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I am giving my time and energy, in return for one thing which you may give me -- the joy of speaking a true word and getting it heard.
Note to fifth edition, 1926: "The Profits of Religion" was first published early in 1917. The present edition represents a sale of over 60,000 copies, without counting a dozen translations. In this edition a few errors have been corrected, but otherwise the book has not been changed. The reader will understand that references to the World War are of the date 1917, prior to America's enterance.
This book is the first of a series of volumes, an economic interpertation of culture, which now includes "The Brass Check," "The Goose-step," "The Goslings," and "Mammonart."
It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are gathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and distressing positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of their boots. They are engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and straining until they grow red in the face, exhausted. The perspiration streams from their foreheads, they show every symptom of distress; the eyes of all are fixed, not upon each other, nor upon their bootstraps, but upon the sky above. There is a look of rapture upon their faces, and now and then, amid grunts and groans, they cry out with excitement and triumph.
I approach one and say to him, "Friend, what is this you are doing?"
He answers, without pausing to glance at me, "I am performing spiritual exercises. See how I rise?"
"But," I say, "you are not rising at all!"
Whereat he becomes instantly angry. "You are one of the scoffers!"
"But friend," I protest, "don't you feel the earth under your feet?"
"You are a materialist!"
"But, friend, I can see --"
"You are without spiritual vision!"
And so I move on among the sweating and groaning hordes. Being of a sympathetic turn of mind, I cannot help being distressed by the prevalence of this singular practice among so large a portion of the human race. How, is it possible that none of them should suspect the futility of their procedure? Or can it really be that I am uncomprehending? That in some way they are actually getting off the ground, or about to get off the ground?
Then I observe a new phenomenon: a man gliding here and there among the bootstrap-lifters, approaching from the rear and slipping his hands into their pockets. The position of the spiritual exercisers greatly facilitates his work; their eyes being cast up to heaven, they do not see him, their thoughts being occupied, they do not heed him; he goes through their pockets at leisure, and transfers the contents to a bag he carries, and then moves on to the next victim. I watch him for a while, and finally approach and ask, "What are you doing, sir?"
He answers, "I am picking pockets."
"Oh," I say, puzzled by his matter-of-course tone. "But -- I beg pardon -- are you a thief?"
"Oh, no," he answers, smilingly, "I am the agent of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association. This is Prosperity."
"I see," I reply. "And these people let you --"
"It is the law," he says. "It is also the gospel."
I turn, following his glance, and observe another person approaching -- a stately figure, clad in scarlet and purple robes, moving with slow dignity. He gazes about at the sweating and grunting hordes; now and then he stops and lifts his hand in a gesture of benediction, and proclaims in rolling tones, "Blessed are the Bootstrap-lifters, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." He moves on, and after a bit stops and announces again, "Man doth not live. by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out of the mouth of the prophets and priests of Bootstrap- lifting.
Watching a while longer, I see this majestic one approach the agent of the Wholesale Pickpocket's, Association. The agent greets him as a friend, and proceeds to transfer to the pockets of his capacious robes a generous share of the loot which he has collected. The majestic one does not cringe, nor does he make any effort to hide what is going on. On the contrary he cries aloud, "It is more blessed to give than to receive!" And again he cries, "The laborer is worthy of his hire!" And a third time he cries, yet more sternly, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's!" And the Bootstrap-lifters pause long enough to answer: "Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law!" Then they renew their straining and tugging.
I step up, and in timid tones begin, "Reverend sir, will you tell me by what right you take this wealth?"
Instantly a frown comes upon his face, and he cries in a voice of thunder, "Blasphemer!" And all the Bootstrap-lifters desist from their lifting, and menace me with furious looks. There is a general call for a policeman of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association; and so I fall silent, and slink away in the throng, and thereafter keep my thoughts to myself.
Over the vast plain I wander, observing a thousand strange and incredible and terrifying manifestations of the Bootstrap- lifting impulse. There is, I discover, a regular propaganda on foot; a long time ago -- no man can recall how far back -- the Wholesale Pickpockets made the discovery of the ease with which a man's pockets could be rifled while he was preoccupied with spiritual exercises, and they began offering prizes for the best essays in support of the practice. Now their propaganda is everywhere triumphant, -- and year by year we see an increase in the rewards and emoluments of the prophets and priests of the cult. The ground is covered with stately temples of various designs, all of which I am told are consecrated to Bootstrap- lifting, I come to where a group of people are occupied in laying the corner-stone of a new white marble structure; I inquire and am informed it is the First Church of Bootstrap-lifters, Scientist. As I stand watching, a card is handed to me, informing me that a lady will do my Bootstrap-lifting at five dollars per lift.
I go on to another building, which I am told is a library containing volumes in defense of the Bootstrap-lifters, published under the auspices of the Wholesale Pickpockets. I enter, and find endless vistas of shelves, also several thousand current magazines and papers. I consult these -- for my legs have given out in the effort to visit and inspect all phases of the Bootstrap-lifting practice. I discover that hardly a week passes that some one does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting. There are the Holy Roman Bootstrap-lifters, whose priests are fed by Transubstantiation; the established Anglican Bootstrap-lifters, whose priests live by "livings"; the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters, whose preachers practice total immersion in Standard Oil. There are Yogi Bootstrap-lifters with flowing robes of yellow silk; Theosophist Bootstrap-lifters with green and purple auras; Mormon Bootstrap-lifters, Mazdaznan Bootstrap-lifters, Spiritualist and Spirit-Fruit, Millerite and Dowieite, Holy Roller and Holy Jumper, Comd-to-glory Negro, Billy Sunday base-ball and Salvation Army bassdrum Bootstrap-lifters. There are the thousand varieties of "New Thought" Bootstrap-lifters; the mystic and transcendentalist, Swedenborgian and Jacob Boehme Bootstrap- lifters; the Elbert Hubbard high-art Bootstrap-lifters with half a million magazinelets at two bits apiece; the "uplift" and "optimist," the Ralph Waldo Trine and Orison Swett Marden Bootstrap-litters with a hundred thousand volumes at one dollar per volume. There are the Platonist and Hegelian and Kantian professors of collegiate metaphysical Bootstrap-lifting at several thousand dollars per year each. There are the Nietz- schean Bootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves to the Superman, and the art-for-art's-sake, neo-Pagan Bootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves down to the Ape.
Excepting possibly the last-mentioned group, the priests of all these cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of Bootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic that they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and less at any other man's. Now and then you may see one bend and give a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical character: as when the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters comes once a year to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school Superintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand of one of his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the priests and preachers of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect, many of them being so swollen with prosperity that they could not reach their bootstraps if they wanted to. Their role in life is to exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at self-elevation, that the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association may ply their immemorial role with less chance of interference.
Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange motions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence? What are we to say when we see asceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable retainers of the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become hypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind twisted to the knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed? What I say is -- Bootstrap-lifting!
It is the fate of many abstract words to be used in two senses, one good and the other bad. Morality means the will to righteousness, or it means Anthony Comstock; democracy means the rule of the people, or it mean's Tammany Hall. And so it is with the word "Religion." In its true sense Religion is the most fundamental of the soul's impulses, the impassioned love of life, the feeling of its preciousness, the desire to foster and further it. In that sense every thinking man must be religious; in that sense Religion is a perpetually self-renewing force, the very nature of our being. In that sense I have no thought of assailing it, I would make clear that I hold it beyond assailment.
