Chapter XVI: Part 16

All that has been said that is true is part of his Bible. Every splendid and noble thought, every good word, every kind action-- all these you will find in his Bible. And, in addition to these, all that is absolutely known--that has been demonstrated--belongs to the Secularist. All the inventions, machines--everything that has been of assistance to the human race--belongs to his religion. The Secularist is in possession of everything that man has. He is deprived only of that which man never had. The orthodox world believes in ghosts and phantoms, in dreams and prayers, in miracles and monstrosities; that is to say, in modern theology. But these things do not exist, or if they do exist, it is impossible for a human being to ascertain the fact. Secularism has no "castles in Spain." It has no glorified fog. It depends upon realities, upon demonstrations; and its end and aim is to make this world better every day--to do away with poverty and crime, and to cover the world with happy and contended homes.

Let me say, right here, that a few years ago the Secular Hall at Leicester, England, was opened by a speech from George Jacob Holyoake, entitled, "Secularism as a Religion." I have never read anything better on the subject of Secularism than this address. It is so clear and so manly that I do not see how any human being can read it without becoming convinced, and almost enraptured.

Let me quote a few lies from this address:--

"The mind of man would die if it were not for Thought, and were Thought suppressed, God would rule over a world of idiots.

"Nature feeds Thought, day and night, with a million hands.

"To think is a duty, because it is a man's duty not to be a fool.

"If man does not think himself, he is an intellectual pauper, living upon the truth acquired by others, and making no contribution himself in return. He has no ideas but such as he obtains by 'out- door relief,' and he goes about the world with a charity mind.

"The more thinkers there are in the world, the more truth there is in the world.

"Progress can only walk in the footsteps of Conviction.

"Coercion in thought is not progress, it reduces to ignominious pulp the backbone of the mind.

"By Religion I mean the simple creed of deed and duty, by which a man seeks his own welfare in his own way, with an honest and fair regard to the welfare and ways of others.

"In these thinking and practical days, men demand a religion of daily life, which stands on a business footing."

I think nothing could be much better than the following, which shows the exact relation that orthodox religion sustains to the actual wants of human beings:

"The Churches administer a system of Foreign Affairs.

"Secularism dwells in a land of its own. It dwells in a land of Certitude.

"In the Kingdom of Thought there is no conquest over man, but over foolishness only."

I will not quote more, but hope all who read this will read the address of Mr. Holyoake, who has, in my judgment, defined Secularism with the greatest possible clearness.

_Question_. What, in your opinion, are the best possible means to spread this gospel or religion of Secularism?

_Answer_. This can only be done by the cultivation of the mind-- only through intelligence--because we are fighting only the monsters of the mind. The phantoms whom we are endeavoring to destroy do not exist; they are all imaginary. They live in that undeveloped or unexplored part of the mind that belongs to barbarism.

I have sometimes thought that a certain portion of the mind is cultivated so that it rises above the surrounding faculties and is like some peak that has lifted itself above the clouds, while all the valleys below are dark or dim with mist and cloud. It is in this valley-region, amid these mists, beneath these clouds, that these monsters and phantoms are born. And there they will remain until the mind sheds light--until the brain is developed.

One exceedingly important thing is to teach man that his mind has limitations; that there are walls that he cannot scale--that he cannot pierce, that he cannot dig under. When a man finds the limitations of his own mind, he knows that other people's minds have limitations. He, instead of believing what the priest says, he asks the priest questions. In a few moments he finds that the priest has been drawing on his imagination for what is beyond the wall. Consequently he finds that the priest knows no more than he, and it is impossible that he should know more than he.

An ignorant man has not the slightest suspicion of what a superior man may do. Consequently, he is liable to become the victim of the intelligent and cunning. A man wholly unacquainted with chemistry, after having been shown a few wonders, is ready to believe anything. But a chemist who knows something of the limitations of that science--who knows what chemists have done and who knows the nature of things--cannot be imposed upon. When no one can be imposed upon, orthodox religion cannot exist. It is an imposture, and there must be impostors and there must be victims, or the religion cannot be a success.

Secularism cannot be a success, universally, as long as there is an impostor or a victim. This is the difference: The foundation of orthodox religion is imposture. The foundation of Secularism is demonstration. Just to the extent that a man knows, he becomes a Secularist.

_Question_. What do you think of the action of the Knights of Labor in Indiana in turning out one of their members because he was an Atheist, and because he objected to the reading of the Bible at lodge meetings?

_Answer_. In my judgment, the Knights of Labor have made a great mistake. They want liberty for themselves--they feel that, to a certain extent, they have been enslaved and robbed. If they want liberty, they should be willing to give liberty to others. Certainly one of their members has the same right to his opinion with regard to the existence of a God, that the other members have to theirs.

