the Christian

-idea of Jesus, and when the world has outgrown the superstition about

-this person, all of his moral precepts will lose their value and their

-splendor.

-

-Men and women of any intellectual penetration know that the New

-Testament story is founded upon unreliable tradition; that its heart is

-a myth.

-

-Where men live independent of the foolish faith of the Gospels, there

-is a character of self-reliance which towers like a mountain-peak

-above the dead level of Christian endeavor. The person who accepts the

-Christian theology is no more in sympathy with the best thought of the

-age than is the man who wanders about the streets, begging his food and

-sleeping wherever he can, in harmony with the highest comforts of our

-civilization.

-

-There is a nobler purpose in a train of cars carrying grain and produce

-across the continent than in a conference of clergymen trying to keep

-alive a theology which teaches that God was born of a Jewish maiden

-who lived and died in Palestine, and devising ways to make the people

-believe the ridiculous superstition.

-

-Truth is born where men are allowed to think and speak their thoughts.

-Error can not be maintained where man is permitted to ask questions.

-The only way to preserve Christianity is to put it in a tin can and

-have it hermetically sealed.

-

-We are getting a new examination of the universe as a basis for our

-philosophy. The telescope has afforded man visions far beyond the

-seventh heaven of the Apocalypse. The genesis of things is found to lie

-millions of years back of the Genesis of the Bible. The chaos out of

-which this world was made has been discovered to be a previous state of

-existence.

-

-Science is laying the new foundation for our faith, and knowledge is

-building the new temple of the mind.

-

-Men and women everywhere are stating their opinions, and the world

-recognizes that there is to be a religious controversy upon this earth

-which will shake to its base everything that is not true. Not one

-stone of falsehood will be left standing upon another. Every dogma of

-superstition must find a grave, and truth alone be reverenced by man.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The world has taken a step forward of Christianity, and in its march of

-advancement has left behind the Christian God, the Christian Savior,

-the Christian Bible, and the Christian Faith. But the world will not

-stop here. It must go further. The question which the human mind wants

-answered today is this: Is the decay of Christian theology to be

-followed by the decay of Christian morality?

-

-I think that it is, and I also think that this morality is about as

-near dead now as it can be.

-

-It is true that the author of this morality is painted in divine colors

-for human adoration Sunday after Sunday, and that his other-world

-ethics are inculcated by the pulpit; but beyond these attempts to

-give the peculiar moral teachings of Jesus the show of life, there is

-absolutely no sign of them in the world of man.

-

-The morality of the Christian system is not designed for humanity in

-its present condition, nor does it possess the elements necessary

-to make man into the image of any higher virtue. It is, in fact, an

-unreal, unnatural morality which Jesus taught, and the notion that men

-and women do not practise it because it is too far above them, depends

-upon an estimate of this morality which we are not willing to allow.

-

-I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. I want to say that

-the general moral duties of man, as they have been taught for ages by

-teachers of every race and of every religion, are not Christian, and

-that Christian ethics are found in the code of moral duties taught by

-Jesus _which are different from the recognized standard of morality

-adopted by mankind generally_. Christian morals are Christian _only

-wherein they differ from all other morals_.

-

-It is because they are peculiar to Christianity that they are

-Christian.

-

-Because I do not believe in Christianity--in the Christian theology and

-in Christian morals--I do not wish it said that I do not believe in

-morality, for I do. I believe that man can be good and true and that he

-can do right, and I believe that he ought to do right.

-

-I do not say that every one can reach the same moral altitude. I do

-not even say that every individual can be good and true. Some persons

-do not seem to be morally adjusted. I think, however, that we do not

-trespass beyond the domain of truth when we predicate the power of man

-to be moral.

-

-The notion that man can not be good has been the apology of half the

-criminals of the world. It is the creed of all crime. If we affirm the

-idea of human depravity, we may as well erase our statutes, for, if man

-can not be good, it is the height of folly to expect him to be so.

-

-The healthy faith of man is faith _in_ man.

-

-The theology which has been preached for the past few centuries is

-not calculated to make men moral. Those ministers who have shouted

-themselves hoarse for the salvation of the soul, and who have made no

-account of man's behavior in their scheme to save the race, are the

-ones who have rubbed humanity in the dirt and undermined the moral

-foundations of the world.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Every ethical principle that supports our social structure is

-independent of ecclesiastical relations, and it is not essential that

-we recognize any theology in order to comprehend the necessity of moral

-obedience.

-

-There is no sympathy between right, truth and justice, and the

-"Apostles' Creed." We may go so far as to say that the attempt to

-establish a perpetual union between Christianity and morality would

-result in an absolute divorce of these two forces.

-

-I wish to make it plain beyond a question that the Christian faith, in

-itself, is entirely distinct from all moral effort on the part of man.

-

-To believe that Jesus was the Christ does not carry any obligation to

-do right; does not make it incumbent upon the believer to do a single

-moral action.

-

-It is sufficient to establish our predication that not a single church

-in Christendom makes moral character the condition of membership, or

-good behavior the way to Heaven.

-

-There is a code of Christian morals which has been taught, but never

-practised. The special duties which Jesus enjoined upon his followers

-have never been reduced to conduct. It is not too much to say that

-the moral precepts of Jesus, if carried into action, would cause

-social revolutions beyond precedent, and produce a state of existence

-compared with which anarchy would be government, and confusion would be

-order.

-

-But, before we undertake to examine the Christian morals, let us shed

-a few tears of rejoicing upon the grave of Orthodox theology. We do

-not ask to have a coroner's jury decide what caused the death of this

-theology. We bless the cause, whatever it was. We only wish to feel

-assured that it is really, truly dead, and the fact that "not a single

-treatise written by a New England Puritan is a living and authoritative

-book" seems to prove it beyond a question. The persons who still preach

-this theology and profess to believe it are only "sitting up with the

-corpse."

-

-While it is asserted that a wrong interpretation of this theology sent

-it out of the world, it is pretty evident that a right understanding of

-it inspires no wish to have it back. Much of the superstition in morals

-sprang from fear of God, which the Christian church has inculcated as

-the highest incentive to right doing.

-

-The truth, broadly and frankly stated, is this: God is no longer the

-inspiration of morality. Fear of God does not check the actions of man

-today, nor is the attempt to make human and divine interests identical

-sufficient to insure obedience to moral laws. The ancient basis of

-morals is gone, and another and better one must be found to inspire a

-freer life, a fuller life, a better life, and a higher.

-

-We who have rejected the Christian theology are looked upon as orphans.

-But, if I understand the position of freethinkers, the question of a

-supreme power is neither affirmed nor denied by those who wish to have

-no further business with the God of Orthodoxy.

-

-We read that, "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God," but

-we prefer to say nothing about the matter. Theologies may come, and

-theologies may go, but humanity goes on forever, and so we do not deem

-it as important to worship the fleeting shadows of the universe which

-are cast upon the minds of men as it is to hold fast to those realities

-which make human existence a blessing and "a joy forever."

-

-We are called "infidels" and denounced as "unbelievers" because we

-will not march in the ranks of hypocrisy, and dance to the music of

-Orthodoxy. We believe no statement which our reason can not approve; we

-accept no doctrine which is contrary to commonsense; we have confidence

-in human nature; we believe in truth, justice and love; we accept life

-as a blessing, and try to make it so; we believe in taking care of

-ourselves, in helping others and in being just and kind to all, and we

-say to the Christian Church, "If this be Infidelity, make the most of

-it."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It is suggested by some that if man's exact relation to the Deity

-were understood, the whole question of morals would be settled at

-once. But would it not be truer to say that if man's exact relation to

-his fellowmen were understood and respected, the highest individual

-welfare, no less than the general good, would dictate the morality

-which the world needs? And is not this the grand task for the human

-race, to rightly interpret the effect of human action upon the

-individual and the community, and to deduce from human experience the

-rules for human conduct?

-

-I do not know that I owe to God any duty. I do know that I owe a duty

-to my neighbor. I plead total indifference to the demands of divine

-ethics, but I trust that I am not completely callous to the wants of

-my fellow-beings. I owe it to myself to be moral. I owe it to my race,

-to every man and woman that I meet in life, to be as honest, as true,

-as upright, as my nature will permit. I can comprehend and appreciate

-obligations to humanity, but moral indebtedness to the Deity I know

-nothing about.

-

-The Christian morals are founded upon the assumption that the work of

-man here is to do something that he may escape punishment hereafter,

-and hence the morality of the Christian Church has had little

-reference to the concerns of the present life.

-

-Christian morality is based upon the Christian faith that the human

-race is under the curse of God, and that, to evade the penalty

-pronounced upon him, man must perform certain duties--these duties

-being taught as paramount to all we owe to self, to family, to society,

-and to the world.

-

-But an almost universal disbelief of the Christian dogmas prevails

-today, and, consequently, a new morality, with man's welfare for

-its supreme object, is fast supplanting the outworn and valueless

-performances of Christian duties.

-

-The moral teaching of the New Testament may be the highest and purest

-of its kind of teaching, but it is not the kind which is needed today.

-It is a false morality, yea, a dead morality for the most part, which

-the Christian Church demands of men. The general conviction is that

-no salvation is needed by man, and that all the virtues advertised as

-requisite for such safety as the Church is prepared to secure, are

-spurious virtues.

-

-Those actions which advance man along the way of general prosperity,

-which make it easier to live and get a living on the earth, which have

-their value determined by their respect for human beings, are what the

-world needs.

-

-The generally acknowledged author of Christian morals offers no

-salient points for criticism, as he can not be regarded as a historical

-person whose career has been carefully followed and marked by the

-biographer. He is a mythological man, with a little less of the

-fabulous and a little more of the real than attaches to the gods and

-goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome.

-

-The name of Jesus adorns an anatomy of words. It pictures a person,

-not of flesh and blood, but of faith and fancy. Jesus is a man of the

-imagination; but mythical as he is, certain men and women believe

-in him in their own way, and are not over-tolerant of those who are

-disposed to ask for the proofs of his life and works.

-

-This person has left no more marks of his living upon the earth than

-have the birds the marks of their flight through the air. The New

-Testament is no more history than is Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_.

-We can not make any positive assertions in regard to the life and

-character of a man when we do not know who was his father, where or

-when he was born, with whom he lived, nor when he died. The only

-historical fact connected with Jesus which is not disputed is that Mary

-was his mother. This is a very important point in his history, but it

-is not sufficient to constitute a biography.

-

-Notwithstanding the fact that the entire narrative of Jesus is without

-a single chronological date, and the vastly more significant fact that

-not a single incident connected with the career of Jesus is mentioned

-in contemporaneous history, we must perforce speak of him as a person

-whose life was watched and noted from his miraculous advent to his

-miraculous ascension, and look upon his disciples as so many Boswells

-ready to mirror to the world his every speech and act.

-

-We must do this--Why? Because the world will not candidly and

-critically study the gospel-story.

-

-For the present, then, we will speak of Jesus as a man, and accept him

-as the author of the moral code in the New Testament. But a word or

-two about the man. The Christian world sets him apart as the model of

-the race, as the masterpiece of Nature, as the utmost which earth can

-produce. Every man must here fetch his word of praise, and every word

-be a mountain to meet the demand of the Christian Church for reverence

-of Jesus.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I do not believe in the infallibility of any man, but I believe in

-the improvability of all men. Is man no longer heir to the virtues of

-life, that he must erect monuments of praise forever over the name of

-Jesus? I shall take the liberty to express my dissent from the common

-expressions of admiration for this man. I can not praise everything

-which he did, nor can I think that every word he uttered is a star of

-wisdom. He said some good things, but much of what he said is good

-for nothing. His theology will do for Sunday Schools, but it will not

-stand half a dozen questions by commonsense. His Hell is barbarous,

-his Heaven childish, and his ideas of humanity show but a superficial

-knowledge of human nature. His life can not be imitated with advantage

-to the race, and his notions of human existence are wholly inadequate

-to the complex, varied civilization of this age.

-

-Let us see what he did. He paid no filial respect to his parents; he

-refused to acknowledge his mother and his brothers; he lived a roving,

-wandering life; he paid no heed to the laws of his country; he placed

-no value upon industry, and even went so far as to tell men and women

-that God would feed and clothe them; he helped himself to the property

-and possessions of other people without paying for them, and destroyed

-what belonged to others without offering an equivalent; he had no

-property, no home, not a place to lay his head; he hated the rulers,

-yet sought to establish a kingdom for himself; he failed to reach the

-throne he sought, and died upon the malefactor's cross.

-

-Is this the man for the Twentieth Century to honor? Is this the man for

-men to follow in this age? Is this the man whose life all should strive

-to imitate?

-

-The man who took the life of Jesus for a model would hate father and

-mother, brother and sister; he would have neither wife nor child; he

-would live from place to place; he would be a lawbreaker and an idler;

-he would live the life of a wanderer and die the death of a criminal.

-

-Have I put a false color in this picture which I have painted? Have I

-misrepresented the life of Jesus? Read the four Gospels and see. I find

-this character sketched in the New Testament, and it is there called

-Jesus, and it is this character which we are adjured to imitate if we

-would be perfect.

-

-To the man or woman who declares that the life of Jesus is the way to

-salvation, I have only this to say, "Why then do you not imitate it?"

-

-Now, I wish to ask, "What kind of morals would such a man as we have

-sketched naturally teach?"

-

-You will answer, "The morals he lived." At least, we find such morals

-taught in the New Testament.

-

-My point here is: If the life of Jesus was an honest, faithful exponent

-of his moral teachings, then such a morality as he practised is not

-wanted today--and that such a morality is not wanted is shown by the

-fact that no one practises it.

-

-I know that it is considered respectable and pious to profess great

-admiration for the doctrines taught by Jesus, and the world has paid

-them the outward compliment of profession, saying that the moral

-code of the New Testament was the despair of man; but it has never

-seriously set to work to reduce this code to practise, which proves

-that such profession is only a part of the universal accomplishment of

-fashionable hypocrisy.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Do not understand me as saying that there is no moral precept contained

-in the Gospels which is worthy of being practised. I make no such

-declaration, and wish no such construction put upon my words. What I

-desire to enforce is this: That the morality of Jesus sprang from a

-philosophy which has passed away, and therefore, that it is, for the

-greater part, obsolete and worthless. That Jesus shared the general

-belief of his age that the world was soon to be destroyed, is shown by

-his estimate of earthly things; and that a morality founded upon such a

-belief should survive and outlast the faith which inspired it reveals

-a condition of things that is not flattering to our intellectual

-perception or to our moral sense.

-

-The morals of the New Testament are founded upon a theory of the

-universe which is found now only in creeds--those epitaphs of religion.

-The most superficial observation is sufficient to enable us to perceive

-that theology can no longer be the basis of morality, and that the

-authority of the New Testament can not be accepted on this question.

-

-There is nothing more firmly impressed upon the mind of man than the

-fact of the stability of the universe, notwithstanding an occasional

-earthquake; and the value of earthly things has a higher moral

-significance consequent upon the assurance of material existence.

-

-Morality must have a physical basis; that is, the moral code which man

-can practise to his safety and his honor must not contradict human

-nature. The defeat of the New Testament morals is assured by their

-antagonism to the nature of man. The morals of Jesus were designed

-to fit man for what he called the "Kingdom of Heaven," but the only

-morality which is worth the name is that which fits man for living his

-life on earth.

-

-Jesus constantly urged men to the performance of moral duties that they

-might be rewarded by their "Father in Heaven." Such a motive for good

-behavior is offensive to the rational mind, and moral commandments

-which are enforced with a Heaven and a Hell do not spring from an

-opinion of human nature which deserves our respect.

-

-The most comprehensive criticism which one can make upon the morals of

-the New Testament is, that they are not practicable. Is the character

-of Christians fashioned by the power and influence of the words

-which Jesus left in the world? This question should be pressed to an

-answer, and honesty would answer it in a way which would shake every

-church-building in the land and tear the mask from the face of every

-Christian worshiper on the globe.

-

-Jesus taught that men and women were to love him more than father or

-mother, son or daughter. Imagine human beings loving a man whom they

-know nothing about, and consequently can care nothing about, and who

-has no more claim to their affections than has the ghost in Hamlet,

-better than they love parent or child! Such morality as this is not fit

-for a Hottentot.

-

-If any command is implanted in our nature and is a part of the bone

-and fiber of our very being, it is to love beyond all else those who

-have borne us and cared for us through infancy and childhood, and

-those whose existence depends upon us, and to whom we stand pledged

-by the holiest ties of our beings, to watch over and protect, to care

-for and love, to the last days of our lives. It is love of parent and

-child which is alike the supreme obligation and the supreme benefaction

-of our humanity. No being has walked this earth who had the moral

-right to demand a greater love than is due to father and mother, son

-and daughter; and if Jesus claimed such affection, his claim is an

-impertinence which we are bound to treat with indignation and scorn.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-For the Christian Church to make of the words of Jesus commands to the

-world is to deserve the severest condemnation. Jesus taught that men

-were not to make for themselves a home, not to cultivate those virtues

-which blossom into the family, and not to save the fruits of their toil

-to make old age with its tottering form and feeble limbs less liable to

-the hardships of the world, but he summed up all the duties of life in

-these words: "Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow

-me."

-

-To obey such teaching as this would overturn every monument of

-prosperity upon the earth, blight every feeling of happiness that

-gladdens the heart of man, and convert the busy, working, loving world

-into one vast army of tramps, following a king without a kingdom, a

-leader without a purpose, a commander with nothing to give those who

-followed his command.

-

-Jesus taught that we were not to resist evil; that is, that if a thief

-stole our watch and chain, we were bound to run after him and give him

-our purse also; that if a man took away our coat, we should wrong him

-if we did not send him the balance of the suit; that if a man struck

-us on one side of the face, we were to invite him to strike us on

-the other side also; that if, as it were, the armies of some foreign

-powers were to invade our land, and burn and destroy our cities and

-towns, pillage our homes and murder our families, we were in duty bound

-to look upon them as benefactors and thank them for their work of

-destruction, and ask them to come and do it again.

-

-Such moral teaching as this would make a nation of cowards and slaves.

-

-It is our duty to punish thieves and robbers, not to reward them; to

-resist wrong and injustice, not to submit to them like cravens; to

-protect our country from foes, even though we are obliged to shed their

-blood and our own in so doing.

-

-Is there a Christian on the globe who pays the least heed to a single

-one of the moral commands of Jesus? You all know there is not.

-

-I need not tell the Christian Church that the morality taught by Jesus

-is decaying when every church is its coffin, and every minister its

-grave-digger.

-

-If you wish to see how much respect for the moral teachings of Jesus

-one of his professed followers has, just steal his coat, and if he

-gives you his cloak also, as he is commanded to do by his Lord and

-Master, please publish his name in the daily papers--for the benefit of

-others who wish to get a cloak.

-

-We find among the express commands of Jesus this advice: "Lay not up

-for yourselves treasures upon earth." The most liberal translation of

-this counsel can not make it anything but poor advice. Every material

-blessing of mankind has come from the savings of human labor, and the

-value of laying up treasures upon earth is more evident than that of

-laying up treasures in Heaven, whatever this saying may mean. When

-every Christian tries as hard to be poor as he tries now to get rich,

-we shall think that he has some regard for the moral teachings of Jesus.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It must be apparent to all that what may be claimed as Christian

-morality is not only decaying, but that it ought to decay. There is

-no sense in it. Imagine a man telling people in the Twentieth Century

-to "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall

-drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on," and endeavoring

-to prove that because the fowls of the air do not have to broil a

-beefsteak for their breakfast or make biscuit for tea, human beings

-will be fed whether they provide anything for their appetites or not.

-

-Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father will feed us because we are

-better than the fowls of the air, and that he will clothe us because he

-clothes the grass of the field. Our earthly fathers seem to have done

-more in the way of providing food and clothing for us before we were

-able to take care of ourselves than any Heavenly Father. Others may put

-their trust in God for something to eat and drink and wear, if they

-wish to, but I prefer to give the matter a little thought myself.

-

-Jesus concludes these admonitions by saying, "Take no thought for the

-morrow." This is bad counsel, and it shows the good sense of mankind

-that it has never been followed. The whole world lives in what one of

-our poets called, "The bright tomorrow of the mind."

-

-We will refer to only one more of the peculiar moral injunctions of

-Jesus. In the fifth chapter of Matthew, in the forty-fourth verse,

-we read, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to

-them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and

-persecute you."

-

-If we were to do as herein commanded, we should have an inverted

-morality which would place the crown of virtue upon the forehead of

-vice.

-

-Let us see if the preacher of this doctrine practised it.

-

-Did Jesus bless the Scribes and Pharisees when they refused to

-acknowledge his claim to be the Messiah? This is the blessing which he

-pronounced upon them: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,

-for ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers;

-therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." "Ye serpents, ye

-generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" That is

-not a very sweet blessing!

-

-And these men did not curse Jesus. They only did not agree with his

-opinions. Jesus, also, in his wrath against his enemies, calls them,

-in the seventeenth and nineteenth verses of the twenty-third chapter

-of Matthew, "Ye fools and blind," forgetting, doubtless, that he had

-previously declared, when preaching on the Mount, "Whosoever shall say,

-'Thou Fool,' shall be in danger of hell-fire."

-

-The moral teachings of Jesus were inspired by a false estimate of all

-earthly things. There is no doubt that Jesus believed the world was

-coming to an end in his generation. How to get into the Kingdom of

-Heaven was of more consequence than how to reform mankind, or improve

-the world, since the end of earthly things was near at hand. This

-appears to have been the thought of Jesus, and explains much of his

-language.

-

-But today we do not believe that the earth has run its course, and

-that the end of all material things is near at hand. We are living

-without fear of failure on the part of the universe, and are giving our

-attention more to human wants than to divine commands.

-

-_Not fear of offending God, but fear of wronging man, is the highest

-basis of morals._ We have reached a time when apologies are not

-respected, when repentance is looked upon as the mask of villainy,

-when the stature of life is most shorn of manliness by prancing in

-the garb of humility, when a brave facing of life's trials and demands

-counts for more than cowardly surrender in the name of God. In fact,

-we have come to say to the world of humanity, "Be moral, and you need

-not be religious." Work for man is coming to be a sufficient excuse for

-neglect of God.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-But we want no cheap moral duties held up for man to perform. It is

-serious business to live this life of ours and live it well, and it

-is hard work to do it. Morality sets us as high a task as we are able

-to perform, and a higher task than has yet been performed by most of

-mankind. The effort of this age is to expose the sham of what is called

-holiness, and make sacred the surroundings of human beings. We must

-throw off the past, and stand upon that sunlit height where we can feel

-that "somehow life is bigger after all than any painted angel, could we

-see the man that is within us."

-

-This is the moral duty of the world: to respect the man that is within

-us. We ought to rear on the earth a range of moral Alps that would

-stand and command the admiration of the world as long as eye could see

-and heart could feel. We need a rational hope and a burning purpose in

-this century, something noble to live for and the courage of nobility

-to work and win it.

-

-The improvement of the world is the only object of life worthy of man.

-Do and say nothing that will not improve mankind. Were this simple

-admonition heeded, we should have the key to the kingdom of the only

-heaven that man needs in our own pocket.

-

-It is time for the reign of commonsense to begin on earth; time for

-men to elevate morality above religion; and time for us to say,

-"Millions for the world, not a cent for the Church." The battle between

-Freedom and Christianity has begun, and I believe that when it ends

-Christianity will be buried beneath the ruins of its own dogmas, there

-to remain forever. It possesses no spirit that can rise again from its

-ashes and mount on wings of flame to a higher life. When superstition

-dies, it dies to the root.

-

-The Christian minister can not arrest the march of liberty by crying,

-"Infidelity!" and threatening with everlasting cremation all those who

-refuse to heed his words.

-

-But let there be no base understanding of freedom. The new John the

-Baptist must not be a cowboy, saying, "The kingdom of highwaymen is at

-hand." As a person when in perfect bodily health knows not from any

-intimation from the respective parts that he has a stomach, a brain,

-or a heart, so a person when living in perfect freedom is unconscious

-of law, of creed, of custom. The healthy man physically is the free

-man physically; the healthy man mentally is the free man mentally; the

-healthy man morally is the free man morally; liberty of the individual

-is health of the individual, and a free man means a man who is true and

-obedient to all natural laws.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-There is a misunderstanding of freedom upon the one side, and a

-misrepresentation of it upon the other, that make it hazardous for one

-to employ the word. To connect this word with morality in the eyes of

-many is to confound the Madonna with Mary Magdalene. It is to start the

-ghost of Don Juan.

-

-The conservatism of society has ever regarded liberty as the black flag

-of the moral marauder, the emblem of a piratical intention upon the

-casket of the world that contains the jewels of honor, justice, virtue

-and social order.

-

-So persistently and malignantly has freedom been represented as a

-wrecker's light, kindled only to lure to destruction, that to represent

-it as worthy to be trusted is to arouse the spirit which pursued

-Voltaire to his grave with a lie, erected a shaft of calumny over the

-tomb of Paine, and which now, with the coward's weapon of slander,

-attacks the living who refuse to acknowledge that the voice of the

-Church is the voice of God.

-

-But nevertheless we believe with Burns that:

-

-    Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,

-    Its virtues a' can tell, man;

-    It raises man aboon the brute,

-    It maks him ken himsel', man;

-    Gif ance the peasant taste a bite,

-    He's greater than a lord, man,

-    And ni' the beggar shares a mite

-    Of a' he can afford, man.

-

-And so we exclaim in the words of one of our own true poets:

-

-    Always in thine eyes, O Liberty!

-    Shines that high light whereby the world is saved,

-    And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.

-

-You have all heard of the man who refused to open his eyes for a year,

-and who declared that during that time nothing could be seen on account

-of the darkness. But the endeavor to perpetuate old errors by keeping

-the eyes closed to the facts of science, the truths of philosophy, and

-the progress of the human race, has not been crowned with success.

-The further attempt to convert the world to what James Parton calls a

-"kitchen religion" is merely waste of power.

-

-The preaching of Christianity is making "much ado about nothing." What

-we want is manhood and womanhood.

-

-It is said by the Church that the man who lives for his family and

-brings all that he can win of what is fair and bright and glad to those

-he loves, may be a good man, but he is not a Christian, and therefore

-has no religion.

-

-Give me then the man who is not a Christian, and who has no religion,

-for if the man who loves his wife and children, who gives to them the

-strength of his arm, the thought of his brain, the warmth of his heart,

-has not religion, the world is better off without it, for these are the

-highest and holiest things which man can do.

-

-[Illustration]

-

-

-

-

-  There is only one thing worth praying for: to be in the line of

-  evolution.--_Elbert Hubbard._

-

-  Jesus as Savior of the world is a theological creation, and not a

-  historical character.

-

-

-

-

-  SO HERE THEN ENDETH THAT GREAT AND GOOD BOOK "I DON'T KNOW--DO

-  YOU?" WRITTEN BY MARILLA M. RICKER, AND PRINTED AND BOUND FOR HER

-  BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, ERIE

-  COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW YORK, MCMXVI.

-

-

-

-

-THOMAS PAINE

-

-

-  Born Jan 29, 1737.

-

-  Friend and adviser of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Monroe,

-  etc., etc.

-

-  Author of _Common Sense_, _The Crisis_, _Rights of Man_, and _The

-  Age of Reason_;

-

-  Editor of _Pennsylvania Magazine_;

-

-  Enlisted in Continental Army; appointed Aide-de-Camp to General

-  Nathaniel Greene;

-

-  Secretary of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congress and

-  Pennsylvania Assembly;

-

-  By his writings did more for the American cause in the Revolution

-  than any other one person;

-

-  First proposed American Independence;

-

-  First suggested the Federal Union of States;

-

-  First proposed the abolition of Negro slavery;

-

-  First suggested protection for dumb animals;

-

-  First proposed arbitration and international peace;

-

-  First suggested justice to women;

-

-  First pointed out the reality of human brotherhood;

-

-  First pointed out the folly of hereditary succession and

-  monarchical government;

-

-  First proposed old-age pensions;

-

-  First suggested international copyright;

-

-  First proposed the education of the children of the poor at public

-  expense;

-

-  First suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world;

-

-  First proposed "the land for the people";

-

-  First suggested "the religion of humanity";

-

-  First proposed and first wrote the words, "United States of

-  America";

-

-  Founder of the first Ethical Society;

-

-  Proposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory;

-

-  Inventor of the iron bridge, the hollow candle--principle of the

-  modern central-draft burner, etc., etc.

-

-  Died June 9, 1809.

