Chapter XIV: Part 14

When we lay down the book we feel like saying: No matter whether God exists or not; if he does, he can take care of himself; if he does, he does not take care of us; and whether he lives or not we must take care of ourselves. Human love is better than any religion. It is better to love your wife than to love God. It is better to make a happy home here than to sunder hearts with creeds. This book meets the issues far more frankly, with far greater candor. This book carries out to its logical sequence the Christian creed. It shows how uncomfortable a true believer must be, and how uncomfortable he necessarily makes those with whom he comes in contact. It shows how narrow, how hard, how unsympathetic, how selfish, how unreasonable, how unpoetic, the creed of the orthodox church is.

In "Robert Elsmere" there is plenty of evidence of reading and cultivation, of thought and talent. So in "John Ward, Preacher," there is strength, purpose, logic, power of statement, directness and courage. But "The Story of an African Farm" has but little in common with the other two.

It is a work apart--belonging to no school, and not to be judged by the ordinary rules and canons of criticism. There are some puerilities and much philosophy, trivialities and some of the profoundest reflections. In addition to this, there is a vast and wonderful sympathy.

The following upon love is beautiful and profound: "There is a love that begins in the head and goes down to the heart, and grows slowly, but it lasts till death and asks less than it gives. There is another love that blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the sweetness of life and bitter with the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour; but it is worth having lived a whole life for that hour. It is a blood-red flower, with the color of sin, but there is always the scent of a god about it."

There is no character in "Robert Elsmere" or in "John Ward, Preacher," comparable for a moment to Lyndall in the "African Farm." In her there is a splendid courage. She does not blame others for her own faults; she accepts. There is that splendid candor that you find in Juliet in "Measure for Measure." She is asked:

"Love you the man that wronged you?"

And she replies:

"Yes; as I love the woman that wronged him."

The death of this wonderful girl is extremely pathetic.

None but an artist could have written it:

"Then slowly, without a sound, the beautiful eyes closed. The dead face that the glass reflected was a thing of marvellous beauty and tranquillity. The gray dawn crept in over it and saw it lying there."

So the story of the hunter is wonderfully told. This hunter climbs above his fellows--day by day getting away from human sympathy, away from ignorance. He lost at last his fellow-men, and truth was just as far away as ever. Here he found the bones of another hunter, and as he looked upon the poor remains the wild faces said:

"So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands ache nor your heart."

So the death of Waldo is most wonderfully told. The book is filled with thought, and with thoughts of the writer--nothing is borrowed. It is original, true and exceedingly sad. It has the pathos of real life. There is in it the hunger of the heart, the vast difference between the actual and the ideal:

"I like to feel that strange life beating up against me. I like to realize forms of life utterly unlike my own. When my own life feels small and I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see it in a picture, in an instant, a multitude of disconnected, unlike phases of human life--a mediaeval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit trees; little Malay boys playing naked on a shining sea-beach; a Hindoo philosopher alone under his banyan tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the thought of God he may lose himself; a troop of Bacchanalians dressed in white, with crowns of vine-leaves, dancing along the Roman streets; a martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the sky and feeling that already he has the wings that shall bear him up; an epicurean discoursing at a Roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of happiness; a Kafir witch-doctor seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside come the sound of dogs barking and the voices of women and children; a mother giving bread and milk to her children in little wooden basins and singing the evening song. I like to see it all; I feel it run through me--that life belongs to me; it makes my little life larger, it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in."

The author, Olive Schreiner, has a tropic zone in her heart. She sometimes prattles like a child, then suddenly, and without warning, she speaks like a philosopher--like one who had guessed the riddle of the Sphinx. She, too, is overwhelmed with the injustice of the world--with the negligence of nature--and she finds that it is impossible to find repose for heart or brain in any Christian creed.

These books show what the people are thinking--the tendency of modern thought. Singularly enough the three are written by women. Mrs. Ward, the author of "Robert Elsmere," to say the least is not satisfied with the Episcopal Church. She feels sure that its creed is not true. At the same time, she wants it denied in a respectful tone of voice, and she really pities people who are compelled to give up the consolation of eternal punishment, although she has thrown it away herself and the tendency of her book is to make other people do so. It is what the orthodox call "a dangerous book." It is a flank movement calculated to suggest a doubt to the unsuspecting reader, to some sheep who has strayed beyond the shepherd's voice.

