Chapter II: Part 2

We like to think well of our fellow-beings, and we would like to think well of Christians, but we cannot do so as long as they pretend to believe what a person of intelligence, of good sense, cannot believe. Are Christians honest? Perhaps they think so, but have they ever really examined their belief in the light of the knowledge of the twentieth century? If they will do this, we do not see how they can longer profess to be Christians, if they are honest.

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When men are hungry roast mutton is better than the lamb that taketh away wrath.

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If a man can look in the mirror of his own soul without shame, he can look the whole world in the face without a blush.

THE DANGER OF THE BALLOT

Men speak usually as though voters ranged themselves on one side of a political question, or another, according to their convictions or principles. We wish this were so, then we should be nearer having a pure ballot. But we cannot share this lofty view. It does not seem to us that the average voter is a man of either political convictions or principles. Party service does not require intelligent, independent action, and politics to-day stands for party fealty more than for governmental ethics.

The main question that is decided by an election in our country is, which political party shall have the privilege of dispensing the offices of Government? There is a desire on the part of certain persons to obtain office, for either personal or party advantage, and this desire is oftentimes so fierce that it will betray the honor of citizenship. Where this is done, or attempted, lies the danger of the ballot.

If men voted only as their political convictions dictated, we should have a higher party morality and purer officers, but we must face the facts even though the duty is not an agreeable one. Politics has degenerated to a dirty business and political trickery and bribery secure victory where honor, integrity and principle suffer defeat. The plain truth is, we have a large class of voters who make merchandise of their right of suffrage, and a set of demagogues whose business it is to bribe or coerce voters for the advancement of selfish ends.

The honest, virtuous, intelligent, independent vote is the noblest power of a freeman, but the purchasable vote, the ignorant vote, the vicious and servile vote, is the opportunity of the knave and the scoundrel. The purity of the ballot is the only safety of a Republic, and no greater danger threatens this nation to-day than that which arises from the corruption of the suffrage. A ballot should be the honest declaration of our principles, the expression of our own opinions, the badge of our manhood; but when it is held in the hand that has sold it for a price, or will deposit it at the dictation of another, it is the prostitute of greed and the hired assassin of the despot.

Every man should select his own ballot and vote to please himself, and any person that would interfere with his right and duty to do this, should be disfranchised forever. _The individual who does not know enough to select his own ballot has no right to vote in this country._

There have been too many voters led to the polls, and used as party troops. There are still slaves on election day who are afraid of the crack of the whip. There ought to be permitted in this nation no political or religious disability on account of the honest exercise of the right of suffrage. A man should be protected from the politician and the priest. When a man votes as he thinks, he has discharged the highest duty of citizenship, but when he votes through bribe or fear, he forfeits the privilege of the ballot. The polls are more sacred to man than the altar. Religion might die and man could still have every blessing of earth, but when liberty is killed, the noblest blessing of earth has departed.

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The petty salvation offered by Christianity is not much sought after to-day, while the world is bending its mighty energies in the direction of knowledge as never before, and the glory of the electric light, the song of the steam-whistle, the music of the telegraph, the chorus of machinery and the grand anthem of countless enterprises tell of a bright and golden future time when man will master the elements of Nature and guide his life through its course of years in perfect safety and security and step down at the end of it,—“Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

WHO CARRIED THE CROSS

Who carried the cross upon which Jesus was crucified? Such a question ought to be easy to answer, if the event ever occurred. There ought to be no disagreement upon so simple a matter as this. But there is disagreement, and quite a serious one at that. Three of the gospels declare that Simon carried the cross, while the fourth gospel says that _Jesus_ himself carried the cross upon which he was crucified. Now, which is right? Is John right? If so, then Matthew, Mark and Luke are wrong. If Simon carried it, Jesus could not have done so; and if Jesus carried it, then Simon did not.

That there is such a discrepancy in the accounts of this alleged event does not so much indicate that one is right and the others wrong in regard to the carrying of the cross as that none is right. To our mind this disagreement of the gospels is an indication that no such event as the carrying of a cross upon which to crucify Jesus ever occurred.

Christians put forth the Bible as a work which in some way came from God; as a book which is reliable in its statements, and correct in its narrative of events. Now, it is patent to everyone that in the gospels there are two distinct accounts of the carrying of the cross. How can Christians reconcile this fact with their theory that God is the author of the Bible?