But we are denied the pleasure of using the word in that honest sense, because of another Which has been given to it. To the ordinary man "Religion" means, not the soul's longing for growth, the "hunger and thirst after righteousness," but certain forms in which this hunger has manifested itself in history, and prevails today throughout the world; that is to say, institutions having fixed dogmas and "revelations," creeds and rituals, with an administering caste claiming supernatural sanction. By such institutions the moral strivings of the race, the affections of childhood and the aspirations of youth are made the prerogatives and stock in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies. It is the thesis of this book that "Religion" in this sense is a source of Income to parasites, and the natural ally of every form of oppression and exploitation.
If by my jesting at "Bootstrap-lifting" I have wounded some dear prejudice of the reader, let me endeavor to speak in a more persuasive voice. I am a man who has suffered, and has seen the suffering of others; I have devoted my life to analyzing the causes of the suffering, to find out if it be necessary and foreordained, or if by any chance there be a way of escape for future generations. I have found that the latter is the case; the suffering is needless, it can with ease and certainty be banished from the earth. I know this with the knowledge of science -- in the same way that the navigator of a ship knows his latitude and longitude, and the point of the compass to which he must steer in order to reach the port.
Come, reader, let us put aside prejudice, and the terrors of the cults of the unknown. The power which made us has given us a mind, and the impulse to its use; let us see what can be done with it to rid the earth of its ancient evils. And do not be troubled if at the outset this book seems to be entirely "destructive." I assure you that I am no crude materialist, I am not so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with a barren rationalism. I know that the old symbols came out of the heart of man because they corresponded to certain needs of the heart of man. I know that new symbols will 'be found, corresponding more exactly to the needs of our time. If here I set to work to tear down an old and ramshackled building, it is not from blind destructfulness, but as an architect who means to put a new and sounder structure in its place. Before we part company, I shall submit the blue print of that new home of the spirit.
A thousand banners caught the sun,
And cities smoked along the plain,
And laden down with silk and gold
And heaped up pillage groaned the wain.
Kemp
Men imagined supernatural powers such as they could comprehend. If the lightning god destroyed a hut, obviously it must be because the owner of the hut had given offense; so the owner must placate the god, using those means which would be effective in the quarrels of men -- presents of roast meats and honey and fresh fruits, of wine and gold and jewels and women, accompanied by friendly words and gestures of submission. And when in spite of all things the natural evil did not cease, when the people continued to die of pestilence, then came the opportunity of hysterical or ambitious persons to discover new ways of penetrating the mind of the god. There would be dreamers of dreams and seers of visions and hearers of voices; readers of the entrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight of birds; there would be burning bushes and stone tables on mountain-tops, and inspired words dictated to aged disciples on lonely islands. There would arise special castes of men and women, learned in these sacred matters; and these priestly castes would naturally emphasize the importance of their calling, would hold themselves aloof from the common herd, endowed with special powers and entitled to special privileges. They would interpret the oracles in ways favorable to themselves and their order; they would proclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god, walking with him in the night-time, receiving his messages and angels, acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing punishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of laws and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to distinguish them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to impress their followers, employing all sensuous effects, architecture and sculpture and painting, music and poetry and dancing, candles and incense and bells and gongs:
There will be few readers of this book who have not been brought up under the spell of some one of these systems of Supernaturalism; who have not been taught to speak with respect of some particular priestly order, to thrill with awe at some particular sacred rite, to seek respite from earthly woes in some particular ceremonial spell. These things are woven into our very fibre in childhood; they are sanctified by memories of joys and griefs, they are confused with spiritual struggles, they become part of all that is most vital in our lives. The reader who wishes to emancipate himself from their thrall will do well to begin with a study of the beliefs and practices of other sects than his own -- a field where he is free to observe and examine without fear of sacrilege. Let him look into Madame Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine," or her "Isis Unveiled" -- encyclopedias of the fantastic inventions which terror and longing have wrung out of the tortured soul of man. Here are mysteries and solemnities, charms and spells, illuminations and transmigrations, angels and demons, guides, controls and masters -- all of wnich it is permissible to refuse to support with gifts. Let the reader then go to James Freeman Clarke's "Ten Great Religions," and realize how many billions of humans have lived and died in the solemn certainty that their welfare on earth and in heaven depended upon their accepting certain ideas and practicing certain rites, all mutually exclusive and incompatible, each damning the others and the followers of the others. So gradually the realization will come to him that the test of a doctrine about life and its welfare must be something else than the fact that one was born to it.
The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed by it -- and that it cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived. "The fear of divine anger," says Prof. Jastrow, "runs as an undercurrent through the entire religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria." In the words of Tabi-utul- Enlil, King of ancient Nippur:
Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven?
The
plan of
a god is full of mystery -- who can understand it?
He who is still alive at evening is dead the next morning.
In an instant he is cast into grief, in a moment he is crushed.
The Book of Job has been called a "Wisdom-drama": and what is the denouncement of this drama, what is ancient Hebrew wisdom's last word about life? "Wherefore I abbor myself," says Job, "and repent in dust and ashes." The poor fellow has done nothing; we have been told at the beginning that he "was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." But the Sabeans and the Chaldeans rob him, and "the fire of God" falls from heaven and burns up his sheep and his servants, and "a great wind from the wilderness" kills his sons and daughters, and then his body becomes covered with boils -- a phenomenon caused in part by worry, and the consequent nervous indigestion, but mainly by excess of starch and deficiency of mineral salts in the diet. Job, however, has never heard of the fasting cure for disease, and so he takes him a potsherd to scrape himself withal, and he sits among the ashes -- a highly unsanitary procedure enforced by his religious ritual. So naturally he feels like a worm, and abhors himself, and cries out: "I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be restrained." By which utter, unreasoning humility he succeeds in appeasing the Great Fear and his friends make a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams -- a feast for a whole temple-ful of priests -- and then "the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had 'before. ... And after this Job lived an hundred and forty-years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four generations."
You do not have to look very deeply into this "Wisdom-drama" to find out whose wisdom it is. Confess your own ignorance and your own impotence, abandon yourself utterly, and then we, the sacred Caste, 'the Keepers of the Holy Secrets, will secure you pardon and respite -- in exchange for fresh meat. Here are verses from a psalm of the ancient Babylonians, which "heathen" chant is identical in spirit and purpose with the utterances of Job:
O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, cast a glance from Heaven, where thou sittest as Queen, upon this poor sinner, your servant. Thou conscious of his unworthiness.... he blesses and exalts thee from his whole heart as the purest, the most beautiful and the most holy of creatures. He blesses they holy name. He blesses thy sublime prerogatives as real Mother of God, ever Virgin, conceived without stain of sin, as co-Redemptress of the human race. He blesses the Eternal Father who chose you, etc. He blesses the Incarnate Word, etc. He blesses the Divine Spirit, etc. He blesses, exalts and thanks the most august Trinity, etc. O Virgin, holy and merciful ... be pleased to accept this little homage of your servant, and obtain for him also from your divine Son pardon for his sins, Amen.
And then, looking more closely, we discover the purpose of this "beautiful prayer," and of the neat little paper which prints it. "Salve Regina" is raising funds for the "National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception," a home for more priests, and Catholic ladies who desire to collect for it may receive little books which they are requested to return within three months. Pius X writes a letter of warm endorsement, and sets an example by giving four hundred dollars "out of his poverty" -- or, to be more precise, out of the poverty of the pitiful peasantry of Italy. There is included in the paper a form of bequest for "devoted clients of Our Blessed Mother," and at the top of the editorial page the most alluring of all baits for the loving hearts of the flock -- that the names of deceased relatives and friends may be written in the collection books and will be transferred to the records of the Shrine, and these persons "will share in all its spiritual benefits." In the day's of Job it was with threats of boils and poverty that the Priestly lie maintained itself; but in the case of this blackest of all Terrors, transplanted to our free Republic from the heart of the Dark Ages, the wretched victims see before their eyes the glare of flames, and hear the shrieks of their loved ones writhing in torment through uncounted ages and eternities.