It is hard for any one to read "John Ward, Preacher," without hating Puritanism with all his heart and without feeling certain that nothing is more heartless than the "scheme of salvation;" and whoever finishes "The Story of an African Farm" will feel that he has been brought in contact with a very great, passionate and tender soul. Is it possible that women, who have been the Caryatides of the church, who have borne its insults and its burdens, are to be its destroyers?

Man is a being capable of pleasure and pain. The fact that he can enjoy himself--that he can obtain good--gives him courage--courage to defend what he has, courage to try to get more. The fact that he can suffer pain sows in his mind the seeds of fear. Man is also filled with curiosity. He examines. He is astonished by the uncommon. He is forced to take an interest in things because things affect him. He is liable at every moment to be injured. Countless things attack him. He must defend himself. As a consequence his mind is at work; his experience in some degree tells him what may happen; he prepares; he defends himself from heat and cold. All the springs of action lie in the fact that he can suffer and enjoy. The savage has great confidence in his senses. He has absolute confidence in his eyes and ears. It requires many years of education and experience before he becomes satisfied that things are not always what they appear. It would be hard to convince the average barbarian that the sun does not actually rise and set--hard to convince him that the earth turns. He would rely upon appearances and would record you as insane.

As man becomes civilized, educated, he finally has more confidence in his reason than in his eyes. He no longer believes that a being called Echo exists. He has found out the theory of sound, and he then knows that the wave of air has been returned to his ear, and the idea of a being who repeats his words fades from his mind; he begins then to rely, not upon appearances, but upon demonstration, upon the result of investigation. At last he finds that he has been deceived in a thousand ways, and he also finds that he can invent certain instruments that are far more accurate than his senses--instruments that add power to his sight, to his hearing and to the sensitiveness of his touch. Day by day he gains confidence in himself.

There is in the life of the individual, as in the life of the race, a period of credulity, when not only appearances are accepted without question, but the declarations of others. The child in the cradle or in the lap of its mother, has implicit confidence in fairy stories--believes in giants and dwarfs, in beings who can answer wishes, who create castles and temples and gardens with a thought. So the race, in its infancy, believed in such beings and in such creations. As the child grows, facts take the place of the old beliefs, and the same is true of the race.

As a rule, the attention of man is drawn first, not to his own mistakes, not to his own faults, but to the mistakes and faults of his neighbors. The same is true of a nation--it notices first the eccentricities and peculiarities of other nations. This is especially true of religious systems. Christians take it for granted that their religion is true, that there can be about that no doubt, no mistake. They begin to examine the religions of other nations. They take it for granted that all these other religions are false. They are in a frame of mind to notice contradictions, to discover mistakes and to apprehend absurdities. In examining other religions they use their common sense. They carry in the hand the lamp of probability. The miracles of other Christs, or of the founders of other religions, appear unreasonable--they find that they are not supported by evidence. Most of the stories excite their laughter. Many of the laws seem cruel, many of the ceremonies absurd. These Christians satisfy themselves that they are right in their first conjecture--that is, that other religions are all made by men. Afterward the same arguments they have used against other religions were found to be equally forcible against their own. They find that the miracles of Buddha rest upon the same kind of evidence as the miracles in the Old Testament, as the miracles in the New--that the evidence in the one case is just as weak and unreliable as in the other. They also find that it is just as easy to account for the existence of Christianity as for the existence of any other religion, and they find that the human mind in all countries has traveled substantially the same road and has arrived at substantially the same conclusions.

It may be truthfully said that Christianity by the examination of other religions laid the foundation for its own destruction. The moment it examined another religion it became a doubter, a sceptic, an investigator. It began to call for proof. This course being pursued in the examination of Christianity itself, reached the result that had been reached as to other religions. In other words, it was impossible for Christians successfully to attack other religions without showing that their own religion could be destroyed. The fact that only a few years ago we were all provincial should be taken into consideration. A few years ago nations were unacquainted with each other--no nation had any conception of the real habits, customs, religions and ideas of any other. Each nation imagined itself to be the favored of heaven--the only one to whom God had condescended to make known his will--the only one in direct communication with angels and deities. Since the circumnavigation of the globe, since the invention of the steam engine, the discovery of electricity, the nations of the world have become acquainted with each other, and we now know that the old ideas were born of egotism, and that egotism is the child of ignorance and savagery.

