{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-6:the-field-ingersoll-discussion",
  "slug": "the-field-ingersoll-discussion",
  "title": "The Field–Ingersoll Discussion",
  "subtitle": "Faith or Agnosticism.",
  "excerpt": "The 1887–1888 exchange with the Reverend Henry M. Field of the Evangelist — an open and courteous debate on whether Christianity or agnosticism better serves the human race.",
  "year": 1887,
  "volume": 6,
  "category": "Discussion",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/the-field-ingersoll-discussion/",
  "wordCount": 34514,
  "body": "An Open Letter to Robert G. Ingersoll.\n\nDear Sir: I am glad that I know you, even though some of my brethren\nlook upon you as a monster because of your unbelief. I shall never\nforget the long evening I spent at your house in Washington; and in what\nI have to say, however it may fail to convince you, I trust you\nwill feel that I have not shown myself unworthy of your courtesy or\nconfidence.\n\nYour conversation, then and at other times, interested me greatly. I\nrecognized at once the elements of your power over large audiences, in\nyour wit and dramatic talent—personating characters and imitating tones\nof voice and expressions of countenance—and your remarkable use of\nlanguage, which even in familiar talk often rose to a high degree of\neloquence. All this was a keen intellectual stimulus. I was, for the\nmost part, a listener; but as we talked freely of religious matters, I\nprotested against your unbelief as utterly without reason. Yet there\nwas no offence given or taken, and we parted, I trust, with a feeling of\nmutual respect.\n\nStill further, we found many points of sympathy. I do not hesitate to\nsay that there are many things in which I agree with you, in which I\nlove what you love and hate what you hate. A man's hatreds are not the\nleast important part of him; they are among the best indications of his\ncharacter. You love truth, and hate lying and hypocrisy—all the petty\narts and deceits of the world by which men represent themselves to be\nother than they are—as well as the pride and arrogance, in which they\nassume superiority over their fellow-beings. Above all, you hate every\nform of injustice and oppression. Nothing moves your indignation so\nmuch as \"man's inhumanity to man,\" and you mutter \"curses, not loud but\ndeep,\" on the whole race of tyrants and oppressors, whom you would sweep\nfrom the face of the earth. And yet, you do not hate oppression more\nthan I; nor love liberty more. Nor will I admit that you have any\nstronger desire for that intellectual freedom, to the attainment of\nwhich you look forward as the last and greatest emancipation of mankind.\n\nNor have you a greater horror of superstition. Indeed, I might say that\nyou cannot have so great, for the best of all reasons, that you have not\nseen so much of it; you have not stood on the banks of the Ganges, and\nseen the Hindoos by tens of thousands rushing madly to throw themselves\ninto the sacred river, even carrying the ashes of their dead to cast\nthem upon the waters. It seems but yesterday that I was sitting on\nthe back of an elephant, looking down on this horrible scene of human\ndegradation. Such superstition overthrows the very foundations of\nmorality. In place of the natural sense of right and wrong, which is\nwritten in men's consciences and hearts, it introduces an artificial\nstandard, by which the order of things is totally reversed: right is\nmade wrong, and wrong is made right. It makes that a virtue which is not\na virtue, and that a crime which is not a crime. Religion consists in a\nround of observances that have no relation whatever to natural goodness,\nbut which rather exclude it by being a substitute for it. Penances\nand pilgrimages take the place of justice and mercy, benevolence and\ncharity. Such a religion, so far from being a purifier, is the greatest\ncorrupter of morals; so that it is no extravagance to say of the\nHindoos, who are a gentle race, that they might be virtuous and good if\nthey were not so religious. But this colossal superstition weighs upon\ntheir very existence, crushing out even natural virtue. Such a religion\nis an immeasurable curse.\n\nI hope this language is strong enough to satisfy even your own intense\nhatred of superstition. You cannot loathe it more than I do. So far we\nagree perfectly. But unfortunately you do not limit your crusade to\nthe religions of Asia, but turn the same style of argument against\nthe religion of Europe and America, and, indeed, against the religious\nbelief and worship of every country and clime. In this matter you make\nno distinctions: you would sweep them all away; church and cathedral\nmust go with the temple and the pagoda, as alike manifestations of\nhuman credulity, and proofs of the intellectual feebleness and folly of\nmankind. While under the impression of that memorable evening at your\nhouse, I took up some of your public addresses, and experienced a\nstrange revulsion of feeling. I could hardly believe my eyes as I read,\nso inexpressibly was I shocked. Things which I held sacred you not only\nrejected with unbelief, but sneered at with contempt. Your words were\nfull of a bitterness so unlike anything I had heard from your lips, that\nI could not reconcile the two, till I reflected that in Robert Ingersoll\n(as in the most of us) there were two men, who were not only distinct,\nbut contrary the one to the other—the one gentle and sweet-tempered;\nthe other delighting in war as his native element. Between the two, I\nhave a decided preference for the former. I have no dispute with the\nquiet and peaceable gentleman, whose kindly spirit makes sunshine in his\nhome; but it is that other man over yonder, who comes forth into\nthe arena like a gladiator, defiant and belligerent, that rouses my\nantagonism. And yet I do not intend to stand up even against him; but\nif he will only sit down and listen patiently, and answer in those\nsoft tones of voice which he knows so well how to use, we can have a\nquiet talk, which will certainly do him no harm, while it relieves my\ntroubled mind.\n\nWhat then is the basis of this religion which you despise? At the\nfoundation of every form of religious faith and worship, is the idea of\nGod. Here you take your stand; you do not believe in God. Of course you\ndo not deny absolutely the existence of a Creative Power: for that would\nbe to assume a knowledge which no human being can possess. How small is\nthe distance that we can see before us! The candle of our intelligence\nthrows its beams but a little way, beyond which the circle of light\nis compassed by universal darkness. Upon this no one insists more than\nyourself. I have heard you discourse upon the insignificance of man in\na way to put many preachers to shame. I remember your illustration from\nthe myriads of creatures that live on plants, from which you picked out,\nto represent human insignificance, an insect too small to be seen by the\nnaked eye, whose world was a leaf, and whose life lasted but a single\nday! Surely a creature that can only be seen with a microscope, cannot\nknow that a Creator does not exist!\n\nThis, I must do you the justice to say, you do not affirm. All that you\ncan say is, that if there be no knowledge on one side, neither is there\non the other; that it is only a matter of probability; and that, judging\nfrom such evidence as appeals to your senses and your understanding,\nyou do not believe that there is a God. Whether this be a reasonable\nconclusion or not, it is at least an intelligible state of mind.\n\nNow I am not going to argue against what the Catholics call \"invincible\nignorance\"—an incapacity on account of temperament—for I hold that the\nbelief in God, like the belief in all spiritual things, comes to some\nminds by a kind of intuition. There are natures so finely strung that\nthey are sensitive to influences which do not touch others. You may say\nthat it is mere poetical rhapsody when Shelley writes:\n    \"The awful shadow of some unseen power,\n    Floats, though unseen, among us.\"\n\nBut there are natures which are not at all poetical or dreamy, only most\nsimple and pure, which, in moments of spiritual exaltation, are almost\nconscious of a Presence that is not of this world. But this, which is\na matter of experience, will have no weight with those who do not have\nthat experience. For the present, therefore, I would not be swayed one\nparticle by mere sentiment, but look at the question in the cold light\nof reason alone.\n\nThe idea of God is, indeed, the grandest and most awful that can be\nentertained by the human mind. Its very greatness overpowers us, so that\nit seems impossible that such a Being should exist. But if it is hard\nto conceive of Infinity, it is still harder to get any intelligible\nexplanation of the present order of things without admitting the\nexistence of an intelligent Creator and Upholder of all. Galileo, when\nhe swept the sky with his telescope, traced the finger of God in every\nmovement of the heavenly bodies. Napoleon, when the French savants on\nthe voyage to Egypt argued that there was no God, disdained any other\nanswer than to point upward to the stars and ask, \"Who made all these?\"\nThis is the first question, and it is the last. The farther we go, the\nmore we are forced to one conclusion. No man ever studied nature with a\nmore simple desire to know the truth than Agassiz, and yet the more he\nexplored, the more he was startled as he found himself constantly face\nto face with the evidences of mind.