He shall offer his offering up to the Lord, one he lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for peace offerings, and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread anointed with oil, and their meat offerings.
And the law goes on to instruct the priests to take certain choice parts and "wave them for a wave offering before the Lord: this is holy for the priest." What was done with the other portions we are not told; but earlier in this same "Book of Numbers" we 'find the general law that
Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man's hallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth to the priest, it shall be his.
In the same way we are told by Viscount Amberley that the priests of Ceylon first present the gifts to the god, and then eat them. Among the Parsees, when a man dies, the relatives must bring four new robes to the priests; if they do this, the priests wear the robes; if they fail to do it, the dead man appears naked before the judgment-throne. The devotees are instructed that "he who performs this rite succeeds in both worlds, and obtains a firm footing in both worlds." Among the Buddhists, the followers give alms to the monks, and are told specifically what advantages will thereby accrue to them. In the Aitareyo Brahmanam of the Rig-Veda we read
He who, knowing this, sacrifices according to this rite, is born from the womb of Agni and the offerings, participates in the nature of the Rik, Yajus, and Saman, the Veda (sacred knowledge), the Brahma (sacred element) and immortality, and is absorbed into the deity.
Among the Parsees the priest eats the bread and drinks the hoama, or juice of a plant, considered to be both a plant and a god. Among the Episcopalians, a contemporary Christian sect, the sacred juice is that of the grape, and the priest is not allowed to throw away what is left of it, but is ordered "reverently to consume it." In as much as the priest is the sole judge of how much good sherry wine he shall consecrate previous to the ceremony, it is to be expected that the priests of this cult should be lukewarm towards the prohibition movement, and should piously refuse to administer their sacrament with unfermented and uninteresting grape-juice.
The most obvious method is by the sword; but this method is uncertain, for any man may take up a sword, and some may succeed with it. It will be found that empires based upon military force alone, however cruel they may be, are not permanent, and therefore not so dangerous to progress; it is only when resistance is paralyzed by the agency of Superstition, that the race can be subjected to systems of exploitation for hundreds and even thousands of years. The ancient empires were all priestly empires; the kings ruled because they obeyed the will of the priests, taught to them from childhood as the word of the gods.
Thus, for instance, Prescott tells us:
Terror, not love, was the spring of education with the
Aztecs.
Such
was the crafty policy of the priests, who, by
reserving to themselves the business of instruction, were
enabled to mould the young and plastic mind according to
their own wills, and to train it early to implicit reverence
for religion and its ministers.
To each of the principal temples, lands were annexed
for the maintenance of the priests. The estates were
augmented by the policy or devotion of successive princes,
until, under the last Montezuma, they had swollen to an
enormous extent, and covered every district of the empire.
At the dedication of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, in 1486, the prisoners, who for some years had been reserved for the purpose, were ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two miles long. The ceremony consumed several days, and seventy thousand captives are said to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity.
The same system appears in Professor Jastrow's account of the priesthood of Babylonia and Assyria:
The ultimate sources of all law being the deity
himself, the original legal tribunal was the place where the
image
or
symbol
of the god stood. A legal decision was an
oracle or omen, indicative of the will of the god. The power
thus lodged in the priests of Babylonia and Assyria was
enormous. They virtually held in their hands the life and
death
of the people.
The temples were the natural depositories of the legal
archives, which in the course of centuries grew to veritably
enormous proportions' Records were made of all decisions;
the facts were set forth, and duly attested by witnesses.
Business and marriage contracts, loans and deeds of sale
were in like manner drawn up in the presence of official
scribes, who were also priests. In this way all commercial
transactions received the written sanction of the religious
organization. The temples themselves -- at least in the
large centers -- entered into business relations with the
populace. In order to maintain the large household
represented by such an organization as that of the temple of
Enlil
of Nippur, that of Ningirsu at Lagasb, that of Marduk
at Babylon, or that of Shamash at Sippar, large holdings of
land were required which, cultivated by agents for the
priests, or farmed out with stipulations for a gobdly share
of the produce, secured an income for the maintenance of the
temple officials. The enterprise of the temples was expanded
to the furnishing of loans at interest -- in later periods,
at 20 percent -- to barter in slaves, to dealings in lands,
besides engaging labor for work of all kinds directly needed
for the temples. A large quantity of the business documents
found
in the temple archives are concerned with the business
affairs of the temple, and we are justified in including the
temples in the large centers as among the most important
business institutions of the country. In financial or
monetary transactions the position of the temples was not
unlike that of national banks....
For example, Gervaise tells us of the Talapoins, or priests of Siam, that "they are exempted from all public charges, they salute nobody, while everybody prostrates himself before them. They are maintained at the public expense." In the same way we read of the Negroes of the Caribbean islands that "their priests and priestesses exercise an almost unlimited power." Miss Kingsley, in her "West African Studies," tells us that if we desire to understand the institutions of this district, we must study the native's religion.
For his religion has so firm a grasp upon his mind that
it influences everything he does. It is not a thing apart,
as the religion of the Europeans is at times. The African
cannot say, "Oh, that is all right from a religious point of
view, but one must be practical." To be practical, to get on
in the world, to live the day and night through, he must be
right
in the religious point of view, namely, must be on
working terms with the great world of spirits around him.
The knowledge of this spirit world constitutes the religion
of the African, and his customs and ceremonies arise from
his
idea of the best way to influence it.
In Lhassa and many other sacred places fanatical
pilgrims make circumambulations, sometimes for miles and
miles, and for days together, covering the entire distance
lying flat upon their bodies. ... From the ceiling of the
temple hang hundreds of long strips, katas, offered by
pilgrims to the temple, and becoming so many flying prayers
when hung up -- for mechanical praying in every way is
prominent in Thibet. ... Thus instead of having to learn by
heart long and varied prayers, all you have to do is to
stuff the entire prayer-book into a prayer-wheel, and
revolze it while repeating as fast as you can four words
meaning, "O God, the gem emerging from the lotus-flower."
... The attention of the pilgrims is directed to a large
box, or often a big bowl, where they may deposit whatever
offerings they can spare, and it must be said that their
religious ideas are so strongly developed that they will
dispose of a considerable portion of their money in this
fashion. ... The Lamas are very clever in many ways, and
have a great hold over the entire country. They are ninety
percent of them unscrupulous scamps, depraved in every way
and given to every sort of vice. So are the women Lamas.
They live and sponge on the credulity and ignorance of the
crowds: it is to maintain this ignorance, upon which their
luxurious life depends, that foreign influence of every kind
is strictly kept out of the country.
Thus, for example, we read in the Hebrew religious records how the priests were engaged in establishing the prestige of a fetish called "the ark"; and how the people of one tribe violated this fetish and wakened the wrath of Jehovah, the god.
And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had
looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people
fifty thousand and three score and ten men; and the people
lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people
with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said,
Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?
When
the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land
whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many
nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and
the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and
the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and
mightier than thou; And when the Lord thy God shall deliver
them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy
them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy
unto them: ... But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall
destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut
down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
For
thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord
thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto
himself, above all people that are upon the face of the
earth.
And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned him with stones.