-

-

-=_This is history. But this great and good man was called "a filthy

-little atheist" by a hyphenated Dutch-American._=

-

-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***

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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64568 ***
+
+  Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by
+  =equal signs=.
+
+  Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase.
+
+  Blank pages have been eliminated.
+
+  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
+  original.
+
+  A few typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Marilla M. Ricker._]
+
+
+
+
+                         I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU?
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           MARILLA M. RICKER
+
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+
+                               DONE INTO
+                   A PRINTED BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS
+                     AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN
+                         EAST AURORA, NEW YORK
+                                MCMXVI
+
+
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1916
+                                  By
+                           Marilla M. Ricker
+
+
+
+
+  You are what you think, and to believe in a Hell for other people
+  is literally to go to Hell yourself.--_Elbert Hubbard._
+
+  A religious man is a man scared.
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+_There is in the city of Boston a memorial building to Thomas Paine.
+This Paine Memorial was finished and dedicated forty-two years ago. It
+is the finest monument to Thomas Paine on the earth._
+
+_For twenty years Ralph Washburn Chainey has been the Manager of this
+building and the Treasurer of the Paine Memorial Corporation. Under his
+wise and prudent management the building was freed from debt, and today
+it is a monument to the energy and devotion of its Manager as much as
+to the genius and labors of Thomas Paine._
+
+_Ralph Washburn Chainey is only forty-two, and as great an example of
+thrift as Ben Franklin was. Very early in life he acquired the habit of
+thrift--which is the basis of all virtues. He learned early that time
+was money and he is always at work. He is not only able to take care
+of himself, but he can and does take care of others. He is sufficient
+unto himself, and when one is right with himself he is right with all
+the world. I have known him intimately for more than a quarter of a
+century, and if he has faults I have yet to learn what they are._
+
+_In appreciation, therefore, of his great service to the cause of
+Freethought, I dedicate this volume to_
+
+       RALPH WASHBURN CHAINEY
+
+                                            --_Marilla M. Ricker_.
+
+_Dover, New Hampshire December, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen_
+
+
+
+
+  As man advances, as his intellect enlarges, as his knowledge
+  increases, as his ideals become nobler, the Bibles and creeds will
+  lose their authority, the miraculous will be classed with the
+  impossible, and the idea of special providence will be discarded.
+  Thousands of religions have perished, innumerable gods have died,
+  and why should the religion of our time be exempt from the common
+  fate?
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  FOREWORD                                      7
+
+  CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION                  11
+
+  WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES,
+  AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC                     33
+
+  A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER                   55
+
+  THE HOLY GHOST                               65
+
+  HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?                    71
+
+  COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL                  81
+
+  MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT                    85
+
+  AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE ON RELIGION         89
+
+  DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY                 107
+
+
+
+
+  I know of no other book that so fully teaches the subjection and
+  degradation of woman as the Bible.
+
+                                       --_Elizabeth Cady Stanton._
+
+
+  That God had to come to earth to find a mother for his son reveals
+  the poverty of Heaven.
+
+
+
+
+CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION
+
+
+
+
+  Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a
+  true system.
+
+                                                 --_Thomas Paine._
+
+
+  Hell is a place invented by priests and parsons for the sake of
+  being supported.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION
+
+
+One hundred fifty years ago, there was not a single white man in what
+is now Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. What is now the most
+flourishing part of the United States was then as little known as the
+country in the heart of Africa itself. It was not until Seventeen
+Hundred Seventy-six that Boone left his home in North Carolina to
+become the first settler in Kentucky; and the pioneers of Ohio did not
+settle that territory until twenty years later.
+
+Canada belonged to France one hundred fifty-three years ago, and
+Washington was a modest Virginia Colonel, and the United States was
+the most loyal part of the British Empire, and scarcely a speck on the
+political horizon indicated the struggle that in a few years was to lay
+the foundation of the greatest republic in the world.
+
+One hundred fifty years ago there were but four small newspapers in
+America; steam-engines had not been imagined; and locomotives and
+railroads, and telegraphs and postal cards, and friction-matches,
+and revolvers and percussion-caps, and breechloading-guns and Mauser
+rifles, and stoves and furnaces, and gas and electricity and rubber
+shoes, and Spaulding's glue, and sewing-machines and anthracite coal,
+and photographs, and kerosene-oil, free schools, and spring-beds and
+hair-mattresses, and lever-watches and greenbacks were unknown. The
+spinning-wheel was in almost every family, and clothing was spun and
+woven and made up in the family; and the printing-press was a cumbrous
+machine worked by hand.
+
+Down to Eighteen Hundred Fourteen every paper in the world was printed
+one side at a time, on an ordinary hand-press; and a nail, or a brick,
+or a knife, or a pair of shears or scissors, or a razor, or a woven
+pair of stockings, or an ax or a hoe or a shovel, or a lock and key, or
+a plate of glass of any size, was not made in what is now the United
+States.
+
+In Seventeen Hundred Ninety, there were only seventy-five post-offices
+in the country, and the whole extent of our post-routes was less
+than nineteen hundred miles; cheap postage was unheard of; so were
+envelopes; and had any one suggested the transmission of messages with
+lightning speed, he would have been thought insane. The microscope on
+the one hand and the telescope on the other were in their infancy as
+instruments of science; and geology and chemistry were almost unknown,
+to say nothing of the telephone and all the other various phones, and
+the X-rays, and hundreds of other new things.
+
+In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two there were only six stagecoaches running
+in all England, and these were a novelty. A man named John Crosset
+thought they were so dangerous an innovation that he wrote a pamphlet
+against them. "These coaches," he wrote, "make gentlemen come to London
+upon every small occasion which otherwise they would not do, except
+upon urgent necessity. The conveniency of the passage makes their wives
+come often up, who, rather than come such long journeys on horseback,
+would stay at home. Then when they come to town they must be in the
+'wade' [probably that is where the word _swim_ comes in now], get fine
+clothes, go to plays, and treats, and by these means get such a habit
+of idleness and love of pleasure that they are uneasy ever after."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We can all see how much improvement there has been in all things but
+_creeds_. Improvements can come, and old things go, but _creeds_ go on
+forever! A creed implies something fixed and immovable. In other words,
+it means you have a "heel-rope on."
+
+The word "creed" is from _credo_, "I believe." We have had a great
+deal of compulsion of belief, and a thousand years of almost absolute
+unanimity. Liberty was dead and the ages were dark. We call them
+the Middle Ages because they were the death between the life that
+was before and the life that came after. Then came a new birth of
+thought--a "Renaissance"--and after this, some reformation in the form
+of a Protestantism.
+
+Since then, the Protestants have continued to protest, not only against
+the old, but against each other. And this is the best thing they have
+done. Thus liberty has been saved, for each would have coerced its
+fellow organization, as did their infamous mother, the Roman Catholic
+Church, before them. From "creed" comes "credulous" and "credulity."
+And they have filled the world with their kind. In the United States
+alone, there are about one hundred forty types. Each is a system of
+credulity pitted against a hundred and thirty-nine others. They all
+rest on authority. They all denounce investigation--unless it has for
+its end the support of their authority.
+
+Hence, with the exception of two or three denominations, to become a
+professed Christian means to accept credulously and without question
+a system of belief about Nature and man and the world which you would
+deny in toto if you reasoned as you do about other things, and which
+you do practically deny by re-explaining and refining it into anything
+but what is stated. Down deep in your heart you do not, and never
+did, believe it in the same honest way in which you form your other
+opinions.
+
+Think for a moment of the Christian idea of the world, its origin, its
+shape, place, importance, and its final end. Does any man or woman who
+has been through a common-school geography believe the ideas implied in
+the common Christian dogmas regarding the world? We must remember that
+the world taught in the geography is not the Christian world.
+
+The world taught in the Christian dogmas is beneath the heavens--not a
+rolling sphere flying through space. It is flat, and the sun and stars
+pass over it daily. It is the chief object of God's creation on which
+to place man. It is God's footstool, and his throne is Heaven above. He
+created it just four thousand and four years before the Christian era
+began. Now we _all_ know that this is _not_ true; that there is no up
+nor down; that the earth is not the center; that it is _not_ flat; that
+the sun does not go round it; that it is a very insignificant little
+orb; that "up in Heaven" is an utterly meaningless expression; and that
+the world is not a creation, but an evolution.
+
+And yet thousands of people credulously cling to creeds which embody
+the notions of barbarous or uncivilized ages.
+
+Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the Bible is a
+revelation of the will and wisdom of an omniscient God; that it is a
+perfect and sufficient rule of faith and practise. What, in the name
+of humanity, causes people to make such statements today? It is like
+trying to light the house with a saucer of tallow in which a rag is
+immersed, instead of using gas or electricity.
+
+Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy xiv: 21, we read, "Ye
+shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it
+unto the sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or
+thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for _thou_ art a holy people unto
+Jehovah thy God." In Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would
+that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them."
+
+Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy, or even the
+moral unity of a volume written by many hands at widely different
+times? Are such people so ignorant that they have not read the Book
+they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots and do not know the
+plainest right and wrong? Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful
+reason for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they the dupes of
+their own credulity, clinging without thought to the beliefs in which
+they have been reared? They are evidently not using commonsense in an
+honest way.
+
+I often hear the Bible spoken of as a holy book, full of a holy
+spirit. I sometimes reply: "Have you read the conduct of Moses, Joshua,
+Samuel, David, Solomon, and other ancient worthies, who were said to be
+men after the heart of the bloodthirsty and avenging Jehovah? How long
+would you keep out of prison if you took them for your models? Have you
+read the Thirty-fifth, Fifty-eighth, Sixty-ninth and One Hundred Ninth
+Psalms? If not, read them, and tell me what you think of them."
+
+There never was any intrinsic reason for believing the Bible except
+that a designing priesthood said so, and stupid people trusted them.
+
+Here, by common consent, people agree to be duped. Ages and ages ago,
+they began to make admissions that two and two might be six, or even
+sixteen, in religion. They had sense enough to say that two and two are
+four in other things. In Divine Revelation they shut their eyes to all
+mistakes and wilful lies. If people should deceive in other matters as
+the priests, parsons and teachers do in religion, they would not escape
+arrest.
+
+Another central doctrine is that of the Atonement. This is derived
+from the moral character of the Jewish God; he governed the world of
+humanity on the principle of primitive society. Men were responsible to
+him in everything. Any infraction of his supposed laws rendered them
+subject to his vengeance. That is why the Jew thought that God sent a
+thunderstorm to punish him for eating pork.
+
+What explanation besides credulity can be suggested for the
+continuation of this belief century after century? Preachers shout
+it from the pulpits, and Salvation Army people hawk it through the
+streets. Not one of them knows what he is talking about. Each learned
+it from some one who told him to say it. They all do it because it is
+a part of a system which they have inherited, but the reason for which
+they do not know, and have never allowed themselves to seek.
+
+This cringing credulity keeps the masses from using their powers. They
+seem to believe that if they should lose these superstitions they would
+be lost.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And the dogma regarding Jesus is inextricably mixed up in Christian
+theology with that of the Atonement. One assumption bolsters the
+other. He is made to occupy the central place in this scheme of
+blood-redemption through that other highly rational fable of the
+immaculate conception. If Jesus was not immaculately conceived, then
+Matthew and Luke have deceived; then Jesus is not God; then he is a
+mere man; and if so, he is not the Redeemer. Man could not redeem
+himself according to the first premise of the scheme. Man has been and
+_is_ redeeming himself by learning Nature's laws and through them
+rising to a higher life ever since he reached the stage of humanity.
+Take the theory of the Resurrection. The account of it was written long
+after the assumed occurrence, and by credulous men with superstitious
+inclinations. Men and women of these days, understanding the laws of
+Nature, can not give assent to the crude beliefs which easily commanded
+the minds of ancient times.
+
+Both Protestantism and Catholicism are systems built on essentially the
+same foundation. Remove any of these stones, and the systems will have
+to be rebuilt. If there is no special revelation, there is no special
+scheme of salvation. If there is no vengeful, blood-seeking God, there
+is no theological reconciliation. If there was no fall, there is no
+hopeless depravity. If there was no immaculate conception, there is
+no Redeemer in a special ecclesiastical sense. If there is no total
+depravity, there is no lost world. If there is no lost world, there is
+no yawning Hell. One and all, these fictions have their only ground for
+continuance in a _selfish_ and unreasoning priesthood and clergy, and a
+credulous people.
+
+In the place of the "fall," science has put the "rise" of man. It finds
+the Garden of Eden to have been a jungle. It finds the mythical perfect
+Adam to have been a savage. It finds the Biblical "origin of evil"
+to have been a puerile legend. It finds that sin and evil are made by
+the seeing of higher states. It finds that there was no bad until the
+better was reached. It finds that it is the advancing good which makes
+the existing bad. It finds that among the worst of sinners are those
+who live in and propagate outworn doctrines upon their own and others'
+credulity.
+
+In the olden times, God was made a king--the world was his kingdom.
+His powers, virtues and vices were simply those of earthly kings
+exaggerated. Jewish and Christian liturgies are full of expressions
+showing the attitude of slaves and serfs to a tyrant. Sin has been
+manufactured as heresy and disobedience to the so-called orthodox
+system instead of to the laws of Nature.
+
+Science has shown that the bottomless pit did not even have a top.
+Columbus sailed over the Western edge of the flat Christian world on
+which all this Christian system depended, and found that the material
+Heaven and Hell were unfounded myths; but the preachers and priests
+still threaten _hell_ to the most ignorant and credulous, but they tell
+some of us that there is a _final judgment_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the old days, we used to hear a great deal about judgments. A
+certain honest, good-natured, old farmer in New Hampshire, who was a
+freethinker, but had a very pious wife, lost many cattle when the
+black tongue was an epidemic in the State.
+
+One day the hired man came in and told him the red oxen were dead.
+
+"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, they were 'breechy cusses.' Take
+off their hides and carry them down to Fletcher's. They will bring the
+cash."
+
+An hour or so later the man came back with the news that Lineback and
+his mate were both dead.
+
+"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, I took them of B---- to save a bad
+debt that I never expected to get. Take the hides down to Fletcher's.
+They will bring the cash."
+
+After the lapse of another hour the man came back to tell him that the
+nigh brindle was dead.
+
+"Is he?" said the old man. "Well, he was a very old ox. Take off his
+hide and send it down to Fletcher's. It is worth cash and will bring
+more than two of the others."
+
+Hereupon his wife reminded him that his loss was a judgment of Heaven
+upon him.
+
+"Is it?" said the old chap. "Well, if they will take the judgment in
+cattle, it is the easiest way I can pay it."
+
+But they know no more about final judgments than they did about the
+lake of fire and brimstone which commenced to drain off in Columbus'
+day. Science has vaporized the notion of a future judgment by the same
+method it has that of a past Creation. From the _facts_, it has learned
+_laws_. But credulity is always half-hearted with facts. It does not
+know enough of truth to love it. It is ever glowing over and setting
+up as a dogma the little it knows, or assumes to know, of the truth of
+former times. It has no faith in the newly discovered, because it knows
+nothing of it.
+
+Hence, age after age we see the spectacle of men who have not studied
+the science of their own day denouncing it in pulpit and councils;
+of men who have steeped themselves in the traditions of the past
+pronouncing shallow invectives against the demonstrations of (science)
+the present.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many church people say immortality must be true, or the great majority
+would not believe in it. But do they? They do not talk or write as if
+they did. If language means anything, I think the majority believe in
+annihilation. Most people speak of the dead body of a man as though
+it were the man. They say, "He was buried at Greenwood," or, "She was
+cremated at Forest Hills." And we hear the "late" Mr. Smith left an
+immense fortune. If Mr. Smith still exists, why do they say the _late_
+Mr. Smith? If people didn't believe that the soul and body are one,
+and that life ceases and mind expires when the body dies, why do they
+say, "They were"? What little the Church has learned has been by _main
+force_ so to speak.
+
+A friend of mine many years ago was a college student. At that time
+they were all compelled to attend the college church. On one occasion
+he heard the preacher, who was also a college professor, make these
+statements:
+
+_First_, that the _elect_ alone would be saved.
+
+_Second_, that among those who by the world were called Christians,
+probably not more than one in a hundred belonged really and truly to
+the _elect_.
+
+_Third_, that the others, by reason of their Christian privileges,
+would suffer more hereafter than the heathen, who had never heard the
+Gospel at all.
+
+The young man made a note of these propositions, and on the strength
+of them drew up a petition to the Faculty soliciting exemption from
+further attendance at church, as only preparing for himself a more
+terrible future.
+
+He said: "The congregation here amounts to six hundred persons,
+and nine of these are the college professors. Now if only one in a
+hundred is to be saved, it follows that three even of the professors
+must be damned, and I, being a mere student, could not expect to be
+saved in preference to a professor." Far, he said, be it from him to
+cherish so presumptuous a hope. Nothing remained for him, therefore,
+but perdition. In this melancholy state of affairs he was anxious to
+abstain from anything that might aggravate his future punishment;
+and as church attendance had been shown to have this influence on the
+_non-elect_, he trusted that the Faculty would for all time exempt him
+from it.
+
+The result was he came very near being expelled from the
+college--simply by heeding their sermons. The professors of some
+colleges have learned something, and do not insist on the students
+attending church.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ponder for a moment on the many dishonest ways churches have for
+raising money. Think of the amount of money they can raise at a
+church-fair--alias, a confidence-game.
+
+A young man from Kentucky told me that he attended one at Chicago.
+First he went to the table where refreshments were sold. A beautiful
+siren with big black eyes and small white hands spread the edibles
+before him. When he arose from the table he handed her a five-dollar
+bill. She put it in a little box and forgot to give him any change. She
+smiled sweetly at him, and asked him if he would like to walk about the
+room and look at the fancy articles, all to be sold for the good of the
+church.
+
+She took his arm and murmured, "We are not strangers; we both feel
+interested in the church."
+
+"We soon came," said the young man in telling me the story, "to a
+silver tea-set that was to be 'raffled off.' Would I take a chance? Of
+course I did. Then came a cake with a valuable ring concealed in it.
+Would I take a chance in that? Of course I did.
+
+"So things glided on until I concluded if I took many more chances, my
+chances for getting home would be slim. So I refused to tempt fortune
+any further, until the little black-eyed scoundrel took me on a new
+tack. Leaning heavily on my arm, and resting her cheek on my shoulder,
+she said, 'Please take a chance for me.'
+
+"It is needless to add that I took the chance, and kept on taking
+chances for the beautiful and unprincipled wretch that had me in tow,
+until I had not a dollar left. Yes, I was penniless, and then it
+began to dawn on me that she was working me for the success of the
+church. There I was, bankrupt in money and self-respect. I had been
+robbed--yes, robbed, for where is the difference between a pair of
+pistols and a pair of black eyes in a robbery? You part with your money
+because you can not help it.
+
+"I know that Society looks with lenient eyes upon church-fairs, but it
+is my opinion that all robbers will take sentence, and when that little
+Chicago robber receives her sentence, she will take her place by the
+side of Jack Sheppard!"
+
+You see he still believes in Judgments. He is learning by main force.
+
+A very pious woman whose father was a missionary, now living in Hawaii,
+wrote not long ago that professional men flocking to the Islands will
+be disappointed unless they are friends of old families; and the old
+families are descendants of missionaries who went there in the early
+days and took lands and everything else from the natives.
+
+There seems to be nothing like being a descendant from a missionary
+family. These people, equally pious and provident, thought it a
+good scheme to cheat the sinful savages out of all their worldly
+possessions, in order that they might be taught humility and holiness
+through the chastening influence of poverty. So they robbed the
+unregenerate to the glory of God.
+
+Who says it doesn't pay to save the heathen? Think of the ignorance and
+superstition of the majority of the preachers of the present day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up in Northern Minnesota, less than fifty years ago, an old Baptist
+was preaching on the death of Moses on the Mount, and his not being
+permitted to go over into the Promised Land. The preacher said:
+
+"I have always felt sorry for Moses. It has seemed so hard to me that
+he could not go over with Caleb and Joshua, the only two of the host
+which he had led out of Egypt, and enjoy with his people the good
+country towards which they had been so long traveling. When as a boy
+I read that in the Bible for the first time, I sat down and cried for
+sympathy with him. But Moses had a hard time from the first. He was no
+sooner born than his life was threatened. His mother had to hide him to
+save it. After three months she could hide him no longer, and so she
+made an ark of bulrushes and set him afloat on the river. Indeed, it
+seemed as though the Lord had all he could do to raise Moses."
+
+But the people of this generation do not take the story of Moses so
+seriously. A bright young girl of ten, on being asked by her Sabbath
+School teacher, "Where did Pharaoh's daughter get Moses?" replied, with
+the accent on the _said_, "She _said_ she 'found him in the bulrushes.'"
+
+I attended a campmeeting in North Carolina. The exhortations and
+prayers would cause a graven image to smile audibly. One old Baptist
+preacher said he always felt so sorry to think that "Ingine corn"
+didn't grow in Palestine, because he would like to think that the
+little Jesus had a good time playing with cob-houses.
+
+But those preachers compare favorably with the Reverend George F. Hall,
+of Decatur, Illinois, and the Reverend Doctor John P. D. John, and the
+Reverend Doctor Frederick Bell, late of the Metropolitan Temple of
+San Francisco, California, who at various times challenged Robert G.
+Ingersoll to debate with them. It shows what ignorance, superstition
+and egotism combined can do.
+
+Darwin said the herding instinct in animals has its base in fear. Sheep
+and cattle go in droves, while a lion simply flocks with his mate.
+Those who wish to lead have always fostered fear, encouraging this
+tendency to herd, promising protection, and offering what they call
+knowledge in return for a luxurious living.
+
+In other words, the men who preach and pray, always want the people
+who _work_ to divide with them. They work on the line that fear will
+compel men to join churches. This joining instinct is a manifestation
+of weakness. By going with a gang they hope to get to Heaven. But the
+moment you eliminate the Devil from Christianity, there is nothing
+left. You can not have a revival, alias an epidemic, of religion,
+without the Devil. If there were no Devil, there would be nothing to
+pray about, and all these people who are gifted in prayer would be
+without a job.
+
+Think of the chaplains of the Army and Navy, in Congress and in the
+Legislatures being turned out to browse for themselves. Think of their
+being obliged to earn an honest living. They could not do it. I am
+amused when I think of the prayers that are exchanged in war times. One
+side will pray that the wrath of Heaven will descend on the other, and
+the other side will return the compliment with ten per cent interest.
+
+I remember when I was a child of reading the prayer of a Hungarian
+officer. He said: "O Lord, I will not ask thee to help us, and I know
+that thou wilt not help the Austrians. But if thou wilt sit on yonder
+hill, thou shalt not be ashamed of thy children."
+
+The famous Bishop Leslie prayed before a battle in Ireland, "O God, for
+our unworthiness we are not fit to claim thy help, but if we are bad,
+our enemies are worse, and if thou seest not meet to help us, we pray
+thee help them not, but stand thou neutral this day, and leave it to
+the arm of flesh."
+
+All this dramatic power would be lost without the Devil. So it behooves
+the Christian churches to hold fast to the Devil. Get a good grip on
+his hoofs, horns and tail, for without him they would be relegated to
+"innocuous desuetude." He should be incorporated as the fourth person
+in the Orthodox Godhead, and respectfully addressed as "Holy Devil."
+
+  _There is no truth in the dogma of the divinity of Jesus, no sense
+  in it, no religion in it. It is the product of mythology and has no
+  claim upon this age._
+
+
+
+
+  This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right
+  you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of
+  Nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.
+
+  The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a
+  traitor to himself and to his fellowmen.
+
+  As far as I am concerned, I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish
+  to take my chances with wind and wave and star. And I had rather
+  go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any
+  orthodox harbor whatever.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC
+
+
+
+
+  The ignorance of the masses insures abundant contributions to the
+  clergy and to religion.--_Ralph W. Chainey._
+
+  The mother who teaches her child to pray makes a mistake.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC
+
+
+The Millerites--or Second Adventists, as they now call themselves--are
+the first sect that I remember. They are a people of remarkable vigor:
+they have been at work for seventy years to bring this world to an end,
+and although they have been wrong in their arithmetic all these years,
+they rub out the slate and begin again.
+
+And they prove everything by the Bible, as all other denominations do.
+The "time" has been set at least twenty times since I can remember. I
+recollect having awful palpitations in the kneepans upon one of the
+eventful days, and crawling under the barn so as not to be in the
+way. They used to congregate on the height of land near my father's,
+"to go up," and one man climbed upon an old shed, and fell and broke
+his hip; he fainted, and they thought he was dead. As soon as he had
+revived a little, they asked him if he had any requests to make before
+he died. He replied, "I want you to work in 'durn fool' somewhere on
+my tombstone." He recovered, and lived many years, but he was cured of
+Millerism.
+
+A large share of the students of the Second Advent doctrine came into
+this world, not only naked, but without any brains, nor any place
+suitable to put any; and the first business they do is to wonder about
+their souls and talk about being "born again." They never seem to
+realize that to be well born is much more essential than to be "born
+again." I never knew immortality to be secured at the second birth.
+
+I attended one of their meetings this year, and asked one of the
+sisters for their _creed_. She said, "Our creed is the whole Bible,
+from the first book of Genesis to the last word of the last chapter of
+Revelations."
+
+I thought of what a boy said when the Baptist Elder came and took tea
+at his home, and asked a "blessing."
+
+The boy said: "Is that the way you ask a blessing? My father doesn't
+ask it that way."
+
+"How does he ask it?"
+
+"Oh, he sat down to the table the other evening, and looked it all
+over, and said, 'My God, what a supper!'"
+
+And I thought, "My God, what a creed!"
+
+I was tempted to ask the Millerite sister what she thought of the
+discrepancy between the first and the second chapter of Genesis. In the
+first chapter Man and Woman were a simultaneous creation. In the second
+chapter, Woman was an afterthought. But I had the deep sagacity to
+hold my tongue, and leave her and her _creed_ in peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second church that I remember anything about is the Free-Will
+Baptist. My mother was a devout member of that church. I have heard
+thousands of times, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
+he can not enter into the Kingdom of God." And man included woman--it
+always did, so far as pains and penalties were concerned.
+
+I remember distinctly a sermon I heard on Hell. You younger people can
+not have the faintest idea of the terrific sermons that were preached
+in those days.
+
+That sermon commenced in this wise:
+
+"Now we will look into Hell and see what we can see. It is all red-hot
+like red-hot iron. Streams of burning pitch and sulphur run through it.
+The floor blazes up to the roof. Look at the walls--the enormous stones
+are red-hot. Sparks of fire are always falling down from them. Lift
+up your eyes to the roof of Hell. It is like a sheet of blazing fire.
+Hell is filled with a fog of fire. In Hell, torrents not of water, but
+of fire and brimstone, are rained down. You may have seen a house on
+fire, but you never saw a house made of fire. Hell is a house made of
+fire. The fire of Hell burns the devils, who are spirits, for it was
+prepared for them. But it will burn the body as well as the soul.
+Take a little spark out of Hell--less than the size of a pin-head--and
+throw it into the ocean, and it will not go out. In one moment it
+would dry up all the waters of the ocean, and set the whole world in a
+blaze! Listen to the terrific noise of Hell--to the horrible uproar of
+countless millions of tormented creatures, mad with the fury of Hell!
+Oh, the screams of fear, the groanings of horror, the yells of rage,
+the cries of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair, from
+millions on millions. You hear them roaring like lions, hissing like
+serpents, howling like dogs, and wailing like dragons! And above all,
+you hear the roaring of the thunder of God's anger, which shakes Hell
+to its foundations. Little children, if you go to Hell, there will be a
+devil at your side to strike you. How will you feel after you have been
+struck every minute for a hundred millions of years? Look into this
+inner room of Hell, and see a girl of about sixteen. She stands in the
+middle of a red-hot floor; her feet are bare; sleep can never come to
+her; she can never forget for one moment in all the eternity of years."
+
+And so this description of Hell went on for nearly two hours. Do you
+wonder that I, a child of ten years, said to my father, who was a
+freethinker, infidel, atheist, or whatever else you please to call him:
+"I _hate_ my mother's church. I will _not_ go there again!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next church I became acquainted with was the Calvin Baptist Church.
+That church seemed to think that the most of us were born to be damned
+anyway!
+
+The great Ingersoll had it right when he said it was the
+damned-if-you-do-and-the-damned-if-you-don't church.
+
+The only difference between the Free-Will Baptists and the Calvin
+Baptists that I can see, is, that you are allowed to exercise your
+_will_. The Free-Will Baptists will damn you if you wish to be, and the
+Calvinists will damn you anyway!
+
+The next church to which I was introduced was the Congregationalist,
+alias the Orthodox. Their creed is rather complex from a mathematical
+standpoint. They seem to think that three Gods are one God, and one God
+is three Gods.
+
+I, having been taught that figures don't lie, couldn't understand it,
+until I thought of a boy who said to his teacher when she explained to
+him that figures didn't lie: "You should see my sisters at home, and
+then on the street. You will find that figures do lie."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I then went to Italy, and became conversant with the _outside_
+doings of the Roman Catholic Church. I visited many of them, saw the
+beggars eating crusts at the doors, and the well-fed priests saying
+masses inside; saw the white hand of famine always extended, in
+bitter contrast to the magnificent cathedrals; saw well-dressed,
+intelligent-looking men and women going upstairs on their hands and
+knees, and saw hundreds of them kissing the toe of the bronze statue of
+Saint Peter; saw monks of every shade and description; and all begging
+for the Holy Catholic Church!
+
+I attended a church festival at Rome at the Ara Cœli, where the most
+"Holy Bambino" is kept, a little wooden doll about two feet long. It is
+said to be the image of Jesus. It had a crown of gold on its head and
+was fairly ablaze with diamonds. It has great power to heal the sick.
+It is taken to visit patients in great style--that is, if the patients
+are rich. The Bambino is placed in a coach accompanied by priests in
+full dress. The Great Festival of the Bambino is celebrated annually.
+Military bands and the Soldiers of the Guard dance attendance. Saint
+Gennaro is held to be the guardian saint of Naples. The alleged miracle
+by which the blood of this holy person, contained in a glass tube,
+changes from a solid to a liquid state, is well known. Thousands go to
+see the miracle performed. When the priest first held up the sacred
+vial with its clotted contents we could hear all about us: "Holy
+Gennaro, save and protect us! Bless the City of Naples, and keep it
+free from plagues and earthquakes and other ills. Do this miracle so
+that we can see that thy power and thy favor are still with us." And
+so it went on for an hour or more, until the great throng was nearly
+hysterical.
+
+At last the priest stepped forward, showing that the blood flowed
+freely in the tube, and then such a shout went up from the big crowd as
+one hears only in Southern climes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have never been introduced to the Church of England, alias, the
+Episcopalian, but I've always thought if a man had a good voice, and
+understood the mysteries of the corkscrew, he would make a good rector.
+
+I became acquainted with a High-Church Episcopalian woman not long ago,
+and she showed me a prayer-rug and praying-costume imported from Paris.
+I told her that she looked like an angel in it, as she ought after
+going to all that expense and trouble; if she didn't, dressmakers might
+as well give it up and wait for Gabriel. The attitude of prayer threw
+the back breadths of the skirt into graceful prominence, and hence the
+necessity (which will be at once recognized by all the truly _pious_)
+of increased attention to the frills and embroidery required by the
+religious attitude of prayer.
+
+An old farmer in Indiana said he was a "Piscopal."
+
+"To what parish do you belong?"
+
+"I don't know nothing about parishes."
+
+"Who confirmed you?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"Then how do you belong to the Episcopalian Church?"
+
+"Well, last Winter I went down to Arkansas visiting, and while I was
+there, I went to a church and it was called 'Piscopal,' and I heard
+them say that they had done the things they ought not to have done, and
+left undone the things they ought to have done, and I says to myself,
+'That is my fix exactly,' and ever since then I've considered myself a
+'Piscopal'!"
+
+And I came to the conclusion that that is why the membership of that
+church is so large!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I know but little about the Methodists, but I do know that John Wesley,
+one of the founders of that church, believed in witchcraft, and was one
+of the latest of its supporters.
+
+History tells us that Brother Wesley preached a sermon entitled, _The
+Cause and Cure of Earthquakes_. He said that earthquakes were caused
+by sin, and the only way to stop them was to believe in his theology
+and teachings, thus showing great knowledge of seismology; but people
+who bank on gullibility are usually safe. I know the Methodists make a
+great hullabaloo about their religion, and appear to think their God is
+deaf.
+
+The Methodist Conference has refused to allow women to be delegates to
+the General Conference. The Methodist sisters should discipline the
+Church.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What I know about the Universalists I like. They seem to think that
+we are all in the same boat, and that one stands as good a chance as
+another, of which I approve. When I was a child, Sylvanus Cobb, at that
+time the great Universalist preacher, preached in the adjoining town.
+One Sunday, my father and I went to hear him. His sermon caused a great
+commotion, and the Baptist who preached that terrific sermon about Hell
+said to my mother, "There is a wicked man about here preaching that
+everybody is to be saved; but, Sister Young, let us hope for better
+things!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I believe that the Unitarians, as a class, think for themselves. I
+approve of that, and the Evangelical Alliance disapproves of them. That
+is in their favor.
+
+I taught school at Lee, New Hampshire, fifty years ago. One of the
+committee was a Unitarian, and one was a Quaker. I was tired of
+selecting suitable reading matter from that obscene old book, the
+Bible, and I suggested that we read from some other book, which we did
+for two mornings, when the Unitarian materialized at the schoolhouse,
+and with much suavity suggested that we read from the Bible every
+morning, and recite the Lord's Prayer; and I, teaching school for my
+bread and butter, bowed to the suggestion, and the next morning said:
+"Pupils, Mr. Smith prefers that we read from the Bible. Therefore, we
+will this morning read the startling and authentic account of Jonah
+whilst he was stopping at the submarine hotel." That is the most
+narrow-minded thing I ever knew about a Unitarian; but I always thought
+Mr. Smith voiced the opinion of the parents of the pupils rather than
+his own.
+
+I am somewhat acquainted with the Church of the Latter-Day Saints,
+alias the Mormons. They are a prudent, industrious, painstaking people,
+and only about two per cent of them ever _did_ practise polygamy, and
+that is a very small proportion for any Christian church. Brigham
+Young never did have but seventeen wives, but Solomon had five hundred
+wives, and one thousand other lady friends, and David, whose honor
+and humility show greater in his psalms than in the history of his
+ordinary, every-day life, was, as the Bible says, a man after God's own
+heart.
+
+I am sure that Brigham Young compared favorably with David. And if God
+interviewed Moses, why shouldn't he have interviewed Joe Smith?
+
+There are more than one thousand religions. They are founded mostly on
+fraud. All their saviors had virgins for mothers, and gods for fathers.
+
+The churches own more than thirteen billions of property, and they are
+_all_ too dishonest to pay honest taxes. Many of the churches couldn't
+be run three weeks without the women. They do all the work, for which
+they get no credit.
+
+The churches claim all the distinguished people, especially after
+they are dead and hence can not deny their claims. They have many
+times claimed that Abraham Lincoln was a churchman. The Honorable
+H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, an old friend of Lincoln, said it is
+false. Lincoln belonged to no church, and at one time said, "I have
+never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in
+giving my assent without mental reservation to the long, complicated
+statements of Christian doctrine, which characterize their articles of
+belief, and confessions of faith." But still they claim him. Honest,
+very!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No institution in modern civilization is so tyrannical and so unjust to
+women as is the Christian church. The history of the Church does not
+contain a single suggestion for the equality of woman with man, and
+still the Church claims that woman owes her advancement to the Bible.
+She owes it much more to the dictionary.
+
+History, both ancient and modern, tells us that the condition of women
+is most degraded in those countries where Church and State are in
+closest affiliation (such as, Spain, Italy, Russia and Ireland), and
+most advanced in nations where the power of ecclesiasticism is markedly
+on the wane. It has been proved that, whatever progress woman has made
+in any department of effort, she has accomplished independent of, and
+in opposition to, the so-called inspired and infallible Word of God;
+and that the Bible has been of more injury to her than has any other
+book ever written in the history of the world.
+
+William Root Bliss, in his _Side Glimpses From the Colonial
+Meetinghouse_, tells us many startling truths concerning the Puritans,
+and reminds me of what Chauncey M. Depew said--that the _first_ thing
+the Puritans did, after they landed at Plymouth, was to fall on their
+knees, and the _second_ thing was to fall on the Aborigines.
+
+The business of trading in slaves was not immoral by the estimate of
+public opinion in Colonial times. A deacon of the church in Newport
+esteemed the slave trade, with its rum accessories, as home missionary
+work. It is said that on the first Sunday after the arrival of his
+slaves he was accustomed to offer thanks that an overruling Providence
+had been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of
+benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings of a Gospel dispensation.
+
+At a Bridgewater town meeting of the year Sixteen Hundred Seventy-six,
+a vote was called to see what should be done with the money that was
+made from selling the Indians.
+
+John Bacon of Barnstable directed in his will that his Indian slave
+Dinah be sold and the proceeds used "by my executors in buying Bibles."
+By men who sat in the Colonial meetinghouse, the first fugitive-slave
+law was formed. This law became a part of the Articles of Confederation
+between all the New England Colonies.
+
+The affinity between _rum_ and the religion of Colonial times was
+exemplified in the license granted John Vyall to keep a house of
+entertainment in Boston. He must keep it near the meetinghouse of the
+Second Church, where he extended his invitation to thirsty sinners who
+were going to hear John Mayo or Increase Mather preach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The importation of slaves began early. The first arrival at Boston
+was by the ship _Desire_, on February Twenty-sixth, Sixteen Hundred
+Thirty-seven, bringing negroes, tobacco and cotton from Barbados. She
+had sailed from Boston eleven months before, carrying Indian captives
+to the Bermudas to be sold as slaves, and thus she became noted as the
+first New England slave-ship.
+
+In time, slaves were brought to Boston direct from Africa.
+
+Advertisements of just-arrived negroes to be sold may be seen in the
+Boston _News Letter_ of the years Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six and
+Seventeen Hundred Twenty-seven. The pious Puritans did not hesitate to
+sell slaves on the auction-block. I find in the Boston _News Letter_
+of September Nineteenth, Seventeen Hundred Fifteen, a notice of an
+auction-sale at Newport, Rhode Island, of several Indians, men and
+boys, and a very likely negro man. They were treated in all respects as
+merchandise, and were rated with horses and cattle.
+
+Peter Faneuil, to whom Boston is indebted for its Cradle of Liberty,
+was deep in the business. In an inventory of the property of Parson
+Williams of Deerfield, in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine, his slaves
+were rated with his horses and cows. "Believe and be baptized" is all
+that was essential. I think many of them would have been improved by
+anchoring them out overnight.
+
+A negro preacher whom I knew came to me when I was in Florida, and
+said: "What shall I preach about tomorrow? I'se done preached myself
+'plumb out.' I'se worked on election sanctification and damnation
+predestination till I can't say another word to save my life."
+
+I said, "Preach a sermon on 'Thou shalt not steal' for a text."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that certainly _is_ a good text, but I am monstros
+'fraid it will produce a coolness in my congregation!"
+
+Doubtless it would produce a coolness in many a congregation today.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I want to talk a little about _law_ and its penalty. We want to
+consider the invariable laws of Nature. Let us look at it in the way in
+which we became acquainted with it--through experience.
+
+To the child, law is an educator; he plays with fire and is burned.
+Law and its penalty have done their work. A burnt child dreads the
+fire. On that point his education is complete. He cuts himself with a
+knife; again the law works. Do not play with edged tools is the lesson.
+And so, whenever he comes in contact with external objects, he learns
+something very definite from them; and if he has any sense, he soon
+conforms to the order which he sees in force all around him. He does
+what he can to act in such a way as not to run counter to Nature's
+laws; or, at least, Nature teaches him to do so by repeated suffering
+when he acts otherwise. The law thus far is all in favor of life,
+and is teaching the child to preserve it. He must eat not to starve;
+he must be clothed not to freeze; he must not be burned, or cut, or
+crushed. In one word, he must take care of himself, and be careful of
+external objects, or he must be hurt.
+
+But his education has another connection with law. If he has proper
+parents he learns that he can not lie, or steal, or do many other
+things without suffering a penalty. If he has no home education in
+this matter, the reform-school and the jail step in and take up the
+lesson.
+
+And so the law teaches him that his actions must be of a certain
+quality, both with respect to external Nature and his fellowmen, or
+that he must pay a penalty.
+
+Thus he comes to man's estate, and law has been to him an educator and
+a good one. He has learned that Nature's law means punishment every
+time it is violated, and that man's law, whatever it may attain to,
+_aims_ at the same object as Nature's law.
+
+But neither his education nor his contact with law ends with his
+youth. Hitherto he has obeyed blindly for fear of the penalty. He now
+obeys intelligently, and connected with the penalty to be incurred by
+disobedience is the reward to be obtained through obedience. He finds
+that every act, every thought, of his brings him in direct contact
+with law. He can not elude it by standing still, for no man can stand
+still. He must go forward, or backward. This is an inexorable law;
+with progress, improvement; without progress, what? Rest? Repose?
+No! Deterioration. No man can stand still in this universe for a day
+without losing something. The man who means to do anything in life must
+go forward; if he falters, another goes ahead; and then he learns that
+the penalty of faltering is failure.
+
+Nature works no special miracles in any one's favor. Nature works
+no miracles, anyway. The sun and the moon did _not_ stand still at
+Joshua's command!
+
+No riches and influence can buy exemption from Nature.
+
+Law says to the poor man who is dependent on his daily toil: "You have
+only yourself to rely upon. Take care of your health; be temperate,
+honest and industrious, for sickness, imprisonment, idleness, mean to
+you death."
+
+It says to the rich man: "Inherited wealth has exempted you from
+_daily_ labor of body, but it has not earned for you rest. Go to work;
+do something, or your mind and body will be enfeebled; your sympathies
+will disappear; you will become dry as the summer's dust; you will sink
+into a nonentity."
+
+The whole cry of Nature's law is onward and upward. Evolution is the
+word--there is no God about it. It is not alone the survival of the
+fittest--that is only a part of the process. It is the fittest of one
+generation becoming something better and higher for the next.
+
+It is the fashion now to say that the struggle for existence becomes
+yearly more fierce, but that is not so. The truth is that those who
+struggle become with each survival fitter to struggle, and that for
+which they struggle is placed one step forward. Men used to want
+thousands and hundreds of thousands; now, they want millions and
+hundreds of millions. They used to want general knowledge; now, they
+are all specialists, and cry out that life is too short. Steam used
+to content them; now, electricity does not satisfy them, and they are
+grasping at the possibilities of the mighty currents of air caused by
+the revolutions of the earth itself.
+
+The law of progress is not limited to the mind. The body shares in
+it. Men are stronger, larger, longer-lived than they have ever been.
+Even with the animals, finer, better breeds are constantly producing
+themselves under law.
+
+This law of the survival of the fittest and the elevation of the type
+of the fittest pronounced against slavery, and a nation paid the
+penalty in blood, as Spain has, and other nations will pay it. It has
+pronounced against the subjection of women, and let those who stand in
+the way, beware, lest some ruin crush them as it falls!
+
+The type of sympathy has become higher and tenderer. Sweet hands of
+mercy are now stretched down even to the brutes. Let those lovers of
+the past who can see no progress in the present, who would question
+this onward tendency, and the result of law, let them remember
+that they must run rapidly to keep from being overwhelmed by the
+_expansionists_.
+
+Nature's law teaches us that like begets like. You plant a grain of
+wheat, and you reap wheat. You breed Morgan stock and the foal is of
+Morgan blood. The child is the offspring of certain parents, and it
+inherits their blood. If parents choose to unfit themselves to be
+healthy parents, who shall be blamed?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shall gravitation cease as I go by? Teach children that no amount of
+so-called religion will compensate for rheumatism; that Christianity
+has nothing to do with morality; that "vicarious atonement" is a fraud,
+and a lie; that to be born well and strong is the highest birth; that
+to be honest and pay one's debts spells peace of mind; that the Bible
+is no more inspired than the dictionary; that _sin_ is a transgression
+of the laws of life, and that the blood of all the bulls and goats
+and lambs of ancient times, and the blood of Christ or any other man,
+never had, and never can have, the least effect in making a life what
+it would have been had it obeyed the laws of life. If you have marred
+your life, you must bear the consequences. If you have made a mistake,
+be more careful in the future. Let the thought that the past is
+irretrievable make you more careful in the present and for the future.
+
+And, above all, teach children that prayer is idiotic. There may be
+one God or twenty. I do not know or care. I am not afraid, and no
+priest or parson can make me believe that my title to a future life, if
+there be one, is defective. And the great and good man Thomas Paine,
+who wrote the _Age of Reason_, and said, "The world is my country, and
+to do good my religion," is a good enough god for me. And the great
+Ingersoll, who said, "I belong to the great Church that holds the world
+within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every
+race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed
+and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul," is
+in my opinion an excellent god--as good as any that ever lived, from
+Confucius to Christ. A friend of mine said to me, "Ingersoll should
+have been a Christian." I replied, "The dog-collar of Christianity did
+not belong on his neck: he preached the truth; he preferred that to the
+Bible. I can not imagine the great Ingersoll preaching from II Kings
+xiv: 35."
+
+  _When I was a child I heard very little about Christmas and nothing
+  about Lent and Easter. I was taught to be honest and truthful and
+  to pay one hundred cents on a dollar. In my opinion there is no
+  Bible extant so good as Ingersoll's Complete Works._
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER
+
+
+
+
+  Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear
+  believes--courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and
+  prays--courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats--courage
+  advances. Fear is barbarism--courage is civilization. Fear believes
+  in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion--courage
+  is science.
+
+  There are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. All
+  progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing
+  the laws of the ghosts.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER
+
+A LABOR OF FOLLY
+
+_From the Portsmouth "Times"_
+
+
+Our old friend, Marilla M. Ricker, of Dover, lifelong advocate of
+"woman's rights," zealous champion of "freethought," admirer of Bob
+Ingersoll, worshiper of Tom Paine, and collaborator of Elbert Hubbard,
+who fears neither God, man nor the Devil, because she does not believe
+particularly in any of them, is engaged in a labor of folly, in that
+she is fighting the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul.
+
+In the prosecution of her warfare she has gone into print and issued
+a pamphlet in which she takes issue, primarily, with one Elder E. A.
+Kenyon upon his proposition of a universal consciousness that "if a man
+die he shall live again," and even goes so far as to assert that the
+majority of mankind believe in annihilation. Moreover, she pronounces
+the doctrine of personal immortality "a most selfish and harmful one,"
+"pernicious in its results," and operating for the enslavement of
+mankind, filling the world with gloom and making of man a crawling
+coward.
+
+We invite no controversy with Marilla, and will have none. We concede
+her right to believe anything, or nothing, to say what she thinks,
+write what she pleases, get it printed where she may, and circulate
+it as she can; but our advice to the dear sister is to "let up" on
+this contention, wherein she is out-Ingersolling Ingersoll. He did not
+believe in immortality, but he did not deny it. He claimed that he did
+not know, and that no man could know it to be a fact; but he never
+sought to blot out hope. And the truth is that but for this hope of
+immortal existence, entertained by the vast majority of the race, in
+all lands and ages, life would not be worth living, and men and women
+everywhere would lie down and perish in despair. It is this hope, or
+faith, or consciousness--however we may express it--of life beyond
+the grave, or the immortality of the soul, that inspires mankind to
+all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for progress and
+development here. Without it there would be no incentive effort beyond
+that which impels the brute. Without it, in fact, man would be mere
+brute, and nothing else.
+
+That the horrid doctrines of Calvinism were dinned into Mrs. Ricker's
+ears in childhood, and the fear of eternal torment held up before her,
+instead of the infinite love of a God of Mercy and Justice, may have
+impelled her to repudiate all idea of God or Justice, or life to
+come; but she ought to be intelligent enough to sift the error from
+the truth and cling to the latter. If not, she should at least be
+willing to allow others to do so. She may repudiate the old Calvinism,
+or even Christianity itself. She may become a Mohammedan, a Buddhist,
+an Agnostic or an out-and-out "heathen" if she will. She may accept
+annihilation as the universal fate of humanity; but she should be
+willing to allow mankind in general its indulgence in that one "Great
+Hope," which has illumined with immortal splendor the darkest passages
+of human life, and sustains the soul of man and woman in the severest
+trials and conflicts of earth.
+
+
+THE REJOINDER
+
+(_From the Portsmouth "Times"_)
+
+I was amused when I read in the Portsmouth _Times_ an article from my
+friend Metcalf, entitled, A _Labor of Folly_. The genial Henry said
+I was a lifelong advocate of "woman's rights," which is true. And an
+admirer of Ingersoll. Could any one help admire that great and good
+man? And a worshiper of Thomas Paine. Worship is rather a strong word
+to apply to me, but I think the man who said, "The world is my country,
+and to do good my religion," and who did more than any other man to
+put the stars on our flag and to give that flag to the breeze, should
+be loved and respected.
+
+He, the aforesaid Henry, said I collaborated with Elbert Hubbard. I am
+proud of that, whether it is true or not.
+
+I consider Hubbard the most brilliant writer in this country.
+
+Henry also said I feared neither God, man nor the Devil, because I did
+not believe particularly in any of them. If he would add an "o" to
+God and make it good, take the "d" from devil and make it evil, then
+I would have something tangible to write about besides man, in whom I
+believe.
+
+Henry also said that I was engaged in a "labor of folly," fighting the
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
+
+I simply expressed my opinion on the subject. My friend Henry wrote me
+not long ago that there was no earthly need of a Freethought paper;
+that thought was as free as air always and everywhere. I take issue
+with him there, and I call his attention to the _Little Journey_ to
+the home of Copernicus--of January, Nineteen Hundred Five--by Elbert
+Hubbard. Copernicus was the founder of modern astronomy.
+
+If Henry will read his life he can see what freethought meant at that
+time. I also call his attention to Giordano Bruno. He can see what
+happened to him and how free thought was at that time. Henry said I
+could write what I pleased, and get it printed where I could.
+
+That was well added, for I could not in the year Nineteen Hundred Nine,
+in the city of Dover, New Hampshire, get my article on Immortality
+printed in the only paper in the city; so you see how freethought is up
+to date.
+
+I certainly "take issue" with Henry, "That the hope or consciousness
+of life beyond the grave, or immortality of the soul, inspires mankind
+to all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for progress and
+development here."
+
+Robert Ingersoll did not believe in immortality, but he was a great,
+tender-hearted man, full of kindness, full of generous impulses. No man
+ever loved the true, the good and the beautiful more than he. He would
+take the case of a poor man into court without pay; he would give a
+young reporter an interview when he could sell every word he spoke for
+a dollar; he would present the proceeds of a lecture to some worthy
+object as though he were throwing a nickel to an organ-grinder; and
+when there was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.
+
+I do not believe in individual immortality, but I do the best I can,
+pay one hundred cents on the dollar, and I am not afraid to die. I
+know thousands who believe as I do.
+
+John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed in the immortality
+of the soul--so do his followers. He also believed that sin was the
+cause of earthquakes, and the only way to stop them was to believe in
+the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't know much about seismology, but he
+certainly had faith, plus.
+
+John Calvin founded the Presbyterian Church; he believed in the
+immortality of the soul. So do his followers; but Calvin was a murderer.
+
+Henry, it is absurd to say that without hope of immortality we should
+be degraded to brutes; in my opinion it is not true. What we want is a
+religion that will pay debts; that will practise honesty in business
+life; that will treat employees with justice and consideration;
+that will render employers full and faithful work; that will keep
+bank-cashiers true, officeholders patriotic, and reliable citizens
+interested in the purity of politics (and the woman citizen will
+be)--such a religion is real, vital and effective. But a religion that
+embraces vicarious atonement, miraculous conception, regeneration by
+faith, baptism, individual immortality and other monkey business is, in
+my opinion, degrading, absurd and unworthy.
+
+Henry, you say you want no controversy with me. I enjoy controversy,
+but if you are averse to it I'll stop and we will unite in singing one
+stanza of that Christian hymn:
+
+    King David and King Solomon
+      Led merry, merry lives
+    With their many, many lady friends
+      And their many, many wives;
+    But when old age came o'er them
+      With its many, many qualms,
+    (It was said)
+    King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
+      And King David wrote the Psalms.
+
+But did they?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  Where religion is afraid of liberty, liberty should be afraid of
+  religion.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  So long as man believes that he has an immortal soul, he will fear
+  the future.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY GHOST
+
+
+
+
+  For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men
+  and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great
+  ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between
+  Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor,
+  to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this
+  world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle,
+  to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have
+  said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!"
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY GHOST
+
+
+Of all the weird, fanciful and fabulous stories appertaining to
+the gods and other pious frauds, that concerning the Holy Ghost
+ranks them all! Now listen to what the Bible has to say about
+that mythical personage--alias, the Holy Ghost. You will see that
+scarcely any two references to it agree in assigning it the same
+character or attributes. (It reminds me of what an old lady said at a
+prayer-meeting: "Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to me that there
+are no two of a mind here tonight, nor hardly one!")
+
+In John xiv: 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a person or personal
+God. In Luke iii: 22, the Holy Ghost changes and assumes the form of
+a dove. In Matthew xiii: 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit. In John
+i: 32, the Holy Ghost is presented as an inanimate senseless object.
+In I John v: 7, the Holy Ghost becomes a God--the third member of
+the Trinity. In Acts ii: 1, the Holy Ghost is averred to be a mighty
+rushing wind. In Acts x: 38, the Holy Ghost, we infer from its mode
+of application, is an ointment. In John xx: 22, the Holy Ghost is the
+breath, as we legitimately infer by its being breathed into the mouth
+of the recipient after the ancient Oriental custom. In Acts ii: 3, we
+learn the Holy Ghost "sat upon each of them." In Acts ii: 1, the Holy
+Ghost appears as cloven tongues of fire. In Luke ii: 26, the Holy Ghost
+is the author of a revelation or inspiration. In Mark i: 8, the Holy
+Ghost is a medium or element for baptism. In Acts xxviii: 25, the Holy
+Ghost appears with vocal organs and speaks. In Hebrews vi: 4, the Holy
+Ghost is dealt out or imparted by measure. In Luke iii: 22 the Holy
+Ghost appears with a tangible body. In Luke i: 5, we are taught that
+people are filled with the Holy Ghost. In Matthew xi: 15, the Holy Ghost
+falls upon the people as a ponderable substance. In Luke iv: 1, the Holy
+Ghost is a God within a God--Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.
+
+These are only a few quotations. There are many more, but we can all
+see what a multifarious personage, or rather _he_, _she_, or _it_ the
+Holy Ghost is.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember hearing much about the unpardonable sin against the Holy
+Ghost. The sin against the Holy Ghost consisted in resisting its
+operations in the second birth--that is, the regeneration of the heart
+or soul by the Holy Ghost. And it was considered unpardonable simply
+because as the pardoning and cleansing process consisted in, or was at
+least always accompanied with, baptism by water, in which operation
+the Holy Ghost was the agent in effecting the "new birth," therefore,
+when the ministrations or operations of this indispensable agent were
+resisted or rejected, there was no channel, no means, no possible mode
+left for the sinner to find a renewed acceptance with God.
+
+When a person sinned against the Father or the Son, he could find a
+door of forgiveness through the baptizing processes, spiritual or
+elementary, of the Holy Ghost. But an offense committed against this
+third limb of the Godhead had the effect of closing and barring the
+door so that there could be no forgiveness, either in this life or in
+that which is to come.
+
+To sin against the Holy Ghost was to tear down the scaffold by which
+the door of Heaven was to be reached. This _sin_ against the Holy Ghost
+has caused thousands of the disciples of the Christian faith the most
+agonizing hours of alarm and despair.
+
+It has always been my opinion that many people who thought they had
+sinned against the Holy Ghost simply had dyspepsia.
+
+  _If people should deceive in other matters as the priests, parsons
+  and teachers do in religion, they would not escape arrest._
+
+
+
+
+  The destruction of religions and superstition means the upbuilding
+  of charity and ethics.--_Ralph W. Chainey._
+
+  Superstition is nothing but a misplaced fear of some fancied
+  supernatural phantasm of divinity.
+
+
+
+
+HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?
+
+
+
+
+  All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce,
+  climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention,
+  discovery, art and science. The Church has been the enemy of
+  progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man
+  from thinking for himself. To prevent thought is to prevent all
+  advancement except in the direction of faith.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?
+
+
+I receive many letters from various people telling me that Christ is
+mine if I will only take him. I am always amused at the solicitations
+of these people and feel as President Taft did when Peary "laid the
+Pole" at his feet. Taft replied he had no idea what he should do with
+it. I should not know what to do with Christ if I took him.
+
+What can they mean by taking Christ? The word Christ is used to
+designate a certain individual who died, if he ever lived, nearly two
+thousand years ago. Now to take this person we should have to take
+him from the earth where he was buried. I am at a loss to comprehend
+what Christians mean when they offer Christ to any one. What right has
+an individual today to offer another a person who has been dead two
+thousand years? I fail to see any sense in such an offer.
+
+Certain men and women go about the world asking people to come to
+Christ, to accept Christ. What do they mean--do they know?
+
+In my opinion the supreme dogma of Christianity is the divinity of
+Jesus. If Jesus was a man, all that was related of his divine acts
+in the four Gospels is false. How would a person like the Nazarene
+peasant be accepted today were he to play the part of a god?
+
+Suppose a person who had lived in our neighborhood should come to us
+and say, "I am God, and I want you to help me save the world; quit your
+work and follow me." What would you think of him? Would any one pay
+the least attention to him, except to think he was insane and have him
+placed in an asylum for safety?
+
+The people who are preaching the divinity of Jesus know nothing about
+him except what they read in a book that was written by unknown
+authors. Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology. He is the only
+solution of the divine problem that Christianity has to offer. Is
+not the direction of the world's most rational thought away from the
+Christian notion of Jesus? In my opinion it is.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us look at the once famous stronghold of New England Orthodoxy, the
+Andover Theological Seminary, which was chartered on June Nineteenth,
+Eighteen Hundred Seven, and opened for instruction on September
+Twenty-eighth, Eighteen Hundred Eight. I think it was about seven years
+ago that it was transferred to Cambridge and became a part of Harvard
+University. At that time the school consisted of seven instructors,
+twelve students and a library of sixty-five thousand books, with an
+endowment of eight hundred fifty thousand dollars in productive funds
+and an annual income of thirty-five thousand dollars.
+
+It has been said that the highways were scoured every Summer for
+students, and enticing scholarships held out, but to no avail. No
+students materialized.
+
+Why is this? In my opinion it is the rising generation's
+dissatisfaction with traditional theology; they have outgrown it.
+Ingersoll said that once in five years the President of the Seminary
+summoned his professors before him to make oath that they had learned
+absolutely nothing during the preceding five years and would not learn
+anything for the next five years. And that promise was not subject to
+recall.
+
+But even Andover couldn't remain in that condition. In Eighteen Hundred
+Eighty-six it announced its new system of "progressive orthodoxy." This
+created a division between the Old School and the New, and marked the
+beginning of the end of Andover; and after much litigation it consented
+to be "gathered in" by Harvard or "swallowed," or perhaps they would
+say "merged."
+
+They have now a new building located upon land adjacent to that of
+Harvard University, and the last account from the "Great Seminary" was
+that they had twenty-four pupils. The library of the Seminary and
+that of the Harvard Divinity School have been combined and are housed
+together in Bartlett Hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The defenders of the Gospel of Christ don't seem to be increasing;
+on the contrary, there seems to be great depression in matters
+ecclesiastical these days, even in puritanical New England. It
+plainly shows that the young men of the present day are not anxious
+to wear the "Dog-Collar of Christianity," and as far as I've heard no
+Christian arose to remark that the morals of the "Reverend" Clarence
+Richeson were contaminated by reading the words of Thomas Paine, Robert
+Ingersoll, Elbert Hubbard or Lemuel K. Washburn. The Reverend Clarence
+seemed to be a product of the Christian Bible, and talked to the last
+of his God and his Bible.
+
+What is left of Christianity? Who wrote the Christian Bible? The
+smallest child in a Sunday School would answer the question by saying
+"God," but the most learned person on the globe would say, "I do
+not know." It is being admitted by thinking persons that answers to
+religious questions possess nothing more than a religious value. When
+a person is graduated from a Sunday School he is wiser than he will be
+after he has lived forty years, provided he learns anything by living.
+
+"God" is a term used to express what man does not know, but it does
+not seem to me necessary to assign to the Bible divine authorship, as
+it can be accounted for on other grounds. It is certain that men and
+women have written books. It is not certain that there is a God and,
+if so, that he has written a book. If man could write the Bible, there
+seems to be no need for God to do so. It is a fact that no one knows
+who wrote a word of the Bible, and yet it will require many more years
+to kill the foolish superstition that God inspired certain men to write
+this book.
+
+Nothing grows slower than truth, and nothing faster than superstition.
+Falsehood was never known to commit suicide. Unknown men wrote the
+Christian Bible, not an unknown God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not many years ago I saw that a teacher in the Holyoke (Massachusetts)
+High School was dismissed for saying that Jesus was one of a family of
+ten. Jesus is a word that paralyzes the mental faculties. As to the
+accuracy of the statement we have only the Gospels for authority. At
+any rate, if Matthew and Mark are reliable he had four brothers and
+sisters.
+
+In Matthew xiii: 54 we read: "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not
+his mother called Mary, and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon,
+and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"
+
+Mark confirms Matthew about the size of Mary's family.
+
+I tried to learn something concerning this case, but silence a yard
+wide lay all about it. I fancy the teacher was silenced in some way.
+Leastwise I could learn nothing.
+
+It doesn't take much to silence a teacher, or it didn't fifty years
+ago, especially if she were dependent upon teaching for her bread and
+butter, which I was.
+
+I, at one time, tried to substitute one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's books
+to be read in school in the morning instead of the Christian Bible. I
+was informed by one of the committee that the Bible must be read every
+morning and the Ten Commandments repeated. The next morning I selected
+the "truthful" and startling account of Jonah whilst he was sojourning
+at the Submarine Hotel. I at that time made up my mind that if I were
+ever financially independent I'd say what I thought concerning the
+Christian religion, and no one doubts that I've done so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology. It can be but a few years
+at most when faith in Jesus as God will be the mark of intellectual
+stupidity. It seems to me that mankind will soon be sensible enough to
+dismiss this dogma to eternal oblivion.
+
+It is the last relic of heathen mythology that clings to modern
+civilization. The Christian church is put to its utmost ingenuity to
+hide the absurdity in this dogma.
+
+The dogma of the divinity of Jesus rests upon fictitious events, and
+hence its fate is sealed.
+
+Many persons regard any one that calls Jesus a man as a blasphemer.
+There is a great amount of pious nonsense in the world, and there
+is more connected with Jesus than with any other character whom
+Christendom honors.
+
+The reverence paid to Jesus by Christians is the homage of idolatry.
+
+The first thing for people to do is to get rid of the silly notion that
+there is anything holy in the name of Jesus any more than in the name
+of Hercules, Bacchus or Adonis. All the gods of the past are myths to
+the present. Jesus stands in the way of the world's advancement. The
+path of civilization is over his grave. The mind has been fettered by
+worship of this myth. We want to get rid of the Christian superstition.
+
+  _Isn't it astonishing that many children should be taught about the
+  "resurrection" before they can spell cat?_
+
+
+
+
+  Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there
+  is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty
+  born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of
+  theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance.
+  Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master,
+  and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.
+
+  When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain
+  thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to
+  insure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession.
+  He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers
+  and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people
+  who will be glorified and people who will be damned.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+
+
+
+
+  We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no devils.--_Robert
+  Ingersoll._
+
+  The world is my country and to do good is my religion.--_Thomas
+  Paine._
+
+  The presence of a hypocrite is a sure indication that there is a
+  Bible and a prayer-book not very far away.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+
+
+It is difficult to sketch this many-sided man. He was full of pity and
+sympathy for the poor and unfortunate. He was great enough to applaud
+the good, and good enough to forgive the erring. He could charm a child
+with his speech, or sway thousands by his magic words. He was the
+supreme philosopher of commonsense.
+
+He knew how to answer a fool, but he never forgot to be courteous to
+an opponent. He would take the case of a poor man into court without
+pay; he would give a young reporter an interview when he could sell
+every word he spoke for a dollar; he would present the proceeds of a
+lecture to some worthy object as though he were throwing a nickel to
+an organ-grinder; he would lead a reform with a dozen workers if he
+believed them in the right, just as if he had a million followers;
+and where there was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.
+Ingersoll was the truest American that America ever bore.
+
+He was the orator of her rivers and mountains, of her hills and dales,
+of her forests and flowers, of her struggles and victories, of her
+free institutions, of her Stars and Stripes--the orator of the home,
+of wife and child, of love and liberty. The head, heart and hand of
+Ingersoll were perfectly united and worked together. As he thought
+he acted; when he had anything to say, he said it aloud. He was not
+ashamed of his thoughts. He did not hide or go around the corner, or
+beat about the bush. He spoke honestly what he saw, what he thought,
+what he knew.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT
+
+
+
+
+  The entire New Testament is the work of Catholic
+  Churchmen.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  God is not a fact; nothing that can be seen, heard or felt; nothing
+  that can be found out or in. God is a verbal content.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT
+
+
+The best thing Mark Twain ever said was, "I should like to see the
+ballot in the hands of every woman." Freethinkers should also remember
+him with gratitude; he said enough from our point of view to warrant
+that. "Give me my glasses," were his last words. It will be but a short
+time before some pious evangelical hypocrite will add, "I want to
+read my Bible!" They are already writing about his "highest sphere of
+thought," namely, his religious thought.
+
+I remember when a Presbyterian deacon said of him, "I would rather
+bury a daughter of mine than have her marry such a fellow." The church
+people are all anxious to avoid their own history concerning Mark Twain
+and many other people.
+
+The Reverend Doctor Twitchell said at Mark's funeral that a simple soul
+had gone trustingly to the beyond. He didn't mention where the beyond
+was, and he prayed to the Christian God that courage in the faith of
+immortality be given to those who mourn.
+
+Through all these Christian notices runs an undercurrent that Mark
+Twain was only secondarily a humorist. I knew him somewhat in the old
+days and have heard him lecture. He certainly laughed superstition from
+the minds of thousands, and the most of his books bear witness to his
+broad and liberal views.
+
+The Reverend Doctor Van Dyke mixed much religious sophistry with
+his remarks at the funeral of Twain, but the reverend doctor is a
+theological acrobat.
+
+He preached once on the Atonement, and said there are a thousand
+true doctrines of the Atonement, which is saying substantially that
+no doctrine specifically is true--for instance, the doctrine of the
+Westminster Confession, to which Van Dyke pledged loyalty when he
+was ordained a Presbyterian minister. He at that time ripped up the
+Westminster settlement, and reopened the whole question for discussion.
+
+Any preacher who believes in the geology of Moses, the astronomy of
+Joshua, and the mathematics of the Trinity, must do an immense amount
+of "side-stepping."
+
+  _Christianity is only a bubble of superstition, and Jesus is
+  reduced to a toy god of the Sunday School._
+
+
+
+
+AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE ON RELIGION
+
+
+
+
+  Religion is inherited fear.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  In my opinion a steeple is no more to be excluded from taxation
+  than a smokestack.
+
+  Faith is the cross on which man crucifies his liberty.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE
+
+
+We are living in the Twentieth Century of what is called the Christian
+Era, and we have not outgrown the superstitions of the First Century.
+And worse than this, we have not had the courage to abandon the
+fictions of the Book of Genesis for the truths of modern science. Just
+what the world is afraid of, that it fears to trust its senses, its
+reason, its knowledge, surpasses my understanding.
+
+One of the first things that men and women should learn is, that there
+is nothing in the universe to be afraid of; that all the malignant
+deities are dead; that the ancient gods that presided over the destiny
+of earth and of earthly things have all fallen from the sky; that in
+the realm of Nature everything is natural, and that no man is pursued
+by a god of wrath and vengeance who would punish him for his unbelief.
+Every god that can not hear the truth without getting mad should be
+dethroned. Every priest who can not join in singing the songs of
+civilization should be warned to look out for the engine while the bell
+rings.
+
+This world of ours is a world to be enjoyed, but it can not be enjoyed
+if we fear every manifestation of Nature and if we put a cruel god
+behind every cloud.
+
+Let us live without fear, without superstition, without religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is nothing above, beneath or around you that cares whether you
+are a Christian or an unbeliever. The real reason why a priest hates an
+unbeliever is that he can not get a dollar out of him. He damns those
+who know better than to swallow his say-sos. But it still remains a
+fact that an infidel can raise as many bushels of potatoes to the acre
+as can the Roman Catholic. The sun will not wrong an honest man. The
+stars will not punish a single human being for telling the truth. The
+sky will not persecute a person who gives his thoughts, his talents,
+his time, to finding ways to help mankind.
+
+Everything that man believes in that can not be found, that can not be
+proved, that can not stand the test of commonsense: everything that
+contradicts Nature, that is opposed to established facts, that is
+contrary to the laws of the universe, must be given up.
+
+We must have a new man: the man born of woman, not the man made by
+God; the man who has been growing better ever since his advent on
+earth, not the man who has been growing worse; the man who started
+with nothing and has conquered the earth, the sea and the air; not
+the man who began perfect and has not got halfway back; the man who
+made the telescope, the steam-engine, the power-loom, the telephone and
+the wireless telegraph; not the man who made the thumbscrew, the rack,
+the ducking-stool and the stocks; the man who has carried the torch
+of liberty to enlighten the world, not the man who has carried the
+crucifix to enslave mankind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is quite common to be told what Moses said or what Jesus said. Now,
+if all that these two Hebrew gentlemen (who in my opinion never lived)
+said, is preserved in the Bible, I appeal from what they said to those
+who know more. I assert that Moses said a lot of stuff that isn't so,
+and a lot more that never was so, and that all that Jesus is said to
+have said is practically worthless to the world today; that there is
+not in all of his utterances a single word that will help man to get a
+living, a single word that will aid man in his struggle for knowledge;
+that there is not a statement of a single scientific fact, or a plea
+for human liberty in all his language. He told his generation nothing
+that was not already known, except a mess of superstitious nonsense
+about angels and devils, heavens and hells. His so-called gospel of
+salvation was to follow him, and he landed on a cross.
+
+The truth is this: the world has outgrown Moses and Jesus. It does
+not take commands from either. This age believes in work, not worship;
+in deeds, not prayers; in men, not monks; in liberty, not in pious
+obedience; in human rights, not in submission; in knowledge, not in
+revelation.
+
+For hundreds of years man was bound by a religious faith, and the
+priest was his cruel master. He dared not doubt; he dared not rebel;
+he dared not dream of freedom; but there came a time when religious
+tyranny could no longer be borne. Then Mankind cried out to the Church:
+Give back man's brain to man; restore to him the mind you have robbed
+him of; take from his head and heart the paralyzing fear that makes him
+a coward and a slave, and leave to him the liberty with which Nature
+dowered him, that his mind may discover and preserve those mighty
+thoughts which make man brave, honest, free and happy.
+
+That cry was heard far. It was heard by glad ears, and liberty sprang
+from the ground like the warriors from the fabled dragon-teeth of
+Cadmus. The war between liberty and tyranny, between fact and fable,
+between truth and falsehood, between man and priest, was on, and for
+centuries this war has raged, nor is it yet over. Freedom still lies
+bleeding, but victory for the right will sooner or later be won.
+
+That victory will not be complete until every man will dare to say:
+Let come what will come, no man, be he priest, minister or judge, shall
+sit upon the throne of my mind, and decide for me what is right, true
+or good. I am my own master, my own teacher, my own guide. I will keep
+my reason free from control and will never surrender my own convictions
+to the dictates of another.
+
+Nature has made every man commander of his own destiny.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we are yet victims of ecclesiastical villainy. The priest is still
+the worst enemy of mankind. His church is like that monster of fiction
+which lived on little children. In the name of the children I protest
+against the action of the Church in stealing their tender brains, in
+making them slaves of superstition before they are old enough to know
+to what they are doomed.
+
+The age of consent to a religious faith should be determined by law,
+if necessary. Today any boy or girl may be the victim of a designing
+priest or clergyman, or of a designing religious system.
+
+No person under eighteen years of age should be allowed to join a
+church or consent to a statement of faith. Mental purity should be
+guarded and protected as well as physical purity.
+
+While the Church is powerful in numbers and while its religion is
+supported by wealth and fashion, the world is becoming more and more
+emancipated from its pernicious influence. The light that truth gives
+is still ahead of us, but _it is there_, and some day the world will
+grow warmer under its rays and men become better and kinder to one
+another.
+
+A hundred years ago the God worshiped in orthodox churches went about
+drowning little boys and girls who went skating on Sundays. Those were
+the "good old days" when men and women had religion for breakfast,
+dinner and supper, and took it to bed with them. It takes a long time
+to get such a horrible religion out of the system.
+
+Men and women still have a mean faith, a faith which can see others
+damned with satisfaction if they can only be saved. Nothing but a mean
+religion could make men and women as mean as that. I would rather
+starve than preach the doctrine of endless pain for a human being--or
+even for a dog. I believe that this world is hard and dark and cruel
+enough without borrowing suffering from another world to make darker
+and harder the road of life and add torture to the nights of pain and
+misery.
+
+A church must be sunk pretty low when it lives on the fears and tears
+of mankind; but what lower depths of degradation does it sound when it
+can deliberately create fears and tears that it may live and thrive
+in its vile and cruel business! A human being without pity should be
+shunned and despised; but a human being who can fill the heart with
+terror should not be allowed in a civilized community.
+
+The mind today wants to get out into the open, into the free daylight,
+wants to walk the earth, look at the stars and sky, feel the warmth of
+the sun and smell the odor of the ground; it has become tired of being
+shut up in a faith, in a creed, in a church; tired of being kept in
+the darkness of the past, in the tomb of dead thoughts, in the moldy
+caskets of unreal things, and in the dungeon of fear.
+
+The mind is striving to break the chains of the priest and be free from
+the bonds of the Church.
+
+You can not have men free where the priest demands and claims their
+obedience. The greatest menace to our national institutions is the
+power that controls men; that controls their thoughts, their actions
+and their destinies. Liberty can survive only where men are free:
+free to think, free to read, free to speak and free to act. The mind
+must not be bound by any vow of obedience. One man, no matter what
+his office, what his position, what his rank, has no right to compel
+another's obedience. This is the worst oppression on earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What is needed in this country is more men who dare think and speak
+for themselves; who dare belong to no church; who dare work for the
+right as they see it, and speak the truth as they understand it; who
+dare live their own lives independent of fashion's demands or society's
+usages; who dare put liberty above conformity, and who dare defy
+customs, law and religion in their zeal to help their fellow-beings.
+
+There is more than one liberty--more than the liberty to do right--that
+is partly won for every civilized being. There is another liberty that
+is dangerous and that persists even where civilization exists--the
+liberty to take another's liberty from him. This liberty is usually
+taken from another in the name of God and what is called holy; but
+there is nothing on earth so holy as liberty, and he who takes it from
+another robs him of the dearest right possessed by man. Binding a human
+being with the chains of faith before that being is old enough to judge
+whether the faith is reasonable or true is the assassination of freedom.
+
+The greatest danger which confronts our nation today is not political
+but religious, and the preservation of our free institutions does not
+depend upon our army and navy, but upon the emancipation of the human
+mind from ecclesiastical slavery. As Thomas Paine well said, "Spiritual
+freedom is the root of political liberty." You can not have free
+schools, free speech and a free press where the mind is not free.
+
+There is too much faith in this country and too little sense. Men have
+given up about everything they possess to be saved; but it is more
+necessary, and more commendable in the workingmen of this nation, to
+save their dollars than to save their souls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A subject that needs to be investigated quite as much as, if not more
+than, the high cost of living is the high cost of worship. There may be
+some justice in the criticism of the price of meats. We must remember,
+however, that we do get something for our money when we buy meat, but
+let us not forget that we get absolutely nothing for the money spent
+for worship. Money given to the Church is lost to the world. It is
+not used to improve homes; to help the poor and needy; to alleviate
+suffering; to bring hope to the sick or to give a few comforts to old
+age. It goes into the pocket of ecclesiastical greed.
+
+This country just at present is suffering from those twin curses of
+humanity--religion and Bull-Mooseism. The priest and Bull-Mooseism
+are the two worst trouble-makers in this country. To get rid of this
+precious pair of knaves would be to bring peace on earth and hasten the
+dawn.
+
+I don't know which is the bigger knave, the priest or the Bull-Mooser,
+but I do know that the priest is engaged in the meaner business of the
+two.
+
+When a man tries to sell me a mouse-trap to catch elephants, I am
+suspicious of his mental sanity; and when a man tells me that eternal
+happiness can be won by enlisting in his salvation army, I question
+his moral sanity. I know that religion is offered at cut rates, but
+there is no discount on morality. You can not have the reward of good
+behavior unless you behave. You may save your soul by saying, "I
+believe," but you have to _do_ something to save your body.
+
+There is too much of this "believe-in-me" business. You don't want to
+believe in any one you know nothing about. The faith of a little child
+in its parents is beautiful, but the faith of a grown-up man in a
+priest is idiotic. Faith has ruined more than it has saved. With faith
+goes obedience, and he or she who obeys is lost.
+
+There is no honest call today to believe, because there is opportunity
+to know. Faith is hatched in the nest of imposition. He who yields
+obedience is a fool, and he who demands it is a scoundrel.
+
+In this age, as in the past, a lie made "holy" is allowed to
+assassinate the truth. Nothing is cursing this nation; nothing is
+cursing human life; nothing is cursing honest effort and brave striving
+so much as what is called holiness. It is holy to believe all you are
+told; holy to wear the robes of hypocrisy; holy to rob the poor in the
+name of God, and holy to put the poison of faith to the lips of a
+child. It is holy to repudiate Nature and make a lie of your body, your
+mind, your life. To purify the dwelling-place of man, it is necessary
+to drive from the earth everything that religion has made holy.
+
+The only really sacred things were holy before a church was ever built,
+before there was a priest on the globe.
+
+Human love and the home which human love built for its offspring were
+the first holy things which men and women knew, and it is this human
+love of ours which is holier than mosque, temple or church; holier than
+priestly robe or ecclesiastical rite; holier by far than all the holy
+things of faith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Church has always lived by robbing the home; the priest has always
+lived on the wages of the toiler. The gods of religion have never done
+aught to lighten the heavy load on the shoulders of labor. The priest
+has said to mankind that his Lord left this consolation to the world:
+"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give
+you rest."
+
+What the priest really means is this: Come unto me and I will do the
+rest; and by the time he has done it, there is nothing of manhood left.
+
+The priest also teaches that his Lord and Master said, "Ask and ye
+shall receive," and adds, "The Lord will provide." How many poor
+wretches have believed those words; but their outstretched hands
+withered away day by day, and at last dropped empty by their sides.
+There they lay white and cold, holding not the bread they fondly
+expected, but holding the hand of death.
+
+It may be pious and it may be beautiful to say, "The Lord will
+provide," but it is a lie just the same. When, the other day, the
+bodies of a mother and her two children were being carried to the
+grave with the words, "starved to death," written on their faces, but
+not written on their caskets, it was a sufficient refutation of the
+religious teaching that "The Lord will provide." It is the plain,
+unvarnished truth that the Lord will _not_ even provide the coffin for
+the poor victim of such a false, deceptive, religious faith.
+
+In olden times it was customary for the Church to say, God's light
+lights the world. Not so today. God's light has gone out. It is man's
+light that lights the world and the Church too. Our enlightenment is
+human, not divine. No altar of religion burns with the fire of truth.
+Science carries the torch of knowledge: liberty is the way and truth is
+the goal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On our earth gods no longer make their homes. It was not safe for them
+to live any more. Their sons may once have married the daughters of
+men, but they can not get a license to do so today. Parents will not
+stand for it.
+
+So the gods have gone, bag and baggage. Where they have gone, no one
+knows. The skies give no sign that they are hiding up there. The
+telescope has found _seventy million stars, but not one god_.
+
+It is time for the pulpit to stop repeating the old superstitions about
+God and about what he has done for man. He has never done any more
+for man than he is doing today; never spoken to man any more than he
+is speaking today; never revealed himself to anybody any more than he
+stands revealed to you and me and to every human being everywhere.
+
+Every word that ever came from the mouth of God man put in his mouth,
+and every book revealed by God was written by man.
+
+Half the work of man for the next one hundred years will be to kill the
+lies told about what God has done.
+
+Whether there is in all the vast universe a higher and nobler being
+than man, I don't know. Whether there is in all the vast universe a
+better place for man to live than on this earth, I don't know. And no
+one knows any more about these matters than I do.
+
+We have found out much that is not so; now we want to find out all
+we can that is so. And it is of no use to go to the Church to learn
+anything. The Church is only a place where falsehoods are kept in cold
+storage. The man who thinks and studies is the man who is helping the
+world most, not the man who preaches and prays. To find the truth one
+needs to get as far from the Church as possible.
+
+Christians of all denominations have lots of pity for the man without
+a church. Let me assure these persons that the man without a church
+doesn't want one. As a rule, he is satisfied with what he has. He
+has a home, which is better than a church. If those persons who are
+pitying men and women for not having a church would, instead, pity
+the man without a home, and pity him enough to help him get one, they
+would show much better sense and manifest a truer sympathy with their
+fellow-beings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I can not see any good in painting a thing white that is black, or
+calling a thing beautiful that is ugly. There are persons who talk as
+though they believed that a Northeast storm was sunshine. I am not made
+that way. I am as ready and as willing as anybody to acknowledge the
+good in Nature, or the good in life, but I do not believe in lying, in
+saying that wrong is right, or that suffering is to be enjoyed. There
+are lots of hard things in our life, and it does not alter facts to
+call them by some other name. A man dying with a cancer can not be made
+to believe that he is having a good time.
+
+The most that any man can do who goes through this earthly existence
+is to use his fellow-mortals right and square; to give them an honest
+day's work when he works for them and an honest day's pay when he hires
+them; to say nothing to hurt them and everything he can to assist them;
+to help them out of trouble and not get them into trouble. If one does
+this, and does no more than this, he has done what beats every religion
+on earth.
+
+We have got to deal with men and women as they are and where they are.
+The man who is natural; the man who has not been made a fool of by a
+priest or parson; the man who has not swapped his commonsense for a
+foolish belief; the man who has not had his mind stuffed with religious
+dope, knows that this life on earth is the important life, and that it
+is a higher work to determine his fate here than anywhere else.
+
+There is not a person living who would not be well and strong and
+happy here rather than hereafter. I would rather have the power to
+make every cripple straight and whole; every poor, unfortunate man
+and woman prosperous and contented; every sick person well, every
+bad person good, and every slave to vice master of his appetite and
+passions, in this life on earth, than to save the human wrecks, the
+human unfortunates, the human victims of vice and crime, for another
+life somewhere else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What men and women want is happiness, not Heaven. They want a good
+home on this globe, not a loafing-place in Abraham's bosom. They want
+the opportunity to enjoy the good things of this life, not the promise
+that they will hear the angels sing. They want better wages for their
+work, better treatment from their employers, and better things to
+eat and drink and wear. They want better things here, not hereafter.
+They want to be happy while they are living on earth, not have the
+assurance of happiness after they are dead. If I ever attempt to write
+my creed, I shall say: I believe in so much that I can hardly expect to
+express all of my faith in one statement. I am all the time believing
+in something new. But there is one thing that I most heartily believe
+in now and have believed in ever since I was a child, and that is,
+SUNSHINE--external and internal and eternal sunshine.
+
+Sunshine is the joy of the universe, and joy is the sunshine of the
+human heart. Let us be bright and cheerful. Let us be happy. Let us
+give to the world the sunshine of our hearts.
+
+  _A male trinity is repulsive; Father, Mother and Child is the
+  sacred triad. The Christian trinity is a monster._
+
+
+
+
+DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY
+
+
+
+
+  Nature has no need of a Holy Ghost.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  All progress has been due to the Devil. He was the first
+  investigator.--_Ingersoll._
+
+  God takes care of the weed. Man must take care of the corn.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY
+
+
+There is a great deal of exaggerated rhetoric employed in praising what
+is called "Christian Morality." I have examined with considerable care
+everything that may justly come within the meaning of this expression,
+and I am bound to say, out of respect for the truth, that such morality
+does not deserve praise and can not be praised by the honest lips of an
+honest person.
+
+I am perfectly aware that I have made a statement which challenges the
+sincerity of the Christian pulpit, but every one knows that there is
+not a minister in Christendom whose practise agrees with his preaching.
+
+While it is common to hear a clergyman in pious ecstasy exhaust the
+vocabulary of laudation in his praises of the beautiful morals of the
+"Sermon on the Mount," it is exceedingly rare to see one of these
+parsons sacrifice his commonsense to the nonsense of Jesus.
+
+We are learning that the theological morality of the Christian faith is
+not the right kind of morality to make manhood and womanhood. The great
+weakness of Christian morality is this: It depends upon the Christian
+idea of Jesus, and when the world has outgrown the superstition about
+this person, all of his moral precepts will lose their value and their
+splendor.
+
+Men and women of any intellectual penetration know that the New
+Testament story is founded upon unreliable tradition; that its heart is
+a myth.
+
+Where men live independent of the foolish faith of the Gospels, there
+is a character of self-reliance which towers like a mountain-peak
+above the dead level of Christian endeavor. The person who accepts the
+Christian theology is no more in sympathy with the best thought of the
+age than is the man who wanders about the streets, begging his food and
+sleeping wherever he can, in harmony with the highest comforts of our
+civilization.
+
+There is a nobler purpose in a train of cars carrying grain and produce
+across the continent than in a conference of clergymen trying to keep
+alive a theology which teaches that God was born of a Jewish maiden
+who lived and died in Palestine, and devising ways to make the people
+believe the ridiculous superstition.
+
+Truth is born where men are allowed to think and speak their thoughts.
+Error can not be maintained where man is permitted to ask questions.
+The only way to preserve Christianity is to put it in a tin can and
+have it hermetically sealed.
+
+We are getting a new examination of the universe as a basis for our
+philosophy. The telescope has afforded man visions far beyond the
+seventh heaven of the Apocalypse. The genesis of things is found to lie
+millions of years back of the Genesis of the Bible. The chaos out of
+which this world was made has been discovered to be a previous state of
+existence.
+
+Science is laying the new foundation for our faith, and knowledge is
+building the new temple of the mind.
+
+Men and women everywhere are stating their opinions, and the world
+recognizes that there is to be a religious controversy upon this earth
+which will shake to its base everything that is not true. Not one
+stone of falsehood will be left standing upon another. Every dogma of
+superstition must find a grave, and truth alone be reverenced by man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The world has taken a step forward of Christianity, and in its march of
+advancement has left behind the Christian God, the Christian Savior,
+the Christian Bible, and the Christian Faith. But the world will not
+stop here. It must go further. The question which the human mind wants
+answered today is this: Is the decay of Christian theology to be
+followed by the decay of Christian morality?
+
+I think that it is, and I also think that this morality is about as
+near dead now as it can be.
+
+It is true that the author of this morality is painted in divine colors
+for human adoration Sunday after Sunday, and that his other-world
+ethics are inculcated by the pulpit; but beyond these attempts to
+give the peculiar moral teachings of Jesus the show of life, there is
+absolutely no sign of them in the world of man.
+
+The morality of the Christian system is not designed for humanity in
+its present condition, nor does it possess the elements necessary
+to make man into the image of any higher virtue. It is, in fact, an
+unreal, unnatural morality which Jesus taught, and the notion that men
+and women do not practise it because it is too far above them, depends
+upon an estimate of this morality which we are not willing to allow.
+
+I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. I want to say that
+the general moral duties of man, as they have been taught for ages by
+teachers of every race and of every religion, are not Christian, and
+that Christian ethics are found in the code of moral duties taught by
+Jesus _which are different from the recognized standard of morality
+adopted by mankind generally_. Christian morals are Christian _only
+wherein they differ from all other morals_.
+
+It is because they are peculiar to Christianity that they are
+Christian.
+
+Because I do not believe in Christianity--in the Christian theology and
+in Christian morals--I do not wish it said that I do not believe in
+morality, for I do. I believe that man can be good and true and that he
+can do right, and I believe that he ought to do right.
+
+I do not say that every one can reach the same moral altitude. I do
+not even say that every individual can be good and true. Some persons
+do not seem to be morally adjusted. I think, however, that we do not
+trespass beyond the domain of truth when we predicate the power of man
+to be moral.
+
+The notion that man can not be good has been the apology of half the
+criminals of the world. It is the creed of all crime. If we affirm the
+idea of human depravity, we may as well erase our statutes, for, if man
+can not be good, it is the height of folly to expect him to be so.
+
+The healthy faith of man is faith _in_ man.
+
+The theology which has been preached for the past few centuries is
+not calculated to make men moral. Those ministers who have shouted
+themselves hoarse for the salvation of the soul, and who have made no
+account of man's behavior in their scheme to save the race, are the
+ones who have rubbed humanity in the dirt and undermined the moral
+foundations of the world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every ethical principle that supports our social structure is
+independent of ecclesiastical relations, and it is not essential that
+we recognize any theology in order to comprehend the necessity of moral
+obedience.
+
+There is no sympathy between right, truth and justice, and the
+"Apostles' Creed." We may go so far as to say that the attempt to
+establish a perpetual union between Christianity and morality would
+result in an absolute divorce of these two forces.
+
+I wish to make it plain beyond a question that the Christian faith, in
+itself, is entirely distinct from all moral effort on the part of man.
+
+To believe that Jesus was the Christ does not carry any obligation to
+do right; does not make it incumbent upon the believer to do a single
+moral action.
+
+It is sufficient to establish our predication that not a single church
+in Christendom makes moral character the condition of membership, or
+good behavior the way to Heaven.
+
+There is a code of Christian morals which has been taught, but never
+practised. The special duties which Jesus enjoined upon his followers
+have never been reduced to conduct. It is not too much to say that
+the moral precepts of Jesus, if carried into action, would cause
+social revolutions beyond precedent, and produce a state of existence
+compared with which anarchy would be government, and confusion would be
+order.
+
+But, before we undertake to examine the Christian morals, let us shed
+a few tears of rejoicing upon the grave of Orthodox theology. We do
+not ask to have a coroner's jury decide what caused the death of this
+theology. We bless the cause, whatever it was. We only wish to feel
+assured that it is really, truly dead, and the fact that "not a single
+treatise written by a New England Puritan is a living and authoritative
+book" seems to prove it beyond a question. The persons who still preach
+this theology and profess to believe it are only "sitting up with the
+corpse."
+
+While it is asserted that a wrong interpretation of this theology sent
+it out of the world, it is pretty evident that a right understanding of
+it inspires no wish to have it back. Much of the superstition in morals
+sprang from fear of God, which the Christian church has inculcated as
+the highest incentive to right doing.
+
+The truth, broadly and frankly stated, is this: God is no longer the
+inspiration of morality. Fear of God does not check the actions of man
+today, nor is the attempt to make human and divine interests identical
+sufficient to insure obedience to moral laws. The ancient basis of
+morals is gone, and another and better one must be found to inspire a
+freer life, a fuller life, a better life, and a higher.
+
+We who have rejected the Christian theology are looked upon as orphans.
+But, if I understand the position of freethinkers, the question of a
+supreme power is neither affirmed nor denied by those who wish to have
+no further business with the God of Orthodoxy.
+
+We read that, "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God," but
+we prefer to say nothing about the matter. Theologies may come, and
+theologies may go, but humanity goes on forever, and so we do not deem
+it as important to worship the fleeting shadows of the universe which
+are cast upon the minds of men as it is to hold fast to those realities
+which make human existence a blessing and "a joy forever."
+
+We are called "infidels" and denounced as "unbelievers" because we
+will not march in the ranks of hypocrisy, and dance to the music of
+Orthodoxy. We believe no statement which our reason can not approve; we
+accept no doctrine which is contrary to commonsense; we have confidence
+in human nature; we believe in truth, justice and love; we accept life
+as a blessing, and try to make it so; we believe in taking care of
+ourselves, in helping others and in being just and kind to all, and we
+say to the Christian Church, "If this be Infidelity, make the most of
+it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is suggested by some that if man's exact relation to the Deity
+were understood, the whole question of morals would be settled at
+once. But would it not be truer to say that if man's exact relation to
+his fellowmen were understood and respected, the highest individual
+welfare, no less than the general good, would dictate the morality
+which the world needs? And is not this the grand task for the human
+race, to rightly interpret the effect of human action upon the
+individual and the community, and to deduce from human experience the
+rules for human conduct?
+
+I do not know that I owe to God any duty. I do know that I owe a duty
+to my neighbor. I plead total indifference to the demands of divine
+ethics, but I trust that I am not completely callous to the wants of
+my fellow-beings. I owe it to myself to be moral. I owe it to my race,
+to every man and woman that I meet in life, to be as honest, as true,
+as upright, as my nature will permit. I can comprehend and appreciate
+obligations to humanity, but moral indebtedness to the Deity I know
+nothing about.
+
+The Christian morals are founded upon the assumption that the work of
+man here is to do something that he may escape punishment hereafter,
+and hence the morality of the Christian Church has had little
+reference to the concerns of the present life.
+
+Christian morality is based upon the Christian faith that the human
+race is under the curse of God, and that, to evade the penalty
+pronounced upon him, man must perform certain duties--these duties
+being taught as paramount to all we owe to self, to family, to society,
+and to the world.
+
+But an almost universal disbelief of the Christian dogmas prevails
+today, and, consequently, a new morality, with man's welfare for
+its supreme object, is fast supplanting the outworn and valueless
+performances of Christian duties.
+
+The moral teaching of the New Testament may be the highest and purest
+of its kind of teaching, but it is not the kind which is needed today.
+It is a false morality, yea, a dead morality for the most part, which
+the Christian Church demands of men. The general conviction is that
+no salvation is needed by man, and that all the virtues advertised as
+requisite for such safety as the Church is prepared to secure, are
+spurious virtues.
+
+Those actions which advance man along the way of general prosperity,
+which make it easier to live and get a living on the earth, which have
+their value determined by their respect for human beings, are what the
+world needs.
+
+The generally acknowledged author of Christian morals offers no
+salient points for criticism, as he can not be regarded as a historical
+person whose career has been carefully followed and marked by the
+biographer. He is a mythological man, with a little less of the
+fabulous and a little more of the real than attaches to the gods and
+goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome.
+
+The name of Jesus adorns an anatomy of words. It pictures a person,
+not of flesh and blood, but of faith and fancy. Jesus is a man of the
+imagination; but mythical as he is, certain men and women believe
+in him in their own way, and are not over-tolerant of those who are
+disposed to ask for the proofs of his life and works.
+
+This person has left no more marks of his living upon the earth than
+have the birds the marks of their flight through the air. The New
+Testament is no more history than is Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_.
+We can not make any positive assertions in regard to the life and
+character of a man when we do not know who was his father, where or
+when he was born, with whom he lived, nor when he died. The only
+historical fact connected with Jesus which is not disputed is that Mary
+was his mother. This is a very important point in his history, but it
+is not sufficient to constitute a biography.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that the entire narrative of Jesus is without
+a single chronological date, and the vastly more significant fact that
+not a single incident connected with the career of Jesus is mentioned
+in contemporaneous history, we must perforce speak of him as a person
+whose life was watched and noted from his miraculous advent to his
+miraculous ascension, and look upon his disciples as so many Boswells
+ready to mirror to the world his every speech and act.
+
+We must do this--Why? Because the world will not candidly and
+critically study the gospel-story.
+
+For the present, then, we will speak of Jesus as a man, and accept him
+as the author of the moral code in the New Testament. But a word or
+two about the man. The Christian world sets him apart as the model of
+the race, as the masterpiece of Nature, as the utmost which earth can
+produce. Every man must here fetch his word of praise, and every word
+be a mountain to meet the demand of the Christian Church for reverence
+of Jesus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I do not believe in the infallibility of any man, but I believe in
+the improvability of all men. Is man no longer heir to the virtues of
+life, that he must erect monuments of praise forever over the name of
+Jesus? I shall take the liberty to express my dissent from the common
+expressions of admiration for this man. I can not praise everything
+which he did, nor can I think that every word he uttered is a star of
+wisdom. He said some good things, but much of what he said is good
+for nothing. His theology will do for Sunday Schools, but it will not
+stand half a dozen questions by commonsense. His Hell is barbarous,
+his Heaven childish, and his ideas of humanity show but a superficial
+knowledge of human nature. His life can not be imitated with advantage
+to the race, and his notions of human existence are wholly inadequate
+to the complex, varied civilization of this age.
+
+Let us see what he did. He paid no filial respect to his parents; he
+refused to acknowledge his mother and his brothers; he lived a roving,
+wandering life; he paid no heed to the laws of his country; he placed
+no value upon industry, and even went so far as to tell men and women
+that God would feed and clothe them; he helped himself to the property
+and possessions of other people without paying for them, and destroyed
+what belonged to others without offering an equivalent; he had no
+property, no home, not a place to lay his head; he hated the rulers,
+yet sought to establish a kingdom for himself; he failed to reach the
+throne he sought, and died upon the malefactor's cross.
+
+Is this the man for the Twentieth Century to honor? Is this the man for
+men to follow in this age? Is this the man whose life all should strive
+to imitate?
+
+The man who took the life of Jesus for a model would hate father and
+mother, brother and sister; he would have neither wife nor child; he
+would live from place to place; he would be a lawbreaker and an idler;
+he would live the life of a wanderer and die the death of a criminal.
+
+Have I put a false color in this picture which I have painted? Have I
+misrepresented the life of Jesus? Read the four Gospels and see. I find
+this character sketched in the New Testament, and it is there called
+Jesus, and it is this character which we are adjured to imitate if we
+would be perfect.
+
+To the man or woman who declares that the life of Jesus is the way to
+salvation, I have only this to say, "Why then do you not imitate it?"
+
+Now, I wish to ask, "What kind of morals would such a man as we have
+sketched naturally teach?"
+
+You will answer, "The morals he lived." At least, we find such morals
+taught in the New Testament.
+
+My point here is: If the life of Jesus was an honest, faithful exponent
+of his moral teachings, then such a morality as he practised is not
+wanted today--and that such a morality is not wanted is shown by the
+fact that no one practises it.
+
+I know that it is considered respectable and pious to profess great
+admiration for the doctrines taught by Jesus, and the world has paid
+them the outward compliment of profession, saying that the moral
+code of the New Testament was the despair of man; but it has never
+seriously set to work to reduce this code to practise, which proves
+that such profession is only a part of the universal accomplishment of
+fashionable hypocrisy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Do not understand me as saying that there is no moral precept contained
+in the Gospels which is worthy of being practised. I make no such
+declaration, and wish no such construction put upon my words. What I
+desire to enforce is this: That the morality of Jesus sprang from a
+philosophy which has passed away, and therefore, that it is, for the
+greater part, obsolete and worthless. That Jesus shared the general
+belief of his age that the world was soon to be destroyed, is shown by
+his estimate of earthly things; and that a morality founded upon such a
+belief should survive and outlast the faith which inspired it reveals
+a condition of things that is not flattering to our intellectual
+perception or to our moral sense.
+
+The morals of the New Testament are founded upon a theory of the
+universe which is found now only in creeds--those epitaphs of religion.
+The most superficial observation is sufficient to enable us to perceive
+that theology can no longer be the basis of morality, and that the
+authority of the New Testament can not be accepted on this question.
+
+There is nothing more firmly impressed upon the mind of man than the
+fact of the stability of the universe, notwithstanding an occasional
+earthquake; and the value of earthly things has a higher moral
+significance consequent upon the assurance of material existence.
+
+Morality must have a physical basis; that is, the moral code which man
+can practise to his safety and his honor must not contradict human
+nature. The defeat of the New Testament morals is assured by their
+antagonism to the nature of man. The morals of Jesus were designed
+to fit man for what he called the "Kingdom of Heaven," but the only
+morality which is worth the name is that which fits man for living his
+life on earth.
+
+Jesus constantly urged men to the performance of moral duties that they
+might be rewarded by their "Father in Heaven." Such a motive for good
+behavior is offensive to the rational mind, and moral commandments
+which are enforced with a Heaven and a Hell do not spring from an
+opinion of human nature which deserves our respect.
+
+The most comprehensive criticism which one can make upon the morals of
+the New Testament is, that they are not practicable. Is the character
+of Christians fashioned by the power and influence of the words
+which Jesus left in the world? This question should be pressed to an
+answer, and honesty would answer it in a way which would shake every
+church-building in the land and tear the mask from the face of every
+Christian worshiper on the globe.
+
+Jesus taught that men and women were to love him more than father or
+mother, son or daughter. Imagine human beings loving a man whom they
+know nothing about, and consequently can care nothing about, and who
+has no more claim to their affections than has the ghost in Hamlet,
+better than they love parent or child! Such morality as this is not fit
+for a Hottentot.
+
+If any command is implanted in our nature and is a part of the bone
+and fiber of our very being, it is to love beyond all else those who
+have borne us and cared for us through infancy and childhood, and
+those whose existence depends upon us, and to whom we stand pledged
+by the holiest ties of our beings, to watch over and protect, to care
+for and love, to the last days of our lives. It is love of parent and
+child which is alike the supreme obligation and the supreme benefaction
+of our humanity. No being has walked this earth who had the moral
+right to demand a greater love than is due to father and mother, son
+and daughter; and if Jesus claimed such affection, his claim is an
+impertinence which we are bound to treat with indignation and scorn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the Christian Church to make of the words of Jesus commands to the
+world is to deserve the severest condemnation. Jesus taught that men
+were not to make for themselves a home, not to cultivate those virtues
+which blossom into the family, and not to save the fruits of their toil
+to make old age with its tottering form and feeble limbs less liable to
+the hardships of the world, but he summed up all the duties of life in
+these words: "Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow
+me."
+
+To obey such teaching as this would overturn every monument of
+prosperity upon the earth, blight every feeling of happiness that
+gladdens the heart of man, and convert the busy, working, loving world
+into one vast army of tramps, following a king without a kingdom, a
+leader without a purpose, a commander with nothing to give those who
+followed his command.
+
+Jesus taught that we were not to resist evil; that is, that if a thief
+stole our watch and chain, we were bound to run after him and give him
+our purse also; that if a man took away our coat, we should wrong him
+if we did not send him the balance of the suit; that if a man struck
+us on one side of the face, we were to invite him to strike us on
+the other side also; that if, as it were, the armies of some foreign
+powers were to invade our land, and burn and destroy our cities and
+towns, pillage our homes and murder our families, we were in duty bound
+to look upon them as benefactors and thank them for their work of
+destruction, and ask them to come and do it again.
+
+Such moral teaching as this would make a nation of cowards and slaves.
+
+It is our duty to punish thieves and robbers, not to reward them; to
+resist wrong and injustice, not to submit to them like cravens; to
+protect our country from foes, even though we are obliged to shed their
+blood and our own in so doing.
+
+Is there a Christian on the globe who pays the least heed to a single
+one of the moral commands of Jesus? You all know there is not.
+
+I need not tell the Christian Church that the morality taught by Jesus
+is decaying when every church is its coffin, and every minister its
+grave-digger.
+
+If you wish to see how much respect for the moral teachings of Jesus
+one of his professed followers has, just steal his coat, and if he
+gives you his cloak also, as he is commanded to do by his Lord and
+Master, please publish his name in the daily papers--for the benefit of
+others who wish to get a cloak.
+
+We find among the express commands of Jesus this advice: "Lay not up
+for yourselves treasures upon earth." The most liberal translation of
+this counsel can not make it anything but poor advice. Every material
+blessing of mankind has come from the savings of human labor, and the
+value of laying up treasures upon earth is more evident than that of
+laying up treasures in Heaven, whatever this saying may mean. When
+every Christian tries as hard to be poor as he tries now to get rich,
+we shall think that he has some regard for the moral teachings of Jesus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It must be apparent to all that what may be claimed as Christian
+morality is not only decaying, but that it ought to decay. There is
+no sense in it. Imagine a man telling people in the Twentieth Century
+to "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall
+drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on," and endeavoring
+to prove that because the fowls of the air do not have to broil a
+beefsteak for their breakfast or make biscuit for tea, human beings
+will be fed whether they provide anything for their appetites or not.
+
+Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father will feed us because we are
+better than the fowls of the air, and that he will clothe us because he
+clothes the grass of the field. Our earthly fathers seem to have done
+more in the way of providing food and clothing for us before we were
+able to take care of ourselves than any Heavenly Father. Others may put
+their trust in God for something to eat and drink and wear, if they
+wish to, but I prefer to give the matter a little thought myself.
+
+Jesus concludes these admonitions by saying, "Take no thought for the
+morrow." This is bad counsel, and it shows the good sense of mankind
+that it has never been followed. The whole world lives in what one of
+our poets called, "The bright tomorrow of the mind."
+
+We will refer to only one more of the peculiar moral injunctions of
+Jesus. In the fifth chapter of Matthew, in the forty-fourth verse,
+we read, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
+them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and
+persecute you."
+
+If we were to do as herein commanded, we should have an inverted
+morality which would place the crown of virtue upon the forehead of
+vice.
+
+Let us see if the preacher of this doctrine practised it.
+
+Did Jesus bless the Scribes and Pharisees when they refused to
+acknowledge his claim to be the Messiah? This is the blessing which he
+pronounced upon them: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
+for ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers;
+therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." "Ye serpents, ye
+generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" That is
+not a very sweet blessing!
+
+And these men did not curse Jesus. They only did not agree with his
+opinions. Jesus, also, in his wrath against his enemies, calls them,
+in the seventeenth and nineteenth verses of the twenty-third chapter
+of Matthew, "Ye fools and blind," forgetting, doubtless, that he had
+previously declared, when preaching on the Mount, "Whosoever shall say,
+'Thou Fool,' shall be in danger of hell-fire."
+
+The moral teachings of Jesus were inspired by a false estimate of all
+earthly things. There is no doubt that Jesus believed the world was
+coming to an end in his generation. How to get into the Kingdom of
+Heaven was of more consequence than how to reform mankind, or improve
+the world, since the end of earthly things was near at hand. This
+appears to have been the thought of Jesus, and explains much of his
+language.
+
+But today we do not believe that the earth has run its course, and
+that the end of all material things is near at hand. We are living
+without fear of failure on the part of the universe, and are giving our
+attention more to human wants than to divine commands.
+
+_Not fear of offending God, but fear of wronging man, is the highest
+basis of morals._ We have reached a time when apologies are not
+respected, when repentance is looked upon as the mask of villainy,
+when the stature of life is most shorn of manliness by prancing in
+the garb of humility, when a brave facing of life's trials and demands
+counts for more than cowardly surrender in the name of God. In fact,
+we have come to say to the world of humanity, "Be moral, and you need
+not be religious." Work for man is coming to be a sufficient excuse for
+neglect of God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we want no cheap moral duties held up for man to perform. It is
+serious business to live this life of ours and live it well, and it
+is hard work to do it. Morality sets us as high a task as we are able
+to perform, and a higher task than has yet been performed by most of
+mankind. The effort of this age is to expose the sham of what is called
+holiness, and make sacred the surroundings of human beings. We must
+throw off the past, and stand upon that sunlit height where we can feel
+that "somehow life is bigger after all than any painted angel, could we
+see the man that is within us."
+
+This is the moral duty of the world: to respect the man that is within
+us. We ought to rear on the earth a range of moral Alps that would
+stand and command the admiration of the world as long as eye could see
+and heart could feel. We need a rational hope and a burning purpose in
+this century, something noble to live for and the courage of nobility
+to work and win it.
+
+The improvement of the world is the only object of life worthy of man.
+Do and say nothing that will not improve mankind. Were this simple
+admonition heeded, we should have the key to the kingdom of the only
+heaven that man needs in our own pocket.
+
+It is time for the reign of commonsense to begin on earth; time for
+men to elevate morality above religion; and time for us to say,
+"Millions for the world, not a cent for the Church." The battle between
+Freedom and Christianity has begun, and I believe that when it ends
+Christianity will be buried beneath the ruins of its own dogmas, there
+to remain forever. It possesses no spirit that can rise again from its
+ashes and mount on wings of flame to a higher life. When superstition
+dies, it dies to the root.
+
+The Christian minister can not arrest the march of liberty by crying,
+"Infidelity!" and threatening with everlasting cremation all those who
+refuse to heed his words.
+
+But let there be no base understanding of freedom. The new John the
+Baptist must not be a cowboy, saying, "The kingdom of highwaymen is at
+hand." As a person when in perfect bodily health knows not from any
+intimation from the respective parts that he has a stomach, a brain,
+or a heart, so a person when living in perfect freedom is unconscious
+of law, of creed, of custom. The healthy man physically is the free
+man physically; the healthy man mentally is the free man mentally; the
+healthy man morally is the free man morally; liberty of the individual
+is health of the individual, and a free man means a man who is true and
+obedient to all natural laws.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a misunderstanding of freedom upon the one side, and a
+misrepresentation of it upon the other, that make it hazardous for one
+to employ the word. To connect this word with morality in the eyes of
+many is to confound the Madonna with Mary Magdalene. It is to start the
+ghost of Don Juan.
+
+The conservatism of society has ever regarded liberty as the black flag
+of the moral marauder, the emblem of a piratical intention upon the
+casket of the world that contains the jewels of honor, justice, virtue
+and social order.
+
+So persistently and malignantly has freedom been represented as a
+wrecker's light, kindled only to lure to destruction, that to represent
+it as worthy to be trusted is to arouse the spirit which pursued
+Voltaire to his grave with a lie, erected a shaft of calumny over the
+tomb of Paine, and which now, with the coward's weapon of slander,
+attacks the living who refuse to acknowledge that the voice of the
+Church is the voice of God.
+
+But nevertheless we believe with Burns that:
+
+    Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,
+    Its virtues a' can tell, man;
+    It raises man aboon the brute,
+    It maks him ken himsel', man;
+    Gif ance the peasant taste a bite,
+    He's greater than a lord, man,
+    And ni' the beggar shares a mite
+    Of a' he can afford, man.
+
+And so we exclaim in the words of one of our own true poets:
+
+    Always in thine eyes, O Liberty!
+    Shines that high light whereby the world is saved,
+    And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.
+
+You have all heard of the man who refused to open his eyes for a year,
+and who declared that during that time nothing could be seen on account
+of the darkness. But the endeavor to perpetuate old errors by keeping
+the eyes closed to the facts of science, the truths of philosophy, and
+the progress of the human race, has not been crowned with success.
+The further attempt to convert the world to what James Parton calls a
+"kitchen religion" is merely waste of power.
+
+The preaching of Christianity is making "much ado about nothing." What
+we want is manhood and womanhood.
+
+It is said by the Church that the man who lives for his family and
+brings all that he can win of what is fair and bright and glad to those
+he loves, may be a good man, but he is not a Christian, and therefore
+has no religion.
+
+Give me then the man who is not a Christian, and who has no religion,
+for if the man who loves his wife and children, who gives to them the
+strength of his arm, the thought of his brain, the warmth of his heart,
+has not religion, the world is better off without it, for these are the
+highest and holiest things which man can do.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  There is only one thing worth praying for: to be in the line of
+  evolution.--_Elbert Hubbard._
+
+  Jesus as Savior of the world is a theological creation, and not a
+  historical character.
+
+
+
+
+  SO HERE THEN ENDETH THAT GREAT AND GOOD BOOK "I DON'T KNOW--DO
+  YOU?" WRITTEN BY MARILLA M. RICKER, AND PRINTED AND BOUND FOR HER
+  BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, ERIE
+  COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW YORK, MCMXVI.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS PAINE
+
+
+  Born Jan 29, 1737.
+
+  Friend and adviser of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Monroe,
+  etc., etc.
+
+  Author of _Common Sense_, _The Crisis_, _Rights of Man_, and _The
+  Age of Reason_;
+
+  Editor of _Pennsylvania Magazine_;
+
+  Enlisted in Continental Army; appointed Aide-de-Camp to General
+  Nathaniel Greene;
+
+  Secretary of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congress and
+  Pennsylvania Assembly;
+
+  By his writings did more for the American cause in the Revolution
+  than any other one person;
+
+  First proposed American Independence;
+
+  First suggested the Federal Union of States;
+
+  First proposed the abolition of Negro slavery;
+
+  First suggested protection for dumb animals;
+
+  First proposed arbitration and international peace;
+
+  First suggested justice to women;
+
+  First pointed out the reality of human brotherhood;
+
+  First pointed out the folly of hereditary succession and
+  monarchical government;
+
+  First proposed old-age pensions;
+
+  First suggested international copyright;
+
+  First proposed the education of the children of the poor at public
+  expense;
+
+  First suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world;
+
+  First proposed "the land for the people";
+
+  First suggested "the religion of humanity";
+
+  First proposed and first wrote the words, "United States of
+  America";
+
+  Founder of the first Ethical Society;
+
+  Proposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory;
+
+  Inventor of the iron bridge, the hollow candle--principle of the
+  modern central-draft burner, etc., etc.
+
+  Died June 9, 1809.
+
+
+=_This is history. But this great and good man was called "a filthy
+little atheist" by a hyphenated Dutch-American._=
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64568 ***
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-<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Marilla M. Ricker</div>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 15, 2021 [eBook #64568]</div>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Carlos Colón, the New York Public Library and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</div>

-

-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***</div>

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="box">Transcriber's Notes:<br />

-<br />

-

-Two-columns text has been converted to a single column.<br /><br />

-Blank pages have been eliminated.<br />

-<br />

-Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the

-original.<br />

-<br />

-A few typographical errors have been corrected.<br />

-<br />

-The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.</p>

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/front.jpg" width="600"

-height="890" alt="" title="" />

-  <div class="caption">

-    <p class="center"><i>Marilla M. Ricker.</i></p>

-</div></div>

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<h1>I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU?</h1>

-

-<p class="center">BY</p>

-<p class="center">MARILLA M. RICKER</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter2em"><img src="images/illo1.jpg" width="75"

-height="133" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-<p class="center">DONE INTO<br />

-A PRINTED BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS<br />

-AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN<br />

-EAST AURORA, NEW YORK<br />

-MCMXVI</p>

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6 center">Copyright, 1916<br />

-By<br />

-Marilla M. Ricker</p>

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p6 i2">You are what you think, and to believe in

-a Hell for other people is literally to go

-to Hell yourself.&mdash;<i>Elbert Hubbard.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">A religious man is a man scared.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2 id="FOREWORD">FOREWORD</h2></div>

-

-

-<p><i>There is in the city of Boston a memorial building

-to Thomas Paine. This Paine Memorial was finished

-and dedicated forty-two years ago. It is the finest

-monument to Thomas Paine on the earth.</i></p>

-

-<p><i>For twenty years Ralph Washburn Chainey has been

-the Manager of this building and the Treasurer of

-the Paine Memorial Corporation. Under his wise

-and prudent management the building was freed from

-debt, and today it is a monument to the energy and

-devotion of its Manager as much as to the genius

-and labors of Thomas Paine.</i></p>

-

-<p><i>Ralph Washburn Chainey is only forty-two, and as

-great an example of thrift as Ben Franklin was.

-Very early in life he acquired the habit of thrift&mdash;which

-is the basis of all virtues. He learned early

-that time was money and he is always at work. He

-is not only able to take care of himself, but he can

-and does take care of others. He is sufficient unto

-himself, and when one is right with himself he is

-right with all the world. I have known him intimately

-for more than a quarter of a century, and if he has

-faults I have yet to learn what they are.</i></p>

-

-<p><i>In appreciation, therefore, of his great service to

-the cause of Freethought, I dedicate this volume to</i></p>

-

-<p class="i2">RALPH WASHBURN CHAINEY</p>

-

-<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Marilla M. Ricker</i>.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2"><i>Dover, New Hampshire<br />

-December, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen</i></p>

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2 p6">As man advances, as his intellect enlarges,

-as his knowledge increases, as his ideals

-become nobler, the Bibles and creeds will

-lose their authority, the miraculous will

-be classed with the impossible, and the

-idea of special providence will be discarded.

-Thousands of religions have perished,

-innumerable gods have died, and

-why should the religion of our time be

-exempt from the common fate?</p>

-

-<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2>CONTENTS</h2></div>

-

-

-<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" summary="contents">

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#FOREWORD">Foreword</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">7</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CIVILIZATION">Creeds Against Civilization</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">11</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#AGNOSTIC">What I Know About Some Churches,

-and Why I Am an Agnostic</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">33</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#REJOINDER">A Letter and the Rejoinder</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">55</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#GHOST">The Holy Ghost</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">65</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CHRIST">How Can We "Take" Christ?</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">71</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#INGERSOLL">Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">81</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THOUGHT">Mark Twain's Best Thought</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">85</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#RELIGION">An Irreligious Discourse on Religion</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">89</td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#MORALITY">Decay of Christian Morality</a></td>

-<td class="tdrb">107</td></tr>

-</table>

-<hr class="chap" />

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p6 i2">I know of no other book that so fully

-teaches the subjection and degradation

-of woman as the Bible.&mdash;<i>Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</i></p>

-

-

-<p class="p2 i2">That God had to come to earth to find a

-mother for his son reveals the poverty

-of Heaven.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="CIVILIZATION">CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION</h2></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2">Any system of religion that shocks the

-mind of a child can not be a true system.&mdash;<i>Thomas Paine.</i></p>

-

-

-<p class="p2 i2">Hell is a place invented by priests and

-parsons for the sake of being supported.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-

-

-<p class="center large">CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">NE hundred fifty years ago, there

-was not a single white man in

-what is now Kentucky, Ohio,

-Indiana and Illinois. What is now

-the most flourishing part of the

-United States was then as little

-known as the country in the heart of Africa itself.

-It was not until Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six

-that Boone left his home in North Carolina to

-become the first settler in Kentucky; and the

-pioneers of Ohio did not settle that territory until

-twenty years later.</p>

-

-<p>Canada belonged to France one hundred fifty-three

-years ago, and Washington was a modest

-Virginia Colonel, and the United States was the

-most loyal part of the British Empire, and scarcely

-a speck on the political horizon indicated the

-struggle that in a few years was to lay the foundation

-of the greatest republic in the world.</p>

-

-<p>One hundred fifty years ago there were but four

-small newspapers in America; steam-engines had

-not been imagined; and locomotives and railroads,

-and telegraphs and postal cards, and friction-matches,

-and revolvers and percussion-caps, and

-breechloading-guns and Mauser rifles, and stoves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>

-and furnaces, and gas and electricity and rubber

-shoes, and Spaulding's glue, and sewing-machines

-and anthracite coal, and photographs, and kerosene-oil,

-free schools, and spring-beds and hair-mattresses,

-and lever-watches and greenbacks

-were unknown. The spinning-wheel was in almost

-every family, and clothing was spun and woven

-and made up in the family; and the printing-press

-was a cumbrous machine worked by hand.</p>

-

-<p>Down to Eighteen Hundred Fourteen every paper

-in the world was printed one side at a time, on an

-ordinary hand-press; and a nail, or a brick, or a

-knife, or a pair of shears or scissors, or a razor, or a

-woven pair of stockings, or an ax or a hoe or a

-shovel, or a lock and key, or a plate of glass of any

-size, was not made in what is now the United

-States.</p>

-

-<p>In Seventeen Hundred Ninety, there were only

-seventy-five post-offices in the country, and the

-whole extent of our post-routes was less than nineteen

-hundred miles; cheap postage was unheard

-of; so were envelopes; and had any one suggested

-the transmission of messages with lightning speed,

-he would have been thought insane. The microscope

-on the one hand and the telescope on the

-other were in their infancy as instruments of

-science; and geology and chemistry were almost

-unknown, to say nothing of the telephone and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>

-the other various phones, and the X-rays, and

-hundreds of other new things.</p>

-

-<p>In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two there were only

-six stagecoaches running in all England, and these

-were a novelty. A man named John Crosset thought

-they were so dangerous an innovation that he wrote

-a pamphlet against them. "These coaches," he

-wrote, "make gentlemen come to London upon

-every small occasion which otherwise they would

-not do, except upon urgent necessity. The conveniency

-of the passage makes their wives come

-often up, who, rather than come such long journeys

-on horseback, would stay at home. Then when

-they come to town they must be in the 'wade'

-[probably that is where the word <i>swim</i> comes in

-now], get fine clothes, go to plays, and treats, and

-by these means get such a habit of idleness and

-love of pleasure that they are uneasy ever after."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>We can all see how much improvement there

-has been in all things but <i>creeds</i>. Improvements

-can come, and old things go, but <i>creeds</i> go on

-forever! A creed implies something fixed and

-immovable. In other words, it means you have a

-"heel-rope on."</p>

-

-<p>The word "creed" is from <i>credo</i>, "I believe." We

-have had a great deal of compulsion of belief, and

-a thousand years of almost absolute unanimity.

-Liberty was dead and the ages were dark. We call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>

-them the Middle Ages because they were the death

-between the life that was before and the life that

-came after. Then came a new birth of thought&mdash;a

-"Renaissance"&mdash;and after this, some reformation

-in the form of a Protestantism.</p>

-

-<p>Since then, the Protestants have continued to

-protest, not only against the old, but against each

-other. And this is the best thing they have done.

-Thus liberty has been saved, for each would have

-coerced its fellow organization, as did their infamous

-mother, the Roman Catholic Church, before them.

-From "creed" comes "credulous" and "credulity."

-And they have filled the world with their

-kind. In the United States alone, there are about

-one hundred forty types. Each is a system of

-credulity pitted against a hundred and thirty-nine

-others. They all rest on authority. They all denounce

-investigation&mdash;unless it has for its end the

-support of their authority.</p>

-

-<p>Hence, with the exception of two or three denominations,

-to become a professed Christian means to

-accept credulously and without question a system of

-belief about Nature and man and the world which

-you would deny in toto if you reasoned as you do

-about other things, and which you do practically

-deny by re-explaining and refining it into anything

-but what is stated. Down deep in your heart you

-do not, and never did, believe it in the same honest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>

-way in which you form your other opinions.</p>

-

-<p>Think for a moment of the Christian idea of the

-world, its origin, its shape, place, importance, and

-its final end. Does any man or woman who has

-been through a common-school geography believe

-the ideas implied in the common Christian dogmas

-regarding the world? We must remember that the

-world taught in the geography is not the Christian

-world.</p>

-

-<p>The world taught in the Christian dogmas is

-beneath the heavens&mdash;not a rolling sphere flying

-through space. It is flat, and the sun and stars pass

-over it daily. It is the chief object of God's creation

-on which to place man. It is God's footstool,

-and his throne is Heaven above. He created it just

-four thousand and four years before the Christian

-era began. Now we <i>all</i> know that this is <i>not</i> true;

-that there is no up nor down; that the earth is not

-the center; that it is <i>not</i> flat; that the sun does not

-go round it; that it is a very insignificant little

-orb; that "up in Heaven" is an utterly meaningless

-expression; and that the world is not a creation,

-but an evolution.</p>

-

-<p>And yet thousands of people credulously cling to

-creeds which embody the notions of barbarous or

-uncivilized ages.</p>

-

-<p>Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the

-Bible is a revelation of the will and wisdom of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>

-omniscient God; that it is a perfect and sufficient

-rule of faith and practise. What, in the name of

-humanity, causes people to make such statements

-today? It is like trying to light the house with a

-saucer of tallow in which a rag is immersed, instead

-of using gas or electricity.</p>

-

-<p>Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy

-xiv: 21, we read, "Ye shall not eat of anything

-that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it unto the

-sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat

-it; or thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for <i>thou</i>

-art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God." In

-Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would

-that men should do unto you, even so do ye also

-unto them."</p>

-

-<p>Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy,

-or even the moral unity of a volume written

-by many hands at widely different times? Are such

-people so ignorant that they have not read the

-Book they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots

-and do not know the plainest right and wrong?

-Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful reason

-for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they

-the dupes of their own credulity, clinging without

-thought to the beliefs in which they have been

-reared? They are evidently not using commonsense

-in an honest way.</p>

-

-<p>I often hear the Bible spoken of as a holy book, full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>

-of a holy spirit. I sometimes reply: "Have you

-read the conduct of Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David,

-Solomon, and other ancient worthies, who were

-said to be men after the heart of the bloodthirsty

-and avenging Jehovah? How long would you keep

-out of prison if you took them for your models?

-Have you read the Thirty-fifth, Fifty-eighth,

-Sixty-ninth and One Hundred Ninth Psalms? If

-not, read them, and tell me what you think of

-them."</p>

-

-<p>There never was any intrinsic reason for believing

-the Bible except that a designing priesthood said

-so, and stupid people trusted them.</p>

-

-<p>Here, by common consent, people agree to be

-duped. Ages and ages ago, they began to make

-admissions that two and two might be six, or even

-sixteen, in religion. They had sense enough to say

-that two and two are four in other things. In

-Divine Revelation they shut their eyes to all mistakes

-and wilful lies. If people should deceive in

-other matters as the priests, parsons and teachers

-do in religion, they would not escape arrest.</p>

-

-<p>Another central doctrine is that of the Atonement.

-This is derived from the moral character of the

-Jewish God; he governed the world of humanity

-on the principle of primitive society. Men were

-responsible to him in everything. Any infraction

-of his supposed laws rendered them subject to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>

-vengeance. That is why the Jew thought that God

-sent a thunderstorm to punish him for eating pork.</p>

-

-<p>What explanation besides credulity can be suggested

-for the continuation of this belief century

-after century? Preachers shout it from the pulpits,

-and Salvation Army people hawk it through the

-streets. Not one of them knows what he is talking

-about. Each learned it from some one who told

-him to say it. They all do it because it is a part of a

-system which they have inherited, but the reason

-for which they do not know, and have never

-allowed themselves to seek.</p>

-

-<p>This cringing credulity keeps the masses from

-using their powers. They seem to believe that if

-they should lose these superstitions they would

-be lost.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>And the dogma regarding Jesus is inextricably

-mixed up in Christian theology with that of

-the Atonement. One assumption bolsters the other.

-He is made to occupy the central place in this

-scheme of blood-redemption through that other

-highly rational fable of the immaculate conception.

-If Jesus was not immaculately conceived, then

-Matthew and Luke have deceived; then Jesus is

-not God; then he is a mere man; and if so, he is

-not the Redeemer. Man could not redeem himself

-according to the first premise of the scheme. Man

-has been and <i>is</i> redeeming himself by learning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>

-Nature's laws and through them rising to a higher

-life ever since he reached the stage of humanity.

-Take the theory of the Resurrection. The account

-of it was written long after the assumed occurrence,

-and by credulous men with superstitious inclinations.

-Men and women of these days, understanding

-the laws of Nature, can not give assent to the

-crude beliefs which easily commanded the minds

-of ancient times.</p>

-

-<p>Both Protestantism and Catholicism are systems

-built on essentially the same foundation. Remove

-any of these stones, and the systems will have to

-be rebuilt. If there is no special revelation, there

-is no special scheme of salvation. If there is no

-vengeful, blood-seeking God, there is no theological

-reconciliation. If there was no fall, there is no hopeless

-depravity. If there was no immaculate conception,

-there is no Redeemer in a special ecclesiastical

-sense. If there is no total depravity, there is

-no lost world. If there is no lost world, there is no

-yawning Hell. One and all, these fictions have their

-only ground for continuance in a <i>selfish</i> and unreasoning

-priesthood and clergy, and a credulous

-people.</p>

-

-<p>In the place of the "fall," science has put the

-"rise" of man. It finds the Garden of Eden to

-have been a jungle. It finds the mythical perfect

-Adam to have been a savage. It finds the Biblical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>

-"origin of evil" to have been a puerile legend. It

-finds that sin and evil are made by the seeing of

-higher states. It finds that there was no bad until

-the better was reached. It finds that it is the advancing

-good which makes the existing bad. It finds

-that among the worst of sinners are those who live

-in and propagate outworn doctrines upon their

-own and others' credulity.</p>

-

-<p>In the olden times, God was made a king&mdash;the world

-was his kingdom. His powers, virtues and vices

-were simply those of earthly kings exaggerated.

-Jewish and Christian liturgies are full of expressions

-showing the attitude of slaves and serfs to a tyrant.

