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New York: The Truth Seeker CCompany 62 Vesey St. Copyrighted, 1911 L.K.Washburn Revere, Mass
The writer of this book dedicates it to all men and women of common honesty and common sense.
If man wishes to learn about the earth or the heavens; about life or the animal kingdom, he has no need to study the Bible. If he is desirous of reading the best poetry or the most entertaining literature he will not find it in the Bible. If he wants to read to store his mind with facts, the Bible is the last book for him to open, for never yet was a volume written that contained fewer facts than this book. If he is anxious to get some information that will help him earn an honest living he does not want to spend his time reading Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Kings, Psalms, or the Gospels. If he wants to read just for the fun of reading, to kill time, or to see how much nonsensical writing there is in one book, let him read the Bible.
I have not said that there are not wise sayings in the Bible, or a few dramatic incidents, but there are just as wise sayings, and wiser ones, too, out of the book, and there are dramas of human life that surpass in interest anything contained in the Old or New Testament.
No person can make a decent excuse for reading the Bible more than once. To do such a thing would be a foolish waste of time. But our stoutest objection to reading this book is, not that it contains nothing particularly good, but that it contains so much that is positively bad. To read this book is to get false ideas, absurd ideas, bad ideas. The injury to the human mind that reads the Bible as a reliable book is beyond repair. I do not think that this book should be read by children, by any human being less than twenty years of age, and it would be better for mankind if not a man or woman read a line of it until he or she was fifty years old.
What I want to say is this, that there is nothing in the Bible that is of the least consequence to the people of the twentieth century. English literature is richer a thousand fold than this so- called sacred volume. We have books of more information and of more inspiration than the Bible. As the relic of a barbarous and superstitious people, it should have a place in our libraries, but it is not a work of any value to this age. I pity men who stand in pulpits and call this book the word of God. I wish they had brains enough to earn their living without having to repeat this foolish falsehood. The day will come when this book will be estimated for what it is worth, and when that day comes, the Bible will no longer be called the word of God, but the work of ignorant, superstitious men.
The cross everywhere is a dagger in the heart of liberty.
A miracle is not an explanation of what we cannot comprehend.
The statue of liberty that will endure on this continent is
not the one made of granite or bronze, but the one made of love of
freedom.
Take away every achievement of the world and leave man
freedom, and the earth would again bloom with every glory of
attainment; but take away liberty and everything useful and
beautiful would vanish.
SACRIFICE
The sacrifice of Jesus, so much boasted by the Christian
church, is nothing compared to the sacrifice of a mother for her
family. It is not to be spoken of in the same light. A mother's
sacrifice is constant: momentary, hourly, daily, life-long. It
never ceases. It is a veritable providence; a watchful care; a real
giving
of one life for another, or for several others; a gift of
love so pure and holy, so single and complete, that it is an
offering in spirit and in substance.
This is to me the highest, purest, holiest act of humanity. All others, when weighed with this unselfish consecration to duty, seem small and insignificant. There is, in a mother's life, no counting of cost, no calculation of reward. It is enough that a duty is to be done; that a service is to be rendered; that a sacrifice is called for. The true mother gives herself to the offices of love without hope, expectation, or wish of recompense. A mother's love for her children cannot be determined by any earthly measure, by any material standard. It outshines all glory, and is the last gleam of light in the human heart. A mother's love walks in a thousand Gethsemanes, endures a thousand Calvaries, and has a thousand agonies that the dying of Jesus upon a cross cannot symbolize. This maternal sacrifice is the greater that it is made cheerfully, without a murmur, and even with joy. If it is not sought; it is never pushed aside.
A mother's sacrifice for her family makes a chapter of suffering, of patient toil and strife, of heroic endurance and forbearance, that religion is not yet high enough to appreciate; and this sublime devotion is not in one home, but in hundreds of thousands in every land everywhere on earth, and it is real, true, heart-born, and the utmost of renunciation that human life has revealed.
The brief martyrdom of Jesus was not voluntary, was not lasting in its pain or in its service to mankind. His death was cruel, his suffering and agony terrible to think of, but it was all soon over. A few hours of torture make up the tragedy of the cross. But the story of this crucifixion may be fictitious, imaginary; most likely is such. Perhaps no such man died such a death in any such way. Then how vain and foolish to waste our sympathy on a fanciful sufferer, an imaginary martyr, who never existed outside of the brain of the writer of the story, while there are actual, real beings living who are making a greater sacrifice, doing a holier duty, within our reach!
We need not go to a Bible to find those who deserve our tears, or who have earned our admiration. The bravest heart that ever author wrote into being, fails to come up to the lofty height of endurance, of a life inspired by love, of heroic sacrifice, that can be found in hundreds of homes in our land.
Far be it from my intention to paint less any deed of mortal that has brightened the lot of man, or to throw discredit upon aught that is worthy of human gratitude and praise. I yield most ready sympathy and most willing admiration to every noble soul that has lived or died to make earth better and happier, but I do not believe that greatness, goodness and love are all dead, and that our whole duty is to stand and weep around a tomb. I believe in living men and women, in living hearts and souls, in living greatness and goodness and love, and I tell you all that the earth never bore more loving, more humane, tenderer, braver, or truer hearts than beat today in the living breasts of mankind.
And I place above all that is brave and true, great and good, in the past or present, the mothers of our age. -- What man cannot see that silent, patient mother in her home, the victim of a multitude of trials, crosses, annoyances, day after day and week after week, meeting all, bearing all, with a saint's look and manner; and what man, seeing her there, at the side of the sick, worn out with watching and waiting, and then at the bed of death, faithful and true to the last, though wounded in heart and spirit never faltering in the way of duty, that would not say if there be one sacrifice that is above, and greater than, all others, it is that of a mother's love?
One human being in the great world of man, and in the greater world of Nature, plays but a small part. Of but little account is a human life in the vast, limitless universe. A man fills but a little space while alive, and touches but a few hearts when he dies. We are fortunate if we make during life, one true, loyal friend who stands by us while that life lasts. We reckon this, after all, the grandest triumph of the human soul. It is not difficult to gather dollars -- quite a number, at least, -- nor to win a measure of fame, but to live, to be, to act, in such way as to bind one true heart to ours, is a victory which we may be proud of. Some lives have larger circumferences than others, radiate farther, influence more, but none can win the rare tribute of perfect friendship from more than one or two. Yes! man plays but a small part in the great drama of life. He is on the stage but a few short hours, and most men are but poor or indifferent actors at best.
Who cares when a man dies? Not the sun, for it shines just as gaily when he closes his eyes to its golden light; not the birds, for they chatter and sing over his coffin, and hop and sing on his grave; not the brook, for it runs laughing on and never stops its gambols and song; not any of the things of earth, but man.
When man dies, a few say, Is he gone? and then forget that he ever lived; a few go to help carry his dead body to the grave, and then turn away to join the business and pleasure of life, and forget that they have buried a man; a few, some days after, call at the house where he lived and drop a tear of sympathy for the weeping widow and tearful children, and then forget that the husband and father is no more. But does no one care? Perhaps a wife, who will carry his dead image in her heart as long as it beats; perhaps a daughter, who will remember him a year or two, or a little longer, who will miss his happy greeting, his loving kiss, his proud, kind look as he lifts the heart's dearest idol to his knee; and this is all. And this is enough. We care for only a few; and why should many care for us?
Though life is short and not always heroic; and though, when it ends, the world goes on just the same, we love life and it is sweet while it lasts. Though we travel quickly over the road, we enjoy for the most part, the journey of life. We have pain, it is true; we learn of sorrow and grief; we feel the pang of parting and weep on the white face of some loved one, and yet, we find happiness, we enjoy living, and we regret when the curtain is rung down and our part is played and the lights turned out. When we strike the balance between pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, happiness and misery, most find that life is worth living.
A dogma will thrive in soil where the truth could not get root.
The measure of liberty which man enjoys determines the
civilization of the age in which he lives.
The person who can make a loaf of bread is more to the world
than the person who could perform a miracle.
The indifference to Christianity may well alarm the men who
live on the credulity that gives it the show of life, but to those
who delight in actions of sincerity, it affords the greatest
encouragement, for it promises to the world a day when intelligence
and integrity will be respected more than ignorance and hypocrisy.
NATURE IN JUNE
We can hardly look anywhere in Nature without having the
conviction grow in the mind that there are more or less superfluous
things
on this spot of the universe where our lot is cast, however
it may
be in Mars, Venus, Saturn, or any other of the Greek-named
planets or any heavenly constellations with or without names. just
at this particular season of the year, the presence of weeds in the
garden
or on
the farm raises a colossal doubt as to the fact of any
wisdom guiding the divine voice when, in a majestic sweep of its
omnipotent power on the third day of the drama of creation, it
called into being the grass, the herb, the tree and what-so-ever
bears leaf or blade or flower. To those who have to pull the weeds
out of the ground they are a curse of the first magnitude, and how
a creator, who had common sense, could take pride in making such
vegetable abortions as weeds we cannot comprehend. The most
worthless things in Nature are the most prolific. Chickweed will
cover an acre while clover is considering where it is best to go
into business, and every pesky, nasty little weed will live and
laugh when the queenly corn droops its head in the sun, and the
beet and turnip cannot get nourishment enough to keep them alive.
It is just the same in the animal world. An immense quantity of useless beings go about on two and four legs or on none at all. The only excuse for the snake is that he was made to eat the toad; for the toad, that he was made to eat insects; for the insects -- well, nobody has yet made a wholesome excuse for their existence, anyway. It looks as though one being in Nature was made simply to kill another being, and the last-made being, man, is the supreme killer of the whole lot. Take the whole range of wild beasts, and find, if you can, aught but malice in their creation, if they were created. No plague ever destroyed hyenas and jackals. No one ever found a sick rattlesnake or an invalid hornet. The fittest survive?. The fittest for what? To worry man, to make life miserable. Mosquitoes, wasps, fleas, reptiles and wild beasts, poisonous vines and shrubs, noxious blossoms whose perfume is the kiss of death, weeds that push and crowd decent plants until they die in utter despair -- these are the sturdiest triumphs of the creative art. We cannot help wishing that the Lord-God had not rested on the seventh day, but instead, had gone around and destroyed about seven-eighths of what he had created. We might then have had quite a decent world to live in.
Man builds a home for her he loves, he plants beside it all that will make it beautiful to the eyes of his wife. He works and brings what is fair to adorn it, and makes every room a casket to hold the jewel of love. He looks at his home with pride, and feels that it is "the dearest spot on earth," a refuge safe and secure. The cyclone comes and in a moment all is swept away. Man cannot trust the God of the winds.
