Chapter I: Part 1

The Christian Foundation,

Or,

Scientific and Religious Journal

Vol. 1. No 2.

February, 1880.

CONTENTS

The Influence Of The Bible Upon Civil And Religious Liberty. Liberty Of Conscience. The Orthodoxy Of Atheism And Ingersolism, By Rev. S. L. Tyrrell. The Shasters And Vedas, And The Chinese, Government, Religion, Etc. Ancient Cosmogonies. Some Of The Beauties (?) Of Harmony Among Unbelievers. Is God The Author Of Deception And Falsehood? Darwinism Weighed In The Balances. Was It Possible?

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE UPON CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

Civil government is a state of society in which men are reduced to order; it is a government in which every citizen has full power over his own rights, but is not at liberty to infringe upon the rights of others. The deepest thought in the word _civil_ is the idea of being hedged around by restraints, so as to be shut in from all privilege, or right, of meddling with the rights of others. The Welsh use the word “cau,” to shut, inclose, fence, hedge.

Civil liberty is liberty modified by the rights of others. No man has a right, by any Divine warrant, to infringe upon the rights of another; and cannot do it without forfeiting more or less of his own. This thought, that a man may forfeit his rights, is as essential to proper conceptions of civil government, and civil liberty, as the thought that a man has rights; for if there be no forfeiture of rights through crime, then all legal punishments are without foundation in justice; even the right of self-defense, individually and nationally, ceases to exist. And if this be taken away, all support and strength in civil government is gone; anarchy and ruin only may remain. In all civilized nations a man is regarded as forfeiting his right, _even to life_, by trampling upon the _life-right_ of another, and, while the danger lasts, the assailed may defend his life, in the absence of any other defense, even at the expense of the life of the assailant. To deny this doctrine of the right of self-defense, it is only necessary that we deny that a man can forfeit the right of life. To do this is equal to the affirmation that God is the author of coexisting and conflicting rights. Such rights can exist only at the expense of the destruction of all governments, both human and Divine, as well as all healthy influences of social institutions. It is essential to civil liberty to restrain men from all interference with the rights of others. The greatest degree of civil liberty is enjoyed where men are successfully restrained from such officious interposition. A people may enjoy civil liberty without extending the right of suffrage to all ages and to both sexes; without making all eligible to office; without abolishing paternal authority over minors; without abolishing the punishment of criminals, or the right of the State to the service of its citizens when the public good requires it.

The word _civil_ also signifies courteous, complaisant, gentle and obliging, well-bred, affable, kind. From this it will be seen that civil government depends upon the intelligence and righteousness of the people. The absence of all legal demands and all legal restraints would be the absence of all government. It would be libertinism or lawlessness. The great majority of men, from the earliest ages of the world to the present time, have been under the control of tyrants, and have known little exemption from despotic rule. There is not a single Pagan, Mahomedan, or anti-Christian country to-day in which the spirit of liberty has an abiding place. She may have brooded over them at intervals, but, like Noah’s bird, found no resting place.

The influence of the Bible preventing the young, the mature, and the aged from crime, causing men and women to love and respect our humanity, is of necessity _to the same extent_ the very life of civil government, and consequently the life of civil liberty. It has been said the Bible is the great protector and guardian of the liberties of men. It was an axiom in an apostate church, that ignorance is the mother of devotion; but the true origin of this axiom is that ignorance which fastens the chains of civil and ecclesiastic despotism.

It is not possible for a people thoroughly under the influence of the teachings of the religion of Christ to be ignorant of their own rights and the responsibility of their rulers. Where the teachings of Christ and the Bible form public opinion the people must be free. No such tyrant as Caligula or Nero would be tolerated in Protestant Christendom. The necessary effect of Christianity upon an abused people is to make them restless under a tyrant’s yoke. The author of Travels in England, France, Spain and the Barbary States, although an enemy to the Bible, said, after leaving the Barbary States and arriving in France, I could breathe more freely. I no longer looked upon my fellow men with distrust, and I thanked God that I was once more in a Christian land. When we survey the history of past events and kingdoms we, too, find good reasons to thank the Lord for a Christian land. The only authoritative history of remote events and kingdoms is in the writings of Moses and the Prophets. In the times of Moses there were no historical records in Greece, Chaldea, Phoenicia, Egypt or Assyria. No other historian lived so remote as Moses. He was five hundred years before Sanconiathan, and more than a thousand years before Manetho. He has been called the _father of history_. Men have claimed that astronomical calculations carry us farther back, but this claim has been successfully refuted by the calculations of Bedford. There is a fact upon record in Gillie’s history of Greece that confirms Bedford’s calculations. This man says: After Alexander conquered Babylon he eagerly demanded the astronomical calculations that had been preserved in that ancient capital about nineteen centuries, and ordered them faithfully transcribed and handed to Aristotle, who was the preceptor of this prince. They extended back twenty two hundred and thirty-four years behind the Christian era. There is no reliable history so ancient as the writings of Moses. All the efforts between Moses and David are without regular form—a mass of rearranged tradition, both fabulous and corrupt; long after the times of David the pages of writers regarded authentic, are loaded with absurd and disgusting fictions.