Think of the egotism of the ancient Jews, who imagined that they were "the chosen people"--the only ones in whom God took the slightest interest! Imagine the egotism of the Catholic Church, claiming that it is the only church--that it is continually under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and that the pope is infallible and occupies the place of God. Think of the egotism of the Presbyterian, who imagines that he is one of "the elect," and that billions of ages before the world was created, God, in the eternal counsel of his own good pleasure, picked out this particular Presbyterian, and at the same time determined to send billions and billions to the pit of eternal pain. Think of the egotism of the man who believes in special providence. The old philosophy, the old religion, was made in about equal parts of ignorance and egotism. This earth was the universe. The sun rose and set simply for the benefit of "God's chosen people." The moon and stars were made to beautify the night, and all the countless hosts of heaven were for no other purpose than to decorate what might be called the ceiling of the earth. It was also believed that this firmament was solid--that up there the gods lived, and that they could be influenced by the prayers and desires of men.

We have now found that the earth is only a grain of sand, a speck, an atom in an infinite universe. We now know that the sun is a million times larger than the earth, and that other planets are millions of times larger than the sun; and when we think of these things, the old stories of the Garden of Eden and Sinai and Calvary seem infinitely out of proportion.

At last we have reached a point where we have the candor and the intelligence to examine the claims of our own religion precisely as we examine those of other countries. We have produced men and women great enough to free themselves from the prejudices born of provincialism--from the prejudices, we might almost say, of patriotism. A few people are great enough not to be controlled by the ideas of the dead--great enough to know that they are not bound by the mistakes of their ancestors--and that a man may actually love his mother without accepting her belief. We have even gone further than this, and we are now satisfied that the only way to really honor parents is to tell our best and highest thoughts. These thoughts ought to be in the mind when reading the books referred to. There are certain tendencies, certain trends of thought, and these tendencies--these trends--bear fruit; that is to say, they produce the books about which I have spoken as well as many others.

THE LIBEL LAWS

Question. Have you any suggestions to make in regard to remodeling the libel laws?

Answer. I believe that every article appearing in a paper should be signed by the writer. If it is libelous, then the writer and the publisher should both be held responsible in damages. The law on this subject, if changed, should throw greater safeguards around the reputation of the citizen. It does not seem to me that the papers have any right to complain. Probably a good many suits are brought that should not be instituted, but just think of the suits that are not brought.

Personally I have no complaint to make, as it would be very hard to find anything in any paper against me, but it has never occurred to me that the press needed any greater liberty than it now enjoys.

It might be a good thing for a paper to publish each week, a list of mistakes, if this could be done without making that edition too large. But certainly when a false and scandalous charge has been made by mistake or as the result of imposition, great pains should be taken to give the retraction at once and in a way to attract attention.

I suppose the papers are liable to be imposed upon--liable to print thousands of articles to which the attention of the editor or proprietor was not called. Still, that is not the fault of the man whose character is attacked. On the whole I think the papers have the advantage of the average citizen as the law now is.

If all articles had to be signed by the writer, I am satisfied the writer would be more careful and less liable to write anything of a libelous nature. I am willing to admit that I have given but little attention to the subject, probably for the reason that I have never been a sufferer.

It would hardly do to hold only the writer responsible. Suppose a man writes a libelous article, leaves the country, and then the article is published; is there no remedy? A suit for libel is not much of a remedy, I admit, but it is some. It is like the bayonet in war. Very few are injured by bayonets, but a good many are afraid that they may be.

--The Herald, New York, October 26,1888.

REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.

I HAVE read the report of the Rev. R. Heber Newton's sermon and I am satisfied, first, that Mr. Newton simply said what he thoroughly believes to be true, and second, that some of the conclusions at which he arrives are certainly correct. I do not regard Mr. Newton as a heretic or sceptic. Every man who reads the Bible must, to a greater or less extent, think for himself. He need not tell his thoughts; he has the right to keep them to himself. But if he undertakes to tell them, then he should be absolutely honest.

The Episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the world. For many, years the foremost members and clergymen in that church have been giving some new meanings to the old words and phrases. Words are no more exempt from change than other things in nature. A word at one time rough, jagged, harsh and cruel, is finally worn smooth. A word known as slang, picked out of the gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes respectable and finally is found in the mouths of the best and purest.

We must remember that in the world of art the picture depends not alone on the painter, but on the one who sees it. So words must find some part of their meaning in the man who hears or the man who reads. In the old times the word "hell" gave to the hearer or reader the picture of a vast pit filled with an ocean of molten brimstone, in which innumerable souls were suffering the torments of fire, and where millions of devils were engaged in the cheerful occupation of increasing the torments of the damned. This was the real old orthodox view.

As man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and less vivid. Finally, some expressed their doubts about the brimstone, and others began to think that if the Devil was, and is, really an enemy of God he would not spend his time punishing sinners to please God. Why should the Devil be in partnership with his enemy, and why should he inflict torments on poor souls who were his own friends, and who shared with him the feeling of hatred toward the Almighty?