There is no more terrible calamity that afflicts our globe at the present time than an earthquake. It comes without warning, by day or night, when man is at his place of business or when he is at rest. There is no way of preventing it, no way of preparing for it. It may wait a hundred, a thousand, years before it works its deadly ruin. But when it comes, havoc is left. An earthquake may be good for the earth, but it is almighty discouraging to the people that live on it. It may seek a beneficent end, but it goes to work in a cruel manner to accomplish it. Human life counts no more than the life of rats when an earthquake gets started. This infernal visitor does not seek a spot where its malevolence can be wrecked upon the rocks and hills. Oftener it goes to the thickly populated city or town and topples over houses and swallows up dwellings, with men, women and children. Does God send the earthquake? If he does, where is the evidence of his love for man? If He does not, who does?
It is pretty tough business to try to reconcile Nature with the idea of God's watchful care over man. If the winds did not turn to hurricanes; if the sunshine did not make drought; if the rain never became a flood; if the sea never grew angry and sunk the ship; if the clouds always dissolved in gentle rain or in dew; if there were no wild beasts; no venomous snakes; no poisonous vines or flowers; if there were only what is bright and fair and good on earth and nothing that was dark and cold and repulsive, we might believe that a heavenly father had made the earth for a dwelling- place for man. But as it is, we have to think as well of Nature as possible and dodge her lightning, run from her water-spouts, keep out of the way of cyclones and shift for ourselves while here. What follows nobody knows. It may be better for us beyond this life; we hope it is no worse. And it may be only sleep, sleep with no dreams and no awakening. We should dislike to die on this side of the grave with the fear that we should come out on the other only to meet a hurricane in the teeth, or find an earthquake had been put under us to give us a shaking up the first thing on that "shining shore," or to be caught in a furious torrent that poured down the sides of some heavenly mountain. Earth is a pretty good place when the conditions are all favorable, but if we are to have another life it ought to be a better one or else we should be saved the trouble of dying.
The
feet of progress have always been shod by doubt.
A true man will not join anything that in any way abridges his
freedom or robs him of his rights.
THE INFINITE PURPOSE
A Christian writer recently said; -- "The supreme duty of
humanity is to get into touch with the infinite purpose." This may
be so, but we want first to understand just what the infinite
purpose is before we subscribe to it. When the infinite purpose is
bent on getting up an earthquake we do not care to "get into touch"
with it, not much. When this purpose is forging an electric bolt to
shoot
out of the clouds, we have no desire to "get into touch" with
any such thing. It makes a vast difference what this purpose is
bent upon, whether or not we want to go into partnership with it.
Now,
when the infinite purpose is at work on the earth, turning
dirt
into flowers, or vegetables, or trees, we should feel a joy in
sharing its labor, but when it is determined to burn and scorch
everything on the face of the ground with a heat that knows no
abatement, we should want to sell out our interest in the concern
at once.
There is just as much nonsense connected with the use of this phrase "the infinite purpose" as there is with "special Providence" or "Divine love," or any other religious expression which expresses nothing unless you are religious. Where this "purpose" "makes for righteousness," as Matthew Arnold delighted to believe, we are willing to catch on to it, but where it is going in the other direction we prefer to go our own way.
This notion of uniting the finite with the infinite purpose is all right, providing the latter does not conflict with the former, but we have serious objection to doing anything that will interfere with the highest development of our humanity. The purpose which is at work in the world does not make for health any more than for disease. It seems to carry a tubercle with as much satisfaction as a ray of sunshine, and lends all its forces to assist the highwayman with no more charge than it makes to the law-abiding citizen.
It seems to us that it is necessary to divorce the "infinite purpose" from a lot of intentions that do not work for human interests, before it will be desirable to assume intimate relations with this purpose. We do not want to "get into touch" with what is not going our way; that is, the way of health, of prosperity, of happiness. We do not deny that we need to give a higher direction to human thought. We affirm this fact as positively as our most Christian contemporary. But before we advise mankind to harness its wagon to the infinite purpose we want to be sure where it is going. Man has to go to mill and market as well as to meeting, and there is just as good a purpose manifested in getting the most wholesome food for our stomachs as there is in getting the safest creed for our souls. We are loth to trust any religious purpose as opposed to a human one. We believe in man first, last, and all the time.
Now, let us admit that humanity needs a wiser purpose to guide it, but let us also admit that it can be found in a wiser human head and human heart. If what is called the infinite purpose is working for the highest end of human life, there is no evidence of the fact. If there is anything better than human energy back of a good human thought that will help this world, we do not know what it is.
The man who accepts the faith of Calvin is miserable in
proportion to the extent he carries it out.
Whatever tends to prolong the existence of ignorance or to
prevent the recognition of knowledge is dangerous to the well-being
of the human race.
A
higher respect for man has been one of the chief promoters
of civilization. Advancement has always been toward right and truth
when the ranks were imbued with a proper regard for human hearts
and
human happiness.
FREETHOUGHT COMMANDS
Let us not forget that men speak according to the measure of
their knowledge and light, and that a superior enlightenment is a
higher authority.
History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and
nothing so hard to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the
double enemy of civilization. By its servility it is the prey of
tyranny, and by its credulity it is the foe of enlightenment.
A RAINBOW RELIGION
There
is
little doubt that the faith of the early Christians
was what might be classed under the head of rainbow religion. We
learn from the New Testament that it was taught that those who
accepted the faith held by John and Jesus and Paul were in some
peculiar manner to be protected from the common ills of life, and
were to be especial favorites of their "Father in heaven." How
sincerely this faith was held we cannot now determine, nor to what
extent
it was put into practice, but that it possessed the mind in
a considerable degree there is no room whatever to doubt. But this
is not the question that we want settled, but rather the value of
this faith.
It is pleasant and comforting to believe that one is watched over by a superior power which at any moment of peril or temptation is ready to stretch forth its hand and rescue from danger and death, and it is on account of the wonderful seductiveness of this faith that it has lasted so long and has been so hard to overcome. But what we are interested in is, whether or not such a belief has any foundation in fact or in human experience. When Jesus bid his followers to cease giving thought to what they should eat and drink and wear, telling them that their "heavenly Father" fed the fowls of the air, and that they were better than such fowls, thus implying that their heavenly Father would take proportionately better care of them, was there any ground for any such teaching, and is there any ground for this faith today? We claim that the "heavenly Father" referred to by Jesus never fed anything, neither fowl nor man; and that no human being was ever taken care of by any superior power or snatched by it from danger or death. Such a faith is the veriest delusion, and it could lodge and take root only in the childish mind. Jesus also taught that the "Father which is in heaven" would "give good things to them that ask him." Is there any ground for this rainbow religion? Is there any evidence that there is a "Father in heaven" who has good things to give to those who ask for them?
We presume that this faith led men to give up work and to trust to begging for a living. But the question is, which got the most good things, -- those who studied the laws of Nature and of life and worked in harmony with them, or those who prayed for good things? How is it today? What good things can be had by praying? Who has any good thing that he received by asking his "Father in heaven" for it? The asking business has been carried on for hundreds of years, and all that has been asked of God has had to be given by man or has not been given at all.
Has it ever been true that Christians had any immunity from danger that others did not have, or that they could live in defiance of the laws of Nature? Jesus told his followers that in his name they shall cast out devils, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them and they shall have the power to cure the sick by laying their hands upon them. Have men, who professed to follow Jesus, ever done the things which he said they shall do? Is there any man today who can do these things? Is there any evidence that Christians are treated by any power of the universe differently from what others are treated? And is there any evidence that they possess any gift that is not shared by others? As far as we can see Christians are subject to the same laws of Nature that all others must obey, and they cannot either defy those laws or act independently of them. If they fool with deadly serpents they will get bitten and probably die just the same as would an infidel; if they drink a cup of poison, they will suffer and perhaps die just the same as an unbeliever; if they have any sickness, they do not trust to the laying-on of hands by a fellow-Christian, but send for a doctor the same as a freethinker. The fact is, the world has learned better than to put faith in these teachings of Jesus.
The Christian faith belonged to the childhood of the race, and ought no longer to be preached to man. No one attempts to put this faith into practice, to carry into life the teachings of Jesus. And why not? Simply because it is known to be false. Christianity is a rainbow religion, a representation of things for which there is no warrant in Nature; a picture painted in false colors; a view of life copied from a diseased imagination; a falsehood fed by priests upon which they live.
There is not an intelligent man or woman living today who has any faith in the rainbow religion taught by Jesus; not an intelligent man or woman who believes that a heavenly Father or a God will provide food or drink or clothes for a human being; nor an intelligent man or woman who has faith that he or she can get good things by asking a "Father in heaven" for them and not an intelligent man or woman who cares or dares to put the declaration of Jesus to the test; that those who have faith in him can play with serpents without danger, and drink deadly poison with no more harm than attends quaffing a glass of water.
We are then to conclude that Christianity is held only by the ignorant.
There
is greater argument in one fact than in all the creeds.
It is easier to believe that a man is honest who says the
Bible is the word of God than to believe that he is bright.
A CRUEL GOD
There may be some other religion in the world that sings of a
God more cruel than the God of Christianity, but we do not know of
any. At any rate, we believe it is safe to say that no religion of
a civilized people has a God who is more vindictive. We have always
wondered how men and women could set such infernal ideas to music
as we find in Christian hymns. It is really too bad that human
beings are compelled to sing such lies as we find in the pious
song-books of the church. The sentiments contained in them are not
fit for savages. It can only brutalize the heart to sing of blood,
and nothing but blood, no matter whose blood it is. The "precious
blood of Jesus" is just as suggestive of cruelty as the blood on
the executioner's knife. Men become what they read, what they
think, what they sing, what they believe. Religions have made men
wicked, cruel, hard, unkind. It is impossible to have faith in a
God of wrath and vindictiveness without in time developing these
qualities. Men grow into the likeness of their belief. As a man
believes, so is he, to a certain extent.
The influence of cruel sentiments on the mind is greater with the young than with adults. Some hymns sung in Christian churches are positively brutal in tone. Think of human beings singing the following verse: --
"But vengeance and damnation lie
Christians seem to delight in pictures of hell. God would
hardly
be God
to them if he did not damn somebody. In painting the
divine idea vengeance and damnation are laid on thick.
On rebels who refuse His grace;
Who God's eternal Son despise,
The hottest hell shall be their place."
Here is the Christian notion of father and son: --
"How justice frowned and vengeance stood
Think
of the religion based on such an idea of God! And think
on the terrible effect on men and women which such religion must
have!
To
drive me down to endless pain!
But the great Son propos'd his blood,
And heavenly wrath grew mild again."
The following description of the Christian God was probably written by one of his adorers: --
"Almighty vengeance, how it burns,
"Those heaps of wrath, by slow degrees,
"At His approach the mountains flee,
"Through the wide air the weighty rocks
"Thy hand shall on rebellious kings
"Adore and tremble for our God
And we are asked to love this God! We should just as soon
think of loving a tiger, a cyclone, a deluge, a fiend. Love goes
out to what is lovely. We can love what is good, what is beautiful,
what is noble; a great-hearted man, a pitying woman we cannot help
loving, but if we should say that we love such a God as is pictured
in the words of that hymn we should lie. Man cannot love hate,
vengeance, wrath -- even in a God.