I do not blame this man for doubting the existence of a Supreme Being, provided he understands the history of liberty. When a man takes into consideration the fact that for many thousands of years labor was unpaid, nearly all of it being done by slaves, and that millions and hundreds of millions of human beings were bought and sold the same as cattle, and that during all that time the religions of the world upheld the practice, and the priests of the countless unknown gods insisted that the institution of slavery was divine-- I do not wonder that he comes to the conclusion that, perhaps, after all, there is no Supreme Being--at least none who pays any particular attention to the affairs of this world.

If one will read the history of the slave-trade, of the cruelties practiced, of the lives sacrificed, of the tortures inflicted, he will at least wonder why "a God of infinite goodness and wisdom" did not interfere just a little; or, at least, why he did not deny that he was in favor of the trade. Here, in our own country, millions of men were enslaved, and hundreds and thousands of ministers stood up in their pulpits, with their Bibles in front of them, and proceeded to show that slavery was about the only institution that they were absolutely certain was divine. And they proved it by reading passages from this very Bible that the Knights of Labor in Indiana are anxious to have read in their meetings. For their benefit, let me call their attention to a few passages, and suggest that, hereafter, they read those passages at every meeting, for the purpose of convincing all the Knights that the Lord is on the side of those who work for a living:--

"Both thy bondsmen and thy bondsmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen round about you; of them shall ye buy bondsmen and bondmaids.

"Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families which are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession.

"And ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after you to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondsmen forever."

Nothing seems more natural to me than that a man who believes that labor should be free, and that he who works should be free, should come to the conclusion that the passages above quoted are not entirely on his side. I don't see why people should be in favor of free bodies who are not also in favor of free minds. If the mind is to remain in imprisonment, it is hardly worth while to free the body. If the man has the right to labor, he certainly has the right to use his mind, because without mind he can do no labor. As a rule, the more mind he has, the more valuable his labor is, and the freer his mind is the more valuable he is.

If the Knights of Labor expect to accomplish anything in this world, they must do it by thinking. They must have reason on their side, and the only way they can do anything by thinking is to allow each other to think. Let all the men who do not believe in the inspiration of the Bible, leave the Knights of Labor and I do not know how many would be left. But I am perfectly certain that those left will accomplish very little, simply from their lack of sense.

Intelligent clergymen have abandoned the idea of plenary inspiration. The best ministers in the country admit that the Bible is full of mistakes, and while many of them are forced to say that slavery is upheld by the Old Testament they also insist that slavery was and is, and forever will be wrong. What had the Knights of Labor to do with a question of religion? What business is it of theirs who believes or disbelieves in the religion of the day? Nobody can defend the rights of labor without defending the right to think.

I hope that in time these Knights will become intelligent enough to read in their meetings something of importance; something that applies to this century; something that will throw a little light on questions under discussion at the present time. The idea of men engaged in a kind of revolution reading from Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Haggai, for the purpose of determining the rights of workingmen in the nineteenth century! No wonder such men have been swallowed by the whale of monopoly. And no wonder that, while that are in the belly of this fish, they insist on casting out a man with sense enough to understand the situation! The Knights of Labor have made a mistake and the sooner they reverse their action the better for all concerned. Nothing should be taught in this world that somebody does not know.

--_Secular Thought_, Toronto, Canada, August 25, 1888.

SUMMER RECREATION--MR. GLADSTONE.

_Question_. What is the best philosophy of summer recreation?

_Answer_. As a matter of fact, no one should be overworked. Recreation becomes necessary only when a man has abused himself or has been abused. Holidays grew out of slavery. An intelligent man ought not to work so hard to-day that he is compelled to rest to-morrow. Each day should have its labor and its rest. But in our civilization, if it can be called civilization, every man is expected to devote himself entirely to business for the most of the year and by that means to get into such a state of body and mind that he requires, for the purpose of recreation, the inconveniences, the poor diet, the horrible beds, the little towels, the warm water, the stale eggs and the tough beef of the average "resort." For the purpose of getting his mental and physical machinery in fine working order, he should live in a room for two or three months that is about eleven by thirteen; that is to say, he should live in a trunk, fight mosquitoes, quarrel with strangers, dispute bills, and generally enjoy himself; and this is supposed to be the philosophy of summer recreation. He can do this, or he can go to some extremely fashionable resort where his time is taken up in making himself and family presentable.

Seriously, there are few better summer resorts than New York City. If there were no city here it would be the greatest resort for the summer on the continent; with its rivers, its bay, with its wonderful scenery, with the winds from the sea, no better could be found. But we cannot in this age of the world live in accordance with philosophy. No particular theory can be carried out. We must live as we must; we must earn our bread and we must earn it as others do, and, as a rule, we must work when others work. Consequently, if we are to take any recreation we must follow the example of others; go when they go and come when they come. In other words, man is a social being, and if one endeavors to carry individuality to an extreme he must suffer the consequences. So I have made up my mind to work as little as I can and to rest as much as I can.