As men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn in their minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not have created persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures, or that they were to suffer eternal punishment, because there could be no possible object in eternal punishment--no reformation, no good to be accomplished--and certainly the sight of all this torment would not add to the joy of heaven, neither would it tend to the happiness of God.

So the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a consequence and not an infliction. Then they took another step and concluded that every soul, in every world, in every age, should have at least the chance of doing right. And yet persons so believing still used the word "hell," but the old meaning had dropped out.

So with regard to the atonement. At one time it was regarded as a kind of bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many souls. This was a barbaric view. Afterward, the mind developing a little, the idea got in the brain that the life of Christ was worth its moral effect. And yet these people use the word "atonement," but the bargain idea has been lost.

Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is given to that word depends upon the man who uses it--depends for the most part on the age in which he lives, the country in which he was born. The same is true of the word "freedom." Millions and millions of people boasted that they were the friends of freedom, while at the same time they enslaved their fellow-men. So, in the name of justice every possible crime has been perpetrated and in the name of mercy every instrument of torture has been used.

Mr. Newton realizes the fact that everything in the world changes; that creeds are influenced by civilization, by the acquisition of knowledge, by the progress of the sciences and arts--in other words, that there is a tendency in man to harmonize his knowledge and to bring about a reconciliation between what he knows and what he believes. This will be fatal to superstition, provided the man knows anything.

Mr. Newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing confidence in the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks common sense; that the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and that it is impossible to feel that the innocent can rightfully suffer for the guilty, or that the suffering of innocence can in any way justify the crimes of the wicked. I think he is mistaken, however, when he says that the early church softened or weakened the barbaric passions. I think the early church was as barbarous as any institution that ever gained a footing in this world. I do not believe that the creed of the early church, as understood, could soften anything. A church that preaches the eternity of punishment has within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to make it grow.

So Mr. Newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the organized Christianity of to-day is not the leader in social progress. No one now goes to a synod to find a fact in science or on any subject. A man in doubt does not ask the average minister; he regards him as behind the times. He goes to the scientist, to the library. He depends upon the untrammelled thought of fearless men.

The church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich, of the respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the men who, having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to succeed. The spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as it is in the average club. There is the same exclusive feeling, and this feeling in the next world is to be heightened and deepened to such an extent that a large majority of our fellow-men are to be eternally excluded.

The peasants of Europe--the workingmen--do not go to the church for sympathy. If they do they come home empty, or rather empty hearted. So, in our own country the laboring classes, the mechanics, are not depending on the churches to right their wrongs. They do not expect the pulpits to increase their wages. The preachers get their money from the well-to-do--from the employeer class--and their sympathies are with those from whom they receive their wages.

The ministers attack the pleasures of the world. They are not so much scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating meat on Friday. They regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins. They are not touching the real, vital issues of the day, and their hearts do not throb in unison with the hearts of the struggling, the aspiring, the enthusiastic and the real believers in the progress of the human race.

It is all well enough to say that we should depend on Providence, but experience has taught us that while it may do no harm to say it, it will do no good to do it. We have found that man must be the Providence of man, and that one plow will do more, properly pulled and properly held, toward feeding the world, than all the prayers that ever agitated the air.

So, Mr. Newton is correct in saying, as I understand him to say, that the hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox religion. Neither, in my judgment, has the belief in the existence of a God anything in fact to do with real religion. The old doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.

Man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself; that special providence is a mistake. This being so, the old religions must go down, and in their place man must depend upon intelligence, industry, honesty; upon the facts that he can ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his own efforts. Then religion becomes a thing of this world--a religion to put a roof above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home, a religion that rewards virtue here.

If Mr. Newton's sermon is in accordance with the Episcopal creed, I congratulate the creed. In any event, I think Mr. Newton deserves great credit for speaking his thought. Do not understand that I imagine that he agrees with me. The most I will say is that in some things I agree with him, and probably there is a little too much truth and a little too much humanity in his remarks to please the bishop.

There is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been persecuted for thinking God bad. When any one has said that he believed God to be so good that he would, in his own time and way, redeem the entire human race, and that the time would come when every soul would be brought home and sit on an equality with the others around the great fireside of the universe, that man has been denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked wretch.--New York Herald, December 13,1888.

AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.