We have no means of knowing what was the character af the unfortunate inhabitants of the city of Jericho, nor of the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and all the rest of the victims of Jehovah. To be sure, we are told by the Hebrew priests that they sacrificed their children to their gods; but then, consider what we should believe about the Hebrew religion, if we took the word of rival priestly castes! Consider, for example, that in this 20th century we saw an orthodox Jew tried in a Russian court of law for having made a sacrifice of Christian babies; nevertheless we know that the Jews represent a considerable part of the intelligence and idealism of Russia. We know in the same way that the Moors had most of the culture and all of the scientific knowledge of Spain, that the Huguenots had most of the conscience and industry of France: and we know that they were massacred or driven out to death by the priestly castes of the Middle Ages.
The cathedral of Constance was crowded with Sigismund (the Emperor and his nobles, the great officers of the empire with their insignia, the prelates in their splendid robes. While mass was sung, Huss, as an excommunicate, was kept waiting at the door; when brought in he was placed on an elevated bench by a table on which stood a coffer containing priestly vestments. After some preliminaries, including a sermon by the Bishop of Lodi, in which he assured Sigismund that the events of that day would confer on him immortal glory, the articles of which Huss was convicted were recited. In vain he protested that he believed in transubstantiation and in the validity of the sacrament in polluted hands. He was ordered to hold his tongue, and on his persisting the beadles were told to silence him, but in spite of this he continued to utter protests. The sentence was then read in the name of the council, condemning him both for his written errors and those which had been proven by witnesses. He was declared a pertinacious and incorrigible heretic who did not desire to return to the Church; his books were ordered to be barned, and himself to be degraded from the priesthood and abandoned to the secular court. Seven bishops arrayed him in priestly garb and warned him to recant while yet there was time. He turned to the crowd, and with broken voice declared that he could not confess the errors which he never entertained, lest he should lie to God, when the bishops interrupted him, crying that they had waited long enough, for he was obstinate in his herecy. He was degraded in the usual manner, stripped of his sacerdotal vestments, his fingers scraped; but when the tonsure was to be disposed of, an absurd quarrel arose among the bishops as to whether the head should be shaved with a razor or the tonsure be destroyed with scissors. Scissors won the day, and a cross was cut in his hair. Then on his head was placed a conical paper cap, a cubit in height, adorned with painted devils and the inscription, "This is the heresiarch."
The place of execution was a meadow near the river, to which he was conducted by two thousand armed men, with Palsgrave Louis at their head, and a vast crowd, including many nobles, prelates, and cardinals. The route followed was circuitous, in order that he might be carried past the episcopal palace, in front of which his books were burning, whereat he smiled. Pity from man there was none to look for, but he sought comfort on high, repeating to himself, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon us!" and when he came in sight of the stake he fell on his knees and prayed. He was asked if he wished to confess, and said that he would gladly do so if there were space, A wide circle was formed, and Ulrich Schorand, who, according to custom, had been providently empowered to take advantage of final weakening, came forward, saying, "Dear sir and master, if you will recant your unbelief and heresy, for which you must suffer, I will willingly hear your confession; but if you will not, you know right well that, according to canon law, no one can administer the sacrament to a heretic." To this Huss answered, "It is not necessary: I am not a mortal sinner." His paper crown fell off and he smiled as his guards replaced it. He desired to take leave of his keepers, and when they were brought to him he thanked them for their kindness, saying that they had been to him rather brothers than jailers. Then he commenced to address the crowd in German, telling them that he suffered for errors which he did not hold, and he was cut short. When bound to the stake, two cartloads of fagots and straw were piled up around him, and the palsgrave and vogt for the last time adjured him to abjure. Even yet he could save himself, but only repeated that he had been convicted by false witnesses on errors never entertained by him. They clapped their hands and then withdrew, and the executioners applied the fire. Twice Huss was heard to exclaim, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me!" then a wind springing up and blowing the flames and smoke into his face cheeked further utterances, but his head was seen to shake and his lips to move while one might twice or thrice recite a paternoster. The tragedy was over; the sorely-tried soul had escaped from its tormentors, and the bitterest enemies of the reformer could not refuse to him the praise that no philosopher of old had faced death with more composure than he had shown in his dreadful extremity. No faltering of the voice had betrayed an internal struggle. Palsgrave Louis, seeing Huss's mantle on the arm of one of the executioners, ordered it thrown into the flames lest it should be reverenced as a relic, and promised the man to compensate him. With the same view the body was carefully reduced to ashes and thrown into the Rhine, and even the earth around the stake was dug up and carted off; yet the Bohemians long hovered around the spot and carried home fragments of the neighboring clay, which they reverenced as relics of their martyr. The next day thanks were returned to God in a solemn procession in which figured Sigismund and his queen, the princes and nobles, nineteen cardinals, two patriarchs, seventy-seven bishops, and all the clergy of the council. A few days later Sigismund, who had delayed his departure for Spain to see the matter concluded, left Constance, feeling that his work was done.
It is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated, that the measure of the civilization which any nation has attained is the extent to which it has curtailed the power of institutionalized religion. Those peoples which are wholly under the sway of the priesthood, such as Thibetans and Koreans, Siamese and Caribbeans, are peoples among whom the intellectual life does not exist. Farther in advance are Hindoos and Turks, who are religious, but not exclusively. Still farther on the way are Spaniards and Irish; here, for example, is a flashlight of the Irish peasantry, given by one of their number, Patrick MadGill:
The merchant was a great friend of the parish priest,
who always told the people if they did not pay their debts
they would burn for ever and ever in hell. "The fires of
eternity will make you sorry for the debts that you did not
pay," said the priest. "What is eternity?" he would ask in a
solemn voice from the altar steps. "If a man tried to count
the sands on the sea-shore and took a million years to count
every single grain, how long would it take him to count them
all? A long time, you'll say. But that time is nothing to
eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell while a man,
taking
a
million years to count a grain of sand, counts all
the
sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did not pay
Farley McKeown his lawful debts, his lawful debts within the
letter of the law." That concluding phrase, "within the
letter of the law," struck terror into all who listened, and
no one, maybe not even the priest himself, knew what it
meant.
This is as far as any nation has so far gone; it has apparently not yet occurred to any legislature that the State may owe a duty to the child to protect its mind from being poisoned, even though it has the misfortune to be born of poisoned parents. It is still permitted, that parents should terrify their little ones with images of a personal devil and a hell of eternal brimstone and sulphur; it is permitted to found schools for the teaching of devil-doctrines; it is permitted to organize gigantic campaigns and systematically to infect whole cities full of men, women and children with hell-fire phobias. In the American city where I write one may see gatherings of people sunk upon their knees, even rolling on the ground in convulsions, moaning, sobbing, screaming to be delivered from such torments. I open my morning paper and read of the arrest of five men and seven women in Los Angeles, members of a sect known as the "Church of the Living God," upon a charge of having disturbed the peace of their neighbors. The police officers testified that the accused claimed to be possessed of the divine spirit, and that as signs of this possession they "crawled on the floor, grunted like pigs and barked like dogs." There were "other acts, even more startling," about which the newspapers did not go into details. And again, a week or two later, I read how a woman has been heard screaming, and found tied to a bedpost, being whipped by a man. She belonged to a religious sect which had found her guilty of witchcraft. Another woman was about to shoot her, but this woman's nerve failed, and the "high priest" was called in, which decreed a whipping. The victim explained to the police that she would have deserved to be whipped had she really been a witch, but a mistake had been made -- it was another woman who was the witch. And again in the Los Angeles "Times" I read a perfectly serious news item, telling how a certain man awakened one morning, and found on his pillow where his head had lain a perfect reproduction of the head of Christ with its crown of thorns. He called in his neighbors to witness the miracle, and declared that while he was not superstitious, he knew that such a thing could not have happened by chance, and he knew what it was intended to signify -- he would buy more Liberty Bonds and be more ardent in his support of the war!