Nimrod’s kingdom was Babel, and he was a tyrant, instigating war and bloodshed everywhere, laying the nations under tribute and transmitting his tyrannical spirit and powers from son to son, until the Egyptians drove his descendants into Canaan and Joshua drove them into Greece. Ninus inherited the spirit of his father, and the history of his empire, until it was overthrown by the Babylonians and Medes, is a history of absolute Assyrian despotism.

The Babylonian Empire was no better from the revolt of Nebopolassar to its destruction by Cyrus. Egypt and Persia were also equally deprived of the blessings of civil liberty. Greece and Rome were in no better condition with the exceptions of a few restrictions consequent upon Greece being controlled by established customs and Rome by the Senate. These nations were comparatively free, but their freedom did not grow out of a comprehension of the rights of their citizens.

The Jewish Republic is the first ancient government where the people exerted any proper influence in state affairs. It is worthy of special consideration that the Jewish laws were adapted to civil liberty in an age when human rights were so little understood. There is no one work so full of the great principles of civil wisdom as the Pentateuch and the history of Judah and Israel. They were free in choosing their form of government; free in the establishment of their laws; free in the fact that their laws governed and not men. Their form of government was republican, with healthy limitations. Twelve tribes were united in one great republic like so many confederated states bound together for purposes of defence. At first God was their king. After awhile they desired another king, and their form of government was changed to a limited monarchy upon their own request. Their kings did not enter upon their duties until they were accepted and crowned by the people, and then they were restricted in their power by sworn stipulations.

Bad men do not make good citizens. There never was a nation of infidels or idolaters, existing as such, in the enjoyment of freedom. Holland was free as long as she was virtuous. She flourished as a republic, produced great and learned statesmen; she became corrupt, and infidelity banished her glory.

When Perrier, of France, the successor of Lafayette in the office of Prime Minister to Louis Phillipe, was on his death bed he exclaimed, with much emphasis and zeal, “France must have religion”—man must be governed by moral truth or by despotic power. Liberty does not flourish without morality, nor morality without the religion of the Bible. The love of law, the love of wisdom, the love of benevolent institutions, and the love of virtue makes a people free. When these are absent tyrants are present. When a nation becomes corrupt, liberty degenerates into parties and factions until the stubborn necessity of the strong arm of despotism makes its appearance to control the passions of men. If pride, selfishness, love of gold, thirst for power and licentiousness, are not controlled liberty will die. It may be truthfully said that the high-toned principles of Bible morality are necessary to the good of all classes. These, and only these, will unite a people in one grand national brotherhood, wiping out its factions and hatred, extinguishing party spirit and bringing all the parts into one great whole. Many minds are so opposed to the Bible that they _are_ inclined to oppose any government based upon its contents. This is a fearful current, and we should always watch against being carried away upon its turbid waters. Ours is a Christian land, and we shall be a free people as long as we remain a Christian people. While the Bible is loved and honored our freedom will continue; beyond this there is nothing to hinder us from _degenerating into slavery_. All great struggles in Christian lands have been great _moral_ and political struggles.

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.

This phase of the question rises very high in our estimation; for we have been taught to regard the rights of conscience and to esteem them above all other rights in a free country. There can be no civil liberty where the rights of conscience are ignored. The teachings of the Bible are opposed to all interference by law with man’s religious faith and worship. Religious liberty asks for no laws meddling with the rights of conscience. Such laws, whether of tolerance or of intolerance, are always in conflict with the spirit of the religion of Christ; for it asks for the soul’s free, voluntary service. As American citizens we ask, at the hands of our Government, to be protected, in common with all other citizens, in the free exercise of the rights of conscience. We ask no interference with religion by law, and we apprehend none in our country. If our religion cannot take care of itself, by the force of its own merits, it must perish.

Rivers of blood have been offered upon the altar of a blind intolerance. Look at Antiochus sacking the city of Jerusalem and laying the country waste. Look at the slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem under Herod’s jurisdiction. In many ages of the world religious intolerance has been the fruitful source of misery and bloodshed.

The religion of the Bible does not rest itself upon the authority of man; much less is it responsible for the cruel results of wicked efforts to establish or overthrow it by law. Causes outside of Christianity in the hands of wicked men are responsible for every drop of blood that has been shed in the name of our holy religion. Christianity has nothing to fear in our country as long as our law-makers remember that their whole duty consists, not in making or unmaking rights or religion, but in making laws protecting all in the enjoyment of their rights. The principles of religious liberty set forth in the Bible are the following: First, the word of God is the only source of authority in religious matters. Neither tradition, nor remote antiquity, nor ecclesiastical decisions, nor statutes, but the Bible is supreme in our religion. Second, the Bible allows, and demands, the right of private judgment in all matters of faith and duty. This is based upon the well-defined principles of individual and personal responsibility. “Let every man prove his own work.”