\n\nDo you say this is \"a great mystery,\" meaning that it is something that\nwe do not know anything about? Of course, it is \"a mystery.\" But do\nyou think to escape mystery by denying the Divine existence? You only\nexchange one mystery for another. The first of all mysteries is, not\nthat God exists, but that we exist. Here we are. How did we come here?\nWe go back to our ancestors; but that does not take away the difficulty;\nit only removes it farther off. Once begin to climb the stairway of past\ngenerations, and you will find that it is a Jacob's ladder, on which\nyou mount higher and higher until you step into the very presence of the\nAlmighty.\n\nBut even if we know that there is a God, what can we know of His\ncharacter? You say, \"God is whatever we conceive Him to be.\" We frame\nan image of Deity out of our consciousness—it is simply a reflection of\nour own personality, cast upon the sky like the image seen in the Alps\nin certain states of the atmosphere—and then fall down and worship that\nwhich we have created, not indeed with our hands, but out of our minds.\nThis may be true to some extent of the gods of mythology, but not of the\nGod of Nature, who is as inflexible as Nature itself. You might as well\nsay that the laws of nature are whatever we imagine them to be. But we\ndo not go far before we find that, instead of being pliant to our will,\nthey are rigid and inexorable, and we dash ourselves against them to our\nown destruction. So God does not bend to human thought any more than to\nhuman will. The more we study Him the more we find that He is not what\nwe imagined him to be; that He is far greater than any image of Him that\nwe could frame.\n\nBut, after all, you rejoin that the conception of a Supreme Being is\nmerely an abstract idea, of no practical importance, with no bearing\nupon human life. I answer, it is of immeasurable importance. Let go the\nidea of God, and you have let go the highest moral restraint. There is\nno Ruler above man; he is a law unto himself—a law which is as impotent\nto produce order, and to hold society together, as man is with his\nlittle hands to hold the stars in their courses.\n\nI know how you reason against the Divine existence from the moral\ndisorder of the world. The argument is one that takes strong hold of the\nimagination, and may be used with tremendous effect. You set forth in\ncolors none too strong the injustice that prevails in the relations of\nmen to one another—the inequalities of society; the haughtiness of the\nrich and the misery of the poor; you draw lurid pictures of the vice\nand crime which run riot in the great capitals which are the centres of\ncivilization; and when you have wound up your audience to the highest\npitch, you ask, \"How can it be that there is a just God in heaven, who\nlooks down upon the earth and sees all this horrible confusion, and yet\ndoes not lift His hand to avenge the innocent or punish the guilty?\"\nTo this I will make but one answer: Does it convince yourself? I do not\nmean to imply that you are conscious of insincerity. But an orator is\nsometimes carried away by his own eloquence, and states things more\nstrongly than he would in his cooler moments. So I venture to ask: With\nall your tendency to skepticism, do you really believe that there is\nno moral government of the world—no Power behind nature \"making for\nrighteousness?\" Are there no retributions in history? When Lincoln\nstood on the field of Gettysburg, so lately drenched with blood,\nand, reviewing the carnage of that terrible day, accepted it as the\npunishment of our national sins, was it a mere theatrical flourish in\nhim to lift his hand to heaven, and exclaim, \"Just and true are Thy\nways, Lord God Almighty!\"\n\nHaving settled it to your own satisfaction that there is no God, you\nproceed in the same easy way to dispose of that other belief which lies\nat the foundation of all religion—the immortality of the soul. With an\nair of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience by storm, you\nconfess your ignorance of what, perhaps, others are better acquainted\nwith, when you say, \"This world is all that I know anything about, _so\nfar as I recollect_.\" This is very wittily put, and some may suppose\nit contains an argument; but do you really mean to say that you do not\nknow anything except what you \"recollect,\" or what you have seen with\nyour eyes? Perhaps you never saw your grandparents; but have you any\nmore doubt of their existence than of that of your father and mother\nwhom you did see?\n\nHere, as when you speak of the existence of God, you carefully avoid\nany positive affirmation: you neither affirm nor deny. You are ready\nfor whatever may \"turn up.\" In your jaunty style, if you find yourself\nhereafter in some new and unexpected situation, you will accept it and\nmake the best of it, and be \"as ready as the next man to enter on any\nremunerative occupation!\"\n\nBut while airing this pleasant fancy, you plainly regard the hope of\nanother life as a beggar's dream—the momentary illusion of one who,\nstumbling along life's highway, sets him down by the roadside, footsore\nand weary, cold and hungry, and falls asleep, and dreams of a time when\nhe shall have riches and plenty. Poor creature! let him dream; it helps\nhim to forget his misery, and may give him a little courage for his\nrude awaking to the hard reality of life. But it is all a dream, which\ndissolves in thin air, and floats away and disappears. This illustration\nI do not take from you, but simply choose to set forth what (as I infer\nfrom the sentences above quoted and many like expressions) may describe,\nnot unfairly, your state of mind. Your treatment of the subject is one\nof trifling. You do not speak of it in a serious way, but lightly and\nflippantly, as if it were all a matter of fancy and conjecture, and not\nworthy of sober consideration.\n\nNow, does it never occur to you that there is something very cruel in\nthis treatment of the belief of your fellow-creatures, on whose hope\nof another life hangs all that relieves the darkness of their present\nexistence? To many of them life is a burden to carry, and they need all\nthe helps to carry it that can be found in reason, in philosophy, or in\nreligion. But what support does your hollow creed supply? You are a man\nof warm heart, of the tenderest sympathies. Those who know you best, and\nlove you most, tell me that you cannot bear the sight of suffering\neven in animals; that your natural sensibility is such that you find no\npleasure in sports, in hunting or fishing; to shoot a robin would make\nyou feel like a murderer. If you see a poor man in trouble your first\nimpulse is to help him. You cannot see a child in tears but you want to\ntake up the little fellow in your arms, and make him smile again.\nAnd yet, with all your sensibility, you hold the most remorseless and\npitiless creed in the world—a creed in which there is not a gleam of\nmercy or of hope. A mother has lost her only son. She goes to his grave\nand throws herself upon it, the very picture of woe. One thought only\nkeeps her from despair: it is that beyond this life there is a world\nwhere she may once more clasp her boy in her arms. What will you say to\nthat mother? You are silent, and your silence is a sentence of death to\nher hopes. By that grave you cannot speak; for if you were to open your\nlips and tell that mother what you really believe, it would be that her\nson is blotted out of existence, and that she can never look upon his\nface again. Thus with your iron heel do you trample down and crush the\nlast hope of a broken heart.\n\nWhen such sorrow comes to you, you feel it as keenly as any man. With\nyour strong domestic attachments one cannot pass out of your little\ncircle without leaving a great void in your heart, and your grief is as\neloquent as it is hopeless. No sadder words ever fell from human lips\nthan these, spoken over the coffin of one to whom you were tenderly\nattached: \"Life is but a narrow vale, between the cold and barren peaks\nof two eternities!\" This is a doom of annihilation, which strikes a\nchill to the stoutest heart. Even you must envy the faith which, as\nit looks upward, sees those \"peaks of two eternities,\" not \"cold and\nbarren,\" but warm with the glow of the setting sun, which gives promise\nof a happier to-morrow!\n\nI think I hear you say, \"So might it be! Would that I could believe\nit!\" for no one recognizes more the emptiness of life as it is. I do not\nforget the tone in which you said: \"Life is very sad to me; it is very\npitiful; there isn't much to it.\" True indeed! With your belief, or want\nof belief, there is very little to it; and if this were all, it would be\na fair question whether life were worth living. In the name of humanity,\nlet us cling to all that is left us that can bring a ray of hope into\nits darkness, and thus lighten its otherwise impenetrable gloom.\n\nI observe that you not unfrequently entertain yourself and your\naudiences by caricaturing certain doctrines of the Christian religion.\nThe \"Atonement,\" as you look upon it, is simply \"punishing the wrong\nman\"—letting the guilty escape and putting the innocent to death. This\nis vindicating justice by permitting injustice. But is there not another\nside to this? Does not the idea of sacrifice run through human life,\nand ennoble human character? You see a mother denying herself for her\nchildren, foregoing every comfort, enduring every hardship, till at\nlast, worn out by her labor and her privation, she folds her hands upon\nher breast. May it not be said truly that she gives her life for the\nlife of her children? History is full of sacrifice, and it is the best\npart of history. I will not speak of \"the noble army of martyrs,\" but\nof heroes who have died for their country or for liberty—what is it but\nthis element of devotion for the good of others that gives such glory\nto their immortal names? How then should it be thought a thing without\nreason that a Deliverer of the race should give His life for the life of\nthe world?