Is a consuming fire!
His jealous eyes with wrath inflame,
And raise His vengeance higher.
How bright His fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for His foes.
Are force into a flame:
But kindled, Oh! how fierce they blaze!
And
rend all nature's frame.
And
seek a watery grave;
The frighted sea makes haste away,
And shrinks up every wave.
Are swift as hailstones hurled;
Who dares engage His fiery rage,
That shakes the solid world?
A fiery tempest pour,
While we, beneath Thy sheltering wings,
Thy
just revenge adore."
The Christian church, down through the ages, has been like the God it worshiped -- full of hate, malice and cruelty. The world has grown kind and humane just in proportion as it has given up worship of this divine monster. We judge gods as we judge men, and we can respect and love only what is worthy of respect and love from a human point of view. If there is such a God as is painted in Christian literature he deserves, not to be worshipped, but to be ignored.
The Bible upon which Christianity is founded does not say what
Christianity is, what a Christian is, nor what we must do in order
to be a Christian.
WHAT IS JESUS
Time
was when Jesus was looked upon as God, or the Son of God.
No one had any doubt of his divinity or divine character; or if he
had, he wisely deferred to the superstitious majority and kept his
mouth shut and so kept his head on his shoulders. This idea that
Jesus
was God has been steadily declining for several hundred
years. Intelligence has pretty much given it up, except where it is
paid a big salary for preaching it. There is no rational defence
that can be made of the dogma of the divinity of Jesus. It is one
of many theological absurdities that was born when gods were
popular.
A large number believe that Jesus was a man and nothing more; a good man, but still human. They look upon him as a product of human nature. He is allowed a human father and mother, although the gospels, in which is found the story of his life, hardly warrant so much earthly parentage. He is regarded as a part of humanity, and his extraordinary deeds merely as exaggerated performances of heart and hand of man. The people that look upon Jesus as a man have a superstitious reverence for his humanity. He is called "the one perfect man," the "pattern of the race," etc. Though human, they will have him every inch a man.
Yet others see nothing remarkable in the career of Jesus; nothing which marks him for universal emulation; nothing which compels praise and admiration. They think he was a sort of mild lunatic, possessed of the idea that he was the Messiah of his people, and that in endeavoring to further his scheme he antagonized the existing authority and met the just punishment of his ambition.
But it is neither as God nor as a man that Jesus must be regarded, but as a myth. No such person ever lived either as a human or divine existence. He is simply a creature of fancy, the fruit of the imagination. He is a character of the brain, the creation of religious genius.
There
is no justifiable Christianity in this age.
A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living.
The progress of the world depends upon freedom of thought and
freedom of utterance.
If you can forgive the man who wronged you, the neighbor who
slandered you and help the poor about you, you need not be
particular about making any professions of righteousness.
DEEDS BETTER THAN PROFESSIONS
We have tears of regret to shed over the wreck of beauty and
talent; but if we take no steps to preserve beauty and talent from
wreck, our compassion is not to our honor but to our disgrace. The
feeling of pity which today expends itself in solemn warning or
solemn weeping for the poor unfortunates of earth, must devise
means to rescue them from misery, or it is but a mockery and a
shame. One arm inspired with love of man will do more than a
thousand tender sentiments. Sympathy must take the form of
assistance, or it is not sincere.
When we do not love man as we ought, we hate ourselves. The way to get heaven for ourselves is to give it to others. The way to be happy is to make others happy. Selfishness kills every noble feeling and defeats every good desire. We cannot have peace when we give pain to others. Our deeds reward us. What wrongs man is wrong for man to do. We should live so as not to regret the past nor fear the future. We set too great a value upon earthly possessions, and spend our lives in gaining what we cannot hold. We best enjoy the things of earth when we give up wanting them wholly for ourselves. The best part of our happiness is having someone to share it.
To know more is what we need. Let us look into things and find out what the world means. If this universe is only an illuminated deception, the man who discovers the fact will be a public benefactor. If things which exist around us are lying to us, -- if the stars that shine out through the deep space above us are only fire-flies of the night, let us know it. Knowledge will not hurt us so much as ignorance and deception. If the flowers that uncover their beauty for our delight have but a phantom loveliness, and nought is real in the enchanting world about us, then let us be told the truth. The soul can bear it better than to be deceived. We may be trusted with the knowledge of good and evil and of right and wrong, ye God of Genesis! and praise be to the first-created man for breaking the command to remain in ignorance and taking the first step toward solving the riddle of life!
We learn everything by living. The truth is not revealed to us: we must discover it. It is seen when we climb high enough to see it, or live wise enough to feel it, or act true enough to utter it. When we hear the truth, we hear only the echo of the universe. The last thing that we have to fear is the truth and the consequences of knowing it. Let us not fear to speak it or to hear it. And let us go with it whenever found. They who are keeping the world from the knowledge of good and evil, who are trying to discourage the preaching of truth, are the enemies of mankind.
If man had no knowledge except what he has got out of the
Bible he would not know enough to make a shoe.
The great work of man has ever been to rescue the present from
the
past; to turn the mind from what it has left behind to the
opportunities and duties which are around it. For this has genius
toiled down the ages, sung its song of love, carved its dream of
beauty and whispered to the world's dull ear its bright message of
hope.
THE AMERICAN SUNDAY
Everybody has heard of what is called the "Christian sabbath,"
and nearly everybody has a tolerably clear idea of what is meant by
a "continental sabbath." A "continental sabbath" may be described
as a
sort of week-day Sunday, that is, as a religious holiday with
more secular, than pious, features. A Christian sabbath is so near
dead in this country as a religious fact that a definition of it
cannot
be had from real life. We find the ideal sabbath of the
Christians in the history of early New England. For two centuries
the people have been gradually outgrowing the austere religion
which made Sunday a day to be dreaded all the week. The attempt has
been frequently made by a small puritan contingent, which has
survived all these years, to resuscitate this dead sabbath and
inflict it upon the world again. But so far the effort has only met
with deserved failure.
Resurrections have never been successful. When the inhabitants of graves have come out of their abodes it has been only to walk the streets for a brief period, and then to return again to silence and rest. The stories of ghosts, when considered true, are always short. These visitants never stop long or do anything that is of any worth to the world. When the grave is once made over the dead it is best to let it alone. There is nothing in cemeteries to aid progress or civilization.
We do not need the revival of old customs or of old faiths. To endeavor to rehabilitate the sabbath of our forefathers is as foolish as to try to make people go back into log houses and cook in a fire-place. Some persons can never realize that the world grows; that what was a help to one age becomes a hindrance to another; that time corrects the mistakes of men and that respect and reverence for our ancestors does not necessarily require us to adopt their clothes or their habits.
Men and women are made fossils by their religion. The people who are trying today to resurrect the puritan sabbath are people who have got religion, but not much of anything else. A man who allows religion to dominate all his thoughts, all his efforts, all his acts, usually is a nuisance, if nothing worse.
A day of rest once a week is a good thing in itself, but it is a bad thing when controlled by religion. We are in favor of Sunday as a day when man can lay aside his business, his care, his tools, and enjoy himself, but we want everybody to take their hands off of it. Sunday is not a day for religion alone. If certain people wish to go to church on Sunday, let them go; but when these people, who go to church on Sunday, wish to compel everyone else to do the same, they need to be informed that liberty on Sunday is just as much a human right as liberty on Monday. There are better things that man has found than religion. Liberty is better, truth is better, happiness is better. We would like to see an American Sunday on this continent, a Sunday in harmony with the principles upon which our government was founded, a Sunday which was not run by religion, a Sunday for man and not for the church. Such a day would not be a sabbath, but it would be a free day, a happy day. The notion of Sunday as a holy day is too absurd, too ridiculous to deserve respectful attention. No man can have fifty-two holy days in a year.
The minister must take his pious grasp off of the throat of Sunday.
A true man is not troubled by anything but his own acts.
The
true man walks the earth as the stars walk the heavens,
grandly obedient to those laws which are implanted in his nature.
A great many people are afraid of knowledge, but we have seen
hundreds of people that we thought would be improved if they knew
more,
but we have never seen one that we thought would be better if
he knew less.
LORD AND MASTER
The Christian is fond of referring to Jesus as his lord and
master. We wonder why, for it is evident that not a Christian of
this century takes Jesus for his lord and master. The fact is, that
there is nothing that a man objects to more strongly than a master.
Man
wants to be independent. He does not want anybody to be lord
over
him. The struggle of the race for ages has been to get rid of
lords
and masters, to be free from tyrants. Religion is after all
only
dead politics. The church makes sacred what the state casts
off.
What sense is there in fighting for long centuries to liberate
the
body,
and voluntarily accepting slavery for the mind? Jesus is
the
ghost of a dead king. But why should the world prostrate itself
before his invisible throne when it refuses to acknowledge by its
obedience that he is fit to rule the kingdom of conduct?
What hypocrites Christians are! What a farce it is for men and women to call Jesus lord and master! They do not obey his slightest command, and they ignore his teachings as undeserving their regard. There is not a precept, that the Christian church teaches came from the lips of Jesus, that Christians honor by practice, not one. Never did a lord receive so little honest respect from his vessels; never a master so little true obedience from his servants.
Men and women are not sincere when they profess to accept Jesus as their lord and master. They doubtless feel grateful to him for saving them from the fires of hell hereafter, but they look upon him as a mighty poor example for them to follow here. As everybody knows, the church does not require that its members shall practice the precepts given by Jesus. If she did demand this of men and women her membership would speedily be reduced to zero. We do not regard a man as honest, or worthy of respect, who calls Jesus his lord and master and turns his back in contempt upon the precepts he gave his disciples to practice.
You cannot stuff your minds with the lives of saints and grow
good on the stuffing.
Some persons are remembered solely for their virtues and
others solely for their faults. This is why we have a Jesus and a
Judas.
ARE CHRISTIANS INTELLIGENT OR HONEST?
Future generations will regard the men who accept the
Christian superstitions either as simple or dishonest.
We are forced to doubt the sanity or sincerity of people who profess to believe in the doctrine of the trinity, in a "begotten Son of God," in miraculous conception, in the resurrection of the body, in the Bible as the word of God, in miracles, and in heaven and hell. We ask ourselves: -- Are men intelligent who believe these things, or do they merely profess to believe them, and are dishonest? We cannot reconcile faith in the Christian superstitions with mental soundness and good sense.
