Chapter VII: Part 7

Christianity owed its magnificent opportunities (which it has wasted) to several accidental circumstances. Just as the rise of Buddhism was made possible by the act of King Asoka in adopting it as the State Religion of his vast Indian kingdom, was the rise of Christianity made possible by the act of the Emperor Constantine in adopting it as the State religion of the far-stretched Roman Empire.

Christianity spread rapidly because the Roman Empire was ripe for a new religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling powers. It throve because it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven in one hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The older religions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe or threat to conjure with.

Christianity overcame opposition by murdering or cursing all who resisted its advance. It exterminated scepticism by stifling knowledge, and putting a merciless veto on free thought and free speech, and by rewarding philosophers and discoverers with the faggot and the chain. It held its power for centuries by force of hell-fire, and ignorance, and the sword; and the greatest of these was ignorance.

Nor must it be supposed that the persecution and the slaughter of "Heretics" and "Infidels" was the exception. It was the rule. Motley, the American historian, states that Torquemada, during eighteen years' command of the Inquisition, burnt more than ten thousand people alive, and punished nearly a hundred thousand with infamy, confiscation of property, or perpetual imprisonment.

To be a Jew, a Moslem, a Lutheran, a "wizard," a sceptic, a heretic was to merit death and torture. One order of Philip of Spain condemned to death as "heretics" _the entire population of the Netherlands_. Wherever the Christian religion was successful the martyrs' fires burned, and the devilish instruments of torture were in use. For some twelve centuries the Holy Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day the term "free thought" is a term of reproach. The shadow of the fanatical priest, that half-demented coward, sneak, and assassin, still blights us. Although that holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous casuistries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and whips of steel, has been defeated by the humanity he scorned and the knowledge he feared, yet he has left a taint behind him. It is still held that it ought to be an unpleasant thing to be an Infidel.

And, yes, there were other factors in the "success" of Christianity. The story of the herald angels, the wise men from the east, the manger, the child God, the cross, and the gospel of mercy and atonement, and of universal brotherhood and peace amongst the earthly children of a Heavenly Father, whose attribute was love--this story, possessed a certain homely beauty and sentimental glamour which won the allegiance of many golden-hearted and sweet-souled men and women. These lovely natures assimilated from the chaotic welter of beauty and ashes called the Christian religion all that was pure, and rejected all that was foul. It was the light of such sovereign souls as Joan of Arc and Francis of Assisi that saved Christianity from darkness and the pit; and how much does that religion owe to the genius of Wyclif and Tyndale, of Milton and Handel, of Mozart and Thomas a Kempis, of Michael Angelo and Rafael, and the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer?

There are good men and good women by millions in the Christian ranks to-day, and it is their virtue, and their zeal, and their illumination of its better qualities, and charitable and loyal shelter of its follies and its crimes, that keep the Christian religion still alive.

Christianity has been for fifteen hundred years the religion of the brilliant, brave, and strenuous races in the world. And what has it accomplished? And how does it stand to-day?

Is Christianity the rule of life in America and Europe? Are the masses of people who accept it peaceful, virtuous, chaste, spiritually minded, prosperous, happy? Are their national laws based on its ethics? Are their international politics guided by the Sermon on the Mount? Are their noblest and most Christlike men and women most revered and honoured? Is the Christian religion loved and respected by those outside its pale? Are London and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, and Rome centres of holiness and of sweetness and light? From Glasgow to Johannesburg, from Bombay to San Francisco is God or Mammon king?

If a tree should be known by its fruit, the Christian religion has small right to boast of its success.

But the Christian will say, "This is not Christianity, but its caricature." Where, then, is the saving grace, the compelling power, of this divine religion, which, planted by God Himself, is found after nineteen centuries to yield nothing but leaves?

After all these sad ages of heroism and crime, of war and massacre, of preaching and praying, of blustering and trimming; after all this prodigal waste of blood and tears, and labour and treasure, and genius and sacrifice, we have nothing better to show for Christianity than European and American Society to-day.

And this ghastly heart-breaking failure proves the Christian religion to be the Divine Revelation of God!

THE PROPHECIES

Another alleged proof of the divine verity of the Christian religion is the Prophecies. Hundreds of books--perhaps I might say thousands of books--have been written upon these prophecies. Wonderful books, wonderful prophecies, wonderful religion, wonderful people.

If religious folk did not think by moonlight those books on the prophecies would never have been written. There are the prophecies of Christ's coming which are pointed out in the Old Testament. That the Jews had many prophecies of a Jewish Messiah is certain. But these are indefinite. There is not one of them which unmistakably applies to Jesus Christ; and the Jews, who should surely understand their own prophets and their own Scriptures, deny that Christ was the Messiah whose coming the Scriptures foretold.

Then, we have the explicit prophecy of Christ Himself as to His second coming. That prophecy at least is definite; and that has never been fulfilled.

For Christ declared in the plainest and most solemn manner that He would return from Heaven with power and glory within the lifetime of those to whom He spoke:

Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till
all these things be fulfilled.