\n\nSo, too, you find a subject for caricature in the doctrine of\n\"Regeneration.\" But what is regeneration but a change of character\nshown in a change of life? Is that so very absurd? Have you never seen a\ndrunkard reformed? Have you never seen a man of impure life, who, after\nrunning his evil course, had, like the prodigal, \"come to himself\"—that\nis, awakened to his shame, and turning from it, come back to the path\nof purity, and finally regained a true and noble manhood? Probably you\nwould admit this, but say that the change was the result of reflection,\nand of the man's own strength of will. The doctrine of regeneration only\nadds to the will of man the power of God. We believe that man is weak,\nbut that God is mighty; and that when man tries to raise himself, an arm\nis stretched out to lift him up to a height which he could not attain\nalone. Sometimes one who has led the worst life, after being plunged\ninto such remorse and despair that he feels as if he were enduring the\nagonies of hell, turns back and takes another course: he becomes \"a new\ncreature,\" whom his friends can hardly recognize as he \"sits clothed and\nin his right mind.\" The change is from darkness to light, from death\nto life; and he who has known but one such case will never say that the\nlanguage is too strong which describes that man as \"born again.\"\n\nIf you think that I pass lightly over these doctrines, not bringing out\nall the meaning which they bear, I admit it. I am not writing an essay\nin theology, but would only show, in passing, by your favorite method of\nillustration, that the principles involved are the same with which you\nare familiar in everyday life.\n\nBut the doctrine which excites your bitterest animosity is that of\nFuture Retribution. The prospect of another life, reaching on into an\nunknown futurity, you would contemplate with composure were it not for\nthe dark shadow hanging over it. But to live only to suffer; to live\nwhen asking to die; to \"long for death, and not be able to find it\"—is\na prospect which arouses the anger of one who would look with calmness\nupon death as an eternal sleep. The doctrine loses none of its terrors\nin passing through your hands; for it is one of the means by which\nyou work upon the feelings of your hearers. You pronounce it \"the most\nhorrible belief that ever entered the human mind: that the Creator\nshould bring beings into existence to destroy them! This would make\nHim the most fearful tyrant in the universe—a Moloch devouring his\nown children!\" I shudder when I recall the fierce energy with which\nyou spoke as you said, \"Such a God I hate with all the intensity of my\nbeing!\"\n\nBut gently, gently, Sir! We will let this burst of fury pass before we\nresume the conversation. When you are a little more tranquil, I would\nmodestly suggest that perhaps you are fighting a figment of your\nimagination. I never heard of any Christian teacher who said that \"the\nCreator brought beings into the world to destroy them!\" Is it not better\nto moderate yourself to exact statements, especially when, with all\nmodifications, the subject is one to awaken a feeling the most solemn\nand profound?\n\nNow I am not going to enter into a discussion of this doctrine. I will\nnot quote a single text. I only ask you whether it is not a scientific\ntruth that _the effect of everything which is of the nature of a cause\nis eternal_. Science has opened our eyes to some very strange facts\nin nature. The theory of vibrations is carried by the physicists to an\nalarming extent. They tell us that it is literally and mathematically\ntrue that you cannot throw a ball in the air but it shakes the solar\nsystem. Thus all things act upon all. What is true in space may be true\nin time, and the law of physics may hold in the spiritual realm.\nWhen the soul of man departs out of the body, being released from the\ngrossness of the flesh, it may enter on a life a thousand times more\nintense than this: in which it will not need the dull senses as avenues\nof knowledge, because the spirit itself will be all eye, all ear, all\nintelligence; while memory, like an electric flash, will in an instant\nbring the whole of the past into view; and the moral sense will be\nquickened as never before. Here then we have all the conditions of\nretribution—a world which, however shadowy it may be seem, is yet as\nreal as the homes and habitations and activities of our present state;\nwith memory trailing the deeds of a lifetime behind it, and conscience,\nmore inexorable than any judge, giving its solemn and final verdict.\n\nWith such conditions assumed, let us take a case which would awaken your\njust indignation—that of a selfish, hardhearted, and cruel man; who\nsacrifices the interests of everybody to his own; who grinds the faces\nof the poor, robbing the widow and the orphan of their little all; and\nwho, so far from making restitution, dies with his ill-gotten gains held\nfast in his clenched hand. How long must the night be to sleep away the\nmemory of such a hideous life? If he wakes, will not the recollection\ncling to him still? Are there any waters of oblivion that can cleanse\nhis miserable soul? If not—if he cannot forget—surely he cannot\nforgive himself for the baseness which now he has no opportunity to\nrepair. Here, then, is a retribution which is inseparable from his\nbeing, which is a part of his very existence. The undying memory brings\nthe undying pain.\n\nTake another case—alas! too sadly frequent. A man of pleasure betrays\na young, innocent, trusting woman by the promise of his love, and then\ncasts her off, leaving her to sink down, down, through every degree\nof misery and shame, till she is lost in depths, which plummet never\nsounded, and disappears. Is he not to suffer for this poor creature's\nruin? Can he rid himself of it by fleeing beyond \"that bourne from\nwhence no traveler returns\"? Not unless he can flee from himself: for\nin the lowest depths of the under-world—a world in which the sun never\nshines—that image will still pursue him. As he wanders in its gloomy\nshades a pale form glides by him like an affrighted ghost. The face is\nthe same, beautiful even in its sorrow, but with a look upon it as of\none who has already suffered an eternity of woe. In an instant all the\npast comes back again. He sees the young, unblessed mother wandering in\nsome lonely place, that only the heavens may witness her agony and her\ndespair. There he sees her holding up in her arms the babe that had no\nright to be born, and calling upon God to judge her betrayer. How far\nin the future must he travel to forget that look? Is there any escape\nexcept by plunging into the gulf of annihilation?\n\nThus far in this paper I have taken a tone of defence. But I do not\nadmit that the Christian religion needs any apology,—it needs only to\nbe rightly understood to furnish its own complete vindication. Instead\nof considering its \"evidences,\" which is but going round the outer\nwalls, let us enter the gates of the temple and see what is within. Here\nwe find something better than \"towers and bulwarks\" in the character of\nHim who is the Founder of our Religion, and not its Founder only but its\nvery core and being. Christ is Christianity. Not only is He the Great\nTeacher, but the central subject of what He taught, so that the whole\nstands or falls with Him.\n\nIn our first conversation, I observed that, with all your sharp\ncomments on things sacred, you professed great respect for the ethics\nof Christianity, and for its author. \"Make the Sermon on the Mount your\nreligion,\" you said, \"and there I am with you.\" Very well! So far, so\ngood. And now, if you will go a little further, you may find still more\nfood for reflection.\n\nAll who have made a study of the character and teachings of Christ, even\nthose who utterly deny the supernatural, stand in awe and wonder before\nthe gigantic figure which is here revealed. Renan closes his \"Life of\nJesus\" with this as the result of his long study: \"Jesus will never\nbe surpassed. His worship will be renewed without ceasing; his\nstory [legende] will draw tears from beautiful eyes without end; his\nsufferings will touch the finest natures; all the ages will proclaim\n\nTHAT AMONG THE SONS OF MEN THERE HAS NOT RISEN A GREATER THAN JESUS;\"\n\nwhile Rousseau closes his immortal eulogy by saying, \"Socrates died like\na philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God!\"\n\nHere is an argument for Christianity to which I pray you to address\nyourself. As you do not believe in miracles, and are ready to explain\neverything by natural causes, I beg you to tell us how came it to pass\nthat a Hebrew peasant, born among the hills of Judea, had a wisdom above\nthat of Socrates or Plato, of Confucius or Buddha? This is the greatest\nof miracles, that such a Being has lived and died on the earth.