What is there in Nature to suggest any of the Christian doctrines? Does not everything we know, everything we have seen, everything we have experienced, deny and disprove the Christian superstitions? Why, then, do people accept them? We find no one that acts as though Christianity were true, no one who lives as though hell were under his feet and liable at any moment to pull him down to eternal damnation. We find men spending all their energies in trying to get the good things of earth, just as though they were told to do so by God, instead of commanded not to lay up treasures upon earth, etc.
It is one of the serious problems of the age to know how to deal with Christians. They are, as a rule, respectable and decent; they have good manners generally, and they eat and drink, dress and talk, live and die very much as other people, and yet they profess a faith that is absurd and foolish and that has no foundation in fact or philosophy.
We like to think well of our fellow-beings, and we would like to think well of Christians, but we cannot do so as long as they pretend to believe what a person of intelligence, of good sense, cannot believe. Are Christians honest? Perhaps they think so, but have they ever really examined their belief in the light of the knowledge of the twentieth century? If they will do this, we do not see how they can longer profess to be Christians, if they are honest.
When
men are hungry roast mutton is better than the lamb that
taketh away wrath.
If a
man can look in the mirror of his own soul without shame,
he can look the whole world in the face without a blush.
THE DANGER OF THE BALLOT
Men speak usually as though voters ranged them-selves on one
side of
a political question, or another, according to their
convictions or principles. We wish this were so, then we should be
nearer having a pure ballot. But we cannot share this lofty view.
It does not seem to us that the average voter is a man of either
political convictions or principles. Party service does not require
intelligent, independent action, and politics today stands for
party fealty more than for governmental ethics.
The main question that is decided by an election in our country is, which political party shall have the privilege of dispensing the offices of Government? There is a desire on the part of certain persons to obtain office, for either personal or party advantage, and this desire is oftentimes so fierce that it will betray the honor of citizenship. Where this is done, or attempted, lies the danger of the ballot.
If men voted only as their political convictions dictated, we should have a higher party morality and purer officers, but we must face the facts even though the duty is not an agreeable one. Politics has degenerated to a dirty business and political trickery and bribery secure victory where honor, integrity and principle suffer defeat. The plain truth is, we have a large class of voters who make merchandise of their right of suffrage, and a set of demagogues whose business it is to bribe or coerce voters for the advancement of selfish ends.
The honest, virtuous, intelligent, independent vote is the noblest power of a freeman, but the purchasable vote, the ignorant vote, the vicious and servile vote, is the opportunity of the knave and the scoundrel. The purity of the ballot is the only safety of a Republic, and no greater danger threatens this nation today than that which arises from the corruption of the suffrage. A ballot should be the honest declaration of our principles, the expression of our own opinions, the badge of our manhood; but when it is held in the hand that has sold it for a price, or will deposit it at the dictation of another, it is the prostitute of greed and the hired assassin of the despot.
Every man should select his own ballot and vote to please himself, and any person that would interfere with his right and duty to do this, should be disfranchised forever. The individual who does not know enough to select his own ballot has no right to vote in this country.
There have been too many voters led to the polls, and used as party troops. There are still slaves on election day who are afraid of the crack of the whip. There ought to be permitted in this nation no political or religious disability on account of the honest exercise of the right of suffrage. A man should be protected from the politician and the priest. When a man votes as he thinks, he has discharged the highest duty of citizenship, but when he votes through bribe or fear, he forfeits the privilege of the ballot. The polls are more sacred to man than the altar. Religion might die and man could still have every blessing of earth, but when liberty is killed, the noblest blessing of earth has departed.
The petty salvation offered by Christianity is not much sought
after today, while the world is bending its mighty energies in the
direction of knowledge as never before, and the glory of the
electric light, the song of the steam-whistle, the music of the
telegraph, the chorus of machinery and the grand anthem of
countless enterprises tell of a bright and golden future time when
man will master the elements of Nature and guide his life through
its course of years in perfect safety and security and step down at
the end of it, -- "Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
about
him and lies down to pleasant dreams."
WHO CARRIED THE CROSS
Who carried the cross upon which Jesus was crucified? Such a
question ought to be easy to answer, if the event ever occurred.
There ought to be no disagreement upon so simple a matter as this.
But
there is disagreement, and quite a serious one at that. Three
of the gospels declare that Simon carried the cross, while the
fourth gospel says that Jesus himself carried the cross upon which
he was crucified. Now, which is right? Is John right? If so, then
Matthew, Mark and Luke are wrong. If Simon carried it, Jesus could
not have done so; and if Jesus carried it, then Simon did not.
That there is such a discrepancy in the accounts of this alleged event does not so much indicate that one is right and the others wrong in regard to the carrying of the cross as that none is right. To our mind this disagreement of the gospels is an indication that no such event as the carrying of a cross upon which to crucify Jesus ever occurred.
Christians put forth the Bible as a work which in some way came from God; as a book which is reliable in its statements, and correct in its narrative of events. Now, it is patent to everyone that in the gospels there are two distinct accounts of the carrying of the cross. How can Christians reconcile this fact with their theory that God is the author of the Bible?
It must be admitted by all that one mind could not have written or inspired both of these stories, and it must also be admitted that if one is true the other is false. What is the natural conclusion that an unprejudiced mind would arrive at after reading the account of the carrying of the cross for the crucifixion of Jesus in the four gospels? is it not that no such cross was ever carried for any such purpose?
There are too many gospels, too many stories of Jesus. It would have been better for Christianity had all but one of these narratives been destroyed. They contradict each other in so many essential points as to make them totally unreliable as records of facts. It is plain that not one of the writers of the four gospels knew of what he was writing.
We must in honesty say that no one knows who carried the cross on which Jesus was crucified, and no one knows whether Jesus was crucified or not, and no one knows whether any such person as Jesus ever lived, to be crucified.
Civilization has come about by going to school more than to church.
Nature is the volume from which all of our knowledge has been translated.
MODERN DISCIPLES OF JESUS
The modern disciples do not resemble very closely the ancient
disciples of Jesus. In fact it is very hard to find a reason why
Christian preachers call themselves disciples of Jesus at all.
According to the narrative of the New Testament Jesus was not in
love
with money and what money will buy; he did not have a high
appreciation of the good things of the world; he did not express
any anxiety about his food or dress, nor manifest any desire to
have aesthetic surroundings.
And if we can credit the story of the gospels, Jesus charged his disciples to be and do pretty much as he himself was and did. He said to them: "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils; ... Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is worthy of his meat ... It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master."
Whether or not the ancient disciples heeded these words of their master, and carried out his instructions, we do not know, but there is abundant evidence that his modern disciples do not pay his commands the compliment of obedience. If there is one item that the clergyman of today looks after it is his salary. He deliberately disobeys all of the injunctions of Jesus to his disciples, and thinks he is doing his duty to do so.
This is the funny part of his discipleship to us. He does not consider the charge of Jesus worthy of being heeded. When we point to the commands of Jesus, and ask some Christian minister why he does not obey them, he coolly informs us that it would be the height of folly in this age to attempt to do as Jesus commanded his first disciples. In other words the Christian clergyman acts upon the ground that the orders of Jesus to his apostles are incompatible with personal dignity and decent living, and that only a person utterly devoid of all sense of fitness and social responsibility would undertake to follow his directions.
We agree with the action of the modern disciple of Jesus in regarding his commands as foolish and unfit to be obeyed, but we want him to take an honest stand before the world and say so like a man. Now he is a hypocrite, when he assumes a place in the Christian ranks but refuses to obey the orders of his master. The modem disciple of Jesus is more concerned about putting money in a bank or investing it in real estate than he is about "laying up treasures in heaven."
If there is one person who believes thoroughly in looking after himself and his in the world, and getting all the good things out of it, it is the Christian minister. He is well housed, well fed, well dressed, and, as a rule, has a comfortable income. How he must laugh when he reads the New Testament! He probably regards Jesus as a chump to tell men and women to take no thought for what they shall eat and drink and wear, and not to lay up a few dollars for a rainy day. He has to make believe honor the poor, unsophisticated peasant of Galilee, in order to get his fat living. He has to fool the fools that support him in luxury, but all the reverence he has for Jesus you could put in your eye.
If it paid better to tell the truth and to take an honest position in the world, we presume that most ministers would quit playing the hypocrite, but as long as Christianity pays its preachers more than they can get from any other source, we may expect them to profess to follow Jesus and then do as they please.
Every fact is backed up by the whole universe.
Christianity is a black spot on the page of civilization.
The church is a bank that is continually receiving deposits
but
never pays a dividend.
A POOR EXCUSE
The excuse of the poor for not going to church is a poor
excuse. The woman who does not go to church because she cannot
dress well enough, cannot have much respect for her master. Jesus
did not rail against the poor, but the rich. He did not condemn
Lazarus, but Dives. Christian churches should be filled with rags,
not silks; with paupers, not bankers. No one can be too poor to
feel at home in the church of him who was too poor to have a place
to lay his head. A Christian church is the church of poverty, and
its minister should welcome the tramp, the beggar, the rag-muffin
and should give the cold shoulder to the rich merchant, the well-
dressed politician, the prosperous citizen.
It is a singular thing that while silks despise rags, rags respect silks. The poor Christians ought to glory in their poverty, ought to be proud of their patches. They should have utter contempt for good clothes, and go to the church of Jesus with a feeling of pride that they honor him by being poor, as he was. Velvet, satin and broadcloth are insults to him whose ragged royalty they profess to reverence.
If the poor were not as big hypocrites as the rich, they would drive the richly-dressed worshipers out of the church dedicated to the poverty-stricken Nazarene, who has been elected to the office of savior. A person has not very much Christianity when his religion is ashamed of his old clothes.
Profession is demanded of him who would join the ranks of the pious. Profession is required of the man or woman who belongs to the church. The performance of every duty, the practice of every virtue, is not a sufficient recommendation to popular favor. It is a fact that profession with out practice is accepted in preference to practice without profession.
The man who gives his life to man without thought or care about God is considered a bad man, while he who gives his life to God without thought or care about man is regarded as holy and saintly. Nobody can do God any good or any harm, and all the worship that is offered him is waste of time.
The man who stands up in public and asks God in prayer to help the poor, to bless the suffering, is looked upon as a good man, while he who does not pray nor ask God to do anything, but helps his needy brothers and sisters, is pronounced wicked and sinful. Values have become strangely mixed in the eyes of mankind. Religion is considered as worth more than morality; worship more than work; prayer more than performance and profession more than practice. This is wrong, false and foolish.
Profession is a mighty poor jewel, a cheap and flashy substitute for the diamond of practice. It is a confession of fraud; a mask for a face; a coward's excuse; a hypocrite's wile. Honesty need not profess to be honest.
When a minister says that God will help you, ask him to put up
the collateral.
The church spends thousands of dollars to save a dogma, where
it
spends a cent to find a truth.