It must be admitted by all that one mind could not have written or inspired both of these stories, and it must also be admitted that if one is true the other is false. What is the natural conclusion that an unprejudiced mind would arrive at after reading the account of the carrying of the cross for the crucifixion of Jesus in the four gospels? Is it not that no such cross was ever carried for any such purpose?

There are too many gospels, too many stories of Jesus. It would have been better for Christianity had all but one of these narratives been destroyed. They contradict each other in so many essential points as to make them totally unreliable as records of facts. It is plain that _not one of the writers of the four gospels knew of what he was writing_.

We must in honesty say that no one knows who carried the cross on which Jesus was crucified, and no one knows whether Jesus was crucified or not, and no one knows whether any such person as Jesus ever lived, to be crucified.

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Civilization has come about by going to school more than to church.

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Nature is the volume from which all of our knowledge has been translated.

MODERN DISCIPLES OF JESUS

The modern disciples do not resemble very closely the ancient disciples of Jesus. In fact it is very hard to find a reason why Christian preachers call themselves disciples of Jesus at all. According to the narrative of the New Testament Jesus was not in love with money and what money will buy; he did not have a high appreciation of the good things of the world; he did not express any anxiety about his food or dress, nor manifest any desire to have aesthetic surroundings.

And if we can credit the story of the gospels, Jesus charged his disciples to be and do pretty much as he himself was and did. He said to them: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils; ... Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is worthy of his meat.... It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master.”

Whether or not the ancient disciples heeded these words of their master, and carried out his instructions, we do not know, but there is abundant evidence that his modern disciples do not pay his commands the compliment of obedience. If there is one item that the clergyman of to-day looks after it is his salary. He deliberately disobeys all of the injunctions of Jesus to his disciples, and thinks he is doing his duty to do so.

This is the funny part of his discipleship to us. He does not consider the charge of Jesus worthy of being heeded. When we point to the commands of Jesus, and ask some Christian minister why he does not obey them, he coolly informs us that it would be the height of folly in this age to attempt to do as Jesus commanded his first disciples. In other words the Christian clergyman acts upon the ground that the orders of Jesus to his apostles are incompatible with personal dignity and decent living, and that only a person utterly devoid of all sense of fitness and social responsibility would undertake to follow his directions.

We agree with the action of the modern disciple of Jesus in regarding his commands as foolish and unfit to be obeyed, but we want him to take an honest stand before the world and say so like a man. Now he is a hypocrite, when he assumes a place in the Christian ranks but refuses to obey the orders of his master. The modern disciple of Jesus is more concerned about putting money in a bank or investing it in real estate than he is about “laying up treasures in heaven.”

If there is one person who believes thoroughly in looking after himself and his in the world, and getting all the good things out of it, it is the Christian minister. He is well housed, well fed, well dressed, and, as a rule, has a comfortable income. How he must laugh when he reads the New Testament! He probably regards Jesus as a chump to tell men and women to take no thought for what they shall eat and drink and wear, and not to lay up a few dollars for a rainy day. He has to make believe honor the poor, unsophisticated peasant of Galilee, in order to get his fat living. He has to fool the fools that support him in luxury, but all the reverence he has for Jesus you could put in your eye.

If it paid better to tell the truth and to take an honest position in the world, we presume that most ministers would quit playing the hypocrite, but as long as Christianity pays its preachers more than they can get from any other source, we may expect them to profess to follow Jesus and then do as they please.

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Every fact is backed up by the whole universe.

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Christianity is a black spot on the page of civilization.

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The church is a bank that is continually receiving deposits but never pays a dividend.

A POOR EXCUSE

The excuse of the poor for not going to church is a poor excuse. The woman who does not go to church because she cannot dress well enough, cannot have much respect for her master. Jesus did not rail against the poor, but the rich. He did not condemn Lazarus, but Dives. Christian churches should be filled with rags, not silks; with paupers, not bankers. No one can be too poor to feel at home in the church of him who was too poor to have a place to lay his head. A Christian church is the church of poverty, and its minister should welcome the tramp, the beggar, the rag-muffin, and should give the cold shoulder to the rich merchant, the well-dressed politician, the prosperous citizen.

It is a singular thing that while silks despise rags, rags respect silks. The poor Christians ought to glory in their poverty, ought to be proud of their patches. They should have utter contempt for good clothes, and go to the church of Jesus with a feeling of pride that they honor him by being poor, as he was. Velvet, satin and broad-cloth are insults to him whose ragged royalty they profess to reverence.