MY family and I regard Christmas as a holiday--that is to say, a day of rest and pleasure--a day to get acquainted with each other, a day to recall old memories, and for the cultivation of social amenities. The festival now called Christmas is far older than Christianity. It was known and celebrated for thousands of years before the establishment of what is known as our religion. It is a relic of sun-worship. It is the day on which the sun triumphs over the hosts of darkness, and thousands of years before the New Testament was written, thousands of years before the republic of Rome existed, before one stone of Athens was laid, before the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt, before the religion of Brahma, before Sanscrit was spoken, men and women crawled out of their caves, pushed the matted hair from their eyes, and greeted the triumph of the sun over the powers of the night.

There are many relics of this worship--among which is the shaving of the priest's head, leaving the spot shaven surrounded by hair, in imitation of the rays of the sun. There is still another relic--the ministers of our day close their eyes in prayer. When men worshiped the sun--when they looked at that luminary and implored its assistance--they shut their eyes as a matter of necessity. Afterward the priests looking at their idols glittering with gems, shut their eyes in flattery, pretending that they could not bear the effulgence of the presence; and to-day, thousands of years after the old ideas have passed away, the modern parson, without knowing the origin of the custom, closes his eyes when he prays.

There are many other relics and souvenirs of the dead worship of the sun, and this festival was adopted by Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and by Christians. As a matter of fact, Christianity furnished new steam for an old engine, infused a new spirit into an old religion, and, as a matter of course, the old festival remained.

For all of our festivals you will find corresponding pagan festivals. For instance, take the eucharist, the communion, where persons partake of the body and blood of the Deity. This is an exceedingly old custom. Among the ancients they ate cakes made of corn, in honor of Ceres and they called these cakes the flesh of the goddess, and they drank wine in honor of Bacchus, and called this the blood of their god. And so I could go on giving the pagan origin of every Christian ceremony and custom. The probability is that the worship of the sun was once substantially universal, and consequently the festival of Christ was equally wide spread.

As other religions have been produced, the old customs have been adopted and continued, so that the result is, this festival of Christmas is almost world-wide. It is popular because it is a holiday. Overworked people are glad of days that bring rest and recreation and allow them to meet their families and their friends. They are glad of days when they give and receive gifts--evidences of friendship, of remembrance and love. It is popular because it is really human, and because it is interwoven with our customs, habits, literature, and thought.

For my part I am willing to have two or three a year--the more holidays the better. Many people have an idea that I am opposed to Sunday. I am perfectly willing to have two a week. All I insist on is that these days shall be for the benefit of the people, and that they shall be kept not in a way to make folks miserable or sad or hungry, but in a way to make people happy, and to add a little to the joy of life. Of course, I am in favor of everybody keeping holidays to suit himself, provided he does not interfere with others, and I am perfectly willing that everybody should go to church on that day, provided he is willing that I should go somewhere else.--The Tribune, New York, December, 1889.

HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?

THE object of the Freethinker is to ascertain the truth--the conditions of well-being--to the end that this life will be made of value. This is the affirmative, positive, and constructive side.

Without liberty there is no such thing as real happiness. There may be the contentment of the slave--of one who is glad that he has passed the day without a beating--one who is happy because he has had enough to eat--but the highest possible idea of happiness is freedom.

All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are demanded--certain things must be believed--certain things must be done--and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up all idea of individuality or hope of intellectual growth and progress.

The religionist informs us that there is somewhere in the universe an orthodox God, who is endeavoring to govern the world, and who for this purpose resorts to famine and flood, to earthquake and pestilence--and who, as a last resort, gets up a revival of religion. That is called "affirmative and positive."

The man of sense knows that no such God exists, and thereupon he affirms that the orthodox doctrine is infinitely absurd. This is called a "negation." But to my mind it is an affirmation, and is a part of the positive side of Freethought.

A man who compels this Deity to abdicate his throne renders a vast and splendid service to the human race.

As long as men believe in tyranny in heaven they will practice tyranny on earth. Most people are exceedingly imitative, and nothing is so gratifying to the average orthodox man as to be like his God.

These same Christians tell us that nearly everybody is to be punished forever, while a few fortunate Christians who were elected and selected billions of ages before the world was created, are to be happy. This they call the "tidings of great joy." The Freethinker denounces this doctrine as infamous beyond the power of words to express. He says, and says clearly, that a God who would create a human being, knowing that that being was to be eternally miserable, must of necessity be an infinite fiend.