The true and intelligent Christian has always been opposed to ecclesiastical establishments by law, and the authority of the state to produce unity of faith and worship. In all such matters we are responsible to God alone. His authority is all that is needed in order to the soul’s own free service; and this is the only acceptable worship. The third great principle of religious liberty is this: the Bible contains the only infallible standard of faith and worship, and its author is the only infallible judge. The Bible gives to no man, or set of men, dominion over the human conscience, but on the contrary lays the solemn injunction upon each individual: “Prove all things and hold fast that which is good.” The direction of Christ is in these living lines: “Call no man master, for one is your master, even Christ.” Every man’s own works are the only true expositor of his character, because they are the fruits of the affections which point him out as an enemy, or as a friend, of righteousness.

The man who abuses the right of private judgment has a fearful account to render—let him see to that. If he receives not the truth in the love of it that he may be saved, it is at his own peril. The field of investigation is the place where Christianity has won her most splendid victories. She has always lost when wicked men have called in the aid of the secular arm; for it is a very great error to suppose that you can deal successfully with a man’s spiritual nature by such forces; it was not made for such government. By the secular arm you may force a wicked man to be a hypocrite, but you cannot make him a Christian in that way; for you cannot reach his understanding, nor give life to his conscience by any such means.

There are two extremes, however, which we must carefully avoid: First, that it is a matter of total indifference what religious principles a man adopts and what form of worship he prefers. The Bible contains essential principles—principles which constitute the essence of the gospel of Christ which must be received, loved and obeyed, in order to the enjoyment of the promises of salvation. The sentiment that it matters not what a man believes, is no part of the religious liberty which the Bible inculcates. Such a sentiment is everywhere discouraged and denounced. A forcible writer said: Keep clear of uncommon pretensions to charity. Believe the love of God, and be satisfied with his charity, and never dream of making an improvement upon his character.

The other extreme is to have no charity at all. There are many things about which men may safely differ, but they are neither precepts to be obeyed, nor facts to be believed. Differences may exist in opinions, but not in facts to be believed, nor in commands to be obeyed. Christians are such in virtue of faith in Christ and obedience to his commandments. Wherever the minds of men have been brought under the power of the Christian religion, there they have been the devoted friends of such liberty. Such were the adherents of Luther in Germany, the Lollards in England, and the adherents of Knox in Scotland. Such was the case with Holland when her republican virtues, learning and piety, moral and literary institutions made her famous throughout the earth. “Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” One of the most erroneous objections to Christianity is that it is calculated to subject the many to the few, but its spirit and tendency is to bring all, both the rich and poor, on one common level. It pronounces temporal circumstances matters of no consequence, all men creatures of God, made of one blood, having a common nature, subject to common sufferings, common dependence and responsibilities. It teaches us to “defraud no man,” to “corrupt no man,” to “love our enemies,” to “pray for those who despitefully use us,” to “disregard external distinctions.” In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one. The poor are exalted and the rich are humbled. Tholuck says: “The cultivated heathen were offended at Christianity because the higher classes could no longer have precedence of the common people.” A religion which teaches that all are upon one grand level under its influences will certainly teach us that all are equal in the presence of the law. Christianity is not only a stranger to despotism, but denounces it in the plainest terms. Its great founder said: “Whosoever will be great among you let him be your servant, and whosoever will be chief let him be your minister.” What greater calamity could we experience than the loss of the last copy of the New Testament? Who would bring over the world once more the darkness of Paganism? Who would have our Government put on Roman character? Who would have us foster the basest passions of men? Who would throw the human intellect back into a state of uncertainty respecting a future existence and the manner of securing its blessedness? Who would dry up the living fountains of joy which have been opened to us in the gospel? Who would destroy the motive power of our religion and wither its fruits of righteousness? Who would rob the bereaved heart of its consolations and provoke anew the tears of the mourner which have been wiped away? Who would go to the widow and say: Go and visit the grave of your loved one and weep without hope! Yes, weep with the terrible thought that this parting is to last forever! Weep with trembling, and at last step into the grave with awful uncertainty, to learn all there, and never bring back the secret. Who are they who would restore to death its sting and to the grave its victory? What victories have they ever achieved for our humanity? No calculations could measure the sacrifice it would cost to part with the Bible forever. Wicked men would toll its funeral, while the innocent ones of earth would bathe in tears and turn away in sorrow. Let us never persecute those unfortunate men who are opposing the truth of our religion on account of the errors of the creeds of our fathers. Let us always avoid a spirit of despotism and persecution, because it is dishonorable. If there must be persecution, let truth be the victim. Error is not worthy of the honor that martyrs bear.

It is better that we “suffer for well-doing than for ill-doing,” therefore let us criticise ourselves severely, but deal with others in love. The Bible is our authority in religion, and the civil arm is our protection in the state. Religious freedom is ours—may it long remain the glory of our country. In comparison with this freedom all else is mere illusion. You may enjoy all the freedom that this world can give, and if you are slaves to sin you are miserable slaves to a cruel master. The intellectual and moral condition of the soul, constituting its highest glory, is a liberty worthy of the name. Such an one, in a very important sense, is free indeed, free in solitude, free in poverty, free in abundance, free in life, free in death, free everywhere, and forever free.