_Question_. What is your opinion of Mr. Gladstone as a controversialist?

_Answer_. Undoubtedly Mr. Gladstone is a man of great talent, of vast and varied information, and undoubtedly he is, politically speaking, at least, one of the greatest men in England--possibly the greatest. As a controversialist, and I suppose by that you mean on religious questions, he is certainly as good as his cause. Few men can better defend the indefensible than Mr. Gladstone. Few men can bring forward more probabilities in favor of the impossible, then Mr. Gladstone. He is, in my judgment, controlled in the realm of religion by sentiment; he was taught long ago certain things as absolute truths and he has never questioned them. He has had all he can do to defend them. It is of but little use to attack sentiment with argument, or to attack argument with sentiment. A question of sentiment can hardly be discussed; it is like a question of taste. A man is enraptured with a landscape by Corot; you cannot argue him out of his rapture; the sharper the criticism the greater his admiration, because he feels that it is incumbent upon him to defend the painter who has given him so much real pleasure. Some people imagine that what they think ought to exist must exist, and that what they really desire to be true is true. We must remember that Mr. Gladstone has been what is called a deeply religions man all his life. There was a time when he really believed it to be the duty of the government to see to it that the citizens were religious; when he really believed that no man should hold any office or any position under the government who was not a believer in the established religion; who was not a defender of the parliamentary faith. I do not know whether he has ever changed his opinions upon these subjects or not. There is not the slightest doubt as to his honesty, as to his candor. He says what he believes, and for his belief he gives the reasons that are satisfactory to him. To me it seems impossible that miracles can be defended. I do not see how it is possible to bring forward any evidence that any miracle was ever performed; and unless miracles have been performed, Christianity has no basis as a system. Mr. Hume took the ground that it was impossible to substantiate a miracle, for the reason that it is more probable that the witnesses are mistaken, or are dishonest, than that a fact in nature should be violated. For instance: A man says that a certain time, in a certain locality, the attraction of gravitation was suspended; that there were several moments during which a cannon ball weighed nothing, during which when dropped from the hand, or rather when released from the hand, it refused to fall and remained in the air. It is safe to say that no amount of evidence, no number of witnesses, could convince an intelligent man to-day that such a thing occurred. We believe too thoroughly in the constancy of nature. While men will not believe witnesses who testify to the happening of miracles now, they seem to have perfect confidence in men whom they never saw, who have been dead for two thousand years. Of course it is known that Mr. Gladstone has published a few remarks concerning my religious views and that I have answered him the best I could. I have no opinion to give as to that controversy; neither would it be proper for me to say what I think of the arguments advanced by Mr. Gladstone in addition to what I have already published. I am willing to leave the controversy where it is, or I am ready to answer any further objections that Mr. Gladstone may be pleased to urge.

In my judgment, the "Age of Faith" is passing away. We are living in a time of demonstration.

[NOTE: From an unfinished interview found among Colonel Ingersoll's papers.]

PROHIBITION.

It has been decided in many courts in various States that the traffic in liquor can be regulated--that it is a police question. It has been decided by the courts in Iowa that its manufacture and sale can be prohibited, and, not only so, but that a distillery or a brewery may be declared a nuisance and may legally be abated, and these decisions have been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. Consequently, it has been settled by the highest tribunal that States have the power either to regulate or to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, and not only so, but that States have the power to destroy breweries and distilleries without making any compensation to owners.

So it has always been considered within the power of the State to license the selling of intoxicating liquors. In other words, this question is one that the States can decide for themselves. It is not, and it should not be, in my judgment, a Federal question. It is something with which the United States has nothing to do. It belongs to the States; and where a majority of the people are in favor of prohibition and pass laws to that effect, there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that interferes with such action.

The remaining question, then, is not a question of power, but a question of policy, and at the threshold of this question is another: Can prohibitory laws be enforced? There are to-day in Kansas,--a prohibition State--more saloons, that is to say, more places in which liquor is sold, than there are in Georgia, a State without prohibition legislation. There are more in Nebraska, according to the population, more in Iowa, according to the population, than in many of the States in which there is the old license system. You will find that the United States has granted more licenses to wholesale and retail dealers in these prohibition States,--according to the population,--than in many others in which prohibition has not been adopted.

These facts tend to show that it is not enough for the Legislature to say: "Be it enacted." Behind every law there must be an intelligent and powerful public opinion. A law, to be enforced, must be the expression of such powerful and intelligent opinion; otherwise it becomes a dead letter; it is avoided; judges continue the cases, juries refuse to convict, and witnesses are not particular about telling the truth. Such laws demoralize the community, or, to put it in another way, demoralized communities pass such laws.

