Chapter V

The intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country, without fear and without prejudice, will not and cannot be a believer.

IN answering this statement the Archdeacon says: "_Argal_, every believer in any religion is either an incompetent idiot, or coward--with a dash of prejudice."

I hardly know what the gentleman means by an "incompetent idiot," as I know of no competent ones. It was not my intention to say that believers in religion are idiots or cowards. I did not mean, by using the word "fear," to say that persons actuated by fear are cowards. That was not in my mind. By "fear," I intended to convey that fear commonly called awe, or superstition,--that is to say, fear of the supernatural,--fear of the gods--fear of punishment in another world--fear of some Supreme Being; not fear of some other man--not the fear that is branded with cowardice. And, of course, the Archdeacon perfectly understood my meaning; but it was necessary to give another meaning in order to make the appearance of an answer possible.

By "prejudice," I mean that state of mind that accepts the false for the true. All prejudice is honest. And the probability is, that all men are more or less prejudiced on some subject. But on that account I do not call them "incompetent idiots, or cowards, with a dash of prejudice." I have no doubt that the Archdeacon himself believes that all Mahommedans are prejudiced, and that they are actuated more or less by fear, inculcated by their parents and by society at large. Neither have I any doubt that he regards all Catholics as prejudiced, and believes that they are governed more or less by fear. It is no answer to what I have said for the Archdeacon to say that "others have studied every form of religion with infinitely greater power than I have done." This is a personality that has nothing to do with the subject in hand. It is no argument to repeat a list of names. It is an old trick of the theologians to use names instead of arguments--to appeal to persons instead of principles--to rest their case upon the views of kings and nobles and others who pretend eminence in some department of human learning or ignorance, rather than on human knowledge.

This is the argument of the old against the new, and on this appeal the old must of necessity have the advantage. When some man announces the discovery of a new truth, or of some great fact contrary to the opinions of the learned, it is easy to overwhelm him with names. There is but one name on his side--that is to say, his own. All others who are living, and the dead, are on the other side. And if this argument is good, it ought to have ended all progress many thousands of years ago. If this argument is conclusive, the first man would have had freedom of opinion; the second man would have stood an equal chance; but if the third man differed from the other two, he would have been gone. Yet this is the argument of the church. They say to every man who advances something new: Are you greater than the dead? The man who is right is generally modest. Men in the wrong, as a rule, are arrogant; and arrogance is generally in the majority.

The Archdeacon appeals to certain names to show that I am wrong. In order for this argument to be good--that is to say, to be honest--he should agree with all the opinions of the men whose names he gives. He shows, or endeavors to show, that I am wrong, because I do not agree with St. Augustine. Does the Archdeacon agree with St. Augustine? Does he now believe that the bones of a saint were taken to Hippo--that being in the diocese of St. Augustine--and that five corpses, having been touched with these bones, were raised to life? Does he believe that a demoniac, on being touched with one of these bones, was relieved of a multitude of devils, and that these devils then and there testified to the genuineness of the bones, not only, but told the hearers that the doctrine of the Trinity was true? Does the Archdeacon agree with St. Augustine that over seventy miracles were performed with these bones, and that in a neighboring town many hundreds of miracles were performed? Does he agree with St. Augustine in his estimate of women--placing them on a par with beasts?

I admit that St. Augustine had great influence with the people of his day--but what people? I admit also that he was the founder of the first begging brotherhood--that he organized mendicancy--and that he most cheerfully lived on the labor of others.

If St. Augustine lived now he would be the inmate of an asylum. This same St. Augustine believed that the fire of hell was material--that the body itself having influenced the soul to sin, would be burned forever, and that God by a perpetual miracle would save the body from being annihilated and devoured in those eternal flames.

Let me ask the Archdeacon a question: Do you agree with St. Augustine? If you do not, do you claim to be a greater man? Is "your mole-hill higher than his Dhawalagiri"? Are you looking down upon him from the altitude of your own inferiority?

Precisely the same could be said of St. Jerome. The Archdeacon appeals to Charlemagne, one of the great generals of the world--a man who in his time shed rivers of blood, and who on one occasion massacred over four thousand helpless prisoners--a Christian gentleman who had, I think, about nine wives, and was the supposed father of some twenty children. 'This same Charlemagne had laws against polygamy, and yet practiced it himself. Are we under the same obligation to share his vices as his views? It is wonderful how the church has always appealed to the so-called great--how it has endeavored to get certificates from kings and queens, from successful soldiers and statesmen, to the truth of the Bible and the moral character of Christ! How the saints have crawled in the dust before the slayers of mankind! Think of proving the religion of love and forgiveness by Charlemagne and Napoleon!

An appeal is also made to Roger Bacon. Yet this man attained all his eminence by going contrary to the opinions and teachings of the church. In his time, it was matter of congratulation that you knew nothing of secular things. He was a student of Nature, an investigator, and by the very construction of his mind was opposed to the methods of Catholicism.

Copernicus was an astronomer, but he certainly did not get his astronomy from the church, nor from General Joshua, nor from the story of the Jewish king for whose benefit the sun was turned back in heaven ten degrees.