THE ORTHODOXY OF ATHEISM AND INGERSOLISM, BY REV. S. L. TYRRELL.

“Hail human liberty; there is no God!” Such is the exulting song of many a human heart when bewildering metaphysics or superficial science has crowded from its convictions faith in the Deity and his moral government. Few men have reached the pure, unclouded heights of religion and morality, where the unselfish love of the holy and the right, for their own inherent excellence, forms the controlling motive of their conduct, regardless of penalty or reward. Humanity is yet on the low moral plane, where penal laws, human or divine, are the most potent forces in regulating human life. Hence the sad fact appears that when theism seems most successfully assailed we hear from many quarters ill-concealed rustlings of exultation at the welcome loosening of the bonds of morality and religion. It seems to be overlooked that a very stern theological system may be quite rationally evolved from atheistic premises; and there is now a new and very tempting field inviting some bold Calvin or Luther in the ranks of positivism to write an immortal book, with the original and attractive title, Ethics of Atheism. The great offense of the scientific (sciolistic) atheist is his lofty arrogance. He complacently assumes the name of Infallible Wisdom. He “understands all mysteries;” his mental telescope sweeps eternity “from everlasting to everlasting;” his microscopic vision pierces the secrets of creation,—sees the beauty and order of all celestial worlds emerge from fiery chaotic dust,—by the fortunate contact of cooling cinders of the right chemical properties and temperature, he secretes and hatches into life an egg, or cell of throbbing protoplasm; to this pulsating mass of jelly there comes from the unconscious abyss at length a vague instinct, a drowsy awakening of desire; next a feeble gleam of definite thought; reason then faintly dawns, and lo! at last this fair universe burst into glorious light, clothed in surpassing loveliness, throbbing with love, tender sympathy and sublime aspiration, and all through the magic potency of blind matter and unconscious force, without an architect or guide. O, wondrous matter, could a God do more?

O, divine science (sciolist), we bless thy name; thou hast delivered us from the terrors of dogmatic fear! Man is but dust, and unto dust shall he return; “let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” But ere we run riot in the intoxication of our new-born freedom from divine law, does not the skeptical, cautious, scientific spirit admonish us to pause a moment and look logically at another class of possible achievements of this wonder-working, material power. In philosophical researches, analogy is a recognized and legitimate guide to truth. Admitting, then, that pure matter has done all that materialism claims it has done in the past, let us look by the light of analogy at other and graver possibilities it may have wrought in its reckless, unrestrained creations. Time is a mighty attribute of evolutionary divinities; its power seems next to infinite. In a few millions of years Alexanders, Bonapartes, Bismarks, Miltons, Edisons and Ingersols have been evolved from thoughtless chaos; now, if in limited time (for what are millions of years to eternity) such majestic mental forces have been developed from the inexhaustible store-house of _intellectual nothingness_, why should bold mathematical science deem it a “thing incredible” that in an eternity of time, with an unlimited amount of matter for capital and infinite space for a theater of action, this mind-evolving force may not have generated beings of almost infinite capacities—even a monarch who sways a scepter over more worlds than one—EVEN A GOD. Why should material philosophy cavil at the creeds which teach a righteous judgment to come? Have not the judicial elements of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen combined to organize on one planet at least courts of equity and judgment seats, and crystalized into prison walls and hand-cuffs the gallows and the hangman? Upon the established scientific principle that nature’s laws are uniform, undeviating and universal in their action, does not the analogy of earthly tribunals logically necessitate the belief that our globe is but a province of the infinite empire governed by righteous laws, of which enlightened human laws are a partial revelation.

Modern science teaches the oneness of the universe and the identity and sameness of the matter composing it. What then can be more strictly scientific and demonstrable from materialistic premises than the vast conclusion that uniform passive matter, operated upon by the same undeviating laws, must in all worlds produce the same results and evolve, as it has on our planet, intelligence in which a sense of right and justice shall predominate, and everywhere and in all time, enact and execute laws discriminating between right and wrong? What astronomical prediction, then, can be more certain of fulfillment than this moral prophecy of the final eclipse of evil and ultimate triumph of the right? With no existing power to arrest or mitigate the sentence of this relentless, carboniferous judge, how fearful may be the possible fate of those who disregard the moral laws of protoplasm. Matter has evolved a Franklin and a Morse, who learned to wield the lightning’s power. Why may there not have been evolved in the infinite past a more profound electrician, who, with his battery and etherial wires can shiver a planet with his touch? A marvelous power—the human spirit—has gained a vast control over the blind, stubborn substances and forces that created it, and by its immaterial, invisible will, can in a limited degree overrule the most imperious law of nature by throwing a stone into the air. Is it unscientific, then, or derogatory to the vaunted potency of matter to affirm that the eternal ages may have developed an intelligent will that can project a planet or sun, as the human will and muscle project the pebble? Scoff not, exalted sages, at the weak terrors of those who tremble at the dogma of a malignant devil; consider that pity and compassion are not the known chemical constituents of this soulless creator. Where, then, can we fix the limit of that unconscious, fiendish force that evolved a Nero, and incarnated in human bodies the myriads of demoniac spirits that walk the earth to-day? Egotistical scientist (sciolist) calm the cyclone, quiet the engulphing earthquake, blot from human history the records of war, pestilence, famine, the tales of St. Bartholomew and the Inquisition, and then deny by material philosophy the possibility of even a Calvinistic hell; deny the personality of man because your microscope and scalpel can not find a soul by dissecting the brain of the mathematician, and then deny a personal God because his spirit eludes the grasp of sealed crucibles and can not be detected by digging in the earth with the spade. Deny the existence of conscious life, and then in the light of reason and science deny that the forces that generate life must from necessary law work for its continuance and immortality. Extreme materialism confidently teaches the birth, death and resurrection of planetary universes; why should such grand faith stagger at the theory of the resurrection of a soul? Where is the scientific absurdity of Renan’s distant hope, that this mighty resurrection of dead worlds will embrace in its infinite scope the awakening to consciousness; the universal past consciousness of the universe. May not both theist and atheist find in this line of thought a partial answer to the oft recurring modern prayer, “Help thou mine unbelief.”—_From the Religio-Philosophic Journal._