_Question_. What do you think of the prohibitory movement on general principles?

_Answer_. The trouble is that when a few zealous men, intending to reform the world, endeavor to enforce unpopular laws, they are compelled to resort to detectives, to a system of espionage. For the purpose of preventing the sale of liquors somebody has to watch. Eyes and ears must become acquainted with keyholes. Every neighbor suspects every other. A man with a bottle or demijohn is followed. Those who drink get behind doors, in cellars and garrets. Hypocrisy becomes substantially universal. Hundreds of people become suddenly afflicted with a variety of diseases, for the cure of which alcohol in some form is supposed to be indispensable. Malaria becomes general, and it is perfectly astonishing how long a few pieces of Peruvian bark will last, and how often the liquor can be renewed without absorbing the medicinal qualities of the bark. The State becomes a paradise for patent medicine--the medicine being poor whiskey with a scientific name.

Physicians become popular in proportion as liquor of some kind figures in their prescriptions. Then in the towns clubs are formed, the principal object being to establish a saloon, and in many instances the drug store becomes a favorite resort, especially on Sundays.

There is, however, another side to this question. It is this: Nothing in the world is more important than personal liberty. Many people are in favor of blotting out the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. This is the mistake of all prohibitory fanaticism.

_Question_. What is true temperance, Colonel Ingersoll?

_Answer_. Men have used stimulants for many thousand years, and as much is used to-day in various forms as in any other period of the world's history. They are used with more prudence now than ever before, for the reason that the average man is more intelligent now than ever before. Intelligence has much to do with temperance. The barbarian rushes to the extreme, for the reason that but little, comparatively, depends upon his personal conduct or personal habits. Now the struggle for life is so sharp, competition is so severe, that few men can succeed who carry a useless burden. The business men of our country are compelled to lead temperate lives, otherwise their credit is gone. Men of wealth, men of intelligence, do not wish to employ intemperate physicians. They are not willing to trust their health or their lives with a physician who is under the influence of liquor. The same is true of business men in regard to their legal interests. They insist upon having sober attorneys; they want the counsel of a sober man. So in every department. On the railways it is absolutely essential that the engineer, that the conductor, the train dispatcher and every other employee, in whose hands are the lives of men, should be temperate. The consequence is that under the law of the survival of the fittest, the intemperate are slowly but surely going to the wall; they are slowly but surely being driven out of employments of trust and importance. As we rise in the scale of civilization we continually demand better and better service. We are continually insisting upon better habits, upon a higher standard of integrity, of fidelity. These are the causes, in my judgment, that are working together in the direction of true temperance.

_Question_. Do you believe the people can be made to do without a stimulant?

_Answer_. The history of the world shows that all men who have advanced one step beyond utter barbarism have used some kind of stimulant. Man has sought for it in every direction. Every savage loves it. Everything has been tried. Opium has been used by many hundreds of millions. Hasheesh has filled countless brains with chaotic dreams, and everywhere that civilization has gone the blood of the grape has been used. Nothing is easier now to obtain than liquor. In one bushel of corn there are at least five gallons-- four can easily be extracted. All starch, all sugars, can be changed almost instantly into alcohol. Every grain that grows has in it the intoxicating principle, and, as a matter of fact, nearly all of the corn, wheat, sugar and starch that man eats is changed into alcohol in his stomach. Whether man can be compelled to do without a stimulant is a question that I am unable to answer. Of one thing I am certain: He has never yet been compelled to do without one. The tendency, I think, of modern times is toward a milder stimulant than distilled liquors. Whisky and brandies are too strong; wine and beer occupy the middle ground. Wine is a fireside, whisky a conflagration.

It seems to me that it would be far better if the Prohibitionists would turn their attention toward distilled spirits. If they were willing to compromise, the probability is that they would have public opinion on their side. If they would say: "You may have all the beer and all the wine and cider you wish, and you can drink them when and where you desire, but the sale of distilled spirits shall be prohibited," it is possible that this could be carried out in good faith in many if not in most of the States--possibly in all. We all know the effect of wine, even when taken in excess, is nothing near as disastrous as the effect of distilled spirits. Why not take the middle ground? The wine drinkers of the old country are not drunkards. They have been drinking wine for generations. It is drunk by men, women and children. It adds to the sociability of the family. It does not separate the husband from the rest, it keeps them all together, and in that view is rather a benefit than an injury. Good wine can be raised as cheaply here as in any part of the world. In nearly every part of our country the grape grows and good wine can be made. If our people had a taste for wine they would lose the taste for stronger drink, and they would be disgusted with the surroundings of the stronger drink.

The same may be said in favor of beer. As long as the Prohibitionists make no distinction between wine and whisky, between beer and brandy, just so long they will be regarded by most people as fanatics.