The free man, into whose brain the serpent of superstition has not crept, knows that the dogma of eternal pain is an infinite falsehood. He also knows--if the dogma be true--that every decent human being should hate, with every drop of his blood, the creator of the universe. He also knows--if he knows anything--that no decent human being could be happy in heaven with a majority of the human race in hell. He knows that a mother could not enjoy the society of Christ with her children in perdition; and if she could, he knows that such a mother is simply a wild beast. The free man knows that the angelic hosts, under such circumstances, could not enjoy themselves unless they had the hearts of boa-constrictors.

It will thus be seen that there is an affirmative, a positive, a constructive side to Freethought.

What is the positive side?

First: A denial of all orthodox falsehoods--an exposure of all superstitions. This is simply clearing the ground, to the end that seeds of value may be planted. It is necessary, first, to fell the trees, to destroy the poisonous vines, to drive out the wild beasts. Then comes another phase--another kind of work. The Freethinker knows that the universe is natural--that there is no room, even in infinite space, for the miraculous, for the impossible. The Freethinker knows, or feels that he knows, that there is no sovereign of the universe, who, like some petty king or tyrant, delights in showing his authority. He feels that all in the universe are conditioned beings, and that only those are happy who live in accordance with the conditions of happiness, and this fact or truth or philosophy embraces all men and all gods--if there be gods.

The positive side is this: That every good action has good consequences--that it bears good fruit forever--and that every bad action has evil consequences, and bears bad fruit. The Freethinker also asserts that every man must bear the consequences of his actions--that he must reap what he sows, and that he cannot be justified by the goodness of another, or damned for the wickedness of another.

There is still another side, and that is this: The Freethinker knows that all the priests and cardinals and popes know nothing of the supernatural--they know nothing about gods or angels or heavens or hells--nothing about inspired books or Holy Ghosts, or incarnations or atonements. He knows that all this is superstition pure and simple. He knows also that these people--from pope to priest, from bishop to parson, do not the slightest good in this world--that they live upon the labor of others--that they earn nothing themselves--that they contribute nothing toward the happiness, or well-being, or the wealth of mankind. He knows that they trade and traffic in ignorance and fear, that they make merchandise of hope and grief--and he also knows that in every religion the priest insists on five things--First: There is a God. Second: He has made known his will. Third: He has selected me to explain this message. Fourth: We will now take up a collection; and Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned.

The positive side of Freethought is to find out the truth--the facts of nature--to the end that we may take advantage of those truths, of those facts--for the purpose of feeding and clothing and educating mankind.

In the first place, we wish to find that which will lengthen human life--that which will prevent or kill disease--that which will do away with pain--that which will preserve or give us health.

We also want to go in partnership with these forces of nature, to the end that we may be well fed and clothed--that we may have good houses that protect us from heat and cold. And beyond this--beyond these simple necessities--there are still wants and aspirations, and free-thought will give us the highest possible in art--the most wonderful and thrilling in music--the greatest paintings, the most marvelous sculpture--in other words, free-thought will develop the brain to its utmost capacity. Freethought is the mother of art and science, of morality and happiness.

It is charged by the worshipers of the Jewish myth, that we destroy, that we do not build.

What have we destroyed? We have destroyed the idea that a monster created and governs this world--the declaration that a God of infinite mercy and compassion upheld slavery and polygamy and commanded the destruction of men, women, and babes. We have destroyed the idea that this monster created a few of his children for eternal joy, and the vast majority for everlasting pain. We have destroyed the infinite absurdity that salvation depends upon belief, that investigation is dangerous, and that the torch of reason lights only the way to hell. We have taken a grinning devil from every grave, and the curse from death--and in the place of these dogmas, of these infamies, we have put that which is natural and that which commends itself to the heart and brain.

Instead of loving God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the sky--the religion of this world--the religion of the family--the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband--the love of all for children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other; let us live for this world, without regard for the past and without fear for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there.

Nothing can be more absurd than the idea that we can do something to please or displease an infinite Being. If our thoughts and actions can lessen or increase the happiness of God, then to that extent God is the slave and victim of man.

The energies of the world have been wasted in the service of a phantom--millions of priests have lived on the industry of others and no effort has been spared to prevent the intellectual freedom of mankind.

We know, if we know anything, that supernatural religion has no foundation except falsehood and mistake. To expose these falsehoods--to correct these mistakes--to build the fabric of civilization on the foundation of demonstrated truth--is the task of the Freethinker. To destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction--to correct charts that lure to reef and wreck--to drive the fiend of fear from the mind--to protect the cradle from the serpent of superstition and dispel the darkness of ignorance with the sun of science--is the task of the Freethinker.