Can you believe that all things are the result of blind, unintelligent forces, operating under mechanical laws?

THE SHASTERS AND VEDAS, AND THE CHINESE, GOVERNMENT, RELIGION, ETC.

Men who wish to be known as scientific skeptics and unbelievers often boast that the above-mentioned books are more worthy of respect than the books of the Bible. For the benefit of all who may not have access to those books, the following, from Duff’s India, credited to the Shasters, may be of service in the search after truth:

“Brahm produced an egg. All the primary atoms, qualities, and principles, the seeds of future worlds, that had been evolved from the substance of Brahm, were now collected together and deposited in the newly produced egg. And into it, along with them, entered the self-existent himself, under the assumed form of Brahma; and then he sat vivifying, expanding, and combining the elements, during four thousand three hundred millions of solar years. During this amazing period the wondrous egg floated like a bubble on the water, increasing constantly in size. At length the supreme, who dwelt therein, burst the shell of the stupendous egg and issued forth under a new form with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand arms. Along with him issued another form, huge and measureless, which speedily matured into the present glorious universe.”—_Shasters._

In Hindostan we may see on one hand the trident of Neptune, the eagle of Jupiter, the satyrs of Bacchus, the bow of Cupid and the chariot of the Sun; on the other, we hear the cymbals of Rhea, the songs of the Muses, and the pastoral tales of Apollo Nomius. The Hindoos enumerate four grand periods in the world’s history called _yugs_. The first comprehends one million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand years. The second, one million two hundred and ninety-six thousand; the third, eight hundred and sixty-four thousand years, and the fourth four hundred and twenty-three thousand years. Four thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven of the last yug expired in eighteen hundred and forty-three. The incredibility of their chronology will be seen at a glance, if you recollect that it is claimed that one of their sovereigns lived through the whole of the first yug. Veda is a generic name for their four oldest and most sacred books, containing simply a revelation directly from Brahma.

Many unbelievers in this, and the old world, who have set themselves against our Bible, have indorsed the Vedas as scientific, without so much as having read or known one line in them. These Vedas profess to go back through _maha yugs_ of 4,320,000 years of men. A thousand of these _maha_ yugs, or 4,320,000,000 of years make a _kalpa_, or one day of the life of Brahma, and his night is of equal length; a hundred such days and nights measure the time of his life.

These books give, as facts, seven great continents, separated by that many rivers and seven mountain-chains four hundred thousand miles high. They record a hundred sons to one king, ten thousand to another, and sixty thousand to another. These kings were in no danger from violating the command to “multiply and replenish the earth;” but there is one difficulty, at least, about the records concerning the seventy thousand and one hundred sons born to these three kings, and that is this, the records say: They were all born in a pumpkin and nourished in pans of milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a sage, and restored to life by the waters of the Ganges. Those same sacred books say: The moon is fifty thousand leagues higher than the sun, and that it shines by its own light and animates our body; they say, the sun goes behind the Someyra Mountains and this makes the night; they say, these mountains are many thousand miles high, and are situated in the middle of our earth; they say, our earth is flat and triangular, having seven stories, each one of peculiar beauty, having its own inhabitants, and each one having a sea. The first story of earth, they say, is composed of _honey_, the second is composed of _sugar_, the third of _butter_, the fourth of _wine_; and the whole thing is carried upon the heads of elephants, and when these shake themselves earthquakes are produced. Among the astronomical calculations which confirm all this there are accounts of floods of waters rising to the Polar star. How is that for a flood?