The Prohibitionists cannot expect to make this question a Federal one. The United States has no jurisdiction of this subject. Congress can pass no laws affecting this question that could have any force except in such parts of our country as are not within the jurisdiction of States. It is a question for the States and not for the Federal Government. The Prohibitionists are simply throwing away their votes. Let us suppose that we had a Prohibition Congress and a Prohibition President--what steps could be taken to do away with drinking in the city of New York? What steps could be taken in any State of this Union? What could by any possibility be done?

A few years ago the Prohibitionists demanded above all things that the tax be taken from distilled spirits, claiming at that time that such a tax made the Government a partner in vice.

Now when the Republican party proposes under certain circumstances to remove that tax, the Prohibitionists denounce the movement as one in favor of intemperance. We have also been told that the tax on whisky should be kept for the reason that it increases the price, and that an increased price tends to make a temperate people; that if the tax is taken off, the price will fall and the whole country start on the downward road to destruction. Is it possible that human nature stands on such slippery ground? It is possible that our civilization to-day rests upon the price of alcohol, and that, should the price be reduced, we would all go down together? For one, I cannot entertain such a humiliating and disgraceful view of human nature. I believe that man is destined to grow greater, grander and nobler. I believe that no matter what the cost of alcohol may be, life will grow too valuable to be thrown away. Men hold life according to its value. Men, as a rule, only throw away their lives when they are not worth keeping. When life becomes worth living it will be carefully preserved and will be hoarded to the last grain of sand that falls through the glass of time.

_Question_. What is the reason for so much intemperance?

_Answer_. When many people are failures, when they are distanced in the race, when they fall behind, when they give up, when they lose ambition, when they finally become convinced that they are worthless, precisely as they are in danger of becoming dishonest. In other words, having failed in the race of life on the highway, they endeavor to reach to goal by going across lots, by crawling through the grass. Disguise this matter as we may, all people are not successes, all people have not the brain or the muscle or the moral stamina necessary to succeed. Some fall in one way, some in another; some in the net of strong drink, some in the web of circumstances and others in a thousand ways, and the world itself cannot grow better unless the unworthy fail. The law is the survival of the fittest, that is to say, the destruction of the unfit. There is no scheme of morals, no scheme of government, no scheme of charity, that can reverse this law. If it could be reversed, then the result would be the survival of the unfittest, the speedy end of which would be the extinction of the human race.

Temperance men say that it is wise, in so far as possible, to remove temptation from our fellow-men.

Let us look at this in regard to other matters. How do we do away with larceny? We cannot remove property. We cannot destroy the money of the world to keep people from stealing some of it. In other words, we cannot afford to make the world valueless to prevent larceny. All strength by which temptation is resisted must come from the inside. Virtue does not depend upon the obstacles to be overcome; virtue depends upon what is inside of the man. A man is not honest because the safe of the bank is perfectly secure. Upon the honest man the condition of the safe has no effect. We will never succeed in raising great and splendid people by keeping them out of temptation. Great people withstand temptation. Great people have what may be called moral muscle, moral force. They are poised within themselves. They understand their relations to the world. The best possible foundation for honesty is the intellectual perception that dishonesty can, under no circumstances, be a good investment--that larceny is not only wicked, but foolish--not only criminal, but stupid--that crimes are committed only by fools.

On every hand there is what is called temptation. Every man has the opportunity of doing wrong. Every man, in this country, has the opportunity of drinking too much, has the opportunity of acquiring the opium habit, has the opportunity of taking morphine every day--in other words, has the opportunity of destroying himself. How are they to be prevented? Most of them are prevented--at least in a reasonable degree--and they are prevented by their intelligence, by their surroundings, by their education, by their objects and aims in life, by the people they love, by the people who love them.

No one will deny the evils of intemperance, and it is hardly to be wondered at that people who regard only one side--who think of the impoverished and wretched, of wives and children in want, of desolate homes--become the advocates of absolute prohibition. At the same time, there is a philosophic side, and the question is whether more good cannot be done by moral influence, by example, by education, by the gradual civilization of our fellow-men, than in any other possible way. The greatest things are accomplished by indirection. In this way the idea of force, of slavery, is avoided. The person influenced does not feel that he has been trampled upon, does not regard himself as a victim--he feels rather as a pupil, as one who receives a benefit, whose mind has been enlarged, whose life has been enriched--whereas the direct way of "Thou shalt not" produces an antagonism--in other words, produces the natural result of "I will."

By removing one temptation you add strength to others. By depriving a man of one stimulant, as a rule, you drive him to another, and the other may be far worse than the one from which he has been driven. We have hundreds of laws making certain things misdemeanors, which are naturally right.

Thousands of people, honest in most directions, delight in outwitting the Government--derive absolute pleasure from getting in a few clothes and gloves and shawls without the payment of duty. Thousands of people buy things in Europe for which they pay more than they would for the same things in America, and then exercise their ingenuity in slipping them through the custom-house.