WHERE IS TRUTH
Men
have enthroned truth in some far-off kingdom, away from
the world, as though it were too pure to live on earth. It has been
made supernatural, and only to be known by being revealed. But
truth is everywhere; its voice is heard in everything. The very
pebble
at our feet holds its image, and its light twinkles in the
white splendor of the distant star.
Man has searched for truth in books, but has not found it there. He has invented words to conceal his disappointment, such as God, heaven, providence, etc. Nature contains all the truth, and so far as men have read Nature aright they have learned what is true, but we cannot catch and hold Nature in our philosophies. She breaks through all the finely-woven theories we put about her, and man, in his attempt to bind Nature with his thoughts, binds only himself.
Men in all ages have tried to read the secret of the universe. We have been told that God directs it, that a divine mind planned it and keeps it in motion. Why not let the universe explain itself? Why not read it by its own light? Why not confess our ignorance? God is a figure of speech, but Nature is a reality. Let us trust what we know. Nature is never capricious. Fire will always burn, water will always drown, frost will always freeze. Though we have confidence in Nature, let us acknowledge that we do not yet comprehend the meaning of things. The old habit of inventing words to hide our ignorance has been adopted by silence as well as by religion. Evolution does not reduce the mystery of existence to a simple problem. What we call truth is more than we have yet found. The unknown is still provocative of investigation, and the only prayer of the mind is, more light. We must beware of accepting dogmas, whether of science or religion. No statement is the last word of truth. Doubt is the first step of progress, and inquiry is the way to knowledge.
There is nothing that stands more in the way of human advancement than the authority of opinions. Some dragon of assertion ever disputes our right to the golden fleece of truth. If we ask for proof of God's existence or man's immortality, we are answered with a text, but a text is only the dead opinion of a dead man. This age demands truth, not the belief of a person who lived centuries ago.
Because superstition holds the contents of a book sacred we are not to enslave reason to its statements. We will not be bound by the opinions of others, neither must we bind others to our opinions. We must make freedom sacred, and cease condemning men for disbelief or unbelief. The bondage of faith is the slavery of the soul. It makes man unjust, unwise and unkind. Allegiance to a creed makes us ill use a man simply because he does not believe as we do.
No church has all the truth, and no school either. So-called religion merely shows where the search after truth ended. But truth is the infinite reality,, and it will always be for man to find.
Christianity is like a slow clock -- always being moved ahead.
The day of the Bible is passed. Books have taken its place.
Better be late to church Sunday morning than late at home
Saturday night.
Man today has more and better ways of getting, a living than
at any time in the history of the race.
WHAT DOES IT PROVE
Christians say that the resurrection of Jesus proves his claim
to be
the Messiah. But what proves the resurrection? Certainly not
the contradictory stories of the gospels. The story of the
resurrection of Jesus from the tomb merely proves that somebody
lied, that is all. A pretty Messiah Jesus was! The Messiah of the
Jews was to be a king who should restore the lost splendor of the
house of David; who should overthrow the power of the Romans and
build up the Israelitish kingdom. This king never came. Jesus was
just about as much a Jewish Messiah as Crispus Attucks was a
President of the United States.
No
creed
can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can
be made as large as man.
To correct in ourselves what we condemn in others would remove
most of the evils of life.
HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY
There
is nothing that tends to perpetuate the weakness of
humanity more than religion. Men have been taught for ages that
they
were dependent upon God for all they have. This kind of
teaching must be corrected; it is false. Man is dependent upon man.
No God will help or hurt him. Be he ever so good no God will praise
him; be he ever so bad no God will blame him. What he wants to
escape
is his own condemnation.
In order to develop an independent spirit in man it is necessary to increase his responsibility. Man must be taught to rely upon his own strength, upon his own body and mind. He must learn his relations to Nature and abide by the laws of his being. He must know this: if he would have anything he must deserve it. Human destiny follows human conduct.
The old notion that man is responsible to God cannot be proved. There are no facts that corroborate that notion. Man is responsible to himself. It is this truth that is calculated to elevate and ennoble human life. Let human beings understand that there is that within themselves that is to be respected, and that they are responsible to themselves for all they do, and they will be more worthy of respect and live more worthy lives.
Children should be taught to drive dirt out of the house as
they would a mad dog. Dirt is the food of disease. It is the enemy
of
health and happiness. Abolish dirt.
ABOLISH DIRT
We should like to see one generation brought up to hate dirt.
Every child ought to be taught that clean hands and face and clean
clothes help to a clean life. There are too many homes, on this
earth that human beings live in that are dirty, in which those
three household gods -- the broom, the mop, and the dust-rag --
have no place.
If God exists, what objection can he have to saying so?
When we have nothing to give a beggar, we can at least tell
him so kindly.
RELIGION AND MORALITY
A religious man is not trusted today because he is religious.
Faith in vicarious atonement is not accepted as a moral substitute
for meeting one's obligations. Worship of God is not equivalent to
helping your neighbor. The fact that a man is religious may not be
proof that he is a bad man, but it is no evidence that he is a good
man. The most contemptible wretch that ever robbed the widow or
orphan could shine in a prayer-meeting, where words are passed for
virtues. The veriest scoundrel can pay a pew tax and march up the
aisle of the church with sanctimonious countenance. Religion is
such a superficial affair that it carries no moral recommendation.
Without morality religion could not borrow a dollar on its name,
while morality without religion can get all the accommodation it
asks
for. The real virtues of a man do not depend upon religion.
Men have lived good lives while believing in dozens of gods and
without faith in a single god. Morality is not the offspring of
theology. You cannot pick out a moral man by hearing him pray. A
great deal of religion is worn to conceal moral defects.
We should watch the man who stands up in public and says: I am moral. We should say to him: It is not necessary for you to proclaim your morality; your daily life will show how moral you are. The world is becoming suspicious of him who stands up in public and says: I am religious. A great many people seem to think if they profess to love God it is not necessary for them to love man.
We are not denying that a great many good men and women are religious; that a great many good men and women go to church and prayer-meeting. We do not deny that a great many moral men and women profess faith in total depravity, in vicarious atonement, but we do not see how their faith has anything to do with their morality. There is no particular necessity for Christians to be good. Their faith saves them, not their conduct. Religion is not doing, it is believing, or pretending to.
There is a big opportunity to lie in religion. You cannot tell when a person says he believes in God whether he is telling the truth or not. It is mighty easy to be religious. But the moral man has no such chance. He is not judged by his professions, but by his actions.
Religion makes hypocrisy easy, but morality offers the hypocrite no show whatever.
He
lived a very narrow life, and his brief career cannot be
stretched to cover the limits of our earthly existence. He is held
up for
us to imitate, as though he had left a pattern for every
hour of our lives, and a model for every day from the cradle to the
grave. This is simply nonsense. This "model" business has been
overworked. Jesus had a great many crude, foolish ideas, and did a
great many deeds that are not worth repeating. As a model of what
is best in this age he is a wretched failure. It is a mistake to
look
upon Jesus as a fit person to lead our century to a higher
life.
Never forget the good deeds that others do to you, nor
remember those that you do to others.
JESUS AS A MODEL
It is common to speak of Jesus as though he touched the
borders of every human experience, and sounded the depths of every
joy and every woe, but there is no warrant for such statements.
There
is nothing to live for in the past.
We must condemn christianity, not christians; strike the
church, but spare the heart.
SINGING LIES
Go into any Christian church and you will hear the choir and
the congregation singing lies. Is it not time to stop it? Is music
married irrevocably to falsehood? Take up an ordinary hymn-book and
you will hardly find a sensible line in it. The entire contents of
the book is about God, heaven, salvation, and other equally unknown
quantities, states and conditions. Why not sing sense? Why not sing
facts? Why not sing truth? Why not Sing the glories of Nature, of
life, of man?
Music is a wonderful power, a wonderful educator of the feelings and emotions. It is essential, therefore, that music be inspired by what is true, by what is good, by what is right. Truth should be set to music and the lips taught to sing what science has discovered, what art has done, what the universe reveals, what the world is living for.
The common Christian music is a wail of despair, a cry of sorrow, a shriek of fear. It is composed of false conceptions of Nature, of humanity, of life. It is a "doleful sound." The triumph of faith which it celebrates is not a full, round, complete joy.
The Church does not know the music of laughter, the music of the heart. Its song seems always to hover on the brink of fear. It is not the glad note of natural freedom, but the uncertain joy of the escaped convict.
The free song must come from the free heart, must denote the free thought. Let life that is healthy, happy and human be set to music. Let us sing as we live, as we think, as we feel. The music of the hand, the mind, the heart, should be on the lips. If we could only sing what sings through us, the world would listen with rapture. We do not want "harmonious madness" nor harmonious idiocy. Pious music is stupid, false. It is inspired by the sickness of the world. We need a stronger note, a sturdier song.
Lies enough have been sung. Let truth now fill the air. Out of the great hope of the race let new songs come. We are beginning to live for life on earth, for happiness here, for love here, for victory here. Let the hands and feet, the brains and hearts of men and women move to the music of truth.
There
is not a village where poverty does not pinch the
stomach or starve the mind, where misery does not need charity and
where wealth could not bless.
Piety could do nothing better than imitate morality.
A WALK THROUGH A CEMETERY
In walking through a country graveyard one sees a prominent
granite or marble monument here and there, but more of the stones
that
mark the resting-places of the dead are modest in appearance,
plain
and humble. But there are some graves that are unmarked by
any outward token of remembrance. Such graves may hold the dust of
as great and good men and women as those spots above which has been
raised the lofty shaft and costly design.
Graveyards are just as deceptive as are the homes of the living. A fine house is not proof of the moral, the manly or womanly worth of its occupant. Saints do not sleep beneath the gilded roof any more than under a leaky thatch. So also the wise, the good, the true, are not the ones over whose ashes rises the chiseled stone. The dead may deserve monuments that the living are not able to buy.
A graveyard might be called a library of lies. Epitaphs are to be read, and believed, if you can believe them. We have found as big falsehoods in cemeteries as in newspapers. "Say nothing bad of the dead" is kindly counsel, but, say nothing of the dead on a tombstone, is wiser.
We have seen a towering stone covered with words of praise over the ashes of a man, who, while living, was simply a lover of money. We have seen the sunken grave of a woman, with no marble to adorn it, who lived a heroic life of love and duty beyond words to tell. If virtues bore monuments one would rise over the neglected grave of that saintly woman that would reach the clouds, and that other grave would be stripped of its marble and left to oblivion.
Though a cemetery is more or less a museum of vanity and pride, there is at the bottom of the costly display of granite and marble a tender feeling, a commendable virtue. There may be as much love and respect for those in unmarked graves as for those who sleep in costly masonry or beneath sculptured stone. In walking through a graveyard, if our steps should go to the places where no monument invited the eye, they would be more likely to walk over the dust of those who did life's duty well, than if they paused only before the imposing shaft or read the marble tale of virtue that never was told in deeds.