\n\nSince this is the chief argument for Religion, does it not become\none who undertakes to destroy it to set himself first to this central\nposition, instead of wasting his time on mere outposts? When you next\naddress one of the great audiences that hang upon your words, is it\nunfair to ask that you lay aside such familiar topics as Miracles or\nGhosts, or a reply to Talmage, and tell us what you think of Jesus\nChrist; whether you look upon Him as an impostor, or merely as a\ndreamer—a mild and harmless enthusiast; or are you ready to acknowledge\nthat He is entitled to rank among the great teachers of mankind?\n\nBut if you are compelled to admit the greatness of Christ, you take your\nrevenge on the Apostles, whom you do not hesitate to say that you \"don't\nthink much of.\" In fact, you set them down in a most peremptory way\nas \"a poor lot.\" It did seem rather an unpromising \"lot,\" that of\na boat-load of fishermen, from which to choose the apostles of a\nreligion—almost as unpromising as it was to take a rail-splitter to be\nthe head of a nation in the greatest crisis of its history! But perhaps\nin both cases there was a wisdom higher than ours, that chose better\nthan we. It might puzzle even you to give a better definition of\nreligion than this of the Apostle James: \"Pure religion and undefiled\nbefore God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows\nin their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world,\" or\nto find among those sages of antiquity, with whose writings you are\nfamiliar, a more complete and perfect delineation of that which is\nthe essence of all goodness and virtue, than Paul's description of the\ncharity which \"suffereth long and is kind;\" or to find in the sayings of\nConfucius or of Buddha anything more sublime than this aphorism of John:\n\"God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in\nhim.\"\n\nAnd here you must allow me to make a remark, which is not intended as a\npersonal retort, but simply in the interest of that truth which we both\nprofess to seek, and to count worth more than victory. Your language is\ntoo sweeping to indicate the careful thinker, who measures his words\nand weighs them in a balance. Your lectures remind me of the pictures of\nGustave Dore, who preferred to paint on a large canvas, with figures as\ngigantesque as those of Michael Angelo in his Last Judgment. The effect\nis very powerful, but if he had softened his colors a little,—if there\nwere a few delicate touches, a mingling of light and shade, as when\ntwilight is stealing over the earth,—the landscape would be more true\nto nature. So, believe me, your words would be more weighty if they were\nnot so strong. But whenever you touch upon religion you seem to lose\ncontrol of yourself, and a vindictive feeling takes possession of\nyou, which causes you to see things so distorted from their natural\nappearance that you cannot help running into the broadest caricature.\nYou swing your sentences as the woodman swings his axe. Of course, this\n\"slashing\" style is very effective before a popular audience, which does\nnot care for nice distinctions, or for evidence that has to be sifted\nand weighed; but wants opinions off hand, and likes to have its\nprejudices and hatreds echoed back in a ringing voice. This carries\nthe crowd, but does not convince the philosophic mind. The truth-seeker\ncannot cut a road through the forest with sturdy blows; he has a hidden\npath to trace, and must pick his way with slow and cautious step to find\nthat which is more precious than gold.\n\nBut if it were possible for you to sweep away the \"evidences of\nChristianity,\" you have not swept away Christianity itself; it still\nlives, not only in tradition, but in the hearts of the people, entwined\nwith all that is sweetest in their domestic life, from which it must\nbe torn out with unsparing hand before it can be exterminated. To\nbegin with, you turn your back upon history. All that men have done and\nsuffered for the sake of religion was folly. The Pilgrims, who crossed\nthe sea to find freedom to worship God in the forests of the New World,\nwere miserable fanatics. There is no more place in the world for heroes\nand martyrs. He who sacrifices his life for a faith, or an idea, is\na fool. The only practical wisdom is to have a sharp eye to the main\nchance. If you keep on in this work of demolition, you will soon destroy\nall our ideals. Family life withers under the cold sneer—half pity and\nhalf scorn—with which you look down on household worship. Take from\nour American firesides such scenes as that pictured in the _Cotter's\nSaturday Night_, and you have taken from them their most sacred hours\nand their tenderest memories.\n\nThe same destructive spirit which intrudes into our domestic as well as\nour religious life, would take away the beauty of our villages as well\nas the sweetness of our homes. In the weary round of a week of toil,\nthere comes an interval of rest; the laborer lays down his burden, and\nfor a few hours breathes a serener air. The Sabbath morning has come:\n    \"Sweet day I so cool, so calm, so bright,\n    The bridal of the earth and sky.\"\n\nAt the appointed hour the bell rings across the valley, and sends its\nechoes among the hills; and from all the roads the people come trooping\nto the village church. Here they gather, old and young, rich and poor;\nand as they join in the same act of worship, feel that God is the maker\nof them all? Is there in our national life any influence more elevating\nthan this—one which tends more to bring a community together; to\npromote neighborly feeling; to refine the manners of the people; to\nbreed true courtesy, and all that makes a Christian village different\nfrom a cluster of Indian wigwams—a civilized community different from a\ntribe of savages?\n\nAll this you would destroy: you would abolish the Sabbath, or have it\nturned into a holiday; you would tear down the old church, so full of\ntender associations of the living and the dead, or at least have it\n\"razeed,\" cutting off the tall spire that points upward to heaven;\nand the interior you would turn into an Assembly room—a place of\nentertainment, where the young people could have their merry-makings,\nexcept perchance in the warm' Summer-time, when they could dance on the\nvillage green! So far you would have gained your object. But would that\nbe a more orderly community, more refined or more truly happy?\n\nYou may think this a mere sentiment—that we care more for the\npicturesque than for the true. But there is one result which is\nfearfully real: the destructive creed, or no creed, which despoils\nour churches and our homes, attacks society in its first principles\nby taking away the support of morality. I do not believe that general\nmorality can be upheld without the sanctions of religion. There may\nbe individuals of great natural force of character, who can stand\nalone—men of superior intellect and strong will. But in general human\nnature is weak, and virtue is not the spontaneous growth of childish\ninnocence. Men do not become pure and good by instinct. Character, like\nmind, has to be developed by education; and it needs all the elements\nof strength which can be given it, from without as well as from within,\nfrom the government of man and the government of God. To let go of these\nrestraints is a peril to public morality.\n\nYou feel strong in the strength of a robust manhood, well poised in body\nand mind, and in the centre of a happy home, where loving hearts cling\nto you like vines round the oak. But many to whom you speak are quite\notherwise. You address thousands of young men who have come out of\ncountry homes, where they have been brought up in the fear of God, and\nhave heard the morning and evening prayer. They come into a city full of\ntemptations, but are restrained from evil by the thought of father and\nmother, and reverence for Him who is the Father of us all—a feeling\nwhich, though it may not have taken the form of any profession, is yet\nat the bottom of their hearts, and keeps them from many a wrong and\nwayward step. A young man, who is thus \"guarded and defended\" as by\nunseen angels, some evening when he feels very lonely, is invited\nto \"go and hear Ingersoll,\" and for a couple of hours listens to your\ncaricatures of religion, with descriptions of the prayers and the\npsalm-singing, illustrated by devout grimaces and nasal tones, which\nset the house in roars of laughter, and are received with tumultuous\napplause. When it is all over, and the young man finds himself again\nunder the flaring lamps of the city streets, he is conscious of a\nchange; the faith of his childhood has been rudely torn from him, and\nwith it \"a glory has passed away from the earth;\" the Bible which his\nmother gave him, the morning that he came away, is \"a mass of fables;\"\nthe sentence which she wished him to hang on the wall, \"Thou, God, seest\nme,\" has lost its power, for there is no God that sees him, no moral\ngovernment, no law and no retribution. So he reasons as he walks\nslowly homeward, meeting the temptations which haunt these streets at\nnight—temptations from which he has hitherto turned with a shudder, but\nwhich he now meets with a diminished power of resistance. Have you done\nthat young man any good in taking from him what he held sacred before?\nHave you not left him morally weakened? From sneering at religion, it\nis but a step to sneering at morality, and then but one step more to a\nvicious and profligate career. How are you going to stop this downward\ntendency? When you have stripped him of former restraints, do you\nleave him anything in their stead, except indeed a sense of honor,\nself-respect, and self-interest?