These prophecies by Christ of His return to earth may be read in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. They are distinct, and definite, and solemn, and--untrue.

I could fill many pages with unfulfilled prophecies from the Old and New Testaments. I think the one I give is enough.

Jesus Christ distinctly says that He will come in glory with all His angels before "this generation" all have passed away.

This is the year 1903. Christ uttered His prophecy about the year 31.

THE UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF

Christians declare the religious sentiment to be universal. Even if it were so, that would show a universal spiritual hunger; but would not prove the Christian religion to be its only food.

But the religious sentiment is not universal. I know many young people who have never been taught religion of any kind, who have never read Bible nor Gospel, who never attended any place of worship; and they are virtuous and courteous and compassionate and happy, and feel no more need of spiritual comfort or religious consolation than I do.

They are as gentle, sweet, and merry, and do their duty as faithfully as any Christian, yet to them Heaven and Hell are meaningless abstractions; God and the soul are problems they, with quiet cheerfulness, leave time to solve.

If the craving for religion were universal these young folk would not be free from spiritual hunger. As they are free from spiritual hunger, I conclude that the craving for religion is not born in us, but must be inculcated.

Many good men and women will look blank at such heresy. "What!" they will exclaim, "take away the belief in the Bible, and the service of God? Why, our lives would be empty. What would you give us in exchange?"

To which I answer, "The belief in yourselves, and the belief in your fellow-creatures, and the service of Man."

Such belief and such service will certainly increase the sum of happiness on earth. And as for the Hereafter--no man knoweth. _No_ man knoweth. IS CHRISTIANITY THE ONLY HOPE?

Christians tell us that their religion is our only refuge, that Christ is our only saviour. From the wild Salvation Army captain, thundering and beseeching under his banner of blood and fire, to the academic Bishop reconciling science and transfiguring crude translations in the dim religious light of a cathedral, all the apostles of the Nazarene carpenter insist that He is the only way. In this the Christian resembles the Hindu, the Parsee, the Buddhist, and the Mohammedan. There is but one true religion, and it is his.

The Rationalist locks on with a rueful smile, and wonders. He sees nothing in any one of these religions to justify its claim to infallibility or pre-eminence. It seems to him unreasonable to assert that any theology or any saviour is indispensable. He realises that a man may be good and happy in any church, or outside any church. He cannot admit that only those who follow Jesus, or Buddha, or Mahomet, or Moses can be "saved," nor that all those who fail to believe in the divine mission of one, or all of these will be lost.

Let us consider the Christian claim. If the Christian claim be valid, men cannot be good, nor happy, cannot be saved, except through Christ. Is this position supported by the facts?

One Christian tells me that "It is in the solemn realities of life that one gets his final evidence that Christianity is true." Another tells me that "In Christ alone is peace"; another, that "Without Christ there is neither health nor holiness."

If these statements mean anything, they mean that none but true Christians can live well, nor die well, nor bear sorrow and pain with fortitude, do their whole duty manfully, nor find happiness here and bliss hereafter.

But I submit that Christianity does not make men lead better lives than others lead who are not Christians, and there are none so abjectly afraid of death as Christians are. The Pagan, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, and the Agnostic do not fear death nearly so much as do the Christians.

The words of many of the greatest Christians are gloomy with the fears of death, of Hell, and of the wrath of God.

The Roman soldier, the Spartan soldier, the Mohammedan soldier did not fear death. The Greek, the Buddhist, the Moslem, the Viking went to death as to a reward, or as to the arms of a bride. Compare the writings of Marcus Aurelius and of Jeremy Taylor, of Epictetus and John Bunyan, and then ask yourself whether the Christian religion makes it easier for men to die.

There are millions of Europeans--not to speak of Buddhists and Jews--there are millions of men and women to-day who are not Christians. Do they live worse or die worse, or bear trouble worse, than those who accept the Christian faith?

Some of us have come through "the solemn realities of life," and have _not_ realised that Christianity is true. We do not believe the Bible; we do not believe in the divinity of Christ; we do not pray, nor feel the need of prayer; we do not fear God, nor Hell, nor death. We are as happy as our even Christian; we are as good as our even Christian; we are as benevolent as our even Christian: what has Christianity to offer us?

There are in the world some four hundred and fifty millions of Buddhists. How do they bear themselves in "the solemn realities of life"?

I suggest that consolation, and fortitude, and cheerfulness, and loving-kindness are not in the exclusive gift of the Christian religion, but may be found by good men in _all_ religions.

As to the effects of Christianity on life. Did Buddha, and King Asoka, and Socrates, and Aristides lead happy, and pure, and useful lives? Were there no virtuous, nor happy, nor noble men and women during all the millions of years before the Crucifixion? Was there neither love, nor honour, nor wisdom, nor valour, nor peace in the world until Paul turned Christian? History tells us no such gloomy story.

Are there no good, nor happy, nor worthy men and women to-day outside the pale of the Christian churches? Amongst the eight hundred millions of human beings who do not know or do not follow Christ, are there none as happy and as worthy as any who follow Him?