-Sin has been manufactured as heresy and disobedience

-to the so-called orthodox system instead

-of to the laws of Nature.</p>

-

-<p>Science has shown that the bottomless pit did not

-even have a top. Columbus sailed over the Western

-edge of the flat Christian world on which all this

-Christian system depended, and found that the

-material Heaven and Hell were unfounded myths;

-but the preachers and priests still threaten <i>hell</i> to

-the most ignorant and credulous, but they tell

-some of us that there is a <i>final judgment</i>.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>In the old days, we used to hear a great deal about

-judgments. A certain honest, good-natured,

-old farmer in New Hampshire, who was a freethinker,

-but had a very pious wife, lost many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>

-cattle when the black tongue was an epidemic in

-the State.</p>

-

-<p>One day the hired man came in and told him the

-red oxen were dead.</p>

-

-<p>"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, they were

-'breechy cusses.' Take off their hides and carry

-them down to Fletcher's. They will bring the cash."</p>

-

-<p>An hour or so later the man came back with the

-news that Lineback and his mate were both dead.</p>

-

-<p>"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, I took

-them of B&mdash;&mdash; to save a bad debt that I never

-expected to get. Take the hides down to Fletcher's.

-They will bring the cash."</p>

-

-<p>After the lapse of another hour the man came back

-to tell him that the nigh brindle was dead.</p>

-

-<p>"Is he?" said the old man. "Well, he was a very

-old ox. Take off his hide and send it down to

-Fletcher's. It is worth cash and will bring more

-than two of the others."</p>

-

-<p>Hereupon his wife reminded him that his loss was

-a judgment of Heaven upon him.</p>

-

-<p>"Is it?" said the old chap. "Well, if they will take

-the judgment in cattle, it is the easiest way I can pay it."</p>

-

-<p>But they know no more about final judgments than

-they did about the lake of fire and brimstone which

-commenced to drain off in Columbus' day. Science

-has vaporized the notion of a future judgment by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>

-the same method it has that of a past Creation.

-From the <i>facts</i>, it has learned <i>laws</i>. But credulity

-is always half-hearted with facts. It does not know

-enough of truth to love it. It is ever glowing over

-and setting up as a dogma the little it knows, or

-assumes to know, of the truth of former times. It

-has no faith in the newly discovered, because it

-knows nothing of it.</p>

-

-<p>Hence, age after age we see the spectacle of men

-who have not studied the science of their own day

-denouncing it in pulpit and councils; of men who

-have steeped themselves in the traditions of the

-past pronouncing shallow invectives against the

-demonstrations of (science) the present.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Many church people say immortality must be

-true, or the great majority would not believe

-in it. But do they? They do not talk or write as if

-they did. If language means anything, I think the

-majority believe in annihilation. Most people speak

-of the dead body of a man as though it were the

-man. They say, "He was buried at Greenwood,"

-or, "She was cremated at Forest Hills." And we

-hear the "late" Mr. Smith left an immense

-fortune. If Mr. Smith still exists, why do they say

-the <i>late</i> Mr. Smith? If people didn't believe that

-the soul and body are one, and that life ceases and

-mind expires when the body dies, why do they say,

-"They were"? What little the Church has learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>

-has been by <i>main force</i> so to speak.</p>

-

-<p>A friend of

-mine many years ago was a college student. At

-that time they were all compelled to attend the

-college church. On one occasion he heard the

-preacher, who was also a college professor, make

-these statements:</p>

-

-<p><i>First</i>, that the <i>elect</i> alone would be saved.</p>

-

-<p><i>Second</i>, that among those who by the world were

-called Christians, probably not more than one in a

-hundred belonged really and truly to the <i>elect</i>.</p>

-

-<p><i>Third</i>, that the others, by reason of their Christian

-privileges, would suffer more hereafter than the

-heathen, who had never heard the Gospel at all.</p>

-

-<p>The young man made a note of these propositions,

-and on the strength of them drew up a petition to

-the Faculty soliciting exemption from further

-attendance at church, as only preparing for himself

-a more terrible future.</p>

-

-<p>He said: "The congregation here amounts to six

-hundred persons, and nine of these are the college

-professors. Now if only one in a hundred is to be

-saved, it follows that three even of the professors

-must be damned, and I, being a mere student,

-could not expect to be saved in preference to a

-professor." Far, he said, be it from him to cherish

-so presumptuous a hope. Nothing remained for

-him, therefore, but perdition. In this melancholy

-state of affairs he was anxious to abstain from any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>thing

-that might aggravate his future punishment;

-and as church attendance had been shown to have

-this influence on the <i>non-elect</i>, he trusted that the

-Faculty would for all time exempt him from it.</p>

-

-<p>The result was he came very near being expelled

-from the college&mdash;simply by heeding their sermons.

-The professors of some colleges have learned something,

-and do not insist on the students attending

-church.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Ponder for a moment on the many dishonest

-ways churches have for raising money. Think

-of the amount of money they can raise at a church-fair&mdash;alias,

-a confidence-game.</p>

-

-<p>A young man from Kentucky told me that he

-attended one at Chicago. First he went to the table

-where refreshments were sold. A beautiful siren

-with big black eyes and small white hands spread

-the edibles before him. When he arose from the

-table he handed her a five-dollar bill. She put it in

-a little box and forgot to give him any change. She

-smiled sweetly at him, and asked him if he would

-like to walk about the room and look at the fancy

-articles, all to be sold for the good of the church.</p>

-

-<p>She took his arm and murmured, "We are not

-strangers; we both feel interested in the church."</p>

-

-<p>"We soon came," said the young man in telling

-me the story, "to a silver tea-set that was to be

-'raffled off.' Would I take a chance? Of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>

-I did. Then came a cake with a valuable ring concealed

-in it. Would I take a chance in that? Of

-course I did.</p>

-

-<p>"So things glided on until I concluded if I took

-many more chances, my chances for getting home

-would be slim. So I refused to tempt fortune any

-further, until the little black-eyed scoundrel took

-me on a new tack. Leaning heavily on my arm,

-and resting her cheek on my shoulder, she said,

-'Please take a chance for me.'</p>

-

-<p>"It is needless to add that I took the chance, and

-kept on taking chances for the beautiful and

-unprincipled wretch that had me in tow, until I

-had not a dollar left. Yes, I was penniless, and then

-it began to dawn on me that she was working me

-for the success of the church. There I was, bankrupt

-in money and self-respect. I had been robbed&mdash;yes,

-robbed, for where is the difference between

-a pair of pistols and a pair of black eyes in a robbery?

-You part with your money because you can not

-help it.</p>

-

-<p>"I know that Society looks with lenient eyes upon

-church-fairs, but it is my opinion that all robbers

-will take sentence, and when that little Chicago

-robber receives her sentence, she will take her

-place by the side of Jack Sheppard!"</p>

-

-<p>You see he still believes in Judgments. He is

-learning by main force.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>A very pious woman whose father was a missionary,

-now living in Hawaii, wrote not long ago that

-professional men flocking to the Islands will be

-disappointed unless they are friends of old families;

-and the old families are descendants of missionaries

-who went there in the early days and took lands

-and everything else from the natives.</p>

-

-<p>There seems to be nothing like being a descendant

-from a missionary family. These people, equally

-pious and provident, thought it a good scheme to

-cheat the sinful savages out of all their worldly

-possessions, in order that they might be taught

-humility and holiness through the chastening

-influence of poverty. So they robbed the unregenerate

-to the glory of God.</p>

-

-<p>Who says it doesn't pay to save the heathen?

-Think of the ignorance and superstition of the

-majority of the preachers of the present day.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Up in Northern Minnesota, less than fifty years

-ago, an old Baptist was preaching on the

-death of Moses on the Mount, and his not being

-permitted to go over into the Promised Land.

-The preacher said:</p>

-

-<p>"I have always felt sorry for Moses. It has seemed

-so hard to me that he could not go over with Caleb

-and Joshua, the only two of the host which he had

-led out of Egypt, and enjoy with his people the

-good country towards which they had been so long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>

-traveling. When as a boy I read that in the Bible

-for the first time, I sat down and cried for sympathy

-with him. But Moses had a hard time from

-the first. He was no sooner born than his life was

-threatened. His mother had to hide him to save it.

-After three months she could hide him no longer,

-and so she made an ark of bulrushes and set him

-afloat on the river. Indeed, it seemed as though the

-Lord had all he could do to raise Moses."</p>

-

-<p>But the people of this generation do not take the

-story of Moses so seriously. A bright young girl of

-ten, on being asked by her Sabbath School teacher,

-"Where did Pharaoh's daughter get Moses?"

-replied, with the accent on the <i>said</i>, "She <i>said</i> she

-'found him in the bulrushes.'"</p>

-

-<p>I attended a campmeeting in North Carolina. The

-exhortations and prayers would cause a graven

-image to smile audibly. One old Baptist preacher

-said he always felt so sorry to think that "Ingine

-corn" didn't grow in Palestine, because he would

-like to think that the little Jesus had a good time

-playing with cob-houses.</p>

-

-<p>But those preachers compare favorably with the

-Reverend George F. Hall, of Decatur, Illinois, and

-the Reverend Doctor John P. D. John, and the

-Reverend Doctor Frederick Bell, late of the

-Metropolitan Temple of San Francisco, California,

-who at various times challenged Robert G.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>

-Ingersoll to debate with them. It shows what ignorance,

-superstition and egotism combined can do.</p>

-

-<p>Darwin said the herding instinct in animals has

-its base in fear. Sheep and cattle go in droves, while

-a lion simply flocks with his mate. Those who wish

-to lead have always fostered fear, encouraging this

-tendency to herd, promising protection, and offering

-what they call knowledge in return for a

-luxurious living.</p>

-

-<p>In other words, the men who preach and pray,

-always want the people who <i>work</i> to divide with

-them. They work on the line that fear will compel

-men to join churches. This joining instinct is a

-manifestation of weakness. By going with a gang

-they hope to get to Heaven. But the moment you

-eliminate the Devil from Christianity, there is

-nothing left. You can not have a revival, alias an

-epidemic, of religion, without the Devil. If there

-were no Devil, there would be nothing to pray

-about, and all these people who are gifted in prayer

-would be without a job.</p>

-

-<p>Think of the chaplains of the Army and Navy, in

-Congress and in the Legislatures being turned out

-to browse for themselves. Think of their being

-obliged to earn an honest living. They could not

-do it. I am amused when I think of the prayers

-that are exchanged in war times. One side will

-pray that the wrath of Heaven will descend on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>

-other, and the other side will return the compliment

-with ten per cent interest.</p>

-

-<p>I remember when I was a child of reading the

-prayer of a Hungarian officer. He said: "O Lord,

-I will not ask thee to help us, and I know that thou

-wilt not help the Austrians. But if thou wilt sit on

-yonder hill, thou shalt not be ashamed of thy

-children."</p>

-

-<p>The famous Bishop Leslie prayed before a battle

-in Ireland, "O God, for our unworthiness we are

-not fit to claim thy help, but if we are bad, our

-enemies are worse, and if thou seest not meet to

-help us, we pray thee help them not, but stand

-thou neutral this day, and leave it to the arm of

-flesh."</p>

-

-<p>All this dramatic power would be lost without the

-Devil. So it behooves the Christian churches to

-hold fast to the Devil. Get a good grip on his hoofs,

-horns and tail, for without him they would be

-relegated to "innocuous desuetude." He should be

-incorporated as the fourth person in the Orthodox

-Godhead, and respectfully addressed as "Holy

-Devil."</p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2"><i>There is no truth in the dogma of the divinity of

-Jesus, no sense in it, no religion in it. It is the

-product of mythology and has no claim upon this age.</i></p>

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p6 i2">This is my doctrine: Give every other

-human being every right you claim for

-yourself. Keep your mind open to the

-influences of Nature. Receive new

-thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.</p>

-

-<p class="i2">The man who does not do his own

-thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself

-and to his fellowmen.</p>

-

-<p class="i2">As far as I am concerned, I wish to be

-out on the high seas. I wish to take my

-chances with wind and wave and star.

-And I had rather go down in the glory

-and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in

-any orthodox harbor whatever.</p></div>

-

-<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="AGNOSTIC">WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES

-AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC</h2></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2">The ignorance of the masses insures

-abundant contributions to the clergy and

-to religion.&mdash;<i>Ralph W. Chainey.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">The mother who teaches her child to

-pray makes a mistake.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-

-

-<p class="center large">WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">HE Millerites&mdash;or Second Adventists,

-as they now call themselves&mdash;are

-the first sect that I remember.

-They are a people of remarkable

-vigor: they have been at work for

-seventy years to bring this world

-to an end, and although they have been wrong in

-their arithmetic all these years, they rub out the

-slate and begin again.</p>

-

-<p>And they prove everything by the Bible, as all

-other denominations do. The "time" has been set

-at least twenty times since I can remember. I

-recollect having awful palpitations in the kneepans

-upon one of the eventful days, and crawling under

-the barn so as not to be in the way. They used to

-congregate on the height of land near my father's,

-"to go up," and one man climbed upon an old

-shed, and fell and broke his hip; he fainted, and

-they thought he was dead. As soon as he had

-revived a little, they asked him if he had any

-requests to make before he died. He replied, "I

-want you to work in 'durn fool' somewhere on my

-tombstone." He recovered, and lived many years,

-but he was cured of Millerism.</p>

-

-<p>A large share of the students of the Second Advent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>

-doctrine came into this world, not only naked, but

-without any brains, nor any place suitable to put

-any; and the first business they do is to wonder

-about their souls and talk about being "born

-again." They never seem to realize that to be well

-born is much more essential than to be "born

-again." I never knew immortality to be secured

-at the second birth.</p>

-

-<p>I attended one of their meetings this year, and

-asked one of the sisters for their <i>creed</i>. She said,

-"Our creed is the whole Bible, from the first book

-of Genesis to the last word of the last chapter of

-Revelations."</p>

-

-<p>I thought of what a boy said when the Baptist

-Elder came and took tea at his home, and asked a

-"blessing."</p>

-

-<p>The boy said: "Is that the way you ask a blessing?

-My father doesn't ask it that way."</p>

-

-<p>"How does he ask it?"</p>

-

-<p>"Oh, he sat down to the table the other evening,

-and looked it all over, and said, 'My God, what a

-supper!'"</p>

-

-<p>And I thought, "My God, what a creed!"</p>

-

-<p>I was tempted to ask the Millerite sister what she

-thought of the discrepancy between the first and

-the second chapter of Genesis. In the first chapter

-Man and Woman were a simultaneous creation.

-In the second chapter, Woman was an afterthought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>

-But I had the deep sagacity to hold my tongue,

-and leave her and her <i>creed</i> in peace.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The second church that I remember anything

-about is the Free-Will Baptist. My mother

-was a devout member of that church. I have heard

-thousands of times, "Except a man be born of

-water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the

-Kingdom of God." And man included woman&mdash;it

-always did, so far as pains and penalties were

-concerned.</p>

-

-<p>I remember distinctly a sermon I heard on Hell.

-You younger people can not have the faintest idea

-of the terrific sermons that were preached in those

-days.</p>

-

-<p>That sermon commenced in this wise:</p>

-

-<p>"Now we will look into Hell and see what we can

-see. It is all red-hot like red-hot iron. Streams of

-burning pitch and sulphur run through it. The

-floor blazes up to the roof. Look at the walls&mdash;the

-enormous stones are red-hot. Sparks of fire are

-always falling down from them. Lift up your eyes

-to the roof of Hell. It is like a sheet of blazing fire.

-Hell is filled with a fog of fire. In Hell, torrents not

-of water, but of fire and brimstone, are rained

-down. You may have seen a house on fire, but you

-never saw a house made of fire. Hell is a house

-made of fire. The fire of Hell burns the devils, who

-are spirits, for it was prepared for them. But it will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>

-burn the body as well as the soul. Take a little

-spark out of Hell&mdash;less than the size of a pin-head&mdash;and

-throw it into the ocean, and it will not go out.

-In one moment it would dry up all the waters of

-the ocean, and set the whole world in a blaze!

-Listen to the terrific noise of Hell&mdash;to the horrible

-uproar of countless millions of tormented creatures,

-mad with the fury of Hell! Oh, the screams of fear,

-the groanings of horror, the yells of rage, the cries

-of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair,

-from millions on millions. You hear them roaring

-like lions, hissing like serpents, howling like dogs,

-and wailing like dragons! And above all, you hear

-the roaring of the thunder of God's anger, which

-shakes Hell to its foundations. Little children, if

-you go to Hell, there will be a devil at your side

-to strike you. How will you feel after you have been

-struck every minute for a hundred millions of

-years? Look into this inner room of Hell, and see a

-girl of about sixteen. She stands in the middle of a

-red-hot floor; her feet are bare; sleep can never

-come to her; she can never forget for one moment

-in all the eternity of years."</p>

-

-<p>And so this description

-of Hell went on for nearly two hours. Do you

-wonder that I, a child of ten years, said to my

-father, who was a freethinker, infidel, atheist, or

-whatever else you please to call him: "I <i>hate</i> my

-mother's church. I will <i>not</i> go there again!"</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The next church I became acquainted with was

-the Calvin Baptist Church. That church

-seemed to think that the most of us were born to

-be damned anyway!</p>

-

-<p>The great Ingersoll had it right when he said it

-was the damned-if-you-do-and-the-damned-if-you-don't

-church.</p>

-

-<p>The only difference between the Free-Will Baptists

-and the Calvin Baptists that I can see, is, that you

-are allowed to exercise your <i>will</i>. The Free-Will

-Baptists will damn you if you wish to be, and the

-Calvinists will damn you anyway!</p>

-

-<p>The next church to which I was introduced was the

-Congregationalist, alias the Orthodox. Their creed

-is rather complex from a mathematical standpoint.

-They seem to think that three Gods are one God,

-and one God is three Gods.</p>

-

-<p>I, having been taught that figures don't lie,

-couldn't understand it, until I thought of a boy

-who said to his teacher when she explained to him

-that figures didn't lie: "You should see my sisters

-at home, and then on the street. You will find that

-figures do lie."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I then went to Italy, and became conversant

-with the <i>outside</i> doings of the Roman Catholic

-Church. I visited many of them, saw the beggars

-eating crusts at the doors, and the well-fed priests

-saying masses inside; saw the white hand of famine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>

-always extended, in bitter contrast to the magnificent

-cathedrals; saw well-dressed, intelligent-looking

-men and women going upstairs on their hands

-and knees, and saw hundreds of them kissing the

-toe of the bronze statue of Saint Peter; saw monks

-of every shade and description; and all begging for

-the Holy Catholic Church!</p>

-

-<p>I attended a church festival at Rome at the Ara

-Cœli, where the most "Holy Bambino" is kept, a

-little wooden doll about two feet long. It is said

-to be the image of Jesus. It had a crown of gold on

-its head and was fairly ablaze with diamonds. It

-has great power to heal the sick. It is taken to visit

-patients in great style&mdash;that is, if the patients are

-rich. The Bambino is placed in a coach accompanied

-by priests in full dress. The Great Festival of the

-Bambino is celebrated annually. Military bands

-and the Soldiers of the Guard dance attendance.

-Saint Gennaro is held to be the guardian saint of

-Naples. The alleged miracle by which the blood of

-this holy person, contained in a glass tube, changes

-from a solid to a liquid state, is well known.

-Thousands go to see the miracle performed. When

-the priest first held up the sacred vial with its

-clotted contents we could hear all about us: "Holy

-Gennaro, save and protect us! Bless the City of

-Naples, and keep it free from plagues and earthquakes

-and other ills. Do this miracle so that we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>

-can see that thy power and thy favor are still with

-us." And so it went on for an hour or more, until

-the great throng was nearly hysterical.</p>

-

-<p>At last the priest stepped forward, showing that

-the blood flowed freely in the tube, and then such

-a shout went up from the big crowd as one hears

-only in Southern climes.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I have never been introduced to the Church of

-England, alias, the Episcopalian, but I've

-always thought if a man had a good voice, and

-understood the mysteries of the corkscrew, he

-would make a good rector.</p>

-

-<p>I became acquainted with a High-Church Episcopalian

-woman not long ago, and she showed me a

-prayer-rug and praying-costume imported from

-Paris. I told her that she looked like an angel in it,

-as she ought after going to all that expense and

-trouble; if she didn't, dressmakers might as well

-give it up and wait for Gabriel. The attitude of

-prayer threw the back breadths of the skirt into

-graceful prominence, and hence the necessity

-(which will be at once recognized by all the truly

-<i>pious</i>) of increased attention to the frills and

-embroidery required by the religious attitude of

-prayer.</p>

-

-<p>An old farmer in Indiana said he was a "Piscopal."</p>

-

-<p>"To what parish do you belong?"</p>

-

-<p>"I don't know nothing about parishes."</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>"Who confirmed you?"</p>

-

-<p>"Nobody."</p>

-

-<p>"Then how do you belong to the Episcopalian Church?"</p>

-

-<p>"Well, last Winter I went down to Arkansas

-visiting, and while I was there, I went to a church

-and it was called 'Piscopal,' and I heard them say

-that they had done the things they ought not to

-have done, and left undone the things they ought

-to have done, and I says to myself, 'That is my

-fix exactly,' and ever since then I've considered

-myself a 'Piscopal'!"</p>

-

-<p>And I came to the conclusion that that is why the

-membership of that church is so large!</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I know but little about the Methodists, but I

-do know that John Wesley, one of the founders

-of that church, believed in witchcraft, and was one

-of the latest of its supporters.</p>

-

-<p>History tells us that Brother Wesley preached a

-sermon entitled, <i>The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes</i>.

-He said that earthquakes were caused by

-sin, and the only way to stop them was to believe

-in his theology and teachings, thus showing great

-knowledge of seismology; but people who bank on

-gullibility are usually safe. I know the Methodists

-make a great hullabaloo about their religion, and

-appear to think their God is deaf.</p>

-

-<p>The Methodist Conference has refused to allow

-women to be delegates to the General Conference.

-The Methodist sisters should discipline the Church.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>What I know about the Universalists I like.

-They seem to think that we are all in the

-same boat, and that one stands as good a chance

-as another, of which I approve. When I was a child,

-Sylvanus Cobb, at that time the great Universalist

-preacher, preached in the adjoining town. One

-Sunday, my father and I went to hear him. His

-sermon caused a great commotion, and the Baptist

-who preached that terrific sermon about Hell said

-to my mother, "There is a wicked man about here

-preaching that everybody is to be saved; but,

-Sister Young, let us hope for better things!"</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I believe that the Unitarians, as a class, think

-for themselves. I approve of that, and the

-Evangelical Alliance disapproves of them. That is

-in their favor.</p>

-

-<p>I taught school at Lee, New Hampshire, fifty years

-ago. One of the committee was a Unitarian, and one

-was a Quaker. I was tired of selecting suitable

-reading matter from that obscene old book, the

-Bible, and I suggested that we read from some

-other book, which we did for two mornings, when

-the Unitarian materialized at the schoolhouse, and

-with much suavity suggested that we read from the

-Bible every morning, and recite the Lord's Prayer;

-and I, teaching school for my bread and butter,

-bowed to the suggestion, and the next morning

-said: "Pupils, Mr. Smith prefers that we read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>

-from the Bible. Therefore, we will this morning

-read the startling and authentic account of Jonah

-whilst he was stopping at the submarine hotel."

-That is the most narrow-minded thing I ever knew

-about a Unitarian; but I always thought Mr. Smith

-voiced the opinion of the parents of the pupils

-rather than his own.</p>

-

-<p>I am somewhat acquainted with the Church of the

-Latter-Day Saints, alias the Mormons. They are

-a prudent, industrious, painstaking people, and

-only about two per cent of them ever <i>did</i> practise

-polygamy, and that is a very small proportion for

-any Christian church. Brigham Young never did

-have but seventeen wives, but Solomon had five

-hundred wives, and one thousand other lady

-friends, and David, whose honor and humility

-show greater in his psalms than in the history of his

-ordinary, every-day life, was, as the Bible says, a

-man after God's own heart.</p>

-

-<p>I am sure that Brigham Young compared favorably

-with David. And if God interviewed Moses, why

-shouldn't he have interviewed Joe Smith?</p>

-

-<p>There are more than one thousand religions. They

-are founded mostly on fraud. All their saviors had

-virgins for mothers, and gods for fathers.</p>

-

-<p>The churches own more than thirteen billions of

-property, and they are <i>all</i> too dishonest to pay

-honest taxes. Many of the churches couldn't be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>

-run three weeks without the women. They do all

-the work, for which they get no credit.</p>

-

-<p>The churches claim all the distinguished people,

-especially after they are dead and hence can not

-deny their claims. They have many times claimed

-that Abraham Lincoln was a churchman. The

-Honorable H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, an old

-friend of Lincoln, said it is false. Lincoln belonged

-to no church, and at one time said, "I have never

-united myself to any church, because I have found

-difficulty in giving my assent without mental

-reservation to the long, complicated statements of

-Christian doctrine, which characterize their articles

-of belief, and confessions of faith." But still they

-claim him. Honest, very!</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>No institution in modern civilization is so

-tyrannical and so unjust to women as is the

-Christian church. The history of the Church does

-not contain a single suggestion for the equality of

-woman with man, and still the Church claims that

-woman owes her advancement to the Bible. She

-owes it much more to the dictionary.</p>

-

-<p>History, both ancient and modern, tells us that the

-condition of women is most degraded in those

-countries where Church and State are in closest

-affiliation (such as, Spain, Italy, Russia and Ireland),

-and most advanced in nations where the

-power of ecclesiasticism is markedly on the wane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>

-It has been proved that, whatever progress woman

-has made in any department of effort, she has

-accomplished independent of, and in opposition to,

-the so-called inspired and infallible Word of God;

-and that the Bible has been of more injury to her

-than has any other book ever written in the history

-of the world.</p>

-

-<p>William Root Bliss, in his <i>Side Glimpses From the

-Colonial Meetinghouse</i>, tells us many startling

-truths concerning the Puritans, and reminds me of

-what Chauncey M. Depew said&mdash;that the <i>first</i>

-thing the Puritans did, after they landed at

-Plymouth, was to fall on their knees, and the <i>second</i>

-thing was to fall on the Aborigines.</p>

-

-<p>The business of trading in slaves was not immoral

-by the estimate of public opinion in Colonial times.

-A deacon of the church in Newport esteemed the

-slave trade, with its rum accessories, as home

-missionary work. It is said that on the first Sunday

-after the arrival of his slaves he was accustomed to

-offer thanks that an overruling Providence had

-been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another

-cargo of benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings

-of a Gospel dispensation.</p>

-

-<p>At a Bridgewater town meeting of the year Sixteen

-Hundred Seventy-six, a vote was called to see

-what should be done with the money that was made

-from selling the Indians.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>John Bacon of Barnstable directed in his will that

-his Indian slave Dinah be sold and the proceeds

-used "by my executors in buying Bibles." By men

-who sat in the Colonial meetinghouse, the first

-fugitive-slave law was formed. This law became a

-part of the Articles of Confederation between all

-the New England Colonies.</p>

-

-<p>The affinity between <i>rum</i> and the religion of

-Colonial times was exemplified in the license

-granted John Vyall to keep a house of entertainment

-in Boston. He must keep it near the meetinghouse

-of the Second Church, where he extended

-his invitation to thirsty sinners who were going

-to hear John Mayo or Increase Mather preach.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The importation of slaves began early. The

-first arrival at Boston was by the ship <i>Desire</i>,

-on February Twenty-sixth, Sixteen Hundred Thirty-seven,

-bringing negroes, tobacco and cotton from

-Barbados. She had sailed from Boston eleven

-months before, carrying Indian captives to the

-Bermudas to be sold as slaves, and thus she became

-noted as the first New England slave-ship.</p>

-

-<p>In time, slaves were brought to Boston direct from

-Africa.</p>

-

-<p>Advertisements of just-arrived negroes to be sold

-may be seen in the Boston <i>News Letter</i> of the years

-Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six and Seventeen

-Hundred Twenty-seven. The pious Puritans did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>

-not hesitate to sell slaves on the auction-block. I

-find in the Boston <i>News Letter</i> of September Nineteenth,

-Seventeen Hundred Fifteen, a notice of an

-auction-sale at Newport, Rhode Island, of several

-Indians, men and boys, and a very likely negro man.

-They were treated in all respects as merchandise,

-and were rated with horses and cattle.</p>

-

-<p>Peter Faneuil, to whom Boston is indebted for

-its Cradle of Liberty, was deep in the business. In

-an inventory of the property of Parson Williams

-of Deerfield, in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine,

-his slaves were rated with his horses and cows.

-"Believe and be baptized" is all that was essential.

-I think many of them would have been improved

-by anchoring them out overnight.</p>

-

-<p>A negro preacher whom I knew came to me when

-I was in Florida, and said: "What shall I preach

-about tomorrow? I'se done preached myself

-'plumb out.' I'se worked on election sanctification

-and damnation predestination till I can't say

-another word to save my life."</p>

-

-<p>I said, "Preach a sermon on 'Thou shalt not steal'

-for a text."</p>

-

-<p>"Yes," he said, "that certainly <i>is</i> a good text,

-but I am monstros 'fraid it will produce a coolness

-in my congregation!"</p>

-

-<p>Doubtless it would produce a coolness in many

-a congregation today.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Now I want to talk a little about <i>law</i> and its

-penalty. We want to consider the invariable

-laws of Nature. Let us look at it in the way in

-which we became acquainted with it&mdash;through

-experience.</p>

-

-<p>To the child, law is an educator; he plays with fire

-and is burned. Law and its penalty have done their

-work. A burnt child dreads the fire. On that point

-his education is complete. He cuts himself with a

-knife; again the law works. Do not play with

-edged tools is the lesson. And so, whenever he comes

-in contact with external objects, he learns something

-very definite from them; and if he has any

-sense, he soon conforms to the order which he sees

-in force all around him. He does what he can to act

-in such a way as not to run counter to Nature's

-laws; or, at least, Nature teaches him to do so by

-repeated suffering when he acts otherwise. The

-law thus far is all in favor of life, and is teaching the

-child to preserve it. He must eat not to starve; he

-must be clothed not to freeze; he must not be

-burned, or cut, or crushed. In one word, he must

-take care of himself, and be careful of external

-objects, or he must be hurt.</p>

-

-<p>But his education has another connection with law.

-If he has proper parents he learns that he can not

-lie, or steal, or do many other things without suffering

-a penalty. If he has no home education in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>

-matter, the reform-school and the jail step in and

-take up the lesson.</p>

-

-<p>And so the law teaches him that his actions must be

-of a certain quality, both with respect to external

-Nature and his fellowmen, or that he must pay a

-penalty.</p>

-

-<p>Thus he comes to man's estate, and law has been

-to him an educator and a good one. He has learned

-that Nature's law means punishment every time

-it is violated, and that man's law, whatever it may

-attain to, <i>aims</i> at the same object as Nature's law.</p>

-

-<p>But neither his education nor his contact with

-law ends with his youth. Hitherto he has obeyed

-blindly for fear of the penalty. He now obeys

-intelligently, and connected with the penalty to be

-incurred by disobedience is the reward to be

-obtained through obedience. He finds that every

-act, every thought, of his brings him in direct contact

-with law. He can not elude it by standing still,

-for no man can stand still. He must go forward, or

-backward. This is an inexorable law; with progress,

-improvement; without progress, what? Rest?

-Repose? No! Deterioration. No man can stand

-still in this universe for a day without losing something.

-The man who means to do anything in life

-must go forward; if he falters, another goes ahead;

-and then he learns that the penalty of faltering is

-failure.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Nature works no special miracles in any one's

-favor. Nature works no miracles, anyway. The sun

-and the moon did <i>not</i> stand still at Joshua's command!</p>

-

-<p>No riches and influence can buy exemption from

-Nature.</p>

-

-<p>Law says to the poor man who is dependent on his

-daily toil: "You have only yourself to rely upon.

-Take care of your health; be temperate, honest

-and industrious, for sickness, imprisonment, idleness,

-mean to you death."</p>

-

-<p>It says to the rich man: "Inherited wealth has

-exempted you from <i>daily</i> labor of body, but it has

-not earned for you rest. Go to work; do something,

-or your mind and body will be enfeebled; your

-sympathies will disappear; you will become dry

-as the summer's dust; you will sink into a nonentity."</p>

-

-<p>The whole cry of Nature's law is onward and

-upward. Evolution is the word&mdash;there is no God

-about it. It is not alone the survival of the fittest&mdash;that

-is only a part of the process. It is the fittest of

-one generation becoming something better and

-higher for the next.</p>

-

-<p>It is the fashion now to say that the struggle for

-existence becomes yearly more fierce, but that is

-not so. The truth is that those who struggle become

-with each survival fitter to struggle, and that for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>

-which they struggle is placed one step forward.

-Men used to want thousands and hundreds of thousands;

-now, they want millions and hundreds of

-millions. They used to want general knowledge;

-now, they are all specialists, and cry out that life

-is too short. Steam used to content them; now,

-electricity does not satisfy them, and they are

-grasping at the possibilities of the mighty currents

-of air caused by the revolutions of the earth itself.</p>

-

-<p>The law of progress is not limited to the mind.

-The body shares in it. Men are stronger, larger,

-longer-lived than they have ever been. Even with

-the animals, finer, better breeds are constantly

-producing themselves under law.</p>

-

-<p>This law of the survival of the fittest and the

-elevation of the type of the fittest pronounced

-against slavery, and a nation paid the penalty in

-blood, as Spain has, and other nations will pay it.

-It has pronounced against the subjection of women,

-and let those who stand in the way, beware, lest

-some ruin crush them as it falls!</p>

-

-<p>The type of sympathy has become higher and

-tenderer. Sweet hands of mercy are now stretched

-down even to the brutes. Let those lovers of the

-past who can see no progress in the present, who

-would question this onward tendency, and the

-result of law, let them remember that they must

-run rapidly to keep from being overwhelmed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>

-<i>expansionists</i>.</p>

-

-<p>Nature's law teaches us that like

-begets like. You plant a grain of wheat, and you

-reap wheat. You breed Morgan stock and the foal

-is of Morgan blood. The child is the offspring of

-certain parents, and it inherits their blood. If

-parents choose to unfit themselves to be healthy

-parents, who shall be blamed?</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Shall gravitation cease as I go by? Teach

-children that no amount of so-called religion

-will compensate for rheumatism; that Christianity

-has nothing to do with morality; that "vicarious

-atonement" is a fraud, and a lie; that to be born

-well and strong is the highest birth; that to be

-honest and pay one's debts spells peace of mind;

-that the Bible is no more inspired than the dictionary;

-that <i>sin</i> is a transgression of the laws of life,

-and that the blood of all the bulls and goats and

-lambs of ancient times, and the blood of Christ or

-any other man, never had, and never can have, the

-least effect in making a life what it would have

-been had it obeyed the laws of life. If you have

-marred your life, you must bear the consequences.

-If you have made a mistake, be more careful in the

-future. Let the thought that the past is irretrievable

-make you more careful in the present and for

-the future.</p>

-

-<p>And, above all, teach children that prayer is

-idiotic. There may be one God or twenty. I do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>

-know or care. I am not afraid, and no priest or

-parson can make me believe that my title to a

-future life, if there be one, is defective. And the

-great and good man Thomas Paine, who wrote the

-<i>Age of Reason</i>, and said, "The world is my

-country, and to do good my religion," is a good

-enough god for me. And the great Ingersoll, who

-said, "I belong to the great Church that holds the

-world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great

-and good of every race and clime; that finds with

-joy the grain of gold in every creed and floods with

-light and love the germs of good in every soul," is

-in my opinion an excellent god&mdash;as good as any

-that ever lived, from Confucius to Christ. A friend

-of mine said to me, "Ingersoll should have been

-a Christian." I replied, "The dog-collar of Christianity

-did not belong on his neck: he preached the

-truth; he preferred that to the Bible. I can not

-imagine the great Ingersoll preaching from II

-Kings xiv: 35."</p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2"><i>When I was a child I heard very little about Christmas

-and nothing about Lent and Easter. I was taught

-to be honest and truthful and to pay one hundred

-cents on a dollar. In my opinion there is no Bible

-extant so good as Ingersoll's Complete Works.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="REJOINDER">A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER</h2></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2">Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is

-born of courage. Fear believes&mdash;courage

-doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and

-prays&mdash;courage stands erect and thinks.

-Fear retreats&mdash;courage advances. Fear

-is barbarism&mdash;courage is civilization.

-Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and

-in ghosts. Fear is religion&mdash;courage is

-science.</p>

-

-<p class="i2">There are real crimes enough without

-creating artificial ones. All progress in

-legislation has for centuries consisted in

-repealing the laws of the ghosts.</p>

-

-<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-<p class="large center">A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER<br />

-A LABOR OF FOLLY<br />

-<span class="medium"><i>From the Portsmouth "Times"</i></span></p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">UR old friend, Marilla M. Ricker,

-of Dover, lifelong advocate of

-"woman's rights," zealous champion

-of "freethought," admirer of

-Bob Ingersoll, worshiper of Tom

-Paine, and collaborator of Elbert

-Hubbard, who fears neither God, man nor the

-Devil, because she does not believe particularly in

-any of them, is engaged in a labor of folly, in that

-she is fighting the doctrine of the immortality of

-the human soul.</p>

-

-<p>In the prosecution of her warfare she has gone into

-print and issued a pamphlet in which she takes

-issue, primarily, with one Elder E. A. Kenyon

-upon his proposition of a universal consciousness

-that "if a man die he shall live again," and even

-goes so far as to assert that the majority of mankind

-believe in annihilation. Moreover, she pronounces

-the doctrine of personal immortality "a

-most selfish and harmful one," "pernicious in its

-results," and operating for the enslavement of

-mankind, filling the world with gloom and making

-of man a crawling coward.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>

-We invite no controversy with Marilla, and will

-have none. We concede her right to believe anything,

-or nothing, to say what she thinks, write

-what she pleases, get it printed where she may, and

-circulate it as she can; but our advice to the dear

-sister is to "let up" on this contention, wherein

-she is out-Ingersolling Ingersoll. He did not

-believe in immortality, but he did not deny it. He

-claimed that he did not know, and that no man

-could know it to be a fact; but he never sought to

-blot out hope. And the truth is that but for this

-hope of immortal existence, entertained by the

-vast majority of the race, in all lands and ages, life

-would not be worth living, and men and women

-everywhere would lie down and perish in despair.

-It is this hope, or faith, or consciousness&mdash;however

-we may express it&mdash;of life beyond the grave, or the

-immortality of the soul, that inspires mankind to

-all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for

-progress and development here. Without it there

-would be no incentive effort beyond that which

-impels the brute. Without it, in fact, man would

-be mere brute, and nothing else.</p>

-

-<p>That the horrid doctrines of Calvinism were dinned

-into Mrs. Ricker's ears in childhood, and the fear

-of eternal torment held up before her, instead of

-the infinite love of a God of Mercy and Justice,

-may have impelled her to repudiate all idea of God<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>

-or Justice, or life to come; but she ought to be

-intelligent enough to sift the error from the truth

-and cling to the latter. If not, she should at least

-be willing to allow others to do so. She may

-repudiate the old Calvinism, or even Christianity

-itself. She may become a Mohammedan, a Buddhist,

-an Agnostic or an out-and-out "heathen" if

-she will. She may accept annihilation as the universal

-fate of humanity; but she should be willing

-to allow mankind in general its indulgence in that

-one "Great Hope," which has illumined with

-immortal splendor the darkest passages of human

-life, and sustains the soul of man and woman in the

-severest trials and conflicts of earth.</p>

-

-

-<h3>THE REJOINDER</h3>

-

-<p class="center">(<i>From the Portsmouth "Times"</i>)</p>

-

-<p class="p2">I was amused when I read in the

-Portsmouth <i>Times</i> an article from

-my friend Metcalf, entitled, A

-<i>Labor of Folly</i>. The genial Henry

-said I was a lifelong advocate of

-"woman's rights," which is true.

-And an admirer of Ingersoll. Could any one help

-admire that great and good man? And a worshiper

-of Thomas Paine. Worship is rather a strong word

-to apply to me, but I think the man who said, "The

-world is my country, and to do good my religion,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>

-and who did more than any other man to put the

-stars on our flag and to give that flag to the breeze,

-should be loved and respected.</p>

-

-<p>He, the aforesaid Henry, said I collaborated with

-Elbert Hubbard. I am proud of that, whether it is

-true or not.</p>

-

-<p>I consider Hubbard the most brilliant writer in

-this country.</p>

-

-<p>Henry also said I feared neither God, man nor the

-Devil, because I did not believe particularly in any

-of them. If he would add an "o" to God and make

-it good, take the "d" from devil and make it evil,

-then I would have something tangible to write

-about besides man, in whom I believe.</p>

-

-<p>Henry also said that I was engaged in a "labor of

-folly," fighting the doctrine of the immortality of

-the soul.</p>

-

-<p>I simply expressed my opinion on the subject.

-My friend Henry wrote me not long ago that there

-was no earthly need of a Freethought paper; that

-thought was as free as air always and everywhere.

-I take issue with him there, and I call his attention

-to the <i>Little Journey</i> to the home of Copernicus&mdash;of

-January, Nineteen Hundred Five&mdash;by Elbert Hubbard.

-Copernicus was the founder of modern

-astronomy.</p>

-

-<p>If Henry will read his life he can see what freethought

-meant at that time. I also call his attention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>

-to Giordano Bruno. He can see what happened to

-him and how free thought was at that time. Henry

-said I could write what I pleased, and get it printed

-where I could.</p>

-

-<p>That was well added, for I could not in the year

-Nineteen Hundred Nine, in the city of Dover,

-New Hampshire, get my article on Immortality

-printed in the only paper in the city; so you see

-how freethought is up to date.</p>

-

-<p>I certainly "take issue" with Henry, "That the

-hope or consciousness of life beyond the grave, or

-immortality of the soul, inspires mankind to all

-that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for

-progress and development here."</p>

-

-<p>Robert Ingersoll did not believe in immortality,

-but he was a great, tender-hearted man, full of

-kindness, full of generous impulses. No man ever

-loved the true, the good and the beautiful more

-than he. He would take the case of a poor man into

-court without pay; he would give a young reporter

-an interview when he could sell every word he

-spoke for a dollar; he would present the proceeds

-of a lecture to some worthy object as though he

-were throwing a nickel to an organ-grinder; and

-when there was persecution he was on the side of

-the persecuted.</p>

-

-<p>I do not believe in individual immortality, but I

-do the best I can, pay one hundred cents on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>

-dollar, and I am not afraid to die. I know thousands

-who believe as I do.</p>

-

-<p>John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed

-in the immortality of the soul&mdash;so do his followers.

-He also believed that sin was the cause of earthquakes,

-and the only way to stop them was to

-believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't know

-much about seismology, but he certainly had

-faith, plus.</p>

-

-<p>John Calvin founded the Presbyterian Church; he

-believed in the immortality of the soul. So do his

-followers; but Calvin was a murderer.</p>

-

-<p>Henry, it is absurd to say that without hope of

-immortality we should be degraded to brutes; in

-my opinion it is not true. What we want is a

-religion that will pay debts; that will practise

-honesty in business life; that will treat employees

-with justice and consideration; that will render

-employers full and faithful work; that will keep

-bank-cashiers true, officeholders patriotic, and

-reliable citizens interested in the purity of politics

-(and the woman citizen will be)&mdash;such a religion is

-real, vital and effective. But a religion that embraces

-vicarious atonement, miraculous conception, regeneration

-by faith, baptism, individual immortality

-and other monkey business is, in my opinion,

-degrading, absurd and unworthy.</p>

-

-<p>Henry, you say you want no controversy with me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>

-I enjoy controversy, but if you are averse to it I'll

-stop and we will unite in singing one stanza of that

-Christian hymn:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">

-<div class="line">King David and King Solomon</div>

-<div class="line i1">Led merry, merry lives</div>

-<div class="line">With their many, many lady friends</div>

-<div class="line i1">And their many, many wives;</div>

-<div class="line">But when old age came o'er them</div>

-<div class="line i1">With its many, many qualms,</div>

-<div class="line">(It was said)</div>

-<div class="line">King Solomon wrote the Proverbs</div>

-<div class="line i1">And King David wrote the Psalms.</div>

-</div></div></div>

-

-<p>But did they?</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"

-height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p6 i2">Where religion is afraid of liberty,

-liberty should be afraid of religion.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">So long as man believes that he has an

-immortal soul, he will fear the future.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="GHOST">THE HOLY GHOST</h2>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2">For ages, a deadly conflict has been

-waged between a few brave men and

-women of thought and genius upon the

-one side, and the great ignorant religious

-mass on the other. This is the war between

-Science and Faith. The few have appealed

-to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to

-the known, and to happiness here in this

-world. The many have appealed to

-prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery,

-to the unknown, and to misery hereafter.

-The few have said, "Think!" The many

-have said, "Believe!"</p>

-

-<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="large center">THE HOLY GHOST</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">F all the weird, fanciful and fabulous

-stories appertaining to the

-gods and other pious frauds, that

-concerning the Holy Ghost ranks

-them all! Now listen to what the

-Bible has to say about that

-mythical personage&mdash;alias, the Holy Ghost. You

-will see that scarcely any two references to it agree

-in assigning it the same character or attributes.

-(It reminds me of what an old lady said at a prayer-meeting:

-"Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to

-me that there are no two of a mind here tonight,

-nor hardly one!")</p>

-

-<p>In John xiv: 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a

-person or personal God. In Luke iii: 22, the Holy

-Ghost changes and assumes the form of a dove. In

-Matthew xiii: 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit.

-In John i: 32, the Holy Ghost is presented as an

-inanimate senseless object. In I John v: 7, the Holy

-Ghost becomes a God&mdash;the third member of the

-Trinity. In Acts ii: 1, the Holy Ghost is averred to

-be a mighty rushing wind. In Acts x: 38, the Holy

-Ghost, we infer from its mode of application, is an

-ointment. In John xx: 22, the Holy Ghost is the

-breath, as we legitimately infer by its being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>

-breathed into the mouth of the recipient after the

-ancient Oriental custom. In Acts ii: 3, we learn the

-Holy Ghost "sat upon each of them." In Acts ii: 1,

-the Holy Ghost appears as cloven tongues of fire.

-In Luke ii: 26, the Holy Ghost is the author of a

-revelation or inspiration. In Mark i: 8, the Holy

-Ghost is a medium or element for baptism. In

-Acts xxviii: 25, the Holy Ghost appears with vocal

-organs and speaks. In Hebrews vi: 4, the Holy

-Ghost is dealt out or imparted by measure. In

-Luke iii: 22 the Holy Ghost appears with a tangible

-body. In Luke i: 5, we are taught that people are

-filled with the Holy Ghost. In Matthew xi: 15,the

-Holy Ghost falls upon the people as a ponderable

-substance. In Luke iv: 1, the Holy Ghost is a God

-within a God&mdash;Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.</p>

-

-<p>These are only a few quotations. There are many

-more, but we can all see what a multifarious

-personage, or rather <i>he</i>, <i>she</i>, or <i>it</i> the Holy Ghost is.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I remember hearing much about the unpardonable

-sin against the Holy Ghost. The sin

-against the Holy Ghost consisted in resisting its

-operations in the second birth&mdash;that is, the regeneration

-of the heart or soul by the Holy Ghost.

-And it was considered unpardonable simply because

-as the pardoning and cleansing process consisted

-in, or was at least always accompanied with,

-baptism by water, in which operation the Holy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>

-Ghost was the agent in effecting the "new birth,"

-therefore, when the ministrations or operations of

-this indispensable agent were resisted or rejected,

-there was no channel, no means, no possible mode

-left for the sinner to find a renewed acceptance with

-God.</p>

-

-<p>When a person sinned against the Father or the

-Son, he could find a door of forgiveness through the

-baptizing processes, spiritual or elementary, of the

-Holy Ghost. But an offense committed against this

-third limb of the Godhead had the effect of closing

-and barring the door so that there could be no

-forgiveness, either in this life or in that which is

-to come.</p>

-

-<p>To sin against the Holy Ghost was to tear down the

-scaffold by which the door of Heaven was to be

-reached. This <i>sin</i> against the Holy Ghost has

-caused thousands of the disciples of the Christian

-faith the most agonizing hours of alarm and despair.</p>

-

-<p>It has always been my opinion that many people

-who thought they had sinned against the Holy

-Ghost simply had dyspepsia.</p>

-

-

-<p class="p2 i2"><i>If people should deceive in other matters as the

-priests, parsons and teachers do in religion, they

-would not escape arrest.</i></p>

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-<p class="p6 i2">The destruction of religions and superstition

-means the upbuilding of charity

-and ethics.&mdash;<i>Ralph W. Chainey.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">Superstition is nothing but a misplaced

-fear of some fancied supernatural phantasm

-of divinity.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="CHRIST">HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?</h2></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2">All that is good in our civilization is the

-result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical

-position, industry, invention, discovery,

-art and science. The Church has

-been the enemy of progress, for the

-reason that it has endeavored to prevent

-man from thinking for himself. To prevent

-thought is to prevent all advancement

-except in the direction of faith.</p>

-

-<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="large center">HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/i.jpg" width="160" height="147" alt="I&nbsp;"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst"> receive many letters from

-various people telling me that

-Christ is mine if I will only take

-him. I am always amused at the

-solicitations of these people and

-feel as President Taft did when

-Peary "laid the Pole" at his feet. Taft replied he

-had no idea what he should do with it. I should not

-know what to do with Christ if I took him.</p>

-

-<p>What can they mean by taking Christ? The word

-Christ is used to designate a certain individual

-who died, if he ever lived, nearly two thousand

-years ago. Now to take this person we should have

-to take him from the earth where he was buried.

-I am at a loss to comprehend what Christians mean

-when they offer Christ to any one. What right has

-an individual today to offer another a person who

-has been dead two thousand years? I fail to see any

-sense in such an offer.</p>

-

-<p>Certain men and women go about the world asking

-people to come to Christ, to accept Christ. What

-do they mean&mdash;do they know?</p>

-

-<p>In my opinion the supreme dogma of Christianity

-is the divinity of Jesus. If Jesus was a man, all that

-was related of his divine acts in the four Gospels is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>

-false. How would a person like the Nazarene

-peasant be accepted today were he to play the part

-of a god?</p>

-

-<p>Suppose a person who had lived in our neighborhood

-should come to us and say, "I am God, and

-I want you to help me save the world; quit your

-work and follow me." What would you think of

-him? Would any one pay the least attention to

-him, except to think he was insane and have him

-placed in an asylum for safety?</p>

-

-<p>The people who are preaching the divinity of Jesus

-know nothing about him except what they read in a

-book that was written by unknown authors. Jesus

-is the last hope of Christian theology. He is the

-only solution of the divine problem that Christianity

-has to offer. Is not the direction of the world's

-most rational thought away from the Christian

-notion of Jesus? In my opinion it is.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Let us look at the once famous stronghold of

-New England Orthodoxy, the Andover Theological

-Seminary, which was chartered on June Nineteenth,

-Eighteen Hundred Seven, and opened for

-instruction on September Twenty-eighth, Eighteen

-Hundred Eight. I think it was about seven years

-ago that it was transferred to Cambridge and

-became a part of Harvard University. At that time

-the school consisted of seven instructors, twelve

-students and a library of sixty-five thousand books,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>

-with an endowment of eight hundred fifty thousand

-dollars in productive funds and an annual income

-of thirty-five thousand dollars.</p>

-

-<p>It has been said that the highways were scoured

-every Summer for students, and enticing scholarships

-held out, but to no avail. No students

-materialized.</p>

-

-<p>Why is this? In my opinion it is the rising generation's

-dissatisfaction with traditional theology;

-they have outgrown it. Ingersoll said that once in

-five years the President of the Seminary summoned

-his professors before him to make oath that

-they had learned absolutely nothing during the

-preceding five years and would not learn anything

-for the next five years. And that promise was not

-subject to recall.</p>

-

-<p>But even Andover couldn't remain in that condition.

-In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-six it announced

-its new system of "progressive orthodoxy."

-This created a division between the Old School and

-the New, and marked the beginning of the end of

-Andover; and after much litigation it consented to

-be "gathered in" by Harvard or "swallowed," or

-perhaps they would say "merged."</p>

-

-<p>They have now a new building located upon land

-adjacent to that of Harvard University, and the

-last account from the "Great Seminary" was that

-they had twenty-four pupils. The library of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>

-Seminary and that of the Harvard Divinity School

-have been combined and are housed together in

-Bartlett Hall.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The defenders of the Gospel of Christ don't

-seem to be increasing; on the contrary, there

-seems to be great depression in matters ecclesiastical

-these days, even in puritanical New England. It

-plainly shows that the young men of the present

-day are not anxious to wear the "Dog-Collar of

-Christianity," and as far as I've heard no Christian

-arose to remark that the morals of the "Reverend"

-Clarence Richeson were contaminated by reading

-the words of Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll,

-Elbert Hubbard or Lemuel K. Washburn. The

-Reverend Clarence seemed to be a product of the

-Christian Bible, and talked to the last of his God

-and his Bible.</p>

-

-<p>What is left of Christianity? Who wrote the

-Christian Bible? The smallest child in a Sunday

-School would answer the question by saying

-"God," but the most learned person on the globe

-would say, "I do not know." It is being admitted

-by thinking persons that answers to religious

-questions possess nothing more than a religious

-value. When a person is graduated from a Sunday

-School he is wiser than he will be after he has lived

-forty years, provided he learns anything by living.</p>

-

-<p>"God" is a term used to express what man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>

-does not know, but it does not seem to me necessary

-to assign to the Bible divine authorship, as

-it can be accounted for on other grounds. It is

-certain that men and women have written books.

-It is not certain that there is a God and, if so,

-that he has written a book. If man could write

-the Bible, there seems to be no need for God to

-do so. It is a fact that no one knows who wrote

-a word of the Bible, and yet it will require many

-more years to kill the foolish superstition that

-God inspired certain men to write this book.</p>

-

-<p>Nothing grows slower than truth, and nothing

-faster than superstition. Falsehood was never

-known to commit suicide. Unknown men wrote

-the Christian Bible, not an unknown God.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Not many years ago I saw that a teacher in

-the Holyoke (Massachusetts) High School

-was dismissed for saying that Jesus was one of a

-family of ten. Jesus is a word that paralyzes the

-mental faculties. As to the accuracy of the statement

-we have only the Gospels for authority.

-At any rate, if Matthew and Mark are reliable

-he had four brothers and sisters.</p>

-

-<p>In Matthew xiii: 54 we read: "Is not this the

-carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary,

-and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon,

-and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"</p>

-

-<p>Mark confirms Matthew about the size of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>

-Mary's family.</p>

-

-<p>I tried to learn something concerning

-this case, but silence a yard wide lay all

-about it. I fancy the teacher was silenced in some

-way. Leastwise I could learn nothing.</p>

-

-<p>It doesn't take much to silence a teacher, or it

-didn't fifty years ago, especially if she were

-dependent upon teaching for her bread and butter,

-which I was.</p>

-

-<p>I, at one time, tried to substitute one of Ralph

-Waldo Emerson's books to be read in school in

-the morning instead of the Christian Bible. I

-was informed by one of the committee that the

-Bible must be read every morning and the Ten

-Commandments repeated. The next morning I

-selected the "truthful" and startling account of

-Jonah whilst he was sojourning at the Submarine

-Hotel. I at that time made up my mind that if

-I were ever financially independent I'd say what

-I thought concerning the Christian religion, and

-no one doubts that I've done so.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology.

-It can be but a few years at most when faith

-in Jesus as God will be the mark of intellectual

-stupidity. It seems to me that mankind will soon

-be sensible enough to dismiss this dogma to eternal

-oblivion.</p>

-

-<p>It is the last relic of heathen mythology that clings

-to modern civilization. The Christian church is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>

-put to its utmost ingenuity to hide the absurdity

-in this dogma.</p>

-

-<p>The dogma of the divinity of Jesus rests upon

-fictitious events, and hence its fate is sealed.</p>

-

-<p>Many persons regard any one that calls Jesus a

-man as a blasphemer. There is a great amount of

-pious nonsense in the world, and there is more

-connected with Jesus than with any other character

-whom Christendom honors.</p>

-

-<p>The reverence paid to Jesus by Christians is the

-homage of idolatry.</p>

-

-<p>The first thing for people to do is to get rid of the

-silly notion that there is anything holy in the

-name of Jesus any more than in the name of Hercules,

-Bacchus or Adonis. All the gods of the past

-are myths to the present. Jesus stands in the way

-of the world's advancement. The path of civilization

-is over his grave. The mind has been fettered

-by worship of this myth. We want to get rid of the

-Christian superstition.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2"><i>Isn't it astonishing that many children should be

-taught about the "resurrection" before they can

-spell cat?</i></p>

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p6 i2">Whenever a man believes that he has the

-exact truth from God, there is in that

-man no spirit of compromise. He has not

-the modesty born of the imperfections of

-human nature; he has the arrogance of

-theological certainty and the tyranny

-born of ignorant assurance. Believing

-himself to be the slave of God, he imitates

-his master, and of all tyrants the worst is

-a slave in power.</p>

-

-<p class="i2">When a man really believes that it is

-necessary to do a certain thing to be

-happy forever, or that a certain belief is

-necessary to insure eternal joy, there is

-in that man no spirit of concession. He

-divides the whole world into saints and

-sinners, into believers and unbelievers,

-into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into

-people who will be glorified and people

-who will be damned.</p>

-

-<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="INGERSOLL">COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</h2></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2">We need no myths, no miracles, no gods,

-no devils.&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<p class="i2 p2">The world is my country and to do good is

-my religion.&mdash;<i>Thomas Paine.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">The presence of a hypocrite is a sure

-indication that there is a Bible and a

-prayer-book not very far away.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="large center">COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/i.jpg" width="160" height="147" alt="I"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">T is difficult to sketch this many-sided

-man. He was full of pity and

-sympathy for the poor and unfortunate.

-He was great enough

-to applaud the good, and good

-enough to forgive the erring. He

-could charm a child with his speech, or sway thousands

-by his magic words. He was the supreme

-philosopher of commonsense.</p>

-

-<p>He knew how to answer a fool, but he never forgot

-to be courteous to an opponent. He would take

-the case of a poor man into court without pay;

-he would give a young reporter an interview when

-he could sell every word he spoke for a dollar; he

-would present the proceeds of a lecture to some

-worthy object as though he were throwing a nickel

-to an organ-grinder; he would lead a reform with a

-dozen workers if he believed them in the right, just

-as if he had a million followers; and where there

-was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.

-Ingersoll was the truest American that

-America ever bore.</p>

-

-<p>He was the orator of her rivers and mountains, of

-her hills and dales, of her forests and flowers, of

-her struggles and victories, of her free institutions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>

-of her Stars and Stripes&mdash;the orator of the home, of

-wife and child, of love and liberty. The head, heart

-and hand of Ingersoll were perfectly united and

-worked together. As he thought he acted; when he

-had anything to say, he said it aloud. He was not

-ashamed of his thoughts. He did not hide or go

-around the corner, or beat about the bush. He

-spoke honestly what he saw, what he thought,

-what he knew.</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"

-height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="THOUGHT">MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT</h2></div>

-

-

-<p class="p6 i2">The entire New Testament is the work

-of Catholic Churchmen.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>

-

-<p class="i2 p2">God is not a fact; nothing that can be

-seen, heard or felt; nothing that can be

-found out or in. God is a verbal content.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-

-

-<p class="large center">MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">HE best thing Mark Twain ever

-said was, "I should like to see

-the ballot in the hands of every

-woman." Freethinkers should also

-remember him with gratitude; he

-said enough from our point of

-view to warrant that. "Give me my glasses," were

-his last words. It will be but a short time before

-some pious evangelical hypocrite will add, "I

-want to read my Bible!" They are already writing

-about his "highest sphere of thought," namely,

-his religious thought.</p>

-

-<p>I remember when a Presbyterian deacon said of

-him, "I would rather bury a daughter of mine

-than have her marry such a fellow." The church

-people are all anxious to avoid their own history

-concerning Mark Twain and many other people.</p>

-

-<p>The Reverend Doctor Twitchell said at Mark's

-funeral that a simple soul had gone trustingly to

-the beyond. He didn't mention where the beyond

-was, and he prayed to the Christian God that

-courage in the faith of immortality be given to

-those who mourn.</p>

-

-<p>Through all these Christian notices runs an undercurrent

-that Mark Twain was only secondarily a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>

-humorist. I knew him somewhat in the old days

-and have heard him lecture. He certainly laughed

-superstition from the minds of thousands, and the

-most of his books bear witness to his broad and

-liberal views.</p>

-

-<p>The Reverend Doctor Van Dyke mixed much

-religious sophistry with his remarks at the funeral

-of Twain, but the reverend doctor is a theological

-acrobat.</p>

-

-<p>He preached once on the Atonement, and said there

-are a thousand true doctrines of the Atonement,

-which is saying substantially that no doctrine

-specifically is true&mdash;for instance, the doctrine of

-the Westminster Confession, to which Van Dyke

-pledged loyalty when he was ordained a Presbyterian

-minister. He at that time ripped up the

-Westminster settlement, and reopened the whole

-question for discussion.</p>

-

-<p>Any preacher who believes in the geology of Moses,

-the astronomy of Joshua, and the mathematics of

-the Trinity, must do an immense amount of "side-stepping."</p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2"><i>Christianity is only a bubble of superstition, and

-Jesus is reduced to a toy god of the Sunday School.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="RELIGION">AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE

-ON RELIGION</h2></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2">Religion is inherited fear.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">In my opinion a steeple is no more to be

-excluded from taxation than a smokestack.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">Faith is the cross on which man crucifies

-his liberty.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-

-<p class="large center">AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/w.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="W"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">E are living in the Twentieth

-Century of what is called the

-Christian Era, and we have not

-outgrown the superstitions of the

-First Century. And worse than

-this, we have not had the courage

-to abandon the fictions of the Book of Genesis for

-the truths of modern science. Just what the world

-is afraid of, that it fears to trust its senses, its

-reason, its knowledge, surpasses my understanding.</p>

-

-<p>One of the first things that men and women

-should learn is, that there is nothing in the universe

-to be afraid of; that all the malignant deities

-are dead; that the ancient gods that presided over

-the destiny of earth and of earthly things have all

-fallen from the sky; that in the realm of Nature

-everything is natural, and that no man is pursued

-by a god of wrath and vengeance who would punish

-him for his unbelief. Every god that can not hear

-the truth without getting mad should be dethroned.

-Every priest who can not join in singing the songs

-of civilization should be warned to look out for the

-engine while the bell rings.</p>

-

-<p>This world of ours is a world to be enjoyed, but it

-can not be enjoyed if we fear every manifestation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>

-of Nature and if we put a cruel god behind every

-cloud.</p>

-

-<p>Let us live without fear, without superstition,

-without religion.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>There is nothing above, beneath or around

-you that cares whether you are a Christian

-or an unbeliever. The real reason why a priest hates

-an unbeliever is that he can not get a dollar out of

-him. He damns those who know better than to

-swallow his say-sos. But it still remains a fact that

-an infidel can raise as many bushels of potatoes to

-the acre as can the Roman Catholic. The sun will

-not wrong an honest man. The stars will not punish

-a single human being for telling the truth. The

-sky will not persecute a person who gives his

-thoughts, his talents, his time, to finding ways to

-help mankind.</p>

-

-<p>Everything that man believes in that can not be

-found, that can not be proved, that can not stand

-the test of commonsense: everything that contradicts

-Nature, that is opposed to established facts,

-that is contrary to the laws of the universe, must

-be given up.</p>

-

-<p>We must have a new man: the man born of woman,

-not the man made by God; the man who has been

-growing better ever since his advent on earth, not

-the man who has been growing worse; the man

-who started with nothing and has conquered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>

-earth, the sea and the air; not the man who began

-perfect and has not got halfway back; the man

-who made the telescope, the steam-engine, the

-power-loom, the telephone and the wireless telegraph;

-not the man who made the thumbscrew,

-the rack, the ducking-stool and the stocks; the

-man who has carried the torch of liberty to enlighten

-the world, not the man who has carried the

-crucifix to enslave mankind.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>It is quite common to be told what Moses said

-or what Jesus said. Now, if all that these two

-Hebrew gentlemen (who in my opinion never lived)

-said, is preserved in the Bible, I appeal from what

-they said to those who know more. I assert that

-Moses said a lot of stuff that isn't so, and a lot

-more that never was so, and that all that Jesus is

-said to have said is practically worthless to the

-world today; that there is not in all of his utterances

-a single word that will help man to get a

-living, a single word that will aid man in his

-struggle for knowledge; that there is not a statement

-of a single scientific fact, or a plea for human

-liberty in all his language. He told his generation

-nothing that was not already known, except a mess

-of superstitious nonsense about angels and devils,

-heavens and hells. His so-called gospel of salvation

-was to follow him, and he landed on a cross.</p>

-

-<p>The truth is this: the world has outgrown Moses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>

-and Jesus. It does not take commands from either.

-This age believes in work, not worship; in deeds,

-not prayers; in men, not monks; in liberty, not in

-pious obedience; in human rights, not in submission;

-in knowledge, not in revelation.</p>

-

-<p>For hundreds of years man was bound by a

-religious faith, and the priest was his cruel master.

-He dared not doubt; he dared not rebel; he dared

-not dream of freedom; but there came a time when

-religious tyranny could no longer be borne. Then

-Mankind cried out to the Church: Give back man's

-brain to man; restore to him the mind you have

-robbed him of; take from his head and heart the

-paralyzing fear that makes him a coward and a

-slave, and leave to him the liberty with which

-Nature dowered him, that his mind may discover

-and preserve those mighty thoughts which make

-man brave, honest, free and happy.</p>

-

-<p>That cry was heard far. It was heard by glad ears,

-and liberty sprang from the ground like the warriors

-from the fabled dragon-teeth of Cadmus. The

-war between liberty and tyranny, between fact

-and fable, between truth and falsehood, between

-man and priest, was on, and for centuries this war

-has raged, nor is it yet over. Freedom still lies

-bleeding, but victory for the right will sooner or

-later be won.</p>

-

-<p>That victory will not be complete until every man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>

-will dare to say: Let come what will come, no man,

-be he priest, minister or judge, shall sit upon the

-throne of my mind, and decide for me what is right,

-true or good. I am my own master, my own teacher,

-my own guide. I will keep my reason free from

-control and will never surrender my own convictions

-to the dictates of another.</p>

-

-<p>Nature has made every man commander of his own

-destiny.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>But we are yet victims of ecclesiastical villainy.

-The priest is still the worst enemy of mankind.

-His church is like that monster of fiction which

-lived on little children. In the name of the children

-I protest against the action of the Church in stealing

-their tender brains, in making them slaves of

-superstition before they are old enough to know to

-what they are doomed.</p>

-

-<p>The age of consent to a religious faith should be

-determined by law, if necessary. Today any boy

-or girl may be the victim of a designing priest or

-clergyman, or of a designing religious system.</p>

-

-<p>No person under eighteen years of age should be

-allowed to join a church or consent to a statement

-of faith. Mental purity should be guarded and protected

-as well as physical purity.</p>

-

-<p>While the Church is powerful in numbers and while

-its religion is supported by wealth and fashion, the

-world is becoming more and more emancipated from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>

-its pernicious influence. The light that truth gives

-is still ahead of us, but <i>it is there</i>, and some day the

-world will grow warmer under its rays and men

-become better and kinder to one another.</p>

-

-<p>A hundred years ago the God worshiped in orthodox

-churches went about drowning little boys and

-girls who went skating on Sundays. Those were

-the "good old days" when men and women had

-religion for breakfast, dinner and supper, and took

-it to bed with them. It takes a long time to get

-such a horrible religion out of the system.</p>

-

-<p>Men and women still have a mean faith, a faith

-which can see others damned with satisfaction if

-they can only be saved. Nothing but a mean religion

-could make men and women as mean as that.

-I would rather starve than preach the doctrine of

-endless pain for a human being&mdash;or even for a dog.

-I believe that this world is hard and dark and

-cruel enough without borrowing suffering from

-another world to make darker and harder the road

-of life and add torture to the nights of pain and

-misery.</p>

-

-<p>A church must be sunk pretty low when it lives on

-the fears and tears of mankind; but what lower

-depths of degradation does it sound when it can

-deliberately create fears and tears that it may live

-and thrive in its vile and cruel business! A human

-being without pity should be shunned and despised;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>

-but a human being who can fill the heart with

-terror should not be allowed in a civilized community.</p>

-

-<p>The mind today wants to get out into the open,

-into the free daylight, wants to walk the earth,

-look at the stars and sky, feel the warmth of the

-sun and smell the odor of the ground; it has

-become tired of being shut up in a faith, in a

-creed, in a church; tired of being kept in the

-darkness of the past, in the tomb of dead thoughts,

-in the moldy caskets of unreal things, and in the

-dungeon of fear.</p>

-

-<p>The mind is striving to break the chains of the

-priest and be free from the bonds of the Church.</p>

-

-<p>You can not have men free where the priest

-demands and claims their obedience. The greatest

-menace to our national institutions is the power

-that controls men; that controls their thoughts,

-their actions and their destinies. Liberty can survive

-only where men are free: free to think, free to

-read, free to speak and free to act. The mind must

-not be bound by any vow of obedience. One man,

-no matter what his office, what his position, what

-his rank, has no right to compel another's obedience.

-This is the worst oppression on earth.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>What is needed in this country is more men

-who dare think and speak for themselves;

-who dare belong to no church; who dare work for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>

-the right as they see it, and speak the truth as they

-understand it; who dare live their own lives

-independent of fashion's demands or society's

-usages; who dare put liberty above conformity,

-and who dare defy customs, law and religion in

-their zeal to help their fellow-beings.</p>

-

-<p>There is more than one liberty&mdash;more than the

-liberty to do right&mdash;that is partly won for every

-civilized being. There is another liberty that is

-dangerous and that persists even where civilization

-exists&mdash;the liberty to take another's liberty

-from him. This liberty is usually taken from another

-in the name of God and what is called holy; but

-there is nothing on earth so holy as liberty, and he

-who takes it from another robs him of the dearest

-right possessed by man. Binding a human being

-with the chains of faith before that being is old

-enough to judge whether the faith is reasonable or

-true is the assassination of freedom.</p>

-

-<p>The greatest danger which confronts our nation

-today is not political but religious, and the preservation

-of our free institutions does not depend

-upon our army and navy, but upon the emancipation

-of the human mind from ecclesiastical slavery.

-As Thomas Paine well said, "Spiritual freedom is

-the root of political liberty." You can not have free

-schools, free speech and a free press where the

-mind is not free.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>

-There is too much faith in this country and too

-little sense. Men have given up about everything

-they possess to be saved; but it is more necessary,

-and more commendable in the workingmen of this

-nation, to save their dollars than to save their souls.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>A subject that needs to be investigated quite

-as much as, if not more than, the high cost of

-living is the high cost of worship. There may be

-some justice in the criticism of the price of meats.

-We must remember, however, that we do get something

-for our money when we buy meat, but let us

-not forget that we get absolutely nothing for the

-money spent for worship. Money given to the

-Church is lost to the world. It is not used to improve

-homes; to help the poor and needy; to alleviate

-suffering; to bring hope to the sick or to give a few

-comforts to old age. It goes into the pocket of

-ecclesiastical greed.</p>

-

-<p>This country just at present is suffering from those

-twin curses of humanity&mdash;religion and Bull-Mooseism.

-The priest and Bull-Mooseism are the two

-worst trouble-makers in this country. To get rid

-of this precious pair of knaves would be to bring

-peace on earth and hasten the dawn.</p>

-

-<p>I don't know which is the bigger knave, the priest

-or the Bull-Mooser, but I do know that the priest

-is engaged in the meaner business of the two.</p>

-

-<p>When a man tries to sell me a mouse-trap to catch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>

-elephants, I am suspicious of his mental sanity;

-and when a man tells me that eternal happiness

-can be won by enlisting in his salvation army, I

-question his moral sanity. I know that religion is

-offered at cut rates, but there is no discount on

-morality. You can not have the reward of good

-behavior unless you behave. You may save your

-soul by saying, "I believe," but you have to <i>do</i>

-something to save your body.</p>

-

-<p>There is too much of this "believe-in-me" business.

-You don't want to believe in any one you

-know nothing about. The faith of a little child in

-its parents is beautiful, but the faith of a grown-up

-man in a priest is idiotic. Faith has ruined more

-than it has saved. With faith goes obedience, and

-he or she who obeys is lost.</p>

-

-<p>There is no honest call today to believe, because

-there is opportunity to know. Faith is hatched in

-the nest of imposition. He who yields obedience is a

-fool, and he who demands it is a scoundrel.</p>

-

-<p>In this age, as in the past, a lie made "holy" is

-allowed to assassinate the truth. Nothing is cursing

-this nation; nothing is cursing human life; nothing

-is cursing honest effort and brave striving so

-much as what is called holiness. It is holy to

-believe all you are told; holy to wear the robes

-of hypocrisy; holy to rob the poor in the name

-of God, and holy to put the poison of faith to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>

-the lips of a child. It is holy to repudiate Nature

-and make a lie of your body, your mind, your

-life. To purify the dwelling-place of man, it is

-necessary to drive from the earth everything

-that religion has made holy.</p>

-

-<p>The only really sacred things were holy before

-a church was ever built, before there was a priest

-on the globe.</p>

-

-<p>Human love and the home which human love built

-for its offspring were the first holy things which

-men and women knew, and it is this human love

-of ours which is holier than mosque, temple or

-church; holier than priestly robe or ecclesiastical

-rite; holier by far than all the holy things of faith.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The Church has always lived by robbing the

-home; the priest has always lived on the

-wages of the toiler. The gods of religion have never

-done aught to lighten the heavy load on the

-shoulders of labor. The priest has said to mankind

-that his Lord left this consolation to the world:

-"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden

-and I will give you rest."</p>

-

-<p>What the priest really means is this: Come unto

-me and I will do the rest; and by the time he has

-done it, there is nothing of manhood left.</p>

-

-<p>The priest also teaches that his Lord and Master

-said, "Ask and ye shall receive," and adds, "The

-Lord will provide." How many poor wretches have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>

-believed those words; but their outstretched hands

-withered away day by day, and at last dropped

-empty by their sides. There they lay white and

-cold, holding not the bread they fondly expected,

-but holding the hand of death.</p>

-

-<p>It may be pious and it may be beautiful to say,

-"The Lord will provide," but it is a lie just the

-same. When, the other day, the bodies of a mother

-and her two children were being carried to the

-grave with the words, "starved to death," written

-on their faces, but not written on their caskets, it

-was a sufficient refutation of the religious teaching

-that "The Lord will provide." It is the plain,

-unvarnished truth that the Lord will <i>not</i> even provide

-the coffin for the poor victim of such a false,

-deceptive, religious faith.</p>

-

-<p>In olden times it was customary for the Church to

-say, God's light lights the world. Not so today.

-God's light has gone out. It is man's light that

-lights the world and the Church too. Our enlightenment

-is human, not divine. No altar of religion

-burns with the fire of truth. Science carries the

-torch of knowledge: liberty is the way and truth

-is the goal.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>On our earth gods no longer make their homes.

-It was not safe for them to live any more.

-Their sons may once have married the daughters of

-men, but they can not get a license to do so today.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>

-Parents will not stand for it.</p>

-

-<p>So the gods have

-gone, bag and baggage. Where they have gone,

-no one knows. The skies give no sign that they

-are hiding up there. The telescope has found

-<i>seventy million stars, but not one god</i>.</p>

-

-<p>It is time for the pulpit to stop repeating the old

-superstitions about God and about what he has

-done for man. He has never done any more for

-man than he is doing today; never spoken to man

-any more than he is speaking today; never revealed

-himself to anybody any more than he stands

-revealed to you and me and to every human being

-everywhere.</p>

-

-<p>Every word that ever came from the mouth of

-God man put in his mouth, and every book revealed

-by God was written by man.</p>

-

-<p>Half the work of man for the next one hundred

-years will be to kill the lies told about what God

-has done.</p>

-

-<p>Whether there is in all the vast universe a higher

-and nobler being than man, I don't know. Whether

-there is in all the vast universe a better place for

-man to live than on this earth, I don't know.

-And no one knows any more about these matters

-than I do.</p>

-

-<p>We have found out much that is not so; now we

-want to find out all we can that is so. And it is of

-no use to go to the Church to learn anything. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>

-Church is only a place where falsehoods are kept

-in cold storage. The man who thinks and studies

-is the man who is helping the world most, not the

-man who preaches and prays. To find the truth

-one needs to get as far from the Church as possible.</p>

-

-<p>Christians of all denominations have lots of pity

-for the man without a church. Let me assure these

-persons that the man without a church doesn't

-want one. As a rule, he is satisfied with what he has.

-He has a home, which is better than a church. If

-those persons who are pitying men and women

-for not having a church would, instead, pity the

-man without a home, and pity him enough to help

-him get one, they would show much better sense

-and manifest a truer sympathy with their fellow-beings.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I can not see any good in painting a thing white

-that is black, or calling a thing beautiful that is

-ugly. There are persons who talk as though they

-believed that a Northeast storm was sunshine. I

-am not made that way. I am as ready and as willing

-as anybody to acknowledge the good in Nature, or

-the good in life, but I do not believe in lying, in

-saying that wrong is right, or that suffering is to be

-enjoyed. There are lots of hard things in our life,

-and it does not alter facts to call them by some

-other name. A man dying with a cancer can not be

-made to believe that he is having a good time.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>

-The most that any man can do who goes through

-this earthly existence is to use his fellow-mortals

-right and square; to give them an honest day's

-work when he works for them and an honest day's

-pay when he hires them; to say nothing to hurt

-them and everything he can to assist them; to help

-them out of trouble and not get them into trouble.

-If one does this, and does no more than this, he has

-done what beats every religion on earth.</p>

-

-<p>We have got to deal with men and women as they

-are and where they are. The man who is natural;

-the man who has not been made a fool of by a

-priest or parson; the man who has not swapped his

-commonsense for a foolish belief; the man who has

-not had his mind stuffed with religious dope,

-knows that this life on earth is the important life,

-and that it is a higher work to determine his fate

-here than anywhere else.</p>

-

-<p>There is not a person living who would not be well

-and strong and happy here rather than hereafter.

-I would rather have the power to make every

-cripple straight and whole; every poor, unfortunate

-man and woman prosperous and contented; every

-sick person well, every bad person good, and every

-slave to vice master of his appetite and passions,

-in this life on earth, than to save the human wrecks,

-the human unfortunates, the human victims of vice

-and crime, for another life somewhere else.</p>

-

-

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>

-What men and women want is happiness,

-not Heaven. They want a good home on

-this globe, not a loafing-place in Abraham's bosom.