—worthy motives, no doubt, but all\ntoo feeble to withstand the fearful temptations that assail him. Is the\nchance of his resistance as good as it was before? Watch him as he goes\nalong that street at midnight! He passes by the places of evil resort,\nof drinking and gambling—those open mouths of hell; he hears the sound\nof music and dancing, and for the first time pauses to listen. How long\nwill it be before he will venture in?\n\nWith such dangers in his path, it is a grave responsibility to loosen\nthe restraints which hold such a young man to virtue. These gibes\nand sneers which you utter so lightly, may have a sad echo in a lost\ncharacter and a wretched life. Many a young man has been thus taunted\nuntil he has pushed off from the shore, under the idea of gaining his\n\"liberty,\" and ventured into the rapids, only to be carried down the\nstream, and left a wreck in the whirlpool below.\n\nYou tell me that your object is to drive fear out of the world. That\nis a noble ambition; if you succeed, you will be indeed a deliverer. Of\ncourse you mean only irrational fears. You would not have men throw\noff the fear of violating the laws of nature; for that would lead to\nincalculable misery. You aim only at the terrors born of ignorance and\nsuperstition. But how are you going to get rid of these? You trust to\nthe progress of science, which has dispelled so many fears arising from\nphysical phenomena, by showing that calamities ascribed to spiritual\nagencies are explained by natural causes. But science can only go a\ncertain way, beyond which we come into the sphere of the unknown, where\nall is dark as before. How can you relieve the fears of others—indeed\nhow can you rid yourself of fear, believing as you do that there is no\nPower above which can help you in any extremity; that you are the sport\nof accident, and may be dashed in pieces by the blind agency of nature?\nIf I believed this, I should feel that I was in the grasp of some\nterrible machinery which was crushing me to atoms, with no possibility\nof escape.\n\nNot so does Religion leave man here on the earth, helpless and\nhopeless—in abject terror, as he is in utter darkness as to\nhis fate—but opening the heaven above him, it discovers a Great\nIntelligence, compassing all things, seeing the end from the beginning,\nand ordering our little lives so that even the trials that we bear, as\nthey call out the finer elements of character, conduce to our future\nhappiness. God is our Father. We look up into His face with childlike\nconfidence, and find that \"His service is perfect freedom.\" \"Love casts\nout fear.\" That, I beg to assure you, is the way, and the only way,\nby which man can be delivered from those fears by which he is all his\nlifetime subject to bondage.\n\nIn your attacks upon Religion you do violence to your own manliness.\nKnowing you as I do, I feel sure that you do not realize where your\nblows fall, or whom they wound, or you would not use your weapons so\nfreely. The faiths of men are as sacred as the most delicate manly or\nwomanly sentiments of love and honor. They are dear as the beloved\nfaces that have passed from our sight. I should think myself wanting in\nrespect to the memory of my father and mother if I could speak lightly\nof the faith in which they lived and died. Surely this must be mere\nthoughtlessness, for I cannot believe that you find pleasure in giving\npain. I have not forgotten the gentle hand that was laid upon your\nshoulder, and the gentle voice which said, \"Uncle Robert wouldn't hurt\na fly.\" And yet you bruise the tenderest sensibilities, and trample down\nwhat is most cherished by millions of sisters and daughters and mothers,\nlittle heeding that you are sporting with \"human creatures' lives.\"\n\nYou are waging a hopeless war—a war in which you are certain only of\ndefeat. The Christian Religion began to be nearly two thousand years\nbefore you and I were born, and it will live two thousand years after we\nare dead. Why is it that it lives on and on, while nations and kingdoms\nperish? Is not this \"the survival of the fittest?\" Contend against\nit with all your wit and eloquence, you will fail, as all have failed\nbefore you. You cannot fight against the instincts of humanity. It is as\nnatural for men to look up to a Higher Power as it is to look up to the\nstars. Tell them that there is no God! You might as well tell them that\nthere is no Sun in heaven, even while on that central light and heat all\nlife on earth depends.\n\nI do not presume to, think that I have convinced you, or changed your\nopinion; but it is always right to appeal to a man's \"sober second\nthought\"—to that better judgment that comes with increasing knowledge\nand advancing years; and I will not give up hope that you will yet see\nthings more clearly, and recognize the mistake you have made in not\ndistinguishing Religion from Superstition—two things as far apart as\n\"the hither from the utmost pole.\" Superstition is the greatest enemy\nof Religion. It is the nightmare of the mind, filling it with all\nimaginable terrors—a black cloud which broods over half the world.\nAgainst this you may well invoke the light of science to scatter its\ndarkness. Whoever helps to sweep it away, is a benefactor of his race.\nBut when this is done, and the moral atmosphere is made pure and sweet,\nthen you as well as we may be conscious of a new Presence coming into\nthe hushed and vacant air, as Religion, daughter of the skies, descends\nto earth to bring peace and good will to men.\n\nHenry M. Field.\n\nA Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.d\n    \"Doubt is called the beacon of the wise.\"\n\nMy Dear Mr. Field:\n\nI answer your letter because it is manly, candid and generous. It is not\noften that a minister of the gospel of universal benevolence speaks of\nan unbeliever except in terms of reproach, contempt and hatred. The meek\nare often malicious. The statement in your letter, that some of your\nbrethren look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief, tends\nto show that those who love God are not always the friends of their\nfellow-men.\n\nIs it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally\ndamned, that they are by nature totally depraved, and that there is no\nsoundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look\nupon others as \"monsters\"? And yet \"some of your brethren,\" who regard\nunbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of\nanother, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy.\n\nThe first question that arises between us, is as to the innocence of\nhonest error—as to the right to express an honest thought.\n\nYou must know that perfectly honest men differ on many important\nsubjects. Some believe in free trade, others are the advocates of\nprotection. There are honest Democrats and sincere Republicans. How do\nyou account for these differences? Educated men, presidents of colleges,\ncannot agree upon questions capable of solution—questions that the mind\ncan grasp, concerning which the evidence is open to all and where the\nfacts can be with accuracy ascertained. How do you explain this? If\nsuch differences can exist consistently with the good faith of those\nwho differ, can you not conceive of honest people entertaining different\nviews on subjects about which nothing can be positively known?\n\nYou do not regard me as a monster. \"Some of your brethren\" do. How do\nyou account for this difference? Of course, your brethren—their hearts\nhaving been softened by the Presbyterian God—are governed by charity\nand love. They do not regard me as a monster because I have committed\nan infamous crime, but simply for the reason that I have expressed my\nhonest thoughts.\n\nWhat should I have done? I have read the Bible with great care, and\nthe conclusion has forced itself upon my mind not only that it is\nnot inspired, but that it is not true. Was it my duty to speak or act\ncontrary to this conclusion? Was it my duty to remain silent? If I had\nbeen untrue to myself, if I had joined the majority,—if I had declared\nthe book to be the inspired word of God,—would your brethren still have\nregarded me as a monster? Has religion had control of the world so long\nthat an honest man seems monstrous?\n\nAccording to your creed—according to your Bible—the same Being who\nmade the mind of man, who fashioned every brain, and sowed within\nthose wondrous fields the seeds of every thought and deed, inspired the\nBible's every word, and gave it as a guide to all the world. Surely the\nbook should satisfy the brain. And yet, there are millions who do not\nbelieve in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Some of the greatest and\nbest have held the claim of inspiration in contempt. No Presbyterian\never stood higher in the realm of thought than Humboldt. He was familiar\nwith Nature from sands to stars, and gave his thoughts, his discoveries\nand conclusions, \"more precious than the tested gold,\" to all mankind.\nYet he not only rejected the religion of your brethren, but denied\nthe existence of their God. Certainly, Charles Darwin was one of the\ngreatest and purest of men,—as free from prejudice as the mariner's\ncompass,—desiring only to find amid the mists and clouds of ignorance\nthe star of truth. No man ever exerted a greater influence on the\nintellectual world. His discoveries, carried to their legitimate\nconclusion, destroy the creeds and sacred Scriptures of mankind. In the\nlight of \"Natural Selection,\" \"The Survival of the Fittest,\" and \"The\nOrigin of Species,\" even the Christian religion becomes a gross and\ncruel superstition. Yet Darwin was an honest, thoughtful, brave and\ngenerous man.