Are we Rationalists so wicked, so miserable, so useless in the world, so terrified of the shadow of death? I beg to say we are nothing of the kind. We are quite easy and contented. There is no despair in our hearts. We are not afraid of bogeys, nor do we dread the silence and the dark.

Friend Christian, you are deceived in this matter. When you say that Christ is the _only_ true teacher, that He is the _only_ hope of mankind, that He is the _only_ Saviour, I must answer sharply that I do not believe that, and I do not think you believe it deep down in your heart. For if Christ is the only Saviour, then thousands of millions of Buddhists have died unsaved, and you know you do not believe that.

Jeremy Taylor believed that; but you know better.

Do you not _know_, as a matter of fact, that it is as well in this world, and shall be as well hereafter, with a good Buddhist, or Jew, or Agnostic, as with a good Christian?

Do you deny that? If you deny it, tell me what punishment you think will be inflicted, here or hereafter on a good man who does not accept Christianity.

If you do not deny it, then on what grounds do you claim that Christ is _the_ Saviour of all mankind, and that "only in Christ we are made whole"?

You speak of the spiritual value of your religion. What can it give you more than Socrates or Buddha possessed? These men had wisdom, courage, morality, fortitude, love, mercy. Can you find in all the world to-day two men as wise, as good, as gentle, as happy? Yet these men died centuries before Christ was born.

If you believe that none but Christians can be happy or good; or if you believe that none but Christians can escape extinction or punishment, then there is some logic in your belief that Christ is our only Saviour. But that is to believe that there never was a good man before Christ died, and that Socrates and Buddha, and many thousands of millions of men, and women, and children, before Christ and after, have been _lost_.

Such a belief is monstrous and absurd.

But I see no escape from the dilemma it places us in. If only Christ can save, about twelve hundred millions of our fellow-creatures will be lost.

If men can be saved without Christ, then Christ is not our only Saviour.

Christianity seems to be a composite religion, made up of fragments of religions of far greater antiquity. It is alleged to have originated some two thousand years ago. It has never been the religion of more than one-third of the human race, and of those professing it only ten per cent at any time have thoroughly understood, or sincerely followed, its teachings. It was not indispensable to the human race during the thousands (I say millions) of years before its advent. It is not now indispensable to some eight hundred millions of human beings. It had no place in the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. It was unknown to Socrates, to Epicurus, to Aristides, to Marcus Aurelius, to King Asoka, and to Buddha. It has opposed science and liberty almost from the first. It has committed the most awful crimes and atrocities. It has upheld the grossest errors and the most fiendish theories as the special revelations of God. It has been defeated in argument and confounded by facts over and over again, and has been steadily driven back and back, abandoning one essential position after another, until there is hardly anything left of its original pretensions. It is losing more and more every day its hold upon the obedience and confidence of the masses, and has only retained the suffrages of a minority of educated minds by accepting as truths the very theories which in the past it punished as deadly sins. Are these the signs of a triumphant and indispensable religion? One would think, to read the Christian apologists, that before the advent of Christianity the world had neither virtue nor wisdom. But the world very old. Civilisation is very old. The Christian religion is but a new thing, is a mere episode in the history of human development, and has passed the zenith of its power.

SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT

Christians say that only those who are naturally religious can understand religion, or, as Archdeacon Wilson puts it, "Spiritual truths must be spiritually discerned." This seems to amount to a claim that religious people possess an extra sense or faculty.

When a man talks about "spiritual discernment," he makes a tacit assertion which ought not to be allowed to pass unchallenged. What is that assertion or implication? It is the implication that there is a spiritual discernment which is distinct from mental discernment. What does that mean? It means that man has other means of understanding besides his reason.

This spiritual discernment is a metaphysical myth.

Man feels, sees, and reasons with his brain. His brain may be more emotional or less emotional, more acute or less acute; but to invent a faculty of reason distinct from reason, or to suggest that man can feel or think otherwise than with his brain, is to darken counsel with a multitude of words.

There is no ground for the assertion that a spiritual faculty exists apart from the reason. But the Christian first invents this faculty, and then tells us that by this faculty religion is to be judged.

Spiritual truths are to be spiritually discerned. What is a "spiritual truth"? It is neither more nor less than a mental idea. It is an idea originating in the brain, and it can only be "discerned," or judged, or understood, by an act of reason performed by the brain.

The word "spiritual," as used in this connection, is a mere affectation. It implies that the idea (which Archdeacon Wilson calmly dubs a "truth") is so exalted, or so refined, that the reason is too gross to appreciate it.

John says: "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Thomas asks: "How do you know?" John says: "Because I _feel_ it." Thomas answers: "But that is only a rhapsodical expression of a woman's reason: 'I know because I _know_.' You say your religion is true because you feel it is true. I might as well say it is not true because I feel that it is not true."

Then John becomes mystical. He says: "Spiritual truths must be spiritually discerned." Thomas, who believes that _all_ truths, and all errors, must be tried by the reason, shrugs his shoulders irreverently, and departs.