What constructive work has been done by the church? Christianity gave us a flat world a few thousand years ago--a heaven above it where Jehovah dwells and a hell below it where most people will dwell. Christianity took the ground that a certain belief was necessary to salvation and that this belief was far better and of more importance than the practice of all the virtues. It became the enemy of investigation--the bitter and relentless foe of reason and the liberty of thought. It committed every crime and practiced every cruelty in the propagation of its creed. It drew the sword against the freedom of the world. It established schools and universities for the preservation of ignorance. It claimed to have within its keeping the source and standard of all truth. If the church had succeeded the sciences could not have existed.

Freethought has given us all we have of value. It has been the great constructive force. It is the only discoverer, and every science is its child.--The Truth Seeker, New York 1890.

THE IMPROVED MAN.

THE Improved Man will be in favor of universal liberty, that is to say, he will be opposed to all kings and nobles, to all privileged classes. He will give to all others the rights he claims for himself. He will neither bow nor cringe, nor accept bowing and cringing from others. He will be neither master nor slave, neither prince nor peasant--simply man.

He will be the enemy of all caste, no matter whether its foundation be wealth, title or power, and of him it will be said: "Blessed is that man who is afraid of no man and of whom no man is afraid."

The Improved Man will be in favor of universal education. He will believe it the duty of every person to shed all the light he can, to the end that no child may be reared in darkness. By education he will mean the gaining of useful knowledge, the development of the mind along the natural paths that lead to human happiness.

He will not waste his time in ascertaining the foolish theories of extinct peoples or in studying the dead languages for the sake of understanding the theologies of ignorance and fear, but he will turn his attention to the affairs of life, and will do his utmost to see to it that every child has an opportunity to learn the demonstrated facts of science, the true history of the world, the great principles of right and wrong applicable to human conduct--the things necessary to the preservation of the individual and of the state, and such arts and industries as are essential to the preservation of all.

He will also endeavor to develop the mind in the direction of the beautiful--of the highest art--so that the palace in which the mind dwells may be enriched and rendered beautiful, to the end that these stones, called facts, may be changed into statues.

The Improved Man will believe only in the religion of this world. He will have nothing to do with the miraculous and supernatural. He will find that there is no room in the universe for these things. He will know that happiness is the only good, and that everything that tends to the happiness of sentient beings is good, and that to do the things--and no other--that add to the happiness of man is to practice the highest possible religion. His motto will be: "Sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof." He will know that each man should be his own priest, and that the brain is the real cathedral. He will know that in the realm of mind there is no authority--that majorities in this mental world can settle nothing--that each soul is the sovereign of its own world, and that it cannot abdicate without degrading itself. He will not bow to numbers or force; to antiquity or custom. He, standing under the flag of nature, under the blue and stars, will decide for himself. He will not endeavor by prayers and supplication, by fastings and genuflections, to change the mind of the "Infinite" or alter the course of nature, neither will he employ others to do those things in his place. He will have no confidence in the religion of idleness, and will give no part of what he earns to support parson or priest, archbishop or pope. He will know that honest labor is the highest form of prayer. He will spend no time in ringing bells or swinging censers, or in chanting the litanies of barbarism, but he will appreciate all that is artistic--that is beautiful--that tends to refine and ennoble the human race. He will not live a life of fear. He will stand in awe neither of man nor ghosts. He will enjoy not only the sunshine of life, but will bear with fortitude the darkest days. He will have no fear of death. About the grave, there will be no terrors, and his life will end as serenely as the sun rises.

The Improved Man will be satisfied that the supernatural does not exist--that behind every fact, every thought and dream is an efficient cause. He will know that every human action is a necessary product, and he will also know that men cannot be reformed by punishment, by degradation or by revenge. He will regard those who violate the laws of nature and the laws of States as victims of conditions, of circumstances, and he will do what he can for the wellbeing of his fellow-men.

The Improved Man will not give his life to the accumulation of wealth. He will find no happiness in exciting the envy of his neighbors. He will not care to live in a palace while others who are good, industrious and kind are compelled to huddle in huts and dens. He will know that great wealth is a great burden, and that to accumulate beyond the actual needs of a reasonable human being is to increase not wealth, but responsibility and trouble.

The Improved Man will find his greatest joy in the happiness of others and he will know that the home is the real temple. He will believe in the democracy of the fireside, and will reap his greatest reward in being loved by those whose lives he has enriched.