\n\nCompare, I beg of you, these men, Humboldt and Darwin, with the founders\nof the Presbyterian Church. Read the life of Spinoza, the loving\npantheist, and then that of John Calvin, and tell me, candidly, which,\nin your opinion, was a \"monster.\" Even your brethren do not claim that\nmen are to be eternally punished for having been mistaken as to the\ntruths of geology, astronomy, or mathematics. A man may deny the\nrotundity and rotation of the earth, laugh at the attraction of\ngravitation, scout the nebular hypothesis, and hold the multiplication\ntable in abhorrence, and yet join at last the angelic choir. I insist\nupon the same freedom of thought in all departments of human knowledge.\nReason is the supreme and final test.\n\nIf God has made a revelation to man, it must have been addressed to his\nreason. There is no other faculty that could even decipher the address.\nI admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by\nstumblers carried in the starless night,—blown and flared by passion's\nstorm,—and yet it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought\nremains.\n\nYou draw a distinction between what you are pleased to call\n\"superstition\" and religion. You are shocked at the Hindoo mother when\nshe gives her child to death at the supposed command of her God. What\ndo you think of Abraham, of Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah\nhimself? Is not the sacrifice of a child to a phantom as horrible in\nPalestine as in India? Why should a God demand a sacrifice from man? Why\nshould the infinite ask anything from the finite? Should the sun beg\nof the glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the\nsource of light?\n\nYou must remember that the Hindoo mother believes that her child will be\nforever blest—that it will become the especial care of the God to whom\nit has been given. This is a sacrifice through a false belief on the\npart of the mother. She breaks her heart for the love of her babe. But\nwhat do you think of the Christian mother who expects to be happy in\nheaven, with her child a convict in the eternal prison—a prison in\nwhich none die, and from which none escape? What do you say of those\nChristians who believe that they, in heaven, will be so filled with\necstasy that all the loved of earth will be forgotten—that all the\nsacred relations of life, and all the passions of the heart, will fade\nand die, so that they will look with stony, un-replying, happy eyes upon\nthe miseries of the lost?\n\nYou have laid down a rule by which superstition can be distinguished\nfrom religion. It is this: \"It makes that a crime which is not a crime,\nand that a virtue which is not a virtue.\" Let us test your religion by\nthis rule.\n\nIs it a crime to investigate, to think, to reason, to observe? Is it\na crime to be governed by that which to you is evidence, and is it\ninfamous to express your honest thought? There is also another question:\nIs credulity a virtue? Is the open mouth of ignorant wonder the only\nentrance to Paradise?\n\nAccording to your creed, those who believe are to be saved, and those\nwho do not believe are to be eternally lost. When you condemn men to\neverlasting pain for unbelief—that is to say, for acting in accordance\nwith that which is evidence to them—do you not make that a crime which\nis not a crime? And when you reward men with an eternity of joy for\nsimply believing that which happens to be in accord with their minds, do\nyou not make that a virtue which is not a virtue? In other words, do\nyou not bring your own religion exactly within your own definition of\nsuperstition?\n\nThe truth is, that no one can justly be held responsible for his\nthoughts. The brain thinks without asking our consent. We believe, or we\ndisbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the\neffect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who\nwatches. There is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in the\nformation of an opinion. The conclusion is entirely independent of\ndesire. We must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish.\n\nThat which must be, has the right to be.\n\nWe think in spite of ourselves. The brain thinks as the heart beats,\nas the eyes see, as the blood pursues its course in the old accustomed\nways.\n\nThe question then is, not have we the right to think,—that being a\nnecessity,—but have we the right to express our honest thoughts? You\ncertainly have the right to express yours, and you have exercised that\nright. Some of your brethren, who regard me as a monster, have expressed\ntheirs. The question now is, have I the right to express mine? In other\nwords, have I the right to answer your letter? To make that a crime in\nme which is a virtue in you, certainly comes within your definition\nof superstition. To exercise a right yourself which you deny to me is\nsimply the act of a tyrant. Where did you get your right to express your\nhonest thoughts? When, and where, and how did I lose mine?\n\nYou would not burn, you would not even imprison me, because I differ\nwith you on a subject about which neither of us knows anything. To you\nthe savagery of the Inquisition is only a proof of the depravity of man.\nYou are far better than your creed. You believe that even the Christian\nworld is outgrowing the frightful feeling that fagot, and dungeon, and\nthumb-screw are legitimate arguments, calculated to convince those upon\nwhom they are used, that the religion of those who use them was\nfounded by a God of infinite compassion. You will admit that he who now\npersecutes for opinion's sake is infamous. And yet, the God you worship\nwill, according to your creed, torture through all the endless years\nthe man who entertains an honest doubt. A belief in such a God is the\nfoundation and cause of all religious persecution. You may reply that\nonly the belief in a false God causes believers to be inhuman. But you\nmust admit that the Jews believed in the true God, and you are forced\nto say that they were so malicious, so cruel, so savage, that they\ncrucified the only Sinless Being who ever lived. This crime was\nCommitted, not in spite of their religion, but in accordance with it.\nThey simply obeyed the command of Jehovah. And the followers of this\nSinless Being, who, for all these centuries, have denounced the cruelty\nof the Jews for crucifying a man on account of his opinion, have\ndestroyed millions and millions of their fellow-men for differing with\nthem. And this same Sinless Being threatens to torture in eternal fire\ncountless myriads for the same offence. Beyond this, inconsistency\ncannot go. At this point absurdity becomes infinite.\n\nYour creed transfers the Inquisition to another world, making it\neternal. Your God becomes, or rather is, an infinite Torquemada, who\ndenies to his countless victims even the mercy of death. And this you\ncall \"a consolation.\"\n\nYou insist that at the foundation of every religion is the idea of God.\nAccording to your creed, all ideas of God, except those entertained by\nthose of your faith, are absolutely false. You are not called upon to\ndefend the Gods of the nations dead; nor the Gods of heretics. It\nis your business to defend the God of the Bible—the God of the\nPresbyterian Church. When in the ranks doing battle for your creed,\nyou must wear the uniform of your church. You dare not say that it is\nsufficient to insure the salvation of a soul to believe in a god, or in\nsome god. According to your creed, man must believe in your God. All\nthe nations dead believed in gods, and all the worshipers of Zeus, and\nJupiter, and Isis, and Osiris, and Brahma prayed and sacrificed in\nvain. Their petitions were not answered, and their souls were not saved.\nSurely you do not claim that it is sufficient to believe in any one of\nthe heathen gods.\n\nWhat right have you to occupy the position of the deists, and to put\nforth arguments that even Christians have answered? The deist denounced\nthe God of the Bible because of his cruelty, and at the same time lauded\nthe God of Nature. The Christian replied that the God of Nature was as\ncruel as the God of the Bible. This answer was complete.\n\nI feel that you are entitled to the admission that none have been, that\nnone are, too ignorant, too degraded, to believe in the supernatural;\nand I freely give you the advantage of this admission. Only a few—and\nthey among the wisest, noblest, and purest of the human race—have\nregarded all gods as monstrous myths. Yet a belief in \"the true God\"\ndoes not seem to make men charitable or just. For most people, theism\nis the easiest solution of the universe. They are satisfied with saying\nthat there must be a Being who created and who governs the world. But\nthe universality of a belief does not tend to establish its truth. The\nbelief in the existence of a malignant Devil has been as universal as\nthe belief in a beneficent God, yet few intelligent men will say that\nthe universality of this belief in an infinite demon even tends to prove\nhis existence. In the world of thought, majorities count for nothing.\nTruth has always dwelt with the few.\n\nMan has filled the world with impossible monsters, and he has been the\nsport and prey of these phantoms born of ignorance and hope and fear. To\nappease the wrath of these monsters man has sacrificed his fellow-man.\nHe has shed the blood of wife and child; he has fasted and prayed; he\nhas suffered beyond the power of language to express, and yet he has\nreceived nothing from these gods—they have heard no supplication, they\nhave answered no prayer.\n\nYou may reply that your God \"sends his rain on the just and on the\nunjust,\" and that this fact proves that he is merciful to all alike.