Now, this mystical jargon has always been a favourite weapon of theologians, and it is a very effective weapon against weak-minded, or ignorant, or superstitious, or very emotional men.

We must deal with this deception sternly. We must deny that the human reason, which we know to be a fact, is inferior to a postulated "spiritual" faculty which has no existence. We must insist that to make the brain the slave of a brain-created idea is as foolish as to subordinate the substance to the shadow.

John declares that "God is love." Thomas asks him how he _knows_. John replies that it is a "spiritual truth," which must be "spiritually discerned." Thomas says: "It is not spiritual, and it is not true. It is a mere figment of the brain." John replies: "You are incapable of judging: you are spiritually blind." Thomas says: "My friend, you are incapable of reasoning: you are mentally halt and lame." John says Thomas is a "fellow of no delicacy."

I think there is much to be said in excuse for Thomas. I think it is rather cool of John to invent a faculty of "spiritual discernment," and then to tell Thomas that he (Thomas) does not possess that faculty.

That is how Archdeacon Wilson uses me. In a sermon at Rochdale he is reported to have spoken as follows:

As regards the first axiom, the archdeacon reaffirmed his
declaration as to Mr. Blatchford's disqualification for such
a controversy... Whether Mr. Blatchford recognised the fact
or not, it was true that there was a faculty among men which,
in its developed state, was as distinct, as unequally distributed,
as mysterious in its origin and in its distribution, as was
the faculty for pure mathematics, for music, for metaphysics,
or for research. They might call it the devotional or religious
faculty. Just as there were men whose faculties of insight
amounted to genius in other regions of mental activity, so
there were spiritual geniuses, geniuses in the region in which
man holds communion with God, and from this region these who
had never developed the faculty were debarred. One who was
not devotional, not humble, not gentle in his treatment of
the beliefs of others, one who could lightly ridicule the
elementary forms of belief which had corresponded to the
lower stages of culture, past and present, was not likely
to do good in a religious controversy.

Here is the tyranny of language, indeed! Here is a farrago of myths and symbols. "There is a faculty--we may call it the devotional or religious faculty--there are geniuses in the region in which man holds communion with God"!

Why the good archdeacon talks of the "region in which man holds communion with God" as if he were talking of the telephone exchange. He talks of God as if he were talking of the Postmaster-General. He postulates a God, and he postulates a region, and he postulates a communication, and then talks about all these postulates as if they were facts. I protest against this mystical, transcendental rhetoric. It is not argument.

Who has seen God? Who has entered that "region"? Who has communicated with God?

There is in most men a desire, in some men a passion, for what is good. In some men this desire is weak, in others it is strong. In some it takes the form of devotion to "God," in others it takes the form of devotion to men. In some it is coloured by imagination, or distorted by a love of the marvellous; in others it is lighted by reason, and directed by love of truth. But whether a man devotes himself to God and to prayer, or devotes himself to man and to politics or science, he is actuated by the same impulse--by the desire for what is good.

John says: "I feel that there is a God, and I worship Him." Thomas says: "I do not know whether or not there is a God, and if there is, He does not need my adoration. But I know there are men in darkness and women in trouble, and children in pain, and I know they _do_ need my love and my help. I therefore will not pray; but I will work."

To him says John: "You are a fellow of no delicacy. You lack spiritual discernment. You are disqualified for the expression of any opinion on spiritual truths." This is what John calls "humility," and "gentle treatment of the beliefs of others." But Thomas calls it unconscious humour.

Really, Archdeacon Wilson's claim that only those possessing spiritual discernment can discern spiritual truths means no more than that those who cannot believe in religion do not believe in religion, or that a man whose reason tells him religion is not true is incapable of believing religion is true. But what he means it to mean is that a man whose reason rejects religion is unfit to criticise religion, and that only those who accept religion as true are qualified to express an opinion as to its truth. He might as well claim that the only person qualified to criticise the Tory Party is the person who has the faculty for discerning Tory truth.

My claim is that ideas relating to spiritual things must be weighed by the same faculties as ideas relating to material things. That is to say, man can only judge in religious matters as he judges in all other matters, by his reason.

I do not say that all men have the same kind or quantity of reason. What I say is, that a man with a good intellect is a better judge on religious matters than a man, with an inferior intellect; and that by reason, and by reason alone, can truth of any kind be discerned.

The archdeacon speaks of spiritual geniuses, "geniuses in the region in which man holds communion with God." The Saints, for example. Well, if the Saints were geniuses in matters religious, the Saints ought to have been better judges of spiritual truth than other men. But was it so? The Saints believed in angels, and devils, and witches, and hell-fire and Jonah, and the Flood; in demoniacal possession, in the working of miracles by the bones of dead martyrs; the Saints accepted David and Abraham and Moses as men after God's own heart.

Many of the most spiritually gifted Christians do not believe in these things any longer. The Saints, then, were mistaken. They were mistaken about these spiritual matters in which they are alleged to have been specially gifted.

We do not believe in sorcerers, in witches, in miracle-working relics, in devils, and eternal fire and brimstone. Why? Because science has killed those errors. What is science? It is reason applied to knowledge. The faculty of reason, then, has excelled this boasted faculty of spiritual discernment in its own religious sphere.