If the poor were not as big hypocrites as the rich, they would drive the richly-dressed worshipers out of the church dedicated to the poverty-stricken Nazarene, who has been elected to the office of savior. A person has not very much Christianity when his religion is ashamed of his old clothes.

PROFESSION AND PRACTICE

There are a great many persons who are anxious to pass for more than they are worth, to stand for more than they represent. They always get on the side of the majority, because that is considered the safe side, the side that is most likely to have the largest number of loaves and fishes. These people are willing to pay the price of popularity; willing to do anything that is regarded as respectable, even to denying their own souls. The easiest way to win favor is by professing the popular faith, no matter what it is. A true man will be true to his convictions, true to his principles; but such a man may not receive applause, may not make money, may not be allowed to enter the door of society. In order to win the favor and secure the good-will of the majority, it is necessary to go with it, no matter where it is going. The thoughtless, the weak and simple, follow the crowd.

Profession is demanded of him who would join the ranks of the pious. Profession is required of the man or woman who belongs to the church. The performance of every duty, the practice of every virtue, is not a sufficient recommendation to popular favor. It is a fact that profession without practice is accepted in preference to practice without profession.

The man who gives his life to man without thought or care about God is considered a bad man, while he who gives his life to God without thought or care about man is regarded as holy and saintly. Nobody can do God any good or any harm, and all the worship that is offered him is a waste of time.

The man who stands up in public and asks God in prayer to help the poor, to bless the suffering, is looked upon as a good man, while he who does not pray nor ask God to do anything, but helps his needy brothers and sisters, is pronounced wicked and sinful. Values have become strangely mixed in the eyes of mankind. Religion is considered as worth more than morality; worship more than work; prayer more than performance and profession more than practice. This is wrong, false and foolish.

Profession is a mighty poor jewel, a cheap and flashy substitute for the diamond of practice. It is a confession of fraud; a mask for a face; a coward’s excuse; a hypocrite’s wile. Honesty need not profess to be honest.

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When a minister says that God will help you, ask him to put up the collateral.

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The church spends thousands of dollars to save a dogma, where it spends a cent to find a truth.

WHERE IS TRUTH

Men have enthroned truth in some far-off kingdom, away from the world, as though it were too pure to live on earth. It has been made supernatural, and only to be known by being revealed. But truth is everywhere; its voice is heard in everything. The very pebble at our feet holds its image, and its light twinkles in the white splendor of the distant star.

Man has searched for truth in books, but has not found it there. He has invented words to conceal his disappointment, such as God, heaven, providence, etc. Nature contains all the truth, and so far as men have read Nature aright they have learned what is true, but we cannot catch and hold Nature in our philosophies. She breaks through all the finely-woven theories we put about her, and man, in his attempt to bind Nature with his thoughts, binds only himself.

Men in all ages have tried to read the secret of the universe. We have been told that God directs it, that a divine mind planned it and keeps it in motion. Why not let the universe explain itself? Why not read it by its own light? Why not confess our ignorance? God is a figure of speech, but Nature is a reality. Let us trust what we know. Nature is never capricious. Fire will always burn, water will always drown, frost will always freeze. Though we have confidence in Nature, let us acknowledge that we do not yet comprehend the meaning of things. The old habit of inventing words to hide our ignorance has been adopted by science as well as by religion. Evolution does not reduce the mystery of existence to a simple problem. What we call truth is more than we have yet found. The unknown is still provocative of investigation, and the only prayer of the mind is, more light. We must beware of accepting dogmas, whether of science or religion. No statement is the last word of truth. Doubt is the first step of progress, and inquiry is the way to knowledge.

There is nothing that stands more in the way of human advancement than the authority of opinions. Some dragon of assertion ever disputes our right to the golden fleece of truth. If we ask for proof of God’s existence or man’s immortality, we are answered with a text, but a text is only the dead opinion of a dead man. This age demands truth, not the belief of a person who lived centuries ago.

Because superstition holds the contents of a book sacred we are not to enslave reason to its statements. We will not be bound by the opinions of others, neither must we bind others to our opinions. We must make freedom sacred, and cease condemning men for disbelief or unbelief. The bondage of faith is the slavery of the soul. It makes man unjust, unwise and unkind. Allegiance to a creed makes us ill use a man simply because he does not believe as we do.

No church has all the truth, and no school either. So-called religion merely shows where the search after truth ended. But truth is the infinite reality, and it will always be for man to find.

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Christianity is like a slow clock—always being moved ahead.