Infidel, if you read this, and remember that you have been guilty of foisting the Vedas against the Hebrew Scriptures, hide your face and do it no more. The Hindoos worship cats and monkeys and holy bulls and sticks and stones. They are yet sacrificing their infants in that sacred river, _Ganges_. The car of Juggernaut, ’tis said, is yet rolling on its bloody wheels, and women are yet burned upon the dead bodies of their husbands. What is the trouble with those unfortunates? Well, they enjoy freedom from the Bible, freedom from the Bible God, and freedom from the Protestant and Catholic clergy—the freedom that the infidels of the United States concern themselves so much about. Give them what they plead for and it will not be long until they will have more hell than they will love or worship. Infidels boast of the worth of the writings of Confucius and the religion of the Chinese. Let us look after their condition. Here it is, as given in the Universal Vocabulary. As they are esteemed by unbelievers so ancient as to put to shame all others pretending to antiquity, we must be allowed to make the test of their religious and scientific tree by its fruits. First. “If a person be suspected of treason he is put to death in a slow and painful manner, all his relations in the first degree are beheaded, his female relations sold into slavery, and all his connections residing in his house are put to death. If a physician treat the case of a patient in any way different from established rules, and the patient dies, he is treated as guilty of homicide, though, if on his trial it be shown that it was a mere error, he is redeemed from death, but must quit his practice forever. When a debtor is unable to meet the demand of his creditor he receives thirty blows, and the same number may be repeated from time to time till the debt is paid. In case the creditor violently seize the debtor’s goods he is liable to eighty blows. In order to the collection of debts, it is customary for creditors to enter the houses of their debtors on the first day of the year and pronounce their claims with a loud voice, and continue there until they are reimbursed. It is said that this teazing proves a successful method of collecting debts; inasmuch as the debtor, fearing that something may befall the creditor while in his house, and, therefore, suspicion fall on him, he is moved to use all possible endeavors to answer the demand. Women are sold in marriage and the highest bidder takes them. Their government is patriarchial and despotic. The emperor is styled Holy Son of Heaven, Sole Governor of the Earth. Their religion is paganism.”

Zell’s Encyclopedia gives the following items as true to-day: “Their husbandry is, to a great extent, nullified by the rude and ill-adapted implements employed therefor, and also by the smallness of the farms. Hence, agriculture, as scientifically considered, is but little advanced.” The form of government is strictly patriarchial. The emperor, who bears the various euphuistic titles of the “Brother of the Sun and Moon.” _Teen-tsye_, or the “Sun of Heaven;” _Ta-hwang-li_, or the “Great Emperor;” and _Wansuy-yay_, or the “Lord of a Myriad Years,” is regarded as the father of his people, and has unlimited power over all his subjects. The emperor is spiritual as well as temporal sovereign, and as high priest of the empire, can alone, with his immediate representatives and ministers, perform the great religious ceremonies. The bamboo, as the chief instrument of government, is applied without distinction, to the highest and lowest Chinese.

The imperial palaces are of great extent, consisting of a series of courts, with galleries and halls of audience beautifully painted. The temples differ greatly in form and size. The ordinary temples or _joss-houses_, consist each of one chamber _containing an idol_. This, gentle reader, is the store-house of pagan idolatry to which some unbelievers in Indiana and elsewhere resort for names or titles by which to designate the houses of Christian worship in our own country. How would those men like to emigrate to China, where they could have a language that suits their taste, and a literature and religion about which they have boasted so much? If Chinese government, religion, and literature and science be so old as is claimed by Chinamen, and by infidels in our country, and its age be the cause of its great superiority in religion and science, may we not thank the Lord that we are young?

ANCIENT COSMOGONIES.

The Mosaic method found in the first chapter of the book of Genesis is not the method of physical science; this seeks, by induction, after laws, principles and causes, stepping backwards step by step, seeking, by the light of physical science, the character of that unit which lies at the base of the whole series of all created things. “The world by wisdom knew not God.” The truth of this statement is monumented by the literature of the unbelievers of the nineteenth century. To-day, men who refuse Bible instruction talk of the unknown and the unknowable, thus conceding that their efforts as naturalists, or “natural men,” are not sufficient in their results to disclose the character of the great first cause. The same great failure has been, and ever will be, made by all mere naturalists. In view of this fact it is well that Moses gives us at once the great first cause in the phrase, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There is in this sentence no limitation of time, so there is room here for astronomical ages, cycle upon cycle. There was time enough in that beginning for the present system of planets to be arranged from a single nebulous mass. In it we have a picture of matter in a crude condition, without fixedness of form, surrounded with darkness. Then comes the commencement of the great work of preparing our planet for the home of man, by the spirit of God moving over the chaos. There is nothing in this statement that should perplex any man, unless he is that fool who “says in his heart there is no God.” If the chaos here described was matter in a rare, gaseous condition, floating in space, molecular motion produced by the spirit of God brooding over it, and a chemical change producing electricity may have given the light called the first day.