It would be easy to multiply examples.

Jeremy Taylor was one of the most brilliant and spiritual of our divines. But his spiritual perception, as evidenced in his works, was fearfully at fault. He believed in hell-fire, and in hell-fire for all outside the pale of the Christian Church. And he was afraid of God, and afraid of death.

Archdeacon Wilson denies to us this faculty of spiritual perception. Very well. But I have enough mental acuteness to see that the religion of Jeremy Taylor was cowardly, and gloomy, and untrue.

Luther and Wesley were spiritual geniuses. They both believed in witchcraft. Luther believed in burning heretics. Wesley said if we gave up belief in witchcraft we must give up belief in the Bible.

Luther and Wesley were mistaken: their spiritual discernment had led them wrong. Their superstition and cruelty were condemned by humanity and common sense.

To me it appears that these men of "spiritual discernment" are really men of abnormally credulous and emotional natures: men too weak to face the facts.

We cannot allow the Christians to hold this position unchallenged. I regard the religious plane as a lower one than our own. I think the Christian idea of God is even now, after two thousand years of evolution, a very mean and weak one.

I cannot love nor revere a "Heavenly Father" whose children have to pray to Him for what they need, or for pardon for their sins. My children do not need to pray to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly father. Yet Christ, who came direct from God--who _was_ God--to teach all men God's will, directed us to pray to God for our daily bread, for forgiveness of our trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us into temptation! Imagine a father leading his children into temptation!

What is there so superior or so meritorious in the attitude of a religious man towards God? This good man prays: for what? He prays that something be given to him or forgiven to him. He prays for gain or fear. Is that so lofty and so noble?

But you will say: "It is not all for gain or for fear. He prays for love: because he loves God." But is not this like sending flowers and jewels to the king? The king is so rich already: but there are many poor outside his gates. God is not in need of our love: some of God's children are in need. Truly, these high ideals are very curious.

Mr. Augustine Birrell, in his _Miscellanies_, quotes a passage from "Lux Mundi"; and although I cannot find it in that book, it is too good to lose:

If this be the relation of faith to reason, we see the explanation
of what seems at first sight to the philosopher to be the most
irritating and hypocritical characteristic of faith. It is
always shifting its intellectual defences. It adopts this or
that fashion of philosophical apology, and then, when this is
shattered by some novel scientific generalisation of faith,
probably after a passionate struggle to retain the old position,
suddenly and gaily abandons it, and takes up the new formula,
just as if nothing had happened. It discovers that the new
formula is admirably adapted for its purposes, and is, in fact,
what it always meant, only it has unfortunately omitted to
mention it. So it goes on again and again; and no wonder that
the philosophers growl at those humbugs, the clergy.

That passage has a rather sinister bearing upon the Christian's claim for spiritual genius.

But, indeed, the claim is not admissible. The Churches have taught many errors. Those errors have been confuted by scepticism and science. It is no thanks to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It is to reason we owe our advance; and what a great advance it is! We have got rid of Hell, we have got rid of the Devil, we have got rid of the Christian championship of slavery, of witch-murder, of martyrdom, persecution, and torture; we have destroyed the claims for the infallibility of the Scriptures, and have taken the fetters of the Church from the limbs of Science and Thought, and before long we shall have demolished the belief in miracles. The Christian religion has defended all these dogmas, and has done inhuman murder in defence of them; and has been wrong in every instance, and has been finally defeated in every instance. Steadily and continually the Church has been driven from its positions. It is still retreating, and we are not to be persuaded to abandon our attack by the cool assurance that we are mentally unfit to judge in spiritual matters. Spiritual Discernment has been beaten by reason in the past, and will be beaten by reason in the future. It is facts and logic we want, not rhetoric.

SOME OTHER APOLOGIES

Christianity, we are told, vastly improved the relations of rich and poor.

How comes it, then, that the treatment of the poor by the rich is better amongst Jews than amongst Christians? How did it fare with the poor all over Europe in the centuries when Christianity was at the zenith of its power? How is it we have twelve millions of Christians on the verge of starvation in England to-day, with a Church rolling in wealth and an aristocracy decadent from luxury and self-indulgence? How is it that the gulf betwixt rich and poor in such Christian capitals as New York, London, and Paris is so wide and deep?

Christianity, we are told, first gave to mankind the gospel of peace. Christianity did not bring peace, but a sword. The Crusades were holy wars. The wars in the Netherlands were holy wars. The Spanish Armada was a holy expedition. Some of these holy wars lasted for centuries and cost millions of human lives. Most of them were remarkable for the barbarities and cruelties of the Christian priests and soldiers.

From the beginning of its power Christianity has been warlike, violent, and ruthless. To-day Europe is an armed camp, and it is not long since the Christian Kaiser ordered his troops to give no quarter to the Chinese.

There has never been a Christian nation as peaceful as the Indians and Burmese under Buddhism. It was King Asoka, and not Jesus Christ or St. Paul, who first taught and first established a reign of national and international peace.