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The day of the Bible is passed. Books have taken its place.

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Better be late to church Sunday morning than late at home Saturday night.

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Man to-day has more and better ways of getting a living than at any time in the history of the race.

WHAT DOES IT PROVE

Christians say that the resurrection of Jesus proves his claim to be the Messiah. But what proves the resurrection? Certainly not the contradictory stories of the gospels. The story of the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb merely proves that somebody lied, that is all. A pretty Messiah Jesus was! The Messiah of the Jews was to be a king who should restore the lost splendor of the house of David; who should overthrow the power of the Romans and build up the Israelitish kingdom. This king never came. Jesus was just about as much a Jewish Messiah as Crispus Attucks was a President of the United States.

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No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can be made as large as man.

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To correct in ourselves what we condemn in others would remove most of the evils of life.

HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY

There is nothing that tends to perpetuate the weakness of humanity more than religion. Men have been taught for ages that they were dependent upon God for all they have. This kind of teaching must be corrected; it is false. Man is dependent upon man. No God will help or hurt him. Be he ever so good no God will praise him; be he ever so bad no God will blame him. What he wants to escape is his own condemnation.

In order to develop an independent spirit in man it is necessary to increase his responsibility. Man must be taught to rely upon his own strength, upon his own body and mind. He must learn his relations to Nature and abide by the laws of his being. He must know this: if he would have anything he must deserve it. Human destiny follows human conduct.

The old notion that man is responsible to God cannot be proved. There are no facts that corroborate that notion. Man is responsible to himself. It is this truth that is calculated to elevate and ennoble human life. Let human beings understand that there is that within themselves that is to be respected, and that they are responsible to themselves for all they do, and they will be more worthy of respect and live more worthy lives.

ABOLISH DIRT

We should like to see one generation brought up to hate dirt. Every child ought to be taught that clean hands and face and clean clothes help to a clean life. There are too many homes on this earth that human beings live in that are dirty, in which those three household gods—the broom, the mop, and the dust-rag—have no place.

Children should be taught to drive dirt out of the house as they would a mad dog. Dirt is the food of disease. It is the enemy of health and happiness. Abolish dirt.

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If God exists, what objection can he have to saying so?

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When we have nothing to give a beggar, we can at least tell him so kindly.

RELIGION AND MORALITY

A religious man is not trusted to-day because he is religious. Faith in vicarious atonement is not accepted as a moral substitute for meeting one’s obligations. Worship of God is not equivalent to helping your neighbor. The fact that a man is religious may not be proof that he is a bad man, but it is no evidence that he is a good man. The most contemptible wretch that ever robbed the widow or orphan could shine in a prayer-meeting, where words are passed for virtues. The veriest scoundrel can pay a pew tax and march up the aisle of the church with sanctimonious countenance. Religion is such a superficial affair that it carries no moral recommendation. Without morality religion could not borrow a dollar on its name, while morality without religion can get all the accommodation it asks for. The real virtues of a man do not depend upon religion. Men have lived good lives while believing in dozens of gods and without faith in a single god. Morality is not the offspring of theology. You cannot pick out a moral man by hearing him pray. A great deal of religion is worn to conceal moral defects.

We should watch the man who stands up in public and says: I am moral. We should say to him: It is not necessary for you to proclaim your morality; your daily life will show how moral you are. The world is becoming suspicious of him who stands up in public and says: I am religious.

A great many people seem to think if they profess to love God it is not necessary for them to love man.

We are not denying that a great many good men and women are religious; that a great many good men and women go to church and prayer-meeting. We do not deny that a great many moral men and women profess faith in total depravity, in vicarious atonement, but we do not see how their faith has anything to do with their morality. There is no particular necessity for Christians to be good. Their faith saves them, not their conduct. Religion is not doing, it is believing, or pretending to.

There is a big opportunity to lie in religion. You cannot tell when a person says he believes in God whether he is telling the truth or not. It is mighty easy to be religious. But the moral man has no such chance. He is not judged by his professions, but by his actions.

Religion makes hypocrisy easy, but morality offers the hypocrite no show whatever.

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Never forget the good deeds that others do to you, nor remember those that you do to others.

JESUS AS A MODEL

It is common to speak of Jesus as though he touched the borders of every human experience, and sounded the depths of every joy and every woe, but there is no warrant for such statements.