-They want the opportunity to enjoy the good

-things of this life, not the promise that they will

-hear the angels sing. They want better wages for

-their work, better treatment from their employers,

-and better things to eat and drink and wear. They

-want better things here, not hereafter. They want

-to be happy while they are living on earth, not have

-the assurance of happiness after they are dead.

-If I ever attempt to write my creed, I shall say:

-I believe in so much that I can hardly expect to

-express all of my faith in one statement. I am all

-the time believing in something new. But there is

-one thing that I most heartily believe in now and

-have believed in ever since I was a child, and that is,

-SUNSHINE&mdash;external and internal and eternal

-sunshine.</p>

-

-<p>Sunshine is the joy of the universe, and joy is the

-sunshine of the human heart. Let us be bright and

-cheerful. Let us be happy. Let us give to the world

-the sunshine of our hearts.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2"><i>A male trinity is repulsive; Father, Mother and

-Child is the sacred triad. The Christian trinity is a

-monster.</i></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>

-<h2 id="MORALITY">DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY</h2></div>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p2 i2">Nature has no need of a Holy Ghost.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">All progress has been due to the Devil.

-He was the first investigator.&mdash;<i>Ingersoll.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">God takes care of the weed. Man must

-take care of the corn.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"

-height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>

-

-<p class="center large">DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"

-  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>

-

-<p class="pfirst">HERE is a great deal of exaggerated

-rhetoric employed in praising

-what is called "Christian

-Morality." I have examined with

-considerable care everything that

-may justly come within the meaning

-of this expression, and I am bound to say, out of

-respect for the truth, that such morality does not

-deserve praise and can not be praised by the honest

-lips of an honest person.</p>

-

-<p>I am perfectly aware that I have made a statement

-which challenges the sincerity of the Christian

-pulpit, but every one knows that there is not a

-minister in Christendom whose practise agrees

-with his preaching.</p>

-

-<p>While it is common to hear a clergyman in pious

-ecstasy exhaust the vocabulary of laudation in his

-praises of the beautiful morals of the "Sermon on

-the Mount," it is exceedingly rare to see one of

-these parsons sacrifice his commonsense to the

-nonsense of Jesus.</p>

-

-<p>We are learning that the theological morality of

-the Christian faith is not the right kind of morality

-to make manhood and womanhood. The great

-weakness of Christian morality is this: It depends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>

-upon the Christian idea of Jesus, and when the

-world has outgrown the superstition about this

-person, all of his moral precepts will lose their

-value and their splendor.</p>

-

-<p>Men and women of any intellectual penetration

-know that the New Testament story is founded

-upon unreliable tradition; that its heart is a myth.</p>

-

-<p>Where men live independent of the foolish faith

-of the Gospels, there is a character of self-reliance

-which towers like a mountain-peak above the dead

-level of Christian endeavor. The person who accepts

-the Christian theology is no more in sympathy

-with the best thought of the age than is the man

-who wanders about the streets, begging his food

-and sleeping wherever he can, in harmony with

-the highest comforts of our civilization.</p>

-

-<p>There is a nobler purpose in a train of cars carrying

-grain and produce across the continent than in a

-conference of clergymen trying to keep alive a

-theology which teaches that God was born of a

-Jewish maiden who lived and died in Palestine,

-and devising ways to make the people believe the

-ridiculous superstition.</p>

-

-<p>Truth is born where men are allowed to think and

-speak their thoughts. Error can not be maintained

-where man is permitted to ask questions. The only

-way to preserve Christianity is to put it in a tin

-can and have it hermetically sealed.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>We are getting a new examination of the universe

-as a basis for our philosophy. The telescope has

-afforded man visions far beyond the seventh

-heaven of the Apocalypse. The genesis of things is

-found to lie millions of years back of the Genesis of

-the Bible. The chaos out of which this world was

-made has been discovered to be a previous state

-of existence.</p>

-

-<p>Science is laying the new foundation for our faith,

-and knowledge is building the new temple of the

-mind.</p>

-

-<p>Men and women everywhere are stating their

-opinions, and the world recognizes that there is to

-be a religious controversy upon this earth which

-will shake to its base everything that is not true.

-Not one stone of falsehood will be left standing

-upon another. Every dogma of superstition must

-find a grave, and truth alone be reverenced by man.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The world has taken a step forward of Christianity,

-and in its march of advancement has

-left behind the Christian God, the Christian Savior,

-the Christian Bible, and the Christian Faith.

-But the world will not stop here. It must go further.

-The question which the human mind wants

-answered today is this: Is the decay of Christian

-theology to be followed by the decay of Christian

-morality?</p>

-

-<p>I think that it is, and I also think that this morality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>

-is about as near dead now as it can be.</p>

-

-<p>It is true

-that the author of this morality is painted in divine

-colors for human adoration Sunday after Sunday,

-and that his other-world ethics are inculcated by

-the pulpit; but beyond these attempts to give the

-peculiar moral teachings of Jesus the show of life,

-there is absolutely no sign of them in the world of

-man.</p>

-

-<p>The morality of the Christian system is not designed

-for humanity in its present condition, nor does it

-possess the elements necessary to make man into

-the image of any higher virtue. It is, in fact, an

-unreal, unnatural morality which Jesus taught,

-and the notion that men and women do not practise

-it because it is too far above them, depends

-upon an estimate of this morality which we are not

-willing to allow.</p>

-

-<p>I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point.

-I want to say that the general moral duties of man,

-as they have been taught for ages by teachers of

-every race and of every religion, are not Christian,

-and that Christian ethics are found in the code of

-moral duties taught by Jesus <i>which are different

-from the recognized standard of morality adopted by

-mankind generally</i>. Christian morals are Christian

-<i>only wherein they differ from all other morals</i>.</p>

-

-<p>It is because they are peculiar to Christianity that

-they are Christian.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Because I do not believe in Christianity&mdash;in the

-Christian theology and in Christian morals&mdash;I do

-not wish it said that I do not believe in morality,

-for I do. I believe that man can be good and true

-and that he can do right, and I believe that he

-ought to do right.</p>

-

-<p>I do not say that every one can reach the same

-moral altitude. I do not even say that every individual

-can be good and true. Some persons do

-not seem to be morally adjusted. I think, however,

-that we do not trespass beyond the domain

-of truth when we predicate the power of man

-to be moral.</p>

-

-<p>The notion that man can not be good has been the

-apology of half the criminals of the world. It is the

-creed of all crime. If we affirm the idea of human

-depravity, we may as well erase our statutes, for,

-if man can not be good, it is the height of folly to

-expect him to be so.</p>

-

-<p>The healthy faith of man is faith <i>in</i> man.</p>

-

-<p>The theology which has been preached for the past

-few centuries is not calculated to make men moral.

-Those ministers who have shouted themselves

-hoarse for the salvation of the soul, and who have

-made no account of man's behavior in their scheme

-to save the race, are the ones who have rubbed

-humanity in the dirt and undermined the moral

-foundations of the world.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Every ethical principle that supports our

-social structure is independent of ecclesiastical

-relations, and it is not essential that we recognize

-any theology in order to comprehend the necessity

-of moral obedience.</p>

-

-<p>There is no sympathy between right, truth and

-justice, and the "Apostles' Creed." We may go so

-far as to say that the attempt to establish a

-perpetual union between Christianity and morality

-would result in an absolute divorce of these two

-forces.</p>

-

-<p>I wish to make it plain beyond a question that the

-Christian faith, in itself, is entirely distinct from

-all moral effort on the part of man.</p>

-

-<p>To believe that Jesus was the Christ does not carry

-any obligation to do right; does not make it

-incumbent upon the believer to do a single moral

-action.</p>

-

-<p>It is sufficient to establish our predication that not

-a single church in Christendom makes moral

-character the condition of membership, or good

-behavior the way to Heaven.</p>

-

-<p>There is a code of Christian morals which has been

-taught, but never practised. The special duties

-which Jesus enjoined upon his followers have

-never been reduced to conduct. It is not too much

-to say that the moral precepts of Jesus, if carried

-into action, would cause social revolutions beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>

-precedent, and produce a state of existence compared

-with which anarchy would be government,

-and confusion would be order.</p>

-

-<p>But, before we undertake to examine the Christian

-morals, let us shed a few tears of rejoicing upon the

-grave of Orthodox theology. We do not ask to

-have a coroner's jury decide what caused the death

-of this theology. We bless the cause, whatever it

-was. We only wish to feel assured that it is really,

-truly dead, and the fact that "not a single treatise

-written by a New England Puritan is a living and

-authoritative book" seems to prove it beyond a

-question. The persons who still preach this theology

-and profess to believe it are only "sitting up with

-the corpse."</p>

-

-<p>While it is asserted that a wrong interpretation of

-this theology sent it out of the world, it is pretty

-evident that a right understanding of it inspires

-no wish to have it back. Much of the superstition

-in morals sprang from fear of God, which the

-Christian church has inculcated as the highest

-incentive to right doing.</p>

-

-<p>The truth, broadly and frankly stated, is this:

-God is no longer the inspiration of morality. Fear

-of God does not check the actions of man today,

-nor is the attempt to make human and divine

-interests identical sufficient to insure obedience to

-moral laws. The ancient basis of morals is gone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>

-and another and better one must be found to

-inspire a freer life, a fuller life, a better life, and

-a higher.</p>

-

-<p>We who have rejected the Christian theology are

-looked upon as orphans. But, if I understand the

-position of freethinkers, the question of a supreme

-power is neither affirmed nor denied by those who

-wish to have no further business with the God of

-Orthodoxy.</p>

-

-<p>We read that, "the fool hath said in his heart

-there is no God," but we prefer to say nothing about

-the matter. Theologies may come, and theologies

-may go, but humanity goes on forever, and so we

-do not deem it as important to worship the fleeting

-shadows of the universe which are cast upon the

-minds of men as it is to hold fast to those realities

-which make human existence a blessing and "a

-joy forever."</p>

-

-<p>We are called "infidels" and denounced as "unbelievers"

-because we will not march in the ranks

-of hypocrisy, and dance to the music of Orthodoxy.

-We believe no statement which our reason can not

-approve; we accept no doctrine which is contrary

-to commonsense; we have confidence in human

-nature; we believe in truth, justice and love; we

-accept life as a blessing, and try to make it so; we

-believe in taking care of ourselves, in helping others

-and in being just and kind to all, and we say to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>

-Christian Church, "If this be Infidelity, make the

-most of it."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>It is suggested by some that if man's exact relation

-to the Deity were understood, the whole

-question of morals would be settled at once. But

-would it not be truer to say that if man's exact

-relation to his fellowmen were understood and

-respected, the highest individual welfare, no less

-than the general good, would dictate the morality

-which the world needs? And is not this the grand

-task for the human race, to rightly interpret the

-effect of human action upon the individual and the

-community, and to deduce from human experience

-the rules for human conduct?</p>

-

-<p>I do not know that I owe to God any duty. I do

-know that I owe a duty to my neighbor. I plead

-total indifference to the demands of divine ethics,

-but I trust that I am not completely callous to the

-wants of my fellow-beings. I owe it to myself to be

-moral. I owe it to my race, to every man and woman

-that I meet in life, to be as honest, as true, as

-upright, as my nature will permit. I can comprehend

-and appreciate obligations to humanity, but moral

-indebtedness to the Deity I know nothing about.</p>

-

-<p>The Christian morals are founded upon the

-assumption that the work of man here is to do something

-that he may escape punishment hereafter,

-and hence the morality of the Christian Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>

-has had little reference to the concerns of the

-present life.</p>

-

-<p>Christian morality is based upon the Christian

-faith that the human race is under the curse of

-God, and that, to evade the penalty pronounced

-upon him, man must perform certain duties&mdash;these

-duties being taught as paramount to all we

-owe to self, to family, to society, and to the world.</p>

-

-<p>But an almost universal disbelief of the Christian

-dogmas prevails today, and, consequently, a new

-morality, with man's welfare for its supreme object,

-is fast supplanting the outworn and valueless performances

-of Christian duties.</p>

-

-<p>The moral teaching of the New Testament may be

-the highest and purest of its kind of teaching, but

-it is not the kind which is needed today. It is a

-false morality, yea, a dead morality for the most

-part, which the Christian Church demands of men.

-The general conviction is that no salvation is

-needed by man, and that all the virtues advertised

-as requisite for such safety as the Church is prepared

-to secure, are spurious virtues.</p>

-

-<p>Those actions which advance man along the way

-of general prosperity, which make it easier to live

-and get a living on the earth, which have their

-value determined by their respect for human

-beings, are what the world needs.</p>

-

-<p>The generally acknowledged author of Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>

-morals offers no salient points for criticism, as he

-can not be regarded as a historical person whose

-career has been carefully followed and marked by

-the biographer. He is a mythological man, with a

-little less of the fabulous and a little more of the

-real than attaches to the gods and goddesses of

-ancient Greece and Rome.</p>

-

-<p>The name of Jesus adorns an anatomy of words. It

-pictures a person, not of flesh and blood, but of

-faith and fancy. Jesus is a man of the imagination;

-but mythical as he is, certain men and women

-believe in him in their own way, and are not over-tolerant

-of those who are disposed to ask for the

-proofs of his life and works.</p>

-

-<p>This person has left no more marks of his living

-upon the earth than have the birds the marks of

-their flight through the air. The New Testament is

-no more history than is Bunyan's <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>.

-We can not make any positive assertions in

-regard to the life and character of a man when we

-do not know who was his father, where or when he

-was born, with whom he lived, nor when he died.

-The only historical fact connected with Jesus which

-is not disputed is that Mary was his mother. This

-is a very important point in his history, but it is

-not sufficient to constitute a biography.</p>

-

-<p>Notwithstanding the fact that the entire narrative

-of Jesus is without a single chronological date, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>

-the vastly more significant fact that not a single

-incident connected with the career of Jesus is

-mentioned in contemporaneous history, we must

-perforce speak of him as a person whose life was

-watched and noted from his miraculous advent to

-his miraculous ascension, and look upon his disciples

-as so many Boswells ready to mirror to the

-world his every speech and act.</p>

-

-<p>We must do this&mdash;Why? Because the world will

-not candidly and critically study the gospel-story.</p>

-

-<p>For the present, then, we will speak of Jesus as a

-man, and accept him as the author of the moral

-code in the New Testament. But a word or two

-about the man. The Christian world sets him apart

-as the model of the race, as the masterpiece of

-Nature, as the utmost which earth can produce.

-Every man must here fetch his word of praise,

-and every word be a mountain to meet the demand

-of the Christian Church for reverence of Jesus.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I do not believe in the infallibility of any man,

-but I believe in the improvability of all men.

-Is man no longer heir to the virtues of life, that he

-must erect monuments of praise forever over the

-name of Jesus? I shall take the liberty to express

-my dissent from the common expressions of admiration

-for this man. I can not praise everything

-which he did, nor can I think that every word he

-uttered is a star of wisdom. He said some good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>

-things,but much of what he said is good for nothing.

-His theology will do for Sunday Schools, but it will

-not stand half a dozen questions by commonsense.

-His Hell is barbarous, his Heaven childish, and his

-ideas of humanity show but a superficial knowledge

-of human nature. His life can not be imitated

-with advantage to the race, and his notions of

-human existence are wholly inadequate to the

-complex, varied civilization of this age.</p>

-

-<p>Let us see what he did. He paid no filial respect to

-his parents; he refused to acknowledge his mother

-and his brothers; he lived a roving, wandering life;

-he paid no heed to the laws of his country; he

-placed no value upon industry, and even went so

-far as to tell men and women that God would feed

-and clothe them; he helped himself to the property

-and possessions of other people without paying for

-them, and destroyed what belonged to others without

-offering an equivalent; he had no property, no

-home, not a place to lay his head; he hated the

-rulers, yet sought to establish a kingdom for himself;

-he failed to reach the throne he sought, and

-died upon the malefactor's cross.</p>

-

-<p>Is this the man for the Twentieth Century to

-honor? Is this the man for men to follow in this

-age? Is this the man whose life all should strive to

-imitate?</p>

-

-<p>The man who took the life of Jesus for a model<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>

-would hate father and mother, brother and sister;

-he would have neither wife nor child; he would live

-from place to place; he would be a lawbreaker and

-an idler; he would live the life of a wanderer and

-die the death of a criminal.</p>

-

-<p>Have I put a false color in this picture which I

-have painted? Have I misrepresented the life of

-Jesus? Read the four Gospels and see. I find this

-character sketched in the New Testament, and it

-is there called Jesus, and it is this character which

-we are adjured to imitate if we would be perfect.</p>

-

-<p>To the man or woman who declares that the life

-of Jesus is the way to salvation, I have only this to

-say, "Why then do you not imitate it?"</p>

-

-<p>Now, I wish to ask, "What kind of morals would

-such a man as we have sketched naturally teach?"</p>

-

-<p>You will answer, "The morals he lived." At

-least, we find such morals taught in the New

-Testament.</p>

-

-<p>My point here is: If the life of Jesus was an honest,

-faithful exponent of his moral teachings, then such

-a morality as he practised is not wanted today&mdash;and

-that such a morality is not wanted is shown

-by the fact that no one practises it.</p>

-

-<p>I know that it is considered respectable and pious

-to profess great admiration for the doctrines taught

-by Jesus, and the world has paid them the outward

-compliment of profession, saying that the moral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>

-code of the New Testament was the despair of

-man; but it has never seriously set to work to

-reduce this code to practise, which proves that

-such profession is only a part of the universal

-accomplishment of fashionable hypocrisy.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>Do not understand me as saying that there is

-no moral precept contained in the Gospels

-which is worthy of being practised. I make no such

-declaration, and wish no such construction put

-upon my words. What I desire to enforce is this:

-That the morality of Jesus sprang from a philosophy

-which has passed away, and therefore, that

-it is, for the greater part, obsolete and worthless.

-That Jesus shared the general belief of his age that

-the world was soon to be destroyed, is shown by his

-estimate of earthly things; and that a morality

-founded upon such a belief should survive and outlast

-the faith which inspired it reveals a condition

-of things that is not flattering to our intellectual

-perception or to our moral sense.</p>

-

-<p>The morals of the New Testament are founded

-upon a theory of the universe which is found

-now only in creeds&mdash;those epitaphs of religion.

-The most superficial observation is sufficient to

-enable us to perceive that theology can no longer

-be the basis of morality, and that the authority

-of the New Testament can not be accepted on

-this question.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>There is nothing more firmly impressed upon the

-mind of man than the fact of the stability of

-the universe, notwithstanding an occasional earthquake;

-and the value of earthly things has a

-higher moral significance consequent upon the

-assurance of material existence.</p>

-

-<p>Morality must have a physical basis; that is, the

-moral code which man can practise to his safety

-and his honor must not contradict human nature.

-The defeat of the New Testament morals is assured

-by their antagonism to the nature of man. The

-morals of Jesus were designed to fit man for what

-he called the "Kingdom of Heaven," but the only

-morality which is worth the name is that which

-fits man for living his life on earth.</p>

-

-<p>Jesus constantly urged men to the performance of

-moral duties that they might be rewarded by their

-"Father in Heaven." Such a motive for good

-behavior is offensive to the rational mind, and

-moral commandments which are enforced with a

-Heaven and a Hell do not spring from an opinion

-of human nature which deserves our respect.</p>

-

-<p>The most comprehensive criticism which one can

-make upon the morals of the New Testament is,

-that they are not practicable. Is the character of

-Christians fashioned by the power and influence of

-the words which Jesus left in the world? This

-question should be pressed to an answer, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>

-honesty would answer it in a way which would

-shake every church-building in the land and tear

-the mask from the face of every Christian worshiper

-on the globe.</p>

-

-<p>Jesus taught that men and women were to love

-him more than father or mother, son or daughter.

-Imagine human beings loving a man whom they

-know nothing about, and consequently can care

-nothing about, and who has no more claim to their

-affections than has the ghost in Hamlet, better

-than they love parent or child! Such morality as

-this is not fit for a Hottentot.</p>

-

-<p>If any command is implanted in our nature and is

-a part of the bone and fiber of our very being, it is

-to love beyond all else those who have borne us

-and cared for us through infancy and childhood,

-and those whose existence depends upon us, and to

-whom we stand pledged by the holiest ties of our

-beings, to watch over and protect, to care for and

-love, to the last days of our lives. It is love of parent

-and child which is alike the supreme obligation

-and the supreme benefaction of our humanity.

-No being has walked this earth who had the moral

-right to demand a greater love than is due to

-father and mother, son and daughter; and if Jesus

-claimed such affection, his claim is an impertinence

-which we are bound to treat with indignation and

-scorn.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>For the Christian Church to make of the words

-of Jesus commands to the world is to deserve

-the severest condemnation. Jesus taught that men

-were not to make for themselves a home, not to

-cultivate those virtues which blossom into the

-family, and not to save the fruits of their toil to

-make old age with its tottering form and feeble

-limbs less liable to the hardships of the world, but

-he summed up all the duties of life in these words:

-"Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and

-come follow me."</p>

-

-<p>To obey such teaching as this would overturn

-every monument of prosperity upon the earth,

-blight every feeling of happiness that gladdens the

-heart of man, and convert the busy, working,

-loving world into one vast army of tramps, following

-a king without a kingdom, a leader without a

-purpose, a commander with nothing to give those

-who followed his command.</p>

-

-<p>Jesus taught that we were not to resist evil; that is,

-that if a thief stole our watch and chain, we were

-bound to run after him and give him our purse

-also; that if a man took away our coat, we should

-wrong him if we did not send him the balance of

-the suit; that if a man struck us on one side of the

-face, we were to invite him to strike us on the other

-side also; that if, as it were, the armies of some

-foreign powers were to invade our land, and burn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>

-and destroy our cities and towns, pillage our homes

-and murder our families, we were in duty bound to

-look upon them as benefactors and thank them for

-their work of destruction, and ask them to come

-and do it again.</p>

-

-<p>Such moral teaching as this would make a nation

-of cowards and slaves.</p>

-

-<p>It is our duty to punish thieves and robbers, not

-to reward them; to resist wrong and injustice, not

-to submit to them like cravens; to protect our

-country from foes, even though we are obliged to

-shed their blood and our own in so doing.</p>

-

-<p>Is there a Christian on the globe who pays the

-least heed to a single one of the moral commands

-of Jesus? You all know there is not.</p>

-

-<p>I need not tell the Christian Church that the

-morality taught by Jesus is decaying when every

-church is its coffin, and every minister its grave-digger.</p>

-

-<p>If you wish to see how much respect for the moral

-teachings of Jesus one of his professed followers

-has, just steal his coat, and if he gives you his

-cloak also, as he is commanded to do by his Lord

-and Master, please publish his name in the daily

-papers&mdash;for the benefit of others who wish to get

-a cloak.</p>

-

-<p>We find among the express commands of Jesus

-this advice: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>

-upon earth." The most liberal translation of this

-counsel can not make it anything but poor advice.

-Every material blessing of mankind has come from

-the savings of human labor, and the value of laying

-up treasures upon earth is more evident than that

-of laying up treasures in Heaven, whatever this

-saying may mean. When every Christian tries as

-hard to be poor as he tries now to get rich, we

-shall think that he has some regard for the moral

-teachings of Jesus.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>It must be apparent to all that what may be

-claimed as Christian morality is not only decaying,

-but that it ought to decay. There is no sense

-in it. Imagine a man telling people in the Twentieth

-Century to "take no thought for your life, what

-ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your

-body, what ye shall put on," and endeavoring to

-prove that because the fowls of the air do not have

-to broil a beefsteak for their breakfast or make

-biscuit for tea, human beings will be fed whether

-they provide anything for their appetites or not.</p>

-

-<p>Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father will feed

-us because we are better than the fowls of the air,

-and that he will clothe us because he clothes the

-grass of the field. Our earthly fathers seem to have

-done more in the way of providing food and clothing

-for us before we were able to take care of ourselves

-than any Heavenly Father. Others may put their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>

-trust in God for something to eat and drink and

-wear, if they wish to, but I prefer to give the matter

-a little thought myself.</p>

-

-<p>Jesus concludes these

-admonitions by saying, "Take no thought for the

-morrow." This is bad counsel, and it shows the

-good sense of mankind that it has never been

-followed. The whole world lives in what one of our

-poets called, "The bright tomorrow of the mind."</p>

-

-<p>We will refer to only one more of the peculiar

-moral injunctions of Jesus. In the fifth chapter of

-Matthew, in the forty-fourth verse, we read, "Love

-your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good

-to them that hate you, and pray for them which

-despitefully use you and persecute you."</p>

-

-<p>If we were to do as herein commanded, we should

-have an inverted morality which would place the

-crown of virtue upon the forehead of vice.</p>

-

-<p>Let us see if the preacher of this doctrine practised it.</p>

-

-<p>Did Jesus bless the Scribes and Pharisees when

-they refused to acknowledge his claim to be the

-Messiah? This is the blessing which he pronounced

-upon them: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees,

-hypocrites, for ye devour widows' houses and for a

-pretense make long prayers; therefore ye shall

-receive the greater damnation." "Ye serpents, ye

-generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation

-of Hell?" That is not a very sweet blessing!</p>

-

-<p>And these men did not curse Jesus. They only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>

-did not agree with his opinions. Jesus, also, in

-his wrath against his enemies, calls them, in the

-seventeenth and nineteenth verses of the twenty-third

-chapter of Matthew, "Ye fools and blind,"

-forgetting, doubtless, that he had previously declared,

-when preaching on the Mount, "Whosoever

-shall say, 'Thou Fool,' shall be in danger of

-hell-fire."</p>

-

-<p>The moral teachings of Jesus were inspired by a

-false estimate of all earthly things. There is no

-doubt that Jesus believed the world was coming to

-an end in his generation. How to get into the

-Kingdom of Heaven was of more consequence than

-how to reform mankind, or improve the world,

-since the end of earthly things was near at hand.

-This appears to have been the thought of Jesus,

-and explains much of his language.</p>

-

-<p>But today we do not believe that the earth has

-run its course, and that the end of all material

-things is near at hand. We are living without fear

-of failure on the part of the universe, and are giving

-our attention more to human wants than to divine

-commands.</p>

-

-<p><i>Not fear of offending God, but fear of wronging man,

-is the highest basis of morals.</i> We have reached a

-time when apologies are not respected, when

-repentance is looked upon as the mask of villainy,

-when the stature of life is most shorn of manliness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>

-by prancing in the garb of humility, when a brave

-facing of life's trials and demands counts for more

-than cowardly surrender in the name of God.

-In fact, we have come to say to the world of humanity,

-"Be moral, and you need not be religious."

-Work for man is coming to be a sufficient excuse

-for neglect of God.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>But we want no cheap moral duties held up for

-man to perform. It is serious business to live

-this life of ours and live it well, and it is hard work

-to do it. Morality sets us as high a task as we are

-able to perform, and a higher task than has yet

-been performed by most of mankind. The effort of

-this age is to expose the sham of what is called

-holiness, and make sacred the surroundings of

-human beings. We must throw off the past, and

-stand upon that sunlit height where we can feel

-that "somehow life is bigger after all than any

-painted angel, could we see the man that is within

-us."</p>

-

-<p>This is the moral duty of the world: to respect the

-man that is within us. We ought to rear on the

-earth a range of moral Alps that would stand and

-command the admiration of the world as long as

-eye could see and heart could feel. We need a

-rational hope and a burning purpose in this

-century, something noble to live for and the

-courage of nobility to work and win it.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>The improvement of the world is the only object

-of life worthy of man. Do and say nothing that

-will not improve mankind. Were this simple

-admonition heeded, we should have the key to the

-kingdom of the only heaven that man needs in our

-own pocket.</p>

-

-<p>It is time for the reign of commonsense to begin

-on earth; time for men to elevate morality above

-religion; and time for us to say, "Millions for the

-world, not a cent for the Church." The battle

-between Freedom and Christianity has begun, and

-I believe that when it ends Christianity will be

-buried beneath the ruins of its own dogmas, there

-to remain forever. It possesses no spirit that can

-rise again from its ashes and mount on wings of

-flame to a higher life. When superstition dies, it

-dies to the root.</p>

-

-<p>The Christian minister can not arrest the march of

-liberty by crying, "Infidelity!" and threatening

-with everlasting cremation all those who refuse to

-heed his words.</p>

-

-<p>But let there be no base understanding of freedom.

-The new John the Baptist must not be a cowboy,

-saying, "The kingdom of highwaymen is at hand."

-As a person when in perfect bodily health knows

-not from any intimation from the respective parts

-that he has a stomach, a brain, or a heart, so a

-person when living in perfect freedom is uncon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>scious

-of law, of creed, of custom. The healthy

-man physically is the free man physically; the

-healthy man mentally is the free man mentally;

-the healthy man morally is the free man morally;

-liberty of the individual is health of the individual,

-and a free man means a man who is true and

-obedient to all natural laws.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>There is a misunderstanding of freedom upon

-the one side, and a misrepresentation of it

-upon the other, that make it hazardous for one to

-employ the word. To connect this word with morality

-in the eyes of many is to confound the Madonna

-with Mary Magdalene. It is to start the ghost of

-Don Juan.</p>

-

-<p>The conservatism of society has ever regarded

-liberty as the black flag of the moral marauder, the

-emblem of a piratical intention upon the casket of

-the world that contains the jewels of honor, justice,

-virtue and social order.</p>

-

-<p>So persistently and malignantly has freedom been

-represented as a wrecker's light, kindled only to

-lure to destruction, that to represent it as worthy

-to be trusted is to arouse the spirit which pursued

-Voltaire to his grave with a lie, erected a shaft of

-calumny over the tomb of Paine, and which now,

-with the coward's weapon of slander, attacks the

-living who refuse to acknowledge that the voice

-of the Church is the voice of God.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>

-But nevertheless we believe with Burns that:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">

-<div class="line">Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,</div>

-<div class="line">Its virtues a' can tell, man;</div>

-<div class="line">It raises man aboon the brute,</div>

-<div class="line">It maks him ken himsel', man;</div>

-<div class="line">Gif ance the peasant taste a bite,</div>

-<div class="line">He's greater than a lord, man,</div>

-<div class="line">And ni' the beggar shares a mite</div>

-<div class="line">Of a' he can afford, man.</div>

-</div></div></div>

-

-<p>And so we exclaim in the words of one of our own

-true poets:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">

-<div class="line">Always in thine eyes, O Liberty!</div>

-<div class="line">Shines that high light whereby the world is saved,</div>

-<div class="line">And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.</div>

-</div></div></div>

-

-<p>You have all heard of the man who refused to open

-his eyes for a year, and who declared that during

-that time nothing could be seen on account of the

-darkness. But the endeavor to perpetuate old

-errors by keeping the eyes closed to the facts of

-science, the truths of philosophy, and the progress

-of the human race, has not been crowned with

-success. The further attempt to convert the world

-to what James Parton calls a "kitchen religion"

-is merely waste of power.</p>

-

-<p>The preaching of Christianity is making "much

-ado about nothing." What we want is manhood

-and womanhood.</p>

-

-<p>It is said by the Church that the man who lives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>

-for his family and brings all that he can win of

-what is fair and bright and glad to those he loves,

-may be a good man, but he is not a Christian, and

-therefore has no religion.</p>

-

-<p>Give me then the man who is not a Christian, and

-who has no religion, for if the man who loves his

-wife and children, who gives to them the strength

-of his arm, the thought of his brain, the warmth

-of his heart, has not religion, the world is better

-off without it, for these are the highest and holiest

-things which man can do.</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"

-height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="p2 i2">There is only one thing worth praying

-for: to be in the line of evolution.&mdash;<i>Elbert Hubbard.</i></p>

-

-<p class="p2 i2">Jesus as Savior of the world is a theological

-creation, and not a historical character.</p></div>

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="i2 p6">SO HERE THEN ENDETH THAT GREAT AND GOOD BOOK

-"I DON'T KNOW&mdash;DO YOU?" WRITTEN BY MARILLA M.

-RICKER, AND PRINTED AND BOUND FOR HER BY THE

-ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA,

-ERIE COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW YORK, MCMXVI.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" /></div>

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2 id="PAINE">THOMAS PAINE</h2></div>

-

-<p class="i2">Born Jan 29, 1737.</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Friend and adviser of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin,

-Monroe, etc., etc.</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Author of <i>Common Sense</i>, <i>The Crisis</i>, <i>Rights of Man</i>, and

-<i>The Age of Reason</i>;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Editor of <i>Pennsylvania Magazine</i>;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Enlisted in Continental Army; appointed Aide-de-Camp to

-General Nathaniel Greene;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Secretary of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congress and

-Pennsylvania Assembly;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">By his writings did more for the American cause in the

-Revolution than any other one person;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First proposed American Independence;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First suggested the Federal Union of States;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First proposed the abolition of Negro slavery;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First suggested protection for dumb animals;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First proposed arbitration and international peace;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First suggested justice to women;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First pointed out the reality of human brotherhood;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First pointed out the folly of hereditary succession and

-monarchical government;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First proposed old-age pensions;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First suggested international copyright;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First proposed the education of the children of the poor at

-public expense;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First proposed "the land for the people";</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First suggested "the religion of humanity";</p>

-

-<p class="i2">First proposed and first wrote the words, "United States of

-America";</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Founder of the first Ethical Society;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Proposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory;</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Inventor of the iron bridge, the hollow candle&mdash;principle of

-the modern central-draft burner, etc., etc.</p>

-

-<p class="i2">Died June 9, 1809.</p>

-

-

-<p class="p2"><b><i>This is history. But this great and good man was called

-"a filthy little atheist" by a hyphenated Dutch-American.</i></b></p>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***</div>