To-day the peace of the world is menaced, not by the Buddhists, the Parsees, the Hindoos, or the Confucians, but by Christian hunger for territory, Christian lust of conquest, Christian avarice for the opening up of "new markets," Christian thirst for military glory, and jealousy, and envy amongst the Christian powers one of another.

Christianity, we are told, originated the Christ-like type of character. The answer stares us in the face. How can we account for King Asoka, how can we account for Buddha?

Christianity, we are told, originated hospitals.

Hospitals were founded two centuries before Christ by King Asoka in India.

Christianity, we are told, first broke down the barrier between Jew and Gentile.

How have Christians treated Jews for fifteen centuries? How are Christians treating Jews to-day in Holy Russia? How long is it since Jews were granted full rights of citizenship in Christian England?

All this, the Christian will say, applies to the false and not to the true Christianity.

Let us look, then, for an instant, at the truest and best form of Christianity, and ask what it is doing. It is preaching about Sin, Sin, Sin. It is praying to God to do for Man what Man ought to do for himself, what Man can do for himself, what Man must do for himself; for God has never done it, and will never do it for him.

And this fault in the Christian--the highest and truest Christian--attitude towards life does not lie in the Christians: it lies in the truest and best form of their religion.

It is the belief in Free Will, in Sin, and in a Heavenly Father, and a future recompense that leads the Christian wrong, and causes him to mistake the shadow for the substance.

COUNSELS OF DESPAIR

"If you take from us our religion," say the Christians, "what have you to offer but counsels of despair?" This seems to me rather a commercial way of putting the case, and not a very moral one. Because a moral man would not say: "If I give up my religion, what will you pay me?" He would say: "I will never give, up my religion unless I am convinced it is not _true_." To a moral man the truth would matter, but the cost would not. To ask what one may _gain_ is to show an absence of all real religious feeling.

The feeling of a truly religious man is the feeling that, cost what it may, he must do _right_. A religiously-minded man _could_ not profess a religion which he did not believe to be true. To him the vital question would be, not "What will you give me to desert my colours?" but "What is the _truth_?"

But, besides being immoral, the demand is unreasonable. If I say that a religion is untrue, the believer has a perfect right to ask me for proofs of my assertion; but he has no right to ask me for a new promise. Suppose I say this thing is not true, and to believe anything which is untrue is useless. Then, the believer may justly demand my reasons. But he has no right to ask me for a new dream in place of the old one. I am not a prophet, with promises of crowns and glories in my gift.

But yet I will answer this queer question as fully as I can.

I do not say there is no God. I do not say there is no "Heaven," nor that the soul is not immortal. There is not enough evidence to justify me in making such assertions.

I only say, on those subjects, that I do not _know_.

I do not know about those things. There may be a God, there may be a "Heaven," there may be an immortal soul. And a man might accept all I say about religion without giving up any hope his faith may bid him hold as to a future life.

As to those "counsels of despair" the question puzzles me. Despair of what?

Let me put the matter as I see it. I think sometimes, in a dubious way, that perhaps there may be a life beyond the grave. And that is interesting. But I think my stronger, and deeper, and more permanent feeling is that when we die we die finally, and for us there is no more life at all. That is, I suppose, my real belief--or supposition. But do I despair? Why should I? The idea of immortality does not elate me very much. As I said just now, it is interesting. But I am not excited about it. If there is another innings, we will go in and play our best; and we hope we shall be very much better and kinder than we have been. But if it is sleep: well, sleep is rest, and as I feel that I have had a really good time, on the whole, I should consider it greedy to cry because I could not have it all over again. That is how I feel about it. Despair? I am one of the happiest old fogeys in all London. I have found life agreeable and amusing, and I'm glad I came. But I am not so infatuated with life that I should care to go back and begin it all again. And though a new start, in a new world, would be--yes, interesting--I am not going to howl because old Daddy Death says it is bed-time. I think somebody, or something, has been very good to allow me to come in and see the fun, and stay so long, especially as I came in, so to speak "on my face." But to beg for another invitation would be cheeky. Some of you want such a lot for nothing.

"But," you may say, "the poor, the failures, the wretched--what of them?" And I answer: "Ah! that is one of the weak points of _your_ religion, not of mine." Consider these unhappy ones, what do you offer them? You offer them an everlasting bliss, not because they were starved or outraged here--not at all. For your religion admits the probability that those who came into this world worst equipped, who have here been most unfortunate, and to whom God and man have behaved most unjustly, will stand a far greater chance of a future of woe than of happiness.

No. According to your religion, those of the poor or the weak who get to Heaven will get there, not because they have been wronged and must be righted, but because they believe that Jesus Christ can save them.

Now, contrast that awful muddle of unreason and injustice with what you call my "counsels of despair." I say there may be a future life and there may not be a future life. If there is a future life, a man will deserve it no less, and enjoy it no less, for having been happy here. If there is no future life, he who has been unhappy here will have lost both earthly happiness and heavenly hope.