Here is that troublesome word _day_. Why should it give trouble to any scientist? It is a part of his duty to know that neither this word nor the context in the first chapter of Genesis, nor biblical usage, requires us to limit the term to a period of twenty-four hours. But the context does limit it, in its first occurrence, to an indefinite period of _light_. “GOD CALLED THE LIGHT DAY!” In the fourth verse of the second chapter the word is used to cover the whole period of time past, both the beginning and the subsequent six work-days of the Almighty, thus: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, IN THE DAY when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” This is no modern invention, gotten up to serve a purpose; for Augustine so understood this matter in the fourth century. He called them “ineffable days,” describing them as alternate pauses in the work of God. Such was the interpretation given by the first Christians. Why should we try to measure this term day, in its first occurrences, by a chronometer which did not come into use until the fourth day? The notion that these days were twenty-four hours, sprang up in the middle ages, and is the child of the literalism and realism of those times. Moses gives seven great constructive periods of light, which beautifully harmonize with the seven great geological ages lying this side of his beginning. How he came to do this has perplexed the incredulous scholar and historian beyond measure; it is, indeed, a remarkable fact in literature, but it gives strength to the faith of the intelligent Christian. God was with Moses; his cosmogony bears evidence of inspiration. Compare his narrative with the cosmogonies of the ancient nations. There is but little similitude; if there was much it would not prove identity. It would be strange if the ancient nations should have no truth in their cosmogonies. And if they had, would it not be more strange for Moses to leave it out on that account? It would be well to remind you just here that the Almighty, and doubtless his man Moses also, knew that men possessed at least _common sense_. In the New Testament we have the word tartarus in its verb form. Where did it come from? The Apostle Peter, guided by the divine spirit, found it in Grecian mythology. Is it to be thrown out on that account? Nay, verily. A man of God, that is, a prophet, in any of the ancient ages as far back as Moses, is not to be regarded as under obligations to shun a truth because it was already in use among men. The man who would claim such a silly thing ought to be discarded from scientific and literary circles as a blockhead. The cosmogony of the Babylonians represents the beginning of things in darkness and water; in which great non-descript animals, hideous monsters, half-beasts and half-men, made their appearance; then a woman, who personates the creative spirit or principle, was split into two parts, and the heaven and the earth produced by the division. Next Belus, the supreme divinity, cut off his own head, and his blood, trickling down and mingling with the dust of the earth, produced human creatures having intelligence and spiritual life. The Phœnician cosmogony presents, first, an ether or a mist diffused in space. Next, a wind arose, and from this motion proceeded a Spiritual God, from whom proceeded an egg, which, being divided, produced the heavens and the earth. Next, the noise of thunder awakened beings into spiritual life. The Egyptian cosmogony presents a principal divinity, whose name was Ptah, the world-creating power, who shaped the cosmic egg, which again appears here, as in the Phœnician. Next, there followed from Ptah a long succession of gods, with many offices and powers—solar, telluric and spiritual—from whom, after a time, proceeded _demigods_, and then from these proceeded heroes, until the link of our humanity was reached. According to Grote, Grecian mythology opens with the gods prior, as well as superior, to man; it then descends gradually to heroes and then to the human race. Along with their gods are presented many monsters, ultra-human and extra-human, who can’t consistently be styled gods, but who partake with gods and man in the attributes of free-will, conscious agency and susceptibility of pleasure and pain—such as the Harpies, the Gorgons, the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, etc. After a great struggle, or contest, among these wonderful creatures, there arises a stable government of Zeus, the chief among the gods. Then appears chaos, then the broad, firm, flat earth, with deep and dark tartarus below, and from these proceed different divinities and creatures, some grand and terrible, some simply monsters; their relations to each other violate all notions of decency and morality; their wars and slaughters, their gross and abominable crimes issue in successive creative products upon earth, which terminate at last in the appearance of man.

Next we will give you the cosmogony of the Vedas, as it is presented in what is known as the mystic hymn of the Vedas. It is _Pantheistic to the core_. “It is one of the earliest relics of Hindu thought and devotion:”

“Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven’s broad woof outstretched above.
What covered all? What sheltered? What concealed?
Was it the water’s fathomless abyss?
There was not death—yet was there naught immortal;
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself;
OTHER than It NOTHING since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound—an ocean without light.
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came love upon it, the new spring
Of mind—yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering, this bond between created things
And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose—
Nature below, and power and will above.
Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being?
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it—or perchance even He knows it not.”

—The Rig-Veda, book 10, hymn 129. Translated from Max Mullers’
“Chips from a German Workshop.”

This is Pantheistic throughout, and although it presents no absurd combinations of matter and spirit, yet it puts the material creation before the creation of the spiritual, and scarcely allows consciousness to “the One,” “the It,” from which, somehow, the creation proceeded. The Book of Menu, which is of equal value with the Veda among the Hindoos, gives the following account of the creation:

“Menu sat reclined, with his attention fixed on one object, the supreme God, when the divine sages approached him, and, after mutual salutations in due form, delivered the following address: Deign, sovereign ruler, to apprise us of the sacred laws in their order, as they must be followed by all the four classes, and by each of them, in their several degrees, together with the duties of every mixed class; for thou, Lord, and thou only among mortals, knowest the true sense, the first principle, and the prescribed ceremonies of this universal, supernatural Veda, unlimited in extent and unequalled in authority.