And this is the world in which our scientists and men of culture think that the battle of the intellect is won, and that it is no longer necessary to spend our energies in fighting "Religion"!
Within the House of Mammon the golden altar lifts
Where dragon-lamps are shrouded as costly incense drifts --
A dust of old ideals, now fragrant from the coals,
To tell of hopes long-ended, to tell the death of souls
Sterling
In the beginning, of course, the priest and the magician ruled the field. But today, as I examine this "Book of Common Prayer," I discover that there is at least one spot out of which he has been cleared entirely; there appears no prayer to planets to stand still, or to comets to go away. The "Church of Good Society" has discovered astronomy! But if any astronomer attributes this to his instruments with their marvelous accuracy, let him at least stop to consider my "economic interpretation" of the phenomenon -- the fact that the heavenly bodies affect the destinies of mankind so little that there has not been sufficient emolument to justify the priest in holding on to his job as astrologer.
But when you come to the field of meteorology, what a difference! Has any utmost precision of barometer been able to drive the priest out of his prerogatives as rainmaker? Not even in the most civilized of countries; not in that most decorous and dignified of institutions, the Protestant Episcopal Church of America! I study with care the passage wherein the clergyman appears as controller of the fate of crops. I note a chastened caution of phraseology; the Church will not repeat the experience of the sorcerer's apprentice, who set the demons to bringing water, and then could not make them stop! The spell invokes "moderate rain and showers"; and as an additional precaution there is a counterspell against "excessive rains and floods": the weather-faucet being thus under exact control.
I turn the pages of this "Book of Common Prayer," and note the remnants of magic which it contains. There are not many of the emergencies of life with which the priest is not authorized to deal; not many natural phenomena for which he may not claim the credit. And in case anything should have been overlooked, there is a blanket order upon Providence: "Graciously hear us, that those evils which the craft or subtilty of the devil or man worketh against us, be brought to nought!" I am reminded of the idea which haunted my childhood, reading fairy-stories about the hero who was allowed three wishes that would come true. I could never understand why the hero did not settle the matter once for all -- by wishing that everything he wished might come true!
Most of these incantations are harmless, and some are amiable; but now and then you come upon one which is sinister in its implications. The volume before me happens to be of the Church of England, which is even more forthright in its confronting of the Great Magic. Many years ago I remember talking with an English army officer, asking how he could feel sure of his soldiers in case of labor strikes; did it never occur to him that the men had relatives among the workers, and might some time refuse to shoot them? His answer was that he was aware of it, the military had worked out its technique with care. He would never think of ordering his men to fire upon a mob in cold blood; he would first start the spell of discipline to work, he would march them round the block, and get them in the swing, get their blood moving to military music, then, when he gave the order, in they would go. I have never forgotten the gesture, the animation with which he illustrated their going -- I could hear the grunting of bayonets in the flesh of men. The social system prevailing in England has made necessary the perfecting of such military technique; also, you discover, English piety has made necessary the providing of a religious sanction for it. After the job has been done and the bayonets have been wiped clean, the company is marched to church, and the officer kneels in his family pew, and the privates kneel with the parlor-maids, and the clergyman raises his hands to heaven and intones: "We bless thy Holy Name, that it hath pleased Thee to appease the seditious tumults which have been lately raised up among us!"
And sometimes the clergyman does more than bless the killers -- he even takes part in their bloody work. In the Home Office of the British Government I read (vol 40, page 17) how certain miners were on strike against low wages and the "truck" system, and the Vicar of Abergavenny put himself at the head of the yeomanry and the Greys. He wrote the Home Office a lively account of his military operations. All that remained was to apprehend certain of the strikers, "and then I shall be able to return to my Clerical duties." Later he wrote of the "sinister influences" which kept the miners from returning to their work, and how he had put half a dozen of the most obstinate in prison.
Abate their pride, assuage their malice, and counfound their
devices. Defend us, Thy humble servants in all assaults of
our enemies. Strengthen him (the King) that he may vanquish
and overcome all his enemies.
Prayers such as these are pronounced in every so-called civilized nation today. Behind every battle-line in Europe you may see the priests of the Babylonian Fire-god with their bronze images and their ancient incantations; you may see magic spells being wrought, magic standards sanctified, magic bread eaten and magic wine drunk, fetishes blessed and hoodoos lifted, eternity ransacked to find means of inciting soldiers to the mood where they will "go in." Throughout all civilization, the phobias and manias of war have thrown the people back into the toils of the priests, and that church which forced Galileo to recant under threat of torture, and had Ferrer shot beneath the walls of the fortress of Montjuich, is rejoicing in a "rebirth of religion."
It was noted that in the 14th century, after the great
plague, the Black Death, had passed, an immensely increased
proportion of the landed and personal property of every
European country was in the hands of the church. Well did a
great ecclesiastic remark that "pestilences age the harvests
of the ministers of God."
And on precisely this same Fijian level stands the "Book of Common Prayer" of our most decorous and cultured of churches. I remember as a child lying on a bed of sickness, occasioned by the prevalence in our home of the Southern custom of hot bread three times a day; and there came an amiable clerical gentleman and recited the service proper to such pastoral calls: "Take therefore in good part the visitation of the Lord!" And again, when my mother was ill, I remember how the clergyman read out in church a prayer for her, specifying all sickness, "in mind, body or estate." I was thinking only of my mother, and the meaning of these words passed over my childish head; I did not realize that the elderly plutocrat in black broadcloth who knelt in the pew in front of me was invoking the aid of the Almighty so that his tenements might bring in their rentals promptly, so that his little "flyer" in cotton might prove successful; so that the children in his mills might work with greater speed.
Somebody asked Voltaire if you could kill a cow by incantations, and he answered, "Yes, if you use a little strychnine with it." And that would seem to be the attitude of the present-day Anglican church-member; he calls in the best physician he knows, he makes sure that his plumbing is sound, and after that he thinks it can do no harm to let the Lord have a chance. It makes the women happy, and after all, there are a lot of things we don't yet know about the world. So he repairs to the family pew, and recites over the Venerable prayers, and contributes his mite to the maintenance of an institution which, 14 Sundays every year, proclaims the terrifying menaces of the Athanasian Creed:
Whoever will be saved, before all things it is
necessary that he hold the Catholick faith. Which faith,
except one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he
shall perish everlastingly.
You see, the founders of this august institution were not content with cultural complacency; what they believed they believed really, with their whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon it, even if it meant burning their own at the stake. Also, they know the ceaseless impulse of the mind to grow; the terrible temptation which confronts each new generation to believe that which is reasonable. They met the situation by setting out the true faith in words which no one could mistake. They have provided, not merely the Creed of Athanasius, but also the "Thirty-nine Articles" -- which are 39 separate and binding guarantees that one who holds orders in the Episcopal Church shall be either a man of inferior mentality, or else a sophist and hypocrite. How desperate some of them have become in the face of this cruel dilemma is illustrated by the tale which is told of Dr. Jowett, of Balliol College, Oxford: that when he was required to recite the "Apostles' Creed" in public, he would save himself by inserting the words "used to" between the words "I believe," saying the inserted words under his breath, thus, "I used to believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Perhaps the eminent divine never did this; but the fact that his students told it, and thought it funny, is sufficient indication of their attitude toward their "Religion." The son of William George Ward tells in his biography how this leader of the "Tractarian Movement" met the problem with cynicism which seems almost sublime: "Make yourself clear that you are justified in deception; and then lie like a trooper!"