He lived a very narrow life, and his brief career cannot be stretched to cover the limits of our earthly existence. He is held up for us to imitate, as though he had left a pattern for every hour of our lives, and a model for every day from the cradle to the grave. This is simply nonsense. This “model” business has been overworked. Jesus had a great many crude, foolish ideas, and did a great many deeds that are not worth repeating. As a model of what is best in this age he is a wretched failure. It is a mistake to look upon Jesus as a fit person to lead our century to a higher life.

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There is nothing to live for in the past.

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We must condemn christianity, not christians; strike the church, but spare the heart.

SINGING LIES

Go into any Christian church and you will hear the choir and the congregation singing lies. Is it not time to stop it? Is music married irrevocably to falsehood? Take up an ordinary hymn-book and you will hardly find a sensible line in it. The entire contents of the book is about God, heaven, salvation, and other equally unknown quantities, states and conditions. Why not sing sense? Why not sing facts? Why not sing truth? Why not sing the glories of Nature, of life, of man?

Music is a wonderful power, a wonderful educator of the feelings and emotions. It is essential, therefore, that music be inspired by what is true, by what is good, by what is right. Truth should be set to music and the lips taught to sing what science has discovered, what art has done, what the universe reveals, what the world is living for.

The common Christian music is a wail of despair, a cry of sorrow, a shriek of fear. It is composed of false conceptions of Nature, of humanity, of life. It is a “doleful sound.” The triumph of faith which it celebrates is not a full, round, complete joy.

The Church does not know the music of laughter, the music of the heart. Its song seems always to hover on the brink of fear. It is not the glad note of natural freedom, but the uncertain joy of the escaped convict.

The free song must come from the free heart, must denote the free thought. Let life that is healthy, happy and human be set to music. Let us sing as we live, as we think, as we feel. The music of the hand, the mind, the heart, should be on the lips. If we could only sing what sings through us, the world would listen with rapture. We do not want “harmonious madness” nor harmonious idiocy. Pious music is stupid, false. It is inspired by the sickness of the world. We need a stronger note, a sturdier song.

Lies enough have been sung. Let truth now fill the air. Out of the great hope of the race let new songs come. We are beginning to live for life on earth, for happiness here, for love here, for victory here. Let the hands and feet, the brains and hearts of men and women move to the music of truth.

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There is not a village where poverty does not pinch the stomach or starve the mind, where misery does not need charity and where wealth could not bless.

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Piety could do nothing better than imitate morality.

A WALK THROUGH A CEMETERY

In walking through a country graveyard one sees a prominent granite or marble monument here and there, but more of the stones that mark the resting-places of the dead are modest in appearance, plain and humble. But there are some graves that are unmarked by any outward token of remembrance. Such graves may hold the dust of as great and good men and women as those spots above which has been raised the lofty shaft and costly design.

Graveyards are just as deceptive as are the homes of the living. A fine house is not proof of the moral, the manly or womanly worth of its occupant. Saints do not sleep beneath the gilded roof any more than under a leaky thatch. So also the wise, the good, the true, are not the ones over whose ashes rises the chiseled stone. The dead may deserve monuments that the living are not able to buy.

A graveyard might be called a library of lies. Epitaphs are to be read, and believed, if you can believe them. We have found as big falsehoods in cemeteries as in newspapers. “Say nothing bad of the dead” is kindly counsel, but, say nothing of the dead on a tombstone, is wiser.

We have seen a towering stone covered with words of praise over the ashes of a man, who, while living, was simply a lover of money. We have seen the sunken grave of a woman, with no marble to adorn it, who lived a heroic life of love and duty beyond words to tell. If virtues bore monuments one would rise over the neglected grave of that saintly woman that would reach the clouds, and that other grave would be stripped of its marble and left to oblivion.

Though a cemetery is more or less a museum of vanity and pride, there is at the bottom of the costly display of granite and marble a tender feeling, a commendable virtue. There may be as much love and respect for those in unmarked graves as for those who sleep in costly masonry or beneath sculptured stone. In walking through a graveyard, if our steps should go to the places where no monument invited the eye, they would be more likely to walk over the dust of those who did life’s duty well, than if they paused only before the imposing shaft or read the marble tale of virtue that never was told in deeds.

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God never helps those who need the help of men and women.

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No man ever knew Providence to interpose when his neighbor’s hens are scratching up his garden.

PEACE WITH GOD

A good, pious lady said to us not long ago: “Don’t you think that you ought to make your peace with God?” We have never had a bit of trouble with God. We have got along with him tip top. He has never shown that it was at all necessary for us to make peace with him. We have never quarrelled. If we are not at peace with God, we did not know it. We have no wish to have a row with anyone, and if God has the idea that we are mad with him or want to injure him in any way, we wish to disabuse his mind of such a notion.