“He whose powers were measureless, being thus requested by the great sages, whose thoughts were profound, saluted them all with reverence and gave them a comprehensive answer, saying: Be it heard! This universe existed only in the first divine idea yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep; then the sole, self-existing power, himself undiscovered, but making this world discernible, with five elements and other principles of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding his idea or dispelling the gloom. He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has not visible parts, who exists from eternity, even he, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person. He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first, with a thought, created the waters and placed in them a productive seed; that seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams; AND IN THAT EGG HE WAS BORN HIMSELF IN THE FORM OF BRAHMA THE GREAT FOREFATHER OF ALL SPIRITS. The waters were called nara, because they were the production of Nara, or the spirit of God; and, since they were his first ayana, or place of motion, he thence is named Nayrayana, or moving on the waters. From that which is, the first cause, not the object of sense, existing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male, famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma. In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the Creator, at the close of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself; and from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters.

“From the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before mind, or the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler; and before them both he produced the great principle of the soul, or first expansion of the divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the three qualities of goodness, passion and darkness; and the five perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation. Thus, having at once pervaded, with emanations from the Supreme Spirit, the minutest portions of six principles immensely operative, consciousness and the five perceptions, he framed all creatures; and since the minutest particles of visible nature have a dependence on those six emanations from God, the wise have accordingly given the name of S’arira, or depending on six, that is, the ten organs on consciousness, and the five elements on as many perceptions, to his image or appearance in visible nature; thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, the mind with operations infinitely subtile, the unperishable cause of all apparent forms.

“This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of these seven divine and active principles, the great soul, or first emanation, consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable universe from immutable ideas. Among them each succeeding element acquires the quality of the preceding; and in as many degrees as each of them is advanced, with so many properties is it said to be endued. He, too, first assigned to all creatures distinct names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations, as they had been revealed in the pre-existing Veda. He, the supreme ruler, created an assemblage of inferior _Deities_, with divine attributes and pure souls, and a number of Genii exquisitely delicate; and he prescribed the sacrifice from the beginning. From fire, from air, and from the sun he milked out, as it were, three primordial Vedas, named Rich, Yajush and Saman, for the due performance of the sacrifice.

“He gave being to time and the divisions of time, to the stars also, and to the planets, to rivers, oceans and mountains, to level plains and uneven valleys, to devotion, speech, complacency, desire and wrath, and to the creation, which shall presently be mentioned; for he willed the existence of all those created things. For the sake of distinguishing actions, he made a total difference between right and wrong, and enured these sentient creatures to pleasure and pain, cold and heat, and other opposite pairs. With very minute transformable portions called matras, of the five elements, all this perceptible world was composed in fit order; and in whatever occupation the Supreme Lord first employed any vital soul, to that occupation the same soul attaches itself spontaneously when it receives a new body again and again. Whatever quality, noxious or innocent, harsh or mild, unjust or just, false or true, he conferred on any being at its creation, the same quality enters it, of course, on its future births; as the six seasons of the year attain respectively their peculiar marks in due time and of their own accord, even so the several acts of each embodied spirit attend it naturally.

“That the human race might be multiplied, he caused the Brahmen, the Cshatriya, the Vaisya and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh and his foot.

“Having divided his own substance, the mighty power became half male, half female, or nature active and passive, and from that female he produced Viraz. Know me, O most excellent of Brahmens, to be that person whom the male power, Viraz, having performed austere devotion, produced by myself; me, the secondary framer of all this visible world. It was I who, desirous of giving birth to a race of men, performed very difficult religious duties, and first produced ten Lords of created beings, animated in holiness, Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Cratu, Prachetas, or Dacsha, Vasishtha, Bhrigu and Narada; they, abundant in glory, produced seven other Menu, together with deities and the mansions of deities, and Maharshis, or great sages, unlimited in power; benevolent genii, and fierce giants, blood-thirsty savages, heavenly quiristers, nymphs and demons, huge serpents and snakes of smaller size, birds of mighty wing, and separate companies of Pitirs, or progenitors of mankind; lightnings and thunder-bolts, clouds and colored bows of Indra, falling meteors, earth-rending vapors, comets and luminaries of various degrees; horse-faced sylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame cattle, deer, men, and ravenous beasts with two rows of teeth; small and large reptiles, moths, lice, fleas, and common flies, with every biting knat and immovable substances of distinct sorts.”

Reader, I have given you this chapter of ancient cosmogonies under the conviction that a bare statement of them must convince any one of either the ignorance or dishonesty of infidels who claim that Moses learned all that he gave in his cosmogony from the ancient cosmogonies. How was it that Moses avoided all their errors and extravagance? How was it that he gave such a severely simple description of creation, which no rhetoric can improve, and no scientist _successfully_ refute?

Can you believe that energy, or force, lies behind all things, operating them, without believing there is something lying behind it, to which it belongs?

Can you believe that a concourse of dead atoms held a solemn convention, went into harmonious action and produced life?

SOME OF THE BEAUTIES (?) OF HARMONY AMONG UNBELIEVERS.