Turn over the pages of history and read the damning record of the church's opposition to every advance in every field of science, even the most remote from theological concern. Here is the Reverend Edward Massey, preaching in 1772 on "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation"; declaring that Job's distemper was probably confluent smallpox; that he had been inoculated doubtless by the devil; that diseases are sent by Providence for the punishment of sin; and that the proposed attempt to prevent them is "a diabolical operation." Here are the Scotch clergy of the middle of the 19th century denouncing the use of chloroform in obstetrics, because it is seeking "to avoid one part of the primeval curse on woman." Here is Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford anathematizing Darwin: "The principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God"; it "contradicts the revealed relation of creation to its creator"; it "is inconsistent with the fullless of His glory"; it is "a dishonoring view of nature." And the Bishop settled the matter by asking Huxley whether he was descended from an ape through his grandmother or grandfather.
Think what it means, friends of progress, that these ecclesiastical figures should be set up for the reverence of the populace, and that every time mankind is to make an advance in power over Nature, the pioners of thought have to come with crow- bars and derricks and heave these figures out of the way! And you think that conditions are changed today? But consider syphilis and gonorrhea, about which we know so much, and can do almost nothing; consider birth-control, which we are sent to jail for so much as mentioning! Consider the divorce reforms for which the world is crying -- and for which it must wait, because of St. Paul! Realize that up to date it has proven impossible to persuade the English Church to permit a man to marry his deceased wife's sister! That when the war broke upon England the whole nation was occupied with a squabble overthe disestablishment of the church of Wales! Only since 1888 has it been legally possible for an unbeliever to hold a seat in Parliament; while up to the present day men are tried for blasphemy and convicted under the decisions of Lord Hale, to the effect that "it is a crime either to deny the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion or to hold them up to contempt or ridicule." Said Mr. Justice Horridge, at the West Riding Assizes, 1911: "A man is not free in any public place to use common ridicule on subjects which are sacred.
The purpose, as outlined by the public prosecutor in London, is "to preserve the standard of outward decency." And you will find that the one essential to prosecution is always that the victim shall be obscure and helpless; never by any chance is he a duke in a drawing-room. I will record an utterance of one of the obscure victims of the Britsh "standard of outward decency," a teacher of mathematics named Holyoake, who presumed to discuss in a public hall the starvation of the working classes of the country. A preacher objected that he had discussed "our duty to our neighbor" and neglected "our duty to God"; whereupon the lecturer replied: "Our national Church and general religious institutions cost us, upon accredited computation, about twenty million pounds annually. Worship being thus expensive, I appeal to your heads and your pockets whether we are not too poor to have a God. While our distress lasts, I think it would be wise to put deity upon halt pay." And for that utterance the unfortunate teacher of mathematics served six months in the common Gaol of Gloucester!
While men were being tried for publishing the "Freethinker", the Premier of England was William Ewart Gladstone. And if you wish to know what an established church can do by way of setting up dullness in high places, get a volume of this "Grand Old Man's" 'Writings on theological and religious questions. Read his "Juventus Mundi," in the course of which he establishes a mystic connection between the trident of Neptune and the Christian Trinity! Read his efforts to prove that the writer of Genesis was an inspired geologist! This writer of Genesis points out in Nature "a grand, fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times: First, the water population; secondly, the air population; thirdly, the land population of animals; fourthly, the land population consummated in man." And it seems that this division and sequence "is understood to have been so affirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." Hence we must conclude of the writer of Genesis that "his knowledge was divine"! Consider that this was actually published in one of the leading British monthlies, and that it was necessary for Professor Huxley to answer it, pointing out that so far is it from being true that "a fourfold division and orderly sequence" of water, air and land animals "has been affirmed in our time by natural science," that on the contrary, the assertion is 'directly contradictory to facts known to everyone who is acquainted with the elements of natural science." The distribution of fossils proves that land animals originated before sea-animals and there has been such a mixing of land, sea and air animals as utterly to destroy the reputation of both Genesis and Gladstone as possessing a divine knowledge of Geology.
I add the following valuable observation, of Dean
Goode: ("On Eucharist," II p. 757. See also Archbishop Ware
in Gibson's "Preservative," vol X, Chap II) "One great point
for which our divines have contended, in opposition to
Romish errors, has been the reality of that presence of
Christ's Body and Blood to the soul of the believer which is
affected through the operation of the Holy Spirit
notwithstanding the absence of that Body and Blood in
Heaven. Like the Sun, the Body of Christ is both present and
absent; present, really and truly present, in one sense --
that
is, by the soul being brought into immediate communion
with -- but absent in another sense -- that is, as regards
the contiguity of its substance to our bodies. The authors
under review, like the Romanists, maintain that this is not
a Real Presence, and assuming their own interpretation of
the phrase to be the only true one, press into their service
the testimony of divines who, though using the phrase, apply
it in a sense the reverse of theirs. The ambiguity of the
phrase, and its misapplication by the Church of Rome, have
induced many of our divines to repudiate it," etc.
I turn to the date upon the volume, and find that it is 1910. I was in England within a year of that time, and so I can tell what was the condition of the English people while printers were making and papers were reviewing and book-stores were distributing this work of ecclesiastical research. I walked along the Embankment and saw the pitiful wretches, men, women and sometimes children, clad in filthy rags starved white and frozen blue, soaked in winter rains and shivering in winter winds, homeless, hopeless, unheeded by the doctors of divinity, unpreserved by Gibson's "Preservative." I walked on Hempstead Heath on Easter day, when the population of the slums turns out for its one holiday; I walked, literally trembling with horror, for I had never seen such sights nor dreamed of them. These creatures were hardly to be recognized as human beings; they were some new grotesque race of apes. They could not walk, they could only shamble; they could not laugh, they could only leer. I saw a hand-organ playing, and turned away -- the things they did in their efforts to dance were not to be watched. And then I went out into the beautiful English country, cultured and charming ladies took me in swift, smooth motor-cars, and I saw the pitiful hovels and the drink-sodden, starch-poisoned inhabitants -- slum- populations everywhere, even on the land! When the newspaper reporters came to me, I said that I had just come from Germany, and that if ever England found herself at war with that country, she would regret that she had let the bodies and the minds of her people rot; for which expression I was severely taken to task by more than one British divine.
The bodies -- and the minds; the rot of the latter being the cause of the former. All over England in that year of 1910, in thousands of schools, rich and poor, and in the greatest centers of learning, men like Dean Goode were teaching boys dead languages and dead sciences and dead arts; sending them out to life with no more conception of the modern world than a monk of the Middle Ages; sending them out with minds made hard and inflexible, ignorant of science, indifferent to progress, contemptuous of ideas. And then suddenly, almost overnight, this terrified people finds itself at war with a nation ruled and disciplined by modern experts, scientists and technicians. The awful muddle that was in England during the first two years of the war has not yet been told in print; but thousands know it, and some day it will be written, and it will finish forever the prestige of the British ruling caste. They rushed off an expedition to Gallipoli, and somebody forgot the water-supply, and at one time they had 95,000 cases of dysentery!
They always "muddle through," they tell you; that is the motto of their ruling caste. But this time they did not "muddle through" -- they had to come to America for help. As I write, our Congress is voting billions and tens of billions of dollars, and a million of the best of our young manhood are being taken from their homes -- because in 1910 the mind of England was occupied with Dean Goode "On Eucharist," and the ten volumes of Gibson's "Preservative."
And now -- here is the crux of the argument -- do these aged gentlemen rule of their own power? They do not! They do literally nothing of their own power; they could not make their own episcopal robes, they could not even cook their own episcopal dinners. They have to be maintained in all their comings and goings. Who supports them, and to what end?