We wish to say that we have never had any dealings with God, to our knowledge. If we have seen him, we did not know it. If he has spoken to us, we were not aware of the fact. If he has been in our presence at any time, we were not conscious of it.

We do not know that we have ever wronged God or that God has ever wronged us. We do not say that some word or act of ours may not have injured God.

All we can say is that we have no way of finding out whether such is the fact or not. Of course, we could not take the word of a priest or minister on this point. We want God’s own assurance in the matter.

Up to this time God has made no complaint to us that we have wronged him, or that we need to make our peace with him, and until we hear from his own lips that we owe him an apology, we do not intend to make one.

God is just as good to us as though he was dead. He does not cross our path, stand in our light, dog our steps, or interfere with what we are doing. He does not get in our way any more than if he lived in the planet Jupiter. So we do not see that we need to make our peace with him. We do not comprehend how there can be any collision between us.

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Priests will pardon thieves but not philosophers.

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Priest and God have formed some of the worst combinations in history.

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Too long has this world been at the feet of the priest. Man is never in that position for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the priest.

SAVING THE SOUL

The man who can deliberately, and in cold blood, as it were, try to save his soul, must be grossly selfish. To do that which shall redound to one’s own advantage or profit, without care or consideration of another, shows little humanity. The finer feeling is that which looks after others rather than one’s self. It can only increase selfishness to seek salvation.

When a man gets the idea that his soul must be saved, and goes to work to save it, the things that he will do in order to insure its salvation tend to lessen its value; and by the time he thinks his soul is saved it is generally not worth saving. The more willing we are to be lost, the more chance there is that we will not be.

The cheapest method of saving one’s soul is by believing something. This requires but little effort and no brains. Christianity is organized gullibility. It tells people to believe what it teaches and it will save their souls. It remains to be seen whether Christianity fulfils its part of the contract.

It occurs to us that before we try to save our soul we ought to know that we have a soul and that it needs saving. We fail to see any necessity for anxiety on account of our soul. We do not care to go into the salvation business and let the priest get all the dividends. Any person who can seriously talk about “saving his soul” ought to have a guardian.

THE SEARCH FOR SOMETHING TO WORSHIP

What is there in the universe that deserves worship? Is there anything? What is there that men and women should kneel to, pray to and adore? If there is anything that deserves such worship from human beings, where is it? Let us see if we can find any such thing.

We look at the earth and its inhabitants, and while we see much which calls for admiration, we find nothing to worship. The mountain impresses us with its towering grandeur, the ocean with its vast extent and terrible power, but we cannot get on our knees to rocks, no matter how high they are piled; nor pray to water, no matter how much there is of it. The flower elicits our wondering delight, but we cannot adore a rose, a sunflower or a daisy. We own the marvelous beauty of the animal form, but we cannot worship a horse, a tiger or a dog. We hear the gladness and madness of melody which comes from the throat of the bird, but sweet and entrancing as it is, we cannot adore a skylark, a nightingale or a thrush. We see man, the fairest form that walks the earth, the most marvelous piece of work that Nature reveals to our senses, but we cannot worship our own image.

Beyond earth the eye looks, and cloud, black or bright, is seen and the endless blue beyond the cloud, but man cannot get on his knees to vapor or pray to the sky. In the daytime the sun is seen, and at night the moon and countless stars, but man cannot worship a ball of fire nor a dying planet, or adore a point of light.

We can find nothing on the earth or in the heavens that we can worship. Is there something not on the earth or in the heavens? If so, what is it and where is it? What do men and women kneel to? Nothing. What do men and women pray to? Nothing. What do men and women worship? Nothing.

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Coals out of the ashes of love will never light the fires of friendship.

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The names of most men live on account of the falsehoods told about them.

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We should scorn the person who would be mean enough to allow his fellow-being to be punished for his deeds. Yet we have a religion in our midst that is founded on this kind of meanness.

WHERE ARE THEY

Where are the sons of gods that loved the daughters of men?

Where are the nymphs, the goddesses of the winds and waters?

Where are the gnomes that lived inside the earth?

Where are the goblins that used to play tricks on mortals?

Where are the fairies that could blight or bless the human heart?

Where are the ghosts that haunted this globe?

Where are the witches that flew in and out of the homes of men?