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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64568 ***</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="box">Transcriber's Notes:<br />
+<br />
+
+Two-columns text has been converted to a single column.<br /><br />
+Blank pages have been eliminated.<br />
+<br />
+Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
+original.<br />
+<br />
+A few typographical errors have been corrected.<br />
+<br />
+The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.</p>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/front.jpg" width="600"
+height="890" alt="" title="" />
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p class="center"><i>Marilla M. Ricker.</i></p>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU?</h1>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+<p class="center">MARILLA M. RICKER</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2em"><img src="images/illo1.jpg" width="75"
+height="133" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p class="center">DONE INTO<br />
+A PRINTED BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS<br />
+AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN<br />
+EAST AURORA, NEW YORK<br />
+MCMXVI</p>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6 center">Copyright, 1916<br />
+By<br />
+Marilla M. Ricker</p>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">You are what you think, and to believe in
+a Hell for other people is literally to go
+to Hell yourself.&mdash;<i>Elbert Hubbard.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">A religious man is a man scared.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2 id="FOREWORD">FOREWORD</h2></div>
+
+
+<p><i>There is in the city of Boston a memorial building
+to Thomas Paine. This Paine Memorial was finished
+and dedicated forty-two years ago. It is the finest
+monument to Thomas Paine on the earth.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>For twenty years Ralph Washburn Chainey has been
+the Manager of this building and the Treasurer of
+the Paine Memorial Corporation. Under his wise
+and prudent management the building was freed from
+debt, and today it is a monument to the energy and
+devotion of its Manager as much as to the genius
+and labors of Thomas Paine.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Ralph Washburn Chainey is only forty-two, and as
+great an example of thrift as Ben Franklin was.
+Very early in life he acquired the habit of thrift&mdash;which
+is the basis of all virtues. He learned early
+that time was money and he is always at work. He
+is not only able to take care of himself, but he can
+and does take care of others. He is sufficient unto
+himself, and when one is right with himself he is
+right with all the world. I have known him intimately
+for more than a quarter of a century, and if he has
+faults I have yet to learn what they are.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In appreciation, therefore, of his great service to
+the cause of Freethought, I dedicate this volume to</i></p>
+
+<p class="i2">RALPH WASHBURN CHAINEY</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Marilla M. Ricker</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>Dover, New Hampshire<br />
+December, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2 p6">As man advances, as his intellect enlarges,
+as his knowledge increases, as his ideals
+become nobler, the Bibles and creeds will
+lose their authority, the miraculous will
+be classed with the impossible, and the
+idea of special providence will be discarded.
+Thousands of religions have perished,
+innumerable gods have died, and
+why should the religion of our time be
+exempt from the common fate?</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2></div>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" summary="contents">
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#FOREWORD">Foreword</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">7</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CIVILIZATION">Creeds Against Civilization</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">11</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#AGNOSTIC">What I Know About Some Churches,
+and Why I Am an Agnostic</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">33</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#REJOINDER">A Letter and the Rejoinder</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">55</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#GHOST">The Holy Ghost</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">65</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CHRIST">How Can We "Take" Christ?</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">71</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#INGERSOLL">Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">81</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THOUGHT">Mark Twain's Best Thought</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">85</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#RELIGION">An Irreligious Discourse on Religion</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">89</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#MORALITY">Decay of Christian Morality</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">107</td></tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="chap" />
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">I know of no other book that so fully
+teaches the subjection and degradation
+of woman as the Bible.&mdash;<i>Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">That God had to come to earth to find a
+mother for his son reveals the poverty
+of Heaven.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="CIVILIZATION">CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">Any system of religion that shocks the
+mind of a child can not be a true system.&mdash;<i>Thomas Paine.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Hell is a place invented by priests and
+parsons for the sake of being supported.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center large">CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">NE hundred fifty years ago, there
+was not a single white man in
+what is now Kentucky, Ohio,
+Indiana and Illinois. What is now
+the most flourishing part of the
+United States was then as little
+known as the country in the heart of Africa itself.
+It was not until Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six
+that Boone left his home in North Carolina to
+become the first settler in Kentucky; and the
+pioneers of Ohio did not settle that territory until
+twenty years later.</p>
+
+<p>Canada belonged to France one hundred fifty-three
+years ago, and Washington was a modest
+Virginia Colonel, and the United States was the
+most loyal part of the British Empire, and scarcely
+a speck on the political horizon indicated the
+struggle that in a few years was to lay the foundation
+of the greatest republic in the world.</p>
+
+<p>One hundred fifty years ago there were but four
+small newspapers in America; steam-engines had
+not been imagined; and locomotives and railroads,
+and telegraphs and postal cards, and friction-matches,
+and revolvers and percussion-caps, and
+breechloading-guns and Mauser rifles, and stoves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+and furnaces, and gas and electricity and rubber
+shoes, and Spaulding's glue, and sewing-machines
+and anthracite coal, and photographs, and kerosene-oil,
+free schools, and spring-beds and hair-mattresses,
+and lever-watches and greenbacks
+were unknown. The spinning-wheel was in almost
+every family, and clothing was spun and woven
+and made up in the family; and the printing-press
+was a cumbrous machine worked by hand.</p>
+
+<p>Down to Eighteen Hundred Fourteen every paper
+in the world was printed one side at a time, on an
+ordinary hand-press; and a nail, or a brick, or a
+knife, or a pair of shears or scissors, or a razor, or a
+woven pair of stockings, or an ax or a hoe or a
+shovel, or a lock and key, or a plate of glass of any
+size, was not made in what is now the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>In Seventeen Hundred Ninety, there were only
+seventy-five post-offices in the country, and the
+whole extent of our post-routes was less than nineteen
+hundred miles; cheap postage was unheard
+of; so were envelopes; and had any one suggested
+the transmission of messages with lightning speed,
+he would have been thought insane. The microscope
+on the one hand and the telescope on the
+other were in their infancy as instruments of
+science; and geology and chemistry were almost
+unknown, to say nothing of the telephone and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+the other various phones, and the X-rays, and
+hundreds of other new things.</p>
+
+<p>In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two there were only
+six stagecoaches running in all England, and these
+were a novelty. A man named John Crosset thought
+they were so dangerous an innovation that he wrote
+a pamphlet against them. "These coaches," he
+wrote, "make gentlemen come to London upon
+every small occasion which otherwise they would
+not do, except upon urgent necessity. The conveniency
+of the passage makes their wives come
+often up, who, rather than come such long journeys
+on horseback, would stay at home. Then when
+they come to town they must be in the 'wade'
+[probably that is where the word <i>swim</i> comes in
+now], get fine clothes, go to plays, and treats, and
+by these means get such a habit of idleness and
+love of pleasure that they are uneasy ever after."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>We can all see how much improvement there
+has been in all things but <i>creeds</i>. Improvements
+can come, and old things go, but <i>creeds</i> go on
+forever! A creed implies something fixed and
+immovable. In other words, it means you have a
+"heel-rope on."</p>
+
+<p>The word "creed" is from <i>credo</i>, "I believe." We
+have had a great deal of compulsion of belief, and
+a thousand years of almost absolute unanimity.
+Liberty was dead and the ages were dark. We call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+them the Middle Ages because they were the death
+between the life that was before and the life that
+came after. Then came a new birth of thought&mdash;a
+"Renaissance"&mdash;and after this, some reformation
+in the form of a Protestantism.</p>
+
+<p>Since then, the Protestants have continued to
+protest, not only against the old, but against each
+other. And this is the best thing they have done.
+Thus liberty has been saved, for each would have
+coerced its fellow organization, as did their infamous
+mother, the Roman Catholic Church, before them.
+From "creed" comes "credulous" and "credulity."
+And they have filled the world with their
+kind. In the United States alone, there are about
+one hundred forty types. Each is a system of
+credulity pitted against a hundred and thirty-nine
+others. They all rest on authority. They all denounce
+investigation&mdash;unless it has for its end the
+support of their authority.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, with the exception of two or three denominations,
+to become a professed Christian means to
+accept credulously and without question a system of
+belief about Nature and man and the world which
+you would deny in toto if you reasoned as you do
+about other things, and which you do practically
+deny by re-explaining and refining it into anything
+but what is stated. Down deep in your heart you
+do not, and never did, believe it in the same honest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+way in which you form your other opinions.</p>
+
+<p>Think for a moment of the Christian idea of the
+world, its origin, its shape, place, importance, and
+its final end. Does any man or woman who has
+been through a common-school geography believe
+the ideas implied in the common Christian dogmas
+regarding the world? We must remember that the
+world taught in the geography is not the Christian
+world.</p>
+
+<p>The world taught in the Christian dogmas is
+beneath the heavens&mdash;not a rolling sphere flying
+through space. It is flat, and the sun and stars pass
+over it daily. It is the chief object of God's creation
+on which to place man. It is God's footstool,
+and his throne is Heaven above. He created it just
+four thousand and four years before the Christian
+era began. Now we <i>all</i> know that this is <i>not</i> true;
+that there is no up nor down; that the earth is not
+the center; that it is <i>not</i> flat; that the sun does not
+go round it; that it is a very insignificant little
+orb; that "up in Heaven" is an utterly meaningless
+expression; and that the world is not a creation,
+but an evolution.</p>
+
+<p>And yet thousands of people credulously cling to
+creeds which embody the notions of barbarous or
+uncivilized ages.</p>
+
+<p>Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the
+Bible is a revelation of the will and wisdom of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+omniscient God; that it is a perfect and sufficient
+rule of faith and practise. What, in the name of
+humanity, causes people to make such statements
+today? It is like trying to light the house with a
+saucer of tallow in which a rag is immersed, instead
+of using gas or electricity.</p>
+
+<p>Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy
+xiv: 21, we read, "Ye shall not eat of anything
+that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it unto the
+sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat
+it; or thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for <i>thou</i>
+art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God." In
+Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would
+that men should do unto you, even so do ye also
+unto them."</p>
+
+<p>Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy,
+or even the moral unity of a volume written
+by many hands at widely different times? Are such
+people so ignorant that they have not read the
+Book they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots
+and do not know the plainest right and wrong?
+Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful reason
+for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they
+the dupes of their own credulity, clinging without
+thought to the beliefs in which they have been
+reared? They are evidently not using commonsense
+in an honest way.</p>
+
+<p>I often hear the Bible spoken of as a holy book, full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+of a holy spirit. I sometimes reply: "Have you
+read the conduct of Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David,
+Solomon, and other ancient worthies, who were
+said to be men after the heart of the bloodthirsty
+and avenging Jehovah? How long would you keep
+out of prison if you took them for your models?
+Have you read the Thirty-fifth, Fifty-eighth,
+Sixty-ninth and One Hundred Ninth Psalms? If
+not, read them, and tell me what you think of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>There never was any intrinsic reason for believing
+the Bible except that a designing priesthood said
+so, and stupid people trusted them.</p>
+
+<p>Here, by common consent, people agree to be
+duped. Ages and ages ago, they began to make
+admissions that two and two might be six, or even
+sixteen, in religion. They had sense enough to say
+that two and two are four in other things. In
+Divine Revelation they shut their eyes to all mistakes
+and wilful lies. If people should deceive in
+other matters as the priests, parsons and teachers
+do in religion, they would not escape arrest.</p>
+
+<p>Another central doctrine is that of the Atonement.
+This is derived from the moral character of the
+Jewish God; he governed the world of humanity
+on the principle of primitive society. Men were
+responsible to him in everything. Any infraction
+of his supposed laws rendered them subject to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+vengeance. That is why the Jew thought that God
+sent a thunderstorm to punish him for eating pork.</p>
+
+<p>What explanation besides credulity can be suggested
+for the continuation of this belief century
+after century? Preachers shout it from the pulpits,
+and Salvation Army people hawk it through the
+streets. Not one of them knows what he is talking
+about. Each learned it from some one who told
+him to say it. They all do it because it is a part of a
+system which they have inherited, but the reason
+for which they do not know, and have never
+allowed themselves to seek.</p>
+
+<p>This cringing credulity keeps the masses from
+using their powers. They seem to believe that if
+they should lose these superstitions they would
+be lost.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>And the dogma regarding Jesus is inextricably
+mixed up in Christian theology with that of
+the Atonement. One assumption bolsters the other.
+He is made to occupy the central place in this
+scheme of blood-redemption through that other
+highly rational fable of the immaculate conception.
+If Jesus was not immaculately conceived, then
+Matthew and Luke have deceived; then Jesus is
+not God; then he is a mere man; and if so, he is
+not the Redeemer. Man could not redeem himself
+according to the first premise of the scheme. Man
+has been and <i>is</i> redeeming himself by learning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+Nature's laws and through them rising to a higher
+life ever since he reached the stage of humanity.
+Take the theory of the Resurrection. The account
+of it was written long after the assumed occurrence,
+and by credulous men with superstitious inclinations.
+Men and women of these days, understanding
+the laws of Nature, can not give assent to the
+crude beliefs which easily commanded the minds
+of ancient times.</p>
+
+<p>Both Protestantism and Catholicism are systems
+built on essentially the same foundation. Remove
+any of these stones, and the systems will have to
+be rebuilt. If there is no special revelation, there
+is no special scheme of salvation. If there is no
+vengeful, blood-seeking God, there is no theological
+reconciliation. If there was no fall, there is no hopeless
+depravity. If there was no immaculate conception,
+there is no Redeemer in a special ecclesiastical
+sense. If there is no total depravity, there is
+no lost world. If there is no lost world, there is no
+yawning Hell. One and all, these fictions have their
+only ground for continuance in a <i>selfish</i> and unreasoning
+priesthood and clergy, and a credulous
+people.</p>
+
+<p>In the place of the "fall," science has put the
+"rise" of man. It finds the Garden of Eden to
+have been a jungle. It finds the mythical perfect
+Adam to have been a savage. It finds the Biblical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+"origin of evil" to have been a puerile legend. It
+finds that sin and evil are made by the seeing of
+higher states. It finds that there was no bad until
+the better was reached. It finds that it is the advancing
+good which makes the existing bad. It finds
+that among the worst of sinners are those who live
+in and propagate outworn doctrines upon their
+own and others' credulity.</p>
+
+<p>In the olden times, God was made a king&mdash;the world
+was his kingdom. His powers, virtues and vices
+were simply those of earthly kings exaggerated.
+Jewish and Christian liturgies are full of expressions
+showing the attitude of slaves and serfs to a tyrant.
+Sin has been manufactured as heresy and disobedience
+to the so-called orthodox system instead
+of to the laws of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>Science has shown that the bottomless pit did not
+even have a top. Columbus sailed over the Western
+edge of the flat Christian world on which all this
+Christian system depended, and found that the
+material Heaven and Hell were unfounded myths;
+but the preachers and priests still threaten <i>hell</i> to
+the most ignorant and credulous, but they tell
+some of us that there is a <i>final judgment</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>In the old days, we used to hear a great deal about
+judgments. A certain honest, good-natured,
+old farmer in New Hampshire, who was a freethinker,
+but had a very pious wife, lost many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+cattle when the black tongue was an epidemic in
+the State.</p>
+
+<p>One day the hired man came in and told him the
+red oxen were dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, they were
+'breechy cusses.' Take off their hides and carry
+them down to Fletcher's. They will bring the cash."</p>
+
+<p>An hour or so later the man came back with the
+news that Lineback and his mate were both dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, I took
+them of B&mdash;&mdash; to save a bad debt that I never
+expected to get. Take the hides down to Fletcher's.
+They will bring the cash."</p>
+
+<p>After the lapse of another hour the man came back
+to tell him that the nigh brindle was dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he?" said the old man. "Well, he was a very
+old ox. Take off his hide and send it down to
+Fletcher's. It is worth cash and will bring more
+than two of the others."</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon his wife reminded him that his loss was
+a judgment of Heaven upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" said the old chap. "Well, if they will take
+the judgment in cattle, it is the easiest way I can pay it."</p>
+
+<p>But they know no more about final judgments than
+they did about the lake of fire and brimstone which
+commenced to drain off in Columbus' day. Science
+has vaporized the notion of a future judgment by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+the same method it has that of a past Creation.
+From the <i>facts</i>, it has learned <i>laws</i>. But credulity
+is always half-hearted with facts. It does not know
+enough of truth to love it. It is ever glowing over
+and setting up as a dogma the little it knows, or
+assumes to know, of the truth of former times. It
+has no faith in the newly discovered, because it
+knows nothing of it.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, age after age we see the spectacle of men
+who have not studied the science of their own day
+denouncing it in pulpit and councils; of men who
+have steeped themselves in the traditions of the
+past pronouncing shallow invectives against the
+demonstrations of (science) the present.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Many church people say immortality must be
+true, or the great majority would not believe
+in it. But do they? They do not talk or write as if
+they did. If language means anything, I think the
+majority believe in annihilation. Most people speak
+of the dead body of a man as though it were the
+man. They say, "He was buried at Greenwood,"
+or, "She was cremated at Forest Hills." And we
+hear the "late" Mr. Smith left an immense
+fortune. If Mr. Smith still exists, why do they say
+the <i>late</i> Mr. Smith? If people didn't believe that
+the soul and body are one, and that life ceases and
+mind expires when the body dies, why do they say,
+"They were"? What little the Church has learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+has been by <i>main force</i> so to speak.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of
+mine many years ago was a college student. At
+that time they were all compelled to attend the
+college church. On one occasion he heard the
+preacher, who was also a college professor, make
+these statements:</p>
+
+<p><i>First</i>, that the <i>elect</i> alone would be saved.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second</i>, that among those who by the world were
+called Christians, probably not more than one in a
+hundred belonged really and truly to the <i>elect</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third</i>, that the others, by reason of their Christian
+privileges, would suffer more hereafter than the
+heathen, who had never heard the Gospel at all.</p>
+
+<p>The young man made a note of these propositions,
+and on the strength of them drew up a petition to
+the Faculty soliciting exemption from further
+attendance at church, as only preparing for himself
+a more terrible future.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "The congregation here amounts to six
+hundred persons, and nine of these are the college
+professors. Now if only one in a hundred is to be
+saved, it follows that three even of the professors
+must be damned, and I, being a mere student,
+could not expect to be saved in preference to a
+professor." Far, he said, be it from him to cherish
+so presumptuous a hope. Nothing remained for
+him, therefore, but perdition. In this melancholy
+state of affairs he was anxious to abstain from any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>thing
+that might aggravate his future punishment;
+and as church attendance had been shown to have
+this influence on the <i>non-elect</i>, he trusted that the
+Faculty would for all time exempt him from it.</p>
+
+<p>The result was he came very near being expelled
+from the college&mdash;simply by heeding their sermons.
+The professors of some colleges have learned something,
+and do not insist on the students attending
+church.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Ponder for a moment on the many dishonest
+ways churches have for raising money. Think
+of the amount of money they can raise at a church-fair&mdash;alias,
+a confidence-game.</p>
+
+<p>A young man from Kentucky told me that he
+attended one at Chicago. First he went to the table
+where refreshments were sold. A beautiful siren
+with big black eyes and small white hands spread
+the edibles before him. When he arose from the
+table he handed her a five-dollar bill. She put it in
+a little box and forgot to give him any change. She
+smiled sweetly at him, and asked him if he would
+like to walk about the room and look at the fancy
+articles, all to be sold for the good of the church.</p>
+
+<p>She took his arm and murmured, "We are not
+strangers; we both feel interested in the church."</p>
+
+<p>"We soon came," said the young man in telling
+me the story, "to a silver tea-set that was to be
+'raffled off.' Would I take a chance? Of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+I did. Then came a cake with a valuable ring concealed
+in it. Would I take a chance in that? Of
+course I did.</p>
+
+<p>"So things glided on until I concluded if I took
+many more chances, my chances for getting home
+would be slim. So I refused to tempt fortune any
+further, until the little black-eyed scoundrel took
+me on a new tack. Leaning heavily on my arm,
+and resting her cheek on my shoulder, she said,
+'Please take a chance for me.'</p>
+
+<p>"It is needless to add that I took the chance, and
+kept on taking chances for the beautiful and
+unprincipled wretch that had me in tow, until I
+had not a dollar left. Yes, I was penniless, and then
+it began to dawn on me that she was working me
+for the success of the church. There I was, bankrupt
+in money and self-respect. I had been robbed&mdash;yes,
+robbed, for where is the difference between
+a pair of pistols and a pair of black eyes in a robbery?
+You part with your money because you can not
+help it.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that Society looks with lenient eyes upon
+church-fairs, but it is my opinion that all robbers
+will take sentence, and when that little Chicago
+robber receives her sentence, she will take her
+place by the side of Jack Sheppard!"</p>
+
+<p>You see he still believes in Judgments. He is
+learning by main force.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A very pious woman whose father was a missionary,
+now living in Hawaii, wrote not long ago that
+professional men flocking to the Islands will be
+disappointed unless they are friends of old families;
+and the old families are descendants of missionaries
+who went there in the early days and took lands
+and everything else from the natives.</p>
+
+<p>There seems to be nothing like being a descendant
+from a missionary family. These people, equally
+pious and provident, thought it a good scheme to
+cheat the sinful savages out of all their worldly
+possessions, in order that they might be taught
+humility and holiness through the chastening
+influence of poverty. So they robbed the unregenerate
+to the glory of God.</p>
+
+<p>Who says it doesn't pay to save the heathen?
+Think of the ignorance and superstition of the
+majority of the preachers of the present day.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Up in Northern Minnesota, less than fifty years
+ago, an old Baptist was preaching on the
+death of Moses on the Mount, and his not being
+permitted to go over into the Promised Land.
+The preacher said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have always felt sorry for Moses. It has seemed
+so hard to me that he could not go over with Caleb
+and Joshua, the only two of the host which he had
+led out of Egypt, and enjoy with his people the
+good country towards which they had been so long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+traveling. When as a boy I read that in the Bible
+for the first time, I sat down and cried for sympathy
+with him. But Moses had a hard time from
+the first. He was no sooner born than his life was
+threatened. His mother had to hide him to save it.
+After three months she could hide him no longer,
+and so she made an ark of bulrushes and set him
+afloat on the river. Indeed, it seemed as though the
+Lord had all he could do to raise Moses."</p>
+
+<p>But the people of this generation do not take the
+story of Moses so seriously. A bright young girl of
+ten, on being asked by her Sabbath School teacher,
+"Where did Pharaoh's daughter get Moses?"
+replied, with the accent on the <i>said</i>, "She <i>said</i> she
+'found him in the bulrushes.'"</p>
+
+<p>I attended a campmeeting in North Carolina. The
+exhortations and prayers would cause a graven
+image to smile audibly. One old Baptist preacher
+said he always felt so sorry to think that "Ingine
+corn" didn't grow in Palestine, because he would
+like to think that the little Jesus had a good time
+playing with cob-houses.</p>
+
+<p>But those preachers compare favorably with the
+Reverend George F. Hall, of Decatur, Illinois, and
+the Reverend Doctor John P. D. John, and the
+Reverend Doctor Frederick Bell, late of the
+Metropolitan Temple of San Francisco, California,
+who at various times challenged Robert G.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+Ingersoll to debate with them. It shows what ignorance,
+superstition and egotism combined can do.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin said the herding instinct in animals has
+its base in fear. Sheep and cattle go in droves, while
+a lion simply flocks with his mate. Those who wish
+to lead have always fostered fear, encouraging this
+tendency to herd, promising protection, and offering
+what they call knowledge in return for a
+luxurious living.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, the men who preach and pray,
+always want the people who <i>work</i> to divide with
+them. They work on the line that fear will compel
+men to join churches. This joining instinct is a
+manifestation of weakness. By going with a gang
+they hope to get to Heaven. But the moment you
+eliminate the Devil from Christianity, there is
+nothing left. You can not have a revival, alias an
+epidemic, of religion, without the Devil. If there
+were no Devil, there would be nothing to pray
+about, and all these people who are gifted in prayer
+would be without a job.</p>
+
+<p>Think of the chaplains of the Army and Navy, in
+Congress and in the Legislatures being turned out
+to browse for themselves. Think of their being
+obliged to earn an honest living. They could not
+do it. I am amused when I think of the prayers
+that are exchanged in war times. One side will
+pray that the wrath of Heaven will descend on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+other, and the other side will return the compliment
+with ten per cent interest.</p>
+
+<p>I remember when I was a child of reading the
+prayer of a Hungarian officer. He said: "O Lord,
+I will not ask thee to help us, and I know that thou
+wilt not help the Austrians. But if thou wilt sit on
+yonder hill, thou shalt not be ashamed of thy
+children."</p>
+
+<p>The famous Bishop Leslie prayed before a battle
+in Ireland, "O God, for our unworthiness we are
+not fit to claim thy help, but if we are bad, our
+enemies are worse, and if thou seest not meet to
+help us, we pray thee help them not, but stand
+thou neutral this day, and leave it to the arm of
+flesh."</p>
+
+<p>All this dramatic power would be lost without the
+Devil. So it behooves the Christian churches to
+hold fast to the Devil. Get a good grip on his hoofs,
+horns and tail, for without him they would be
+relegated to "innocuous desuetude." He should be
+incorporated as the fourth person in the Orthodox
+Godhead, and respectfully addressed as "Holy
+Devil."</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>There is no truth in the dogma of the divinity of
+Jesus, no sense in it, no religion in it. It is the
+product of mythology and has no claim upon this age.</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">This is my doctrine: Give every other
+human being every right you claim for
+yourself. Keep your mind open to the
+influences of Nature. Receive new
+thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">The man who does not do his own
+thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself
+and to his fellowmen.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">As far as I am concerned, I wish to be
+out on the high seas. I wish to take my
+chances with wind and wave and star.
+And I had rather go down in the glory
+and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in
+any orthodox harbor whatever.</p></div>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="AGNOSTIC">WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES
+AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">The ignorance of the masses insures
+abundant contributions to the clergy and
+to religion.&mdash;<i>Ralph W. Chainey.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">The mother who teaches her child to
+pray makes a mistake.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center large">WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">HE Millerites&mdash;or Second Adventists,
+as they now call themselves&mdash;are
+the first sect that I remember.
+They are a people of remarkable
+vigor: they have been at work for
+seventy years to bring this world
+to an end, and although they have been wrong in
+their arithmetic all these years, they rub out the
+slate and begin again.</p>
+
+<p>And they prove everything by the Bible, as all
+other denominations do. The "time" has been set
+at least twenty times since I can remember. I
+recollect having awful palpitations in the kneepans
+upon one of the eventful days, and crawling under
+the barn so as not to be in the way. They used to
+congregate on the height of land near my father's,
+"to go up," and one man climbed upon an old
+shed, and fell and broke his hip; he fainted, and
+they thought he was dead. As soon as he had
+revived a little, they asked him if he had any
+requests to make before he died. He replied, "I
+want you to work in 'durn fool' somewhere on my
+tombstone." He recovered, and lived many years,
+but he was cured of Millerism.</p>
+
+<p>A large share of the students of the Second Advent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+doctrine came into this world, not only naked, but
+without any brains, nor any place suitable to put
+any; and the first business they do is to wonder
+about their souls and talk about being "born
+again." They never seem to realize that to be well
+born is much more essential than to be "born
+again." I never knew immortality to be secured
+at the second birth.</p>
+
+<p>I attended one of their meetings this year, and
+asked one of the sisters for their <i>creed</i>. She said,
+"Our creed is the whole Bible, from the first book
+of Genesis to the last word of the last chapter of
+Revelations."</p>
+
+<p>I thought of what a boy said when the Baptist
+Elder came and took tea at his home, and asked a
+"blessing."</p>
+
+<p>The boy said: "Is that the way you ask a blessing?
+My father doesn't ask it that way."</p>
+
+<p>"How does he ask it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he sat down to the table the other evening,
+and looked it all over, and said, 'My God, what a
+supper!'"</p>
+
+<p>And I thought, "My God, what a creed!"</p>
+
+<p>I was tempted to ask the Millerite sister what she
+thought of the discrepancy between the first and
+the second chapter of Genesis. In the first chapter
+Man and Woman were a simultaneous creation.
+In the second chapter, Woman was an afterthought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+But I had the deep sagacity to hold my tongue,
+and leave her and her <i>creed</i> in peace.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The second church that I remember anything
+about is the Free-Will Baptist. My mother
+was a devout member of that church. I have heard
+thousands of times, "Except a man be born of
+water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the
+Kingdom of God." And man included woman&mdash;it
+always did, so far as pains and penalties were
+concerned.</p>
+
+<p>I remember distinctly a sermon I heard on Hell.
+You younger people can not have the faintest idea
+of the terrific sermons that were preached in those
+days.</p>
+
+<p>That sermon commenced in this wise:</p>
+
+<p>"Now we will look into Hell and see what we can
+see. It is all red-hot like red-hot iron. Streams of
+burning pitch and sulphur run through it. The
+floor blazes up to the roof. Look at the walls&mdash;the
+enormous stones are red-hot. Sparks of fire are
+always falling down from them. Lift up your eyes
+to the roof of Hell. It is like a sheet of blazing fire.
+Hell is filled with a fog of fire. In Hell, torrents not
+of water, but of fire and brimstone, are rained
+down. You may have seen a house on fire, but you
+never saw a house made of fire. Hell is a house
+made of fire. The fire of Hell burns the devils, who
+are spirits, for it was prepared for them. But it will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+burn the body as well as the soul. Take a little
+spark out of Hell&mdash;less than the size of a pin-head&mdash;and
+throw it into the ocean, and it will not go out.
+In one moment it would dry up all the waters of
+the ocean, and set the whole world in a blaze!
+Listen to the terrific noise of Hell&mdash;to the horrible
+uproar of countless millions of tormented creatures,
+mad with the fury of Hell! Oh, the screams of fear,
+the groanings of horror, the yells of rage, the cries
+of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair,
+from millions on millions. You hear them roaring
+like lions, hissing like serpents, howling like dogs,
+and wailing like dragons! And above all, you hear
+the roaring of the thunder of God's anger, which
+shakes Hell to its foundations. Little children, if
+you go to Hell, there will be a devil at your side
+to strike you. How will you feel after you have been
+struck every minute for a hundred millions of
+years? Look into this inner room of Hell, and see a
+girl of about sixteen. She stands in the middle of a
+red-hot floor; her feet are bare; sleep can never
+come to her; she can never forget for one moment
+in all the eternity of years."</p>
+
+<p>And so this description
+of Hell went on for nearly two hours. Do you
+wonder that I, a child of ten years, said to my
+father, who was a freethinker, infidel, atheist, or
+whatever else you please to call him: "I <i>hate</i> my
+mother's church. I will <i>not</i> go there again!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The next church I became acquainted with was
+the Calvin Baptist Church. That church
+seemed to think that the most of us were born to
+be damned anyway!</p>
+
+<p>The great Ingersoll had it right when he said it
+was the damned-if-you-do-and-the-damned-if-you-don't
+church.</p>
+
+<p>The only difference between the Free-Will Baptists
+and the Calvin Baptists that I can see, is, that you
+are allowed to exercise your <i>will</i>. The Free-Will
+Baptists will damn you if you wish to be, and the
+Calvinists will damn you anyway!</p>
+
+<p>The next church to which I was introduced was the
+Congregationalist, alias the Orthodox. Their creed
+is rather complex from a mathematical standpoint.
+They seem to think that three Gods are one God,
+and one God is three Gods.</p>
+
+<p>I, having been taught that figures don't lie,
+couldn't understand it, until I thought of a boy
+who said to his teacher when she explained to him
+that figures didn't lie: "You should see my sisters
+at home, and then on the street. You will find that
+figures do lie."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I then went to Italy, and became conversant
+with the <i>outside</i> doings of the Roman Catholic
+Church. I visited many of them, saw the beggars
+eating crusts at the doors, and the well-fed priests
+saying masses inside; saw the white hand of famine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+always extended, in bitter contrast to the magnificent
+cathedrals; saw well-dressed, intelligent-looking
+men and women going upstairs on their hands
+and knees, and saw hundreds of them kissing the
+toe of the bronze statue of Saint Peter; saw monks
+of every shade and description; and all begging for
+the Holy Catholic Church!</p>
+
+<p>I attended a church festival at Rome at the Ara
+Cœli, where the most "Holy Bambino" is kept, a
+little wooden doll about two feet long. It is said
+to be the image of Jesus. It had a crown of gold on
+its head and was fairly ablaze with diamonds. It
+has great power to heal the sick. It is taken to visit
+patients in great style&mdash;that is, if the patients are
+rich. The Bambino is placed in a coach accompanied
+by priests in full dress. The Great Festival of the
+Bambino is celebrated annually. Military bands
+and the Soldiers of the Guard dance attendance.
+Saint Gennaro is held to be the guardian saint of
+Naples. The alleged miracle by which the blood of
+this holy person, contained in a glass tube, changes
+from a solid to a liquid state, is well known.
+Thousands go to see the miracle performed. When
+the priest first held up the sacred vial with its
+clotted contents we could hear all about us: "Holy
+Gennaro, save and protect us! Bless the City of
+Naples, and keep it free from plagues and earthquakes
+and other ills. Do this miracle so that we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+can see that thy power and thy favor are still with
+us." And so it went on for an hour or more, until
+the great throng was nearly hysterical.</p>
+
+<p>At last the priest stepped forward, showing that
+the blood flowed freely in the tube, and then such
+a shout went up from the big crowd as one hears
+only in Southern climes.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I have never been introduced to the Church of
+England, alias, the Episcopalian, but I've
+always thought if a man had a good voice, and
+understood the mysteries of the corkscrew, he
+would make a good rector.</p>
+
+<p>I became acquainted with a High-Church Episcopalian
+woman not long ago, and she showed me a
+prayer-rug and praying-costume imported from
+Paris. I told her that she looked like an angel in it,
+as she ought after going to all that expense and
+trouble; if she didn't, dressmakers might as well
+give it up and wait for Gabriel. The attitude of
+prayer threw the back breadths of the skirt into
+graceful prominence, and hence the necessity
+(which will be at once recognized by all the truly
+<i>pious</i>) of increased attention to the frills and
+embroidery required by the religious attitude of
+prayer.</p>
+
+<p>An old farmer in Indiana said he was a "Piscopal."</p>
+
+<p>"To what parish do you belong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know nothing about parishes."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who confirmed you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody."</p>
+
+<p>"Then how do you belong to the Episcopalian Church?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, last Winter I went down to Arkansas
+visiting, and while I was there, I went to a church
+and it was called 'Piscopal,' and I heard them say
+that they had done the things they ought not to
+have done, and left undone the things they ought
+to have done, and I says to myself, 'That is my
+fix exactly,' and ever since then I've considered
+myself a 'Piscopal'!"</p>
+
+<p>And I came to the conclusion that that is why the
+membership of that church is so large!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I know but little about the Methodists, but I
+do know that John Wesley, one of the founders
+of that church, believed in witchcraft, and was one
+of the latest of its supporters.</p>
+
+<p>History tells us that Brother Wesley preached a
+sermon entitled, <i>The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes</i>.
+He said that earthquakes were caused by
+sin, and the only way to stop them was to believe
+in his theology and teachings, thus showing great
+knowledge of seismology; but people who bank on
+gullibility are usually safe. I know the Methodists
+make a great hullabaloo about their religion, and
+appear to think their God is deaf.</p>
+
+<p>The Methodist Conference has refused to allow
+women to be delegates to the General Conference.
+The Methodist sisters should discipline the Church.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>What I know about the Universalists I like.
+They seem to think that we are all in the
+same boat, and that one stands as good a chance
+as another, of which I approve. When I was a child,
+Sylvanus Cobb, at that time the great Universalist
+preacher, preached in the adjoining town. One
+Sunday, my father and I went to hear him. His
+sermon caused a great commotion, and the Baptist
+who preached that terrific sermon about Hell said
+to my mother, "There is a wicked man about here
+preaching that everybody is to be saved; but,
+Sister Young, let us hope for better things!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I believe that the Unitarians, as a class, think
+for themselves. I approve of that, and the
+Evangelical Alliance disapproves of them. That is
+in their favor.</p>
+
+<p>I taught school at Lee, New Hampshire, fifty years
+ago. One of the committee was a Unitarian, and one
+was a Quaker. I was tired of selecting suitable
+reading matter from that obscene old book, the
+Bible, and I suggested that we read from some
+other book, which we did for two mornings, when
+the Unitarian materialized at the schoolhouse, and
+with much suavity suggested that we read from the
+Bible every morning, and recite the Lord's Prayer;
+and I, teaching school for my bread and butter,
+bowed to the suggestion, and the next morning
+said: "Pupils, Mr. Smith prefers that we read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+from the Bible. Therefore, we will this morning
+read the startling and authentic account of Jonah
+whilst he was stopping at the submarine hotel."
+That is the most narrow-minded thing I ever knew
+about a Unitarian; but I always thought Mr. Smith
+voiced the opinion of the parents of the pupils
+rather than his own.</p>
+
+<p>I am somewhat acquainted with the Church of the
+Latter-Day Saints, alias the Mormons. They are
+a prudent, industrious, painstaking people, and
+only about two per cent of them ever <i>did</i> practise
+polygamy, and that is a very small proportion for
+any Christian church. Brigham Young never did
+have but seventeen wives, but Solomon had five
+hundred wives, and one thousand other lady
+friends, and David, whose honor and humility
+show greater in his psalms than in the history of his
+ordinary, every-day life, was, as the Bible says, a
+man after God's own heart.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure that Brigham Young compared favorably
+with David. And if God interviewed Moses, why
+shouldn't he have interviewed Joe Smith?</p>
+
+<p>There are more than one thousand religions. They
+are founded mostly on fraud. All their saviors had
+virgins for mothers, and gods for fathers.</p>
+
+<p>The churches own more than thirteen billions of
+property, and they are <i>all</i> too dishonest to pay
+honest taxes. Many of the churches couldn't be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+run three weeks without the women. They do all
+the work, for which they get no credit.</p>
+
+<p>The churches claim all the distinguished people,
+especially after they are dead and hence can not
+deny their claims. They have many times claimed
+that Abraham Lincoln was a churchman. The
+Honorable H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, an old
+friend of Lincoln, said it is false. Lincoln belonged
+to no church, and at one time said, "I have never
+united myself to any church, because I have found
+difficulty in giving my assent without mental
+reservation to the long, complicated statements of
+Christian doctrine, which characterize their articles
+of belief, and confessions of faith." But still they
+claim him. Honest, very!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>No institution in modern civilization is so
+tyrannical and so unjust to women as is the
+Christian church. The history of the Church does
+not contain a single suggestion for the equality of
+woman with man, and still the Church claims that
+woman owes her advancement to the Bible. She
+owes it much more to the dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>History, both ancient and modern, tells us that the
+condition of women is most degraded in those
+countries where Church and State are in closest
+affiliation (such as, Spain, Italy, Russia and Ireland),
+and most advanced in nations where the
+power of ecclesiasticism is markedly on the wane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+It has been proved that, whatever progress woman
+has made in any department of effort, she has
+accomplished independent of, and in opposition to,
+the so-called inspired and infallible Word of God;
+and that the Bible has been of more injury to her
+than has any other book ever written in the history
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>William Root Bliss, in his <i>Side Glimpses From the
+Colonial Meetinghouse</i>, tells us many startling
+truths concerning the Puritans, and reminds me of
+what Chauncey M. Depew said&mdash;that the <i>first</i>
+thing the Puritans did, after they landed at
+Plymouth, was to fall on their knees, and the <i>second</i>
+thing was to fall on the Aborigines.</p>
+
+<p>The business of trading in slaves was not immoral
+by the estimate of public opinion in Colonial times.
+A deacon of the church in Newport esteemed the
+slave trade, with its rum accessories, as home
+missionary work. It is said that on the first Sunday
+after the arrival of his slaves he was accustomed to
+offer thanks that an overruling Providence had
+been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another
+cargo of benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings
+of a Gospel dispensation.</p>
+
+<p>At a Bridgewater town meeting of the year Sixteen
+Hundred Seventy-six, a vote was called to see
+what should be done with the money that was made
+from selling the Indians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>John Bacon of Barnstable directed in his will that
+his Indian slave Dinah be sold and the proceeds
+used "by my executors in buying Bibles." By men
+who sat in the Colonial meetinghouse, the first
+fugitive-slave law was formed. This law became a
+part of the Articles of Confederation between all
+the New England Colonies.</p>
+
+<p>The affinity between <i>rum</i> and the religion of
+Colonial times was exemplified in the license
+granted John Vyall to keep a house of entertainment
+in Boston. He must keep it near the meetinghouse
+of the Second Church, where he extended
+his invitation to thirsty sinners who were going
+to hear John Mayo or Increase Mather preach.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The importation of slaves began early. The
+first arrival at Boston was by the ship <i>Desire</i>,
+on February Twenty-sixth, Sixteen Hundred Thirty-seven,
+bringing negroes, tobacco and cotton from
+Barbados. She had sailed from Boston eleven
+months before, carrying Indian captives to the
+Bermudas to be sold as slaves, and thus she became
+noted as the first New England slave-ship.</p>
+
+<p>In time, slaves were brought to Boston direct from
+Africa.</p>
+
+<p>Advertisements of just-arrived negroes to be sold
+may be seen in the Boston <i>News Letter</i> of the years
+Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six and Seventeen
+Hundred Twenty-seven. The pious Puritans did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+not hesitate to sell slaves on the auction-block. I
+find in the Boston <i>News Letter</i> of September Nineteenth,
+Seventeen Hundred Fifteen, a notice of an
+auction-sale at Newport, Rhode Island, of several
+Indians, men and boys, and a very likely negro man.
+They were treated in all respects as merchandise,
+and were rated with horses and cattle.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Faneuil, to whom Boston is indebted for
+its Cradle of Liberty, was deep in the business. In
+an inventory of the property of Parson Williams
+of Deerfield, in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine,
+his slaves were rated with his horses and cows.
+"Believe and be baptized" is all that was essential.
+I think many of them would have been improved
+by anchoring them out overnight.</p>
+
+<p>A negro preacher whom I knew came to me when
+I was in Florida, and said: "What shall I preach
+about tomorrow? I'se done preached myself
+'plumb out.' I'se worked on election sanctification
+and damnation predestination till I can't say
+another word to save my life."</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Preach a sermon on 'Thou shalt not steal'
+for a text."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that certainly <i>is</i> a good text,
+but I am monstros 'fraid it will produce a coolness
+in my congregation!"</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless it would produce a coolness in many
+a congregation today.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Now I want to talk a little about <i>law</i> and its
+penalty. We want to consider the invariable
+laws of Nature. Let us look at it in the way in
+which we became acquainted with it&mdash;through
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>To the child, law is an educator; he plays with fire
+and is burned. Law and its penalty have done their
+work. A burnt child dreads the fire. On that point
+his education is complete. He cuts himself with a
+knife; again the law works. Do not play with
+edged tools is the lesson. And so, whenever he comes
+in contact with external objects, he learns something
+very definite from them; and if he has any
+sense, he soon conforms to the order which he sees
+in force all around him. He does what he can to act
+in such a way as not to run counter to Nature's
+laws; or, at least, Nature teaches him to do so by
+repeated suffering when he acts otherwise. The
+law thus far is all in favor of life, and is teaching the
+child to preserve it. He must eat not to starve; he
+must be clothed not to freeze; he must not be
+burned, or cut, or crushed. In one word, he must
+take care of himself, and be careful of external
+objects, or he must be hurt.</p>
+
+<p>But his education has another connection with law.
+If he has proper parents he learns that he can not
+lie, or steal, or do many other things without suffering
+a penalty. If he has no home education in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+matter, the reform-school and the jail step in and
+take up the lesson.</p>
+
+<p>And so the law teaches him that his actions must be
+of a certain quality, both with respect to external
+Nature and his fellowmen, or that he must pay a
+penalty.</p>
+
+<p>Thus he comes to man's estate, and law has been
+to him an educator and a good one. He has learned
+that Nature's law means punishment every time
+it is violated, and that man's law, whatever it may
+attain to, <i>aims</i> at the same object as Nature's law.</p>
+
+<p>But neither his education nor his contact with
+law ends with his youth. Hitherto he has obeyed
+blindly for fear of the penalty. He now obeys
+intelligently, and connected with the penalty to be
+incurred by disobedience is the reward to be
+obtained through obedience. He finds that every
+act, every thought, of his brings him in direct contact
+with law. He can not elude it by standing still,
+for no man can stand still. He must go forward, or
+backward. This is an inexorable law; with progress,
+improvement; without progress, what? Rest?
+Repose? No! Deterioration. No man can stand
+still in this universe for a day without losing something.
+The man who means to do anything in life
+must go forward; if he falters, another goes ahead;
+and then he learns that the penalty of faltering is
+failure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nature works no special miracles in any one's
+favor. Nature works no miracles, anyway. The sun
+and the moon did <i>not</i> stand still at Joshua's command!</p>
+
+<p>No riches and influence can buy exemption from
+Nature.</p>
+
+<p>Law says to the poor man who is dependent on his
+daily toil: "You have only yourself to rely upon.
+Take care of your health; be temperate, honest
+and industrious, for sickness, imprisonment, idleness,
+mean to you death."</p>
+
+<p>It says to the rich man: "Inherited wealth has
+exempted you from <i>daily</i> labor of body, but it has
+not earned for you rest. Go to work; do something,
+or your mind and body will be enfeebled; your
+sympathies will disappear; you will become dry
+as the summer's dust; you will sink into a nonentity."</p>
+
+<p>The whole cry of Nature's law is onward and
+upward. Evolution is the word&mdash;there is no God
+about it. It is not alone the survival of the fittest&mdash;that
+is only a part of the process. It is the fittest of
+one generation becoming something better and
+higher for the next.</p>
+
+<p>It is the fashion now to say that the struggle for
+existence becomes yearly more fierce, but that is
+not so. The truth is that those who struggle become
+with each survival fitter to struggle, and that for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+which they struggle is placed one step forward.
+Men used to want thousands and hundreds of thousands;
+now, they want millions and hundreds of
+millions. They used to want general knowledge;
+now, they are all specialists, and cry out that life
+is too short. Steam used to content them; now,
+electricity does not satisfy them, and they are
+grasping at the possibilities of the mighty currents
+of air caused by the revolutions of the earth itself.</p>
+
+<p>The law of progress is not limited to the mind.
+The body shares in it. Men are stronger, larger,
+longer-lived than they have ever been. Even with
+the animals, finer, better breeds are constantly
+producing themselves under law.</p>
+
+<p>This law of the survival of the fittest and the
+elevation of the type of the fittest pronounced
+against slavery, and a nation paid the penalty in
+blood, as Spain has, and other nations will pay it.
+It has pronounced against the subjection of women,
+and let those who stand in the way, beware, lest
+some ruin crush them as it falls!</p>
+
+<p>The type of sympathy has become higher and
+tenderer. Sweet hands of mercy are now stretched
+down even to the brutes. Let those lovers of the
+past who can see no progress in the present, who
+would question this onward tendency, and the
+result of law, let them remember that they must
+run rapidly to keep from being overwhelmed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+<i>expansionists</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nature's law teaches us that like
+begets like. You plant a grain of wheat, and you
+reap wheat. You breed Morgan stock and the foal
+is of Morgan blood. The child is the offspring of
+certain parents, and it inherits their blood. If
+parents choose to unfit themselves to be healthy
+parents, who shall be blamed?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Shall gravitation cease as I go by? Teach
+children that no amount of so-called religion
+will compensate for rheumatism; that Christianity
+has nothing to do with morality; that "vicarious
+atonement" is a fraud, and a lie; that to be born
+well and strong is the highest birth; that to be
+honest and pay one's debts spells peace of mind;
+that the Bible is no more inspired than the dictionary;
+that <i>sin</i> is a transgression of the laws of life,
+and that the blood of all the bulls and goats and
+lambs of ancient times, and the blood of Christ or
+any other man, never had, and never can have, the
+least effect in making a life what it would have
+been had it obeyed the laws of life. If you have
+marred your life, you must bear the consequences.
+If you have made a mistake, be more careful in the
+future. Let the thought that the past is irretrievable
+make you more careful in the present and for
+the future.</p>
+
+<p>And, above all, teach children that prayer is
+idiotic. There may be one God or twenty. I do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+know or care. I am not afraid, and no priest or
+parson can make me believe that my title to a
+future life, if there be one, is defective. And the
+great and good man Thomas Paine, who wrote the
+<i>Age of Reason</i>, and said, "The world is my
+country, and to do good my religion," is a good
+enough god for me. And the great Ingersoll, who
+said, "I belong to the great Church that holds the
+world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great
+and good of every race and clime; that finds with
+joy the grain of gold in every creed and floods with
+light and love the germs of good in every soul," is
+in my opinion an excellent god&mdash;as good as any
+that ever lived, from Confucius to Christ. A friend
+of mine said to me, "Ingersoll should have been
+a Christian." I replied, "The dog-collar of Christianity
+did not belong on his neck: he preached the
+truth; he preferred that to the Bible. I can not
+imagine the great Ingersoll preaching from II
+Kings xiv: 35."</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>When I was a child I heard very little about Christmas
+and nothing about Lent and Easter. I was taught
+to be honest and truthful and to pay one hundred
+cents on a dollar. In my opinion there is no Bible
+extant so good as Ingersoll's Complete Works.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="REJOINDER">A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is
+born of courage. Fear believes&mdash;courage
+doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and
+prays&mdash;courage stands erect and thinks.
+Fear retreats&mdash;courage advances. Fear
+is barbarism&mdash;courage is civilization.
+Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and
+in ghosts. Fear is religion&mdash;courage is
+science.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">There are real crimes enough without
+creating artificial ones. All progress in
+legislation has for centuries consisted in
+repealing the laws of the ghosts.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p class="large center">A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER<br />
+A LABOR OF FOLLY<br />
+<span class="medium"><i>From the Portsmouth "Times"</i></span></p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">UR old friend, Marilla M. Ricker,
+of Dover, lifelong advocate of
+"woman's rights," zealous champion
+of "freethought," admirer of
+Bob Ingersoll, worshiper of Tom
+Paine, and collaborator of Elbert
+Hubbard, who fears neither God, man nor the
+Devil, because she does not believe particularly in
+any of them, is engaged in a labor of folly, in that
+she is fighting the doctrine of the immortality of
+the human soul.</p>
+
+<p>In the prosecution of her warfare she has gone into
+print and issued a pamphlet in which she takes
+issue, primarily, with one Elder E. A. Kenyon
+upon his proposition of a universal consciousness
+that "if a man die he shall live again," and even
+goes so far as to assert that the majority of mankind
+believe in annihilation. Moreover, she pronounces
+the doctrine of personal immortality "a
+most selfish and harmful one," "pernicious in its
+results," and operating for the enslavement of
+mankind, filling the world with gloom and making
+of man a crawling coward.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+We invite no controversy with Marilla, and will
+have none. We concede her right to believe anything,
+or nothing, to say what she thinks, write
+what she pleases, get it printed where she may, and
+circulate it as she can; but our advice to the dear
+sister is to "let up" on this contention, wherein
+she is out-Ingersolling Ingersoll. He did not
+believe in immortality, but he did not deny it. He
+claimed that he did not know, and that no man
+could know it to be a fact; but he never sought to
+blot out hope. And the truth is that but for this
+hope of immortal existence, entertained by the
+vast majority of the race, in all lands and ages, life
+would not be worth living, and men and women
+everywhere would lie down and perish in despair.
+It is this hope, or faith, or consciousness&mdash;however
+we may express it&mdash;of life beyond the grave, or the
+immortality of the soul, that inspires mankind to
+all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for
+progress and development here. Without it there
+would be no incentive effort beyond that which
+impels the brute. Without it, in fact, man would
+be mere brute, and nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>That the horrid doctrines of Calvinism were dinned
+into Mrs. Ricker's ears in childhood, and the fear
+of eternal torment held up before her, instead of
+the infinite love of a God of Mercy and Justice,
+may have impelled her to repudiate all idea of God<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+or Justice, or life to come; but she ought to be
+intelligent enough to sift the error from the truth
+and cling to the latter. If not, she should at least
+be willing to allow others to do so. She may
+repudiate the old Calvinism, or even Christianity
+itself. She may become a Mohammedan, a Buddhist,
+an Agnostic or an out-and-out "heathen" if
+she will. She may accept annihilation as the universal
+fate of humanity; but she should be willing
+to allow mankind in general its indulgence in that
+one "Great Hope," which has illumined with
+immortal splendor the darkest passages of human
+life, and sustains the soul of man and woman in the
+severest trials and conflicts of earth.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE REJOINDER</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>From the Portsmouth "Times"</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="p2">I was amused when I read in the
+Portsmouth <i>Times</i> an article from
+my friend Metcalf, entitled, A
+<i>Labor of Folly</i>. The genial Henry
+said I was a lifelong advocate of
+"woman's rights," which is true.
+And an admirer of Ingersoll. Could any one help
+admire that great and good man? And a worshiper
+of Thomas Paine. Worship is rather a strong word
+to apply to me, but I think the man who said, "The
+world is my country, and to do good my religion,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+and who did more than any other man to put the
+stars on our flag and to give that flag to the breeze,
+should be loved and respected.</p>
+
+<p>He, the aforesaid Henry, said I collaborated with
+Elbert Hubbard. I am proud of that, whether it is
+true or not.</p>
+
+<p>I consider Hubbard the most brilliant writer in
+this country.</p>
+
+<p>Henry also said I feared neither God, man nor the
+Devil, because I did not believe particularly in any
+of them. If he would add an "o" to God and make
+it good, take the "d" from devil and make it evil,
+then I would have something tangible to write
+about besides man, in whom I believe.</p>
+
+<p>Henry also said that I was engaged in a "labor of
+folly," fighting the doctrine of the immortality of
+the soul.</p>
+
+<p>I simply expressed my opinion on the subject.
+My friend Henry wrote me not long ago that there
+was no earthly need of a Freethought paper; that
+thought was as free as air always and everywhere.
+I take issue with him there, and I call his attention
+to the <i>Little Journey</i> to the home of Copernicus&mdash;of
+January, Nineteen Hundred Five&mdash;by Elbert Hubbard.
+Copernicus was the founder of modern
+astronomy.</p>
+
+<p>If Henry will read his life he can see what freethought
+meant at that time. I also call his attention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+to Giordano Bruno. He can see what happened to
+him and how free thought was at that time. Henry
+said I could write what I pleased, and get it printed
+where I could.</p>
+
+<p>That was well added, for I could not in the year
+Nineteen Hundred Nine, in the city of Dover,
+New Hampshire, get my article on Immortality
+printed in the only paper in the city; so you see
+how freethought is up to date.</p>
+
+<p>I certainly "take issue" with Henry, "That the
+hope or consciousness of life beyond the grave, or
+immortality of the soul, inspires mankind to all
+that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for
+progress and development here."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Ingersoll did not believe in immortality,
+but he was a great, tender-hearted man, full of
+kindness, full of generous impulses. No man ever
+loved the true, the good and the beautiful more
+than he. He would take the case of a poor man into
+court without pay; he would give a young reporter
+an interview when he could sell every word he
+spoke for a dollar; he would present the proceeds
+of a lecture to some worthy object as though he
+were throwing a nickel to an organ-grinder; and
+when there was persecution he was on the side of
+the persecuted.</p>
+
+<p>I do not believe in individual immortality, but I
+do the best I can, pay one hundred cents on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+dollar, and I am not afraid to die. I know thousands
+who believe as I do.</p>
+
+<p>John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed
+in the immortality of the soul&mdash;so do his followers.
+He also believed that sin was the cause of earthquakes,
+and the only way to stop them was to
+believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't know
+much about seismology, but he certainly had
+faith, plus.</p>
+
+<p>John Calvin founded the Presbyterian Church; he
+believed in the immortality of the soul. So do his
+followers; but Calvin was a murderer.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, it is absurd to say that without hope of
+immortality we should be degraded to brutes; in
+my opinion it is not true. What we want is a
+religion that will pay debts; that will practise
+honesty in business life; that will treat employees
+with justice and consideration; that will render
+employers full and faithful work; that will keep
+bank-cashiers true, officeholders patriotic, and
+reliable citizens interested in the purity of politics
+(and the woman citizen will be)&mdash;such a religion is
+real, vital and effective. But a religion that embraces
+vicarious atonement, miraculous conception, regeneration
+by faith, baptism, individual immortality
+and other monkey business is, in my opinion,
+degrading, absurd and unworthy.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, you say you want no controversy with me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+I enjoy controversy, but if you are averse to it I'll
+stop and we will unite in singing one stanza of that
+Christian hymn:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">King David and King Solomon</div>
+<div class="line i1">Led merry, merry lives</div>
+<div class="line">With their many, many lady friends</div>
+<div class="line i1">And their many, many wives;</div>
+<div class="line">But when old age came o'er them</div>
+<div class="line i1">With its many, many qualms,</div>
+<div class="line">(It was said)</div>
+<div class="line">King Solomon wrote the Proverbs</div>
+<div class="line i1">And King David wrote the Psalms.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>But did they?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"
+height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">Where religion is afraid of liberty,
+liberty should be afraid of religion.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">So long as man believes that he has an
+immortal soul, he will fear the future.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="GHOST">THE HOLY GHOST</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">For ages, a deadly conflict has been
+waged between a few brave men and
+women of thought and genius upon the
+one side, and the great ignorant religious
+mass on the other. This is the war between
+Science and Faith. The few have appealed
+to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to
+the known, and to happiness here in this
+world. The many have appealed to
+prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery,
+to the unknown, and to misery hereafter.
+The few have said, "Think!" The many
+have said, "Believe!"</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">THE HOLY GHOST</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">F all the weird, fanciful and fabulous
+stories appertaining to the
+gods and other pious frauds, that
+concerning the Holy Ghost ranks
+them all! Now listen to what the
+Bible has to say about that
+mythical personage&mdash;alias, the Holy Ghost. You
+will see that scarcely any two references to it agree
+in assigning it the same character or attributes.
+(It reminds me of what an old lady said at a prayer-meeting:
+"Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to
+me that there are no two of a mind here tonight,
+nor hardly one!")</p>
+
+<p>In John xiv: 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a
+person or personal God. In Luke iii: 22, the Holy
+Ghost changes and assumes the form of a dove. In
+Matthew xiii: 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit.
+In John i: 32, the Holy Ghost is presented as an
+inanimate senseless object. In I John v: 7, the Holy
+Ghost becomes a God&mdash;the third member of the
+Trinity. In Acts ii: 1, the Holy Ghost is averred to
+be a mighty rushing wind. In Acts x: 38, the Holy
+Ghost, we infer from its mode of application, is an
+ointment. In John xx: 22, the Holy Ghost is the
+breath, as we legitimately infer by its being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+breathed into the mouth of the recipient after the
+ancient Oriental custom. In Acts ii: 3, we learn the
+Holy Ghost "sat upon each of them." In Acts ii: 1,
+the Holy Ghost appears as cloven tongues of fire.
+In Luke ii: 26, the Holy Ghost is the author of a
+revelation or inspiration. In Mark i: 8, the Holy
+Ghost is a medium or element for baptism. In
+Acts xxviii: 25, the Holy Ghost appears with vocal
+organs and speaks. In Hebrews vi: 4, the Holy
+Ghost is dealt out or imparted by measure. In
+Luke iii: 22 the Holy Ghost appears with a tangible
+body. In Luke i: 5, we are taught that people are
+filled with the Holy Ghost. In Matthew xi: 15,the
+Holy Ghost falls upon the people as a ponderable
+substance. In Luke iv: 1, the Holy Ghost is a God
+within a God&mdash;Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>These are only a few quotations. There are many
+more, but we can all see what a multifarious
+personage, or rather <i>he</i>, <i>she</i>, or <i>it</i> the Holy Ghost is.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I remember hearing much about the unpardonable
+sin against the Holy Ghost. The sin
+against the Holy Ghost consisted in resisting its
+operations in the second birth&mdash;that is, the regeneration
+of the heart or soul by the Holy Ghost.
+And it was considered unpardonable simply because
+as the pardoning and cleansing process consisted
+in, or was at least always accompanied with,
+baptism by water, in which operation the Holy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+Ghost was the agent in effecting the "new birth,"
+therefore, when the ministrations or operations of
+this indispensable agent were resisted or rejected,
+there was no channel, no means, no possible mode
+left for the sinner to find a renewed acceptance with
+God.</p>
+
+<p>When a person sinned against the Father or the
+Son, he could find a door of forgiveness through the
+baptizing processes, spiritual or elementary, of the
+Holy Ghost. But an offense committed against this
+third limb of the Godhead had the effect of closing
+and barring the door so that there could be no
+forgiveness, either in this life or in that which is
+to come.</p>
+
+<p>To sin against the Holy Ghost was to tear down the
+scaffold by which the door of Heaven was to be
+reached. This <i>sin</i> against the Holy Ghost has
+caused thousands of the disciples of the Christian
+faith the most agonizing hours of alarm and despair.</p>
+
+<p>It has always been my opinion that many people
+who thought they had sinned against the Holy
+Ghost simply had dyspepsia.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>If people should deceive in other matters as the
+priests, parsons and teachers do in religion, they
+would not escape arrest.</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">The destruction of religions and superstition
+means the upbuilding of charity
+and ethics.&mdash;<i>Ralph W. Chainey.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Superstition is nothing but a misplaced
+fear of some fancied supernatural phantasm
+of divinity.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="CHRIST">HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">All that is good in our civilization is the
+result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical
+position, industry, invention, discovery,
+art and science. The Church has
+been the enemy of progress, for the
+reason that it has endeavored to prevent
+man from thinking for himself. To prevent
+thought is to prevent all advancement
+except in the direction of faith.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/i.jpg" width="160" height="147" alt="I&nbsp;"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst"> receive many letters from
+various people telling me that
+Christ is mine if I will only take
+him. I am always amused at the
+solicitations of these people and
+feel as President Taft did when
+Peary "laid the Pole" at his feet. Taft replied he
+had no idea what he should do with it. I should not
+know what to do with Christ if I took him.</p>
+
+<p>What can they mean by taking Christ? The word
+Christ is used to designate a certain individual
+who died, if he ever lived, nearly two thousand
+years ago. Now to take this person we should have
+to take him from the earth where he was buried.
+I am at a loss to comprehend what Christians mean
+when they offer Christ to any one. What right has
+an individual today to offer another a person who
+has been dead two thousand years? I fail to see any
+sense in such an offer.</p>
+
+<p>Certain men and women go about the world asking
+people to come to Christ, to accept Christ. What
+do they mean&mdash;do they know?</p>
+
+<p>In my opinion the supreme dogma of Christianity
+is the divinity of Jesus. If Jesus was a man, all that
+was related of his divine acts in the four Gospels is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+false. How would a person like the Nazarene
+peasant be accepted today were he to play the part
+of a god?</p>
+
+<p>Suppose a person who had lived in our neighborhood
+should come to us and say, "I am God, and
+I want you to help me save the world; quit your
+work and follow me." What would you think of
+him? Would any one pay the least attention to
+him, except to think he was insane and have him
+placed in an asylum for safety?</p>
+
+<p>The people who are preaching the divinity of Jesus
+know nothing about him except what they read in a
+book that was written by unknown authors. Jesus
+is the last hope of Christian theology. He is the
+only solution of the divine problem that Christianity
+has to offer. Is not the direction of the world's
+most rational thought away from the Christian
+notion of Jesus? In my opinion it is.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Let us look at the once famous stronghold of
+New England Orthodoxy, the Andover Theological
+Seminary, which was chartered on June Nineteenth,
+Eighteen Hundred Seven, and opened for
+instruction on September Twenty-eighth, Eighteen
+Hundred Eight. I think it was about seven years
+ago that it was transferred to Cambridge and
+became a part of Harvard University. At that time
+the school consisted of seven instructors, twelve
+students and a library of sixty-five thousand books,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+with an endowment of eight hundred fifty thousand
+dollars in productive funds and an annual income
+of thirty-five thousand dollars.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that the highways were scoured
+every Summer for students, and enticing scholarships
+held out, but to no avail. No students
+materialized.</p>
+
+<p>Why is this? In my opinion it is the rising generation's
+dissatisfaction with traditional theology;
+they have outgrown it. Ingersoll said that once in
+five years the President of the Seminary summoned
+his professors before him to make oath that
+they had learned absolutely nothing during the
+preceding five years and would not learn anything
+for the next five years. And that promise was not
+subject to recall.</p>
+
+<p>But even Andover couldn't remain in that condition.
+In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-six it announced
+its new system of "progressive orthodoxy."
+This created a division between the Old School and
+the New, and marked the beginning of the end of
+Andover; and after much litigation it consented to
+be "gathered in" by Harvard or "swallowed," or
+perhaps they would say "merged."</p>
+
+<p>They have now a new building located upon land
+adjacent to that of Harvard University, and the
+last account from the "Great Seminary" was that
+they had twenty-four pupils. The library of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+Seminary and that of the Harvard Divinity School
+have been combined and are housed together in
+Bartlett Hall.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The defenders of the Gospel of Christ don't
+seem to be increasing; on the contrary, there
+seems to be great depression in matters ecclesiastical
+these days, even in puritanical New England. It
+plainly shows that the young men of the present
+day are not anxious to wear the "Dog-Collar of
+Christianity," and as far as I've heard no Christian
+arose to remark that the morals of the "Reverend"
+Clarence Richeson were contaminated by reading
+the words of Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll,
+Elbert Hubbard or Lemuel K. Washburn. The
+Reverend Clarence seemed to be a product of the
+Christian Bible, and talked to the last of his God
+and his Bible.</p>
+
+<p>What is left of Christianity? Who wrote the
+Christian Bible? The smallest child in a Sunday
+School would answer the question by saying
+"God," but the most learned person on the globe
+would say, "I do not know." It is being admitted
+by thinking persons that answers to religious
+questions possess nothing more than a religious
+value. When a person is graduated from a Sunday
+School he is wiser than he will be after he has lived
+forty years, provided he learns anything by living.</p>
+
+<p>"God" is a term used to express what man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+does not know, but it does not seem to me necessary
+to assign to the Bible divine authorship, as
+it can be accounted for on other grounds. It is
+certain that men and women have written books.
+It is not certain that there is a God and, if so,
+that he has written a book. If man could write
+the Bible, there seems to be no need for God to
+do so. It is a fact that no one knows who wrote
+a word of the Bible, and yet it will require many
+more years to kill the foolish superstition that
+God inspired certain men to write this book.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing grows slower than truth, and nothing
+faster than superstition. Falsehood was never
+known to commit suicide. Unknown men wrote
+the Christian Bible, not an unknown God.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Not many years ago I saw that a teacher in
+the Holyoke (Massachusetts) High School
+was dismissed for saying that Jesus was one of a
+family of ten. Jesus is a word that paralyzes the
+mental faculties. As to the accuracy of the statement
+we have only the Gospels for authority.
+At any rate, if Matthew and Mark are reliable
+he had four brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>In Matthew xiii: 54 we read: "Is not this the
+carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary,
+and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon,
+and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"</p>
+
+<p>Mark confirms Matthew about the size of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+Mary's family.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to learn something concerning
+this case, but silence a yard wide lay all
+about it. I fancy the teacher was silenced in some
+way. Leastwise I could learn nothing.</p>
+
+<p>It doesn't take much to silence a teacher, or it
+didn't fifty years ago, especially if she were
+dependent upon teaching for her bread and butter,
+which I was.</p>
+
+<p>I, at one time, tried to substitute one of Ralph
+Waldo Emerson's books to be read in school in
+the morning instead of the Christian Bible. I
+was informed by one of the committee that the
+Bible must be read every morning and the Ten
+Commandments repeated. The next morning I
+selected the "truthful" and startling account of
+Jonah whilst he was sojourning at the Submarine
+Hotel. I at that time made up my mind that if
+I were ever financially independent I'd say what
+I thought concerning the Christian religion, and
+no one doubts that I've done so.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology.
+It can be but a few years at most when faith
+in Jesus as God will be the mark of intellectual
+stupidity. It seems to me that mankind will soon
+be sensible enough to dismiss this dogma to eternal
+oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>It is the last relic of heathen mythology that clings
+to modern civilization. The Christian church is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+put to its utmost ingenuity to hide the absurdity
+in this dogma.</p>
+
+<p>The dogma of the divinity of Jesus rests upon
+fictitious events, and hence its fate is sealed.</p>
+
+<p>Many persons regard any one that calls Jesus a
+man as a blasphemer. There is a great amount of
+pious nonsense in the world, and there is more
+connected with Jesus than with any other character
+whom Christendom honors.</p>
+
+<p>The reverence paid to Jesus by Christians is the
+homage of idolatry.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing for people to do is to get rid of the
+silly notion that there is anything holy in the
+name of Jesus any more than in the name of Hercules,
+Bacchus or Adonis. All the gods of the past
+are myths to the present. Jesus stands in the way
+of the world's advancement. The path of civilization
+is over his grave. The mind has been fettered
+by worship of this myth. We want to get rid of the
+Christian superstition.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>Isn't it astonishing that many children should be
+taught about the "resurrection" before they can
+spell cat?</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">Whenever a man believes that he has the
+exact truth from God, there is in that
+man no spirit of compromise. He has not
+the modesty born of the imperfections of
+human nature; he has the arrogance of
+theological certainty and the tyranny
+born of ignorant assurance. Believing
+himself to be the slave of God, he imitates
+his master, and of all tyrants the worst is
+a slave in power.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">When a man really believes that it is
+necessary to do a certain thing to be
+happy forever, or that a certain belief is
+necessary to insure eternal joy, there is
+in that man no spirit of concession. He
+divides the whole world into saints and
+sinners, into believers and unbelievers,
+into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into
+people who will be glorified and people
+who will be damned.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="INGERSOLL">COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">We need no myths, no miracles, no gods,
+no devils.&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<p class="i2 p2">The world is my country and to do good is
+my religion.&mdash;<i>Thomas Paine.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">The presence of a hypocrite is a sure
+indication that there is a Bible and a
+prayer-book not very far away.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/i.jpg" width="160" height="147" alt="I"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">T is difficult to sketch this many-sided
+man. He was full of pity and
+sympathy for the poor and unfortunate.
+He was great enough
+to applaud the good, and good
+enough to forgive the erring. He
+could charm a child with his speech, or sway thousands
+by his magic words. He was the supreme
+philosopher of commonsense.</p>
+
+<p>He knew how to answer a fool, but he never forgot
+to be courteous to an opponent. He would take
+the case of a poor man into court without pay;
+he would give a young reporter an interview when
+he could sell every word he spoke for a dollar; he
+would present the proceeds of a lecture to some
+worthy object as though he were throwing a nickel
+to an organ-grinder; he would lead a reform with a
+dozen workers if he believed them in the right, just
+as if he had a million followers; and where there
+was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.
+Ingersoll was the truest American that
+America ever bore.</p>
+
+<p>He was the orator of her rivers and mountains, of
+her hills and dales, of her forests and flowers, of
+her struggles and victories, of her free institutions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+of her Stars and Stripes&mdash;the orator of the home, of
+wife and child, of love and liberty. The head, heart
+and hand of Ingersoll were perfectly united and
+worked together. As he thought he acted; when he
+had anything to say, he said it aloud. He was not
+ashamed of his thoughts. He did not hide or go
+around the corner, or beat about the bush. He
+spoke honestly what he saw, what he thought,
+what he knew.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"
+height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="THOUGHT">MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT</h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">The entire New Testament is the work
+of Catholic Churchmen.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="i2 p2">God is not a fact; nothing that can be
+seen, heard or felt; nothing that can be
+found out or in. God is a verbal content.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">HE best thing Mark Twain ever
+said was, "I should like to see
+the ballot in the hands of every
+woman." Freethinkers should also
+remember him with gratitude; he
+said enough from our point of
+view to warrant that. "Give me my glasses," were
+his last words. It will be but a short time before
+some pious evangelical hypocrite will add, "I
+want to read my Bible!" They are already writing
+about his "highest sphere of thought," namely,
+his religious thought.</p>
+
+<p>I remember when a Presbyterian deacon said of
+him, "I would rather bury a daughter of mine
+than have her marry such a fellow." The church
+people are all anxious to avoid their own history
+concerning Mark Twain and many other people.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Doctor Twitchell said at Mark's
+funeral that a simple soul had gone trustingly to
+the beyond. He didn't mention where the beyond
+was, and he prayed to the Christian God that
+courage in the faith of immortality be given to
+those who mourn.</p>
+
+<p>Through all these Christian notices runs an undercurrent
+that Mark Twain was only secondarily a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+humorist. I knew him somewhat in the old days
+and have heard him lecture. He certainly laughed
+superstition from the minds of thousands, and the
+most of his books bear witness to his broad and
+liberal views.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Doctor Van Dyke mixed much
+religious sophistry with his remarks at the funeral
+of Twain, but the reverend doctor is a theological
+acrobat.</p>
+
+<p>He preached once on the Atonement, and said there
+are a thousand true doctrines of the Atonement,
+which is saying substantially that no doctrine
+specifically is true&mdash;for instance, the doctrine of
+the Westminster Confession, to which Van Dyke
+pledged loyalty when he was ordained a Presbyterian
+minister. He at that time ripped up the
+Westminster settlement, and reopened the whole
+question for discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Any preacher who believes in the geology of Moses,
+the astronomy of Joshua, and the mathematics of
+the Trinity, must do an immense amount of "side-stepping."</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>Christianity is only a bubble of superstition, and
+Jesus is reduced to a toy god of the Sunday School.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="RELIGION">AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE
+ON RELIGION</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">Religion is inherited fear.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">In my opinion a steeple is no more to be
+excluded from taxation than a smokestack.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Faith is the cross on which man crucifies
+his liberty.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+<p class="large center">AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/w.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="W"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">E are living in the Twentieth
+Century of what is called the
+Christian Era, and we have not
+outgrown the superstitions of the
+First Century. And worse than
+this, we have not had the courage
+to abandon the fictions of the Book of Genesis for
+the truths of modern science. Just what the world
+is afraid of, that it fears to trust its senses, its
+reason, its knowledge, surpasses my understanding.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first things that men and women
+should learn is, that there is nothing in the universe
+to be afraid of; that all the malignant deities
+are dead; that the ancient gods that presided over
+the destiny of earth and of earthly things have all
+fallen from the sky; that in the realm of Nature
+everything is natural, and that no man is pursued
+by a god of wrath and vengeance who would punish
+him for his unbelief. Every god that can not hear
+the truth without getting mad should be dethroned.
+Every priest who can not join in singing the songs
+of civilization should be warned to look out for the
+engine while the bell rings.</p>
+
+<p>This world of ours is a world to be enjoyed, but it
+can not be enjoyed if we fear every manifestation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+of Nature and if we put a cruel god behind every
+cloud.</p>
+
+<p>Let us live without fear, without superstition,
+without religion.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There is nothing above, beneath or around
+you that cares whether you are a Christian
+or an unbeliever. The real reason why a priest hates
+an unbeliever is that he can not get a dollar out of
+him. He damns those who know better than to
+swallow his say-sos. But it still remains a fact that
+an infidel can raise as many bushels of potatoes to
+the acre as can the Roman Catholic. The sun will
+not wrong an honest man. The stars will not punish
+a single human being for telling the truth. The
+sky will not persecute a person who gives his
+thoughts, his talents, his time, to finding ways to
+help mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that man believes in that can not be
+found, that can not be proved, that can not stand
+the test of commonsense: everything that contradicts
+Nature, that is opposed to established facts,
+that is contrary to the laws of the universe, must
+be given up.</p>
+
+<p>We must have a new man: the man born of woman,
+not the man made by God; the man who has been
+growing better ever since his advent on earth, not
+the man who has been growing worse; the man
+who started with nothing and has conquered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+earth, the sea and the air; not the man who began
+perfect and has not got halfway back; the man
+who made the telescope, the steam-engine, the
+power-loom, the telephone and the wireless telegraph;
+not the man who made the thumbscrew,
+the rack, the ducking-stool and the stocks; the
+man who has carried the torch of liberty to enlighten
+the world, not the man who has carried the
+crucifix to enslave mankind.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is quite common to be told what Moses said
+or what Jesus said. Now, if all that these two
+Hebrew gentlemen (who in my opinion never lived)
+said, is preserved in the Bible, I appeal from what
+they said to those who know more. I assert that
+Moses said a lot of stuff that isn't so, and a lot
+more that never was so, and that all that Jesus is
+said to have said is practically worthless to the
+world today; that there is not in all of his utterances
+a single word that will help man to get a
+living, a single word that will aid man in his
+struggle for knowledge; that there is not a statement
+of a single scientific fact, or a plea for human
+liberty in all his language. He told his generation
+nothing that was not already known, except a mess
+of superstitious nonsense about angels and devils,
+heavens and hells. His so-called gospel of salvation
+was to follow him, and he landed on a cross.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is this: the world has outgrown Moses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+and Jesus. It does not take commands from either.
+This age believes in work, not worship; in deeds,
+not prayers; in men, not monks; in liberty, not in
+pious obedience; in human rights, not in submission;
+in knowledge, not in revelation.</p>
+
+<p>For hundreds of years man was bound by a
+religious faith, and the priest was his cruel master.
+He dared not doubt; he dared not rebel; he dared
+not dream of freedom; but there came a time when
+religious tyranny could no longer be borne. Then
+Mankind cried out to the Church: Give back man's
+brain to man; restore to him the mind you have
+robbed him of; take from his head and heart the
+paralyzing fear that makes him a coward and a
+slave, and leave to him the liberty with which
+Nature dowered him, that his mind may discover
+and preserve those mighty thoughts which make
+man brave, honest, free and happy.</p>
+
+<p>That cry was heard far. It was heard by glad ears,
+and liberty sprang from the ground like the warriors
+from the fabled dragon-teeth of Cadmus. The
+war between liberty and tyranny, between fact
+and fable, between truth and falsehood, between
+man and priest, was on, and for centuries this war
+has raged, nor is it yet over. Freedom still lies
+bleeding, but victory for the right will sooner or
+later be won.</p>
+
+<p>That victory will not be complete until every man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+will dare to say: Let come what will come, no man,
+be he priest, minister or judge, shall sit upon the
+throne of my mind, and decide for me what is right,
+true or good. I am my own master, my own teacher,
+my own guide. I will keep my reason free from
+control and will never surrender my own convictions
+to the dictates of another.</p>
+
+<p>Nature has made every man commander of his own
+destiny.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But we are yet victims of ecclesiastical villainy.
+The priest is still the worst enemy of mankind.
+His church is like that monster of fiction which
+lived on little children. In the name of the children
+I protest against the action of the Church in stealing
+their tender brains, in making them slaves of
+superstition before they are old enough to know to
+what they are doomed.</p>
+
+<p>The age of consent to a religious faith should be
+determined by law, if necessary. Today any boy
+or girl may be the victim of a designing priest or
+clergyman, or of a designing religious system.</p>
+
+<p>No person under eighteen years of age should be
+allowed to join a church or consent to a statement
+of faith. Mental purity should be guarded and protected
+as well as physical purity.</p>
+
+<p>While the Church is powerful in numbers and while
+its religion is supported by wealth and fashion, the
+world is becoming more and more emancipated from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+its pernicious influence. The light that truth gives
+is still ahead of us, but <i>it is there</i>, and some day the
+world will grow warmer under its rays and men
+become better and kinder to one another.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred years ago the God worshiped in orthodox
+churches went about drowning little boys and
+girls who went skating on Sundays. Those were
+the "good old days" when men and women had
+religion for breakfast, dinner and supper, and took
+it to bed with them. It takes a long time to get
+such a horrible religion out of the system.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women still have a mean faith, a faith
+which can see others damned with satisfaction if
+they can only be saved. Nothing but a mean religion
+could make men and women as mean as that.
+I would rather starve than preach the doctrine of
+endless pain for a human being&mdash;or even for a dog.
+I believe that this world is hard and dark and
+cruel enough without borrowing suffering from
+another world to make darker and harder the road
+of life and add torture to the nights of pain and
+misery.</p>
+
+<p>A church must be sunk pretty low when it lives on
+the fears and tears of mankind; but what lower
+depths of degradation does it sound when it can
+deliberately create fears and tears that it may live
+and thrive in its vile and cruel business! A human
+being without pity should be shunned and despised;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+but a human being who can fill the heart with
+terror should not be allowed in a civilized community.</p>
+
+<p>The mind today wants to get out into the open,
+into the free daylight, wants to walk the earth,
+look at the stars and sky, feel the warmth of the
+sun and smell the odor of the ground; it has
+become tired of being shut up in a faith, in a
+creed, in a church; tired of being kept in the
+darkness of the past, in the tomb of dead thoughts,
+in the moldy caskets of unreal things, and in the
+dungeon of fear.</p>
+
+<p>The mind is striving to break the chains of the
+priest and be free from the bonds of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>You can not have men free where the priest
+demands and claims their obedience. The greatest
+menace to our national institutions is the power
+that controls men; that controls their thoughts,
+their actions and their destinies. Liberty can survive
+only where men are free: free to think, free to
+read, free to speak and free to act. The mind must
+not be bound by any vow of obedience. One man,
+no matter what his office, what his position, what
+his rank, has no right to compel another's obedience.
+This is the worst oppression on earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>What is needed in this country is more men
+who dare think and speak for themselves;
+who dare belong to no church; who dare work for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+the right as they see it, and speak the truth as they
+understand it; who dare live their own lives
+independent of fashion's demands or society's
+usages; who dare put liberty above conformity,
+and who dare defy customs, law and religion in
+their zeal to help their fellow-beings.</p>
+
+<p>There is more than one liberty&mdash;more than the
+liberty to do right&mdash;that is partly won for every
+civilized being. There is another liberty that is
+dangerous and that persists even where civilization
+exists&mdash;the liberty to take another's liberty
+from him. This liberty is usually taken from another
+in the name of God and what is called holy; but
+there is nothing on earth so holy as liberty, and he
+who takes it from another robs him of the dearest
+right possessed by man. Binding a human being
+with the chains of faith before that being is old
+enough to judge whether the faith is reasonable or
+true is the assassination of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest danger which confronts our nation
+today is not political but religious, and the preservation
+of our free institutions does not depend
+upon our army and navy, but upon the emancipation
+of the human mind from ecclesiastical slavery.
+As Thomas Paine well said, "Spiritual freedom is
+the root of political liberty." You can not have free
+schools, free speech and a free press where the
+mind is not free.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+There is too much faith in this country and too
+little sense. Men have given up about everything
+they possess to be saved; but it is more necessary,
+and more commendable in the workingmen of this
+nation, to save their dollars than to save their souls.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A subject that needs to be investigated quite
+as much as, if not more than, the high cost of
+living is the high cost of worship. There may be
+some justice in the criticism of the price of meats.
+We must remember, however, that we do get something
+for our money when we buy meat, but let us
+not forget that we get absolutely nothing for the
+money spent for worship. Money given to the
+Church is lost to the world. It is not used to improve
+homes; to help the poor and needy; to alleviate
+suffering; to bring hope to the sick or to give a few
+comforts to old age. It goes into the pocket of
+ecclesiastical greed.</p>
+
+<p>This country just at present is suffering from those
+twin curses of humanity&mdash;religion and Bull-Mooseism.
+The priest and Bull-Mooseism are the two
+worst trouble-makers in this country. To get rid
+of this precious pair of knaves would be to bring
+peace on earth and hasten the dawn.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know which is the bigger knave, the priest
+or the Bull-Mooser, but I do know that the priest
+is engaged in the meaner business of the two.</p>
+
+<p>When a man tries to sell me a mouse-trap to catch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+elephants, I am suspicious of his mental sanity;
+and when a man tells me that eternal happiness
+can be won by enlisting in his salvation army, I
+question his moral sanity. I know that religion is
+offered at cut rates, but there is no discount on
+morality. You can not have the reward of good
+behavior unless you behave. You may save your
+soul by saying, "I believe," but you have to <i>do</i>
+something to save your body.</p>
+
+<p>There is too much of this "believe-in-me" business.
+You don't want to believe in any one you
+know nothing about. The faith of a little child in
+its parents is beautiful, but the faith of a grown-up
+man in a priest is idiotic. Faith has ruined more
+than it has saved. With faith goes obedience, and
+he or she who obeys is lost.</p>
+
+<p>There is no honest call today to believe, because
+there is opportunity to know. Faith is hatched in
+the nest of imposition. He who yields obedience is a
+fool, and he who demands it is a scoundrel.</p>
+
+<p>In this age, as in the past, a lie made "holy" is
+allowed to assassinate the truth. Nothing is cursing
+this nation; nothing is cursing human life; nothing
+is cursing honest effort and brave striving so
+much as what is called holiness. It is holy to
+believe all you are told; holy to wear the robes
+of hypocrisy; holy to rob the poor in the name
+of God, and holy to put the poison of faith to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+the lips of a child. It is holy to repudiate Nature
+and make a lie of your body, your mind, your
+life. To purify the dwelling-place of man, it is
+necessary to drive from the earth everything
+that religion has made holy.</p>
+
+<p>The only really sacred things were holy before
+a church was ever built, before there was a priest
+on the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Human love and the home which human love built
+for its offspring were the first holy things which
+men and women knew, and it is this human love
+of ours which is holier than mosque, temple or
+church; holier than priestly robe or ecclesiastical
+rite; holier by far than all the holy things of faith.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Church has always lived by robbing the
+home; the priest has always lived on the
+wages of the toiler. The gods of religion have never
+done aught to lighten the heavy load on the
+shoulders of labor. The priest has said to mankind
+that his Lord left this consolation to the world:
+"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden
+and I will give you rest."</p>
+
+<p>What the priest really means is this: Come unto
+me and I will do the rest; and by the time he has
+done it, there is nothing of manhood left.</p>
+
+<p>The priest also teaches that his Lord and Master
+said, "Ask and ye shall receive," and adds, "The
+Lord will provide." How many poor wretches have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+believed those words; but their outstretched hands
+withered away day by day, and at last dropped
+empty by their sides. There they lay white and
+cold, holding not the bread they fondly expected,
+but holding the hand of death.</p>
+
+<p>It may be pious and it may be beautiful to say,
+"The Lord will provide," but it is a lie just the
+same. When, the other day, the bodies of a mother
+and her two children were being carried to the
+grave with the words, "starved to death," written
+on their faces, but not written on their caskets, it
+was a sufficient refutation of the religious teaching
+that "The Lord will provide." It is the plain,
+unvarnished truth that the Lord will <i>not</i> even provide
+the coffin for the poor victim of such a false,
+deceptive, religious faith.</p>
+
+<p>In olden times it was customary for the Church to
+say, God's light lights the world. Not so today.
+God's light has gone out. It is man's light that
+lights the world and the Church too. Our enlightenment
+is human, not divine. No altar of religion
+burns with the fire of truth. Science carries the
+torch of knowledge: liberty is the way and truth
+is the goal.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>On our earth gods no longer make their homes.
+It was not safe for them to live any more.
+Their sons may once have married the daughters of
+men, but they can not get a license to do so today.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+Parents will not stand for it.</p>
+
+<p>So the gods have
+gone, bag and baggage. Where they have gone,
+no one knows. The skies give no sign that they
+are hiding up there. The telescope has found
+<i>seventy million stars, but not one god</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is time for the pulpit to stop repeating the old
+superstitions about God and about what he has
+done for man. He has never done any more for
+man than he is doing today; never spoken to man
+any more than he is speaking today; never revealed
+himself to anybody any more than he stands
+revealed to you and me and to every human being
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Every word that ever came from the mouth of
+God man put in his mouth, and every book revealed
+by God was written by man.</p>
+
+<p>Half the work of man for the next one hundred
+years will be to kill the lies told about what God
+has done.</p>
+
+<p>Whether there is in all the vast universe a higher
+and nobler being than man, I don't know. Whether
+there is in all the vast universe a better place for
+man to live than on this earth, I don't know.
+And no one knows any more about these matters
+than I do.</p>
+
+<p>We have found out much that is not so; now we
+want to find out all we can that is so. And it is of
+no use to go to the Church to learn anything. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+Church is only a place where falsehoods are kept
+in cold storage. The man who thinks and studies
+is the man who is helping the world most, not the
+man who preaches and prays. To find the truth
+one needs to get as far from the Church as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Christians of all denominations have lots of pity
+for the man without a church. Let me assure these
+persons that the man without a church doesn't
+want one. As a rule, he is satisfied with what he has.
+He has a home, which is better than a church. If
+those persons who are pitying men and women
+for not having a church would, instead, pity the
+man without a home, and pity him enough to help
+him get one, they would show much better sense
+and manifest a truer sympathy with their fellow-beings.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I can not see any good in painting a thing white
+that is black, or calling a thing beautiful that is
+ugly. There are persons who talk as though they
+believed that a Northeast storm was sunshine. I
+am not made that way. I am as ready and as willing
+as anybody to acknowledge the good in Nature, or
+the good in life, but I do not believe in lying, in
+saying that wrong is right, or that suffering is to be
+enjoyed. There are lots of hard things in our life,
+and it does not alter facts to call them by some
+other name. A man dying with a cancer can not be
+made to believe that he is having a good time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+The most that any man can do who goes through
+this earthly existence is to use his fellow-mortals
+right and square; to give them an honest day's
+work when he works for them and an honest day's
+pay when he hires them; to say nothing to hurt
+them and everything he can to assist them; to help
+them out of trouble and not get them into trouble.
+If one does this, and does no more than this, he has
+done what beats every religion on earth.</p>
+
+<p>We have got to deal with men and women as they
+are and where they are. The man who is natural;
+the man who has not been made a fool of by a
+priest or parson; the man who has not swapped his
+commonsense for a foolish belief; the man who has
+not had his mind stuffed with religious dope,
+knows that this life on earth is the important life,