A law to have real force must spring from the nature of things, and the justice of this law must be generally perceived, otherwise it will be evaded.

The temperance people themselves are playing into the hands of the very party that would refuse to count their votes. Allow the Democrats to remain in power, allow the Democrats to be controlled by the South, and a large majority might be in favor of temperance legislation, and yet the votes would remain uncounted. The party of reform has a great interest in honest elections, and honest elections must first be obtained as the foundation of reform. The Prohibitionists can take their choice between these parties. Would it not be far better for the Prohibitionists to say: "We will vote for temperance men; we will stand with the party that is the nearest in favor of what we deem to be the right"? They should also take into consideration that other people are as honest as they; that others disbelieve in prohibition as honestly as they believe in it, and that other people cannot leave their principles to vote for prohibition; and they must remember, that these other people are in the majority.

Mr. Fisk knows that he cannot be elected President--knows that it is impossible for him to carry any State in the Union. He also knows that in nearly every State in the Union--probably in all--a majority of the people believe in stimulants. Why not work with the great and enlightened majority? Why rush to the extreme for the purpose not only of making yourself useless but hurtful?

No man in the world is more opposed to intemperance than I am. No man in the world feels more keenly the evils and the agony produced by the crime of drunkenness. And yet I would not be willing to sacrifice liberty, individuality, and the glory and greatness of individual freedom, to do away with all the evils of intemperance. In other words, I believe that slavery, oppression and suppression would crowd humanity into a thousand deformities, the result of which would be a thousand times more disastrous to the well-being of man. I do not believe in the slave virtues, in the monotony of tyranny, in the respectability produced by force. I admire the men who have grown in the atmosphere of liberty, who have the pose of independence, the virtues of strength, of heroism, and in whose hearts is the magnanimity, the tenderness, and the courage born of victory.

--_New York World_, October 21, 1888.

ROBERT ELSMERE.

Why do people read a book like "Robert Elsmere," and why do they take any interest in it? Simply because they are not satisfied with the religion of our day. The civilized world has outgrown the greater part of the Christian creed. Civilized people have lost their belief in the reforming power of punishment. They find that whips and imprisonment have but little influence for good. The truth has dawned upon their minds that eternal punishment is infinite cruelty--that it can serve no good purpose and that the eternity of hell makes heaven impossible. That there can be in this universe no perfectly happy place while there is a perfectly miserable place--that no infinite being can be good who knowingly and, as one may say, willfully created myriads of human beings, knowing that they would be eternally miserable. In other words, the civilized man is greater, tenderer, nobler, nearer just than the old idea of God. The ideal of a few thousand years ago is far below the real of to-day. No good man now would do what Jehovah is said to have done four thousand years ago, and no civilized human being would now do what, according to the Christian religion, Christ threatens to do at the day of judgment.

_Question_. Has the Christian religion changed in theory of late years, Colonel Ingersoll?

_Answer_. A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature is as cruel as the Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we have arrived at the question--not as to whether the Bible is inspired and not as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or not. The intelligence of Christendom to-day does not believe in an inspired art or an inspired literature. If there be an infinite God, inspiration in some particular regard would be a patch--it would be the puttying of a crack, the hiding of a defect --in other words, it would show that the general plan was defective.

_Question_. Do you consider any religion adequate?

_Answer_. A good man, living in England, drawing a certain salary for reading certain prayers on stated occasions, for making a few remarks on the subject of religion, putting on clothes of a certain cut, wearing a gown with certain frills and flounces starched in an orthodox manner, and then looking about him at the suffering and agony of the world, would not feel satisfied that he was doing anything of value for the human race. In the first place, he would deplore his own weakness, his own poverty, his inability to help his fellow-men. He would long every moment for wealth, that he might feed the hungry and clothe the naked--for knowledge, for miraculous power, that he might heal the sick and the lame and that he might give to the deformed the beauty of proportion. He would begin to wonder how a being of infinite goodness and infinite power could allow his children to die, to suffer, to be deformed by necessity, by poverty, to be tempted beyond resistance; how he could allow the few to live in luxury, and the many in poverty and want, and the more he wondered the more useless and ironical would seem to himself his sermons and his prayers. Such a man is driven to the conclusion that religion accomplishes but little--that it creates as much want as it alleviates, and that it burdens the world with parasites. Such a man would be forced to think of the millions wasted in superstition. In other words, the inadequacy, the uselessness of religion would be forced upon his mind. He would ask himself the question: "Is it possible that this is a divine institution? Is this all that man can do with the assistance of God? Is this the best?"

_Question_. That is a perfectly reasonable question, is it not, Colonel Ingersoll?