Where is the devil that once roamed over the earth?

Where are they? Gone with the ignorance that believed in them.

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No man was ever yet canonized for minding his own business.

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No man was ever yet sorry to find that he had married a good cook.

SOME QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIANS TO ANSWER

How do ministers know what pleases God?

What is “inspiration of God?”

When God “inspired men of old,” what did he do to them?

What has God revealed to man that has ever helped him get a living?

If we do not need to worship God six days in the week why do we need to worship him on the seventh?

If there were no ministers and no priests, how long would there be any churches?

If God will answer prayer, what is the necessity of working?

If God weeps when the poor suffer, what does he make it so cold for?

If rich men cannot enter the kingdom of God, what business have rich men to be in Christian churches?

If God is our “father,” does he take very good care of his children?

If God sends what blesses us, who sends what curses us?

If Christianity makes the world better, why is there so much vice and crime?

If “salvation is free,” why is anybody lost?

THE IMAGE OF GOD

We wonder if anyone knows what is meant by the expression, “the image of God.” It is said in the Bible that God “created man in his own image.”

If man makes anything in his image we know how this thing looks, but when God creates something in _his_ image we are at a loss to comprehend what is meant unless God has the likeness of man. In ancient times there is no doubt but what the assertion that God “created man in his own image” was accepted literally, that the people looked upon God as a big man. Later they came to look upon man as a little god.

But we are dealing with the brain of the twentieth century, with the common sense of a scientific age, when it is no longer believed that God “created” man at all. To-day the “image of God” is a puzzle. If God “created man in his own image,” in whose image did he create the elephant, the lion, the bear, the ox, the goat, the snake, the beetle, the bee, the fly, the gnat? These could not all have been created in the divine image, unless the divine image is a multitudinous likeness.

Is it not about time that a few literary murders were committed, that some one went through our literature and killed off a lot of nonsensical expressions that, if they ever meant anything, are meaningless today? If there was more honesty in the pulpit a great many Bible expressions would go out of fashion. One of the first that needs to die or be killed is this foolish expression, “the image of God.” It may be religious, but it lacks sense. It means nothing in this age. God is a term that eludes definition. It is a survival of an age of ignorance.

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A man may be a fool and not know it, but he cannot be a fool without others knowing it.

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There is a pious regard for certain men and women who have in past ages been, as it were, the world’s salvation. We would honor these men wherever piety offers her praise, but we would not, like piety, forbid man the right to excel them. We all know how much easier it is to be saved by another than to save ourselves, but it cannot be denied that there is a certain respect, a feeling of admiration, a thrill of reverence for the man who says: I am a free moral being and scorn to allow another to suffer for my sins.

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

When religion attacks science it is like trying to cut down the tree of truth with the hatchet of falsehood. It is unfortunate for Christianity that it was founded on the book of Genesis. A scientific fact is higher authority today than a religious fable. Science has found so many facts that contradict the stories of Genesis that to accept these stories as divine truth is to make falsehood the word of God.

The one particular enemy of every religion is science. With merciless labor her votaries have dethroned one after another idol of man. Science has no creed, no dogmas. Her search is for facts, and on these she stands. If what is discovered by lovers of truth is contrary to the tenets of religion, such tenets must be abandoned, for what is scientifically false cannot be religiously true.

The Christian church is built upon a lot of divine say-soes. Science has found that these say-soes are not so. The only honest thing for Christians to do is to give up the book of Genesis as a reliable record. What men have said that God has said is not necessarily sacred. Men may have lied, and lies are not holy. Christianity has been afraid of the divine name. What it has found in the name of God it has blindly worshiped as the word of God. This stupid action has been a prolific source of mischief. Faith has carried on its innocent back a thousand impositions through fear to doubt.

Science has not found the name of God in the earth or in the heavens. It has ignored the guide-board which the priest of religion nailed to the Bible, “this book shows the way to truth,” and has studied the volume of Nature instead. Whatever it has found has been told. What may be honestly inferred from the facts of science is that all religions are humbugs, and that Christianity is a fraud.

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The only way to a better life is by living better.

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The person who tells a lie does not know what he will have to do next.

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A great many persons have the idea that the universe would run off the track but for them.

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Have a good time, make life cheerful and bright, dance if you want to, sing if you can, play as long as you live and leave the world with a smile.

THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD

The longer we live the more are we convinced that no adult person would accept the Bible as a divine work if he had not been taught the dogma of the Bible’s divinity when a child. Let the matured mind come to the perusal of the Bible without the religious prejudice in favor of its divine character, and it would reject the book as unworthy the consideration of the intelligent, educated man. Let the refined sense, which all education in art, manners and social morals seeks to cultivate, begin to read the Bible, without the religious prejudice in favor of its sacred character, and before a dozen pages had been read, it would close the volume with disgust and hide it out of sight, or burn it as soon as possible.

The Bible’s divinity rests upon the mental and moral corruption of the young. Were children not taught that this book was sacred, men and women would look upon it as unholy. Do people realize what harm they are doing to the mind of the child when they teach it to accept the Bible as God’s word? They are telling the child that falsehood is sacred; that ignorance is holy; that foul stories are pure; that vile words are clean, in the mouth of God. Fathers and mothers would not tell their children what they, and what priests and ministers, tell them God wrote or inspired man to write.

What is needed to-day is to tell the truth about the Bible. Tell men and women that ignorant, uncultured, unrefined men wrote it hundreds of years ago, and that it is unfit in its present shape to put into the hands of a child that a mother wishes to grow up honest, true and pure.

Liberals should not allow their children to touch the Bible. They should keep it from them until they are old enough to know that no book was ever written by a God, and then, if they read the Bible, they would see its true character. We must guard the minds of our children from Christian influences. We pity the child that is taught that the Bible is the word of God, but we despise the man that teaches this falsehood.

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Most men would kill the truth if truth would kill their religion.

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The truths which God revealed have been overthrown by the truths which man has discovered.

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People used to think that to mix religion with business spoiled the religion, now they think it spoils the business.

WHEN TO HELP THE WORLD

Recently an old man, over eighty years of age, lay on his death-bed. He could no longer keep possession of the wealth he had accumulated. In a few hours he must leave it to the world from which he had taken it and kept it so many years. He had not been a generous man. He had loved money. He loved to get it and loved to keep it, and if he could have carried his wealth with him, whither he was going with that unknown guide, Death, there is no doubt but that he would have done so. He had given nothing to the world while he lived and he would not have given anything when he died, only that he was obliged to do so. This is the only charity of a great many people.

When death comes, then the hand of avarice must open. Nothing can be carried through the grave. So the old man must at last release his hold upon his gains. He must leave his loved dollars to somebody. He had gathered them for himself, not for others. He had thought only of himself when he gathered them, and now, when he was to part with them, he did not know what disposition to make of them. The lawyer was present at his bedside; the minister was also with him.

The will had been drawn. He had bequeathed certain sums to public charities and remembered the church. Life was almost gone. He hesitated yet to give up the control of his money to others. The pen was placed in his dying fingers for him to affix his name to the will. But he had waited too long. He died with the name unwritten, the pen unused in his dead hand.

Not voluntarily did he part with a cent of his fortune. His millions will now be divided by the law.

Is there in the bare possession of money the happiness that men desire, that men dream of, that men _want_? Is a dollar the highest goal of human effort, the crown of human endeavor? Is this dollar, the insignia of fortune, the true sign of good fortune? We believe not. The man who works for this and nothing else, is the slave of avarice; as hard, as cruel, as merciless a tyrant as ever cursed the earth.

Let every man strive for independence. Let man be rewarded well for his labor. Let every hand keep busy, but let there be a desire higher than money, a dream nobler than of gain, a want above the possession of riches.

There is a better charity than that unwilling gift which death compels us to make; it is to help the world while we live. There are two ways of doing this: by giving back a part of what we take,—that is one way and a good way—and by taking less from others, that is another way and a better way. The help that men need to-day is justice. Thousands are poor that one may be rich. Thousands toil that one may live in idleness. Thousands are in want that one may live in luxury. Thousands have not a dollar that one may have millions. This is not right, not fair, not just. Men must take less while they go through life.

It is not enough that a man on his deathbed give a college a million, a public library a million, a public park a million. _He should have no millions to give._ He should live a more just life and help others by trying to get less for himself. The public bequest is the popular atonement for large fortunes, but such atonement does not efface the sufferings of poverty and want they entail.

We say to the rich, do not wait until you die before you try to help your fellow-men. Help them while you are living. When a man has made money he should make a noble use of it, or he wrongs himself and the world.

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Where the cross has been planted only superstitions have grown.

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Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator is the mother of a chicken.

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Unless some people change their habits before they die, there will be a lot of dirty angels in the next world, if there is any next world.

THE JUDGMENT OF GOD