+and that it is a higher work to determine his fate
+here than anywhere else.</p>
+
+<p>There is not a person living who would not be well
+and strong and happy here rather than hereafter.
+I would rather have the power to make every
+cripple straight and whole; every poor, unfortunate
+man and woman prosperous and contented; every
+sick person well, every bad person good, and every
+slave to vice master of his appetite and passions,
+in this life on earth, than to save the human wrecks,
+the human unfortunates, the human victims of vice
+and crime, for another life somewhere else.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+What men and women want is happiness,
+not Heaven. They want a good home on
+this globe, not a loafing-place in Abraham's bosom.
+They want the opportunity to enjoy the good
+things of this life, not the promise that they will
+hear the angels sing. They want better wages for
+their work, better treatment from their employers,
+and better things to eat and drink and wear. They
+want better things here, not hereafter. They want
+to be happy while they are living on earth, not have
+the assurance of happiness after they are dead.
+If I ever attempt to write my creed, I shall say:
+I believe in so much that I can hardly expect to
+express all of my faith in one statement. I am all
+the time believing in something new. But there is
+one thing that I most heartily believe in now and
+have believed in ever since I was a child, and that is,
+SUNSHINE&mdash;external and internal and eternal
+sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>Sunshine is the joy of the universe, and joy is the
+sunshine of the human heart. Let us be bright and
+cheerful. Let us be happy. Let us give to the world
+the sunshine of our hearts.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>A male trinity is repulsive; Father, Mother and
+Child is the sacred triad. The Christian trinity is a
+monster.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="MORALITY">DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Nature has no need of a Holy Ghost.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">All progress has been due to the Devil.
+He was the first investigator.&mdash;<i>Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">God takes care of the weed. Man must
+take care of the corn.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p class="center large">DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">HERE is a great deal of exaggerated
+rhetoric employed in praising
+what is called "Christian
+Morality." I have examined with
+considerable care everything that
+may justly come within the meaning
+of this expression, and I am bound to say, out of
+respect for the truth, that such morality does not
+deserve praise and can not be praised by the honest
+lips of an honest person.</p>
+
+<p>I am perfectly aware that I have made a statement
+which challenges the sincerity of the Christian
+pulpit, but every one knows that there is not a
+minister in Christendom whose practise agrees
+with his preaching.</p>
+
+<p>While it is common to hear a clergyman in pious
+ecstasy exhaust the vocabulary of laudation in his
+praises of the beautiful morals of the "Sermon on
+the Mount," it is exceedingly rare to see one of
+these parsons sacrifice his commonsense to the
+nonsense of Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>We are learning that the theological morality of
+the Christian faith is not the right kind of morality
+to make manhood and womanhood. The great
+weakness of Christian morality is this: It depends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+upon the Christian idea of Jesus, and when the
+world has outgrown the superstition about this
+person, all of his moral precepts will lose their
+value and their splendor.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women of any intellectual penetration
+know that the New Testament story is founded
+upon unreliable tradition; that its heart is a myth.</p>
+
+<p>Where men live independent of the foolish faith
+of the Gospels, there is a character of self-reliance
+which towers like a mountain-peak above the dead
+level of Christian endeavor. The person who accepts
+the Christian theology is no more in sympathy
+with the best thought of the age than is the man
+who wanders about the streets, begging his food
+and sleeping wherever he can, in harmony with
+the highest comforts of our civilization.</p>
+
+<p>There is a nobler purpose in a train of cars carrying
+grain and produce across the continent than in a
+conference of clergymen trying to keep alive a
+theology which teaches that God was born of a
+Jewish maiden who lived and died in Palestine,
+and devising ways to make the people believe the
+ridiculous superstition.</p>
+
+<p>Truth is born where men are allowed to think and
+speak their thoughts. Error can not be maintained
+where man is permitted to ask questions. The only
+way to preserve Christianity is to put it in a tin
+can and have it hermetically sealed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We are getting a new examination of the universe
+as a basis for our philosophy. The telescope has
+afforded man visions far beyond the seventh
+heaven of the Apocalypse. The genesis of things is
+found to lie millions of years back of the Genesis of
+the Bible. The chaos out of which this world was
+made has been discovered to be a previous state
+of existence.</p>
+
+<p>Science is laying the new foundation for our faith,
+and knowledge is building the new temple of the
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women everywhere are stating their
+opinions, and the world recognizes that there is to
+be a religious controversy upon this earth which
+will shake to its base everything that is not true.
+Not one stone of falsehood will be left standing
+upon another. Every dogma of superstition must
+find a grave, and truth alone be reverenced by man.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The world has taken a step forward of Christianity,
+and in its march of advancement has
+left behind the Christian God, the Christian Savior,
+the Christian Bible, and the Christian Faith.
+But the world will not stop here. It must go further.
+The question which the human mind wants
+answered today is this: Is the decay of Christian
+theology to be followed by the decay of Christian
+morality?</p>
+
+<p>I think that it is, and I also think that this morality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+is about as near dead now as it can be.</p>
+
+<p>It is true
+that the author of this morality is painted in divine
+colors for human adoration Sunday after Sunday,
+and that his other-world ethics are inculcated by
+the pulpit; but beyond these attempts to give the
+peculiar moral teachings of Jesus the show of life,
+there is absolutely no sign of them in the world of
+man.</p>
+
+<p>The morality of the Christian system is not designed
+for humanity in its present condition, nor does it
+possess the elements necessary to make man into
+the image of any higher virtue. It is, in fact, an
+unreal, unnatural morality which Jesus taught,
+and the notion that men and women do not practise
+it because it is too far above them, depends
+upon an estimate of this morality which we are not
+willing to allow.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point.
+I want to say that the general moral duties of man,
+as they have been taught for ages by teachers of
+every race and of every religion, are not Christian,
+and that Christian ethics are found in the code of
+moral duties taught by Jesus <i>which are different
+from the recognized standard of morality adopted by
+mankind generally</i>. Christian morals are Christian
+<i>only wherein they differ from all other morals</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is because they are peculiar to Christianity that
+they are Christian.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Because I do not believe in Christianity&mdash;in the
+Christian theology and in Christian morals&mdash;I do
+not wish it said that I do not believe in morality,
+for I do. I believe that man can be good and true
+and that he can do right, and I believe that he
+ought to do right.</p>
+
+<p>I do not say that every one can reach the same
+moral altitude. I do not even say that every individual
+can be good and true. Some persons do
+not seem to be morally adjusted. I think, however,
+that we do not trespass beyond the domain
+of truth when we predicate the power of man
+to be moral.</p>
+
+<p>The notion that man can not be good has been the
+apology of half the criminals of the world. It is the
+creed of all crime. If we affirm the idea of human
+depravity, we may as well erase our statutes, for,
+if man can not be good, it is the height of folly to
+expect him to be so.</p>
+
+<p>The healthy faith of man is faith <i>in</i> man.</p>
+
+<p>The theology which has been preached for the past
+few centuries is not calculated to make men moral.
+Those ministers who have shouted themselves
+hoarse for the salvation of the soul, and who have
+made no account of man's behavior in their scheme
+to save the race, are the ones who have rubbed
+humanity in the dirt and undermined the moral
+foundations of the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Every ethical principle that supports our
+social structure is independent of ecclesiastical
+relations, and it is not essential that we recognize
+any theology in order to comprehend the necessity
+of moral obedience.</p>
+
+<p>There is no sympathy between right, truth and
+justice, and the "Apostles' Creed." We may go so
+far as to say that the attempt to establish a
+perpetual union between Christianity and morality
+would result in an absolute divorce of these two
+forces.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to make it plain beyond a question that the
+Christian faith, in itself, is entirely distinct from
+all moral effort on the part of man.</p>
+
+<p>To believe that Jesus was the Christ does not carry
+any obligation to do right; does not make it
+incumbent upon the believer to do a single moral
+action.</p>
+
+<p>It is sufficient to establish our predication that not
+a single church in Christendom makes moral
+character the condition of membership, or good
+behavior the way to Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>There is a code of Christian morals which has been
+taught, but never practised. The special duties
+which Jesus enjoined upon his followers have
+never been reduced to conduct. It is not too much
+to say that the moral precepts of Jesus, if carried
+into action, would cause social revolutions beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+precedent, and produce a state of existence compared
+with which anarchy would be government,
+and confusion would be order.</p>
+
+<p>But, before we undertake to examine the Christian
+morals, let us shed a few tears of rejoicing upon the
+grave of Orthodox theology. We do not ask to
+have a coroner's jury decide what caused the death
+of this theology. We bless the cause, whatever it
+was. We only wish to feel assured that it is really,
+truly dead, and the fact that "not a single treatise
+written by a New England Puritan is a living and
+authoritative book" seems to prove it beyond a
+question. The persons who still preach this theology
+and profess to believe it are only "sitting up with
+the corpse."</p>
+
+<p>While it is asserted that a wrong interpretation of
+this theology sent it out of the world, it is pretty
+evident that a right understanding of it inspires
+no wish to have it back. Much of the superstition
+in morals sprang from fear of God, which the
+Christian church has inculcated as the highest
+incentive to right doing.</p>
+
+<p>The truth, broadly and frankly stated, is this:
+God is no longer the inspiration of morality. Fear
+of God does not check the actions of man today,
+nor is the attempt to make human and divine
+interests identical sufficient to insure obedience to
+moral laws. The ancient basis of morals is gone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+and another and better one must be found to
+inspire a freer life, a fuller life, a better life, and
+a higher.</p>
+
+<p>We who have rejected the Christian theology are
+looked upon as orphans. But, if I understand the
+position of freethinkers, the question of a supreme
+power is neither affirmed nor denied by those who
+wish to have no further business with the God of
+Orthodoxy.</p>
+
+<p>We read that, "the fool hath said in his heart
+there is no God," but we prefer to say nothing about
+the matter. Theologies may come, and theologies
+may go, but humanity goes on forever, and so we
+do not deem it as important to worship the fleeting
+shadows of the universe which are cast upon the
+minds of men as it is to hold fast to those realities
+which make human existence a blessing and "a
+joy forever."</p>
+
+<p>We are called "infidels" and denounced as "unbelievers"
+because we will not march in the ranks
+of hypocrisy, and dance to the music of Orthodoxy.
+We believe no statement which our reason can not
+approve; we accept no doctrine which is contrary
+to commonsense; we have confidence in human
+nature; we believe in truth, justice and love; we
+accept life as a blessing, and try to make it so; we
+believe in taking care of ourselves, in helping others
+and in being just and kind to all, and we say to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+Christian Church, "If this be Infidelity, make the
+most of it."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is suggested by some that if man's exact relation
+to the Deity were understood, the whole
+question of morals would be settled at once. But
+would it not be truer to say that if man's exact
+relation to his fellowmen were understood and
+respected, the highest individual welfare, no less
+than the general good, would dictate the morality
+which the world needs? And is not this the grand
+task for the human race, to rightly interpret the
+effect of human action upon the individual and the
+community, and to deduce from human experience
+the rules for human conduct?</p>
+
+<p>I do not know that I owe to God any duty. I do
+know that I owe a duty to my neighbor. I plead
+total indifference to the demands of divine ethics,
+but I trust that I am not completely callous to the
+wants of my fellow-beings. I owe it to myself to be
+moral. I owe it to my race, to every man and woman
+that I meet in life, to be as honest, as true, as
+upright, as my nature will permit. I can comprehend
+and appreciate obligations to humanity, but moral
+indebtedness to the Deity I know nothing about.</p>
+
+<p>The Christian morals are founded upon the
+assumption that the work of man here is to do something
+that he may escape punishment hereafter,
+and hence the morality of the Christian Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+has had little reference to the concerns of the
+present life.</p>
+
+<p>Christian morality is based upon the Christian
+faith that the human race is under the curse of
+God, and that, to evade the penalty pronounced
+upon him, man must perform certain duties&mdash;these
+duties being taught as paramount to all we
+owe to self, to family, to society, and to the world.</p>
+
+<p>But an almost universal disbelief of the Christian
+dogmas prevails today, and, consequently, a new
+morality, with man's welfare for its supreme object,
+is fast supplanting the outworn and valueless performances
+of Christian duties.</p>
+
+<p>The moral teaching of the New Testament may be
+the highest and purest of its kind of teaching, but
+it is not the kind which is needed today. It is a
+false morality, yea, a dead morality for the most
+part, which the Christian Church demands of men.
+The general conviction is that no salvation is
+needed by man, and that all the virtues advertised
+as requisite for such safety as the Church is prepared
+to secure, are spurious virtues.</p>
+
+<p>Those actions which advance man along the way
+of general prosperity, which make it easier to live
+and get a living on the earth, which have their
+value determined by their respect for human
+beings, are what the world needs.</p>
+
+<p>The generally acknowledged author of Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+morals offers no salient points for criticism, as he
+can not be regarded as a historical person whose
+career has been carefully followed and marked by
+the biographer. He is a mythological man, with a
+little less of the fabulous and a little more of the
+real than attaches to the gods and goddesses of
+ancient Greece and Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Jesus adorns an anatomy of words. It
+pictures a person, not of flesh and blood, but of
+faith and fancy. Jesus is a man of the imagination;
+but mythical as he is, certain men and women
+believe in him in their own way, and are not over-tolerant
+of those who are disposed to ask for the
+proofs of his life and works.</p>
+
+<p>This person has left no more marks of his living
+upon the earth than have the birds the marks of
+their flight through the air. The New Testament is
+no more history than is Bunyan's <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>.
+We can not make any positive assertions in
+regard to the life and character of a man when we
+do not know who was his father, where or when he
+was born, with whom he lived, nor when he died.
+The only historical fact connected with Jesus which
+is not disputed is that Mary was his mother. This
+is a very important point in his history, but it is
+not sufficient to constitute a biography.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the fact that the entire narrative
+of Jesus is without a single chronological date, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+the vastly more significant fact that not a single
+incident connected with the career of Jesus is
+mentioned in contemporaneous history, we must
+perforce speak of him as a person whose life was
+watched and noted from his miraculous advent to
+his miraculous ascension, and look upon his disciples
+as so many Boswells ready to mirror to the
+world his every speech and act.</p>
+
+<p>We must do this&mdash;Why? Because the world will
+not candidly and critically study the gospel-story.</p>
+
+<p>For the present, then, we will speak of Jesus as a
+man, and accept him as the author of the moral
+code in the New Testament. But a word or two
+about the man. The Christian world sets him apart
+as the model of the race, as the masterpiece of
+Nature, as the utmost which earth can produce.
+Every man must here fetch his word of praise,
+and every word be a mountain to meet the demand
+of the Christian Church for reverence of Jesus.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I do not believe in the infallibility of any man,
+but I believe in the improvability of all men.
+Is man no longer heir to the virtues of life, that he
+must erect monuments of praise forever over the
+name of Jesus? I shall take the liberty to express
+my dissent from the common expressions of admiration
+for this man. I can not praise everything
+which he did, nor can I think that every word he
+uttered is a star of wisdom. He said some good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+things,but much of what he said is good for nothing.
+His theology will do for Sunday Schools, but it will
+not stand half a dozen questions by commonsense.
+His Hell is barbarous, his Heaven childish, and his
+ideas of humanity show but a superficial knowledge
+of human nature. His life can not be imitated
+with advantage to the race, and his notions of
+human existence are wholly inadequate to the
+complex, varied civilization of this age.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see what he did. He paid no filial respect to
+his parents; he refused to acknowledge his mother
+and his brothers; he lived a roving, wandering life;
+he paid no heed to the laws of his country; he
+placed no value upon industry, and even went so
+far as to tell men and women that God would feed
+and clothe them; he helped himself to the property
+and possessions of other people without paying for
+them, and destroyed what belonged to others without
+offering an equivalent; he had no property, no
+home, not a place to lay his head; he hated the
+rulers, yet sought to establish a kingdom for himself;
+he failed to reach the throne he sought, and
+died upon the malefactor's cross.</p>
+
+<p>Is this the man for the Twentieth Century to
+honor? Is this the man for men to follow in this
+age? Is this the man whose life all should strive to
+imitate?</p>
+
+<p>The man who took the life of Jesus for a model<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+would hate father and mother, brother and sister;
+he would have neither wife nor child; he would live
+from place to place; he would be a lawbreaker and
+an idler; he would live the life of a wanderer and
+die the death of a criminal.</p>
+
+<p>Have I put a false color in this picture which I
+have painted? Have I misrepresented the life of
+Jesus? Read the four Gospels and see. I find this
+character sketched in the New Testament, and it
+is there called Jesus, and it is this character which
+we are adjured to imitate if we would be perfect.</p>
+
+<p>To the man or woman who declares that the life
+of Jesus is the way to salvation, I have only this to
+say, "Why then do you not imitate it?"</p>
+
+<p>Now, I wish to ask, "What kind of morals would
+such a man as we have sketched naturally teach?"</p>
+
+<p>You will answer, "The morals he lived." At
+least, we find such morals taught in the New
+Testament.</p>
+
+<p>My point here is: If the life of Jesus was an honest,
+faithful exponent of his moral teachings, then such
+a morality as he practised is not wanted today&mdash;and
+that such a morality is not wanted is shown
+by the fact that no one practises it.</p>
+
+<p>I know that it is considered respectable and pious
+to profess great admiration for the doctrines taught
+by Jesus, and the world has paid them the outward
+compliment of profession, saying that the moral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+code of the New Testament was the despair of
+man; but it has never seriously set to work to
+reduce this code to practise, which proves that
+such profession is only a part of the universal
+accomplishment of fashionable hypocrisy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Do not understand me as saying that there is
+no moral precept contained in the Gospels
+which is worthy of being practised. I make no such
+declaration, and wish no such construction put
+upon my words. What I desire to enforce is this:
+That the morality of Jesus sprang from a philosophy
+which has passed away, and therefore, that
+it is, for the greater part, obsolete and worthless.
+That Jesus shared the general belief of his age that
+the world was soon to be destroyed, is shown by his
+estimate of earthly things; and that a morality
+founded upon such a belief should survive and outlast
+the faith which inspired it reveals a condition
+of things that is not flattering to our intellectual
+perception or to our moral sense.</p>
+
+<p>The morals of the New Testament are founded
+upon a theory of the universe which is found
+now only in creeds&mdash;those epitaphs of religion.
+The most superficial observation is sufficient to
+enable us to perceive that theology can no longer
+be the basis of morality, and that the authority
+of the New Testament can not be accepted on
+this question.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is nothing more firmly impressed upon the
+mind of man than the fact of the stability of
+the universe, notwithstanding an occasional earthquake;
+and the value of earthly things has a
+higher moral significance consequent upon the
+assurance of material existence.</p>
+
+<p>Morality must have a physical basis; that is, the
+moral code which man can practise to his safety
+and his honor must not contradict human nature.
+The defeat of the New Testament morals is assured
+by their antagonism to the nature of man. The
+morals of Jesus were designed to fit man for what
+he called the "Kingdom of Heaven," but the only
+morality which is worth the name is that which
+fits man for living his life on earth.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus constantly urged men to the performance of
+moral duties that they might be rewarded by their
+"Father in Heaven." Such a motive for good
+behavior is offensive to the rational mind, and
+moral commandments which are enforced with a
+Heaven and a Hell do not spring from an opinion
+of human nature which deserves our respect.</p>
+
+<p>The most comprehensive criticism which one can
+make upon the morals of the New Testament is,
+that they are not practicable. Is the character of
+Christians fashioned by the power and influence of
+the words which Jesus left in the world? This
+question should be pressed to an answer, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+honesty would answer it in a way which would
+shake every church-building in the land and tear
+the mask from the face of every Christian worshiper
+on the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus taught that men and women were to love
+him more than father or mother, son or daughter.
+Imagine human beings loving a man whom they
+know nothing about, and consequently can care
+nothing about, and who has no more claim to their
+affections than has the ghost in Hamlet, better
+than they love parent or child! Such morality as
+this is not fit for a Hottentot.</p>
+
+<p>If any command is implanted in our nature and is
+a part of the bone and fiber of our very being, it is
+to love beyond all else those who have borne us
+and cared for us through infancy and childhood,
+and those whose existence depends upon us, and to
+whom we stand pledged by the holiest ties of our
+beings, to watch over and protect, to care for and
+love, to the last days of our lives. It is love of parent
+and child which is alike the supreme obligation
+and the supreme benefaction of our humanity.
+No being has walked this earth who had the moral
+right to demand a greater love than is due to
+father and mother, son and daughter; and if Jesus
+claimed such affection, his claim is an impertinence
+which we are bound to treat with indignation and
+scorn.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>For the Christian Church to make of the words
+of Jesus commands to the world is to deserve
+the severest condemnation. Jesus taught that men
+were not to make for themselves a home, not to
+cultivate those virtues which blossom into the
+family, and not to save the fruits of their toil to
+make old age with its tottering form and feeble
+limbs less liable to the hardships of the world, but
+he summed up all the duties of life in these words:
+"Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and
+come follow me."</p>
+
+<p>To obey such teaching as this would overturn
+every monument of prosperity upon the earth,
+blight every feeling of happiness that gladdens the
+heart of man, and convert the busy, working,
+loving world into one vast army of tramps, following
+a king without a kingdom, a leader without a
+purpose, a commander with nothing to give those
+who followed his command.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus taught that we were not to resist evil; that is,
+that if a thief stole our watch and chain, we were
+bound to run after him and give him our purse
+also; that if a man took away our coat, we should
+wrong him if we did not send him the balance of
+the suit; that if a man struck us on one side of the
+face, we were to invite him to strike us on the other
+side also; that if, as it were, the armies of some
+foreign powers were to invade our land, and burn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+and destroy our cities and towns, pillage our homes
+and murder our families, we were in duty bound to
+look upon them as benefactors and thank them for
+their work of destruction, and ask them to come
+and do it again.</p>
+
+<p>Such moral teaching as this would make a nation
+of cowards and slaves.</p>
+
+<p>It is our duty to punish thieves and robbers, not
+to reward them; to resist wrong and injustice, not
+to submit to them like cravens; to protect our
+country from foes, even though we are obliged to
+shed their blood and our own in so doing.</p>
+
+<p>Is there a Christian on the globe who pays the
+least heed to a single one of the moral commands
+of Jesus? You all know there is not.</p>
+
+<p>I need not tell the Christian Church that the
+morality taught by Jesus is decaying when every
+church is its coffin, and every minister its grave-digger.</p>
+
+<p>If you wish to see how much respect for the moral
+teachings of Jesus one of his professed followers
+has, just steal his coat, and if he gives you his
+cloak also, as he is commanded to do by his Lord
+and Master, please publish his name in the daily
+papers&mdash;for the benefit of others who wish to get
+a cloak.</p>
+
+<p>We find among the express commands of Jesus
+this advice: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+upon earth." The most liberal translation of this
+counsel can not make it anything but poor advice.
+Every material blessing of mankind has come from
+the savings of human labor, and the value of laying
+up treasures upon earth is more evident than that
+of laying up treasures in Heaven, whatever this
+saying may mean. When every Christian tries as
+hard to be poor as he tries now to get rich, we
+shall think that he has some regard for the moral
+teachings of Jesus.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It must be apparent to all that what may be
+claimed as Christian morality is not only decaying,
+but that it ought to decay. There is no sense
+in it. Imagine a man telling people in the Twentieth
+Century to "take no thought for your life, what
+ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your
+body, what ye shall put on," and endeavoring to
+prove that because the fowls of the air do not have
+to broil a beefsteak for their breakfast or make
+biscuit for tea, human beings will be fed whether
+they provide anything for their appetites or not.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father will feed
+us because we are better than the fowls of the air,
+and that he will clothe us because he clothes the
+grass of the field. Our earthly fathers seem to have
+done more in the way of providing food and clothing
+for us before we were able to take care of ourselves
+than any Heavenly Father. Others may put their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+trust in God for something to eat and drink and
+wear, if they wish to, but I prefer to give the matter
+a little thought myself.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus concludes these
+admonitions by saying, "Take no thought for the
+morrow." This is bad counsel, and it shows the
+good sense of mankind that it has never been
+followed. The whole world lives in what one of our
+poets called, "The bright tomorrow of the mind."</p>
+
+<p>We will refer to only one more of the peculiar
+moral injunctions of Jesus. In the fifth chapter of
+Matthew, in the forty-fourth verse, we read, "Love
+your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
+to them that hate you, and pray for them which
+despitefully use you and persecute you."</p>
+
+<p>If we were to do as herein commanded, we should
+have an inverted morality which would place the
+crown of virtue upon the forehead of vice.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see if the preacher of this doctrine practised it.</p>
+
+<p>Did Jesus bless the Scribes and Pharisees when
+they refused to acknowledge his claim to be the
+Messiah? This is the blessing which he pronounced
+upon them: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees,
+hypocrites, for ye devour widows' houses and for a
+pretense make long prayers; therefore ye shall
+receive the greater damnation." "Ye serpents, ye
+generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation
+of Hell?" That is not a very sweet blessing!</p>
+
+<p>And these men did not curse Jesus. They only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+did not agree with his opinions. Jesus, also, in
+his wrath against his enemies, calls them, in the
+seventeenth and nineteenth verses of the twenty-third
+chapter of Matthew, "Ye fools and blind,"
+forgetting, doubtless, that he had previously declared,
+when preaching on the Mount, "Whosoever
+shall say, 'Thou Fool,' shall be in danger of
+hell-fire."</p>
+
+<p>The moral teachings of Jesus were inspired by a
+false estimate of all earthly things. There is no
+doubt that Jesus believed the world was coming to
+an end in his generation. How to get into the
+Kingdom of Heaven was of more consequence than
+how to reform mankind, or improve the world,
+since the end of earthly things was near at hand.
+This appears to have been the thought of Jesus,
+and explains much of his language.</p>
+
+<p>But today we do not believe that the earth has
+run its course, and that the end of all material
+things is near at hand. We are living without fear
+of failure on the part of the universe, and are giving
+our attention more to human wants than to divine
+commands.</p>
+
+<p><i>Not fear of offending God, but fear of wronging man,
+is the highest basis of morals.</i> We have reached a
+time when apologies are not respected, when
+repentance is looked upon as the mask of villainy,
+when the stature of life is most shorn of manliness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+by prancing in the garb of humility, when a brave
+facing of life's trials and demands counts for more
+than cowardly surrender in the name of God.
+In fact, we have come to say to the world of humanity,
+"Be moral, and you need not be religious."
+Work for man is coming to be a sufficient excuse
+for neglect of God.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But we want no cheap moral duties held up for
+man to perform. It is serious business to live
+this life of ours and live it well, and it is hard work
+to do it. Morality sets us as high a task as we are
+able to perform, and a higher task than has yet
+been performed by most of mankind. The effort of
+this age is to expose the sham of what is called
+holiness, and make sacred the surroundings of
+human beings. We must throw off the past, and
+stand upon that sunlit height where we can feel
+that "somehow life is bigger after all than any
+painted angel, could we see the man that is within
+us."</p>
+
+<p>This is the moral duty of the world: to respect the
+man that is within us. We ought to rear on the
+earth a range of moral Alps that would stand and
+command the admiration of the world as long as
+eye could see and heart could feel. We need a
+rational hope and a burning purpose in this
+century, something noble to live for and the
+courage of nobility to work and win it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The improvement of the world is the only object
+of life worthy of man. Do and say nothing that
+will not improve mankind. Were this simple
+admonition heeded, we should have the key to the
+kingdom of the only heaven that man needs in our
+own pocket.</p>
+
+<p>It is time for the reign of commonsense to begin
+on earth; time for men to elevate morality above
+religion; and time for us to say, "Millions for the
+world, not a cent for the Church." The battle
+between Freedom and Christianity has begun, and
+I believe that when it ends Christianity will be
+buried beneath the ruins of its own dogmas, there
+to remain forever. It possesses no spirit that can
+rise again from its ashes and mount on wings of
+flame to a higher life. When superstition dies, it
+dies to the root.</p>
+
+<p>The Christian minister can not arrest the march of
+liberty by crying, "Infidelity!" and threatening
+with everlasting cremation all those who refuse to
+heed his words.</p>
+
+<p>But let there be no base understanding of freedom.
+The new John the Baptist must not be a cowboy,
+saying, "The kingdom of highwaymen is at hand."
+As a person when in perfect bodily health knows
+not from any intimation from the respective parts
+that he has a stomach, a brain, or a heart, so a
+person when living in perfect freedom is uncon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>scious
+of law, of creed, of custom. The healthy
+man physically is the free man physically; the
+healthy man mentally is the free man mentally;
+the healthy man morally is the free man morally;
+liberty of the individual is health of the individual,
+and a free man means a man who is true and
+obedient to all natural laws.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There is a misunderstanding of freedom upon
+the one side, and a misrepresentation of it
+upon the other, that make it hazardous for one to
+employ the word. To connect this word with morality
+in the eyes of many is to confound the Madonna
+with Mary Magdalene. It is to start the ghost of
+Don Juan.</p>
+
+<p>The conservatism of society has ever regarded
+liberty as the black flag of the moral marauder, the
+emblem of a piratical intention upon the casket of
+the world that contains the jewels of honor, justice,
+virtue and social order.</p>
+
+<p>So persistently and malignantly has freedom been
+represented as a wrecker's light, kindled only to
+lure to destruction, that to represent it as worthy
+to be trusted is to arouse the spirit which pursued
+Voltaire to his grave with a lie, erected a shaft of
+calumny over the tomb of Paine, and which now,
+with the coward's weapon of slander, attacks the
+living who refuse to acknowledge that the voice
+of the Church is the voice of God.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+But nevertheless we believe with Burns that:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,</div>
+<div class="line">Its virtues a' can tell, man;</div>
+<div class="line">It raises man aboon the brute,</div>
+<div class="line">It maks him ken himsel', man;</div>
+<div class="line">Gif ance the peasant taste a bite,</div>
+<div class="line">He's greater than a lord, man,</div>
+<div class="line">And ni' the beggar shares a mite</div>
+<div class="line">Of a' he can afford, man.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>And so we exclaim in the words of one of our own
+true poets:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">Always in thine eyes, O Liberty!</div>
+<div class="line">Shines that high light whereby the world is saved,</div>
+<div class="line">And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>You have all heard of the man who refused to open
+his eyes for a year, and who declared that during
+that time nothing could be seen on account of the
+darkness. But the endeavor to perpetuate old
+errors by keeping the eyes closed to the facts of
+science, the truths of philosophy, and the progress
+of the human race, has not been crowned with
+success. The further attempt to convert the world
+to what James Parton calls a "kitchen religion"
+is merely waste of power.</p>
+
+<p>The preaching of Christianity is making "much
+ado about nothing." What we want is manhood
+and womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>It is said by the Church that the man who lives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+for his family and brings all that he can win of
+what is fair and bright and glad to those he loves,
+may be a good man, but he is not a Christian, and
+therefore has no religion.</p>
+
+<p>Give me then the man who is not a Christian, and
+who has no religion, for if the man who loves his
+wife and children, who gives to them the strength
+of his arm, the thought of his brain, the warmth
+of his heart, has not religion, the world is better
+off without it, for these are the highest and holiest
+things which man can do.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"
+height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">There is only one thing worth praying
+for: to be in the line of evolution.&mdash;<i>Elbert Hubbard.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Jesus as Savior of the world is a theological
+creation, and not a historical character.</p></div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2 p6">SO HERE THEN ENDETH THAT GREAT AND GOOD BOOK
+"I DON'T KNOW&mdash;DO YOU?" WRITTEN BY MARILLA M.
+RICKER, AND PRINTED AND BOUND FOR HER BY THE
+ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA,
+ERIE COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW YORK, MCMXVI.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2 id="PAINE">THOMAS PAINE</h2></div>
+
+<p class="i2">Born Jan 29, 1737.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Friend and adviser of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin,
+Monroe, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Author of <i>Common Sense</i>, <i>The Crisis</i>, <i>Rights of Man</i>, and
+<i>The Age of Reason</i>;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Editor of <i>Pennsylvania Magazine</i>;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Enlisted in Continental Army; appointed Aide-de-Camp to
+General Nathaniel Greene;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Secretary of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congress and
+Pennsylvania Assembly;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">By his writings did more for the American cause in the
+Revolution than any other one person;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed American Independence;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested the Federal Union of States;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed the abolition of Negro slavery;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested protection for dumb animals;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed arbitration and international peace;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested justice to women;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First pointed out the reality of human brotherhood;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First pointed out the folly of hereditary succession and
+monarchical government;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed old-age pensions;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested international copyright;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed the education of the children of the poor at
+public expense;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed "the land for the people";</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested "the religion of humanity";</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed and first wrote the words, "United States of
+America";</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Founder of the first Ethical Society;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Proposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Inventor of the iron bridge, the hollow candle&mdash;principle of
+the modern central-draft burner, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Died June 9, 1809.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2"><b><i>This is history. But this great and good man was called
+"a filthy little atheist" by a hyphenated Dutch-American.</i></b></p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64568 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of I don't know, do you?, by Marilla M. Ricker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: I don't know, do you?
+
+Author: Marilla M. Ricker
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2021 [eBook #64568]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Carlos Colón, the New York Public Library and the Online
+             Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+             file was produced from images generously made available by The
+             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by
+  =equal signs=.
+
+  Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase.
+
+  Blank pages have been eliminated.
+
+  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
+  original.
+
+  A few typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Marilla M. Ricker._]
+
+
+
+
+                         I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU?
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           MARILLA M. RICKER
+
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+
+                               DONE INTO
+                   A PRINTED BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS
+                     AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN
+                         EAST AURORA, NEW YORK
+                                MCMXVI
+
+
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1916
+                                  By
+                           Marilla M. Ricker
+
+
+
+
+  You are what you think, and to believe in a Hell for other people
+  is literally to go to Hell yourself.--_Elbert Hubbard._
+
+  A religious man is a man scared.
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+_There is in the city of Boston a memorial building to Thomas Paine.
+This Paine Memorial was finished and dedicated forty-two years ago. It
+is the finest monument to Thomas Paine on the earth._
+
+_For twenty years Ralph Washburn Chainey has been the Manager of this
+building and the Treasurer of the Paine Memorial Corporation. Under his
+wise and prudent management the building was freed from debt, and today
+it is a monument to the energy and devotion of its Manager as much as
+to the genius and labors of Thomas Paine._
+
+_Ralph Washburn Chainey is only forty-two, and as great an example of
+thrift as Ben Franklin was. Very early in life he acquired the habit of
+thrift--which is the basis of all virtues. He learned early that time
+was money and he is always at work. He is not only able to take care
+of himself, but he can and does take care of others. He is sufficient
+unto himself, and when one is right with himself he is right with all
+the world. I have known him intimately for more than a quarter of a
+century, and if he has faults I have yet to learn what they are._
+
+_In appreciation, therefore, of his great service to the cause of
+Freethought, I dedicate this volume to_
+
+       RALPH WASHBURN CHAINEY
+
+                                            --_Marilla M. Ricker_.
+
+_Dover, New Hampshire December, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen_
+
+
+
+
+  As man advances, as his intellect enlarges, as his knowledge
+  increases, as his ideals become nobler, the Bibles and creeds will
+  lose their authority, the miraculous will be classed with the
+  impossible, and the idea of special providence will be discarded.
+  Thousands of religions have perished, innumerable gods have died,
+  and why should the religion of our time be exempt from the common
+  fate?
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  FOREWORD                                      7
+
+  CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION                  11
+
+  WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES,
+  AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC                     33
+
+  A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER                   55
+
+  THE HOLY GHOST                               65
+
+  HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?                    71
+
+  COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL                  81
+
+  MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT                    85
+
+  AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE ON RELIGION         89
+
+  DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY                 107
+
+
+
+
+  I know of no other book that so fully teaches the subjection and
+  degradation of woman as the Bible.
+
+                                       --_Elizabeth Cady Stanton._
+
+
+  That God had to come to earth to find a mother for his son reveals
+  the poverty of Heaven.
+
+
+
+
+CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION
+
+
+
+
+  Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a
+  true system.
+
+                                                 --_Thomas Paine._
+
+
+  Hell is a place invented by priests and parsons for the sake of
+  being supported.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION
+
+
+One hundred fifty years ago, there was not a single white man in what
+is now Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. What is now the most
+flourishing part of the United States was then as little known as the
+country in the heart of Africa itself. It was not until Seventeen
+Hundred Seventy-six that Boone left his home in North Carolina to
+become the first settler in Kentucky; and the pioneers of Ohio did not
+settle that territory until twenty years later.
+
+Canada belonged to France one hundred fifty-three years ago, and
+Washington was a modest Virginia Colonel, and the United States was
+the most loyal part of the British Empire, and scarcely a speck on the
+political horizon indicated the struggle that in a few years was to lay
+the foundation of the greatest republic in the world.
+
+One hundred fifty years ago there were but four small newspapers in
+America; steam-engines had not been imagined; and locomotives and
+railroads, and telegraphs and postal cards, and friction-matches,
+and revolvers and percussion-caps, and breechloading-guns and Mauser
+rifles, and stoves and furnaces, and gas and electricity and rubber
+shoes, and Spaulding's glue, and sewing-machines and anthracite coal,
+and photographs, and kerosene-oil, free schools, and spring-beds and
+hair-mattresses, and lever-watches and greenbacks were unknown. The
+spinning-wheel was in almost every family, and clothing was spun and
+woven and made up in the family; and the printing-press was a cumbrous
+machine worked by hand.
+
+Down to Eighteen Hundred Fourteen every paper in the world was printed
+one side at a time, on an ordinary hand-press; and a nail, or a brick,
+or a knife, or a pair of shears or scissors, or a razor, or a woven
+pair of stockings, or an ax or a hoe or a shovel, or a lock and key, or
+a plate of glass of any size, was not made in what is now the United
+States.
+
+In Seventeen Hundred Ninety, there were only seventy-five post-offices
+in the country, and the whole extent of our post-routes was less
+than nineteen hundred miles; cheap postage was unheard of; so were
+envelopes; and had any one suggested the transmission of messages with
+lightning speed, he would have been thought insane. The microscope on
+the one hand and the telescope on the other were in their infancy as
+instruments of science; and geology and chemistry were almost unknown,
+to say nothing of the telephone and all the other various phones, and
+the X-rays, and hundreds of other new things.
+
+In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two there were only six stagecoaches running
+in all England, and these were a novelty. A man named John Crosset
+thought they were so dangerous an innovation that he wrote a pamphlet
+against them. "These coaches," he wrote, "make gentlemen come to London
+upon every small occasion which otherwise they would not do, except
+upon urgent necessity. The conveniency of the passage makes their wives
+come often up, who, rather than come such long journeys on horseback,
+would stay at home. Then when they come to town they must be in the
+'wade' [probably that is where the word _swim_ comes in now], get fine
+clothes, go to plays, and treats, and by these means get such a habit
+of idleness and love of pleasure that they are uneasy ever after."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We can all see how much improvement there has been in all things but
+_creeds_. Improvements can come, and old things go, but _creeds_ go on
+forever! A creed implies something fixed and immovable. In other words,
+it means you have a "heel-rope on."
+
+The word "creed" is from _credo_, "I believe." We have had a great
+deal of compulsion of belief, and a thousand years of almost absolute
+unanimity. Liberty was dead and the ages were dark. We call them
+the Middle Ages because they were the death between the life that
+was before and the life that came after. Then came a new birth of
+thought--a "Renaissance"--and after this, some reformation in the form
+of a Protestantism.
+
+Since then, the Protestants have continued to protest, not only against
+the old, but against each other. And this is the best thing they have
+done. Thus liberty has been saved, for each would have coerced its
+fellow organization, as did their infamous mother, the Roman Catholic
+Church, before them. From "creed" comes "credulous" and "credulity."
+And they have filled the world with their kind. In the United States
+alone, there are about one hundred forty types. Each is a system of
+credulity pitted against a hundred and thirty-nine others. They all
+rest on authority. They all denounce investigation--unless it has for
+its end the support of their authority.
+
+Hence, with the exception of two or three denominations, to become a
+professed Christian means to accept credulously and without question
+a system of belief about Nature and man and the world which you would
+deny in toto if you reasoned as you do about other things, and which
+you do practically deny by re-explaining and refining it into anything
+but what is stated. Down deep in your heart you do not, and never
+did, believe it in the same honest way in which you form your other
+opinions.
+
+Think for a moment of the Christian idea of the world, its origin, its
+shape, place, importance, and its final end. Does any man or woman who
+has been through a common-school geography believe the ideas implied in
+the common Christian dogmas regarding the world? We must remember that
+the world taught in the geography is not the Christian world.
+
+The world taught in the Christian dogmas is beneath the heavens--not a
+rolling sphere flying through space. It is flat, and the sun and stars
+pass over it daily. It is the chief object of God's creation on which
+to place man. It is God's footstool, and his throne is Heaven above. He
+created it just four thousand and four years before the Christian era
+began. Now we _all_ know that this is _not_ true; that there is no up
+nor down; that the earth is not the center; that it is _not_ flat; that
+the sun does not go round it; that it is a very insignificant little
+orb; that "up in Heaven" is an utterly meaningless expression; and that
+the world is not a creation, but an evolution.
+
+And yet thousands of people credulously cling to creeds which embody
+the notions of barbarous or uncivilized ages.
+
+Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the Bible is a
+revelation of the will and wisdom of an omniscient God; that it is a
+perfect and sufficient rule of faith and practise. What, in the name
+of humanity, causes people to make such statements today? It is like
+trying to light the house with a saucer of tallow in which a rag is
+immersed, instead of using gas or electricity.
+
+Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy xiv: 21, we read, "Ye
+shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it
+unto the sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or
+thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for _thou_ art a holy people unto
+Jehovah thy God." In Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would
+that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them."
+
+Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy, or even the
+moral unity of a volume written by many hands at widely different
+times? Are such people so ignorant that they have not read the Book
+they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots and do not know the
+plainest right and wrong? Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful
+reason for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they the dupes of
+their own credulity, clinging without thought to the beliefs in which
+they have been reared? They are evidently not using commonsense in an
+honest way.
+
+I often hear the Bible spoken of as a holy book, full of a holy
+spirit. I sometimes reply: "Have you read the conduct of Moses, Joshua,
+Samuel, David, Solomon, and other ancient worthies, who were said to be
+men after the heart of the bloodthirsty and avenging Jehovah? How long
+would you keep out of prison if you took them for your models? Have you
+read the Thirty-fifth, Fifty-eighth, Sixty-ninth and One Hundred Ninth
+Psalms? If not, read them, and tell me what you think of them."
+
+There never was any intrinsic reason for believing the Bible except
+that a designing priesthood said so, and stupid people trusted them.
+
+Here, by common consent, people agree to be duped. Ages and ages ago,
+they began to make admissions that two and two might be six, or even
+sixteen, in religion. They had sense enough to say that two and two are
+four in other things. In Divine Revelation they shut their eyes to all
+mistakes and wilful lies. If people should deceive in other matters as
+the priests, parsons and teachers do in religion, they would not escape
+arrest.
+
+Another central doctrine is that of the Atonement. This is derived
+from the moral character of the Jewish God; he governed the world of
+humanity on the principle of primitive society. Men were responsible to
+him in everything. Any infraction of his supposed laws rendered them
+subject to his vengeance. That is why the Jew thought that God sent a
+thunderstorm to punish him for eating pork.
+
+What explanation besides credulity can be suggested for the
+continuation of this belief century after century? Preachers shout
+it from the pulpits, and Salvation Army people hawk it through the
+streets. Not one of them knows what he is talking about. Each learned
+it from some one who told him to say it. They all do it because it is
+a part of a system which they have inherited, but the reason for which
+they do not know, and have never allowed themselves to seek.
+
+This cringing credulity keeps the masses from using their powers. They
+seem to believe that if they should lose these superstitions they would
+be lost.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And the dogma regarding Jesus is inextricably mixed up in Christian
+theology with that of the Atonement. One assumption bolsters the
+other. He is made to occupy the central place in this scheme of
+blood-redemption through that other highly rational fable of the
+immaculate conception. If Jesus was not immaculately conceived, then
+Matthew and Luke have deceived; then Jesus is not God; then he is a
+mere man; and if so, he is not the Redeemer. Man could not redeem
+himself according to the first premise of the scheme. Man has been and
+_is_ redeeming himself by learning Nature's laws and through them
+rising to a higher life ever since he reached the stage of humanity.
+Take the theory of the Resurrection. The account of it was written long
+after the assumed occurrence, and by credulous men with superstitious
+inclinations. Men and women of these days, understanding the laws of
+Nature, can not give assent to the crude beliefs which easily commanded
+the minds of ancient times.
+
+Both Protestantism and Catholicism are systems built on essentially the
+same foundation. Remove any of these stones, and the systems will have
+to be rebuilt. If there is no special revelation, there is no special
+scheme of salvation. If there is no vengeful, blood-seeking God, there
+is no theological reconciliation. If there was no fall, there is no
+hopeless depravity. If there was no immaculate conception, there is
+no Redeemer in a special ecclesiastical sense. If there is no total
+depravity, there is no lost world. If there is no lost world, there is
+no yawning Hell. One and all, these fictions have their only ground for
+continuance in a _selfish_ and unreasoning priesthood and clergy, and a
+credulous people.
+
+In the place of the "fall," science has put the "rise" of man. It finds
+the Garden of Eden to have been a jungle. It finds the mythical perfect
+Adam to have been a savage. It finds the Biblical "origin of evil"
+to have been a puerile legend. It finds that sin and evil are made by
+the seeing of higher states. It finds that there was no bad until the
+better was reached. It finds that it is the advancing good which makes
+the existing bad. It finds that among the worst of sinners are those
+who live in and propagate outworn doctrines upon their own and others'
+credulity.
+
+In the olden times, God was made a king--the world was his kingdom.
+His powers, virtues and vices were simply those of earthly kings
+exaggerated. Jewish and Christian liturgies are full of expressions
+showing the attitude of slaves and serfs to a tyrant. Sin has been
+manufactured as heresy and disobedience to the so-called orthodox
+system instead of to the laws of Nature.
+
+Science has shown that the bottomless pit did not even have a top.
+Columbus sailed over the Western edge of the flat Christian world on
+which all this Christian system depended, and found that the material
+Heaven and Hell were unfounded myths; but the preachers and priests
+still threaten _hell_ to the most ignorant and credulous, but they tell
+some of us that there is a _final judgment_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the old days, we used to hear a great deal about judgments. A
+certain honest, good-natured, old farmer in New Hampshire, who was a
+freethinker, but had a very pious wife, lost many cattle when the
+black tongue was an epidemic in the State.
+
+One day the hired man came in and told him the red oxen were dead.
+
+"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, they were 'breechy cusses.' Take
+off their hides and carry them down to Fletcher's. They will bring the
+cash."
+
+An hour or so later the man came back with the news that Lineback and
+his mate were both dead.
+
+"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, I took them of B---- to save a bad
+debt that I never expected to get. Take the hides down to Fletcher's.
+They will bring the cash."
+
+After the lapse of another hour the man came back to tell him that the
+nigh brindle was dead.
+
+"Is he?" said the old man. "Well, he was a very old ox. Take off his
+hide and send it down to Fletcher's. It is worth cash and will bring
+more than two of the others."
+
+Hereupon his wife reminded him that his loss was a judgment of Heaven
+upon him.
+
+"Is it?" said the old chap. "Well, if they will take the judgment in
+cattle, it is the easiest way I can pay it."
+
+But they know no more about final judgments than they did about the
+lake of fire and brimstone which commenced to drain off in Columbus'
+day. Science has vaporized the notion of a future judgment by the same
+method it has that of a past Creation. From the _facts_, it has learned
+_laws_. But credulity is always half-hearted with facts. It does not
+know enough of truth to love it. It is ever glowing over and setting
+up as a dogma the little it knows, or assumes to know, of the truth of
+former times. It has no faith in the newly discovered, because it knows
+nothing of it.
+
+Hence, age after age we see the spectacle of men who have not studied
+the science of their own day denouncing it in pulpit and councils;
+of men who have steeped themselves in the traditions of the past
+pronouncing shallow invectives against the demonstrations of (science)
+the present.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many church people say immortality must be true, or the great majority
+would not believe in it. But do they? They do not talk or write as if
+they did. If language means anything, I think the majority believe in
+annihilation. Most people speak of the dead body of a man as though
+it were the man. They say, "He was buried at Greenwood," or, "She was
+cremated at Forest Hills." And we hear the "late" Mr. Smith left an
+immense fortune. If Mr. Smith still exists, why do they say the _late_
+Mr. Smith? If people didn't believe that the soul and body are one,
+and that life ceases and mind expires when the body dies, why do they
+say, "They were"? What little the Church has learned has been by _main
+force_ so to speak.
+
+A friend of mine many years ago was a college student. At that time
+they were all compelled to attend the college church. On one occasion
+he heard the preacher, who was also a college professor, make these
+statements:
+
+_First_, that the _elect_ alone would be saved.
+
+_Second_, that among those who by the world were called Christians,
+probably not more than one in a hundred belonged really and truly to
+the _elect_.
+
+_Third_, that the others, by reason of their Christian privileges,
+would suffer more hereafter than the heathen, who had never heard the
+Gospel at all.
+
+The young man made a note of these propositions, and on the strength
+of them drew up a petition to the Faculty soliciting exemption from
+further attendance at church, as only preparing for himself a more
+terrible future.
+
+He said: "The congregation here amounts to six hundred persons,
+and nine of these are the college professors. Now if only one in a
+hundred is to be saved, it follows that three even of the professors
+must be damned, and I, being a mere student, could not expect to be
+saved in preference to a professor." Far, he said, be it from him to
+cherish so presumptuous a hope. Nothing remained for him, therefore,
+but perdition. In this melancholy state of affairs he was anxious to
+abstain from anything that might aggravate his future punishment;
+and as church attendance had been shown to have this influence on the
+_non-elect_, he trusted that the Faculty would for all time exempt him
+from it.
+
+The result was he came very near being expelled from the
+college--simply by heeding their sermons. The professors of some
+colleges have learned something, and do not insist on the students
+attending church.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ponder for a moment on the many dishonest ways churches have for
+raising money. Think of the amount of money they can raise at a
+church-fair--alias, a confidence-game.
+
+A young man from Kentucky told me that he attended one at Chicago.
+First he went to the table where refreshments were sold. A beautiful
+siren with big black eyes and small white hands spread the edibles
+before him. When he arose from the table he handed her a five-dollar
+bill. She put it in a little box and forgot to give him any change. She
+smiled sweetly at him, and asked him if he would like to walk about the
+room and look at the fancy articles, all to be sold for the good of the
+church.
+
+She took his arm and murmured, "We are not strangers; we both feel
+interested in the church."
+
+"We soon came," said the young man in telling me the story, "to a
+silver tea-set that was to be 'raffled off.' Would I take a chance? Of
+course I did. Then came a cake with a valuable ring concealed in it.
+Would I take a chance in that? Of course I did.
+
+"So things glided on until I concluded if I took many more chances, my
+chances for getting home would be slim. So I refused to tempt fortune
+any further, until the little black-eyed scoundrel took me on a new
+tack. Leaning heavily on my arm, and resting her cheek on my shoulder,
+she said, 'Please take a chance for me.'
+
+"It is needless to add that I took the chance, and kept on taking
+chances for the beautiful and unprincipled wretch that had me in tow,
+until I had not a dollar left. Yes, I was penniless, and then it
+began to dawn on me that she was working me for the success of the
+church. There I was, bankrupt in money and self-respect. I had been
+robbed--yes, robbed, for where is the difference between a pair of
+pistols and a pair of black eyes in a robbery? You part with your money
+because you can not help it.
+
+"I know that Society looks with lenient eyes upon church-fairs, but it
+is my opinion that all robbers will take sentence, and when that little
+Chicago robber receives her sentence, she will take her place by the
+side of Jack Sheppard!"
+
+You see he still believes in Judgments. He is learning by main force.
+
+A very pious woman whose father was a missionary, now living in Hawaii,
+wrote not long ago that professional men flocking to the Islands will
+be disappointed unless they are friends of old families; and the old
+families are descendants of missionaries who went there in the early
+days and took lands and everything else from the natives.
+
+There seems to be nothing like being a descendant from a missionary
+family. These people, equally pious and provident, thought it a
+good scheme to cheat the sinful savages out of all their worldly
+possessions, in order that they might be taught humility and holiness
+through the chastening influence of poverty. So they robbed the
+unregenerate to the glory of God.
+
+Who says it doesn't pay to save the heathen? Think of the ignorance and
+superstition of the majority of the preachers of the present day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up in Northern Minnesota, less than fifty years ago, an old Baptist
+was preaching on the death of Moses on the Mount, and his not being
+permitted to go over into the Promised Land. The preacher said:
+
+"I have always felt sorry for Moses. It has seemed so hard to me that
+he could not go over with Caleb and Joshua, the only two of the host
+which he had led out of Egypt, and enjoy with his people the good
+country towards which they had been so long traveling. When as a boy
+I read that in the Bible for the first time, I sat down and cried for
+sympathy with him. But Moses had a hard time from the first. He was no
+sooner born than his life was threatened. His mother had to hide him to
+save it. After three months she could hide him no longer, and so she
+made an ark of bulrushes and set him afloat on the river. Indeed, it
+seemed as though the Lord had all he could do to raise Moses."
+
+But the people of this generation do not take the story of Moses so
+seriously. A bright young girl of ten, on being asked by her Sabbath
+School teacher, "Where did Pharaoh's daughter get Moses?" replied, with
+the accent on the _said_, "She _said_ she 'found him in the bulrushes.'"
+
+I attended a campmeeting in North Carolina. The exhortations and
+prayers would cause a graven image to smile audibly. One old Baptist
+preacher said he always felt so sorry to think that "Ingine corn"
+didn't grow in Palestine, because he would like to think that the
+little Jesus had a good time playing with cob-houses.
+
+But those preachers compare favorably with the Reverend George F. Hall,
+of Decatur, Illinois, and the Reverend Doctor John P. D. John, and the
+Reverend Doctor Frederick Bell, late of the Metropolitan Temple of
+San Francisco, California, who at various times challenged Robert G.
+Ingersoll to debate with them. It shows what ignorance, superstition
+and egotism combined can do.
+
+Darwin said the herding instinct in animals has its base in fear. Sheep
+and cattle go in droves, while a lion simply flocks with his mate.
+Those who wish to lead have always fostered fear, encouraging this
+tendency to herd, promising protection, and offering what they call
+knowledge in return for a luxurious living.
+
+In other words, the men who preach and pray, always want the people
+who _work_ to divide with them. They work on the line that fear will
+compel men to join churches. This joining instinct is a manifestation
+of weakness. By going with a gang they hope to get to Heaven. But the
+moment you eliminate the Devil from Christianity, there is nothing
+left. You can not have a revival, alias an epidemic, of religion,
+without the Devil. If there were no Devil, there would be nothing to
+pray about, and all these people who are gifted in prayer would be
+without a job.
+
+Think of the chaplains of the Army and Navy, in Congress and in the
+Legislatures being turned out to browse for themselves. Think of their
+being obliged to earn an honest living. They could not do it. I am
+amused when I think of the prayers that are exchanged in war times. One
+side will pray that the wrath of Heaven will descend on the other, and
+the other side will return the compliment with ten per cent interest.
+
+I remember when I was a child of reading the prayer of a Hungarian
+officer. He said: "O Lord, I will not ask thee to help us, and I know
+that thou wilt not help the Austrians. But if thou wilt sit on yonder
+hill, thou shalt not be ashamed of thy children."
+
+The famous Bishop Leslie prayed before a battle in Ireland, "O God, for
+our unworthiness we are not fit to claim thy help, but if we are bad,
+our enemies are worse, and if thou seest not meet to help us, we pray
+thee help them not, but stand thou neutral this day, and leave it to
+the arm of flesh."
+
+All this dramatic power would be lost without the Devil. So it behooves
+the Christian churches to hold fast to the Devil. Get a good grip on
+his hoofs, horns and tail, for without him they would be relegated to
+"innocuous desuetude." He should be incorporated as the fourth person
+in the Orthodox Godhead, and respectfully addressed as "Holy Devil."
+
+  _There is no truth in the dogma of the divinity of Jesus, no sense
+  in it, no religion in it. It is the product of mythology and has no
+  claim upon this age._
+
+
+
+
+  This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right
+  you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of
+  Nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.
+
+  The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a
+  traitor to himself and to his fellowmen.
+
+  As far as I am concerned, I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish
+  to take my chances with wind and wave and star. And I had rather
+  go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any
+  orthodox harbor whatever.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC
+
+
+
+
+  The ignorance of the masses insures abundant contributions to the
+  clergy and to religion.--_Ralph W. Chainey._
+
+  The mother who teaches her child to pray makes a mistake.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC
+
+
+The Millerites--or Second Adventists, as they now call themselves--are
+the first sect that I remember. They are a people of remarkable vigor:
+they have been at work for seventy years to bring this world to an end,
+and although they have been wrong in their arithmetic all these years,
+they rub out the slate and begin again.
+
+And they prove everything by the Bible, as all other denominations do.
+The "time" has been set at least twenty times since I can remember. I
+recollect having awful palpitations in the kneepans upon one of the
+eventful days, and crawling under the barn so as not to be in the
+way. They used to congregate on the height of land near my father's,
+"to go up," and one man climbed upon an old shed, and fell and broke
+his hip; he fainted, and they thought he was dead. As soon as he had
+revived a little, they asked him if he had any requests to make before
+he died. He replied, "I want you to work in 'durn fool' somewhere on
+my tombstone." He recovered, and lived many years, but he was cured of
+Millerism.
+
+A large share of the students of the Second Advent doctrine came into
+this world, not only naked, but without any brains, nor any place
+suitable to put any; and the first business they do is to wonder about
+their souls and talk about being "born again." They never seem to
+realize that to be well born is much more essential than to be "born
+again." I never knew immortality to be secured at the second birth.
+
+I attended one of their meetings this year, and asked one of the
+sisters for their _creed_. She said, "Our creed is the whole Bible,
+from the first book of Genesis to the last word of the last chapter of
+Revelations."
+
+I thought of what a boy said when the Baptist Elder came and took tea
+at his home, and asked a "blessing."
+
+The boy said: "Is that the way you ask a blessing? My father doesn't
+ask it that way."
+
+"How does he ask it?"
+
+"Oh, he sat down to the table the other evening, and looked it all
+over, and said, 'My God, what a supper!'"
+
+And I thought, "My God, what a creed!"
+
+I was tempted to ask the Millerite sister what she thought of the
+discrepancy between the first and the second chapter of Genesis. In the
+first chapter Man and Woman were a simultaneous creation. In the second
+chapter, Woman was an afterthought. But I had the deep sagacity to
+hold my tongue, and leave her and her _creed_ in peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second church that I remember anything about is the Free-Will
+Baptist. My mother was a devout member of that church. I have heard
+thousands of times, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
+he can not enter into the Kingdom of God." And man included woman--it
+always did, so far as pains and penalties were concerned.
+
+I remember distinctly a sermon I heard on Hell. You younger people can
+not have the faintest idea of the terrific sermons that were preached
+in those days.
+
+That sermon commenced in this wise:
+
+"Now we will look into Hell and see what we can see. It is all red-hot
+like red-hot iron. Streams of burning pitch and sulphur run through it.
+The floor blazes up to the roof. Look at the walls--the enormous stones
+are red-hot. Sparks of fire are always falling down from them. Lift
+up your eyes to the roof of Hell. It is like a sheet of blazing fire.
+Hell is filled with a fog of fire. In Hell, torrents not of water, but
+of fire and brimstone, are rained down. You may have seen a house on
+fire, but you never saw a house made of fire. Hell is a house made of
+fire. The fire of Hell burns the devils, who are spirits, for it was
+prepared for them. But it will burn the body as well as the soul.
+Take a little spark out of Hell--less than the size of a pin-head--and
+throw it into the ocean, and it will not go out. In one moment it
+would dry up all the waters of the ocean, and set the whole world in a
+blaze! Listen to the terrific noise of Hell--to the horrible uproar of
+countless millions of tormented creatures, mad with the fury of Hell!
+Oh, the screams of fear, the groanings of horror, the yells of rage,
+the cries of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair, from
+millions on millions. You hear them roaring like lions, hissing like
+serpents, howling like dogs, and wailing like dragons! And above all,
+you hear the roaring of the thunder of God's anger, which shakes Hell
+to its foundations. Little children, if you go to Hell, there will be a
+devil at your side to strike you. How will you feel after you have been
+struck every minute for a hundred millions of years? Look into this
+inner room of Hell, and see a girl of about sixteen. She stands in the
+middle of a red-hot floor; her feet are bare; sleep can never come to
+her; she can never forget for one moment in all the eternity of years."
+
+And so this description of Hell went on for nearly two hours. Do you
+wonder that I, a child of ten years, said to my father, who was a
+freethinker, infidel, atheist, or whatever else you please to call him:
+"I _hate_ my mother's church. I will _not_ go there again!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next church I became acquainted with was the Calvin Baptist Church.
+That church seemed to think that the most of us were born to be damned
+anyway!
+
+The great Ingersoll had it right when he said it was the
+damned-if-you-do-and-the-damned-if-you-don't church.
+
+The only difference between the Free-Will Baptists and the Calvin
+Baptists that I can see, is, that you are allowed to exercise your
+_will_. The Free-Will Baptists will damn you if you wish to be, and the
+Calvinists will damn you anyway!
+
+The next church to which I was introduced was the Congregationalist,
+alias the Orthodox. Their creed is rather complex from a mathematical
+standpoint. They seem to think that three Gods are one God, and one God
+is three Gods.
+
+I, having been taught that figures don't lie, couldn't understand it,
+until I thought of a boy who said to his teacher when she explained to
+him that figures didn't lie: "You should see my sisters at home, and
+then on the street. You will find that figures do lie."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I then went to Italy, and became conversant with the _outside_
+doings of the Roman Catholic Church. I visited many of them, saw the
+beggars eating crusts at the doors, and the well-fed priests saying
+masses inside; saw the white hand of famine always extended, in
+bitter contrast to the magnificent cathedrals; saw well-dressed,
+intelligent-looking men and women going upstairs on their hands and
+knees, and saw hundreds of them kissing the toe of the bronze statue of
+Saint Peter; saw monks of every shade and description; and all begging
+for the Holy Catholic Church!
+
+I attended a church festival at Rome at the Ara Cœli, where the most
+"Holy Bambino" is kept, a little wooden doll about two feet long. It is
+said to be the image of Jesus. It had a crown of gold on its head and
+was fairly ablaze with diamonds. It has great power to heal the sick.
+It is taken to visit patients in great style--that is, if the patients
+are rich. The Bambino is placed in a coach accompanied by priests in
+full dress. The Great Festival of the Bambino is celebrated annually.
+Military bands and the Soldiers of the Guard dance attendance. Saint
+Gennaro is held to be the guardian saint of Naples. The alleged miracle
+by which the blood of this holy person, contained in a glass tube,
+changes from a solid to a liquid state, is well known. Thousands go to
+see the miracle performed. When the priest first held up the sacred
+vial with its clotted contents we could hear all about us: "Holy
+Gennaro, save and protect us! Bless the City of Naples, and keep it
+free from plagues and earthquakes and other ills. Do this miracle so
+that we can see that thy power and thy favor are still with us." And
+so it went on for an hour or more, until the great throng was nearly
+hysterical.
+
+At last the priest stepped forward, showing that the blood flowed
+freely in the tube, and then such a shout went up from the big crowd as
+one hears only in Southern climes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have never been introduced to the Church of England, alias, the
+Episcopalian, but I've always thought if a man had a good voice, and
+understood the mysteries of the corkscrew, he would make a good rector.
+
+I became acquainted with a High-Church Episcopalian woman not long ago,
+and she showed me a prayer-rug and praying-costume imported from Paris.
+I told her that she looked like an angel in it, as she ought after
+going to all that expense and trouble; if she didn't, dressmakers might
+as well give it up and wait for Gabriel. The attitude of prayer threw
+the back breadths of the skirt into graceful prominence, and hence the
+necessity (which will be at once recognized by all the truly _pious_)
+of increased attention to the frills and embroidery required by the
+religious attitude of prayer.
+
+An old farmer in Indiana said he was a "Piscopal."
+
+"To what parish do you belong?"
+
+"I don't know nothing about parishes."
+
+"Who confirmed you?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"Then how do you belong to the Episcopalian Church?"
+
+"Well, last Winter I went down to Arkansas visiting, and while I was
+there, I went to a church and it was called 'Piscopal,' and I heard
+them say that they had done the things they ought not to have done, and
+left undone the things they ought to have done, and I says to myself,
+'That is my fix exactly,' and ever since then I've considered myself a
+'Piscopal'!"
+
+And I came to the conclusion that that is why the membership of that
+church is so large!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I know but little about the Methodists, but I do know that John Wesley,
+one of the founders of that church, believed in witchcraft, and was one
+of the latest of its supporters.
+
+History tells us that Brother Wesley preached a sermon entitled, _The
+Cause and Cure of Earthquakes_. He said that earthquakes were caused
+by sin, and the only way to stop them was to believe in his theology
+and teachings, thus showing great knowledge of seismology; but people
+who bank on gullibility are usually safe. I know the Methodists make a
+great hullabaloo about their religion, and appear to think their God is
+deaf.
+
+The Methodist Conference has refused to allow women to be delegates to
+the General Conference. The Methodist sisters should discipline the
+Church.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What I know about the Universalists I like. They seem to think that
+we are all in the same boat, and that one stands as good a chance as
+another, of which I approve. When I was a child, Sylvanus Cobb, at that
+time the great Universalist preacher, preached in the adjoining town.
+One Sunday, my father and I went to hear him. His sermon caused a great
+commotion, and the Baptist who preached that terrific sermon about Hell
+said to my mother, "There is a wicked man about here preaching that
+everybody is to be saved; but, Sister Young, let us hope for better
+things!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I believe that the Unitarians, as a class, think for themselves. I
+approve of that, and the Evangelical Alliance disapproves of them. That
+is in their favor.
+
+I taught school at Lee, New Hampshire, fifty years ago. One of the
+committee was a Unitarian, and one was a Quaker. I was tired of
+selecting suitable reading matter from that obscene old book, the
+Bible, and I suggested that we read from some other book, which we did
+for two mornings, when the Unitarian materialized at the schoolhouse,
+and with much suavity suggested that we read from the Bible every
+morning, and recite the Lord's Prayer; and I, teaching school for my
+bread and butter, bowed to the suggestion, and the next morning said:
+"Pupils, Mr. Smith prefers that we read from the Bible. Therefore, we
+will this morning read the startling and authentic account of Jonah
+whilst he was stopping at the submarine hotel." That is the most
+narrow-minded thing I ever knew about a Unitarian; but I always thought
+Mr. Smith voiced the opinion of the parents of the pupils rather than
+his own.
+
+I am somewhat acquainted with the Church of the Latter-Day Saints,
+alias the Mormons. They are a prudent, industrious, painstaking people,
+and only about two per cent of them ever _did_ practise polygamy, and
+that is a very small proportion for any Christian church. Brigham
+Young never did have but seventeen wives, but Solomon had five hundred
+wives, and one thousand other lady friends, and David, whose honor
+and humility show greater in his psalms than in the history of his
+ordinary, every-day life, was, as the Bible says, a man after God's own
+heart.
+
+I am sure that Brigham Young compared favorably with David. And if God
+interviewed Moses, why shouldn't he have interviewed Joe Smith?
+
+There are more than one thousand religions. They are founded mostly on
+fraud. All their saviors had virgins for mothers, and gods for fathers.
+
+The churches own more than thirteen billions of property, and they are
+_all_ too dishonest to pay honest taxes. Many of the churches couldn't
+be run three weeks without the women. They do all the work, for which
+they get no credit.
+
+The churches claim all the distinguished people, especially after
+they are dead and hence can not deny their claims. They have many
+times claimed that Abraham Lincoln was a churchman. The Honorable
+H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, an old friend of Lincoln, said it is
+false. Lincoln belonged to no church, and at one time said, "I have
+never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in
+giving my assent without mental reservation to the long, complicated
+statements of Christian doctrine, which characterize their articles of
+belief, and confessions of faith." But still they claim him. Honest,
+very!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No institution in modern civilization is so tyrannical and so unjust to
+women as is the Christian church. The history of the Church does not
+contain a single suggestion for the equality of woman with man, and
+still the Church claims that woman owes her advancement to the Bible.
+She owes it much more to the dictionary.
+
+History, both ancient and modern, tells us that the condition of women
+is most degraded in those countries where Church and State are in
+closest affiliation (such as, Spain, Italy, Russia and Ireland), and
+most advanced in nations where the power of ecclesiasticism is markedly
+on the wane. It has been proved that, whatever progress woman has made
+in any department of effort, she has accomplished independent of, and
+in opposition to, the so-called inspired and infallible Word of God;
+and that the Bible has been of more injury to her than has any other
+book ever written in the history of the world.
+
+William Root Bliss, in his _Side Glimpses From the Colonial
+Meetinghouse_, tells us many startling truths concerning the Puritans,
+and reminds me of what Chauncey M. Depew said--that the _first_ thing
+the Puritans did, after they landed at Plymouth, was to fall on their
+knees, and the _second_ thing was to fall on the Aborigines.
+
+The business of trading in slaves was not immoral by the estimate of
+public opinion in Colonial times. A deacon of the church in Newport
+esteemed the slave trade, with its rum accessories, as home missionary
+work. It is said that on the first Sunday after the arrival of his
+slaves he was accustomed to offer thanks that an overruling Providence
+had been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of
+benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings of a Gospel dispensation.
+
+At a Bridgewater town meeting of the year Sixteen Hundred Seventy-six,
+a vote was called to see what should be done with the money that was
+made from selling the Indians.
+
+John Bacon of Barnstable directed in his will that his Indian slave
+Dinah be sold and the proceeds used "by my executors in buying Bibles."
+By men who sat in the Colonial meetinghouse, the first fugitive-slave
+law was formed. This law became a part of the Articles of Confederation
+between all the New England Colonies.
+
+The affinity between _rum_ and the religion of Colonial times was
+exemplified in the license granted John Vyall to keep a house of
+entertainment in Boston. He must keep it near the meetinghouse of the
+Second Church, where he extended his invitation to thirsty sinners who
+were going to hear John Mayo or Increase Mather preach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The importation of slaves began early. The first arrival at Boston
+was by the ship _Desire_, on February Twenty-sixth, Sixteen Hundred
+Thirty-seven, bringing negroes, tobacco and cotton from Barbados. She
+had sailed from Boston eleven months before, carrying Indian captives
+to the Bermudas to be sold as slaves, and thus she became noted as the
+first New England slave-ship.
+
+In time, slaves were brought to Boston direct from Africa.
+
+Advertisements of just-arrived negroes to be sold may be seen in the
+Boston _News Letter_ of the years Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six and
+Seventeen Hundred Twenty-seven. The pious Puritans did not hesitate to
+sell slaves on the auction-block. I find in the Boston _News Letter_
+of September Nineteenth, Seventeen Hundred Fifteen, a notice of an
+auction-sale at Newport, Rhode Island, of several Indians, men and
+boys, and a very likely negro man. They were treated in all respects as
+merchandise, and were rated with horses and cattle.
+
+Peter Faneuil, to whom Boston is indebted for its Cradle of Liberty,
+was deep in the business. In an inventory of the property of Parson
+Williams of Deerfield, in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine, his slaves
+were rated with his horses and cows. "Believe and be baptized" is all
+that was essential. I think many of them would have been improved by
+anchoring them out overnight.
+
+A negro preacher whom I knew came to me when I was in Florida, and
+said: "What shall I preach about tomorrow? I'se done preached myself
+'plumb out.' I'se worked on election sanctification and damnation
+predestination till I can't say another word to save my life."
+
+I said, "Preach a sermon on 'Thou shalt not steal' for a text."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that certainly _is_ a good text, but I am monstros
+'fraid it will produce a coolness in my congregation!"
+
+Doubtless it would produce a coolness in many a congregation today.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I want to talk a little about _law_ and its penalty. We want to
+consider the invariable laws of Nature. Let us look at it in the way in
+which we became acquainted with it--through experience.
+
+To the child, law is an educator; he plays with fire and is burned.
+Law and its penalty have done their work. A burnt child dreads the
+fire. On that point his education is complete. He cuts himself with a
+knife; again the law works. Do not play with edged tools is the lesson.
+And so, whenever he comes in contact with external objects, he learns
+something very definite from them; and if he has any sense, he soon
+conforms to the order which he sees in force all around him. He does
+what he can to act in such a way as not to run counter to Nature's
+laws; or, at least, Nature teaches him to do so by repeated suffering
+when he acts otherwise. The law thus far is all in favor of life,
+and is teaching the child to preserve it. He must eat not to starve;
+he must be clothed not to freeze; he must not be burned, or cut, or
+crushed. In one word, he must take care of himself, and be careful of
+external objects, or he must be hurt.
+
+But his education has another connection with law. If he has proper
+parents he learns that he can not lie, or steal, or do many other
+things without suffering a penalty. If he has no home education in
+this matter, the reform-school and the jail step in and take up the
+lesson.
+
+And so the law teaches him that his actions must be of a certain
+quality, both with respect to external Nature and his fellowmen, or
+that he must pay a penalty.
+
+Thus he comes to man's estate, and law has been to him an educator and
+a good one. He has learned that Nature's law means punishment every
+time it is violated, and that man's law, whatever it may attain to,
+_aims_ at the same object as Nature's law.
+
+But neither his education nor his contact with law ends with his
+youth. Hitherto he has obeyed blindly for fear of the penalty. He now
+obeys intelligently, and connected with the penalty to be incurred by
+disobedience is the reward to be obtained through obedience. He finds
+that every act, every thought, of his brings him in direct contact
+with law. He can not elude it by standing still, for no man can stand
+still. He must go forward, or backward. This is an inexorable law;
+with progress, improvement; without progress, what? Rest? Repose?
+No! Deterioration. No man can stand still in this universe for a day
+without losing something. The man who means to do anything in life must
+go forward; if he falters, another goes ahead; and then he learns that
+the penalty of faltering is failure.
+
+Nature works no special miracles in any one's favor. Nature works
+no miracles, anyway. The sun and the moon did _not_ stand still at
+Joshua's command!
+
+No riches and influence can buy exemption from Nature.
+
+Law says to the poor man who is dependent on his daily toil: "You have
+only yourself to rely upon. Take care of your health; be temperate,
+honest and industrious, for sickness, imprisonment, idleness, mean to
+you death."
+
+It says to the rich man: "Inherited wealth has exempted you from
+_daily_ labor of body, but it has not earned for you rest. Go to work;
+do something, or your mind and body will be enfeebled; your sympathies
+will disappear; you will become dry as the summer's dust; you will sink
+into a nonentity."
+
+The whole cry of Nature's law is onward and upward. Evolution is the
+word--there is no God about it. It is not alone the survival of the
+fittest--that is only a part of the process. It is the fittest of one
+generation becoming something better and higher for the next.
+
+It is the fashion now to say that the struggle for existence becomes
+yearly more fierce, but that is not so. The truth is that those who
+struggle become with each survival fitter to struggle, and that for
+which they struggle is placed one step forward. Men used to want
+thousands and hundreds of thousands; now, they want millions and
+hundreds of millions. They used to want general knowledge; now, they
+are all specialists, and cry out that life is too short. Steam used
+to content them; now, electricity does not satisfy them, and they are
+grasping at the possibilities of the mighty currents of air caused by
+the revolutions of the earth itself.
+
+The law of progress is not limited to the mind. The body shares in
+it. Men are stronger, larger, longer-lived than they have ever been.
+Even with the animals, finer, better breeds are constantly producing
+themselves under law.
+
+This law of the survival of the fittest and the elevation of the type
+of the fittest pronounced against slavery, and a nation paid the
+penalty in blood, as Spain has, and other nations will pay it. It has
+pronounced against the subjection of women, and let those who stand in
+the way, beware, lest some ruin crush them as it falls!
+
+The type of sympathy has become higher and tenderer. Sweet hands of
+mercy are now stretched down even to the brutes. Let those lovers of
+the past who can see no progress in the present, who would question
+this onward tendency, and the result of law, let them remember
+that they must run rapidly to keep from being overwhelmed by the
+_expansionists_.
+
+Nature's law teaches us that like begets like. You plant a grain of
+wheat, and you reap wheat. You breed Morgan stock and the foal is of
+Morgan blood. The child is the offspring of certain parents, and it
+inherits their blood. If parents choose to unfit themselves to be
+healthy parents, who shall be blamed?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shall gravitation cease as I go by? Teach children that no amount of
+so-called religion will compensate for rheumatism; that Christianity
+has nothing to do with morality; that "vicarious atonement" is a fraud,
+and a lie; that to be born well and strong is the highest birth; that
+to be honest and pay one's debts spells peace of mind; that the Bible
+is no more inspired than the dictionary; that _sin_ is a transgression
+of the laws of life, and that the blood of all the bulls and goats
+and lambs of ancient times, and the blood of Christ or any other man,
+never had, and never can have, the least effect in making a life what
+it would have been had it obeyed the laws of life. If you have marred
+your life, you must bear the consequences. If you have made a mistake,
+be more careful in the future. Let the thought that the past is
+irretrievable make you more careful in the present and for the future.
+
+And, above all, teach children that prayer is idiotic. There may be
+one God or twenty. I do not know or care. I am not afraid, and no
+priest or parson can make me believe that my title to a future life, if
+there be one, is defective. And the great and good man Thomas Paine,
+who wrote the _Age of Reason_, and said, "The world is my country, and
+to do good my religion," is a good enough god for me. And the great
+Ingersoll, who said, "I belong to the great Church that holds the world
+within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every
+race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed
+and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul," is
+in my opinion an excellent god--as good as any that ever lived, from
+Confucius to Christ. A friend of mine said to me, "Ingersoll should
+have been a Christian." I replied, "The dog-collar of Christianity did
+not belong on his neck: he preached the truth; he preferred that to the
+Bible. I can not imagine the great Ingersoll preaching from II Kings
+xiv: 35."
+
+  _When I was a child I heard very little about Christmas and nothing
+  about Lent and Easter. I was taught to be honest and truthful and
+  to pay one hundred cents on a dollar. In my opinion there is no
+  Bible extant so good as Ingersoll's Complete Works._
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER
+
+
+
+
+  Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear
+  believes--courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and
+  prays--courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats--courage
+  advances. Fear is barbarism--courage is civilization. Fear believes
+  in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion--courage
+  is science.
+
+  There are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. All
+  progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing
+  the laws of the ghosts.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER
+
+A LABOR OF FOLLY
+
+_From the Portsmouth "Times"_
+
+
+Our old friend, Marilla M. Ricker, of Dover, lifelong advocate of
+"woman's rights," zealous champion of "freethought," admirer of Bob
+Ingersoll, worshiper of Tom Paine, and collaborator of Elbert Hubbard,
+who fears neither God, man nor the Devil, because she does not believe
+particularly in any of them, is engaged in a labor of folly, in that
+she is fighting the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul.
+
+In the prosecution of her warfare she has gone into print and issued
+a pamphlet in which she takes issue, primarily, with one Elder E. A.
+Kenyon upon his proposition of a universal consciousness that "if a man
+die he shall live again," and even goes so far as to assert that the
+majority of mankind believe in annihilation. Moreover, she pronounces
+the doctrine of personal immortality "a most selfish and harmful one,"
+"pernicious in its results," and operating for the enslavement of
+mankind, filling the world with gloom and making of man a crawling
+coward.
+
+We invite no controversy with Marilla, and will have none. We concede
+her right to believe anything, or nothing, to say what she thinks,
+write what she pleases, get it printed where she may, and circulate
+it as she can; but our advice to the dear sister is to "let up" on
+this contention, wherein she is out-Ingersolling Ingersoll. He did not
+believe in immortality, but he did not deny it. He claimed that he did
+not know, and that no man could know it to be a fact; but he never
+sought to blot out hope. And the truth is that but for this hope of
+immortal existence, entertained by the vast majority of the race, in
+all lands and ages, life would not be worth living, and men and women
+everywhere would lie down and perish in despair. It is this hope, or
+faith, or consciousness--however we may express it--of life beyond
+the grave, or the immortality of the soul, that inspires mankind to
+all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for progress and
+development here. Without it there would be no incentive effort beyond
+that which impels the brute. Without it, in fact, man would be mere
+brute, and nothing else.
+
+That the horrid doctrines of Calvinism were dinned into Mrs. Ricker's
+ears in childhood, and the fear of eternal torment held up before her,
+instead of the infinite love of a God of Mercy and Justice, may have
+impelled her to repudiate all idea of God or Justice, or life to
+come; but she ought to be intelligent enough to sift the error from
+the truth and cling to the latter. If not, she should at least be
+willing to allow others to do so. She may repudiate the old Calvinism,
+or even Christianity itself. She may become a Mohammedan, a Buddhist,
+an Agnostic or an out-and-out "heathen" if she will. She may accept
+annihilation as the universal fate of humanity; but she should be
+willing to allow mankind in general its indulgence in that one "Great
+Hope," which has illumined with immortal splendor the darkest passages
+of human life, and sustains the soul of man and woman in the severest
+trials and conflicts of earth.
+
+
+THE REJOINDER
+
+(_From the Portsmouth "Times"_)
+
+I was amused when I read in the Portsmouth _Times_ an article from my
+friend Metcalf, entitled, A _Labor of Folly_. The genial Henry said
+I was a lifelong advocate of "woman's rights," which is true. And an
+admirer of Ingersoll. Could any one help admire that great and good
+man? And a worshiper of Thomas Paine. Worship is rather a strong word
+to apply to me, but I think the man who said, "The world is my country,
+and to do good my religion," and who did more than any other man to
+put the stars on our flag and to give that flag to the breeze, should
+be loved and respected.
+
+He, the aforesaid Henry, said I collaborated with Elbert Hubbard. I am
+proud of that, whether it is true or not.
+
+I consider Hubbard the most brilliant writer in this country.
+
+Henry also said I feared neither God, man nor the Devil, because I did
+not believe particularly in any of them. If he would add an "o" to
+God and make it good, take the "d" from devil and make it evil, then
+I would have something tangible to write about besides man, in whom I
+believe.
+
+Henry also said that I was engaged in a "labor of folly," fighting the
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
+
+I simply expressed my opinion on the subject. My friend Henry wrote me
+not long ago that there was no earthly need of a Freethought paper;
+that thought was as free as air always and everywhere. I take issue
+with him there, and I call his attention to the _Little Journey_ to
+the home of Copernicus--of January, Nineteen Hundred Five--by Elbert
+Hubbard. Copernicus was the founder of modern astronomy.
+
+If Henry will read his life he can see what freethought meant at that
+time. I also call his attention to Giordano Bruno. He can see what
+happened to him and how free thought was at that time. Henry said I
+could write what I pleased, and get it printed where I could.
+
+That was well added, for I could not in the year Nineteen Hundred Nine,
+in the city of Dover, New Hampshire, get my article on Immortality
+printed in the only paper in the city; so you see how freethought is up
+to date.
+
+I certainly "take issue" with Henry, "That the hope or consciousness
+of life beyond the grave, or immortality of the soul, inspires mankind
+to all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for progress and
+development here."
+
+Robert Ingersoll did not believe in immortality, but he was a great,
+tender-hearted man, full of kindness, full of generous impulses. No man
+ever loved the true, the good and the beautiful more than he. He would
+take the case of a poor man into court without pay; he would give a
+young reporter an interview when he could sell every word he spoke for
+a dollar; he would present the proceeds of a lecture to some worthy
+object as though he were throwing a nickel to an organ-grinder; and
+when there was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.
+
+I do not believe in individual immortality, but I do the best I can,
+pay one hundred cents on the dollar, and I am not afraid to die. I
+know thousands who believe as I do.
+
+John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed in the immortality
+of the soul--so do his followers. He also believed that sin was the
+cause of earthquakes, and the only way to stop them was to believe in
+the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't know much about seismology, but he
+certainly had faith, plus.
+
+John Calvin founded the Presbyterian Church; he believed in the
+immortality of the soul. So do his followers; but Calvin was a murderer.
+
+Henry, it is absurd to say that without hope of immortality we should
+be degraded to brutes; in my opinion it is not true. What we want is a
+religion that will pay debts; that will practise honesty in business
+life; that will treat employees with justice and consideration;
+that will render employers full and faithful work; that will keep
+bank-cashiers true, officeholders patriotic, and reliable citizens
+interested in the purity of politics (and the woman citizen will
+be)--such a religion is real, vital and effective. But a religion that
+embraces vicarious atonement, miraculous conception, regeneration by
+faith, baptism, individual immortality and other monkey business is, in
+my opinion, degrading, absurd and unworthy.
+
+Henry, you say you want no controversy with me. I enjoy controversy,
+but if you are averse to it I'll stop and we will unite in singing one
+stanza of that Christian hymn:
+
+    King David and King Solomon
+      Led merry, merry lives
+    With their many, many lady friends
+      And their many, many wives;
+    But when old age came o'er them
+      With its many, many qualms,
+    (It was said)
+    King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
+      And King David wrote the Psalms.
+
+But did they?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  Where religion is afraid of liberty, liberty should be afraid of
+  religion.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  So long as man believes that he has an immortal soul, he will fear
+  the future.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY GHOST
+
+
+
+
+  For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men
+  and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great
+  ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between
+  Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor,
+  to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this
+  world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle,
+  to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have
+  said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!"
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY GHOST
+
+
+Of all the weird, fanciful and fabulous stories appertaining to
+the gods and other pious frauds, that concerning the Holy Ghost
+ranks them all! Now listen to what the Bible has to say about
+that mythical personage--alias, the Holy Ghost. You will see that
+scarcely any two references to it agree in assigning it the same
+character or attributes. (It reminds me of what an old lady said at a
+prayer-meeting: "Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to me that there
+are no two of a mind here tonight, nor hardly one!")
+
+In John xiv: 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a person or personal
+God. In Luke iii: 22, the Holy Ghost changes and assumes the form of
+a dove. In Matthew xiii: 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit. In John
+i: 32, the Holy Ghost is presented as an inanimate senseless object.
+In I John v: 7, the Holy Ghost becomes a God--the third member of
+the Trinity. In Acts ii: 1, the Holy Ghost is averred to be a mighty
+rushing wind. In Acts x: 38, the Holy Ghost, we infer from its mode
+of application, is an ointment. In John xx: 22, the Holy Ghost is the
+breath, as we legitimately infer by its being breathed into the mouth
+of the recipient after the ancient Oriental custom. In Acts ii: 3, we
+learn the Holy Ghost "sat upon each of them." In Acts ii: 1, the Holy
+Ghost appears as cloven tongues of fire. In Luke ii: 26, the Holy Ghost
+is the author of a revelation or inspiration. In Mark i: 8, the Holy
+Ghost is a medium or element for baptism. In Acts xxviii: 25, the Holy
+Ghost appears with vocal organs and speaks. In Hebrews vi: 4, the Holy
+Ghost is dealt out or imparted by measure. In Luke iii: 22 the Holy
+Ghost appears with a tangible body. In Luke i: 5, we are taught that
+people are filled with the Holy Ghost. In Matthew xi: 15, the Holy Ghost
+falls upon the people as a ponderable substance. In Luke iv: 1, the Holy
+Ghost is a God within a God--Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.
+
+These are only a few quotations. There are many more, but we can all
+see what a multifarious personage, or rather _he_, _she_, or _it_ the
+Holy Ghost is.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember hearing much about the unpardonable sin against the Holy
+Ghost. The sin against the Holy Ghost consisted in resisting its
+operations in the second birth--that is, the regeneration of the heart
+or soul by the Holy Ghost. And it was considered unpardonable simply
+because as the pardoning and cleansing process consisted in, or was at
+least always accompanied with, baptism by water, in which operation
+the Holy Ghost was the agent in effecting the "new birth," therefore,
+when the ministrations or operations of this indispensable agent were
+resisted or rejected, there was no channel, no means, no possible mode
+left for the sinner to find a renewed acceptance with God.
+
+When a person sinned against the Father or the Son, he could find a
+door of forgiveness through the baptizing processes, spiritual or
+elementary, of the Holy Ghost. But an offense committed against this
+third limb of the Godhead had the effect of closing and barring the
+door so that there could be no forgiveness, either in this life or in
+that which is to come.
+
+To sin against the Holy Ghost was to tear down the scaffold by which
+the door of Heaven was to be reached. This _sin_ against the Holy Ghost
+has caused thousands of the disciples of the Christian faith the most
+agonizing hours of alarm and despair.
+
+It has always been my opinion that many people who thought they had
+sinned against the Holy Ghost simply had dyspepsia.
+
+  _If people should deceive in other matters as the priests, parsons
+  and teachers do in religion, they would not escape arrest._
+
+
+
+
+  The destruction of religions and superstition means the upbuilding
+  of charity and ethics.--_Ralph W. Chainey._
+
+  Superstition is nothing but a misplaced fear of some fancied
+  supernatural phantasm of divinity.
+
+
+
+
+HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?
+
+
+
+
+  All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce,
+  climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention,
+  discovery, art and science. The Church has been the enemy of
+  progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man
+  from thinking for himself. To prevent thought is to prevent all
+  advancement except in the direction of faith.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?
+
+
+I receive many letters from various people telling me that Christ is
+mine if I will only take him. I am always amused at the solicitations
+of these people and feel as President Taft did when Peary "laid the
+Pole" at his feet. Taft replied he had no idea what he should do with
+it. I should not know what to do with Christ if I took him.
+
+What can they mean by taking Christ? The word Christ is used to
+designate a certain individual who died, if he ever lived, nearly two
+thousand years ago. Now to take this person we should have to take
+him from the earth where he was buried. I am at a loss to comprehend
+what Christians mean when they offer Christ to any one. What right has
+an individual today to offer another a person who has been dead two
+thousand years? I fail to see any sense in such an offer.
+
+Certain men and women go about the world asking people to come to
+Christ, to accept Christ. What do they mean--do they know?
+
+In my opinion the supreme dogma of Christianity is the divinity of
+Jesus. If Jesus was a man, all that was related of his divine acts
+in the four Gospels is false. How would a person like the Nazarene
+peasant be accepted today were he to play the part of a god?
+
+Suppose a person who had lived in our neighborhood should come to us
+and say, "I am God, and I want you to help me save the world; quit your