God never helps those who need the help of men and women.
No man ever knew Providence to interpose when his neighbor's
hens are scratching up his garden.
PEACE WITH GOD
A good, pious lady said to us not long ago: "Don't you think
that you ought to make your peace with God?" We have never had a
bit of trouble with God. We have got along with him tip top. He has
never shown that it was at all necessary for us to make peace with
him. We have never quarrelled. If we are not at peace with God, we
did not know it. We have no wish to have a row with anyone, and if
God has the idea that we are mad with him or want to injure him in
any way, we wish to disabuse his mind of such a notion.
We wish to say that we have never had any dealings with God, to our knowledge. If we have seen him, we did not know it. If he has spoken to us, we were not aware of the fact. If he has been in our presence at any time, we were not conscious of it.
We do not know that we have ever wronged God or that God has ever wronged us. We do not say that some word or act of ours may not have injured God.
All we can say is that we have no way of finding out whether such is the fact or not. Of course, we could not take the word of a priest or minister on this point. We want God's own assurance in the matter.
Up to this time God has made no complaint to us that we have wronged him, or that we need to make our peace with him, and until we hear from his own lips that we owe him an apology, we do not intend to make one.
God is just as good to us as though he was dead. He does not cross our path, stand in our light, dog our steps, or interfere with what we are doing. He does not get in our way any more than if he lived in the planet Jupiter. So we do not see that we need to make our peace with him. We do not comprehend how there can be any collision between us.
Priests will pardon thieves but not philosophers.
Priest and God have formed some of the worst combinations in history.
Too
long has this world been at the feet of the priest. Man is
never in that position for his own benefit, but for the benefit of
the priest.
SAVING THE SOUL
The man who can deliberately, and in cold blood, as it were,
try to save his soul, must be grossly selfish. To do that which
shall redound to one's own advantage or profit, without care or
consideration of another, shows little humanity. The finer feeling
is that which looks after others rather than one's self. It can
only increase selfishness to seek salvation.
When a man gets the idea that his soul must be saved, and goes to work to save it, the things that he will do in order to insure its salvation tend to lessen its value; and by the time he thinks his soul is saved it is generally not worth saving. The more willing we are to be lost, the more chance there is that we will not be.
The cheapest method of saving one's soul is by believing something. This requires but little effort and no brains. Christianity is organized gullibility. It tells people to believe what it teaches and it will save their souls. It remains to be seen whether Christianity fulfills its part of the contract.
It occurs to us that before we try to save our soul we ought to know that we have a soul and that it needs saving. We fail to see any necessity for anxiety on account of our soul. We do not care to go into the salvation business and let the priest get all the dividends. Any person who can seriously talk about "saving his soul" ought to have a guardian.
We look at the earth and its inhabitants, and while we see much which calls for admiration, we find nothing to worship. The mountain impresses us with its towering grandeur, the ocean with its vast extent and terrible power, but we cannot get on our knees to rocks, no matter how high they are piled; nor pray to water, no matter how much there is of it. The flower elicits our wondering delight, but we cannot adore a rose, a sunflower or a daisy, We own the marvelous beauty of the animal form, but we cannot worship a horse, a tiger or a dog. We hear the gladness and madness of melody which comes from the throat of the bird, but sweet and entrancing as it is, we cannot adore a skylark, a nightingale or a thrush. We see man, the fairest form that walks the earth, the most marvelous piece of work that Nature reveals to our senses, but we cannot worship our own image.
Beyond earth the eye looks, and cloud, black or bright, is seen and the endless blue beyond the cloud, but man cannot get on his knees to vapor or pray to the sky. In the daytime the sun is seen, and at night the moon and countless stars, but man cannot worship a ball of fire nor a dying planet, or adore a point of light.
We can find nothing on the earth or in the heavens that we can worship. Is there something not on the earth or in the heavens? If so, what is it and where is it? What do men and women kneel to? Nothing. What do men and women pray to? Nothing. What do men and women worship?, Nothing.
Coals out of the ashes of love will never light the fires of
friendship.
The names of most men live on account of the, falsehoods told
about them.
We should scorn the person who would be mean enough to allow
his fellow-being to be punished for his deeds. Yet we have a
religion in our midst that is founded on this kind of meanness.
WHERE
ARE THEY
No man was ever yet canonized for minding his own business.
No man was ever yet sorry to find that he had married a good cook.
SOME QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIANS TO ANSWER
THE IMAGE OF GOD
We wonder if anyone knows what is meant by the expression,
"the image of God." It is said in the Bible that God "created man
in his own image."
If man makes anything in his image we know how this thing looks, but when God creates something in his image we are at a loss to comprehend what is meant unless God has the likeness of man. In ancient times there is no doubt but what the assertion that God "created man in his own image" was accepted literally, that the people looked upon God as a big man. Latter they came to look upon man as a little god.
But we are dealing with the brain of the twentieth century, with the common sense of a scientific age, when it is no longer believed that God "created" man at all. To-day the "image of God" is a puzzle. If God "created man in his own image," in whose image did he create the elephant, the lion, the bear, the ox, the goat, the snake, the beetle, the bee, the fly, the gnat? These could not all have been created in the divine image, unless the divine image is a multitudinous likeness.
Is it not about time that a few literary murders were committed, that some one went through our literature and killed off a lot of nonsensical expressions that, if they ever meant anything, are meaningless today? If there was more honesty in the pulpit a great many Bible expressions would go out of fashion. One of the first that needs to die or be killed is this foolish expression, "the image of God." It may be religious, but it lacks sense. It means nothing in this age. God is a term that eludes definition. It is a survival of an age of ignorance.
A man may be a fool and not know it, but he cannot be a fool
without others knowing it.
There
is a pious regard for certain men and women who have in
past
ages been, as it were, the world's salvation. We would honor
these
men wherever piety offers her praise, but we would not, like
piety, forbid man the right to excel them. We all know how much
easier
it is to be saved by another than to save ourselves, but it
cannot
be
denied that there is a certain respect, a feeling of
admiration, a thrill of reverence for the man who says: I am a free
moral being and scorn to allow another to suffer for my sins.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE
When religion attacks science it is like trying to cut down
the tree of truth with the hatchet of falsehood. It is unfortunate
for Christianity that it was founded on the book of Genesis. A
scientific fact is higher authority today than a religious fable.
Science has found so many facts that contradict the stories of
Genesis that to accept these stories as divine truth is to make
falsehood the word of God.
The one particular enemy of every religion is science. With merciless labor her votaries have dethroned one after another idol of man. Science has no creed, no dogmas. Her search is for facts, and on these she stands. If what is discovered by lovers of truth is contrary to the tenets of religion, such tenets must be abandoned, for what is scientifically false cannot be religiously true.
The Christian church is built upon a lot of divine say-soes. Science has found that these say-soes are not so. The only honest thing for Christians to do is to give up the book of Genesis as a reliable record. What men have said that God has said is not necessarily sacred. Men may have lied, and lies are not holy. Christianity has been afraid of the divine name. What it has found in the name of God it has blindly worshiped as the word of God. This stupid action has been a prolific source of mischief. Faith has carried on its innocent back a thousand impositions through fear to doubt.
Science has not found the name of God in the earth or in the heavens. It has ignored the guide-board which the priest of religion nailed to the Bible, "this book shows the way to truth," and has studied the volume of Nature instead. Whatever it has found has been told. What may be honestly inferred from the facts of science is that all religions are humbugs, and that Christianity is a fraud.
The
only way to a better life is by living better.
The person who tells a lie does not know what he will have to
do next.
A great many persons have the idea that the universe would run
off the track but for them.
Have a good time, make life cheerful and bright, dance if you
want to, sing if you can, play as long as you live and leave the
world with a smile.
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD
The longer we live the more are we convinced that no adult
person would accept the Bible as a divine work if he had not been
taught the dogma of the Bible's divinity when a child. Let the
matured mind come to the perusal of the Bible without the religious
prejudice in favor of its divine character, and it would reject the
book as unworthy the consideration of the intelligent, educated
mind.
Let the refined sense, which all education in art, manners
and social morals seeks to cultivate, begin to read the Bible,
without the religious prejudice in favor of its sacred character,
and before a dozen pages had been read, it would close the volume
with disgust and hide it out of sight, or burn it as soon as
possible.
The Bible's divinity rests upon the mental and moral corruption of the young. Were children not taught that this book was sacred, men and women would look upon it as unholy. Do people realize what harm they are doing to the mind of the child when they teach it to accept the Bible as God's word? They are telling the child that falsehood is sacred; that ignorance is holy; that foul stories are pure; that vile words are clean, in the mouth of God. Fathers and mothers would not tell their children what they, and what priests and ministers, tell them God wrote or inspired man to write.
What is needed today is to tell the truth about the Bible. Tell men and women that ignorant, uncultured, unrefined men wrote it hundreds of years ago, and that it is unfit in its present shape to put into the hands of a child that a mother wishes to grow up honest, true and pure.
Liberals should not allow their children to touch the Bible. They should keep it from them until they are old enough to know that no book was ever written by a God, and then, if they read the Bible, they would see its true character. We must guard the minds of our children from Christian influences. We pity the child that is taught that the Bible is the word of God, but we despise the man that teaches this falsehood.
Most
men
would kill the truth if truth would kill their religion.
The truths which God revealed have been overthrown by the
truths which man has discovered.
People used to think that to mix religion with business
spoiled the religion, now they think it spoils the business.
WHEN TO HELP THE WORLD
Recently an old man, over eighty years of age, lay on his
death-bed. He could no longer keep possession of the wealth he had
accumulated. In a few hours he must leave it to the world from
which he had taken it and kept it so many years. He had not been a
generous man. He had loved money. He loved to get it and loved to
keep it, and if he could have carried his wealth with him,
whither he was going with that unknown guide, Death, there is no
doubt
but that he would have done so. He had given nothing to the
world while he lived and he would not have given anything when he
died, only that he was obliged to do so. This is the only charity
of a great many people.
When death comes, then the hand of avarice must open. Nothing can be carried through the grave. So the old man must at last release his hold upon his gains. He must leave his loved dollars to somebody. He had gathered them for himself, not for others. He had thought only of himself when he gathered them, and now, when he was to part with them, he did not know what disposition to make of them. The lawyer was present at his bedside; the minister was also with him. The will had been drawn. He had bequeathed certain sums to public charities and remembered the church. Life was almost gone. He hesitated yet to give up the control of his money to others. The pen was placed in his dying fingers for him to affix his name to the will. But he had waited too long. He died with the name unwritten, the pen unused in his dead hand.
Not voluntarily did he part with a cent of his fortune. His millions will now be divided by the law.