Therefore, I say, it is our duty to see that all our fellow-creatures are as happy here as we can make them.

Therefore I say to my fellow-creatures, "Do not consent to suffer, and to be wronged in this world, for it is immoral and weak so to submit; but hold up your heads, and demand your rights, here and now, and leave the rest to God, or to Fate."

You see, I am not trying to rob any man of his hope of Heaven; I am only trying to inspire his hope on earth.

But I have been asked whether I think it right and wise to "shake the faith of the poor working man--the faith that has helped him so long."

What has this faith helped him to do? To bear the ills and the wrongs of this life more patiently, in the hope of a future reward? Is that the idea? But I do not want the working man to endure patiently the ills and wrongs of this life. I want him, for his own sake, his wife's sake, his children's sake, and for the sake of right and progress, to demand justice, and to help in the work of amending the conditions of life on earth.

No, I do not want to rob the working-man of his faith: I want to awaken his faith--in himself.

Religion promises us a future Heaven, where we shall meet once more those "whom we have loved long since and lost awhile," and that is the most potent lure that could be offered to poor humanity.

How much of the so-called "universal instinct of belief" arises from that pathetic human yearning for reunion with dear friends, sweet wives, or pretty children "lost awhile"? It is human love and natural longing for the dead darlings, whose wish is father to the thought of Heaven. Before that passionate sentiment reason itself would almost stand abashed: were reason antagonistic to the "larger hope"--which none can prove.

Few of us can keep our emotions from overflowing the bounds of reason in such a case. The poor, tearful desire lays a pale hand on reason's lips and gazes wistfully into the mysterious abyss of the Great Silence.

So I say of that "larger hope," cherish it if you can, and if you feel it necessary to your peace of mind. But do not mistake a hope for a certainty. No priest, nor pope, nor prophet can tell you more about that mystery than you know. It is a riddle, and your guess or mine may be as near as that of a genius. We can only guess. We do not know.

Is it wise, then, to sell even a fraction of your liberty of thought or deed for a paper promise which the Bank of Futurity may fail to honour? Is it wise, is it needful, to abandon a single right, to abate one just demand, to neglect one possibility of happiness here and now, in order to fulfil the conditions laid down for the attainment of that promised Heaven by a crowd of contradictory theologians who know no more about God or about the future than we know ourselves?

Death has dropped a curtain of mystery between us and those we love. No theologian knows, nor ever did know, what is hidden behind that veil.

Let us, then, do our duty here, try to be happy here, try to make others happy here, and when the curtain lifts for us--we shall see.

CONCLUSION THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

I have been asked why I have "gone out of my way to attack religion," why I do not "confine myself to my own sphere and work for Socialism, and what good I expect to do by pulling down without building up."

In reply I beg to say:

1. That I have not "gone out of my way" to attack religion. It was
because I found religion _in_ my way that I attacked it.

2. That I am working for Socialism when I attack a religion which is
hindering Socialism.

3. That we must pull down before we can build up, and that I hope to
do a little building, if only on the foundation.

But these questions arose from a misconception of my position and purpose.

I have been called an "Infidel," a Socialist, and a Fatalist. Now, I am an Agnostic, or Rationalist, and I am a Determinist, and I am a Socialist. But if I were asked to describe myself in a single word, I should call myself a Humanist.

Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism are factors in the sum; and the sum is Humanism.

Briefly, my religion is to do the best I can for humanity. I am a Socialist, a Determinist, and a Rationalist because I believe that Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism will be beneficial to mankind.

I oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian religion is beneficial to mankind, and because I think it is an obstacle in the way of Humanism.

I am rather surprised that men to whom my past work is well known should suspect me of making a wanton and purposeless attack upon religion. My attack is not wanton, but deliberate; not purposeless, but very purposeful and serious. I am not acting irreligiously, but religiously. I do not oppose Christianity because it is good, but because it is not good enough.

There are two radical differences between Humanism and Christianity.

Christianity concerns itself with God and Man, putting God first and Man last.

Humanism concerns itself solely with Man, so that Man is its first and last care. That is one radical difference.

Then, Christianity accepts the doctrine of Free Will, with its consequent rewards and punishments; while Humanism embraces Determinist doctrines, with their consequent theories of brotherhood and prevention. And that is another radical difference.

Because the Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and the drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the Humanist regards them as men and women who have been wronged.

The Christian remedy is to punish crime and to preach repentance and salvation to "sinners." The Humanist remedy is to remove the causes which lead or drive men into crime, and so to prevent the manufacture of "sinners."

Let us consider the first difference. Christianity concerns itself with the relations of Man to God, as well as with the relations between man and man. It concerns itself with the future life as well as with the present life.

Now, he who serves two causes cannot serve each or both of them as well as he could serve either of them alone.

He who serves God and Man will not serve Man as effectually as he who gives himself wholly to the service of Man.

As the religion of Humanism concerns itself solely with the good of humanity, I claim that it is more beneficial to humanity than is the Christian religion, which divides its service and love between Man and God.

Moreover, this division is unequal. For Christians give a great deal more attention to God than to Man.