+work and follow me." What would you think of him? Would any one pay
+the least attention to him, except to think he was insane and have him
+placed in an asylum for safety?
+
+The people who are preaching the divinity of Jesus know nothing about
+him except what they read in a book that was written by unknown
+authors. Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology. He is the only
+solution of the divine problem that Christianity has to offer. Is
+not the direction of the world's most rational thought away from the
+Christian notion of Jesus? In my opinion it is.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us look at the once famous stronghold of New England Orthodoxy, the
+Andover Theological Seminary, which was chartered on June Nineteenth,
+Eighteen Hundred Seven, and opened for instruction on September
+Twenty-eighth, Eighteen Hundred Eight. I think it was about seven years
+ago that it was transferred to Cambridge and became a part of Harvard
+University. At that time the school consisted of seven instructors,
+twelve students and a library of sixty-five thousand books, with an
+endowment of eight hundred fifty thousand dollars in productive funds
+and an annual income of thirty-five thousand dollars.
+
+It has been said that the highways were scoured every Summer for
+students, and enticing scholarships held out, but to no avail. No
+students materialized.
+
+Why is this? In my opinion it is the rising generation's
+dissatisfaction with traditional theology; they have outgrown it.
+Ingersoll said that once in five years the President of the Seminary
+summoned his professors before him to make oath that they had learned
+absolutely nothing during the preceding five years and would not learn
+anything for the next five years. And that promise was not subject to
+recall.
+
+But even Andover couldn't remain in that condition. In Eighteen Hundred
+Eighty-six it announced its new system of "progressive orthodoxy." This
+created a division between the Old School and the New, and marked the
+beginning of the end of Andover; and after much litigation it consented
+to be "gathered in" by Harvard or "swallowed," or perhaps they would
+say "merged."
+
+They have now a new building located upon land adjacent to that of
+Harvard University, and the last account from the "Great Seminary" was
+that they had twenty-four pupils. The library of the Seminary and
+that of the Harvard Divinity School have been combined and are housed
+together in Bartlett Hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The defenders of the Gospel of Christ don't seem to be increasing;
+on the contrary, there seems to be great depression in matters
+ecclesiastical these days, even in puritanical New England. It
+plainly shows that the young men of the present day are not anxious
+to wear the "Dog-Collar of Christianity," and as far as I've heard no
+Christian arose to remark that the morals of the "Reverend" Clarence
+Richeson were contaminated by reading the words of Thomas Paine, Robert
+Ingersoll, Elbert Hubbard or Lemuel K. Washburn. The Reverend Clarence
+seemed to be a product of the Christian Bible, and talked to the last
+of his God and his Bible.
+
+What is left of Christianity? Who wrote the Christian Bible? The
+smallest child in a Sunday School would answer the question by saying
+"God," but the most learned person on the globe would say, "I do
+not know." It is being admitted by thinking persons that answers to
+religious questions possess nothing more than a religious value. When
+a person is graduated from a Sunday School he is wiser than he will be
+after he has lived forty years, provided he learns anything by living.
+
+"God" is a term used to express what man does not know, but it does
+not seem to me necessary to assign to the Bible divine authorship, as
+it can be accounted for on other grounds. It is certain that men and
+women have written books. It is not certain that there is a God and,
+if so, that he has written a book. If man could write the Bible, there
+seems to be no need for God to do so. It is a fact that no one knows
+who wrote a word of the Bible, and yet it will require many more years
+to kill the foolish superstition that God inspired certain men to write
+this book.
+
+Nothing grows slower than truth, and nothing faster than superstition.
+Falsehood was never known to commit suicide. Unknown men wrote the
+Christian Bible, not an unknown God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not many years ago I saw that a teacher in the Holyoke (Massachusetts)
+High School was dismissed for saying that Jesus was one of a family of
+ten. Jesus is a word that paralyzes the mental faculties. As to the
+accuracy of the statement we have only the Gospels for authority. At
+any rate, if Matthew and Mark are reliable he had four brothers and
+sisters.
+
+In Matthew xiii: 54 we read: "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not
+his mother called Mary, and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon,
+and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"
+
+Mark confirms Matthew about the size of Mary's family.
+
+I tried to learn something concerning this case, but silence a yard
+wide lay all about it. I fancy the teacher was silenced in some way.
+Leastwise I could learn nothing.
+
+It doesn't take much to silence a teacher, or it didn't fifty years
+ago, especially if she were dependent upon teaching for her bread and
+butter, which I was.
+
+I, at one time, tried to substitute one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's books
+to be read in school in the morning instead of the Christian Bible. I
+was informed by one of the committee that the Bible must be read every
+morning and the Ten Commandments repeated. The next morning I selected
+the "truthful" and startling account of Jonah whilst he was sojourning
+at the Submarine Hotel. I at that time made up my mind that if I were
+ever financially independent I'd say what I thought concerning the
+Christian religion, and no one doubts that I've done so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology. It can be but a few years
+at most when faith in Jesus as God will be the mark of intellectual
+stupidity. It seems to me that mankind will soon be sensible enough to
+dismiss this dogma to eternal oblivion.
+
+It is the last relic of heathen mythology that clings to modern
+civilization. The Christian church is put to its utmost ingenuity to
+hide the absurdity in this dogma.
+
+The dogma of the divinity of Jesus rests upon fictitious events, and
+hence its fate is sealed.
+
+Many persons regard any one that calls Jesus a man as a blasphemer.
+There is a great amount of pious nonsense in the world, and there
+is more connected with Jesus than with any other character whom
+Christendom honors.
+
+The reverence paid to Jesus by Christians is the homage of idolatry.
+
+The first thing for people to do is to get rid of the silly notion that
+there is anything holy in the name of Jesus any more than in the name
+of Hercules, Bacchus or Adonis. All the gods of the past are myths to
+the present. Jesus stands in the way of the world's advancement. The
+path of civilization is over his grave. The mind has been fettered by
+worship of this myth. We want to get rid of the Christian superstition.
+
+  _Isn't it astonishing that many children should be taught about the
+  "resurrection" before they can spell cat?_
+
+
+
+
+  Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there
+  is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty
+  born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of
+  theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance.
+  Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master,
+  and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.
+
+  When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain
+  thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to
+  insure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession.
+  He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers
+  and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people
+  who will be glorified and people who will be damned.
+
+                                             --_Robert Ingersoll._
+
+
+
+
+COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+
+
+
+
+  We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no devils.--_Robert
+  Ingersoll._
+
+  The world is my country and to do good is my religion.--_Thomas
+  Paine._
+
+  The presence of a hypocrite is a sure indication that there is a
+  Bible and a prayer-book not very far away.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+
+
+It is difficult to sketch this many-sided man. He was full of pity and
+sympathy for the poor and unfortunate. He was great enough to applaud
+the good, and good enough to forgive the erring. He could charm a child
+with his speech, or sway thousands by his magic words. He was the
+supreme philosopher of commonsense.
+
+He knew how to answer a fool, but he never forgot to be courteous to
+an opponent. He would take the case of a poor man into court without
+pay; he would give a young reporter an interview when he could sell
+every word he spoke for a dollar; he would present the proceeds of a
+lecture to some worthy object as though he were throwing a nickel to
+an organ-grinder; he would lead a reform with a dozen workers if he
+believed them in the right, just as if he had a million followers;
+and where there was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.
+Ingersoll was the truest American that America ever bore.
+
+He was the orator of her rivers and mountains, of her hills and dales,
+of her forests and flowers, of her struggles and victories, of her
+free institutions, of her Stars and Stripes--the orator of the home,
+of wife and child, of love and liberty. The head, heart and hand of
+Ingersoll were perfectly united and worked together. As he thought
+he acted; when he had anything to say, he said it aloud. He was not
+ashamed of his thoughts. He did not hide or go around the corner, or
+beat about the bush. He spoke honestly what he saw, what he thought,
+what he knew.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT
+
+
+
+
+  The entire New Testament is the work of Catholic
+  Churchmen.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  God is not a fact; nothing that can be seen, heard or felt; nothing
+  that can be found out or in. God is a verbal content.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT
+
+
+The best thing Mark Twain ever said was, "I should like to see the
+ballot in the hands of every woman." Freethinkers should also remember
+him with gratitude; he said enough from our point of view to warrant
+that. "Give me my glasses," were his last words. It will be but a short
+time before some pious evangelical hypocrite will add, "I want to
+read my Bible!" They are already writing about his "highest sphere of
+thought," namely, his religious thought.
+
+I remember when a Presbyterian deacon said of him, "I would rather
+bury a daughter of mine than have her marry such a fellow." The church
+people are all anxious to avoid their own history concerning Mark Twain
+and many other people.
+
+The Reverend Doctor Twitchell said at Mark's funeral that a simple soul
+had gone trustingly to the beyond. He didn't mention where the beyond
+was, and he prayed to the Christian God that courage in the faith of
+immortality be given to those who mourn.
+
+Through all these Christian notices runs an undercurrent that Mark
+Twain was only secondarily a humorist. I knew him somewhat in the old
+days and have heard him lecture. He certainly laughed superstition from
+the minds of thousands, and the most of his books bear witness to his
+broad and liberal views.
+
+The Reverend Doctor Van Dyke mixed much religious sophistry with
+his remarks at the funeral of Twain, but the reverend doctor is a
+theological acrobat.
+
+He preached once on the Atonement, and said there are a thousand
+true doctrines of the Atonement, which is saying substantially that
+no doctrine specifically is true--for instance, the doctrine of the
+Westminster Confession, to which Van Dyke pledged loyalty when he
+was ordained a Presbyterian minister. He at that time ripped up the
+Westminster settlement, and reopened the whole question for discussion.
+
+Any preacher who believes in the geology of Moses, the astronomy of
+Joshua, and the mathematics of the Trinity, must do an immense amount
+of "side-stepping."
+
+  _Christianity is only a bubble of superstition, and Jesus is
+  reduced to a toy god of the Sunday School._
+
+
+
+
+AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE ON RELIGION
+
+
+
+
+  Religion is inherited fear.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  In my opinion a steeple is no more to be excluded from taxation
+  than a smokestack.
+
+  Faith is the cross on which man crucifies his liberty.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE
+
+
+We are living in the Twentieth Century of what is called the Christian
+Era, and we have not outgrown the superstitions of the First Century.
+And worse than this, we have not had the courage to abandon the
+fictions of the Book of Genesis for the truths of modern science. Just
+what the world is afraid of, that it fears to trust its senses, its
+reason, its knowledge, surpasses my understanding.
+
+One of the first things that men and women should learn is, that there
+is nothing in the universe to be afraid of; that all the malignant
+deities are dead; that the ancient gods that presided over the destiny
+of earth and of earthly things have all fallen from the sky; that in
+the realm of Nature everything is natural, and that no man is pursued
+by a god of wrath and vengeance who would punish him for his unbelief.
+Every god that can not hear the truth without getting mad should be
+dethroned. Every priest who can not join in singing the songs of
+civilization should be warned to look out for the engine while the bell
+rings.
+
+This world of ours is a world to be enjoyed, but it can not be enjoyed
+if we fear every manifestation of Nature and if we put a cruel god
+behind every cloud.
+
+Let us live without fear, without superstition, without religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is nothing above, beneath or around you that cares whether you
+are a Christian or an unbeliever. The real reason why a priest hates an
+unbeliever is that he can not get a dollar out of him. He damns those
+who know better than to swallow his say-sos. But it still remains a
+fact that an infidel can raise as many bushels of potatoes to the acre
+as can the Roman Catholic. The sun will not wrong an honest man. The
+stars will not punish a single human being for telling the truth. The
+sky will not persecute a person who gives his thoughts, his talents,
+his time, to finding ways to help mankind.
+
+Everything that man believes in that can not be found, that can not be
+proved, that can not stand the test of commonsense: everything that
+contradicts Nature, that is opposed to established facts, that is
+contrary to the laws of the universe, must be given up.
+
+We must have a new man: the man born of woman, not the man made by
+God; the man who has been growing better ever since his advent on
+earth, not the man who has been growing worse; the man who started
+with nothing and has conquered the earth, the sea and the air; not
+the man who began perfect and has not got halfway back; the man who
+made the telescope, the steam-engine, the power-loom, the telephone and
+the wireless telegraph; not the man who made the thumbscrew, the rack,
+the ducking-stool and the stocks; the man who has carried the torch
+of liberty to enlighten the world, not the man who has carried the
+crucifix to enslave mankind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is quite common to be told what Moses said or what Jesus said. Now,
+if all that these two Hebrew gentlemen (who in my opinion never lived)
+said, is preserved in the Bible, I appeal from what they said to those
+who know more. I assert that Moses said a lot of stuff that isn't so,
+and a lot more that never was so, and that all that Jesus is said to
+have said is practically worthless to the world today; that there is
+not in all of his utterances a single word that will help man to get a
+living, a single word that will aid man in his struggle for knowledge;
+that there is not a statement of a single scientific fact, or a plea
+for human liberty in all his language. He told his generation nothing
+that was not already known, except a mess of superstitious nonsense
+about angels and devils, heavens and hells. His so-called gospel of
+salvation was to follow him, and he landed on a cross.
+
+The truth is this: the world has outgrown Moses and Jesus. It does
+not take commands from either. This age believes in work, not worship;
+in deeds, not prayers; in men, not monks; in liberty, not in pious
+obedience; in human rights, not in submission; in knowledge, not in
+revelation.
+
+For hundreds of years man was bound by a religious faith, and the
+priest was his cruel master. He dared not doubt; he dared not rebel;
+he dared not dream of freedom; but there came a time when religious
+tyranny could no longer be borne. Then Mankind cried out to the Church:
+Give back man's brain to man; restore to him the mind you have robbed
+him of; take from his head and heart the paralyzing fear that makes him
+a coward and a slave, and leave to him the liberty with which Nature
+dowered him, that his mind may discover and preserve those mighty
+thoughts which make man brave, honest, free and happy.
+
+That cry was heard far. It was heard by glad ears, and liberty sprang
+from the ground like the warriors from the fabled dragon-teeth of
+Cadmus. The war between liberty and tyranny, between fact and fable,
+between truth and falsehood, between man and priest, was on, and for
+centuries this war has raged, nor is it yet over. Freedom still lies
+bleeding, but victory for the right will sooner or later be won.
+
+That victory will not be complete until every man will dare to say:
+Let come what will come, no man, be he priest, minister or judge, shall
+sit upon the throne of my mind, and decide for me what is right, true
+or good. I am my own master, my own teacher, my own guide. I will keep
+my reason free from control and will never surrender my own convictions
+to the dictates of another.
+
+Nature has made every man commander of his own destiny.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we are yet victims of ecclesiastical villainy. The priest is still
+the worst enemy of mankind. His church is like that monster of fiction
+which lived on little children. In the name of the children I protest
+against the action of the Church in stealing their tender brains, in
+making them slaves of superstition before they are old enough to know
+to what they are doomed.
+
+The age of consent to a religious faith should be determined by law,
+if necessary. Today any boy or girl may be the victim of a designing
+priest or clergyman, or of a designing religious system.
+
+No person under eighteen years of age should be allowed to join a
+church or consent to a statement of faith. Mental purity should be
+guarded and protected as well as physical purity.
+
+While the Church is powerful in numbers and while its religion is
+supported by wealth and fashion, the world is becoming more and more
+emancipated from its pernicious influence. The light that truth gives
+is still ahead of us, but _it is there_, and some day the world will
+grow warmer under its rays and men become better and kinder to one
+another.
+
+A hundred years ago the God worshiped in orthodox churches went about
+drowning little boys and girls who went skating on Sundays. Those were
+the "good old days" when men and women had religion for breakfast,
+dinner and supper, and took it to bed with them. It takes a long time
+to get such a horrible religion out of the system.
+
+Men and women still have a mean faith, a faith which can see others
+damned with satisfaction if they can only be saved. Nothing but a mean
+religion could make men and women as mean as that. I would rather
+starve than preach the doctrine of endless pain for a human being--or
+even for a dog. I believe that this world is hard and dark and cruel
+enough without borrowing suffering from another world to make darker
+and harder the road of life and add torture to the nights of pain and
+misery.
+
+A church must be sunk pretty low when it lives on the fears and tears
+of mankind; but what lower depths of degradation does it sound when it
+can deliberately create fears and tears that it may live and thrive
+in its vile and cruel business! A human being without pity should be
+shunned and despised; but a human being who can fill the heart with
+terror should not be allowed in a civilized community.
+
+The mind today wants to get out into the open, into the free daylight,
+wants to walk the earth, look at the stars and sky, feel the warmth of
+the sun and smell the odor of the ground; it has become tired of being
+shut up in a faith, in a creed, in a church; tired of being kept in
+the darkness of the past, in the tomb of dead thoughts, in the moldy
+caskets of unreal things, and in the dungeon of fear.
+
+The mind is striving to break the chains of the priest and be free from
+the bonds of the Church.
+
+You can not have men free where the priest demands and claims their
+obedience. The greatest menace to our national institutions is the
+power that controls men; that controls their thoughts, their actions
+and their destinies. Liberty can survive only where men are free:
+free to think, free to read, free to speak and free to act. The mind
+must not be bound by any vow of obedience. One man, no matter what
+his office, what his position, what his rank, has no right to compel
+another's obedience. This is the worst oppression on earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What is needed in this country is more men who dare think and speak
+for themselves; who dare belong to no church; who dare work for the
+right as they see it, and speak the truth as they understand it; who
+dare live their own lives independent of fashion's demands or society's
+usages; who dare put liberty above conformity, and who dare defy
+customs, law and religion in their zeal to help their fellow-beings.
+
+There is more than one liberty--more than the liberty to do right--that
+is partly won for every civilized being. There is another liberty that
+is dangerous and that persists even where civilization exists--the
+liberty to take another's liberty from him. This liberty is usually
+taken from another in the name of God and what is called holy; but
+there is nothing on earth so holy as liberty, and he who takes it from
+another robs him of the dearest right possessed by man. Binding a human
+being with the chains of faith before that being is old enough to judge
+whether the faith is reasonable or true is the assassination of freedom.
+
+The greatest danger which confronts our nation today is not political
+but religious, and the preservation of our free institutions does not
+depend upon our army and navy, but upon the emancipation of the human
+mind from ecclesiastical slavery. As Thomas Paine well said, "Spiritual
+freedom is the root of political liberty." You can not have free
+schools, free speech and a free press where the mind is not free.
+
+There is too much faith in this country and too little sense. Men have
+given up about everything they possess to be saved; but it is more
+necessary, and more commendable in the workingmen of this nation, to
+save their dollars than to save their souls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A subject that needs to be investigated quite as much as, if not more
+than, the high cost of living is the high cost of worship. There may be
+some justice in the criticism of the price of meats. We must remember,
+however, that we do get something for our money when we buy meat, but
+let us not forget that we get absolutely nothing for the money spent
+for worship. Money given to the Church is lost to the world. It is
+not used to improve homes; to help the poor and needy; to alleviate
+suffering; to bring hope to the sick or to give a few comforts to old
+age. It goes into the pocket of ecclesiastical greed.
+
+This country just at present is suffering from those twin curses of
+humanity--religion and Bull-Mooseism. The priest and Bull-Mooseism
+are the two worst trouble-makers in this country. To get rid of this
+precious pair of knaves would be to bring peace on earth and hasten the
+dawn.
+
+I don't know which is the bigger knave, the priest or the Bull-Mooser,
+but I do know that the priest is engaged in the meaner business of the
+two.
+
+When a man tries to sell me a mouse-trap to catch elephants, I am
+suspicious of his mental sanity; and when a man tells me that eternal
+happiness can be won by enlisting in his salvation army, I question
+his moral sanity. I know that religion is offered at cut rates, but
+there is no discount on morality. You can not have the reward of good
+behavior unless you behave. You may save your soul by saying, "I
+believe," but you have to _do_ something to save your body.
+
+There is too much of this "believe-in-me" business. You don't want to
+believe in any one you know nothing about. The faith of a little child
+in its parents is beautiful, but the faith of a grown-up man in a
+priest is idiotic. Faith has ruined more than it has saved. With faith
+goes obedience, and he or she who obeys is lost.
+
+There is no honest call today to believe, because there is opportunity
+to know. Faith is hatched in the nest of imposition. He who yields
+obedience is a fool, and he who demands it is a scoundrel.
+
+In this age, as in the past, a lie made "holy" is allowed to
+assassinate the truth. Nothing is cursing this nation; nothing is
+cursing human life; nothing is cursing honest effort and brave striving
+so much as what is called holiness. It is holy to believe all you are
+told; holy to wear the robes of hypocrisy; holy to rob the poor in the
+name of God, and holy to put the poison of faith to the lips of a
+child. It is holy to repudiate Nature and make a lie of your body, your
+mind, your life. To purify the dwelling-place of man, it is necessary
+to drive from the earth everything that religion has made holy.
+
+The only really sacred things were holy before a church was ever built,
+before there was a priest on the globe.
+
+Human love and the home which human love built for its offspring were
+the first holy things which men and women knew, and it is this human
+love of ours which is holier than mosque, temple or church; holier than
+priestly robe or ecclesiastical rite; holier by far than all the holy
+things of faith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Church has always lived by robbing the home; the priest has always
+lived on the wages of the toiler. The gods of religion have never done
+aught to lighten the heavy load on the shoulders of labor. The priest
+has said to mankind that his Lord left this consolation to the world:
+"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give
+you rest."
+
+What the priest really means is this: Come unto me and I will do the
+rest; and by the time he has done it, there is nothing of manhood left.
+
+The priest also teaches that his Lord and Master said, "Ask and ye
+shall receive," and adds, "The Lord will provide." How many poor
+wretches have believed those words; but their outstretched hands
+withered away day by day, and at last dropped empty by their sides.
+There they lay white and cold, holding not the bread they fondly
+expected, but holding the hand of death.
+
+It may be pious and it may be beautiful to say, "The Lord will
+provide," but it is a lie just the same. When, the other day, the
+bodies of a mother and her two children were being carried to the
+grave with the words, "starved to death," written on their faces, but
+not written on their caskets, it was a sufficient refutation of the
+religious teaching that "The Lord will provide." It is the plain,
+unvarnished truth that the Lord will _not_ even provide the coffin for
+the poor victim of such a false, deceptive, religious faith.
+
+In olden times it was customary for the Church to say, God's light
+lights the world. Not so today. God's light has gone out. It is man's
+light that lights the world and the Church too. Our enlightenment is
+human, not divine. No altar of religion burns with the fire of truth.
+Science carries the torch of knowledge: liberty is the way and truth is
+the goal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On our earth gods no longer make their homes. It was not safe for them
+to live any more. Their sons may once have married the daughters of
+men, but they can not get a license to do so today. Parents will not
+stand for it.
+
+So the gods have gone, bag and baggage. Where they have gone, no one
+knows. The skies give no sign that they are hiding up there. The
+telescope has found _seventy million stars, but not one god_.
+
+It is time for the pulpit to stop repeating the old superstitions about
+God and about what he has done for man. He has never done any more
+for man than he is doing today; never spoken to man any more than he
+is speaking today; never revealed himself to anybody any more than he
+stands revealed to you and me and to every human being everywhere.
+
+Every word that ever came from the mouth of God man put in his mouth,
+and every book revealed by God was written by man.
+
+Half the work of man for the next one hundred years will be to kill the
+lies told about what God has done.
+
+Whether there is in all the vast universe a higher and nobler being
+than man, I don't know. Whether there is in all the vast universe a
+better place for man to live than on this earth, I don't know. And no
+one knows any more about these matters than I do.
+
+We have found out much that is not so; now we want to find out all
+we can that is so. And it is of no use to go to the Church to learn
+anything. The Church is only a place where falsehoods are kept in cold
+storage. The man who thinks and studies is the man who is helping the
+world most, not the man who preaches and prays. To find the truth one
+needs to get as far from the Church as possible.
+
+Christians of all denominations have lots of pity for the man without
+a church. Let me assure these persons that the man without a church
+doesn't want one. As a rule, he is satisfied with what he has. He
+has a home, which is better than a church. If those persons who are
+pitying men and women for not having a church would, instead, pity
+the man without a home, and pity him enough to help him get one, they
+would show much better sense and manifest a truer sympathy with their
+fellow-beings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I can not see any good in painting a thing white that is black, or
+calling a thing beautiful that is ugly. There are persons who talk as
+though they believed that a Northeast storm was sunshine. I am not made
+that way. I am as ready and as willing as anybody to acknowledge the
+good in Nature, or the good in life, but I do not believe in lying, in
+saying that wrong is right, or that suffering is to be enjoyed. There
+are lots of hard things in our life, and it does not alter facts to
+call them by some other name. A man dying with a cancer can not be made
+to believe that he is having a good time.
+
+The most that any man can do who goes through this earthly existence
+is to use his fellow-mortals right and square; to give them an honest
+day's work when he works for them and an honest day's pay when he hires
+them; to say nothing to hurt them and everything he can to assist them;
+to help them out of trouble and not get them into trouble. If one does
+this, and does no more than this, he has done what beats every religion
+on earth.
+
+We have got to deal with men and women as they are and where they are.
+The man who is natural; the man who has not been made a fool of by a
+priest or parson; the man who has not swapped his commonsense for a
+foolish belief; the man who has not had his mind stuffed with religious
+dope, knows that this life on earth is the important life, and that it
+is a higher work to determine his fate here than anywhere else.
+
+There is not a person living who would not be well and strong and
+happy here rather than hereafter. I would rather have the power to
+make every cripple straight and whole; every poor, unfortunate man
+and woman prosperous and contented; every sick person well, every
+bad person good, and every slave to vice master of his appetite and
+passions, in this life on earth, than to save the human wrecks, the
+human unfortunates, the human victims of vice and crime, for another
+life somewhere else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What men and women want is happiness, not Heaven. They want a good
+home on this globe, not a loafing-place in Abraham's bosom. They want
+the opportunity to enjoy the good things of this life, not the promise
+that they will hear the angels sing. They want better wages for their
+work, better treatment from their employers, and better things to
+eat and drink and wear. They want better things here, not hereafter.
+They want to be happy while they are living on earth, not have the
+assurance of happiness after they are dead. If I ever attempt to write
+my creed, I shall say: I believe in so much that I can hardly expect to
+express all of my faith in one statement. I am all the time believing
+in something new. But there is one thing that I most heartily believe
+in now and have believed in ever since I was a child, and that is,
+SUNSHINE--external and internal and eternal sunshine.
+
+Sunshine is the joy of the universe, and joy is the sunshine of the
+human heart. Let us be bright and cheerful. Let us be happy. Let us
+give to the world the sunshine of our hearts.
+
+  _A male trinity is repulsive; Father, Mother and Child is the
+  sacred triad. The Christian trinity is a monster._
+
+
+
+
+DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY
+
+
+
+
+  Nature has no need of a Holy Ghost.--_Lemuel K. Washburn._
+
+  All progress has been due to the Devil. He was the first
+  investigator.--_Ingersoll._
+
+  God takes care of the weed. Man must take care of the corn.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY
+
+
+There is a great deal of exaggerated rhetoric employed in praising what
+is called "Christian Morality." I have examined with considerable care
+everything that may justly come within the meaning of this expression,
+and I am bound to say, out of respect for the truth, that such morality
+does not deserve praise and can not be praised by the honest lips of an
+honest person.
+
+I am perfectly aware that I have made a statement which challenges the
+sincerity of the Christian pulpit, but every one knows that there is
+not a minister in Christendom whose practise agrees with his preaching.
+
+While it is common to hear a clergyman in pious ecstasy exhaust the
+vocabulary of laudation in his praises of the beautiful morals of the
+"Sermon on the Mount," it is exceedingly rare to see one of these
+parsons sacrifice his commonsense to the nonsense of Jesus.
+
+We are learning that the theological morality of the Christian faith is
+not the right kind of morality to make manhood and womanhood. The great
+weakness of Christian morality is this: It depends upon the Christian
+idea of Jesus, and when the world has outgrown the superstition about
+this person, all of his moral precepts will lose their value and their
+splendor.
+
+Men and women of any intellectual penetration know that the New
+Testament story is founded upon unreliable tradition; that its heart is
+a myth.
+
+Where men live independent of the foolish faith of the Gospels, there
+is a character of self-reliance which towers like a mountain-peak
+above the dead level of Christian endeavor. The person who accepts the
+Christian theology is no more in sympathy with the best thought of the
+age than is the man who wanders about the streets, begging his food and
+sleeping wherever he can, in harmony with the highest comforts of our
+civilization.
+
+There is a nobler purpose in a train of cars carrying grain and produce
+across the continent than in a conference of clergymen trying to keep
+alive a theology which teaches that God was born of a Jewish maiden
+who lived and died in Palestine, and devising ways to make the people
+believe the ridiculous superstition.
+
+Truth is born where men are allowed to think and speak their thoughts.
+Error can not be maintained where man is permitted to ask questions.
+The only way to preserve Christianity is to put it in a tin can and
+have it hermetically sealed.
+
+We are getting a new examination of the universe as a basis for our
+philosophy. The telescope has afforded man visions far beyond the
+seventh heaven of the Apocalypse. The genesis of things is found to lie
+millions of years back of the Genesis of the Bible. The chaos out of
+which this world was made has been discovered to be a previous state of
+existence.
+
+Science is laying the new foundation for our faith, and knowledge is
+building the new temple of the mind.
+
+Men and women everywhere are stating their opinions, and the world
+recognizes that there is to be a religious controversy upon this earth
+which will shake to its base everything that is not true. Not one
+stone of falsehood will be left standing upon another. Every dogma of
+superstition must find a grave, and truth alone be reverenced by man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The world has taken a step forward of Christianity, and in its march of
+advancement has left behind the Christian God, the Christian Savior,
+the Christian Bible, and the Christian Faith. But the world will not
+stop here. It must go further. The question which the human mind wants
+answered today is this: Is the decay of Christian theology to be
+followed by the decay of Christian morality?
+
+I think that it is, and I also think that this morality is about as
+near dead now as it can be.
+
+It is true that the author of this morality is painted in divine colors
+for human adoration Sunday after Sunday, and that his other-world
+ethics are inculcated by the pulpit; but beyond these attempts to
+give the peculiar moral teachings of Jesus the show of life, there is
+absolutely no sign of them in the world of man.
+
+The morality of the Christian system is not designed for humanity in
+its present condition, nor does it possess the elements necessary
+to make man into the image of any higher virtue. It is, in fact, an
+unreal, unnatural morality which Jesus taught, and the notion that men
+and women do not practise it because it is too far above them, depends
+upon an estimate of this morality which we are not willing to allow.
+
+I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. I want to say that
+the general moral duties of man, as they have been taught for ages by
+teachers of every race and of every religion, are not Christian, and
+that Christian ethics are found in the code of moral duties taught by
+Jesus _which are different from the recognized standard of morality
+adopted by mankind generally_. Christian morals are Christian _only
+wherein they differ from all other morals_.
+
+It is because they are peculiar to Christianity that they are
+Christian.
+
+Because I do not believe in Christianity--in the Christian theology and
+in Christian morals--I do not wish it said that I do not believe in
+morality, for I do. I believe that man can be good and true and that he
+can do right, and I believe that he ought to do right.
+
+I do not say that every one can reach the same moral altitude. I do
+not even say that every individual can be good and true. Some persons
+do not seem to be morally adjusted. I think, however, that we do not
+trespass beyond the domain of truth when we predicate the power of man
+to be moral.
+
+The notion that man can not be good has been the apology of half the
+criminals of the world. It is the creed of all crime. If we affirm the
+idea of human depravity, we may as well erase our statutes, for, if man
+can not be good, it is the height of folly to expect him to be so.
+
+The healthy faith of man is faith _in_ man.
+
+The theology which has been preached for the past few centuries is
+not calculated to make men moral. Those ministers who have shouted
+themselves hoarse for the salvation of the soul, and who have made no
+account of man's behavior in their scheme to save the race, are the
+ones who have rubbed humanity in the dirt and undermined the moral
+foundations of the world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every ethical principle that supports our social structure is
+independent of ecclesiastical relations, and it is not essential that
+we recognize any theology in order to comprehend the necessity of moral
+obedience.
+
+There is no sympathy between right, truth and justice, and the
+"Apostles' Creed." We may go so far as to say that the attempt to
+establish a perpetual union between Christianity and morality would
+result in an absolute divorce of these two forces.
+
+I wish to make it plain beyond a question that the Christian faith, in
+itself, is entirely distinct from all moral effort on the part of man.
+
+To believe that Jesus was the Christ does not carry any obligation to
+do right; does not make it incumbent upon the believer to do a single
+moral action.
+
+It is sufficient to establish our predication that not a single church
+in Christendom makes moral character the condition of membership, or
+good behavior the way to Heaven.
+
+There is a code of Christian morals which has been taught, but never
+practised. The special duties which Jesus enjoined upon his followers
+have never been reduced to conduct. It is not too much to say that
+the moral precepts of Jesus, if carried into action, would cause
+social revolutions beyond precedent, and produce a state of existence
+compared with which anarchy would be government, and confusion would be
+order.
+
+But, before we undertake to examine the Christian morals, let us shed
+a few tears of rejoicing upon the grave of Orthodox theology. We do
+not ask to have a coroner's jury decide what caused the death of this
+theology. We bless the cause, whatever it was. We only wish to feel
+assured that it is really, truly dead, and the fact that "not a single
+treatise written by a New England Puritan is a living and authoritative
+book" seems to prove it beyond a question. The persons who still preach
+this theology and profess to believe it are only "sitting up with the
+corpse."
+
+While it is asserted that a wrong interpretation of this theology sent
+it out of the world, it is pretty evident that a right understanding of
+it inspires no wish to have it back. Much of the superstition in morals
+sprang from fear of God, which the Christian church has inculcated as
+the highest incentive to right doing.
+
+The truth, broadly and frankly stated, is this: God is no longer the
+inspiration of morality. Fear of God does not check the actions of man
+today, nor is the attempt to make human and divine interests identical
+sufficient to insure obedience to moral laws. The ancient basis of
+morals is gone, and another and better one must be found to inspire a
+freer life, a fuller life, a better life, and a higher.
+
+We who have rejected the Christian theology are looked upon as orphans.
+But, if I understand the position of freethinkers, the question of a
+supreme power is neither affirmed nor denied by those who wish to have
+no further business with the God of Orthodoxy.
+
+We read that, "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God," but
+we prefer to say nothing about the matter. Theologies may come, and
+theologies may go, but humanity goes on forever, and so we do not deem
+it as important to worship the fleeting shadows of the universe which
+are cast upon the minds of men as it is to hold fast to those realities
+which make human existence a blessing and "a joy forever."
+
+We are called "infidels" and denounced as "unbelievers" because we
+will not march in the ranks of hypocrisy, and dance to the music of
+Orthodoxy. We believe no statement which our reason can not approve; we
+accept no doctrine which is contrary to commonsense; we have confidence
+in human nature; we believe in truth, justice and love; we accept life
+as a blessing, and try to make it so; we believe in taking care of
+ourselves, in helping others and in being just and kind to all, and we
+say to the Christian Church, "If this be Infidelity, make the most of
+it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is suggested by some that if man's exact relation to the Deity
+were understood, the whole question of morals would be settled at
+once. But would it not be truer to say that if man's exact relation to
+his fellowmen were understood and respected, the highest individual
+welfare, no less than the general good, would dictate the morality
+which the world needs? And is not this the grand task for the human
+race, to rightly interpret the effect of human action upon the
+individual and the community, and to deduce from human experience the
+rules for human conduct?
+
+I do not know that I owe to God any duty. I do know that I owe a duty
+to my neighbor. I plead total indifference to the demands of divine
+ethics, but I trust that I am not completely callous to the wants of
+my fellow-beings. I owe it to myself to be moral. I owe it to my race,
+to every man and woman that I meet in life, to be as honest, as true,
+as upright, as my nature will permit. I can comprehend and appreciate
+obligations to humanity, but moral indebtedness to the Deity I know
+nothing about.
+
+The Christian morals are founded upon the assumption that the work of
+man here is to do something that he may escape punishment hereafter,
+and hence the morality of the Christian Church has had little
+reference to the concerns of the present life.
+
+Christian morality is based upon the Christian faith that the human
+race is under the curse of God, and that, to evade the penalty
+pronounced upon him, man must perform certain duties--these duties
+being taught as paramount to all we owe to self, to family, to society,
+and to the world.
+
+But an almost universal disbelief of the Christian dogmas prevails
+today, and, consequently, a new morality, with man's welfare for
+its supreme object, is fast supplanting the outworn and valueless
+performances of Christian duties.
+
+The moral teaching of the New Testament may be the highest and purest
+of its kind of teaching, but it is not the kind which is needed today.
+It is a false morality, yea, a dead morality for the most part, which
+the Christian Church demands of men. The general conviction is that
+no salvation is needed by man, and that all the virtues advertised as
+requisite for such safety as the Church is prepared to secure, are
+spurious virtues.
+
+Those actions which advance man along the way of general prosperity,
+which make it easier to live and get a living on the earth, which have
+their value determined by their respect for human beings, are what the
+world needs.
+
+The generally acknowledged author of Christian morals offers no
+salient points for criticism, as he can not be regarded as a historical
+person whose career has been carefully followed and marked by the
+biographer. He is a mythological man, with a little less of the
+fabulous and a little more of the real than attaches to the gods and
+goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome.
+
+The name of Jesus adorns an anatomy of words. It pictures a person,
+not of flesh and blood, but of faith and fancy. Jesus is a man of the
+imagination; but mythical as he is, certain men and women believe
+in him in their own way, and are not over-tolerant of those who are
+disposed to ask for the proofs of his life and works.
+
+This person has left no more marks of his living upon the earth than
+have the birds the marks of their flight through the air. The New
+Testament is no more history than is Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_.
+We can not make any positive assertions in regard to the life and
+character of a man when we do not know who was his father, where or
+when he was born, with whom he lived, nor when he died. The only
+historical fact connected with Jesus which is not disputed is that Mary
+was his mother. This is a very important point in his history, but it
+is not sufficient to constitute a biography.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that the entire narrative of Jesus is without
+a single chronological date, and the vastly more significant fact that
+not a single incident connected with the career of Jesus is mentioned
+in contemporaneous history, we must perforce speak of him as a person
+whose life was watched and noted from his miraculous advent to his
+miraculous ascension, and look upon his disciples as so many Boswells
+ready to mirror to the world his every speech and act.
+
+We must do this--Why? Because the world will not candidly and
+critically study the gospel-story.
+
+For the present, then, we will speak of Jesus as a man, and accept him
+as the author of the moral code in the New Testament. But a word or
+two about the man. The Christian world sets him apart as the model of
+the race, as the masterpiece of Nature, as the utmost which earth can
+produce. Every man must here fetch his word of praise, and every word
+be a mountain to meet the demand of the Christian Church for reverence
+of Jesus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I do not believe in the infallibility of any man, but I believe in
+the improvability of all men. Is man no longer heir to the virtues of
+life, that he must erect monuments of praise forever over the name of
+Jesus? I shall take the liberty to express my dissent from the common
+expressions of admiration for this man. I can not praise everything
+which he did, nor can I think that every word he uttered is a star of
+wisdom. He said some good things, but much of what he said is good
+for nothing. His theology will do for Sunday Schools, but it will not
+stand half a dozen questions by commonsense. His Hell is barbarous,
+his Heaven childish, and his ideas of humanity show but a superficial
+knowledge of human nature. His life can not be imitated with advantage
+to the race, and his notions of human existence are wholly inadequate
+to the complex, varied civilization of this age.
+
+Let us see what he did. He paid no filial respect to his parents; he
+refused to acknowledge his mother and his brothers; he lived a roving,
+wandering life; he paid no heed to the laws of his country; he placed
+no value upon industry, and even went so far as to tell men and women
+that God would feed and clothe them; he helped himself to the property
+and possessions of other people without paying for them, and destroyed
+what belonged to others without offering an equivalent; he had no
+property, no home, not a place to lay his head; he hated the rulers,
+yet sought to establish a kingdom for himself; he failed to reach the
+throne he sought, and died upon the malefactor's cross.
+
+Is this the man for the Twentieth Century to honor? Is this the man for
+men to follow in this age? Is this the man whose life all should strive
+to imitate?
+
+The man who took the life of Jesus for a model would hate father and
+mother, brother and sister; he would have neither wife nor child; he
+would live from place to place; he would be a lawbreaker and an idler;
+he would live the life of a wanderer and die the death of a criminal.
+
+Have I put a false color in this picture which I have painted? Have I
+misrepresented the life of Jesus? Read the four Gospels and see. I find
+this character sketched in the New Testament, and it is there called
+Jesus, and it is this character which we are adjured to imitate if we
+would be perfect.
+
+To the man or woman who declares that the life of Jesus is the way to
+salvation, I have only this to say, "Why then do you not imitate it?"
+
+Now, I wish to ask, "What kind of morals would such a man as we have
+sketched naturally teach?"
+
+You will answer, "The morals he lived." At least, we find such morals
+taught in the New Testament.
+
+My point here is: If the life of Jesus was an honest, faithful exponent
+of his moral teachings, then such a morality as he practised is not
+wanted today--and that such a morality is not wanted is shown by the
+fact that no one practises it.
+
+I know that it is considered respectable and pious to profess great
+admiration for the doctrines taught by Jesus, and the world has paid
+them the outward compliment of profession, saying that the moral
+code of the New Testament was the despair of man; but it has never
+seriously set to work to reduce this code to practise, which proves
+that such profession is only a part of the universal accomplishment of
+fashionable hypocrisy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Do not understand me as saying that there is no moral precept contained
+in the Gospels which is worthy of being practised. I make no such
+declaration, and wish no such construction put upon my words. What I
+desire to enforce is this: That the morality of Jesus sprang from a
+philosophy which has passed away, and therefore, that it is, for the
+greater part, obsolete and worthless. That Jesus shared the general
+belief of his age that the world was soon to be destroyed, is shown by
+his estimate of earthly things; and that a morality founded upon such a
+belief should survive and outlast the faith which inspired it reveals
+a condition of things that is not flattering to our intellectual
+perception or to our moral sense.
+
+The morals of the New Testament are founded upon a theory of the
+universe which is found now only in creeds--those epitaphs of religion.
+The most superficial observation is sufficient to enable us to perceive
+that theology can no longer be the basis of morality, and that the
+authority of the New Testament can not be accepted on this question.
+
+There is nothing more firmly impressed upon the mind of man than the
+fact of the stability of the universe, notwithstanding an occasional
+earthquake; and the value of earthly things has a higher moral
+significance consequent upon the assurance of material existence.
+
+Morality must have a physical basis; that is, the moral code which man
+can practise to his safety and his honor must not contradict human
+nature. The defeat of the New Testament morals is assured by their
+antagonism to the nature of man. The morals of Jesus were designed
+to fit man for what he called the "Kingdom of Heaven," but the only
+morality which is worth the name is that which fits man for living his
+life on earth.
+
+Jesus constantly urged men to the performance of moral duties that they
+might be rewarded by their "Father in Heaven." Such a motive for good
+behavior is offensive to the rational mind, and moral commandments
+which are enforced with a Heaven and a Hell do not spring from an
+opinion of human nature which deserves our respect.
+
+The most comprehensive criticism which one can make upon the morals of
+the New Testament is, that they are not practicable. Is the character
+of Christians fashioned by the power and influence of the words
+which Jesus left in the world? This question should be pressed to an
+answer, and honesty would answer it in a way which would shake every
+church-building in the land and tear the mask from the face of every
+Christian worshiper on the globe.
+
+Jesus taught that men and women were to love him more than father or
+mother, son or daughter. Imagine human beings loving a man whom they
+know nothing about, and consequently can care nothing about, and who
+has no more claim to their affections than has the ghost in Hamlet,
+better than they love parent or child! Such morality as this is not fit
+for a Hottentot.
+
+If any command is implanted in our nature and is a part of the bone
+and fiber of our very being, it is to love beyond all else those who
+have borne us and cared for us through infancy and childhood, and
+those whose existence depends upon us, and to whom we stand pledged
+by the holiest ties of our beings, to watch over and protect, to care
+for and love, to the last days of our lives. It is love of parent and
+child which is alike the supreme obligation and the supreme benefaction
+of our humanity. No being has walked this earth who had the moral
+right to demand a greater love than is due to father and mother, son
+and daughter; and if Jesus claimed such affection, his claim is an
+impertinence which we are bound to treat with indignation and scorn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the Christian Church to make of the words of Jesus commands to the
+world is to deserve the severest condemnation. Jesus taught that men
+were not to make for themselves a home, not to cultivate those virtues
+which blossom into the family, and not to save the fruits of their toil
+to make old age with its tottering form and feeble limbs less liable to
+the hardships of the world, but he summed up all the duties of life in
+these words: "Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow
+me."
+
+To obey such teaching as this would overturn every monument of
+prosperity upon the earth, blight every feeling of happiness that
+gladdens the heart of man, and convert the busy, working, loving world
+into one vast army of tramps, following a king without a kingdom, a
+leader without a purpose, a commander with nothing to give those who
+followed his command.
+
+Jesus taught that we were not to resist evil; that is, that if a thief
+stole our watch and chain, we were bound to run after him and give him
+our purse also; that if a man took away our coat, we should wrong him
+if we did not send him the balance of the suit; that if a man struck
+us on one side of the face, we were to invite him to strike us on
+the other side also; that if, as it were, the armies of some foreign
+powers were to invade our land, and burn and destroy our cities and
+towns, pillage our homes and murder our families, we were in duty bound
+to look upon them as benefactors and thank them for their work of
+destruction, and ask them to come and do it again.
+
+Such moral teaching as this would make a nation of cowards and slaves.
+
+It is our duty to punish thieves and robbers, not to reward them; to
+resist wrong and injustice, not to submit to them like cravens; to
+protect our country from foes, even though we are obliged to shed their
+blood and our own in so doing.
+
+Is there a Christian on the globe who pays the least heed to a single
+one of the moral commands of Jesus? You all know there is not.
+
+I need not tell the Christian Church that the morality taught by Jesus
+is decaying when every church is its coffin, and every minister its
+grave-digger.
+
+If you wish to see how much respect for the moral teachings of Jesus
+one of his professed followers has, just steal his coat, and if he
+gives you his cloak also, as he is commanded to do by his Lord and
+Master, please publish his name in the daily papers--for the benefit of
+others who wish to get a cloak.
+
+We find among the express commands of Jesus this advice: "Lay not up
+for yourselves treasures upon earth." The most liberal translation of
+this counsel can not make it anything but poor advice. Every material
+blessing of mankind has come from the savings of human labor, and the
+value of laying up treasures upon earth is more evident than that of
+laying up treasures in Heaven, whatever this saying may mean. When
+every Christian tries as hard to be poor as he tries now to get rich,
+we shall think that he has some regard for the moral teachings of Jesus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It must be apparent to all that what may be claimed as Christian
+morality is not only decaying, but that it ought to decay. There is
+no sense in it. Imagine a man telling people in the Twentieth Century
+to "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall
+drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on," and endeavoring
+to prove that because the fowls of the air do not have to broil a
+beefsteak for their breakfast or make biscuit for tea, human beings
+will be fed whether they provide anything for their appetites or not.
+
+Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father will feed us because we are
+better than the fowls of the air, and that he will clothe us because he
+clothes the grass of the field. Our earthly fathers seem to have done
+more in the way of providing food and clothing for us before we were
+able to take care of ourselves than any Heavenly Father. Others may put
+their trust in God for something to eat and drink and wear, if they
+wish to, but I prefer to give the matter a little thought myself.
+
+Jesus concludes these admonitions by saying, "Take no thought for the
+morrow." This is bad counsel, and it shows the good sense of mankind
+that it has never been followed. The whole world lives in what one of
+our poets called, "The bright tomorrow of the mind."
+
+We will refer to only one more of the peculiar moral injunctions of
+Jesus. In the fifth chapter of Matthew, in the forty-fourth verse,
+we read, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
+them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and
+persecute you."
+
+If we were to do as herein commanded, we should have an inverted
+morality which would place the crown of virtue upon the forehead of
+vice.
+
+Let us see if the preacher of this doctrine practised it.
+
+Did Jesus bless the Scribes and Pharisees when they refused to
+acknowledge his claim to be the Messiah? This is the blessing which he
+pronounced upon them: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
+for ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers;
+therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." "Ye serpents, ye
+generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" That is
+not a very sweet blessing!
+
+And these men did not curse Jesus. They only did not agree with his
+opinions. Jesus, also, in his wrath against his enemies, calls them,
+in the seventeenth and nineteenth verses of the twenty-third chapter
+of Matthew, "Ye fools and blind," forgetting, doubtless, that he had
+previously declared, when preaching on the Mount, "Whosoever shall say,
+'Thou Fool,' shall be in danger of hell-fire."
+
+The moral teachings of Jesus were inspired by a false estimate of all
+earthly things. There is no doubt that Jesus believed the world was
+coming to an end in his generation. How to get into the Kingdom of
+Heaven was of more consequence than how to reform mankind, or improve
+the world, since the end of earthly things was near at hand. This
+appears to have been the thought of Jesus, and explains much of his
+language.
+
+But today we do not believe that the earth has run its course, and
+that the end of all material things is near at hand. We are living
+without fear of failure on the part of the universe, and are giving our
+attention more to human wants than to divine commands.
+
+_Not fear of offending God, but fear of wronging man, is the highest
+basis of morals._ We have reached a time when apologies are not
+respected, when repentance is looked upon as the mask of villainy,
+when the stature of life is most shorn of manliness by prancing in
+the garb of humility, when a brave facing of life's trials and demands
+counts for more than cowardly surrender in the name of God. In fact,
+we have come to say to the world of humanity, "Be moral, and you need
+not be religious." Work for man is coming to be a sufficient excuse for
+neglect of God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But we want no cheap moral duties held up for man to perform. It is
+serious business to live this life of ours and live it well, and it
+is hard work to do it. Morality sets us as high a task as we are able
+to perform, and a higher task than has yet been performed by most of
+mankind. The effort of this age is to expose the sham of what is called
+holiness, and make sacred the surroundings of human beings. We must
+throw off the past, and stand upon that sunlit height where we can feel
+that "somehow life is bigger after all than any painted angel, could we
+see the man that is within us."
+
+This is the moral duty of the world: to respect the man that is within
+us. We ought to rear on the earth a range of moral Alps that would
+stand and command the admiration of the world as long as eye could see
+and heart could feel. We need a rational hope and a burning purpose in
+this century, something noble to live for and the courage of nobility
+to work and win it.
+
+The improvement of the world is the only object of life worthy of man.
+Do and say nothing that will not improve mankind. Were this simple
+admonition heeded, we should have the key to the kingdom of the only
+heaven that man needs in our own pocket.
+
+It is time for the reign of commonsense to begin on earth; time for
+men to elevate morality above religion; and time for us to say,
+"Millions for the world, not a cent for the Church." The battle between
+Freedom and Christianity has begun, and I believe that when it ends
+Christianity will be buried beneath the ruins of its own dogmas, there
+to remain forever. It possesses no spirit that can rise again from its
+ashes and mount on wings of flame to a higher life. When superstition
+dies, it dies to the root.
+
+The Christian minister can not arrest the march of liberty by crying,
+"Infidelity!" and threatening with everlasting cremation all those who
+refuse to heed his words.
+
+But let there be no base understanding of freedom. The new John the
+Baptist must not be a cowboy, saying, "The kingdom of highwaymen is at
+hand." As a person when in perfect bodily health knows not from any
+intimation from the respective parts that he has a stomach, a brain,
+or a heart, so a person when living in perfect freedom is unconscious
+of law, of creed, of custom. The healthy man physically is the free
+man physically; the healthy man mentally is the free man mentally; the
+healthy man morally is the free man morally; liberty of the individual
+is health of the individual, and a free man means a man who is true and
+obedient to all natural laws.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a misunderstanding of freedom upon the one side, and a
+misrepresentation of it upon the other, that make it hazardous for one
+to employ the word. To connect this word with morality in the eyes of
+many is to confound the Madonna with Mary Magdalene. It is to start the
+ghost of Don Juan.
+
+The conservatism of society has ever regarded liberty as the black flag
+of the moral marauder, the emblem of a piratical intention upon the
+casket of the world that contains the jewels of honor, justice, virtue
+and social order.
+
+So persistently and malignantly has freedom been represented as a
+wrecker's light, kindled only to lure to destruction, that to represent
+it as worthy to be trusted is to arouse the spirit which pursued
+Voltaire to his grave with a lie, erected a shaft of calumny over the
+tomb of Paine, and which now, with the coward's weapon of slander,
+attacks the living who refuse to acknowledge that the voice of the
+Church is the voice of God.
+
+But nevertheless we believe with Burns that:
+
+    Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,
+    Its virtues a' can tell, man;
+    It raises man aboon the brute,
+    It maks him ken himsel', man;
+    Gif ance the peasant taste a bite,
+    He's greater than a lord, man,
+    And ni' the beggar shares a mite
+    Of a' he can afford, man.
+
+And so we exclaim in the words of one of our own true poets:
+
+    Always in thine eyes, O Liberty!
+    Shines that high light whereby the world is saved,
+    And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.
+
+You have all heard of the man who refused to open his eyes for a year,
+and who declared that during that time nothing could be seen on account
+of the darkness. But the endeavor to perpetuate old errors by keeping
+the eyes closed to the facts of science, the truths of philosophy, and
+the progress of the human race, has not been crowned with success.
+The further attempt to convert the world to what James Parton calls a
+"kitchen religion" is merely waste of power.
+
+The preaching of Christianity is making "much ado about nothing." What
+we want is manhood and womanhood.
+
+It is said by the Church that the man who lives for his family and
+brings all that he can win of what is fair and bright and glad to those
+he loves, may be a good man, but he is not a Christian, and therefore
+has no religion.
+
+Give me then the man who is not a Christian, and who has no religion,
+for if the man who loves his wife and children, who gives to them the
+strength of his arm, the thought of his brain, the warmth of his heart,
+has not religion, the world is better off without it, for these are the
+highest and holiest things which man can do.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  There is only one thing worth praying for: to be in the line of
+  evolution.--_Elbert Hubbard._
+
+  Jesus as Savior of the world is a theological creation, and not a
+  historical character.
+
+
+
+
+  SO HERE THEN ENDETH THAT GREAT AND GOOD BOOK "I DON'T KNOW--DO
+  YOU?" WRITTEN BY MARILLA M. RICKER, AND PRINTED AND BOUND FOR HER
+  BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, ERIE
+  COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW YORK, MCMXVI.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS PAINE
+
+
+  Born Jan 29, 1737.
+
+  Friend and adviser of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Monroe,
+  etc., etc.
+
+  Author of _Common Sense_, _The Crisis_, _Rights of Man_, and _The
+  Age of Reason_;
+
+  Editor of _Pennsylvania Magazine_;
+
+  Enlisted in Continental Army; appointed Aide-de-Camp to General
+  Nathaniel Greene;
+
+  Secretary of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congress and
+  Pennsylvania Assembly;
+
+  By his writings did more for the American cause in the Revolution
+  than any other one person;
+
+  First proposed American Independence;
+
+  First suggested the Federal Union of States;
+
+  First proposed the abolition of Negro slavery;
+
+  First suggested protection for dumb animals;
+
+  First proposed arbitration and international peace;
+
+  First suggested justice to women;
+
+  First pointed out the reality of human brotherhood;
+
+  First pointed out the folly of hereditary succession and
+  monarchical government;
+
+  First proposed old-age pensions;
+
+  First suggested international copyright;
+
+  First proposed the education of the children of the poor at public
+  expense;
+
+  First suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world;
+
+  First proposed "the land for the people";
+
+  First suggested "the religion of humanity";
+
+  First proposed and first wrote the words, "United States of
+  America";
+
+  Founder of the first Ethical Society;
+
+  Proposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory;
+
+  Inventor of the iron bridge, the hollow candle--principle of the
+  modern central-draft burner, etc., etc.
+
+  Died June 9, 1809.
+
+
+=_This is history. But this great and good man was called "a filthy
+little atheist" by a hyphenated Dutch-American._=
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of I don't know, do you?, by Marilla M. Ricker</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: I don't know, do you?</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Marilla M. Ricker</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 15, 2021 [eBook #64568]</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Carlos Colón, the New York Public Library and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</div>
+
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="box">Transcriber's Notes:<br />
+<br />
+
+Two-columns text has been converted to a single column.<br /><br />
+Blank pages have been eliminated.<br />
+<br />
+Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
+original.<br />
+<br />
+A few typographical errors have been corrected.<br />
+<br />
+The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.</p>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/front.jpg" width="600"
+height="890" alt="" title="" />
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p class="center"><i>Marilla M. Ricker.</i></p>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU?</h1>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+<p class="center">MARILLA M. RICKER</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2em"><img src="images/illo1.jpg" width="75"
+height="133" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p class="center">DONE INTO<br />
+A PRINTED BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS<br />
+AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN<br />
+EAST AURORA, NEW YORK<br />
+MCMXVI</p>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6 center">Copyright, 1916<br />
+By<br />
+Marilla M. Ricker</p>
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">You are what you think, and to believe in
+a Hell for other people is literally to go
+to Hell yourself.&mdash;<i>Elbert Hubbard.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">A religious man is a man scared.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2 id="FOREWORD">FOREWORD</h2></div>
+
+
+<p><i>There is in the city of Boston a memorial building
+to Thomas Paine. This Paine Memorial was finished
+and dedicated forty-two years ago. It is the finest
+monument to Thomas Paine on the earth.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>For twenty years Ralph Washburn Chainey has been
+the Manager of this building and the Treasurer of
+the Paine Memorial Corporation. Under his wise
+and prudent management the building was freed from
+debt, and today it is a monument to the energy and
+devotion of its Manager as much as to the genius
+and labors of Thomas Paine.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Ralph Washburn Chainey is only forty-two, and as
+great an example of thrift as Ben Franklin was.
+Very early in life he acquired the habit of thrift&mdash;which
+is the basis of all virtues. He learned early
+that time was money and he is always at work. He
+is not only able to take care of himself, but he can
+and does take care of others. He is sufficient unto
+himself, and when one is right with himself he is
+right with all the world. I have known him intimately
+for more than a quarter of a century, and if he has
+faults I have yet to learn what they are.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In appreciation, therefore, of his great service to
+the cause of Freethought, I dedicate this volume to</i></p>
+
+<p class="i2">RALPH WASHBURN CHAINEY</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Marilla M. Ricker</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>Dover, New Hampshire<br />
+December, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2 p6">As man advances, as his intellect enlarges,
+as his knowledge increases, as his ideals
+become nobler, the Bibles and creeds will
+lose their authority, the miraculous will
+be classed with the impossible, and the
+idea of special providence will be discarded.
+Thousands of religions have perished,
+innumerable gods have died, and
+why should the religion of our time be
+exempt from the common fate?</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2></div>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" summary="contents">
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#FOREWORD">Foreword</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">7</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CIVILIZATION">Creeds Against Civilization</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">11</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#AGNOSTIC">What I Know About Some Churches,
+and Why I Am an Agnostic</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">33</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#REJOINDER">A Letter and the Rejoinder</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">55</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#GHOST">The Holy Ghost</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">65</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#CHRIST">How Can We "Take" Christ?</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">71</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#INGERSOLL">Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">81</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#THOUGHT">Mark Twain's Best Thought</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">85</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#RELIGION">An Irreligious Discourse on Religion</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">89</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#MORALITY">Decay of Christian Morality</a></td>
+<td class="tdrb">107</td></tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="chap" />
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">I know of no other book that so fully
+teaches the subjection and degradation
+of woman as the Bible.&mdash;<i>Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">That God had to come to earth to find a
+mother for his son reveals the poverty
+of Heaven.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="CIVILIZATION">CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">Any system of religion that shocks the
+mind of a child can not be a true system.&mdash;<i>Thomas Paine.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Hell is a place invented by priests and
+parsons for the sake of being supported.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center large">CREEDS AGAINST CIVILIZATION</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">NE hundred fifty years ago, there
+was not a single white man in
+what is now Kentucky, Ohio,
+Indiana and Illinois. What is now
+the most flourishing part of the
+United States was then as little
+known as the country in the heart of Africa itself.
+It was not until Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six
+that Boone left his home in North Carolina to
+become the first settler in Kentucky; and the
+pioneers of Ohio did not settle that territory until
+twenty years later.</p>
+
+<p>Canada belonged to France one hundred fifty-three
+years ago, and Washington was a modest
+Virginia Colonel, and the United States was the
+most loyal part of the British Empire, and scarcely
+a speck on the political horizon indicated the
+struggle that in a few years was to lay the foundation
+of the greatest republic in the world.</p>
+
+<p>One hundred fifty years ago there were but four
+small newspapers in America; steam-engines had
+not been imagined; and locomotives and railroads,
+and telegraphs and postal cards, and friction-matches,
+and revolvers and percussion-caps, and
+breechloading-guns and Mauser rifles, and stoves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+and furnaces, and gas and electricity and rubber
+shoes, and Spaulding's glue, and sewing-machines
+and anthracite coal, and photographs, and kerosene-oil,
+free schools, and spring-beds and hair-mattresses,
+and lever-watches and greenbacks
+were unknown. The spinning-wheel was in almost
+every family, and clothing was spun and woven
+and made up in the family; and the printing-press
+was a cumbrous machine worked by hand.</p>
+
+<p>Down to Eighteen Hundred Fourteen every paper
+in the world was printed one side at a time, on an
+ordinary hand-press; and a nail, or a brick, or a
+knife, or a pair of shears or scissors, or a razor, or a
+woven pair of stockings, or an ax or a hoe or a
+shovel, or a lock and key, or a plate of glass of any
+size, was not made in what is now the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>In Seventeen Hundred Ninety, there were only
+seventy-five post-offices in the country, and the
+whole extent of our post-routes was less than nineteen
+hundred miles; cheap postage was unheard
+of; so were envelopes; and had any one suggested
+the transmission of messages with lightning speed,
+he would have been thought insane. The microscope
+on the one hand and the telescope on the
+other were in their infancy as instruments of
+science; and geology and chemistry were almost
+unknown, to say nothing of the telephone and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+the other various phones, and the X-rays, and
+hundreds of other new things.</p>
+
+<p>In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two there were only
+six stagecoaches running in all England, and these
+were a novelty. A man named John Crosset thought
+they were so dangerous an innovation that he wrote
+a pamphlet against them. "These coaches," he
+wrote, "make gentlemen come to London upon
+every small occasion which otherwise they would
+not do, except upon urgent necessity. The conveniency
+of the passage makes their wives come
+often up, who, rather than come such long journeys
+on horseback, would stay at home. Then when
+they come to town they must be in the 'wade'
+[probably that is where the word <i>swim</i> comes in
+now], get fine clothes, go to plays, and treats, and
+by these means get such a habit of idleness and
+love of pleasure that they are uneasy ever after."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>We can all see how much improvement there
+has been in all things but <i>creeds</i>. Improvements
+can come, and old things go, but <i>creeds</i> go on
+forever! A creed implies something fixed and
+immovable. In other words, it means you have a
+"heel-rope on."</p>
+
+<p>The word "creed" is from <i>credo</i>, "I believe." We
+have had a great deal of compulsion of belief, and
+a thousand years of almost absolute unanimity.
+Liberty was dead and the ages were dark. We call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+them the Middle Ages because they were the death
+between the life that was before and the life that
+came after. Then came a new birth of thought&mdash;a
+"Renaissance"&mdash;and after this, some reformation
+in the form of a Protestantism.</p>
+
+<p>Since then, the Protestants have continued to
+protest, not only against the old, but against each
+other. And this is the best thing they have done.
+Thus liberty has been saved, for each would have
+coerced its fellow organization, as did their infamous
+mother, the Roman Catholic Church, before them.
+From "creed" comes "credulous" and "credulity."
+And they have filled the world with their
+kind. In the United States alone, there are about
+one hundred forty types. Each is a system of
+credulity pitted against a hundred and thirty-nine
+others. They all rest on authority. They all denounce
+investigation&mdash;unless it has for its end the
+support of their authority.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, with the exception of two or three denominations,
+to become a professed Christian means to
+accept credulously and without question a system of
+belief about Nature and man and the world which
+you would deny in toto if you reasoned as you do
+about other things, and which you do practically
+deny by re-explaining and refining it into anything
+but what is stated. Down deep in your heart you
+do not, and never did, believe it in the same honest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+way in which you form your other opinions.</p>
+
+<p>Think for a moment of the Christian idea of the
+world, its origin, its shape, place, importance, and
+its final end. Does any man or woman who has
+been through a common-school geography believe
+the ideas implied in the common Christian dogmas
+regarding the world? We must remember that the
+world taught in the geography is not the Christian
+world.</p>
+
+<p>The world taught in the Christian dogmas is
+beneath the heavens&mdash;not a rolling sphere flying
+through space. It is flat, and the sun and stars pass
+over it daily. It is the chief object of God's creation
+on which to place man. It is God's footstool,
+and his throne is Heaven above. He created it just
+four thousand and four years before the Christian
+era began. Now we <i>all</i> know that this is <i>not</i> true;
+that there is no up nor down; that the earth is not
+the center; that it is <i>not</i> flat; that the sun does not
+go round it; that it is a very insignificant little
+orb; that "up in Heaven" is an utterly meaningless
+expression; and that the world is not a creation,
+but an evolution.</p>
+
+<p>And yet thousands of people credulously cling to
+creeds which embody the notions of barbarous or
+uncivilized ages.</p>
+
+<p>Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the
+Bible is a revelation of the will and wisdom of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+omniscient God; that it is a perfect and sufficient
+rule of faith and practise. What, in the name of
+humanity, causes people to make such statements
+today? It is like trying to light the house with a
+saucer of tallow in which a rag is immersed, instead
+of using gas or electricity.</p>
+
+<p>Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy
+xiv: 21, we read, "Ye shall not eat of anything
+that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it unto the
+sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat
+it; or thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for <i>thou</i>
+art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God." In
+Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would
+that men should do unto you, even so do ye also
+unto them."</p>
+
+<p>Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy,
+or even the moral unity of a volume written
+by many hands at widely different times? Are such
+people so ignorant that they have not read the
+Book they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots
+and do not know the plainest right and wrong?
+Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful reason
+for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they
+the dupes of their own credulity, clinging without
+thought to the beliefs in which they have been
+reared? They are evidently not using commonsense
+in an honest way.</p>
+
+<p>I often hear the Bible spoken of as a holy book, full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+of a holy spirit. I sometimes reply: "Have you
+read the conduct of Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David,
+Solomon, and other ancient worthies, who were
+said to be men after the heart of the bloodthirsty
+and avenging Jehovah? How long would you keep
+out of prison if you took them for your models?
+Have you read the Thirty-fifth, Fifty-eighth,
+Sixty-ninth and One Hundred Ninth Psalms? If
+not, read them, and tell me what you think of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>There never was any intrinsic reason for believing
+the Bible except that a designing priesthood said
+so, and stupid people trusted them.</p>
+
+<p>Here, by common consent, people agree to be
+duped. Ages and ages ago, they began to make
+admissions that two and two might be six, or even
+sixteen, in religion. They had sense enough to say
+that two and two are four in other things. In
+Divine Revelation they shut their eyes to all mistakes
+and wilful lies. If people should deceive in
+other matters as the priests, parsons and teachers
+do in religion, they would not escape arrest.</p>
+
+<p>Another central doctrine is that of the Atonement.
+This is derived from the moral character of the
+Jewish God; he governed the world of humanity
+on the principle of primitive society. Men were
+responsible to him in everything. Any infraction
+of his supposed laws rendered them subject to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+vengeance. That is why the Jew thought that God
+sent a thunderstorm to punish him for eating pork.</p>
+
+<p>What explanation besides credulity can be suggested
+for the continuation of this belief century
+after century? Preachers shout it from the pulpits,
+and Salvation Army people hawk it through the
+streets. Not one of them knows what he is talking
+about. Each learned it from some one who told
+him to say it. They all do it because it is a part of a
+system which they have inherited, but the reason
+for which they do not know, and have never
+allowed themselves to seek.</p>
+
+<p>This cringing credulity keeps the masses from
+using their powers. They seem to believe that if
+they should lose these superstitions they would
+be lost.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>And the dogma regarding Jesus is inextricably
+mixed up in Christian theology with that of
+the Atonement. One assumption bolsters the other.
+He is made to occupy the central place in this
+scheme of blood-redemption through that other
+highly rational fable of the immaculate conception.
+If Jesus was not immaculately conceived, then
+Matthew and Luke have deceived; then Jesus is
+not God; then he is a mere man; and if so, he is
+not the Redeemer. Man could not redeem himself
+according to the first premise of the scheme. Man
+has been and <i>is</i> redeeming himself by learning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+Nature's laws and through them rising to a higher
+life ever since he reached the stage of humanity.
+Take the theory of the Resurrection. The account
+of it was written long after the assumed occurrence,
+and by credulous men with superstitious inclinations.
+Men and women of these days, understanding
+the laws of Nature, can not give assent to the
+crude beliefs which easily commanded the minds
+of ancient times.</p>
+
+<p>Both Protestantism and Catholicism are systems
+built on essentially the same foundation. Remove
+any of these stones, and the systems will have to
+be rebuilt. If there is no special revelation, there
+is no special scheme of salvation. If there is no
+vengeful, blood-seeking God, there is no theological
+reconciliation. If there was no fall, there is no hopeless
+depravity. If there was no immaculate conception,
+there is no Redeemer in a special ecclesiastical
+sense. If there is no total depravity, there is
+no lost world. If there is no lost world, there is no
+yawning Hell. One and all, these fictions have their
+only ground for continuance in a <i>selfish</i> and unreasoning
+priesthood and clergy, and a credulous
+people.</p>
+
+<p>In the place of the "fall," science has put the
+"rise" of man. It finds the Garden of Eden to
+have been a jungle. It finds the mythical perfect
+Adam to have been a savage. It finds the Biblical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+"origin of evil" to have been a puerile legend. It
+finds that sin and evil are made by the seeing of
+higher states. It finds that there was no bad until
+the better was reached. It finds that it is the advancing
+good which makes the existing bad. It finds
+that among the worst of sinners are those who live
+in and propagate outworn doctrines upon their
+own and others' credulity.</p>
+
+<p>In the olden times, God was made a king&mdash;the world
+was his kingdom. His powers, virtues and vices
+were simply those of earthly kings exaggerated.
+Jewish and Christian liturgies are full of expressions
+showing the attitude of slaves and serfs to a tyrant.
+Sin has been manufactured as heresy and disobedience
+to the so-called orthodox system instead
+of to the laws of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>Science has shown that the bottomless pit did not
+even have a top. Columbus sailed over the Western
+edge of the flat Christian world on which all this
+Christian system depended, and found that the
+material Heaven and Hell were unfounded myths;
+but the preachers and priests still threaten <i>hell</i> to
+the most ignorant and credulous, but they tell
+some of us that there is a <i>final judgment</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>In the old days, we used to hear a great deal about
+judgments. A certain honest, good-natured,
+old farmer in New Hampshire, who was a freethinker,
+but had a very pious wife, lost many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+cattle when the black tongue was an epidemic in
+the State.</p>
+
+<p>One day the hired man came in and told him the
+red oxen were dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, they were
+'breechy cusses.' Take off their hides and carry
+them down to Fletcher's. They will bring the cash."</p>
+
+<p>An hour or so later the man came back with the
+news that Lineback and his mate were both dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they?" said the old man. "Well, I took
+them of B&mdash;&mdash; to save a bad debt that I never
+expected to get. Take the hides down to Fletcher's.
+They will bring the cash."</p>
+
+<p>After the lapse of another hour the man came back
+to tell him that the nigh brindle was dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he?" said the old man. "Well, he was a very
+old ox. Take off his hide and send it down to
+Fletcher's. It is worth cash and will bring more
+than two of the others."</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon his wife reminded him that his loss was
+a judgment of Heaven upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" said the old chap. "Well, if they will take
+the judgment in cattle, it is the easiest way I can pay it."</p>
+
+<p>But they know no more about final judgments than
+they did about the lake of fire and brimstone which
+commenced to drain off in Columbus' day. Science
+has vaporized the notion of a future judgment by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+the same method it has that of a past Creation.
+From the <i>facts</i>, it has learned <i>laws</i>. But credulity
+is always half-hearted with facts. It does not know
+enough of truth to love it. It is ever glowing over
+and setting up as a dogma the little it knows, or
+assumes to know, of the truth of former times. It
+has no faith in the newly discovered, because it
+knows nothing of it.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, age after age we see the spectacle of men
+who have not studied the science of their own day
+denouncing it in pulpit and councils; of men who
+have steeped themselves in the traditions of the
+past pronouncing shallow invectives against the
+demonstrations of (science) the present.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Many church people say immortality must be
+true, or the great majority would not believe
+in it. But do they? They do not talk or write as if
+they did. If language means anything, I think the
+majority believe in annihilation. Most people speak
+of the dead body of a man as though it were the
+man. They say, "He was buried at Greenwood,"
+or, "She was cremated at Forest Hills." And we
+hear the "late" Mr. Smith left an immense
+fortune. If Mr. Smith still exists, why do they say
+the <i>late</i> Mr. Smith? If people didn't believe that
+the soul and body are one, and that life ceases and
+mind expires when the body dies, why do they say,
+"They were"? What little the Church has learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+has been by <i>main force</i> so to speak.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of
+mine many years ago was a college student. At
+that time they were all compelled to attend the
+college church. On one occasion he heard the
+preacher, who was also a college professor, make
+these statements:</p>
+
+<p><i>First</i>, that the <i>elect</i> alone would be saved.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second</i>, that among those who by the world were
+called Christians, probably not more than one in a
+hundred belonged really and truly to the <i>elect</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third</i>, that the others, by reason of their Christian
+privileges, would suffer more hereafter than the
+heathen, who had never heard the Gospel at all.</p>
+
+<p>The young man made a note of these propositions,
+and on the strength of them drew up a petition to
+the Faculty soliciting exemption from further
+attendance at church, as only preparing for himself
+a more terrible future.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "The congregation here amounts to six
+hundred persons, and nine of these are the college
+professors. Now if only one in a hundred is to be
+saved, it follows that three even of the professors
+must be damned, and I, being a mere student,
+could not expect to be saved in preference to a
+professor." Far, he said, be it from him to cherish
+so presumptuous a hope. Nothing remained for
+him, therefore, but perdition. In this melancholy
+state of affairs he was anxious to abstain from any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>thing
+that might aggravate his future punishment;
+and as church attendance had been shown to have
+this influence on the <i>non-elect</i>, he trusted that the
+Faculty would for all time exempt him from it.</p>
+
+<p>The result was he came very near being expelled
+from the college&mdash;simply by heeding their sermons.
+The professors of some colleges have learned something,
+and do not insist on the students attending
+church.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Ponder for a moment on the many dishonest
+ways churches have for raising money. Think
+of the amount of money they can raise at a church-fair&mdash;alias,
+a confidence-game.</p>
+
+<p>A young man from Kentucky told me that he
+attended one at Chicago. First he went to the table
+where refreshments were sold. A beautiful siren
+with big black eyes and small white hands spread
+the edibles before him. When he arose from the
+table he handed her a five-dollar bill. She put it in
+a little box and forgot to give him any change. She
+smiled sweetly at him, and asked him if he would
+like to walk about the room and look at the fancy
+articles, all to be sold for the good of the church.</p>
+
+<p>She took his arm and murmured, "We are not
+strangers; we both feel interested in the church."</p>
+
+<p>"We soon came," said the young man in telling
+me the story, "to a silver tea-set that was to be
+'raffled off.' Would I take a chance? Of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+I did. Then came a cake with a valuable ring concealed
+in it. Would I take a chance in that? Of
+course I did.</p>
+
+<p>"So things glided on until I concluded if I took
+many more chances, my chances for getting home
+would be slim. So I refused to tempt fortune any
+further, until the little black-eyed scoundrel took
+me on a new tack. Leaning heavily on my arm,
+and resting her cheek on my shoulder, she said,
+'Please take a chance for me.'</p>
+
+<p>"It is needless to add that I took the chance, and
+kept on taking chances for the beautiful and
+unprincipled wretch that had me in tow, until I
+had not a dollar left. Yes, I was penniless, and then
+it began to dawn on me that she was working me
+for the success of the church. There I was, bankrupt
+in money and self-respect. I had been robbed&mdash;yes,
+robbed, for where is the difference between
+a pair of pistols and a pair of black eyes in a robbery?
+You part with your money because you can not
+help it.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that Society looks with lenient eyes upon
+church-fairs, but it is my opinion that all robbers
+will take sentence, and when that little Chicago
+robber receives her sentence, she will take her
+place by the side of Jack Sheppard!"</p>
+
+<p>You see he still believes in Judgments. He is
+learning by main force.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A very pious woman whose father was a missionary,
+now living in Hawaii, wrote not long ago that
+professional men flocking to the Islands will be
+disappointed unless they are friends of old families;
+and the old families are descendants of missionaries
+who went there in the early days and took lands
+and everything else from the natives.</p>
+
+<p>There seems to be nothing like being a descendant
+from a missionary family. These people, equally
+pious and provident, thought it a good scheme to
+cheat the sinful savages out of all their worldly
+possessions, in order that they might be taught
+humility and holiness through the chastening
+influence of poverty. So they robbed the unregenerate
+to the glory of God.</p>
+
+<p>Who says it doesn't pay to save the heathen?
+Think of the ignorance and superstition of the
+majority of the preachers of the present day.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Up in Northern Minnesota, less than fifty years
+ago, an old Baptist was preaching on the
+death of Moses on the Mount, and his not being
+permitted to go over into the Promised Land.
+The preacher said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have always felt sorry for Moses. It has seemed
+so hard to me that he could not go over with Caleb
+and Joshua, the only two of the host which he had
+led out of Egypt, and enjoy with his people the
+good country towards which they had been so long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+traveling. When as a boy I read that in the Bible
+for the first time, I sat down and cried for sympathy
+with him. But Moses had a hard time from
+the first. He was no sooner born than his life was
+threatened. His mother had to hide him to save it.
+After three months she could hide him no longer,
+and so she made an ark of bulrushes and set him
+afloat on the river. Indeed, it seemed as though the
+Lord had all he could do to raise Moses."</p>
+
+<p>But the people of this generation do not take the
+story of Moses so seriously. A bright young girl of
+ten, on being asked by her Sabbath School teacher,
+"Where did Pharaoh's daughter get Moses?"
+replied, with the accent on the <i>said</i>, "She <i>said</i> she
+'found him in the bulrushes.'"</p>
+
+<p>I attended a campmeeting in North Carolina. The
+exhortations and prayers would cause a graven
+image to smile audibly. One old Baptist preacher
+said he always felt so sorry to think that "Ingine
+corn" didn't grow in Palestine, because he would
+like to think that the little Jesus had a good time
+playing with cob-houses.</p>
+
+<p>But those preachers compare favorably with the
+Reverend George F. Hall, of Decatur, Illinois, and
+the Reverend Doctor John P. D. John, and the
+Reverend Doctor Frederick Bell, late of the
+Metropolitan Temple of San Francisco, California,
+who at various times challenged Robert G.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+Ingersoll to debate with them. It shows what ignorance,
+superstition and egotism combined can do.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin said the herding instinct in animals has
+its base in fear. Sheep and cattle go in droves, while
+a lion simply flocks with his mate. Those who wish
+to lead have always fostered fear, encouraging this
+tendency to herd, promising protection, and offering
+what they call knowledge in return for a
+luxurious living.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, the men who preach and pray,
+always want the people who <i>work</i> to divide with
+them. They work on the line that fear will compel
+men to join churches. This joining instinct is a
+manifestation of weakness. By going with a gang
+they hope to get to Heaven. But the moment you
+eliminate the Devil from Christianity, there is
+nothing left. You can not have a revival, alias an
+epidemic, of religion, without the Devil. If there
+were no Devil, there would be nothing to pray
+about, and all these people who are gifted in prayer
+would be without a job.</p>
+
+<p>Think of the chaplains of the Army and Navy, in
+Congress and in the Legislatures being turned out
+to browse for themselves. Think of their being
+obliged to earn an honest living. They could not
+do it. I am amused when I think of the prayers
+that are exchanged in war times. One side will
+pray that the wrath of Heaven will descend on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+other, and the other side will return the compliment
+with ten per cent interest.</p>
+
+<p>I remember when I was a child of reading the
+prayer of a Hungarian officer. He said: "O Lord,
+I will not ask thee to help us, and I know that thou
+wilt not help the Austrians. But if thou wilt sit on
+yonder hill, thou shalt not be ashamed of thy
+children."</p>
+
+<p>The famous Bishop Leslie prayed before a battle
+in Ireland, "O God, for our unworthiness we are
+not fit to claim thy help, but if we are bad, our
+enemies are worse, and if thou seest not meet to
+help us, we pray thee help them not, but stand
+thou neutral this day, and leave it to the arm of
+flesh."</p>
+
+<p>All this dramatic power would be lost without the
+Devil. So it behooves the Christian churches to
+hold fast to the Devil. Get a good grip on his hoofs,
+horns and tail, for without him they would be
+relegated to "innocuous desuetude." He should be
+incorporated as the fourth person in the Orthodox
+Godhead, and respectfully addressed as "Holy
+Devil."</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>There is no truth in the dogma of the divinity of
+Jesus, no sense in it, no religion in it. It is the
+product of mythology and has no claim upon this age.</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">This is my doctrine: Give every other
+human being every right you claim for
+yourself. Keep your mind open to the
+influences of Nature. Receive new
+thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">The man who does not do his own
+thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself
+and to his fellowmen.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">As far as I am concerned, I wish to be
+out on the high seas. I wish to take my
+chances with wind and wave and star.
+And I had rather go down in the glory
+and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in
+any orthodox harbor whatever.</p></div>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="AGNOSTIC">WHAT I KNOW ABOUT SOME CHURCHES
+AND WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">The ignorance of the masses insures
+abundant contributions to the clergy and
+to religion.&mdash;<i>Ralph W. Chainey.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">The mother who teaches her child to
+pray makes a mistake.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center large">WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">HE Millerites&mdash;or Second Adventists,
+as they now call themselves&mdash;are
+the first sect that I remember.
+They are a people of remarkable
+vigor: they have been at work for
+seventy years to bring this world
+to an end, and although they have been wrong in
+their arithmetic all these years, they rub out the
+slate and begin again.</p>
+
+<p>And they prove everything by the Bible, as all
+other denominations do. The "time" has been set
+at least twenty times since I can remember. I
+recollect having awful palpitations in the kneepans
+upon one of the eventful days, and crawling under
+the barn so as not to be in the way. They used to
+congregate on the height of land near my father's,
+"to go up," and one man climbed upon an old
+shed, and fell and broke his hip; he fainted, and
+they thought he was dead. As soon as he had
+revived a little, they asked him if he had any
+requests to make before he died. He replied, "I
+want you to work in 'durn fool' somewhere on my
+tombstone." He recovered, and lived many years,
+but he was cured of Millerism.</p>
+
+<p>A large share of the students of the Second Advent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+doctrine came into this world, not only naked, but
+without any brains, nor any place suitable to put
+any; and the first business they do is to wonder
+about their souls and talk about being "born
+again." They never seem to realize that to be well
+born is much more essential than to be "born
+again." I never knew immortality to be secured
+at the second birth.</p>
+
+<p>I attended one of their meetings this year, and
+asked one of the sisters for their <i>creed</i>. She said,
+"Our creed is the whole Bible, from the first book
+of Genesis to the last word of the last chapter of
+Revelations."</p>
+
+<p>I thought of what a boy said when the Baptist
+Elder came and took tea at his home, and asked a
+"blessing."</p>
+
+<p>The boy said: "Is that the way you ask a blessing?
+My father doesn't ask it that way."</p>
+
+<p>"How does he ask it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he sat down to the table the other evening,
+and looked it all over, and said, 'My God, what a
+supper!'"</p>
+
+<p>And I thought, "My God, what a creed!"</p>
+
+<p>I was tempted to ask the Millerite sister what she
+thought of the discrepancy between the first and
+the second chapter of Genesis. In the first chapter
+Man and Woman were a simultaneous creation.
+In the second chapter, Woman was an afterthought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+But I had the deep sagacity to hold my tongue,
+and leave her and her <i>creed</i> in peace.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The second church that I remember anything
+about is the Free-Will Baptist. My mother
+was a devout member of that church. I have heard
+thousands of times, "Except a man be born of
+water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the
+Kingdom of God." And man included woman&mdash;it
+always did, so far as pains and penalties were
+concerned.</p>
+
+<p>I remember distinctly a sermon I heard on Hell.
+You younger people can not have the faintest idea
+of the terrific sermons that were preached in those
+days.</p>
+
+<p>That sermon commenced in this wise:</p>
+
+<p>"Now we will look into Hell and see what we can
+see. It is all red-hot like red-hot iron. Streams of
+burning pitch and sulphur run through it. The
+floor blazes up to the roof. Look at the walls&mdash;the
+enormous stones are red-hot. Sparks of fire are
+always falling down from them. Lift up your eyes
+to the roof of Hell. It is like a sheet of blazing fire.
+Hell is filled with a fog of fire. In Hell, torrents not
+of water, but of fire and brimstone, are rained
+down. You may have seen a house on fire, but you
+never saw a house made of fire. Hell is a house
+made of fire. The fire of Hell burns the devils, who
+are spirits, for it was prepared for them. But it will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+burn the body as well as the soul. Take a little
+spark out of Hell&mdash;less than the size of a pin-head&mdash;and
+throw it into the ocean, and it will not go out.
+In one moment it would dry up all the waters of
+the ocean, and set the whole world in a blaze!
+Listen to the terrific noise of Hell&mdash;to the horrible
+uproar of countless millions of tormented creatures,
+mad with the fury of Hell! Oh, the screams of fear,
+the groanings of horror, the yells of rage, the cries
+of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair,
+from millions on millions. You hear them roaring
+like lions, hissing like serpents, howling like dogs,
+and wailing like dragons! And above all, you hear
+the roaring of the thunder of God's anger, which
+shakes Hell to its foundations. Little children, if
+you go to Hell, there will be a devil at your side
+to strike you. How will you feel after you have been
+struck every minute for a hundred millions of
+years? Look into this inner room of Hell, and see a
+girl of about sixteen. She stands in the middle of a
+red-hot floor; her feet are bare; sleep can never
+come to her; she can never forget for one moment
+in all the eternity of years."</p>
+
+<p>And so this description
+of Hell went on for nearly two hours. Do you
+wonder that I, a child of ten years, said to my
+father, who was a freethinker, infidel, atheist, or
+whatever else you please to call him: "I <i>hate</i> my
+mother's church. I will <i>not</i> go there again!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The next church I became acquainted with was
+the Calvin Baptist Church. That church
+seemed to think that the most of us were born to
+be damned anyway!</p>
+
+<p>The great Ingersoll had it right when he said it
+was the damned-if-you-do-and-the-damned-if-you-don't
+church.</p>
+
+<p>The only difference between the Free-Will Baptists
+and the Calvin Baptists that I can see, is, that you
+are allowed to exercise your <i>will</i>. The Free-Will
+Baptists will damn you if you wish to be, and the
+Calvinists will damn you anyway!</p>
+
+<p>The next church to which I was introduced was the
+Congregationalist, alias the Orthodox. Their creed
+is rather complex from a mathematical standpoint.
+They seem to think that three Gods are one God,
+and one God is three Gods.</p>
+
+<p>I, having been taught that figures don't lie,
+couldn't understand it, until I thought of a boy
+who said to his teacher when she explained to him
+that figures didn't lie: "You should see my sisters
+at home, and then on the street. You will find that
+figures do lie."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I then went to Italy, and became conversant
+with the <i>outside</i> doings of the Roman Catholic
+Church. I visited many of them, saw the beggars
+eating crusts at the doors, and the well-fed priests
+saying masses inside; saw the white hand of famine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+always extended, in bitter contrast to the magnificent
+cathedrals; saw well-dressed, intelligent-looking
+men and women going upstairs on their hands
+and knees, and saw hundreds of them kissing the
+toe of the bronze statue of Saint Peter; saw monks
+of every shade and description; and all begging for
+the Holy Catholic Church!</p>
+
+<p>I attended a church festival at Rome at the Ara
+Cœli, where the most "Holy Bambino" is kept, a
+little wooden doll about two feet long. It is said
+to be the image of Jesus. It had a crown of gold on
+its head and was fairly ablaze with diamonds. It
+has great power to heal the sick. It is taken to visit
+patients in great style&mdash;that is, if the patients are
+rich. The Bambino is placed in a coach accompanied
+by priests in full dress. The Great Festival of the
+Bambino is celebrated annually. Military bands
+and the Soldiers of the Guard dance attendance.
+Saint Gennaro is held to be the guardian saint of
+Naples. The alleged miracle by which the blood of
+this holy person, contained in a glass tube, changes
+from a solid to a liquid state, is well known.
+Thousands go to see the miracle performed. When
+the priest first held up the sacred vial with its
+clotted contents we could hear all about us: "Holy
+Gennaro, save and protect us! Bless the City of
+Naples, and keep it free from plagues and earthquakes
+and other ills. Do this miracle so that we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+can see that thy power and thy favor are still with
+us." And so it went on for an hour or more, until
+the great throng was nearly hysterical.</p>
+
+<p>At last the priest stepped forward, showing that
+the blood flowed freely in the tube, and then such
+a shout went up from the big crowd as one hears
+only in Southern climes.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I have never been introduced to the Church of
+England, alias, the Episcopalian, but I've
+always thought if a man had a good voice, and
+understood the mysteries of the corkscrew, he
+would make a good rector.</p>
+
+<p>I became acquainted with a High-Church Episcopalian
+woman not long ago, and she showed me a
+prayer-rug and praying-costume imported from
+Paris. I told her that she looked like an angel in it,
+as she ought after going to all that expense and
+trouble; if she didn't, dressmakers might as well
+give it up and wait for Gabriel. The attitude of
+prayer threw the back breadths of the skirt into
+graceful prominence, and hence the necessity
+(which will be at once recognized by all the truly
+<i>pious</i>) of increased attention to the frills and
+embroidery required by the religious attitude of
+prayer.</p>
+
+<p>An old farmer in Indiana said he was a "Piscopal."</p>
+