Neither did Kepler find his three laws in the Sermon on the Mount, nor were they the utterances of Jehovah on Mount Sinai. He did not make his discoveries because he was a Christian; but in spite of that fact.

As to Lord Bacon, let me ask, are you willing to accept his ideas? If not, why do you quote his name? Am I bound by the opinions of Bacon in matters of religion, and not in matters of science? Bacon denied the Coperni-can system, and died a believer in the Ptolemaic--died believing that the earth is stationary and that the sun and stars move around it as a center. Do you agree with Bacon? If not, do you pretend that your mind is greater? Would it be fair for a believer in Bacon to denounce you as an egotist and charge you with "obstreperousness" because you merely suggested that Mr. Bacon was a little off in his astronomical opinions? Do you not see that you have furnished the cord for me to tie your hands behind you?

I do not know how you ascertained that Shakespeare was what you call a believer. Substantially all that we know of Shakespeare is found in what we know as his "works" All else can be read in one minute. May I ask, how you know that Shakespeare was a believer? Do you prove it by the words he put in the mouths of his characters? If so, you can prove that he was anything, nothing, and everything. Have you literary bread to eat that I know not of? Whether Dante was, or was not, a Christian, I am not prepared to say. I have always admired him for one thing: he had the courage to see a pope in hell.

Probably you are not prepared to agree with Milton--especially in his opinion that marriage had better be by contract, for a limited time. And if you disagree with Milton on this point, do you thereby pretend to say that you could have written a better poem than Paradise Lost?

So Newton is supposed to have been a Trinitarian. And yet it is said that, after his death, there was found an article, which had been published by him in Holland, against the dogma of the Trinity.

After all, it is quite difficult to find out what the great men have believed. They have been actuated by so many unknown motives; they have wished for place; they have desired to be Archdeacons, Bishops, Cardinals, Popes; their material interests have sometimes interfered with the expression of their thoughts. Most of the men to whom you have alluded lived at a time when the world was controlled by what may be called a Christian mob--when the expression of an honest thought would have cost the life of the one who expressed it--when the followers of Christ were ready with sword and fagot to exterminate philosophy and liberty from the world.

Is it possible that we are under any obligation to believe the Mosaic account of the Garden of Eden, or of the talking serpent, because "Whewell had an encyclopaedic range of knowledge"? Must we believe that Joshua stopped the sun, because Faraday was "the most eminent man of science of his day"? Shall we believe the story of the fiery furnace, because "Mr. Spottiswoode was president of the Royal Society"--had "rare mathematical genius"--so rare that he was actually "buried in Westminster Abbey"? Shall we believe that Jonah spent three days and nights in the inside of a whale because "Professor Clark Maxwell's death was mourned by all"?

Are we under any obligation to believe that an infinite God sent two she bears to tear forty children in pieces because they laughed at a prophet without hair? Must we believe this because "Sir Gabriel Stokes is the living president of the Royal Society, and a Churchman" besides? Are we bound to believe that Daniel spent one of the happiest evenings of his life in the lion's den, because "Sir William Dawson of Canada, two years ago, presided over the British Association"? And must we believe in the ten plagues of Egypt, including the lice, because "Professor Max Mueller made an eloquent plea in Westminster Abbey in favor of Christian missions"? Possibly he wanted missionaries to visit heathen lands so that they could see the difference for themselves between theory and practice, in what is known as the Christian religion.

Must we believe the miracles of the New Testament--the casting out of devils--because "Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning stand far above all other poets of this generation in England," or because "Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell and Whittier" occupy the same position in America? Must we admit that devils entered into swine because "Bancroft and Parkman are the leading prose writers of America"--which I take this occasion to deny?

It is to be hoped that some time the Archdeacon will read that portion of Mr. Bancroft's history in which he gives the account of how the soldiers, commonly called Hessians, were raised by the British Government during the American Revolution.

These poor wretches were sold at so much apiece. For every one that was killed, so much was paid, and for every one that was wounded a certain amount was given. Mr. Bancroft tells us that God was not satisfied with this business, and although he did not interfere in any way to save the poor soldiers, he did visit the petty tyrants who made the bargains with his wrath. I remember that as a punishment to one of these, his wife was induced to leave him; another one died a good many years afterwards; and several of them had exceedingly bad luck.

After reading this philosophic dissertation on the dealings of Providence, I doubt if the Archdeacon will still remain of the opinion that Mr. Bancroft is one of the leading prose writers of America. If the Archdeacon will read a few of the sermons of Theodore Parker, and essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, if he will read the life of Voltaire by James Parton, he may change his opinion as to the great prose writers of America.

My argument against miracles is answered by reference to "Dr. Lightfoot, a man of such immense learning that he became the equal of his successor Dr. Westcott." And when I say that there are errors and imperfections in the Bible, I am told that Dr. Westcott "investigated the Christian religion and its earliest documents _au fond_, and was an orthodox believer." Of course the Archdeacon knows that no one now knows who wrote one of the books of the Bible. He knows that no one now lives who ever saw one of the original manuscripts, and that no one now lives who ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had seen an original manuscript.