And on that point I have to object, first, that although they _believe_ there is a God, they do not _know_ there is a God, nor what He is like. Whereas they do know very well that there are men, and what they are like. And, secondly, that if there be a God, that God does not need their love nor their service; whereas their fellow-creatures do need their love and their service very sorely.

And, as I remarked before, if there is a Father in Heaven, He is likely to be better pleased by our loving and serving our fellow-creatures (His children) than by our singing and praying to Him, while our brothers and sisters (His children) are ignorant, or brutalised, or hungry, or in trouble.

I speak as a father myself when I say that I should not like to think that one of my children would be so foolish and so unfeeling as to erect a marble tomb to my memory while the others needed a friend or a meal. And I speak in the same spirit when I add that to build a cathedral, and to spend our tears and pity upon a Saviour who was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, while women and men and little children are being crucified in our midst, without pity and without help, is cant, and sentimentality, and a mockery of God.

Please note the words I use. I have selected them deliberately and calmly, because I believe that they are true and that they are needed.

Christians are very eloquent about Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Our Father which is in Heaven. I know nothing about gods and heavens. But I know a good deal about Manchester and London, and about men and women; and if I did not feel the real shames and wrongs of the world more keenly, and if I did not try more earnestly and strenuously to rescue my fellow-creatures from ignorance, and sorrow, and injustice than most Christians do, I should blush to look death in the face or call myself a man.

I choose my words deliberately again when I say that to me the most besotted and degraded outcast tramp or harlot matters more than all the gods and angels that humanity ever conjured up out of its imagination.

The Rev. R. F. Horton, in his answer to my question as to the need of Christ as a Saviour, uttered the following remarkable words:

But there is a holiness so transcendent that the angels veil
their faces in the presence of God. I have known a good many
men who have rejected Christ, and men who are living without
Him, and, though God forbid that I should judge them, I do not
know one of them whom I would venture to take as my example if
I wished to appear in the presence of the holy God. They do
not tremble for themselves, but I tremble for myself if my
holiness is not to exceed that of such Scribes and Pharisees.
Oh, my brothers, where Christ is talking of holiness He is
talking of such a goodness, such a purity, such a transcendent
and miraculous likeness of God in human form, that I believe
it is true to say that there is but one name, as there is but
one way, by which a man can be holy and come into the presence
of God; and I look, therefore, upon this word of Christ not
only as the way of salvation, but as the revelation of the
holiness which God demands.

I close these answers to the questions with a practical word
to everyone that is here. It is my belief that you may be
good enough to pass through the grave and to wander in the
dark spaces of the world which is still earthly and sensual,
and you may be good enough to escape, as it were, the torments
of the hell which result from a life of debauchery and cruelty
and selfishness; but if you are to stand in the presence of God,
if you are ever to be pure, complete, and glad, "all rapture
through and through in God's most holy sight," you must believe
in the name and in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
only begotten son of God, who came into the world to save
sinners, and than whose no other name is given in heaven or
earth whereby we may be saved.

Such talk as that makes me feel ill. Here is a cultured, educated, earnest man rhapsodising about holiness and the glory of a God no mortal eye has ever seen, and of whom no word has ever reached us across the gulf of death. And while he rhapsodised, with a congregation of honest bread-and-butter citizens under him, trying hard with their blinkered eyes and blunted souls, to glimpse that imaginary glamour of ecstatic "holiness," there surged and rolled around them the stunted, poisoned, and emaciated life of London.

Holiness!--Holiness in the Strand, in Piccadilly, in Houndsditch, in Whitechapel, in Park Lane, in Somerstown, and the Mint.

Holiness!--In Westminster, and in Fleet Street, and on 'Change.

Holiness!--In a world given over to robbery, to conquest, to vanity, to ignorance, to humbug, to the worship of the golden calf.

Holiness!--With twelve millions of our workers on the verge of famine, with rich fools and richer rogues lording it over nations of untaught and half-fed dupes and drudges.

Holiness!--With a recognised establishment of manufactured paupers, cripples, criminals, idlers, dunces, and harlots.

Holiness!--In a garden of weeds, a hotbed of lies, where hypnotised saints sing psalms and worship ghosts, while dogs and horses are pampered and groomed, and children are left to rot, to hunger, and to sink into crime, or shame, or the grave.

Holiness! For shame. The word is obnoxious. It has stood so long for craven fear, for exotistical inebriation, for selfish retirement from the trials and buffets and dirty work of the world.

What have we to do with such dreamy, self-centred, emotional holiness, here and now in London?

What we want is citizenship, human sympathy, public spirit, daring agitators, stern reformers, drains, houses, schoolmasters, clean water, truth-speaking, soap--and Socialism.

Holiness! The people are being robbed. The people are being cheated. The people are being lied to. The people are being despised and neglected and ruined body and soul.

Yes. And you will find some of the greatest rascals and most impudent liars in the "Synagogues and High Places" of the cities.

Holiness! Give us common sense, and common honesty, and a "steady supply of men and women who can be trusted with small sums."