_Answer_. The moment a man reaches the point where he asks himself this question he has ceased to be an orthodox Christian. It will not do to say that in some other world justice will be done. If God allows injustice to triumph here, why not there?

Robert Elsmere stands in the dawn of philosophy. There is hardly light enough for him to see clearly; but there is so much light that the stars in the night of superstition are obscured.

_Question_. You do not deny that a religious belief is a comfort?

_Answer_. There is one thing that it is impossible for me to comprehend. Why should any one, when convinced that Christianity is a superstition, have or feel a sense of loss? Certainly a man acquainted with England, with London, having at the same time something like a heart, must feel overwhelmed by the failure of what is known as Christianity. Hundreds of thousands exist there without decent food, dwelling in tenements, clothed with rags, familiar with every form of vulgar vice, where the honest poor eat the crust that the vicious throw away. When this man of intelligence, of heart, visits the courts; when he finds human liberty a thing treated as of no value, and when he hears the judge sentencing girls and boys to the penitentiary--knowing that a stain is being put upon them that all the tears of all the coming years can never wash away--knowing, too, and feeling that this is done without the slightest regret, without the slightest sympathy, as a mere matter of form, and that the judge puts this brand of infamy upon the forehead of the convict just as cheerfully as a Mexican brands his cattle; and when this man of intelligence and heart knows that these poor people are simply the victims of society, the unfortunates who stumble and over whose bodies rolls the Juggernaut--he knows that there is, or at least appears to be, no power above or below working for righteousness--that from the heavens is stretched no protecting hand. And when a man of intelligence and heart in England visits the workhouse, the last resting place of honest labor; when he thinks that the young man, without any great intelligence, but with a good constitution, starts in the morning of his life for the workhouse, and that it is impossible for the laboring man, one who simply has his muscle, to save anything; that health is not able to lay anything by for the days of disease--when the man of intelligence and heart sees all this, he is compelled to say that the civilization of to-day, the religion of to-day, the charity of to-day--no matter how much of good there may be behind them or in them, are failures.

A few years ago people were satisfied when the minister said: "All this will be made even in another world; a crust-eater here will sit at the head of the banquet there, and the king here will beg for the crumbs that fall from the table there." When this was said, the poor man hoped and the king laughed. A few years ago the church said to the slave: "You will be free in another world, and your freedom will be made glorious by the perpetual spectacle of your master in hell." But the people--that is, many of the people--are no longer deceived by what once were considered fine phrases. They have suffered so much that they no longer wish to see others suffer and no longer think of the suffering of others as a source of joy to themselves. The poor see that the eternal starvation of kings and queens in another world will be no compensation for what they have suffered there. The old religions appear vulgar and the ideas of rewards and punishments are only such as would satisfy a cannibal chief or one of his favorites.

_Question_. Do you think the Christian religion has made the world better?

_Answer_. For many centuries there has been preached and taught in an almost infinite number of ways a supernatural religion. During all this time the world has been in the care of the Infinite, and yet every imaginable vice has flourished, every imaginable pang has been suffered, and every injustice has been done. During all these years the priests have enslaved the minds, and the kings the bodies, of men. The priests did what they did in the name of God, and the kings appeal to the same source of authority. Man suffered as long as he could. Revolution, reformation, was simply a re- action, a cry from the poor wretch that was between the upper and the nether millstone. The liberty of man has increased just in the proportion that the authority of the gods has decreased. In other words, the wants of man, instead of the wishes of God, have inaugurated what we call progress, and there is this difference: Theology is based upon the narrowest and intensest form of selfishness. Of course, the theologian knows, the Christian knows, that he can do nothing for God; consequently all that he does must be and is for himself, his object being to win the approbation of this God, to the end that he may become a favorite. On the other side, men touched not only by their own misfortunes, but by the misfortunes of others, are moved not simply by selfishness, but by a splendid sympathy with their fellow-men.

_Question_. Christianity certainly fosters charity?

_Answer_. Nothing is more cruel than orthodox theology, nothing more heartless than a charitable institution. For instance, in England, think for a moment of the manner in which charities are distributed, the way in which the crust is flung at Lazarus. If that parable could be now retold, the dogs would bite him. The same is true in this country. The institution has nothing but contempt for the one it relieves. The people in charge regard the pauper as one who has wrecked himself. They feel very much as a man would feel rescuing from the water some hare-brained wretch who had endeavored to swim the rapids of Niagara--the moment they reach him they begin to upbraid him for being such a fool. This course makes charity a hypocrite, with every pauper for its enemy.

Mrs. Ward compelled Robert Elsmere to perceive, in some slight degree, the failure of Christianity to do away with vice and suffering, with poverty and crime. We know that the rich care but little for the poor. No matter how religious the rich may be, the sufferings of their fellows have but little effect upon them. We are also beginning to see that what is called charity will never redeem this world.