Is there in the bare possession of money the happiness that men desire, that men dream of, that men want? Is a dollar the highest goal of human effort, the crown of human endeavor? Is this dollar, the insignia of fortune, the true sign of good fortune? We believe not. The man who works for this and nothing else, is the slave of avarice; as hard, as cruel, as merciless a tyrant as ever cursed the earth.
Let every man strive for independence. Let man be rewarded well for his labor. Let every hand keep busy, but let there be a desire higher than money, a dream nobler than of gain, a want above the possession of riches.
There is a better charity than that unwilling gift which death compels us to make; it is to help the world while we live. There are two ways of doing this: by giving back a part of what we take, -- that is one way and a good way -- and by taking less from others, that is another way and a better way. The help that men need today is justice. Thousands are poor that one may be rich.
Thousands toil that one may live in idleness. Thousands are in want that one may live in luxury. Thousands have not a dollar that one may have millions. This is not right, not fair, not just. Men must take less while they go through life.
It is not enough that a man on his deathbed give a college a million, a public library a million, a public park a million. He should have no millions to give. He should live a more just life and help others by trying to get less for himself. The public bequest is the popular atonement for large fortunes, but such atonement does not efface the sufferings of poverty and want they entail.
We say to the rich, do not wait until you die before you try to help your fellow-men. Help them while you are living. When a man has made money he should make a noble use of it, or he wrongs himself and the world.
Where the cross has been planted only superstitions have grown.
Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator
is the mother of a chicken.
Unless some people change their habits before they die, there
will be
a lot of dirty angels in the next world, if there is any
next world.
THE JUDGMENT OF GOD
We hear less of what is called the "judgment of God" than
formerly, but quite enough to show that this foolish superstition
still lingers in the human mind. It used to be believed that God
was on the lookout for the bad boy who went fishing or skating on
his holy sabbath and that when he caught him he immediately made
use of him to prove his loving-kindness and tender mercy by making
him get into the water where he could drown him. It was never
related that God took this boy by the shoulder or even by the ear
and led him back home to his parents with the request that they
take better care of him in the future. This was not God's way.
There would be no judgment in this. God must murder the poor boy
who
could
see no difference in the conduct of the birds and fishes
on
Sunday from their conduct on Saturday, and have him carried back
to his father's arms and his mother's heart a corpse, a cold, dead
thing,
no
longer needing love, kindness, and a parent's great,
forgiving charity. This was God's way. He delighted in seeing a
dead boy taken out of the frozen stream and laid down in the
presence of his poor, grief-crazed mother. He thought this would
make the mother love him more and other boys keep his holy sabbath.
So when any misfortune befell on Sunday a human being who was not
on his way to God's house, or engaged in other pious occupation, it
was believed to be a judgment of God and people took care to avoid
a
similar punishment. This kind of religious teaching does not
enjoy
the reputation that it once did for the reason that it has
become discredited by human experience. All things considered it is
just as safe to go sailing or swimming, fishing, or driving, on
Sunday
as on Monday and men have learned that no penalty attaches
to violation of the fourth commandment. As people become sensible
they cease to be religious.
Prayer is begging from a pauper.
The egg of prayer never yet became a chicken.
Prayer is like a pump in an empty well, it makes lots of
noise, but brings no water.
A great many people who worship Jesus would not let him come
in at
the back door.
CHRISTIANITY AND FREETHOUGHT
Christianity is opposed to freedom, and consequently freedom
is opposed to Christianity. A Christian cannot be a freethinker,
and a freethinker cannot be a Christian. When a man is required to
believe certain doctrines, he is not free to think. A creed is to
keep the mind from inquiry. Questions lead to doubt, and doubt is
the
death of faith.
The church condemns freethought, because freethought cannot be bound by its chain of dogma. There is no place in the Christian church for the exercise of liberty. If the mind finds a new truth that contradicts the old dogma, the truth must be strangled that the dogma may hold its power over the thoughts and deeds of men.
To be a Christian is to surrender to the priest or minister in the name of Christ. It is to be a monkey on the end of an ecclesiastical string to get pennies for his master. It is to crawl at the feet of superstition.
To be a freethinker is to search for truth without fear. Where there is love of freedom there is no reverence for authority. There is no faith in God as sacred as love of man.
There may be lots of Providence in the world, but no man seems
to know just where it can be found.
THE BROTHERHOOD AND FREEDOM OF MAN
From
the fall of Rome a new era marks the history of man; a
new soul was born out of human experience. The idea which had been
prophesied by the philosophers of India, Egypt and Greece now
appeared in life, and what had been hoped for seemed about to be
realized. Born in an age of slaughter and inhumanity the thought of
the brotherhood of man fell upon the world like a star out of the
night's sky. Though the power of this idea was not fully
comprehended by the people upon whom it blazed forth, still the
promise it contained was able to kindle enthusiasm in the hearts of
the few, who bequeathed it to the world as the destiny of mankind.
Human life was inspired with a new purpose under the power of this
grand
and
noble sentiment. Although it was not understood and the
subject of much misapprehension, the thought of uniting man in one
great endeavor grew and endowed nations with a feeling that never
before had moved their hearts. Its advent gave the world a new
ambition and the mind was enlisted in the great cause of love and
fellowship of man.
There was another sentiment not less true or beautiful but more revolutionary, which about the same time began to assume likeness in human affairs, which must be considered of larger importance in the new social movement, which, during the first century of the so-called Christian era, commenced to be felt. The declaration of the sovereignty of man was more prophetic of change in government and society than the doctrine of the brotherhood of man. No government taught that man ought to judge for himself what is right, and no church preached that man should love his neighbor as himself.
Political and religious organizations then as now were arrayed against individual rights. The state and the church controlled the person. Man was crucified between these two thieves. One robbed him of his body, the other of his soul. Our history assigns the origin of these two great principles -- man's right to judge for himself and his duty to help his fellow-being -- to Christianity. But one was born before the beginning of the Christian era and the other long after the Christian church was established. One represents man as opposed to authority; the other the soul resisting tradition.
There is more or less talk about the freedom and brotherhood of man, but they exist as ideas yet more than as facts. It is true that man enjoys a certain measure of liberty in many directions, but the victory of freedom has not yet been won. So too is there a kind of human sympathy in society, but the broad and magnificent destiny which dwells in the bosom of human brotherhood is more a dream than a reality.
There has been too much time wasted in disputing who was the human author of these great and sublime conceptions, and too little expended in trying to plant them in human hearts and cultivate them in human lives. It is unimportant who first stood against the world of tyranny and demanded his right of independence, or who first felt indignation for the wrongs inflicted upon his race and pity for the victims of cruelty, and pleaded for more humanity towards man. The secret can never be wrested from the silent past, and we can gain nothing by fighting over graves.
The world seems nearer the full realization of human freedom and brotherhood than ever before. What is needed now to hasten the fruition of the glad promise of a better destiny for the world is to take authority from the priest and selfishness from man.
Prayer is a hook that never caught any fish. It is a gun that
never brought down any game.
No man ever got an answer to prayer that he could show to
another person.
WHATEVER IS RIGHT
There are a great many familiar sayings, that are in the
mouths
of
nearly everybody, which are perfect nonsense, and one of
these many sayings is the one we have chosen for the subject of
this article. One would imagine that falsehood became sacred by
repetition, judging from the way that certain untruths live in the
literature and language of mankind. Many a holy text is only holy
by being with what is true, as we pay respect to many a man whom we
know to be unworthy because he is related to respectable people.
The saying that "whatever is is right," is a dogma of the philosophy of indifference. To anyone who works for the right and suffers wrong, such a dogma is impertinent. Is the deed that sinks a man to the realm of brutes, and the deed that lifts him to heights where virtue in her high estate dwells alone, both right? The worst light for a human soul is that light in which a bad act looks like a good one. We cannot afford to trifle with things pure and true. To succeed grandly in life we must side with what is right.
There is a class of people that hold a don't-care philosophy. These people don't care what they say or do; they don't care what takes place in the world or what the world suffers or endures. The tent in which they dwell is pitched above the plane of human wants and sufferings. They look from their serene abode upon the troubled elements below, and, in contemplation of what is beneath them, pronounce with pious gravity the highest text of their system of philosophy: "Whatever is is right."
To those who have never seen the bitter tear start under the infliction of injury; to those who have never heard the sigh that disappointment and deception have wrung from a breaking heart; to those who have never witnessed the sufferings which tyranny imposes upon its victims; to those who have never felt the miseries which selfishness heaps upon human beings, this doctrine may seem true; but to those who have beheld the consequences of evil doing, and felt the hard hand of injustice upon their lives; to those who have been the victims of deception, and realized the terrible fate of disappointment; to those who have been trodden upon and denied the rights of men; to those who have been the slaves of the world's cruel masters, how false it is!
We cannot disguise the fact that there is wrong in the world. It haunts every dwelling-place of man. It follows man to his business, to his work. It goes with him when he seeks his pleasure. It does not leave him when he enters his home.
Every harsh word is wrong, every unjust judgment is wrong, every cruel act is wrong, every deception is wrong, every wicked or impure thought is wrong. Go where we will we shall meet the ugly face of wrong. On the street its presence will bring shame into the face; in our dealings with the world it will come before our eyes in all its hideous reality. Even when alone we cannot keep this phantom away.
Is it right that a human being should cause another pain and anguish that will leave their marks on the heart and brow for life? Is it right to make a man suffer unjustly, to add to misfortune the weight of cruelty? Is it right to deprive one of honor, of fortune, of life? Is it right to bear false witness against a brother-man, to abuse a neighbor, to slander and malign a human soul? Is wrong right?
Go to the garret of the poor wretch where want stares him in the face, where extortion robs his family of every joy and every comfort, where the day is made dark from no ray of human love coming into the heart, and the night darker from the absence of warmth and light. Go to the home rent asunder by vice and see the broken promises once so fair and bright, now blushing with shame; hear curses from lips that once spoke in love; see the skeletons of vows beautiful when breathed by the lips of the holiest passion on earth, but now hideous in their ruin. Go to the den of wickedness, to the house of crime supported by lust and greed; look upon the pictures of wretchedness and sorrow, of sin and guilt painted by the hand of wrong; behold the wrecked human lives that are floating on the sea of existence, only drifting until some sudden wave shall overwhelm them and sink them out of sight, leaving behind a memory that man should contemplate with pity and which kindness would blot out forever. See the world in its vice, in its suffering, in its misery, in its tears and its shame and let your lips say, if they can, that "Whatever is is right."
It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice
of obedience.
I believe that if God dwelt above the earth in the twelfth
century of the Christian era, and witnessed the cruelty of priests
and
heard
the
cries of their poor victims when their bones were
broken upon the rack or their flesh was burning in the wicked
flames, and these priests should have lifted up their voices to
this God and given him the glory of the awful sacrifice, he would
have
said to them: You lie; I never commanded one of my children to
murder another. You are no ministers of mine, and your victims,
with their heresies, are a thousand times holier in my sight than
are you with your pious dogmas and holy sacraments.