The Improved Man will be self-poised, independent, candid and free. He will be a scientist. He will observe, investigate, experiment and demonstrate. He will use his sense and his senses. He will keep his mind open as the day to the hints and suggestions of nature. He will always be a student, a learner and a listener--a believer in intellectual hospitality. In the world of his brain there will be continuous summer, perpetual seed-time and harvest. Facts will be the foundation of his faith. In one hand he will carry the torch of truth, and with the other raise the fallen.--The World, New York, February 28,1890.

EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.

I HARDLY know enough on the subject to give an opinion as to the time when eight hours are to become a day's work, but I am perfectly satisfied that eight hours will become a labor day.

The working people should be protected by law; if they are not, the capitalists will require just as many hours as human nature can bear. We have seen here in America street-car drivers working sixteen and seventeen hours a day. It was necessary to have a strike in order to get to fourteen, another strike to get to twelve, and nobody could blame them for keeping on striking till they get to eight hours.

For a man to get up before daylight and work till after dark, life is of no particular importance. He simply earns enough one day to prepare himself to work another. His whole life is spent in want and toil, and such a life is without value.

Of course, I cannot say that the present effort is going to succeed--all I can say is that I hope it will. I cannot see how any man who does nothing--who lives in idleness--can insist that others should work ten or twelve hours a day. Neither can I see how a man who lives on the luxuries of life can find it in his heart, or in his stomach, to say that the poor ought to be satisfied with the crusts and crumbs they get.

I believe there is to be a revolution in the relations between labor and capital. The laboring people a few generations ago were not very intellectual. There were no schoolhouses, no teachers except the church, and the church taught obedience and faith--told the poor people that although they had a hard time here, working for nothing, they would be paid in Paradise with a large interest. Now the working people are more intelligent--they are better educated--they read and write. In order to carry on the works of the present, many of them are machinists of the highest order. They must be reasoners. Every kind of mechanism insists upon logic. The working people are reasoners--their hands and heads are in partnership. They know a great deal more than the capitalists. It takes a thousand times the brain to make a locomotive that it does to run a store or a bank. Think of the intelligence in a steamship and in all the thousand machines and devices that are now working for the world. These working people read. They meet together--they discuss. They are becoming more and more independent in thought. They do not believe all they hear. They may take their hats off their heads to the priests, but they keep their brains in their heads for themselves.

The free school in this country has tended to put men on an equality, and the mechanic understands his side of the case, and is able to express his views. Under these circumstances there must be a revolution. That is to say, the relations between capital and labor must be changed, and the time must come when they who do the work--they who make the money--will insist on having some of the profits.

I do not expect this remedy to come entirely from the Government, or from Government interference. I think the Government can aid in passing good and wholesome laws--laws fixing the length of a labor day; laws preventing the employment of children; laws for the safety and security of workingmen in mines and other dangerous places. But the laboring people must rely upon themselves; on their intelligence, and especially on their political power. They are in the majority in this country. They can if they wish--if they will stand together--elect Congresses and Senates, Presidents and Judges. They have it in their power to administer the Government of the United States.

The laboring man, however, ought to remember that all who labor are their brothers, and that all women who labor are their sisters, and whenever one class of workingmen or working women is oppressed all other laborers ought to stand by the oppressed class. Probably the worst paid people in the world are the working-women. Think of the sewing women in this city--and yet we call ourselves civilized! I would like to see all working people unite for the purpose of demanding justice, not only for men, but for women.

All my sympathies are on the side of those who toil--of those who produce the real wealth of the world--of those who carry the burdens of mankind.

Any man who wishes to force his brother to work--to toil--more than eight hours a day is not a civilized man.

My hope for the workingman has its foundation in the fact that he is growing more and more intelligent. I have also the same hope for the capitalist. The time must come when the capitalist will clearly and plainly see that his interests are identical with those of the laboring man. He will finally become intelligent enough to know that his prosperity depends on the prosperity of those who labor. When both become intelligent the matter will be settled.

Neither labor nor capital should resort to force.--The Morning Journal, April 27, 1890.

THE JEWS.

WHEN I was a child, I was taught that the Jews were an exceedingly hard-hearted and cruel people, and that they were so destitute of the finer feelings that they had a little while before that time crucified the only perfect man who had appeared upon the earth; that this perfect man was also perfect God, and that the Jews had really stained their hands with the blood of the Infinite.

When I got somewhat older, I found that nearly all people had been guilty of substantially the same crime--that is, that they had destroyed the progressive and the thoughtful; that religionists had in all ages been cruel; that the chief priests of all people had incited the mob, to the end that heretics--that is to say, philosophers--that is to say, men who knew that the chief priests were hypocrites--might be destroyed.

I also found that Christians had committed more of these crimes than all other religionists put together.