The poor man willing to work, eager to maintain his independence, knows that there is something higher than charity--that is to say, justice. He finds that many years before he was born his country was divided out between certain successful robbers, flatterers, cringers and crawlers, and that in consequence of such division not only he himself, but a large majority of his fellow-men are tenants, renters, occupying the surface of the earth only at the pleasure of others. He finds, too, that these people who have done nothing and who do nothing, have everything, and that those who do everything have but little. He finds that idleness has the money and that the toilers are compelled to bow to the idlers. He finds also that the young men of genius are bribed by social distinctions --unconsciously it may be--but still bribed in a thousand ways. He finds that the church is a kind of waste-basket into which are thrown the younger sons of titled idleness.

_Question_. Do you consider that society in general has been made better by religious influences?

_Answer_. Society is corrupted because the laurels, the titles, are in the keeping and within the gift of the corrupters. Christianity is not an enemy of this system--it is in harmony with it. Christianity reveals to us a universe presided over by an infinite autocrat--a universe without republicanism, without democracy--a universe where all power comes from one and the same source, and where everyone using authority is accountable, not to the people, but to this supposed source of authority. Kings reign by divine right. Priests are ordained in a divinely appointed way--they do not get their office from man. Man is their servant, not their master.

In the story of Robert Elsmere all there is of Christianity is left except the miraculous. Theism remains, and the idea of a protecting Providence is left, together with a belief in the immeasurable superiority of Jesus Christ. That is to say, the miracles are discarded for lack of evidence, and only for lack of evidence; not on the ground that they are impossible, not on the ground that they impeach and deny the integrity of cause and effect, not on the ground that they contradict the self-evident proposition that an effect must have an efficient cause, but like the Scotch verdict, "not proven." It is an effort to save and keep in repair the dungeons of the Inquisition for the sake of the beauty of the vines that have overrun them. Many people imagine that falsehoods may become respectable on account of age, that a certain reverence goes with antiquity, and that if a mistake is covered with the moss of sentiment it is altogether more credible than a parvenu fact. They endeavor to introduce the idea of aristocracy into the world of thought, believing, and honestly believing, that a falsehood long believed is far superior to a truth that is generally denied.

_Question_. If Robert Elsmere's views were commonly adopted what would be the effect?

_Answer_. The new religion of Elsmere is, after all, only a system of outdoor relief, an effort to get successful piracy to give up a larger per cent. for the relief of its victims. The abolition of the system is not dreamed of. A civilized minority could not by any possibility be happy while a majority of the world were miserable. A civilized majority could not be happy while a minority were miserable. As a matter of fact, a civilized world could not be happy while one man was really miserable. At the foundation of civilization is justice--that is to say, the giving of an equal opportunity to all the children of men. Secondly, there can be no civilization in the highest sense until sympathy becomes universal. We must have a new definition for success. We must have new ideals. The man who succeeds in amassing wealth, who gathers money for himself, is not a success. It is an exceedingly low ambition to be rich to excite the envy of others, or for the sake of the vulgar power it gives to triumph over others. Such men are failures. So the man who wins fame, position, power, and wins these for the sake of himself, and wields this power not for the elevation of his fellow-men, but simply to control, is a miserable failure. He may dispense thousands of millions in charity, and his charity may be prompted by the meanest part of his nature--using it simply as a bait to catch more fish and to prevent the rising tide of indignation that might overwhelm him. Men who steal millions and then give a small percentage to the Lord to gain the praise of the clergy and to bring the salvation of their souls within the possibilities of imagination, are all failures.

Robert Elsmere gains our affection and our applause to the extent that he gives up what are known as orthodox views, and his wife Catherine retains our respect in the proportion that she lives the doctrine that Elsmere preaches. By doing what she believes to be right, she gains our forgiveness for her creed. One is astonished that she can be as good as she is, believing as she does. The utmost stretch of our intellectual charity is to allow the old wine to be put in a new bottle, and yet she regrets the absence of the old bottle--she really believes that the bottle is the important thing--that the wine is but a secondary consideration. She misses the label, and not having perfect confidence in her own taste, she does not feel quite sure that the wine is genuine.

_Question_. What, on the whole, is your judgment of the book?

_Answer_. I think the book conservative. It is an effort to save something--a few shreds and patches and ravelings--from the wreck. Theism is difficult to maintain. Why should we expect an infinite Being to do better in another world than he has done and is doing in this? If he allows the innocent to suffer here, why not there? If he allows rascality to succeed in this world, why not in the next? To believe in God and to deny his personality is an exceedingly vague foundation for a consolation. If you insist on his personality and power, then it is impossible to account for what happens. Why should an infinite God allow some of his children to enslave others? Why should he allow a child of his to burn another child of his, under the impression that such a sacrifice was pleasing to him?