+<p>"To what parish do you belong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know nothing about parishes."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who confirmed you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody."</p>
+
+<p>"Then how do you belong to the Episcopalian Church?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, last Winter I went down to Arkansas
+visiting, and while I was there, I went to a church
+and it was called 'Piscopal,' and I heard them say
+that they had done the things they ought not to
+have done, and left undone the things they ought
+to have done, and I says to myself, 'That is my
+fix exactly,' and ever since then I've considered
+myself a 'Piscopal'!"</p>
+
+<p>And I came to the conclusion that that is why the
+membership of that church is so large!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I know but little about the Methodists, but I
+do know that John Wesley, one of the founders
+of that church, believed in witchcraft, and was one
+of the latest of its supporters.</p>
+
+<p>History tells us that Brother Wesley preached a
+sermon entitled, <i>The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes</i>.
+He said that earthquakes were caused by
+sin, and the only way to stop them was to believe
+in his theology and teachings, thus showing great
+knowledge of seismology; but people who bank on
+gullibility are usually safe. I know the Methodists
+make a great hullabaloo about their religion, and
+appear to think their God is deaf.</p>
+
+<p>The Methodist Conference has refused to allow
+women to be delegates to the General Conference.
+The Methodist sisters should discipline the Church.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>What I know about the Universalists I like.
+They seem to think that we are all in the
+same boat, and that one stands as good a chance
+as another, of which I approve. When I was a child,
+Sylvanus Cobb, at that time the great Universalist
+preacher, preached in the adjoining town. One
+Sunday, my father and I went to hear him. His
+sermon caused a great commotion, and the Baptist
+who preached that terrific sermon about Hell said
+to my mother, "There is a wicked man about here
+preaching that everybody is to be saved; but,
+Sister Young, let us hope for better things!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I believe that the Unitarians, as a class, think
+for themselves. I approve of that, and the
+Evangelical Alliance disapproves of them. That is
+in their favor.</p>
+
+<p>I taught school at Lee, New Hampshire, fifty years
+ago. One of the committee was a Unitarian, and one
+was a Quaker. I was tired of selecting suitable
+reading matter from that obscene old book, the
+Bible, and I suggested that we read from some
+other book, which we did for two mornings, when
+the Unitarian materialized at the schoolhouse, and
+with much suavity suggested that we read from the
+Bible every morning, and recite the Lord's Prayer;
+and I, teaching school for my bread and butter,
+bowed to the suggestion, and the next morning
+said: "Pupils, Mr. Smith prefers that we read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+from the Bible. Therefore, we will this morning
+read the startling and authentic account of Jonah
+whilst he was stopping at the submarine hotel."
+That is the most narrow-minded thing I ever knew
+about a Unitarian; but I always thought Mr. Smith
+voiced the opinion of the parents of the pupils
+rather than his own.</p>
+
+<p>I am somewhat acquainted with the Church of the
+Latter-Day Saints, alias the Mormons. They are
+a prudent, industrious, painstaking people, and
+only about two per cent of them ever <i>did</i> practise
+polygamy, and that is a very small proportion for
+any Christian church. Brigham Young never did
+have but seventeen wives, but Solomon had five
+hundred wives, and one thousand other lady
+friends, and David, whose honor and humility
+show greater in his psalms than in the history of his
+ordinary, every-day life, was, as the Bible says, a
+man after God's own heart.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure that Brigham Young compared favorably
+with David. And if God interviewed Moses, why
+shouldn't he have interviewed Joe Smith?</p>
+
+<p>There are more than one thousand religions. They
+are founded mostly on fraud. All their saviors had
+virgins for mothers, and gods for fathers.</p>
+
+<p>The churches own more than thirteen billions of
+property, and they are <i>all</i> too dishonest to pay
+honest taxes. Many of the churches couldn't be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+run three weeks without the women. They do all
+the work, for which they get no credit.</p>
+
+<p>The churches claim all the distinguished people,
+especially after they are dead and hence can not
+deny their claims. They have many times claimed
+that Abraham Lincoln was a churchman. The
+Honorable H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, an old
+friend of Lincoln, said it is false. Lincoln belonged
+to no church, and at one time said, "I have never
+united myself to any church, because I have found
+difficulty in giving my assent without mental
+reservation to the long, complicated statements of
+Christian doctrine, which characterize their articles
+of belief, and confessions of faith." But still they
+claim him. Honest, very!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>No institution in modern civilization is so
+tyrannical and so unjust to women as is the
+Christian church. The history of the Church does
+not contain a single suggestion for the equality of
+woman with man, and still the Church claims that
+woman owes her advancement to the Bible. She
+owes it much more to the dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>History, both ancient and modern, tells us that the
+condition of women is most degraded in those
+countries where Church and State are in closest
+affiliation (such as, Spain, Italy, Russia and Ireland),
+and most advanced in nations where the
+power of ecclesiasticism is markedly on the wane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+It has been proved that, whatever progress woman
+has made in any department of effort, she has
+accomplished independent of, and in opposition to,
+the so-called inspired and infallible Word of God;
+and that the Bible has been of more injury to her
+than has any other book ever written in the history
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>William Root Bliss, in his <i>Side Glimpses From the
+Colonial Meetinghouse</i>, tells us many startling
+truths concerning the Puritans, and reminds me of
+what Chauncey M. Depew said&mdash;that the <i>first</i>
+thing the Puritans did, after they landed at
+Plymouth, was to fall on their knees, and the <i>second</i>
+thing was to fall on the Aborigines.</p>
+
+<p>The business of trading in slaves was not immoral
+by the estimate of public opinion in Colonial times.
+A deacon of the church in Newport esteemed the
+slave trade, with its rum accessories, as home
+missionary work. It is said that on the first Sunday
+after the arrival of his slaves he was accustomed to
+offer thanks that an overruling Providence had
+been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another
+cargo of benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings
+of a Gospel dispensation.</p>
+
+<p>At a Bridgewater town meeting of the year Sixteen
+Hundred Seventy-six, a vote was called to see
+what should be done with the money that was made
+from selling the Indians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>John Bacon of Barnstable directed in his will that
+his Indian slave Dinah be sold and the proceeds
+used "by my executors in buying Bibles." By men
+who sat in the Colonial meetinghouse, the first
+fugitive-slave law was formed. This law became a
+part of the Articles of Confederation between all
+the New England Colonies.</p>
+
+<p>The affinity between <i>rum</i> and the religion of
+Colonial times was exemplified in the license
+granted John Vyall to keep a house of entertainment
+in Boston. He must keep it near the meetinghouse
+of the Second Church, where he extended
+his invitation to thirsty sinners who were going
+to hear John Mayo or Increase Mather preach.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The importation of slaves began early. The
+first arrival at Boston was by the ship <i>Desire</i>,
+on February Twenty-sixth, Sixteen Hundred Thirty-seven,
+bringing negroes, tobacco and cotton from
+Barbados. She had sailed from Boston eleven
+months before, carrying Indian captives to the
+Bermudas to be sold as slaves, and thus she became
+noted as the first New England slave-ship.</p>
+
+<p>In time, slaves were brought to Boston direct from
+Africa.</p>
+
+<p>Advertisements of just-arrived negroes to be sold
+may be seen in the Boston <i>News Letter</i> of the years
+Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six and Seventeen
+Hundred Twenty-seven. The pious Puritans did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+not hesitate to sell slaves on the auction-block. I
+find in the Boston <i>News Letter</i> of September Nineteenth,
+Seventeen Hundred Fifteen, a notice of an
+auction-sale at Newport, Rhode Island, of several
+Indians, men and boys, and a very likely negro man.
+They were treated in all respects as merchandise,
+and were rated with horses and cattle.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Faneuil, to whom Boston is indebted for
+its Cradle of Liberty, was deep in the business. In
+an inventory of the property of Parson Williams
+of Deerfield, in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine,
+his slaves were rated with his horses and cows.
+"Believe and be baptized" is all that was essential.
+I think many of them would have been improved
+by anchoring them out overnight.</p>
+
+<p>A negro preacher whom I knew came to me when
+I was in Florida, and said: "What shall I preach
+about tomorrow? I'se done preached myself
+'plumb out.' I'se worked on election sanctification
+and damnation predestination till I can't say
+another word to save my life."</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Preach a sermon on 'Thou shalt not steal'
+for a text."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that certainly <i>is</i> a good text,
+but I am monstros 'fraid it will produce a coolness
+in my congregation!"</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless it would produce a coolness in many
+a congregation today.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Now I want to talk a little about <i>law</i> and its
+penalty. We want to consider the invariable
+laws of Nature. Let us look at it in the way in
+which we became acquainted with it&mdash;through
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>To the child, law is an educator; he plays with fire
+and is burned. Law and its penalty have done their
+work. A burnt child dreads the fire. On that point
+his education is complete. He cuts himself with a
+knife; again the law works. Do not play with
+edged tools is the lesson. And so, whenever he comes
+in contact with external objects, he learns something
+very definite from them; and if he has any
+sense, he soon conforms to the order which he sees
+in force all around him. He does what he can to act
+in such a way as not to run counter to Nature's
+laws; or, at least, Nature teaches him to do so by
+repeated suffering when he acts otherwise. The
+law thus far is all in favor of life, and is teaching the
+child to preserve it. He must eat not to starve; he
+must be clothed not to freeze; he must not be
+burned, or cut, or crushed. In one word, he must
+take care of himself, and be careful of external
+objects, or he must be hurt.</p>
+
+<p>But his education has another connection with law.
+If he has proper parents he learns that he can not
+lie, or steal, or do many other things without suffering
+a penalty. If he has no home education in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+matter, the reform-school and the jail step in and
+take up the lesson.</p>
+
+<p>And so the law teaches him that his actions must be
+of a certain quality, both with respect to external
+Nature and his fellowmen, or that he must pay a
+penalty.</p>
+
+<p>Thus he comes to man's estate, and law has been
+to him an educator and a good one. He has learned
+that Nature's law means punishment every time
+it is violated, and that man's law, whatever it may
+attain to, <i>aims</i> at the same object as Nature's law.</p>
+
+<p>But neither his education nor his contact with
+law ends with his youth. Hitherto he has obeyed
+blindly for fear of the penalty. He now obeys
+intelligently, and connected with the penalty to be
+incurred by disobedience is the reward to be
+obtained through obedience. He finds that every
+act, every thought, of his brings him in direct contact
+with law. He can not elude it by standing still,
+for no man can stand still. He must go forward, or
+backward. This is an inexorable law; with progress,
+improvement; without progress, what? Rest?
+Repose? No! Deterioration. No man can stand
+still in this universe for a day without losing something.
+The man who means to do anything in life
+must go forward; if he falters, another goes ahead;
+and then he learns that the penalty of faltering is
+failure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nature works no special miracles in any one's
+favor. Nature works no miracles, anyway. The sun
+and the moon did <i>not</i> stand still at Joshua's command!</p>
+
+<p>No riches and influence can buy exemption from
+Nature.</p>
+
+<p>Law says to the poor man who is dependent on his
+daily toil: "You have only yourself to rely upon.
+Take care of your health; be temperate, honest
+and industrious, for sickness, imprisonment, idleness,
+mean to you death."</p>
+
+<p>It says to the rich man: "Inherited wealth has
+exempted you from <i>daily</i> labor of body, but it has
+not earned for you rest. Go to work; do something,
+or your mind and body will be enfeebled; your
+sympathies will disappear; you will become dry
+as the summer's dust; you will sink into a nonentity."</p>
+
+<p>The whole cry of Nature's law is onward and
+upward. Evolution is the word&mdash;there is no God
+about it. It is not alone the survival of the fittest&mdash;that
+is only a part of the process. It is the fittest of
+one generation becoming something better and
+higher for the next.</p>
+
+<p>It is the fashion now to say that the struggle for
+existence becomes yearly more fierce, but that is
+not so. The truth is that those who struggle become
+with each survival fitter to struggle, and that for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+which they struggle is placed one step forward.
+Men used to want thousands and hundreds of thousands;
+now, they want millions and hundreds of
+millions. They used to want general knowledge;
+now, they are all specialists, and cry out that life
+is too short. Steam used to content them; now,
+electricity does not satisfy them, and they are
+grasping at the possibilities of the mighty currents
+of air caused by the revolutions of the earth itself.</p>
+
+<p>The law of progress is not limited to the mind.
+The body shares in it. Men are stronger, larger,
+longer-lived than they have ever been. Even with
+the animals, finer, better breeds are constantly
+producing themselves under law.</p>
+
+<p>This law of the survival of the fittest and the
+elevation of the type of the fittest pronounced
+against slavery, and a nation paid the penalty in
+blood, as Spain has, and other nations will pay it.
+It has pronounced against the subjection of women,
+and let those who stand in the way, beware, lest
+some ruin crush them as it falls!</p>
+
+<p>The type of sympathy has become higher and
+tenderer. Sweet hands of mercy are now stretched
+down even to the brutes. Let those lovers of the
+past who can see no progress in the present, who
+would question this onward tendency, and the
+result of law, let them remember that they must
+run rapidly to keep from being overwhelmed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+<i>expansionists</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nature's law teaches us that like
+begets like. You plant a grain of wheat, and you
+reap wheat. You breed Morgan stock and the foal
+is of Morgan blood. The child is the offspring of
+certain parents, and it inherits their blood. If
+parents choose to unfit themselves to be healthy
+parents, who shall be blamed?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Shall gravitation cease as I go by? Teach
+children that no amount of so-called religion
+will compensate for rheumatism; that Christianity
+has nothing to do with morality; that "vicarious
+atonement" is a fraud, and a lie; that to be born
+well and strong is the highest birth; that to be
+honest and pay one's debts spells peace of mind;
+that the Bible is no more inspired than the dictionary;
+that <i>sin</i> is a transgression of the laws of life,
+and that the blood of all the bulls and goats and
+lambs of ancient times, and the blood of Christ or
+any other man, never had, and never can have, the
+least effect in making a life what it would have
+been had it obeyed the laws of life. If you have
+marred your life, you must bear the consequences.
+If you have made a mistake, be more careful in the
+future. Let the thought that the past is irretrievable
+make you more careful in the present and for
+the future.</p>
+
+<p>And, above all, teach children that prayer is
+idiotic. There may be one God or twenty. I do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+know or care. I am not afraid, and no priest or
+parson can make me believe that my title to a
+future life, if there be one, is defective. And the
+great and good man Thomas Paine, who wrote the
+<i>Age of Reason</i>, and said, "The world is my
+country, and to do good my religion," is a good
+enough god for me. And the great Ingersoll, who
+said, "I belong to the great Church that holds the
+world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great
+and good of every race and clime; that finds with
+joy the grain of gold in every creed and floods with
+light and love the germs of good in every soul," is
+in my opinion an excellent god&mdash;as good as any
+that ever lived, from Confucius to Christ. A friend
+of mine said to me, "Ingersoll should have been
+a Christian." I replied, "The dog-collar of Christianity
+did not belong on his neck: he preached the
+truth; he preferred that to the Bible. I can not
+imagine the great Ingersoll preaching from II
+Kings xiv: 35."</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>When I was a child I heard very little about Christmas
+and nothing about Lent and Easter. I was taught
+to be honest and truthful and to pay one hundred
+cents on a dollar. In my opinion there is no Bible
+extant so good as Ingersoll's Complete Works.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="REJOINDER">A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is
+born of courage. Fear believes&mdash;courage
+doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and
+prays&mdash;courage stands erect and thinks.
+Fear retreats&mdash;courage advances. Fear
+is barbarism&mdash;courage is civilization.
+Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and
+in ghosts. Fear is religion&mdash;courage is
+science.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">There are real crimes enough without
+creating artificial ones. All progress in
+legislation has for centuries consisted in
+repealing the laws of the ghosts.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p class="large center">A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER<br />
+A LABOR OF FOLLY<br />
+<span class="medium"><i>From the Portsmouth "Times"</i></span></p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">UR old friend, Marilla M. Ricker,
+of Dover, lifelong advocate of
+"woman's rights," zealous champion
+of "freethought," admirer of
+Bob Ingersoll, worshiper of Tom
+Paine, and collaborator of Elbert
+Hubbard, who fears neither God, man nor the
+Devil, because she does not believe particularly in
+any of them, is engaged in a labor of folly, in that
+she is fighting the doctrine of the immortality of
+the human soul.</p>
+
+<p>In the prosecution of her warfare she has gone into
+print and issued a pamphlet in which she takes
+issue, primarily, with one Elder E. A. Kenyon
+upon his proposition of a universal consciousness
+that "if a man die he shall live again," and even
+goes so far as to assert that the majority of mankind
+believe in annihilation. Moreover, she pronounces
+the doctrine of personal immortality "a
+most selfish and harmful one," "pernicious in its
+results," and operating for the enslavement of
+mankind, filling the world with gloom and making
+of man a crawling coward.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+We invite no controversy with Marilla, and will
+have none. We concede her right to believe anything,
+or nothing, to say what she thinks, write
+what she pleases, get it printed where she may, and
+circulate it as she can; but our advice to the dear
+sister is to "let up" on this contention, wherein
+she is out-Ingersolling Ingersoll. He did not
+believe in immortality, but he did not deny it. He
+claimed that he did not know, and that no man
+could know it to be a fact; but he never sought to
+blot out hope. And the truth is that but for this
+hope of immortal existence, entertained by the
+vast majority of the race, in all lands and ages, life
+would not be worth living, and men and women
+everywhere would lie down and perish in despair.
+It is this hope, or faith, or consciousness&mdash;however
+we may express it&mdash;of life beyond the grave, or the
+immortality of the soul, that inspires mankind to
+all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for
+progress and development here. Without it there
+would be no incentive effort beyond that which
+impels the brute. Without it, in fact, man would
+be mere brute, and nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>That the horrid doctrines of Calvinism were dinned
+into Mrs. Ricker's ears in childhood, and the fear
+of eternal torment held up before her, instead of
+the infinite love of a God of Mercy and Justice,
+may have impelled her to repudiate all idea of God<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+or Justice, or life to come; but she ought to be
+intelligent enough to sift the error from the truth
+and cling to the latter. If not, she should at least
+be willing to allow others to do so. She may
+repudiate the old Calvinism, or even Christianity
+itself. She may become a Mohammedan, a Buddhist,
+an Agnostic or an out-and-out "heathen" if
+she will. She may accept annihilation as the universal
+fate of humanity; but she should be willing
+to allow mankind in general its indulgence in that
+one "Great Hope," which has illumined with
+immortal splendor the darkest passages of human
+life, and sustains the soul of man and woman in the
+severest trials and conflicts of earth.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE REJOINDER</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>From the Portsmouth "Times"</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="p2">I was amused when I read in the
+Portsmouth <i>Times</i> an article from
+my friend Metcalf, entitled, A
+<i>Labor of Folly</i>. The genial Henry
+said I was a lifelong advocate of
+"woman's rights," which is true.
+And an admirer of Ingersoll. Could any one help
+admire that great and good man? And a worshiper
+of Thomas Paine. Worship is rather a strong word
+to apply to me, but I think the man who said, "The
+world is my country, and to do good my religion,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+and who did more than any other man to put the
+stars on our flag and to give that flag to the breeze,
+should be loved and respected.</p>
+
+<p>He, the aforesaid Henry, said I collaborated with
+Elbert Hubbard. I am proud of that, whether it is
+true or not.</p>
+
+<p>I consider Hubbard the most brilliant writer in
+this country.</p>
+
+<p>Henry also said I feared neither God, man nor the
+Devil, because I did not believe particularly in any
+of them. If he would add an "o" to God and make
+it good, take the "d" from devil and make it evil,
+then I would have something tangible to write
+about besides man, in whom I believe.</p>
+
+<p>Henry also said that I was engaged in a "labor of
+folly," fighting the doctrine of the immortality of
+the soul.</p>
+
+<p>I simply expressed my opinion on the subject.
+My friend Henry wrote me not long ago that there
+was no earthly need of a Freethought paper; that
+thought was as free as air always and everywhere.
+I take issue with him there, and I call his attention
+to the <i>Little Journey</i> to the home of Copernicus&mdash;of
+January, Nineteen Hundred Five&mdash;by Elbert Hubbard.
+Copernicus was the founder of modern
+astronomy.</p>
+
+<p>If Henry will read his life he can see what freethought
+meant at that time. I also call his attention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+to Giordano Bruno. He can see what happened to
+him and how free thought was at that time. Henry
+said I could write what I pleased, and get it printed
+where I could.</p>
+
+<p>That was well added, for I could not in the year
+Nineteen Hundred Nine, in the city of Dover,
+New Hampshire, get my article on Immortality
+printed in the only paper in the city; so you see
+how freethought is up to date.</p>
+
+<p>I certainly "take issue" with Henry, "That the
+hope or consciousness of life beyond the grave, or
+immortality of the soul, inspires mankind to all
+that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for
+progress and development here."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Ingersoll did not believe in immortality,
+but he was a great, tender-hearted man, full of
+kindness, full of generous impulses. No man ever
+loved the true, the good and the beautiful more
+than he. He would take the case of a poor man into
+court without pay; he would give a young reporter
+an interview when he could sell every word he
+spoke for a dollar; he would present the proceeds
+of a lecture to some worthy object as though he
+were throwing a nickel to an organ-grinder; and
+when there was persecution he was on the side of
+the persecuted.</p>
+
+<p>I do not believe in individual immortality, but I
+do the best I can, pay one hundred cents on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+dollar, and I am not afraid to die. I know thousands
+who believe as I do.</p>
+
+<p>John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed
+in the immortality of the soul&mdash;so do his followers.
+He also believed that sin was the cause of earthquakes,
+and the only way to stop them was to
+believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't know
+much about seismology, but he certainly had
+faith, plus.</p>
+
+<p>John Calvin founded the Presbyterian Church; he
+believed in the immortality of the soul. So do his
+followers; but Calvin was a murderer.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, it is absurd to say that without hope of
+immortality we should be degraded to brutes; in
+my opinion it is not true. What we want is a
+religion that will pay debts; that will practise
+honesty in business life; that will treat employees
+with justice and consideration; that will render
+employers full and faithful work; that will keep
+bank-cashiers true, officeholders patriotic, and
+reliable citizens interested in the purity of politics
+(and the woman citizen will be)&mdash;such a religion is
+real, vital and effective. But a religion that embraces
+vicarious atonement, miraculous conception, regeneration
+by faith, baptism, individual immortality
+and other monkey business is, in my opinion,
+degrading, absurd and unworthy.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, you say you want no controversy with me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+I enjoy controversy, but if you are averse to it I'll
+stop and we will unite in singing one stanza of that
+Christian hymn:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">King David and King Solomon</div>
+<div class="line i1">Led merry, merry lives</div>
+<div class="line">With their many, many lady friends</div>
+<div class="line i1">And their many, many wives;</div>
+<div class="line">But when old age came o'er them</div>
+<div class="line i1">With its many, many qualms,</div>
+<div class="line">(It was said)</div>
+<div class="line">King Solomon wrote the Proverbs</div>
+<div class="line i1">And King David wrote the Psalms.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>But did they?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"
+height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">Where religion is afraid of liberty,
+liberty should be afraid of religion.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">So long as man believes that he has an
+immortal soul, he will fear the future.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="GHOST">THE HOLY GHOST</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">For ages, a deadly conflict has been
+waged between a few brave men and
+women of thought and genius upon the
+one side, and the great ignorant religious
+mass on the other. This is the war between
+Science and Faith. The few have appealed
+to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to
+the known, and to happiness here in this
+world. The many have appealed to
+prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery,
+to the unknown, and to misery hereafter.
+The few have said, "Think!" The many
+have said, "Believe!"</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">THE HOLY GHOST</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/o.jpg" width="160" height="150" alt="O"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">F all the weird, fanciful and fabulous
+stories appertaining to the
+gods and other pious frauds, that
+concerning the Holy Ghost ranks
+them all! Now listen to what the
+Bible has to say about that
+mythical personage&mdash;alias, the Holy Ghost. You
+will see that scarcely any two references to it agree
+in assigning it the same character or attributes.
+(It reminds me of what an old lady said at a prayer-meeting:
+"Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to
+me that there are no two of a mind here tonight,
+nor hardly one!")</p>
+
+<p>In John xiv: 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a
+person or personal God. In Luke iii: 22, the Holy
+Ghost changes and assumes the form of a dove. In
+Matthew xiii: 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit.
+In John i: 32, the Holy Ghost is presented as an
+inanimate senseless object. In I John v: 7, the Holy
+Ghost becomes a God&mdash;the third member of the
+Trinity. In Acts ii: 1, the Holy Ghost is averred to
+be a mighty rushing wind. In Acts x: 38, the Holy
+Ghost, we infer from its mode of application, is an
+ointment. In John xx: 22, the Holy Ghost is the
+breath, as we legitimately infer by its being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+breathed into the mouth of the recipient after the
+ancient Oriental custom. In Acts ii: 3, we learn the
+Holy Ghost "sat upon each of them." In Acts ii: 1,
+the Holy Ghost appears as cloven tongues of fire.
+In Luke ii: 26, the Holy Ghost is the author of a
+revelation or inspiration. In Mark i: 8, the Holy
+Ghost is a medium or element for baptism. In
+Acts xxviii: 25, the Holy Ghost appears with vocal
+organs and speaks. In Hebrews vi: 4, the Holy
+Ghost is dealt out or imparted by measure. In
+Luke iii: 22 the Holy Ghost appears with a tangible
+body. In Luke i: 5, we are taught that people are
+filled with the Holy Ghost. In Matthew xi: 15,the
+Holy Ghost falls upon the people as a ponderable
+substance. In Luke iv: 1, the Holy Ghost is a God
+within a God&mdash;Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>These are only a few quotations. There are many
+more, but we can all see what a multifarious
+personage, or rather <i>he</i>, <i>she</i>, or <i>it</i> the Holy Ghost is.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I remember hearing much about the unpardonable
+sin against the Holy Ghost. The sin
+against the Holy Ghost consisted in resisting its
+operations in the second birth&mdash;that is, the regeneration
+of the heart or soul by the Holy Ghost.
+And it was considered unpardonable simply because
+as the pardoning and cleansing process consisted
+in, or was at least always accompanied with,
+baptism by water, in which operation the Holy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+Ghost was the agent in effecting the "new birth,"
+therefore, when the ministrations or operations of
+this indispensable agent were resisted or rejected,
+there was no channel, no means, no possible mode
+left for the sinner to find a renewed acceptance with
+God.</p>
+
+<p>When a person sinned against the Father or the
+Son, he could find a door of forgiveness through the
+baptizing processes, spiritual or elementary, of the
+Holy Ghost. But an offense committed against this
+third limb of the Godhead had the effect of closing
+and barring the door so that there could be no
+forgiveness, either in this life or in that which is
+to come.</p>
+
+<p>To sin against the Holy Ghost was to tear down the
+scaffold by which the door of Heaven was to be
+reached. This <i>sin</i> against the Holy Ghost has
+caused thousands of the disciples of the Christian
+faith the most agonizing hours of alarm and despair.</p>
+
+<p>It has always been my opinion that many people
+who thought they had sinned against the Holy
+Ghost simply had dyspepsia.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>If people should deceive in other matters as the
+priests, parsons and teachers do in religion, they
+would not escape arrest.</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">The destruction of religions and superstition
+means the upbuilding of charity
+and ethics.&mdash;<i>Ralph W. Chainey.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Superstition is nothing but a misplaced
+fear of some fancied supernatural phantasm
+of divinity.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="CHRIST">HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">All that is good in our civilization is the
+result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical
+position, industry, invention, discovery,
+art and science. The Church has
+been the enemy of progress, for the
+reason that it has endeavored to prevent
+man from thinking for himself. To prevent
+thought is to prevent all advancement
+except in the direction of faith.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">HOW CAN WE "TAKE" CHRIST?</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/i.jpg" width="160" height="147" alt="I&nbsp;"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst"> receive many letters from
+various people telling me that
+Christ is mine if I will only take
+him. I am always amused at the
+solicitations of these people and
+feel as President Taft did when
+Peary "laid the Pole" at his feet. Taft replied he
+had no idea what he should do with it. I should not
+know what to do with Christ if I took him.</p>
+
+<p>What can they mean by taking Christ? The word
+Christ is used to designate a certain individual
+who died, if he ever lived, nearly two thousand
+years ago. Now to take this person we should have
+to take him from the earth where he was buried.
+I am at a loss to comprehend what Christians mean
+when they offer Christ to any one. What right has
+an individual today to offer another a person who
+has been dead two thousand years? I fail to see any
+sense in such an offer.</p>
+
+<p>Certain men and women go about the world asking
+people to come to Christ, to accept Christ. What
+do they mean&mdash;do they know?</p>
+
+<p>In my opinion the supreme dogma of Christianity
+is the divinity of Jesus. If Jesus was a man, all that
+was related of his divine acts in the four Gospels is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+false. How would a person like the Nazarene
+peasant be accepted today were he to play the part
+of a god?</p>
+
+<p>Suppose a person who had lived in our neighborhood
+should come to us and say, "I am God, and
+I want you to help me save the world; quit your
+work and follow me." What would you think of
+him? Would any one pay the least attention to
+him, except to think he was insane and have him
+placed in an asylum for safety?</p>
+
+<p>The people who are preaching the divinity of Jesus
+know nothing about him except what they read in a
+book that was written by unknown authors. Jesus
+is the last hope of Christian theology. He is the
+only solution of the divine problem that Christianity
+has to offer. Is not the direction of the world's
+most rational thought away from the Christian
+notion of Jesus? In my opinion it is.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Let us look at the once famous stronghold of
+New England Orthodoxy, the Andover Theological
+Seminary, which was chartered on June Nineteenth,
+Eighteen Hundred Seven, and opened for
+instruction on September Twenty-eighth, Eighteen
+Hundred Eight. I think it was about seven years
+ago that it was transferred to Cambridge and
+became a part of Harvard University. At that time
+the school consisted of seven instructors, twelve
+students and a library of sixty-five thousand books,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+with an endowment of eight hundred fifty thousand
+dollars in productive funds and an annual income
+of thirty-five thousand dollars.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that the highways were scoured
+every Summer for students, and enticing scholarships
+held out, but to no avail. No students
+materialized.</p>
+
+<p>Why is this? In my opinion it is the rising generation's
+dissatisfaction with traditional theology;
+they have outgrown it. Ingersoll said that once in
+five years the President of the Seminary summoned
+his professors before him to make oath that
+they had learned absolutely nothing during the
+preceding five years and would not learn anything
+for the next five years. And that promise was not
+subject to recall.</p>
+
+<p>But even Andover couldn't remain in that condition.
+In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-six it announced
+its new system of "progressive orthodoxy."
+This created a division between the Old School and
+the New, and marked the beginning of the end of
+Andover; and after much litigation it consented to
+be "gathered in" by Harvard or "swallowed," or
+perhaps they would say "merged."</p>
+
+<p>They have now a new building located upon land
+adjacent to that of Harvard University, and the
+last account from the "Great Seminary" was that
+they had twenty-four pupils. The library of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+Seminary and that of the Harvard Divinity School
+have been combined and are housed together in
+Bartlett Hall.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The defenders of the Gospel of Christ don't
+seem to be increasing; on the contrary, there
+seems to be great depression in matters ecclesiastical
+these days, even in puritanical New England. It
+plainly shows that the young men of the present
+day are not anxious to wear the "Dog-Collar of
+Christianity," and as far as I've heard no Christian
+arose to remark that the morals of the "Reverend"
+Clarence Richeson were contaminated by reading
+the words of Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll,
+Elbert Hubbard or Lemuel K. Washburn. The
+Reverend Clarence seemed to be a product of the
+Christian Bible, and talked to the last of his God
+and his Bible.</p>
+
+<p>What is left of Christianity? Who wrote the
+Christian Bible? The smallest child in a Sunday
+School would answer the question by saying
+"God," but the most learned person on the globe
+would say, "I do not know." It is being admitted
+by thinking persons that answers to religious
+questions possess nothing more than a religious
+value. When a person is graduated from a Sunday
+School he is wiser than he will be after he has lived
+forty years, provided he learns anything by living.</p>
+
+<p>"God" is a term used to express what man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+does not know, but it does not seem to me necessary
+to assign to the Bible divine authorship, as
+it can be accounted for on other grounds. It is
+certain that men and women have written books.
+It is not certain that there is a God and, if so,
+that he has written a book. If man could write
+the Bible, there seems to be no need for God to
+do so. It is a fact that no one knows who wrote
+a word of the Bible, and yet it will require many
+more years to kill the foolish superstition that
+God inspired certain men to write this book.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing grows slower than truth, and nothing
+faster than superstition. Falsehood was never
+known to commit suicide. Unknown men wrote
+the Christian Bible, not an unknown God.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Not many years ago I saw that a teacher in
+the Holyoke (Massachusetts) High School
+was dismissed for saying that Jesus was one of a
+family of ten. Jesus is a word that paralyzes the
+mental faculties. As to the accuracy of the statement
+we have only the Gospels for authority.
+At any rate, if Matthew and Mark are reliable
+he had four brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>In Matthew xiii: 54 we read: "Is not this the
+carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary,
+and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon,
+and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"</p>
+
+<p>Mark confirms Matthew about the size of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+Mary's family.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to learn something concerning
+this case, but silence a yard wide lay all
+about it. I fancy the teacher was silenced in some
+way. Leastwise I could learn nothing.</p>
+
+<p>It doesn't take much to silence a teacher, or it
+didn't fifty years ago, especially if she were
+dependent upon teaching for her bread and butter,
+which I was.</p>
+
+<p>I, at one time, tried to substitute one of Ralph
+Waldo Emerson's books to be read in school in
+the morning instead of the Christian Bible. I
+was informed by one of the committee that the
+Bible must be read every morning and the Ten
+Commandments repeated. The next morning I
+selected the "truthful" and startling account of
+Jonah whilst he was sojourning at the Submarine
+Hotel. I at that time made up my mind that if
+I were ever financially independent I'd say what
+I thought concerning the Christian religion, and
+no one doubts that I've done so.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Jesus is the last hope of Christian theology.
+It can be but a few years at most when faith
+in Jesus as God will be the mark of intellectual
+stupidity. It seems to me that mankind will soon
+be sensible enough to dismiss this dogma to eternal
+oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>It is the last relic of heathen mythology that clings
+to modern civilization. The Christian church is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+put to its utmost ingenuity to hide the absurdity
+in this dogma.</p>
+
+<p>The dogma of the divinity of Jesus rests upon
+fictitious events, and hence its fate is sealed.</p>
+
+<p>Many persons regard any one that calls Jesus a
+man as a blasphemer. There is a great amount of
+pious nonsense in the world, and there is more
+connected with Jesus than with any other character
+whom Christendom honors.</p>
+
+<p>The reverence paid to Jesus by Christians is the
+homage of idolatry.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing for people to do is to get rid of the
+silly notion that there is anything holy in the
+name of Jesus any more than in the name of Hercules,
+Bacchus or Adonis. All the gods of the past
+are myths to the present. Jesus stands in the way
+of the world's advancement. The path of civilization
+is over his grave. The mind has been fettered
+by worship of this myth. We want to get rid of the
+Christian superstition.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>Isn't it astonishing that many children should be
+taught about the "resurrection" before they can
+spell cat?</i></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">Whenever a man believes that he has the
+exact truth from God, there is in that
+man no spirit of compromise. He has not
+the modesty born of the imperfections of
+human nature; he has the arrogance of
+theological certainty and the tyranny
+born of ignorant assurance. Believing
+himself to be the slave of God, he imitates
+his master, and of all tyrants the worst is
+a slave in power.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">When a man really believes that it is
+necessary to do a certain thing to be
+happy forever, or that a certain belief is
+necessary to insure eternal joy, there is
+in that man no spirit of concession. He
+divides the whole world into saints and
+sinners, into believers and unbelievers,
+into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into
+people who will be glorified and people
+who will be damned.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="INGERSOLL">COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">We need no myths, no miracles, no gods,
+no devils.&mdash;<i>Robert Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<p class="i2 p2">The world is my country and to do good is
+my religion.&mdash;<i>Thomas Paine.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">The presence of a hypocrite is a sure
+indication that there is a Bible and a
+prayer-book not very far away.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/i.jpg" width="160" height="147" alt="I"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">T is difficult to sketch this many-sided
+man. He was full of pity and
+sympathy for the poor and unfortunate.
+He was great enough
+to applaud the good, and good
+enough to forgive the erring. He
+could charm a child with his speech, or sway thousands
+by his magic words. He was the supreme
+philosopher of commonsense.</p>
+
+<p>He knew how to answer a fool, but he never forgot
+to be courteous to an opponent. He would take
+the case of a poor man into court without pay;
+he would give a young reporter an interview when
+he could sell every word he spoke for a dollar; he
+would present the proceeds of a lecture to some
+worthy object as though he were throwing a nickel
+to an organ-grinder; he would lead a reform with a
+dozen workers if he believed them in the right, just
+as if he had a million followers; and where there
+was persecution he was on the side of the persecuted.
+Ingersoll was the truest American that
+America ever bore.</p>
+
+<p>He was the orator of her rivers and mountains, of
+her hills and dales, of her forests and flowers, of
+her struggles and victories, of her free institutions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+of her Stars and Stripes&mdash;the orator of the home, of
+wife and child, of love and liberty. The head, heart
+and hand of Ingersoll were perfectly united and
+worked together. As he thought he acted; when he
+had anything to say, he said it aloud. He was not
+ashamed of his thoughts. He did not hide or go
+around the corner, or beat about the bush. He
+spoke honestly what he saw, what he thought,
+what he knew.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"
+height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="THOUGHT">MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT</h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="p6 i2">The entire New Testament is the work
+of Catholic Churchmen.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="i2 p2">God is not a fact; nothing that can be
+seen, heard or felt; nothing that can be
+found out or in. God is a verbal content.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="large center">MARK TWAIN'S BEST THOUGHT</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">HE best thing Mark Twain ever
+said was, "I should like to see
+the ballot in the hands of every
+woman." Freethinkers should also
+remember him with gratitude; he
+said enough from our point of
+view to warrant that. "Give me my glasses," were
+his last words. It will be but a short time before
+some pious evangelical hypocrite will add, "I
+want to read my Bible!" They are already writing
+about his "highest sphere of thought," namely,
+his religious thought.</p>
+
+<p>I remember when a Presbyterian deacon said of
+him, "I would rather bury a daughter of mine
+than have her marry such a fellow." The church
+people are all anxious to avoid their own history
+concerning Mark Twain and many other people.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Doctor Twitchell said at Mark's
+funeral that a simple soul had gone trustingly to
+the beyond. He didn't mention where the beyond
+was, and he prayed to the Christian God that
+courage in the faith of immortality be given to
+those who mourn.</p>
+
+<p>Through all these Christian notices runs an undercurrent
+that Mark Twain was only secondarily a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+humorist. I knew him somewhat in the old days
+and have heard him lecture. He certainly laughed
+superstition from the minds of thousands, and the
+most of his books bear witness to his broad and
+liberal views.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Doctor Van Dyke mixed much
+religious sophistry with his remarks at the funeral
+of Twain, but the reverend doctor is a theological
+acrobat.</p>
+
+<p>He preached once on the Atonement, and said there
+are a thousand true doctrines of the Atonement,
+which is saying substantially that no doctrine
+specifically is true&mdash;for instance, the doctrine of
+the Westminster Confession, to which Van Dyke
+pledged loyalty when he was ordained a Presbyterian
+minister. He at that time ripped up the
+Westminster settlement, and reopened the whole
+question for discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Any preacher who believes in the geology of Moses,
+the astronomy of Joshua, and the mathematics of
+the Trinity, must do an immense amount of "side-stepping."</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>Christianity is only a bubble of superstition, and
+Jesus is reduced to a toy god of the Sunday School.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="RELIGION">AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE
+ON RELIGION</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2">Religion is inherited fear.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">In my opinion a steeple is no more to be
+excluded from taxation than a smokestack.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Faith is the cross on which man crucifies
+his liberty.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+
+<p class="large center">AN IRRELIGIOUS DISCOURSE</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/w.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="W"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">E are living in the Twentieth
+Century of what is called the
+Christian Era, and we have not
+outgrown the superstitions of the
+First Century. And worse than
+this, we have not had the courage
+to abandon the fictions of the Book of Genesis for
+the truths of modern science. Just what the world
+is afraid of, that it fears to trust its senses, its
+reason, its knowledge, surpasses my understanding.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first things that men and women
+should learn is, that there is nothing in the universe
+to be afraid of; that all the malignant deities
+are dead; that the ancient gods that presided over
+the destiny of earth and of earthly things have all
+fallen from the sky; that in the realm of Nature
+everything is natural, and that no man is pursued
+by a god of wrath and vengeance who would punish
+him for his unbelief. Every god that can not hear
+the truth without getting mad should be dethroned.
+Every priest who can not join in singing the songs
+of civilization should be warned to look out for the
+engine while the bell rings.</p>
+
+<p>This world of ours is a world to be enjoyed, but it
+can not be enjoyed if we fear every manifestation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+of Nature and if we put a cruel god behind every
+cloud.</p>
+
+<p>Let us live without fear, without superstition,
+without religion.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There is nothing above, beneath or around
+you that cares whether you are a Christian
+or an unbeliever. The real reason why a priest hates
+an unbeliever is that he can not get a dollar out of
+him. He damns those who know better than to
+swallow his say-sos. But it still remains a fact that
+an infidel can raise as many bushels of potatoes to
+the acre as can the Roman Catholic. The sun will
+not wrong an honest man. The stars will not punish
+a single human being for telling the truth. The
+sky will not persecute a person who gives his
+thoughts, his talents, his time, to finding ways to
+help mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that man believes in that can not be
+found, that can not be proved, that can not stand
+the test of commonsense: everything that contradicts
+Nature, that is opposed to established facts,
+that is contrary to the laws of the universe, must
+be given up.</p>
+
+<p>We must have a new man: the man born of woman,
+not the man made by God; the man who has been
+growing better ever since his advent on earth, not
+the man who has been growing worse; the man
+who started with nothing and has conquered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+earth, the sea and the air; not the man who began
+perfect and has not got halfway back; the man
+who made the telescope, the steam-engine, the
+power-loom, the telephone and the wireless telegraph;
+not the man who made the thumbscrew,
+the rack, the ducking-stool and the stocks; the
+man who has carried the torch of liberty to enlighten
+the world, not the man who has carried the
+crucifix to enslave mankind.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is quite common to be told what Moses said
+or what Jesus said. Now, if all that these two
+Hebrew gentlemen (who in my opinion never lived)
+said, is preserved in the Bible, I appeal from what
+they said to those who know more. I assert that
+Moses said a lot of stuff that isn't so, and a lot
+more that never was so, and that all that Jesus is
+said to have said is practically worthless to the
+world today; that there is not in all of his utterances
+a single word that will help man to get a
+living, a single word that will aid man in his
+struggle for knowledge; that there is not a statement
+of a single scientific fact, or a plea for human
+liberty in all his language. He told his generation
+nothing that was not already known, except a mess
+of superstitious nonsense about angels and devils,
+heavens and hells. His so-called gospel of salvation
+was to follow him, and he landed on a cross.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is this: the world has outgrown Moses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+and Jesus. It does not take commands from either.
+This age believes in work, not worship; in deeds,
+not prayers; in men, not monks; in liberty, not in
+pious obedience; in human rights, not in submission;
+in knowledge, not in revelation.</p>
+
+<p>For hundreds of years man was bound by a
+religious faith, and the priest was his cruel master.
+He dared not doubt; he dared not rebel; he dared
+not dream of freedom; but there came a time when
+religious tyranny could no longer be borne. Then
+Mankind cried out to the Church: Give back man's
+brain to man; restore to him the mind you have
+robbed him of; take from his head and heart the
+paralyzing fear that makes him a coward and a
+slave, and leave to him the liberty with which
+Nature dowered him, that his mind may discover
+and preserve those mighty thoughts which make
+man brave, honest, free and happy.</p>
+
+<p>That cry was heard far. It was heard by glad ears,
+and liberty sprang from the ground like the warriors
+from the fabled dragon-teeth of Cadmus. The
+war between liberty and tyranny, between fact
+and fable, between truth and falsehood, between
+man and priest, was on, and for centuries this war
+has raged, nor is it yet over. Freedom still lies
+bleeding, but victory for the right will sooner or
+later be won.</p>
+
+<p>That victory will not be complete until every man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+will dare to say: Let come what will come, no man,
+be he priest, minister or judge, shall sit upon the
+throne of my mind, and decide for me what is right,
+true or good. I am my own master, my own teacher,
+my own guide. I will keep my reason free from
+control and will never surrender my own convictions
+to the dictates of another.</p>
+
+<p>Nature has made every man commander of his own
+destiny.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But we are yet victims of ecclesiastical villainy.
+The priest is still the worst enemy of mankind.
+His church is like that monster of fiction which
+lived on little children. In the name of the children
+I protest against the action of the Church in stealing
+their tender brains, in making them slaves of
+superstition before they are old enough to know to
+what they are doomed.</p>
+
+<p>The age of consent to a religious faith should be
+determined by law, if necessary. Today any boy
+or girl may be the victim of a designing priest or
+clergyman, or of a designing religious system.</p>
+
+<p>No person under eighteen years of age should be
+allowed to join a church or consent to a statement
+of faith. Mental purity should be guarded and protected
+as well as physical purity.</p>
+
+<p>While the Church is powerful in numbers and while
+its religion is supported by wealth and fashion, the
+world is becoming more and more emancipated from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+its pernicious influence. The light that truth gives
+is still ahead of us, but <i>it is there</i>, and some day the
+world will grow warmer under its rays and men
+become better and kinder to one another.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred years ago the God worshiped in orthodox
+churches went about drowning little boys and
+girls who went skating on Sundays. Those were
+the "good old days" when men and women had
+religion for breakfast, dinner and supper, and took
+it to bed with them. It takes a long time to get
+such a horrible religion out of the system.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women still have a mean faith, a faith
+which can see others damned with satisfaction if
+they can only be saved. Nothing but a mean religion
+could make men and women as mean as that.
+I would rather starve than preach the doctrine of
+endless pain for a human being&mdash;or even for a dog.
+I believe that this world is hard and dark and
+cruel enough without borrowing suffering from
+another world to make darker and harder the road
+of life and add torture to the nights of pain and
+misery.</p>
+
+<p>A church must be sunk pretty low when it lives on
+the fears and tears of mankind; but what lower
+depths of degradation does it sound when it can
+deliberately create fears and tears that it may live
+and thrive in its vile and cruel business! A human
+being without pity should be shunned and despised;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+but a human being who can fill the heart with
+terror should not be allowed in a civilized community.</p>
+
+<p>The mind today wants to get out into the open,
+into the free daylight, wants to walk the earth,
+look at the stars and sky, feel the warmth of the
+sun and smell the odor of the ground; it has
+become tired of being shut up in a faith, in a
+creed, in a church; tired of being kept in the
+darkness of the past, in the tomb of dead thoughts,
+in the moldy caskets of unreal things, and in the
+dungeon of fear.</p>
+
+<p>The mind is striving to break the chains of the
+priest and be free from the bonds of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>You can not have men free where the priest
+demands and claims their obedience. The greatest
+menace to our national institutions is the power
+that controls men; that controls their thoughts,
+their actions and their destinies. Liberty can survive
+only where men are free: free to think, free to
+read, free to speak and free to act. The mind must
+not be bound by any vow of obedience. One man,
+no matter what his office, what his position, what
+his rank, has no right to compel another's obedience.
+This is the worst oppression on earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>What is needed in this country is more men
+who dare think and speak for themselves;
+who dare belong to no church; who dare work for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+the right as they see it, and speak the truth as they
+understand it; who dare live their own lives
+independent of fashion's demands or society's
+usages; who dare put liberty above conformity,
+and who dare defy customs, law and religion in
+their zeal to help their fellow-beings.</p>
+
+<p>There is more than one liberty&mdash;more than the
+liberty to do right&mdash;that is partly won for every
+civilized being. There is another liberty that is
+dangerous and that persists even where civilization
+exists&mdash;the liberty to take another's liberty
+from him. This liberty is usually taken from another
+in the name of God and what is called holy; but
+there is nothing on earth so holy as liberty, and he
+who takes it from another robs him of the dearest
+right possessed by man. Binding a human being
+with the chains of faith before that being is old
+enough to judge whether the faith is reasonable or
+true is the assassination of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest danger which confronts our nation
+today is not political but religious, and the preservation
+of our free institutions does not depend
+upon our army and navy, but upon the emancipation
+of the human mind from ecclesiastical slavery.
+As Thomas Paine well said, "Spiritual freedom is
+the root of political liberty." You can not have free
+schools, free speech and a free press where the
+mind is not free.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+There is too much faith in this country and too
+little sense. Men have given up about everything
+they possess to be saved; but it is more necessary,
+and more commendable in the workingmen of this
+nation, to save their dollars than to save their souls.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A subject that needs to be investigated quite
+as much as, if not more than, the high cost of
+living is the high cost of worship. There may be
+some justice in the criticism of the price of meats.
+We must remember, however, that we do get something
+for our money when we buy meat, but let us
+not forget that we get absolutely nothing for the
+money spent for worship. Money given to the
+Church is lost to the world. It is not used to improve
+homes; to help the poor and needy; to alleviate
+suffering; to bring hope to the sick or to give a few
+comforts to old age. It goes into the pocket of
+ecclesiastical greed.</p>
+
+<p>This country just at present is suffering from those
+twin curses of humanity&mdash;religion and Bull-Mooseism.
+The priest and Bull-Mooseism are the two
+worst trouble-makers in this country. To get rid
+of this precious pair of knaves would be to bring
+peace on earth and hasten the dawn.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know which is the bigger knave, the priest
+or the Bull-Mooser, but I do know that the priest
+is engaged in the meaner business of the two.</p>
+
+<p>When a man tries to sell me a mouse-trap to catch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+elephants, I am suspicious of his mental sanity;
+and when a man tells me that eternal happiness
+can be won by enlisting in his salvation army, I
+question his moral sanity. I know that religion is
+offered at cut rates, but there is no discount on
+morality. You can not have the reward of good
+behavior unless you behave. You may save your
+soul by saying, "I believe," but you have to <i>do</i>
+something to save your body.</p>
+
+<p>There is too much of this "believe-in-me" business.
+You don't want to believe in any one you
+know nothing about. The faith of a little child in
+its parents is beautiful, but the faith of a grown-up
+man in a priest is idiotic. Faith has ruined more
+than it has saved. With faith goes obedience, and
+he or she who obeys is lost.</p>
+
+<p>There is no honest call today to believe, because
+there is opportunity to know. Faith is hatched in
+the nest of imposition. He who yields obedience is a
+fool, and he who demands it is a scoundrel.</p>
+
+<p>In this age, as in the past, a lie made "holy" is
+allowed to assassinate the truth. Nothing is cursing
+this nation; nothing is cursing human life; nothing
+is cursing honest effort and brave striving so
+much as what is called holiness. It is holy to
+believe all you are told; holy to wear the robes
+of hypocrisy; holy to rob the poor in the name
+of God, and holy to put the poison of faith to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+the lips of a child. It is holy to repudiate Nature
+and make a lie of your body, your mind, your
+life. To purify the dwelling-place of man, it is
+necessary to drive from the earth everything
+that religion has made holy.</p>
+
+<p>The only really sacred things were holy before
+a church was ever built, before there was a priest
+on the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Human love and the home which human love built
+for its offspring were the first holy things which
+men and women knew, and it is this human love
+of ours which is holier than mosque, temple or
+church; holier than priestly robe or ecclesiastical
+rite; holier by far than all the holy things of faith.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Church has always lived by robbing the
+home; the priest has always lived on the
+wages of the toiler. The gods of religion have never
+done aught to lighten the heavy load on the
+shoulders of labor. The priest has said to mankind
+that his Lord left this consolation to the world:
+"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden
+and I will give you rest."</p>
+
+<p>What the priest really means is this: Come unto
+me and I will do the rest; and by the time he has
+done it, there is nothing of manhood left.</p>
+
+<p>The priest also teaches that his Lord and Master
+said, "Ask and ye shall receive," and adds, "The
+Lord will provide." How many poor wretches have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+believed those words; but their outstretched hands
+withered away day by day, and at last dropped
+empty by their sides. There they lay white and
+cold, holding not the bread they fondly expected,
+but holding the hand of death.</p>
+
+<p>It may be pious and it may be beautiful to say,
+"The Lord will provide," but it is a lie just the
+same. When, the other day, the bodies of a mother
+and her two children were being carried to the
+grave with the words, "starved to death," written
+on their faces, but not written on their caskets, it
+was a sufficient refutation of the religious teaching
+that "The Lord will provide." It is the plain,
+unvarnished truth that the Lord will <i>not</i> even provide
+the coffin for the poor victim of such a false,
+deceptive, religious faith.</p>
+
+<p>In olden times it was customary for the Church to
+say, God's light lights the world. Not so today.
+God's light has gone out. It is man's light that
+lights the world and the Church too. Our enlightenment
+is human, not divine. No altar of religion
+burns with the fire of truth. Science carries the
+torch of knowledge: liberty is the way and truth
+is the goal.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>On our earth gods no longer make their homes.
+It was not safe for them to live any more.
+Their sons may once have married the daughters of
+men, but they can not get a license to do so today.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+Parents will not stand for it.</p>
+
+<p>So the gods have
+gone, bag and baggage. Where they have gone,
+no one knows. The skies give no sign that they
+are hiding up there. The telescope has found
+<i>seventy million stars, but not one god</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is time for the pulpit to stop repeating the old
+superstitions about God and about what he has
+done for man. He has never done any more for
+man than he is doing today; never spoken to man
+any more than he is speaking today; never revealed
+himself to anybody any more than he stands
+revealed to you and me and to every human being
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Every word that ever came from the mouth of
+God man put in his mouth, and every book revealed
+by God was written by man.</p>
+
+<p>Half the work of man for the next one hundred
+years will be to kill the lies told about what God
+has done.</p>
+
+<p>Whether there is in all the vast universe a higher
+and nobler being than man, I don't know. Whether
+there is in all the vast universe a better place for
+man to live than on this earth, I don't know.
+And no one knows any more about these matters
+than I do.</p>
+
+<p>We have found out much that is not so; now we
+want to find out all we can that is so. And it is of
+no use to go to the Church to learn anything. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+Church is only a place where falsehoods are kept
+in cold storage. The man who thinks and studies
+is the man who is helping the world most, not the
+man who preaches and prays. To find the truth
+one needs to get as far from the Church as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Christians of all denominations have lots of pity
+for the man without a church. Let me assure these
+persons that the man without a church doesn't
+want one. As a rule, he is satisfied with what he has.
+He has a home, which is better than a church. If
+those persons who are pitying men and women
+for not having a church would, instead, pity the
+man without a home, and pity him enough to help
+him get one, they would show much better sense
+and manifest a truer sympathy with their fellow-beings.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I can not see any good in painting a thing white
+that is black, or calling a thing beautiful that is
+ugly. There are persons who talk as though they
+believed that a Northeast storm was sunshine. I
+am not made that way. I am as ready and as willing
+as anybody to acknowledge the good in Nature, or
+the good in life, but I do not believe in lying, in
+saying that wrong is right, or that suffering is to be
+enjoyed. There are lots of hard things in our life,
+and it does not alter facts to call them by some
+other name. A man dying with a cancer can not be
+made to believe that he is having a good time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+The most that any man can do who goes through
+this earthly existence is to use his fellow-mortals
+right and square; to give them an honest day's
+work when he works for them and an honest day's
+pay when he hires them; to say nothing to hurt
+them and everything he can to assist them; to help
+them out of trouble and not get them into trouble.
+If one does this, and does no more than this, he has
+done what beats every religion on earth.</p>
+
+<p>We have got to deal with men and women as they
+are and where they are. The man who is natural;
+the man who has not been made a fool of by a
+priest or parson; the man who has not swapped his
+commonsense for a foolish belief; the man who has
+not had his mind stuffed with religious dope,
+knows that this life on earth is the important life,
+and that it is a higher work to determine his fate
+here than anywhere else.</p>
+
+<p>There is not a person living who would not be well
+and strong and happy here rather than hereafter.
+I would rather have the power to make every
+cripple straight and whole; every poor, unfortunate
+man and woman prosperous and contented; every
+sick person well, every bad person good, and every
+slave to vice master of his appetite and passions,
+in this life on earth, than to save the human wrecks,
+the human unfortunates, the human victims of vice
+and crime, for another life somewhere else.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+What men and women want is happiness,
+not Heaven. They want a good home on
+this globe, not a loafing-place in Abraham's bosom.
+They want the opportunity to enjoy the good
+things of this life, not the promise that they will
+hear the angels sing. They want better wages for
+their work, better treatment from their employers,
+and better things to eat and drink and wear. They
+want better things here, not hereafter. They want
+to be happy while they are living on earth, not have
+the assurance of happiness after they are dead.
+If I ever attempt to write my creed, I shall say:
+I believe in so much that I can hardly expect to
+express all of my faith in one statement. I am all
+the time believing in something new. But there is
+one thing that I most heartily believe in now and
+have believed in ever since I was a child, and that is,
+SUNSHINE&mdash;external and internal and eternal
+sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>Sunshine is the joy of the universe, and joy is the
+sunshine of the human heart. Let us be bright and
+cheerful. Let us be happy. Let us give to the world
+the sunshine of our hearts.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2"><i>A male trinity is repulsive; Father, Mother and
+Child is the sacred triad. The Christian trinity is a
+monster.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+<h2 id="MORALITY">DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Nature has no need of a Holy Ghost.&mdash;<i>Lemuel K. Washburn.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">All progress has been due to the Devil.
+He was the first investigator.&mdash;<i>Ingersoll.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">God takes care of the weed. Man must
+take care of the corn.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/top.jpg" width="600"
+height="80" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p class="center large">DECAY OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap"
+  src="images/t.jpg" width="160" height="149" alt="T"/></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">HERE is a great deal of exaggerated
+rhetoric employed in praising
+what is called "Christian
+Morality." I have examined with
+considerable care everything that
+may justly come within the meaning
+of this expression, and I am bound to say, out of
+respect for the truth, that such morality does not
+deserve praise and can not be praised by the honest
+lips of an honest person.</p>
+
+<p>I am perfectly aware that I have made a statement
+which challenges the sincerity of the Christian
+pulpit, but every one knows that there is not a
+minister in Christendom whose practise agrees
+with his preaching.</p>
+
+<p>While it is common to hear a clergyman in pious
+ecstasy exhaust the vocabulary of laudation in his
+praises of the beautiful morals of the "Sermon on
+the Mount," it is exceedingly rare to see one of
+these parsons sacrifice his commonsense to the
+nonsense of Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>We are learning that the theological morality of
+the Christian faith is not the right kind of morality
+to make manhood and womanhood. The great
+weakness of Christian morality is this: It depends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+upon the Christian idea of Jesus, and when the
+world has outgrown the superstition about this
+person, all of his moral precepts will lose their
+value and their splendor.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women of any intellectual penetration
+know that the New Testament story is founded
+upon unreliable tradition; that its heart is a myth.</p>
+
+<p>Where men live independent of the foolish faith
+of the Gospels, there is a character of self-reliance
+which towers like a mountain-peak above the dead
+level of Christian endeavor. The person who accepts
+the Christian theology is no more in sympathy
+with the best thought of the age than is the man
+who wanders about the streets, begging his food
+and sleeping wherever he can, in harmony with
+the highest comforts of our civilization.</p>
+
+<p>There is a nobler purpose in a train of cars carrying
+grain and produce across the continent than in a
+conference of clergymen trying to keep alive a
+theology which teaches that God was born of a
+Jewish maiden who lived and died in Palestine,
+and devising ways to make the people believe the
+ridiculous superstition.</p>
+
+<p>Truth is born where men are allowed to think and
+speak their thoughts. Error can not be maintained
+where man is permitted to ask questions. The only
+way to preserve Christianity is to put it in a tin
+can and have it hermetically sealed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We are getting a new examination of the universe
+as a basis for our philosophy. The telescope has
+afforded man visions far beyond the seventh
+heaven of the Apocalypse. The genesis of things is
+found to lie millions of years back of the Genesis of
+the Bible. The chaos out of which this world was
+made has been discovered to be a previous state
+of existence.</p>
+
+<p>Science is laying the new foundation for our faith,
+and knowledge is building the new temple of the
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women everywhere are stating their
+opinions, and the world recognizes that there is to
+be a religious controversy upon this earth which
+will shake to its base everything that is not true.
+Not one stone of falsehood will be left standing
+upon another. Every dogma of superstition must
+find a grave, and truth alone be reverenced by man.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The world has taken a step forward of Christianity,
+and in its march of advancement has
+left behind the Christian God, the Christian Savior,
+the Christian Bible, and the Christian Faith.
+But the world will not stop here. It must go further.
+The question which the human mind wants
+answered today is this: Is the decay of Christian
+theology to be followed by the decay of Christian
+morality?</p>
+
+<p>I think that it is, and I also think that this morality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+is about as near dead now as it can be.</p>
+
+<p>It is true
+that the author of this morality is painted in divine
+colors for human adoration Sunday after Sunday,
+and that his other-world ethics are inculcated by
+the pulpit; but beyond these attempts to give the
+peculiar moral teachings of Jesus the show of life,
+there is absolutely no sign of them in the world of
+man.</p>
+
+<p>The morality of the Christian system is not designed
+for humanity in its present condition, nor does it
+possess the elements necessary to make man into
+the image of any higher virtue. It is, in fact, an
+unreal, unnatural morality which Jesus taught,
+and the notion that men and women do not practise
+it because it is too far above them, depends
+upon an estimate of this morality which we are not
+willing to allow.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point.
+I want to say that the general moral duties of man,
+as they have been taught for ages by teachers of
+every race and of every religion, are not Christian,
+and that Christian ethics are found in the code of
+moral duties taught by Jesus <i>which are different
+from the recognized standard of morality adopted by
+mankind generally</i>. Christian morals are Christian
+<i>only wherein they differ from all other morals</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is because they are peculiar to Christianity that
+they are Christian.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Because I do not believe in Christianity&mdash;in the
+Christian theology and in Christian morals&mdash;I do
+not wish it said that I do not believe in morality,
+for I do. I believe that man can be good and true
+and that he can do right, and I believe that he
+ought to do right.</p>
+
+<p>I do not say that every one can reach the same
+moral altitude. I do not even say that every individual
+can be good and true. Some persons do
+not seem to be morally adjusted. I think, however,
+that we do not trespass beyond the domain
+of truth when we predicate the power of man
+to be moral.</p>
+
+<p>The notion that man can not be good has been the
+apology of half the criminals of the world. It is the
+creed of all crime. If we affirm the idea of human
+depravity, we may as well erase our statutes, for,
+if man can not be good, it is the height of folly to
+expect him to be so.</p>
+
+<p>The healthy faith of man is faith <i>in</i> man.</p>
+
+<p>The theology which has been preached for the past
+few centuries is not calculated to make men moral.
+Those ministers who have shouted themselves
+hoarse for the salvation of the soul, and who have
+made no account of man's behavior in their scheme
+to save the race, are the ones who have rubbed
+humanity in the dirt and undermined the moral
+foundations of the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Every ethical principle that supports our
+social structure is independent of ecclesiastical
+relations, and it is not essential that we recognize
+any theology in order to comprehend the necessity
+of moral obedience.</p>
+
+<p>There is no sympathy between right, truth and
+justice, and the "Apostles' Creed." We may go so
+far as to say that the attempt to establish a
+perpetual union between Christianity and morality
+would result in an absolute divorce of these two
+forces.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to make it plain beyond a question that the
+Christian faith, in itself, is entirely distinct from
+all moral effort on the part of man.</p>
+
+<p>To believe that Jesus was the Christ does not carry
+any obligation to do right; does not make it
+incumbent upon the believer to do a single moral
+action.</p>
+
+<p>It is sufficient to establish our predication that not
+a single church in Christendom makes moral
+character the condition of membership, or good
+behavior the way to Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>There is a code of Christian morals which has been
+taught, but never practised. The special duties
+which Jesus enjoined upon his followers have
+never been reduced to conduct. It is not too much
+to say that the moral precepts of Jesus, if carried
+into action, would cause social revolutions beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+precedent, and produce a state of existence compared
+with which anarchy would be government,
+and confusion would be order.</p>
+
+<p>But, before we undertake to examine the Christian
+morals, let us shed a few tears of rejoicing upon the
+grave of Orthodox theology. We do not ask to
+have a coroner's jury decide what caused the death
+of this theology. We bless the cause, whatever it
+was. We only wish to feel assured that it is really,
+truly dead, and the fact that "not a single treatise
+written by a New England Puritan is a living and
+authoritative book" seems to prove it beyond a
+question. The persons who still preach this theology
+and profess to believe it are only "sitting up with
+the corpse."</p>
+
+<p>While it is asserted that a wrong interpretation of
+this theology sent it out of the world, it is pretty
+evident that a right understanding of it inspires
+no wish to have it back. Much of the superstition
+in morals sprang from fear of God, which the
+Christian church has inculcated as the highest
+incentive to right doing.</p>
+
+<p>The truth, broadly and frankly stated, is this:
+God is no longer the inspiration of morality. Fear
+of God does not check the actions of man today,
+nor is the attempt to make human and divine
+interests identical sufficient to insure obedience to
+moral laws. The ancient basis of morals is gone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+and another and better one must be found to
+inspire a freer life, a fuller life, a better life, and
+a higher.</p>
+
+<p>We who have rejected the Christian theology are
+looked upon as orphans. But, if I understand the
+position of freethinkers, the question of a supreme
+power is neither affirmed nor denied by those who
+wish to have no further business with the God of
+Orthodoxy.</p>
+
+<p>We read that, "the fool hath said in his heart
+there is no God," but we prefer to say nothing about
+the matter. Theologies may come, and theologies
+may go, but humanity goes on forever, and so we
+do not deem it as important to worship the fleeting
+shadows of the universe which are cast upon the
+minds of men as it is to hold fast to those realities
+which make human existence a blessing and "a
+joy forever."</p>
+
+<p>We are called "infidels" and denounced as "unbelievers"
+because we will not march in the ranks
+of hypocrisy, and dance to the music of Orthodoxy.
+We believe no statement which our reason can not
+approve; we accept no doctrine which is contrary
+to commonsense; we have confidence in human
+nature; we believe in truth, justice and love; we
+accept life as a blessing, and try to make it so; we
+believe in taking care of ourselves, in helping others
+and in being just and kind to all, and we say to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+Christian Church, "If this be Infidelity, make the
+most of it."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is suggested by some that if man's exact relation
+to the Deity were understood, the whole
+question of morals would be settled at once. But
+would it not be truer to say that if man's exact
+relation to his fellowmen were understood and
+respected, the highest individual welfare, no less
+than the general good, would dictate the morality
+which the world needs? And is not this the grand
+task for the human race, to rightly interpret the
+effect of human action upon the individual and the
+community, and to deduce from human experience
+the rules for human conduct?</p>
+
+<p>I do not know that I owe to God any duty. I do
+know that I owe a duty to my neighbor. I plead
+total indifference to the demands of divine ethics,
+but I trust that I am not completely callous to the
+wants of my fellow-beings. I owe it to myself to be
+moral. I owe it to my race, to every man and woman
+that I meet in life, to be as honest, as true, as
+upright, as my nature will permit. I can comprehend
+and appreciate obligations to humanity, but moral
+indebtedness to the Deity I know nothing about.</p>
+
+<p>The Christian morals are founded upon the
+assumption that the work of man here is to do something
+that he may escape punishment hereafter,
+and hence the morality of the Christian Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+has had little reference to the concerns of the
+present life.</p>
+
+<p>Christian morality is based upon the Christian
+faith that the human race is under the curse of
+God, and that, to evade the penalty pronounced
+upon him, man must perform certain duties&mdash;these
+duties being taught as paramount to all we
+owe to self, to family, to society, and to the world.</p>
+
+<p>But an almost universal disbelief of the Christian
+dogmas prevails today, and, consequently, a new
+morality, with man's welfare for its supreme object,
+is fast supplanting the outworn and valueless performances
+of Christian duties.</p>
+
+<p>The moral teaching of the New Testament may be
+the highest and purest of its kind of teaching, but
+it is not the kind which is needed today. It is a
+false morality, yea, a dead morality for the most
+part, which the Christian Church demands of men.
+The general conviction is that no salvation is
+needed by man, and that all the virtues advertised
+as requisite for such safety as the Church is prepared
+to secure, are spurious virtues.</p>
+
+<p>Those actions which advance man along the way
+of general prosperity, which make it easier to live
+and get a living on the earth, which have their
+value determined by their respect for human
+beings, are what the world needs.</p>
+
+<p>The generally acknowledged author of Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+morals offers no salient points for criticism, as he
+can not be regarded as a historical person whose
+career has been carefully followed and marked by
+the biographer. He is a mythological man, with a
+little less of the fabulous and a little more of the
+real than attaches to the gods and goddesses of
+ancient Greece and Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Jesus adorns an anatomy of words. It
+pictures a person, not of flesh and blood, but of
+faith and fancy. Jesus is a man of the imagination;
+but mythical as he is, certain men and women
+believe in him in their own way, and are not over-tolerant
+of those who are disposed to ask for the
+proofs of his life and works.</p>
+
+<p>This person has left no more marks of his living
+upon the earth than have the birds the marks of
+their flight through the air. The New Testament is
+no more history than is Bunyan's <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>.
+We can not make any positive assertions in
+regard to the life and character of a man when we
+do not know who was his father, where or when he
+was born, with whom he lived, nor when he died.
+The only historical fact connected with Jesus which
+is not disputed is that Mary was his mother. This
+is a very important point in his history, but it is
+not sufficient to constitute a biography.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the fact that the entire narrative
+of Jesus is without a single chronological date, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+the vastly more significant fact that not a single
+incident connected with the career of Jesus is
+mentioned in contemporaneous history, we must
+perforce speak of him as a person whose life was
+watched and noted from his miraculous advent to
+his miraculous ascension, and look upon his disciples
+as so many Boswells ready to mirror to the
+world his every speech and act.</p>
+
+<p>We must do this&mdash;Why? Because the world will
+not candidly and critically study the gospel-story.</p>
+
+<p>For the present, then, we will speak of Jesus as a
+man, and accept him as the author of the moral
+code in the New Testament. But a word or two
+about the man. The Christian world sets him apart
+as the model of the race, as the masterpiece of
+Nature, as the utmost which earth can produce.
+Every man must here fetch his word of praise,
+and every word be a mountain to meet the demand
+of the Christian Church for reverence of Jesus.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I do not believe in the infallibility of any man,
+but I believe in the improvability of all men.
+Is man no longer heir to the virtues of life, that he
+must erect monuments of praise forever over the
+name of Jesus? I shall take the liberty to express
+my dissent from the common expressions of admiration
+for this man. I can not praise everything
+which he did, nor can I think that every word he
+uttered is a star of wisdom. He said some good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+things,but much of what he said is good for nothing.
+His theology will do for Sunday Schools, but it will
+not stand half a dozen questions by commonsense.
+His Hell is barbarous, his Heaven childish, and his
+ideas of humanity show but a superficial knowledge
+of human nature. His life can not be imitated
+with advantage to the race, and his notions of
+human existence are wholly inadequate to the
+complex, varied civilization of this age.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see what he did. He paid no filial respect to
+his parents; he refused to acknowledge his mother
+and his brothers; he lived a roving, wandering life;
+he paid no heed to the laws of his country; he
+placed no value upon industry, and even went so
+far as to tell men and women that God would feed
+and clothe them; he helped himself to the property
+and possessions of other people without paying for
+them, and destroyed what belonged to others without
+offering an equivalent; he had no property, no
+home, not a place to lay his head; he hated the
+rulers, yet sought to establish a kingdom for himself;
+he failed to reach the throne he sought, and
+died upon the malefactor's cross.</p>
+
+<p>Is this the man for the Twentieth Century to
+honor? Is this the man for men to follow in this
+age? Is this the man whose life all should strive to
+imitate?</p>
+
+<p>The man who took the life of Jesus for a model<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+would hate father and mother, brother and sister;
+he would have neither wife nor child; he would live
+from place to place; he would be a lawbreaker and
+an idler; he would live the life of a wanderer and
+die the death of a criminal.</p>
+
+<p>Have I put a false color in this picture which I
+have painted? Have I misrepresented the life of
+Jesus? Read the four Gospels and see. I find this
+character sketched in the New Testament, and it
+is there called Jesus, and it is this character which
+we are adjured to imitate if we would be perfect.</p>
+
+<p>To the man or woman who declares that the life
+of Jesus is the way to salvation, I have only this to
+say, "Why then do you not imitate it?"</p>
+
+<p>Now, I wish to ask, "What kind of morals would
+such a man as we have sketched naturally teach?"</p>
+
+<p>You will answer, "The morals he lived." At
+least, we find such morals taught in the New
+Testament.</p>
+
+<p>My point here is: If the life of Jesus was an honest,
+faithful exponent of his moral teachings, then such
+a morality as he practised is not wanted today&mdash;and
+that such a morality is not wanted is shown
+by the fact that no one practises it.</p>
+
+<p>I know that it is considered respectable and pious
+to profess great admiration for the doctrines taught
+by Jesus, and the world has paid them the outward
+compliment of profession, saying that the moral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+code of the New Testament was the despair of
+man; but it has never seriously set to work to
+reduce this code to practise, which proves that
+such profession is only a part of the universal
+accomplishment of fashionable hypocrisy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Do not understand me as saying that there is
+no moral precept contained in the Gospels
+which is worthy of being practised. I make no such
+declaration, and wish no such construction put
+upon my words. What I desire to enforce is this:
+That the morality of Jesus sprang from a philosophy
+which has passed away, and therefore, that
+it is, for the greater part, obsolete and worthless.
+That Jesus shared the general belief of his age that
+the world was soon to be destroyed, is shown by his
+estimate of earthly things; and that a morality
+founded upon such a belief should survive and outlast
+the faith which inspired it reveals a condition
+of things that is not flattering to our intellectual
+perception or to our moral sense.</p>
+
+<p>The morals of the New Testament are founded
+upon a theory of the universe which is found
+now only in creeds&mdash;those epitaphs of religion.
+The most superficial observation is sufficient to
+enable us to perceive that theology can no longer
+be the basis of morality, and that the authority
+of the New Testament can not be accepted on
+this question.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is nothing more firmly impressed upon the
+mind of man than the fact of the stability of
+the universe, notwithstanding an occasional earthquake;
+and the value of earthly things has a
+higher moral significance consequent upon the
+assurance of material existence.</p>
+
+<p>Morality must have a physical basis; that is, the
+moral code which man can practise to his safety
+and his honor must not contradict human nature.
+The defeat of the New Testament morals is assured
+by their antagonism to the nature of man. The
+morals of Jesus were designed to fit man for what
+he called the "Kingdom of Heaven," but the only
+morality which is worth the name is that which
+fits man for living his life on earth.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus constantly urged men to the performance of
+moral duties that they might be rewarded by their
+"Father in Heaven." Such a motive for good
+behavior is offensive to the rational mind, and
+moral commandments which are enforced with a
+Heaven and a Hell do not spring from an opinion
+of human nature which deserves our respect.</p>
+
+<p>The most comprehensive criticism which one can
+make upon the morals of the New Testament is,
+that they are not practicable. Is the character of
+Christians fashioned by the power and influence of
+the words which Jesus left in the world? This
+question should be pressed to an answer, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+honesty would answer it in a way which would
+shake every church-building in the land and tear
+the mask from the face of every Christian worshiper
+on the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus taught that men and women were to love
+him more than father or mother, son or daughter.
+Imagine human beings loving a man whom they
+know nothing about, and consequently can care
+nothing about, and who has no more claim to their
+affections than has the ghost in Hamlet, better
+than they love parent or child! Such morality as
+this is not fit for a Hottentot.</p>
+
+<p>If any command is implanted in our nature and is
+a part of the bone and fiber of our very being, it is
+to love beyond all else those who have borne us
+and cared for us through infancy and childhood,
+and those whose existence depends upon us, and to
+whom we stand pledged by the holiest ties of our
+beings, to watch over and protect, to care for and
+love, to the last days of our lives. It is love of parent
+and child which is alike the supreme obligation
+and the supreme benefaction of our humanity.
+No being has walked this earth who had the moral
+right to demand a greater love than is due to
+father and mother, son and daughter; and if Jesus
+claimed such affection, his claim is an impertinence
+which we are bound to treat with indignation and
+scorn.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>For the Christian Church to make of the words
+of Jesus commands to the world is to deserve
+the severest condemnation. Jesus taught that men
+were not to make for themselves a home, not to
+cultivate those virtues which blossom into the
+family, and not to save the fruits of their toil to
+make old age with its tottering form and feeble
+limbs less liable to the hardships of the world, but
+he summed up all the duties of life in these words:
+"Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and
+come follow me."</p>
+
+<p>To obey such teaching as this would overturn
+every monument of prosperity upon the earth,
+blight every feeling of happiness that gladdens the
+heart of man, and convert the busy, working,
+loving world into one vast army of tramps, following
+a king without a kingdom, a leader without a
+purpose, a commander with nothing to give those
+who followed his command.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus taught that we were not to resist evil; that is,
+that if a thief stole our watch and chain, we were
+bound to run after him and give him our purse
+also; that if a man took away our coat, we should
+wrong him if we did not send him the balance of
+the suit; that if a man struck us on one side of the
+face, we were to invite him to strike us on the other
+side also; that if, as it were, the armies of some
+foreign powers were to invade our land, and burn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+and destroy our cities and towns, pillage our homes
+and murder our families, we were in duty bound to
+look upon them as benefactors and thank them for
+their work of destruction, and ask them to come
+and do it again.</p>
+
+<p>Such moral teaching as this would make a nation
+of cowards and slaves.</p>
+
+<p>It is our duty to punish thieves and robbers, not
+to reward them; to resist wrong and injustice, not
+to submit to them like cravens; to protect our
+country from foes, even though we are obliged to
+shed their blood and our own in so doing.</p>
+
+<p>Is there a Christian on the globe who pays the
+least heed to a single one of the moral commands
+of Jesus? You all know there is not.</p>
+
+<p>I need not tell the Christian Church that the
+morality taught by Jesus is decaying when every
+church is its coffin, and every minister its grave-digger.</p>
+
+<p>If you wish to see how much respect for the moral
+teachings of Jesus one of his professed followers
+has, just steal his coat, and if he gives you his
+cloak also, as he is commanded to do by his Lord
+and Master, please publish his name in the daily
+papers&mdash;for the benefit of others who wish to get
+a cloak.</p>
+
+<p>We find among the express commands of Jesus
+this advice: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+upon earth." The most liberal translation of this
+counsel can not make it anything but poor advice.
+Every material blessing of mankind has come from
+the savings of human labor, and the value of laying
+up treasures upon earth is more evident than that
+of laying up treasures in Heaven, whatever this
+saying may mean. When every Christian tries as
+hard to be poor as he tries now to get rich, we
+shall think that he has some regard for the moral
+teachings of Jesus.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It must be apparent to all that what may be
+claimed as Christian morality is not only decaying,
+but that it ought to decay. There is no sense
+in it. Imagine a man telling people in the Twentieth
+Century to "take no thought for your life, what
+ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your
+body, what ye shall put on," and endeavoring to
+prove that because the fowls of the air do not have
+to broil a beefsteak for their breakfast or make
+biscuit for tea, human beings will be fed whether
+they provide anything for their appetites or not.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father will feed
+us because we are better than the fowls of the air,
+and that he will clothe us because he clothes the
+grass of the field. Our earthly fathers seem to have
+done more in the way of providing food and clothing
+for us before we were able to take care of ourselves
+than any Heavenly Father. Others may put their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+trust in God for something to eat and drink and
+wear, if they wish to, but I prefer to give the matter
+a little thought myself.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus concludes these
+admonitions by saying, "Take no thought for the
+morrow." This is bad counsel, and it shows the
+good sense of mankind that it has never been
+followed. The whole world lives in what one of our
+poets called, "The bright tomorrow of the mind."</p>
+
+<p>We will refer to only one more of the peculiar
+moral injunctions of Jesus. In the fifth chapter of
+Matthew, in the forty-fourth verse, we read, "Love
+your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
+to them that hate you, and pray for them which
+despitefully use you and persecute you."</p>
+
+<p>If we were to do as herein commanded, we should
+have an inverted morality which would place the
+crown of virtue upon the forehead of vice.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see if the preacher of this doctrine practised it.</p>
+
+<p>Did Jesus bless the Scribes and Pharisees when
+they refused to acknowledge his claim to be the
+Messiah? This is the blessing which he pronounced
+upon them: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees,
+hypocrites, for ye devour widows' houses and for a
+pretense make long prayers; therefore ye shall
+receive the greater damnation." "Ye serpents, ye
+generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation
+of Hell?" That is not a very sweet blessing!</p>
+
+<p>And these men did not curse Jesus. They only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+did not agree with his opinions. Jesus, also, in
+his wrath against his enemies, calls them, in the
+seventeenth and nineteenth verses of the twenty-third
+chapter of Matthew, "Ye fools and blind,"
+forgetting, doubtless, that he had previously declared,
+when preaching on the Mount, "Whosoever
+shall say, 'Thou Fool,' shall be in danger of
+hell-fire."</p>
+
+<p>The moral teachings of Jesus were inspired by a
+false estimate of all earthly things. There is no
+doubt that Jesus believed the world was coming to
+an end in his generation. How to get into the
+Kingdom of Heaven was of more consequence than
+how to reform mankind, or improve the world,
+since the end of earthly things was near at hand.
+This appears to have been the thought of Jesus,
+and explains much of his language.</p>
+
+<p>But today we do not believe that the earth has
+run its course, and that the end of all material
+things is near at hand. We are living without fear
+of failure on the part of the universe, and are giving
+our attention more to human wants than to divine
+commands.</p>
+
+<p><i>Not fear of offending God, but fear of wronging man,
+is the highest basis of morals.</i> We have reached a
+time when apologies are not respected, when
+repentance is looked upon as the mask of villainy,
+when the stature of life is most shorn of manliness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+by prancing in the garb of humility, when a brave
+facing of life's trials and demands counts for more
+than cowardly surrender in the name of God.
+In fact, we have come to say to the world of humanity,
+"Be moral, and you need not be religious."
+Work for man is coming to be a sufficient excuse
+for neglect of God.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But we want no cheap moral duties held up for
+man to perform. It is serious business to live
+this life of ours and live it well, and it is hard work
+to do it. Morality sets us as high a task as we are
+able to perform, and a higher task than has yet
+been performed by most of mankind. The effort of
+this age is to expose the sham of what is called
+holiness, and make sacred the surroundings of
+human beings. We must throw off the past, and
+stand upon that sunlit height where we can feel
+that "somehow life is bigger after all than any
+painted angel, could we see the man that is within
+us."</p>
+
+<p>This is the moral duty of the world: to respect the
+man that is within us. We ought to rear on the
+earth a range of moral Alps that would stand and
+command the admiration of the world as long as
+eye could see and heart could feel. We need a
+rational hope and a burning purpose in this
+century, something noble to live for and the
+courage of nobility to work and win it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The improvement of the world is the only object
+of life worthy of man. Do and say nothing that
+will not improve mankind. Were this simple
+admonition heeded, we should have the key to the
+kingdom of the only heaven that man needs in our
+own pocket.</p>
+
+<p>It is time for the reign of commonsense to begin
+on earth; time for men to elevate morality above
+religion; and time for us to say, "Millions for the
+world, not a cent for the Church." The battle
+between Freedom and Christianity has begun, and
+I believe that when it ends Christianity will be
+buried beneath the ruins of its own dogmas, there
+to remain forever. It possesses no spirit that can
+rise again from its ashes and mount on wings of
+flame to a higher life. When superstition dies, it
+dies to the root.</p>
+
+<p>The Christian minister can not arrest the march of
+liberty by crying, "Infidelity!" and threatening
+with everlasting cremation all those who refuse to
+heed his words.</p>
+
+<p>But let there be no base understanding of freedom.
+The new John the Baptist must not be a cowboy,
+saying, "The kingdom of highwaymen is at hand."
+As a person when in perfect bodily health knows
+not from any intimation from the respective parts
+that he has a stomach, a brain, or a heart, so a
+person when living in perfect freedom is uncon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>scious
+of law, of creed, of custom. The healthy
+man physically is the free man physically; the
+healthy man mentally is the free man mentally;
+the healthy man morally is the free man morally;
+liberty of the individual is health of the individual,
+and a free man means a man who is true and
+obedient to all natural laws.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There is a misunderstanding of freedom upon
+the one side, and a misrepresentation of it
+upon the other, that make it hazardous for one to
+employ the word. To connect this word with morality
+in the eyes of many is to confound the Madonna
+with Mary Magdalene. It is to start the ghost of
+Don Juan.</p>
+
+<p>The conservatism of society has ever regarded
+liberty as the black flag of the moral marauder, the
+emblem of a piratical intention upon the casket of
+the world that contains the jewels of honor, justice,
+virtue and social order.</p>
+
+<p>So persistently and malignantly has freedom been
+represented as a wrecker's light, kindled only to
+lure to destruction, that to represent it as worthy
+to be trusted is to arouse the spirit which pursued
+Voltaire to his grave with a lie, erected a shaft of
+calumny over the tomb of Paine, and which now,
+with the coward's weapon of slander, attacks the
+living who refuse to acknowledge that the voice
+of the Church is the voice of God.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+But nevertheless we believe with Burns that:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,</div>
+<div class="line">Its virtues a' can tell, man;</div>
+<div class="line">It raises man aboon the brute,</div>
+<div class="line">It maks him ken himsel', man;</div>
+<div class="line">Gif ance the peasant taste a bite,</div>
+<div class="line">He's greater than a lord, man,</div>
+<div class="line">And ni' the beggar shares a mite</div>
+<div class="line">Of a' he can afford, man.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>And so we exclaim in the words of one of our own
+true poets:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">Always in thine eyes, O Liberty!</div>
+<div class="line">Shines that high light whereby the world is saved,</div>
+<div class="line">And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>You have all heard of the man who refused to open
+his eyes for a year, and who declared that during
+that time nothing could be seen on account of the
+darkness. But the endeavor to perpetuate old
+errors by keeping the eyes closed to the facts of
+science, the truths of philosophy, and the progress
+of the human race, has not been crowned with
+success. The further attempt to convert the world
+to what James Parton calls a "kitchen religion"
+is merely waste of power.</p>
+
+<p>The preaching of Christianity is making "much
+ado about nothing." What we want is manhood
+and womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>It is said by the Church that the man who lives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+for his family and brings all that he can win of
+what is fair and bright and glad to those he loves,
+may be a good man, but he is not a Christian, and
+therefore has no religion.</p>
+
+<p>Give me then the man who is not a Christian, and
+who has no religion, for if the man who loves his
+wife and children, who gives to them the strength
+of his arm, the thought of his brain, the warmth
+of his heart, has not religion, the world is better
+off without it, for these are the highest and holiest
+things which man can do.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter4em"><img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="400"
+height="122" alt="" title="" /></div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="p2 i2">There is only one thing worth praying
+for: to be in the line of evolution.&mdash;<i>Elbert Hubbard.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2 i2">Jesus as Savior of the world is a theological
+creation, and not a historical character.</p></div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="i2 p6">SO HERE THEN ENDETH THAT GREAT AND GOOD BOOK
+"I DON'T KNOW&mdash;DO YOU?" WRITTEN BY MARILLA M.
+RICKER, AND PRINTED AND BOUND FOR HER BY THE
+ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA,
+ERIE COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW YORK, MCMXVI.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="p6"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2 id="PAINE">THOMAS PAINE</h2></div>
+
+<p class="i2">Born Jan 29, 1737.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Friend and adviser of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin,
+Monroe, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Author of <i>Common Sense</i>, <i>The Crisis</i>, <i>Rights of Man</i>, and
+<i>The Age of Reason</i>;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Editor of <i>Pennsylvania Magazine</i>;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Enlisted in Continental Army; appointed Aide-de-Camp to
+General Nathaniel Greene;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Secretary of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congress and
+Pennsylvania Assembly;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">By his writings did more for the American cause in the
+Revolution than any other one person;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed American Independence;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested the Federal Union of States;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed the abolition of Negro slavery;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested protection for dumb animals;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed arbitration and international peace;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested justice to women;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First pointed out the reality of human brotherhood;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First pointed out the folly of hereditary succession and
+monarchical government;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed old-age pensions;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested international copyright;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed the education of the children of the poor at
+public expense;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed "the land for the people";</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First suggested "the religion of humanity";</p>
+
+<p class="i2">First proposed and first wrote the words, "United States of
+America";</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Founder of the first Ethical Society;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Proposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory;</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Inventor of the iron bridge, the hollow candle&mdash;principle of
+the modern central-draft burner, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p class="i2">Died June 9, 1809.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2"><b><i>This is history. But this great and good man was called
+"a filthy little atheist" by a hyphenated Dutch-American.</i></b></p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU? ***</div>
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