The roots of the English Church are in the English land system, which is one of the infamies of the modern world. It dates from the days of William the Norman, who took possession of Britain with his sword, and in order to keep possession for himself and his heirs, distributed the land among his nobles and prelates. In those days, you understand, a high ecclesiastic was a man of war, who did not stoop to veil his predatory nature under pretense of philanthropy; the abbots and archbishops of William wore armor and had their troops of knights like the barons and the dukes. William gave them vast tracts, and at the same time he gave them orders which they obeyed. Says the English chronicler, "Stark he was. Bishops he stripped of their bishopricks, abbots of their abbacies." Green tells us that "the dependence of the church on the royal power was strictly enforced. Homage was exacted from bishop as from baron." And what was this homage? The bishop knelt before William, bareheaded and without arms, and swore: "Hear my lord, I become liege man of yours for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and death, God help me."
The lands which the church got from William the Norman, she has held, and always on the same condition -- that she shall be "liege man for life and limb and earthly regard." In this you have the whole story of the Church of England, in the 20th century as in the llth. The balance of power has shifted from time to time; old families have lost the land and new families have gotten it; but the loyalty and homage of the church have been held by the land, as the needle of the compass is held by a mass of metal. Some 250 years ago a popular song gave the general impression --
Unworthy and unlearned caitiffs are appointed to
benefices of a thousand marks, while the poor and learned
hardly obtain one of twenty. God gave the sheep to be
pastured, not to be shaven and shorn.
But now is Religion a rider, a roamer through the streets,
A
leader
at the love-day, a buyer of the land,
Pricking on a palfrey from manor to manor,
A heap of hounds at his back, as tho he were a lord,
And if his servant kneel not when he brings his cup.
He loureth on him asking who taught him courtesy.
Badly have lords done to give their heirs' lands
Away to the Orders that have no pity;
Money rains upon their altars.
There where such parsons be living at ease
They have no pity on the poor; that is their "charity."
Ye hold you as lords; your lands are too broad,
But there shall come a king and he shall shrive you all
And
beat you as the bible saith for breaking of Your Rule.
They have begged so importunatly that they have gotten ynto their honds more than a part of all youre Realme. The goodliest lordships, manors, londs, and territories, are theyres. Besides this, they have the tenth part of all the corne, medowe, pasture, grasse, woole, coltes, calves, lambes, pigges, gese and chikens. Ye, and they looke so narrowly uppon theyre proufittes, that the poore wyves must be countable to thym of every tenth eg, or elles she gettith not her rytes at ester, shal be taken as an heretike. ... Is it any merveille that youre people so compleine of povertie? The Turke nowe, in your tyme, shulde never be abill to get so moche grounde of christendome ... And whate do al these gredy sort of sturdy, idell, holy theves? These be they that have made an hundredth thousand idell hores in your realme. These be they that catche the pokkes of one woman, and bere them to an other.
The petitioner goes on to tell how they steal wives and all their goods with them, and if any man protest they make him a heretic. "so that it maketh him misshe that he had not done it." Also they take fortunes for masses and then don't say them. "If the Abbot of Westminster shulde sing every day as many masses for his founders as he is bounde to do by his foundacion, 1000 monkes were too few." The petitioner suggests that the king shall "tie these holy idell theves to the cartes, to be whipped naked about every market towne till they will fall to labours!"
When I was in college my professor of Latin was a gentleman with bushy brown whiskers and a thundering voice of which I was often the object -- for even in my early days I had the habit of persisting in embarrassing questions. This professor was a devout Catholic, and not even in dealing with ancient Romans could he restrain his propaganda impulses. Later on in life, he became editor of the "Catholic Encyclopedia," and now when I turn its pages, I imagine that I see the bushy brown whiskers, and hear the thundering voice: "Mr. Sinclair, it is so because I tell you it is so!"
I investigate, and find that my ex-professor knows all about King Henry the Eighth, and his motives in founding the Church of England; he is ready with an "economic interpretation," as complete as the most rabid muckraker could desire! It appears that the king wanted a new wife, and demanded that the Pope should grant the necessary permission; in his efforts to browbeat the Pope into such betrayal of duty, King Henry threatened the withdrawal of the "annates" and the "Peter's pence." Later on he forced the clergy to declare that the Pope was "only a foreign bishop," and in order to "stamp out overt expression of disaffection, he embarked upon a veritable reign of terror."
In Anglican histories, you are assured that all this was a work of religious reform, and that after it the Church was the pure vehicle of God's grace. There were no more "holy idle thieves," holding the land of England and plundering the poor. But get to know the clergy, and see things from the inside, and you will meet some one like the Archbishop of Cashell, who wrote to me of his intimates.
I conclude that a good bishop has nothing more to do
than to eat, drink and grow fat, rich and die; which
laudable example I propose for the remainder of my days to
follow.
I read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and
gracious King's favorite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman
for
5000 pounds. (She betted him the 5000 pounds that he
would not be made a bishop, and he lost, and paid her.) Was
he the only prelate of his time led up by such hands of
consecration? As I peep into George II's St. James, I see
crowds of cassocks pushing up the back-stairs of the ladies
of the court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into their
laps; that godless old king wakening under his canopy in his
Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing.
Discoursing about what? -- About righteousness and judgment?
Whilst the chaplain is preaching, the king is chattering in
German and almost as loud as the preacher; so loud that the
clergyman actually burst out crying in his pulpit, because
the defender of the faith and the dispenser of bishoprics
would not listen to him!
As an old song puts the matter:
And in this graft, of course the church has its share. Each church owns land -- not merely that upon which it stands, but farms and city lots from which it derives income. Each cathedral owns large tracts; so do the schools and universities in which the clergy are educated. The income from the holdings of a church constitutes what is called a "living"; these livings, which vary in size, are the prerogatives of the younger sons of the ruling families, and are intrigued and scrambled for in exactly the fashion which Thackeray describes in the 18th century.
About six thousand of these "livings" are in the gift of great landowners; one noble lord alone disposes of 56 such plums; and needless to say, he does not present them to clergymen who favor radical land-taxes. He gives them to men like himself -- autocratic to the poor, easy-going to members of his own class, and cynical concerning the grafts of grace.
In one English village which I visited the living was worth 700 pounds, with the use of a fine mansion; as the incumbent had a large family, he lived there. In another place the living was worth a thousand pounds, and the incumbent hired a curate, himself appearing twice a year, on Christmas day and on the King's birthday, to preach a sermon; the rest of the time he spent in Paris. It is worth noting that in 1808 a law was proposed compelling absentee pluralists -- that is, clergymen holding more than one "living" -- to furnish curates to do their work; it might be interesting to note that this law met with strenuous clerical opposition, the house of Bishops voting against it without a division. Thus we may understand the sharp saying of Karl Marx, that the English clergy would rather part with 38 of their 39 articles than with one 39th of their income.
There is always a plentiful supply of curates in England. They are the sons of the less influential ruling families, and of the clergy, they have been trained at Oxford or Cambridge, and possess the one essential qualification, that they are gentlemen. Their average price is 250 pounds a year; their function was made clear to me when I attended my first English tea-party. There was a wicker table, perhaps a foot and a half square, having three shelves, one below the other -- on the top layer the plates and napkins, on the next the muffins, and on the lowest the cake. Said the hostess, "Will you pass the curate, please?" I looked puzzled, and she pointed. "We call that the curate, because it does the work of a curate."