\nI answer, that your God sends his pestilence on the just and on the\nunjust—that his earthquakes devour and his cyclones rend and wreck the\nloving and the vicious, the honest and the criminal. Do not these facts\nprove that your God is cruel to all alike? In other words, do they not\ndemonstrate the absolute impartiality of divine negligence?\n\nDo you not believe that any honest man of average intelligence, having\nabsolute control of the rain, could do vastly better than is being done?\nCertainly there would be no droughts or floods; the crops would not be\npermitted to wither and die, while rain was being wasted in the sea. Is\nit conceivable that a good man with power to control the winds would not\nprevent cyclones? Would you not rather trust a wise and honest man with\nthe lightning?\n\nWhy should an infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the good and\npreserve the vile? Why should he treat all alike here, and in another\nworld make an infinite difference? Why should your God allow his\nworshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his enemies? Why should he\nallow the honest, the loving, the noble, to perish at the stake? Can you\nanswer these questions? Does it not seem to you that your God must have\nfelt a touch of shame when the poor slave mother—one that had been\nrobbed of her babe—knelt and with clasped hands, in a voice broken with\nsobs, commenced her prayer with the words \"Our Father\"?\n\nIt gave me pleasure to find that, notwithstanding your creed, you are\nphilosophical enough to say that some men are incapacitated, by reason\nof temperament, for believing in the existence of God. Now, if a belief\nin God is necessary to the salvation of the soul, why should God create\na soul without this capacity? Why should he create souls that he knew\nwould be lost? You seem to think that it is necessary to be poetical, or\ndreamy, in order to be religious, and by inference, at least, you deny\ncertain qualities to me that you deem necessary. Do you account for the\natheism of Shelley by saying that he was not poetic, and do you quote\nhis lines to prove the existence of the very God whose being he so\npassionately denied? Is it possible that Napoleon—one of the most\ninfamous of men—had a nature so finely strung that he was sensitive to\nthe divine influences? Are you driven to the necessity of proving the\nexistence of one tyrant by the words of another? Personally, I have but\nlittle confidence in a religion that satisfied the heart of a man who,\nto gratify his ambition, filled half the world with widows and orphans.\nIn regard to Agassiz, it is just to say that he furnished a vast amount\nof testimony in favor of the truth of the theories of Charles Darwin,\nand then denied the correctness of these theories—preferring the\ngood opinions of Harvard for a few days to the lasting applause of the\nintellectual world.\n\nI agree with you that the world is a mystery, not only, but that\neverything in nature is equally mysterious, and that there is no way of\nescape from the mystery of life and death. To me, the crystallization of\nthe snow is as mysterious as the constellations. But when you endeavor\nto explain the mystery of the universe by the mystery of God, you do not\neven exchange mysteries—you simply make one more.\n\nNothing can be mysterious enough to become an explanation.\n\nThe mystery of man cannot be explained by the mystery of God. That\nmystery still asks for explanation. The mind is so that it cannot grasp\nthe idea of an infinite personality. That is beyond the circumference.\nThis being so, it is impossible that man can be convinced by any\nevidence of the existence of that which he cannot in any measure\ncomprehend. Such evidence would be equally incomprehensible with the\nincomprehensible fact sought to be established by it, and the intellect\nof man can grasp neither the one nor the other.\n\nYou admit that the God of Nature—that is to say, your God—is as\ninflexible as nature itself. Why should man worship the inflexible? Why\nshould he kneel to the unchangeable? You say that your God \"does not\nbend to human thought any more than to human will,\" and that \"the more\nwe study him, the more we find that he is not what we imagined him to\nbe.\" So that, after all, the only thing you are really certain of in\nrelation to your God is, that he is not what you think he is. Is it\nnot almost absurd to insist that such a state of mind is necessary to\nsalvation, or that it is a moral restraint, or that it is the foundation\nof social order?\n\nThe most religious nations have been the most immoral, the cruelest\nand the most unjust. Italy was far worse under the Popes than under the\nCaesars. Was there ever a barbarian nation more savage than the Spain\nof the sixteenth century? Certainly you must know that what you call\nreligion has produced a thousand civil wars, and has severed with the\nsword all the natural ties that produce \"the unity and married calm of\nStates.\" Theology is the fruitful mother of discord; order is the child\nof reason. If you will candidly consider this question—if you will for\na few moments forget your preconceived opinions—you will instantly see\nthat the instinct of self-preservation holds society together. Religion\nitself was born of this instinct. People, being ignorant, believed that\nthe Gods were jealous and revengeful. They peopled space with phantoms\nthat demanded worship and delighted in sacrifice and ceremony, phantoms\nthat could be flattered by praise and changed by prayer. These ignorant\npeople wished to preserve themselves. They supposed that they could in\nthis way avoid pestilence and famine, and postpone perhaps the day of\ndeath. Do you not see that self-preservation lies at the foundation\nof worship? Nations, like individuals, defend and protect themselves.\nNations, like individuals, have fears, have ideals, and live for the\naccomplishment of certain ends. Men defend their property because it\nis of value. Industry is the enemy of theft. Men, as a rule, desire to\nlive, and for that reason murder is a crime. Fraud is hateful to the\nvictim. The majority of mankind work and produce the necessities, the\ncomforts, and the luxuries of life. They wish to retain the fruits\nof their labor. Government is one of the instrumentalities for the\npreservation of what man deems of value. This is the foundation of\nsocial order, and this holds society together.\n\nReligion has been the enemy of social order, because it directs the\nattention of man to another world. Religion teaches its votaries to\nsacrifice this world for the sake of that other. The effect is to weaken\nthe ties that hold families and States together. Of what consequence is\nanything in this world compared with eternal joy?\n\nYou insist that man is not capable of self-government, and that God made\nthe mistake of filling a world with failures—in other words, that man\nmust be governed not by himself, but by your God, and that your God\nproduces order, and establishes and preserves all the nations of the\nearth. This being so, your God is responsible for the government of this\nworld. Does he preserve order in Russia? Is he accountable for Siberia?\nDid he establish the institution of slavery? Was he the founder of the\nInquisition?\n\nYou answer all these questions by calling my attention to \"the\nretributions of history.\" What are the retributions of history? The\nhonest were burned at the stake; the patriotic, the generous, and\nthe noble were allowed to die in dungeons; whole races were enslaved;\nmillions of mothers were robbed of their babes. What were the\nretributions of history? They who committed these crimes wore crowns,\nand they who justified these infamies were adorned with the tiara.\n\nYou are mistaken when you say that Lincoln at Gettysburg said: \"Just and\ntrue are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty.\" Something like this occurs\nin his last inaugural, in which he says,—speaking of his hope that\nthe war might soon be ended,—\"If it shall continue until every drop of\nblood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,\nstill it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous\naltogether.'\" But admitting that you are correct in the assertion, let\nme ask you one question: Could one standing over the body of Lincoln,\nthe blood slowly oozing from the madman's wound, have truthfully said:\n\"Just and true are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty\"?\n\nDo you really believe that this world is governed by an infinitely wise\nand good God? Have you convinced even yourself of this? Why should God\npermit the triumph of injustice? Why should the loving be tortured? Why\nshould the noblest be destroyed? Why should the world be filled\nwith misery, with ignorance, and with want? What reason have you for\nbelieving that your God will do better in another world than he has done\nand is doing in this? Will he be wiser? Will he have more power? Will he\nbe more merciful?\n\nWhen I say \"your God,\" of course I mean the God described in the Bible\nand the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. But again I say, that in\nthe nature of things, there can be no evidence of the existence of an\ninfinite being.\n\nAn infinite being must be conditionless, and for that reason there is\nnothing that a finite being can do that can by any possibility affect\nthe well-being of the conditionless. This being so, man can neither owe\nnor discharge any debt or duty to an infinite being. The infinite\ncannot want, and man can do nothing for a being who wants nothing.