THE OBJECT OF LIFE
Men
live for less than their advancement. The object of life
is not human improvement. Ambition has not self-denial for a mark
but self-gratification. A thousand pander to one. Passion, instead
of principle, is the power that guides. We do not save to help save
the world, to aid progress and truth, but to have means to satisfy
selfish desires. The highest consideration of mankind is self.
Everything is done for one. Humanity is a word of little meaning.
It is
not
often regarded as a great, living, suffering being, which
demands of every person his or her best life. Man is not loved as
the supreme fact of Nature. When not a beast of burden, he is too
often a beast of pleasure.
As long as self is to be preferred to all, it matters little what is employed to promote it. Self is alone sacred to selfishness. General interest is sacrificed to individual possession. Every man thinks the world his first. It is regarded as magnanimous to leave what you cannot take.
The world no longer permits the stronger to kill the weaker, but it allows the wealthy to oppress the poor. Money is holier than man. Human life is less sacred than property. To save a dollar is regarded as a more necessary virtue than to save a human heart. Society cares more for fortune than for truth. It is easier to win your way with hypocrisy than with honesty. The world does not ask: What are you worth morally? but, what are you worth financially? Self-interest has made it the object of life to injure our fellows. To get an advantage over another is the victory man seeks. One must fall that another may rise.
Those who are at the bottom support those who are on top. The toilers are the foundation of society. We need to be more careful of what is beneath us than of what is above us. "I write not, these things to shame you, but to warn you."
When
you are falling, you cannot stop where you wish to.
The power that conquers men today must be the power of
enlightened opinion.
Two dollars given to the son do not atone for one stolen from
the father.
MAN
The Hebrew psalmist sings of man: -- "Thou madest him a little
lower than the angels." A modern psalmist writing on this subject
says."Man was made a little higher than the brutes." Man is a rare
animal; he is the only animal that can make a fire, but he is more
than a brute. We do not know how much less than an angel he is, for
we do
not know the dimensions of an angel.
What we do know is, that this strange, rare being, called man, is capable of doing a good deed, but is prone to do a bad one; that he has developed virtues above the brute and vices below the brute; that he is better in public than in private, and yet take him all in all he might be worse. We have had the weakness of human nature preached until we have almost come to expect man to be immoral and vicious, and are surprised if anyone asserts that man is strong enough to resist temptation, and disappointed if he does not come up, or down, to our expectations of vileness and wickedness.
While we have faith in man in the minority rather than in the majority, still we are inclined to think that most men are bad from circumstance more than from choice. We trust to better conditions for better men, and depend upon our best men to establish such conditions.
There is some criticism of virtue that vice offers which is as pertinent as the censure of vice which virtue indulges in. We admit that there are a great many sinners that are preferable to some kinds of saints, who are no more to blame for their sins than their more fortunate fellow-beings are for their saintliness. But we do not mean to say that every good man is a villain in disguise, nor every rogue a righteous man who has not been found out.
There are men and women whose goodness is looked upon as "flat, state, and unprofitable" because it is that kind that is good from favorable circumstances, and not from the exercise of any strength of their own, but such virtue is better than vice. We cannot afford to lose any power that protects the world from evil, and we rejoice in all the favorable circumstances that guard human beings.
Men are educated into bad habits through the constant assertion of human weakness, and the publicity which is given to bad deeds. We can never build man very high on the foundation of "total depravity." It is to be regretted that we think so meanly of mankind. We must start with a better assumption of human nature than that held by Christianity.
We ought to emphasize man's strength and give prominence to the good deeds of men. It is not necessary to lie about human nature one way more than another. Man has been painted worse than he is. We do not ask to have him painted better than he is. We want a true likeness. Man will make the best picture without any fictitious coloring.
We are aware that we have not yet outgrown our animal inheritance, that we are still fettered to earthly things. Man can more easily deny his soul than he can his stomach, but for all this there is greatness in him. While man can fall to the lowest depths from which he sprung, he can rise to the height which is visible in his purest hours. What we ought to do is to encourage, all we can, the conditions most favorable to the development of the noblest part of man. Every temptation to vice should be driven from the public gaze. If man must fall, let him fall out of sight.
People who rely most on God rely least on themselves.
The original sin was not in eating of the forbidden fruit, but
in planting the tree that bore the fruit.
The people who boast the loudest of carrying their cross are
never around when man cries for help.
An audience composed of the best-dressed people in a town
stands for "pure religion and undefiled" today.
THE DOGMA OF THE DIVINE MAN
There are growing indications all along the Christian line
that the dogma of the divinity of Jesus is being abandoned. It is
seen
that
such a dogma involves confusion and misapprehension. When
the question, "How can a God who is infinite exist in a form that
is finite?" is pressed to an answer, no satisfactory reply is
forthcoming. There is apparent absurdity in this doctrine. The
general definition of God, as put forth today by the Christian
Church, is irreconcilable with the dogma of the divinity of Jesus.
If Jesus was God he was not a man; if he was a man, he was not God.
To talk about his divinity. is to talk nonsense, if Joseph was his
father and Mary his mother. Man is not divine; God is not human.
The mixing up of these two terms is done simply to impose upon the
credulous and superstitious. We cannot think that any man of real
good sense believes this Orthodox dogma. It seems impossible for
intelligence to so contradict itself. The brain stoops that accepts
this dogma. For a man to confess his faith in jesus as divine is to
admit that his hat is not full. The evidence adduced to prove the
divinity of Jesus proves the divinity of Apollo, of Hercules, of
Prometheus, of hundreds of mythological heroes. Are Christians
prepared to admit this? If not, then they are called upon to tell
the
world
why not. What is meant by divine? What kind of a man is
a divine man? Let us see. Divine means super-human, supernatural,
God-like; hence a divine man is a superhuman man, a supernatural
man, a God-like man. Does anyone know what these definitive terms
mean? Does a person know what he is talking about when he says a
man is super-human? Can a man be more than man, more than human,
more
than natural?
The dogma of a divine man is a dogma of deception. It is a theological cobweb. It is spread to catch flies.
The idea prevailed in the past that what could not be understood must necessarily be profound, as though muddy water was deep water.
Does anyone comprehend the dogma of the Trinity? It is believed because it cannot be comprehended. The tribute of faith has been paid to occult nonsense long enough.
How does anyone know what is superhuman? What is human? The fact is, Jesus has had his day. His reign is drawing to a close. He is being seen for what he is, -- a myth. Faith in him as a God is dying. The belief that Jesus was divine is a blot on the intelligence of this century. But the blot is growing smaller.
Lots of men who would not associate with infidels for fear of
contaminating their characters are not yet out of jail.
THE RICH MAN'S GOSPEL
The presence of numberless rich men in Christian pews leads
one to wonder if the gospel of Jesus has been kicked out of the
church. Such men do not, and cannot, respect the person to whom
every church is dedicated. The gospel of Jesus is not the gospel of
the
rich,
but of the poor; not of the banker, but of the beggar. It
is impossible for the wealthy man to be a Christian. If he had any
faith in the doctrines of Jesus he would "sell what he has and give
to the poor." And not only this, but he would be poor himself.
Jesus never said a kind word of the rich. He never uttered a word that contains any consolation for the millionaire. He never gave any command that encourages the 'laying up treasures upon earth.' What is a rich man in the Christian church for? He has no business there, if he is an honest man. He is living exactly opposite to the life Jesus commended. He is doing what Jesus told men not to do. He refuses to do what Jesus said a man must do in order to be his disciple.
Either the rich man who joins the church is a hypocrite, or the minister, that receives such a man into the church, is. There is a hypocrite somewhere. You do not find that Jesus went into the temple to flatter the money-changers; he went in there to drive them out with a whip.
The rich man's gospel is not found in the New Testament. That is sure. It may be preached from a Christian pulpit by a so-called Christian minister, but the man who preaches this gospel denies his professed Lord and Master. Jesus did not say, "Lay up treasures upon earth." Take all you can from the poor. Form trusts and combinations to enrich yourselves. Worship Mammon. There is a misunderstanding evidently on the part of the rich man who joins the Christian church. If he would read the New Testament he would learn his mistake, and see that he was in the wrong place. He does not seem to be aware what Jesus preached. There is one thing certain, the Christian church that receives into fellowship a millionaire, has more reverence for the millionaire than for Jesus.
The beating of humanity's heart cannot be felt by placing the
finger
on the church's pulse.
What a queer thing is Christian salvation! Believing in
firemen will not save a burning house; believing in doctors will
not make one well, but believing in a savior saves men. Fudge!
SPEAK WELL OF ONE ANOTHER
There
is nothing that will make this world brighter and
happier than to speak well of one another. We sometimes wonder how
a mean story about a fellow-mortal gets started, and how it is kept
going. Surely no base report ever had birth in a kind intention,
and no mouth ever repeated it with the wish to make the world
better.
Envy, malice and ill-will can make no decent defense of themselves. Now, it costs no more to say a good word of a brother or sister than to say a bad one, and there is no obligation on the part of a person to blacken human reputation. It is a mean heart that cannot do justice to another. If we must speak of our neighbors, let us speak kindly. Let us refer to those things that are pleasant, and discuss that in their characters that is worthy of praise. It hurts us to say bad things of other people, and it may hurt them. There is certainly some part of everyone's life that can be commended. What we know of others that is not good, let us not refer to. Silence is never more charitable than when it spares a human heart.
There are many of our friends who are striving to make a success in life. Nothing will aid them more than to speak well of them. Everybody can be generous with kind words, and yet they are worth more than gold. They are the diamonds of speech, which the poorest can wear.
Don't be afraid to speak well of men, to praise good deeds. No one will think worse of you for speaking kindly of others. It is not necessary that we speak well only of those deeds that men sing in words of song. There are scores of little every-day acts, that give the perfume of self-denial, of sacrifice, and that deserve praise. If we were to give any advice to a man or woman, who wished to help the world as they passed through it, it would be this, Speak well of men and women.
A receipt for bringing up a child will not apply to a whole family.
To
build
one
house
for man is better than to build a dozen
houses
to God.
We
often hear a man say that the world owes him a living. So
it does, if he earns it. But man owes the world something. The debt
is on both sides, and it is only by giving what is due to others
that we get what is due to ourselves. We receive assistance when we
render it, and it is by a law of our nature that the world turns
from a man who turns from the world.
DISGRACEFUL PARTNERSHIPS
Six marriages out of ten are disgraceful partner-ships. The
ones to question our assertion will be the married men, and the
very ones, too, responsible for the disgrace. Marriage is a union
where
the two partners should share alike the profits and the
losses. There should be no head of the firm in the sense of making
one subservient in any way to the other. The wife has just the same
right to handle the money of the firm as the husband. The family
purse should not be ca