As a matter of fact, England is more like America than she realizes; her British reticence has kept her ignorant about herself. I could not carry on my business in England, because of the libel laws, which have as their first principle "the greater the truth, the greater the libel." Englishmen read with satisfaction what I write about America; but if I should turn my attention to their own country, they would send me to jail as they sent Frank Harris. The fact is that the new men in England, the lords of coal and iron and shipping and beer, have bought. their way into the landed aristocracy for cash, just as our American senators have done; they have bought the political parties with campaign gifts, precisely as in America; they have taken over the press, whether by outright purchase like Northcliffe, or by advertising subsidy -- both of which methods we Americans know. Within the last decade or two another group has been coming into control; and not merely is this the same class of men as in America, it frequently consists of the same individuals. These are the big moneylenders, the international financiers who are the fine and final flower of the capitalist system. These gentlemen make the world their home -- or, as Shakespeare puts it, their oyster. They know how to fit themselves to all environments; they are Catholics in Rome and Vienna, country gentlemen in London, bons vivants in Paris, democrats in Chicago, Socialists in Petrograd, and Hebrews wherever they are.
And of course in buying the English government, these new classes have bought the English Church. Skeptics and men of the world as they are, they know that they must have a Religion. They have read the story of the French revolution, and the shadow of the guillotine is always over their thoughts; they see the giant of labor, restless in his torment, groping as in a nightmare for the throat of his enemy. Who can blind the eyes of this giant, who can chain him to his couch of slumber? There is but one agent without rival -- the Keeper of the Holy Secrets, the Deputy of the Almighty awfulness, the Giver and Withholder of Eternal Life. Tremble, slave! Fall down and bow your forehead in the dust! I can see in my memory the sight that thrilled my childhood -- my grim old Bishop, clad in his gorgeous ceremonial robes, stretching out his hands over the head of the new priest, and pronouncing that most deadly of all the Christian curses:
1
"Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose
sins
thou
dost retain, they are retained!"
The British God had other ways of improving nations -- for example, the opium traffic. The British traders had been raising the poppy in India and selling its juice to the Chinese. They had made perhaps a hundred million "noble natures" by this method; and also they were making a hundred million dollars a year. The Chinese, moved by their new "virility," undertook to destroy some opium, and to stop the traffic; whereupon it was necessary to use British battleships to punish and subdue them. Was there any difficulty in persuading the established church of Jesus to bless this holy war? There was not! Lord Shaftesbury, himself the most devout of Anglicans, commented with horror upon the attitude of the clergy, and wrote in his diary:
I rejoice that this cruel and debasing opium war is terminated. We have triumphed in one of the most lawless, unnecessary, and unfair struggles in the records of history; and Christians have shed more heathen blood in two years, than the heathens have shed of Christian blood in two centuries.
That was in 1843; for 70 years thereafter pious England continued to force the opium traffic upon protesting China, and only in the last two or three years has the infamy been brought to an end. Throughout the long controversy the attitude of the church was such that Li Hung Chang was moved to assert in a letter to the Anti-Opium Society:
Opium
is a subject in the discussion of which England
and China can never meet on a common ground. China views the
whole question from a moral standpoint, England from a
fiscal.
We do strongly protest against the main provisions of the present bill as creating amongst our people a sense of grave injustice as amounting to a confiscation of private property, spelling ruin for thousands of quite innocent people, and provoking deep and widespread resentment, which must do harm to our cause and hinder our aims.
I have come upon references to another and even more plainspoken petition, signed by 1,280 clergymen; but war-time facilities for research have not enabled me to find the text, In Prof. Henry C. Vedder's "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," We read:
It was authoritatively stated a short time ago that Mr.
Asquith's temperance bill was defeated in Parliament through
the opposition of clergymen who had invested their savings
in brewery stock, the profits of which might have been
lessened by the bill.
In every public library in England and many in America you will find an assortment of pamphlets published by these organizations, and scholarly volumes endorsed by them, in which the stock misrepresentations of Socialism are perpetuated. Some of these writings are brutal -- setting forth the ethics of exploitation in the manner of the Rev. Thomas Malthus, the English clergyman who supplied for capitalist depredation a basis in pretended natural science. Said this shepherd of Jesus:
A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he
cannot get subsistence from his parents, and if society does
not
want his labor, has no claim of right to the smallest
portion of food, and in fact has no business to be where he
is. At Nature's mighty feast there is no cover for him. She
tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own
orders.
Efforts to transfer money and property from one set of
hands
to another may be inspired by the same passions as
have blinded the present holders to their own highest good,
and may be accompanied with injustice as extreme as has been
manifested by the rich and powerful.
The world is full of mysteries, but some clear lines
run through them, of which this is one. Where God has been
so patient, it is not for us to be impatient.
The great bulk of human misery is due, not to social
arrangements, but to personal vices.
I was fascinated by this Westcott problem; I thought maybe if I kept on the good Bishop's tail, I might in the end find something a plain man could understand; so I got the beautiful two-volume "Life of Brooke Westcott, by his Son". -- and there I found an exposition of the social purposes of bishops! In the year 1892 there was a strike in Durham, which is in the coal country; the employers tried to make a cut in wages, and some 10,000 men walked out, and there was a long and bitter struggle, which wrung the episcopal heart. There was much consultation and correspondence on episcopal stationery, and at last the masters and men were got together, with the Bishop as arbitrator, and the dispute was triumphantly settled -- how do you suppose? On the basis of a 10 percent reduction in wages!
I know nothing quainter in the history of English graft than the naivete with which the Bishop's biographer and son tells the story of this episcopal venture into reality. The prelate came out from the conference "all smiles, and well satisfied with the result of his day's work." As for his followers, they were in ecstasies; they "seized and waltzed one another around on the carriage drive as madly as ever we danced at a flower show ball. Hats and caps are thrown into the air, and we cheer ourselves hoarse." The Bishop proceeds to his palace, and sends one more communication on episcopal stationery -- an order to all his clergy to "offer their humble and hearty thanks to God for our happy deliverance from the strike by which the diocese has been long afflicted." Strange to say, there were a few varlets in Durham who did not appreciate the services of the bold Bishop, and one of them wrote and circulated some abusive verses, in which he made reference to the Bishop's comfortable way of life. The biographer then explains that the Bishop was so tender- hearted that he suffered for the horses who drew his episcopal coach, and so ascetic that he would have lived on tea and toast if he had been permitted to. A curious condition in English society, where the Bishop would have lived on tea and toast, but was not permitted to; while the working people, who didn't want to live on tea and toast, were compelled to!
As with Education, so with Social Reform. During the struggle to abolish slavery in the British colonies, some enthusiasts endeavored to establish the doctrine that Christian baptism conferred emancipation upon Negroes who accepted it; whereupon the Bishop of London laid down the formula of exploitation: "Christianity and the embracing of the gospel do not make the least alteration of civil property."
Gladstone, who was a democrat when he was not religious, spoke of the cultured classes of England:
In almost every one, if not every one, of the greatest
political controversies of the last 50 years, whether they
affected the franchise, whether they affected commerce,
whether they affected religion, whether they affected the
bad and abominable institution of slavery, or what subject
they touched, these leisured classes, these educated
classes, these titled classes have been in the wrong.
And to our own day it has been the same. In 1894 the House of Bishops voted solidly against the Employers' Liability Law. The House of Bishops opposed Home Rule, and beat it; the House of Bishops opposed Womans' Suffrage, and voted against it to the end, Concerning this establishment Lord Shaftesbury, himself the most devout of Englishmen, used the vivid phrase: "this vast aquarium full of cold-blooded life." He told the Bishops that he would give up preaching to them about ecclesiastical reform, because he knew that they would never begin. Another member of the British aristocracy, the Hon. Geo. Russell, has written of their record and adventures:
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