\nA conditioned being can be made happy, or miserable, by changing\nconditions, but the conditionless is absolutely independent of cause and\neffect.\n\nI do not say that a God does not exist, neither do I say that a God does\nexist; but I say that I do not know—that there can be no evidence to my\nmind of the existence of such a being, and that my mind is so that it\nis incapable of even thinking of an infinite personality. I know that in\nyour creed you describe God as \"without body, parts, or passions.\" This,\nto my mind, is simply a description of an infinite vacuum. I have had\nno experience with gods. This world is the only one with which I am\nacquainted, and I was surprised to find in your letter the expression\nthat \"perhaps others are better acquainted with that of which I am so\nignorant.\" Did you, by this, intend to say that you know anything of\nany other state of existence—that you have inhabited some other\nplanet—that you lived before you were born, and that you recollect\nsomething of that other world, or of that other state?\n\nUpon the question of immortality you have done me, unintentionally,\na great injustice. With regard to that hope, I have never uttered \"a\nflippant or a trivial\" word. I have said a thousand times, and I say\nagain, that the idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed and\nflowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear\nbeating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of\nany book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human\naffection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and\nclouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.\n\nI have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not know, we\ncannot say, whether death is a wall or a door—the beginning, or end,\nof a day—the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of\nwings—the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life, that brings\nrapture and love to every one.\n\nThe belief in immortality is far older than Christianity. Thousands of\nyears before Christ was born billions of people had lived and died in\nthat hope. Upon countless graves had been laid in love and tears the\nemblems of another life. The heaven of the New Testament was to be in\nthis world. The dead, after they were raised, were to live here. Not\none satisfactory word was said to have been uttered by Christ—nothing\nphilosophic, nothing clear, nothing that adorns, like a bow of promise,\nthe cloud of doubt.\n\nAccording to the account in the New Testament, Christ was dead for a\nperiod of nearly three days. After his resurrection, why did not some\none of his disciples ask him where he had been? Why did he not tell them\nwhat world he had visited? There was the opportunity to \"bring life and\nimmortality to light.\" And yet he was as silent as the grave that he had\nleft—speechless as the stone that angels had rolled away.\n\nHow do you account for this? Was it not infinitely cruel to leave the\nworld in darkness and in doubt, when one word could have filled all time\nwith hope and light?\n\nThe hope of immortality is the great oak round which have climbed\nthe poisonous vines of superstition. The vines have not supported the\noak—the oak has supported the vines. As long as men live and love and\ndie, this hope will blossom in the human heart.\n\nAll I have said upon this subject has been to express my hope and\nconfess my lack of knowledge. Neither by word nor look have I expressed\nany other feeling than sympathy with those who hope to live again—for\nthose who bend above their dead and dream of life to come. But I have\ndenounced the selfishness and heartlessness of those who expect for\nthemselves an eternity of joy, and for the rest of mankind predict,\nwithout a tear, a world of endless pain. Nothing can be more\ncontemptible than such a hope—a hope that can give satisfaction only to\nthe hyenas of the human race.\n\nWhen I say that I do not know—when I deny the existence of perdition,\nyou reply that \"there is something very cruel in this treatment of the\nbelief of my fellow-creatures.\"\n\nYou have had the goodness to invite me to a grave over which a mother\nbends and weeps for her only son. I accept your invitation. We will\ngo together. Do not, I pray you, deal in splendid generalities. Be\nexplicit. Remember that the son for whom the loving mother weeps was not\na Christian, not a believer in the inspiration of the Bible nor in the\ndivinity of Jesus Christ. The mother turns to you for consolation, for\nsome star of hope in the midnight of her grief. What must you say? Do\nnot desert the Presbyterian creed. Do not forget the threatenings\nof Jesus Christ. What must you say? Will you read a portion of the\nPresbyterian Confession of Faith? Will you read this?\n\n\"Although the light of Nature, and the works of creation and Providence,\ndo so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave\nman inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of\nGod and of his will which is necessary to salvation.\"\n\nOr, will you read this?\n\n\"By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and\nangels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained\nto everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestined and\nforeordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their\nnumber is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or\ndiminished.\"\n\nSuppose the mother, lifting her tear-stained face, should say: \"My son\nwas good, generous, loving and kind. He gave his life for me. Is there\nno hope for him?\" Would you then put this serpent in her breast?\n\n\"Men not professing the Christian religion cannot be saved in any\nother way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to conform their lives\naccording to the light of Nature. We cannot by our best works merit\npardon of sin. There is no sin so small but that it deserves damnation.\nWorks done by unregenerate men, although, for the matter of that, they\nmay be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and\nothers, are sinful and cannot please God or make a man meet to receive\nChrist or God.\"\n\nAnd suppose the mother should then sobbingly ask: \"What has become of\nmy son? Where is he now?\" Would you still read from your Confession of\nFaith, or from your Catechism—this?\n\n\"The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in\ntorment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day.\nAt the last day the righteous shall come into everlasting life, but the\nwicked shall be cast into eternal torment and punished with everlasting\ndestruction. The wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished with\nunspeakable torment, both of body and soul, with the devil and his\nangels forever.\"\n\nIf the poor mother still wept, still refused to be comforted, would you\nthrust this dagger in her heart?\n\n\"At the Day of Judgment you, being caught up to Christ in the clouds,\nshall be seated at his right hand and there openly acknowledged and\nacquitted, and you shall join with him in the damnation of your son.\"\n\nIf this failed to still the beatings of her aching heart, would you\nrepeat these words which you say came from the loving soul of Christ?\n\n\"They who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe\nnot shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting fire\nprepared for the devil and his angels.\"\n\nWould you not be compelled, according to your belief, to tell this\nmother that \"there is but one name given under heaven and among men\nwhereby\" the souls of men can enter the gates of Paradise? Would you not\nbe compelled to say: \"Your son lived in a Christian land. The means of\ngrace were within his reach. He died not having experienced a change of\nheart, and your son is forever lost. You can meet your son again only by\ndying in your sins; but if you will give your heart to God you can never\nclasp him to your breast again.\"\n\nWhat could I say? Let me tell you:\n\n\"My dear madam, this reverend gentleman knows nothing of another\nworld. He cannot see beyond the tomb. He has simply stated to you the\nsuperstitions of ignorance, of cruelty and fear. If there be in this\nuniverse a God, he certainly is as good as you are. Why should he have\nloved your son in life—loved him, according to this reverend gentleman,\nto that degree that he gave his life for him; and why should that love\nbe changed to hatred the moment your son was dead?\n\n\"My dear woman, there are no punishments, there are no rewards—there\nare consequences; and of one thing you may rest assured, and that is,\nthat every soul, no matter what sphere it may inhabit, will have the\neverlasting opportunity of doing right.\n\n\"If death ends all, and if this handful of dust over which you weep\nis all there is, you have this consolation: Your son is not within the\npower of this reverend gentleman's God—that is something. Your son does\nnot suffer. Next to a life of joy is the dreamless sleep of death.\"\n\nDoes it not seem to you infinitely absurd to call orthodox Christianity\n\"a consolation\"? Here in this world, where every human being is\nenshrouded in cloud and mist,—where all lives are filled with\nmistakes,—where no one claims to be perfect, is it \"a consolation\" to\nsay that \"the smallest sin deserves eternal pain\"? Is it possible for\nthe ingenuity of man to extract from the doctrine of hell one drop,\none ray, of \"consolation\"? If that doctrine be true, is not your God\nan infinite criminal? Why should he have created uncounted billions\ndestined to suffer forever? Why did he not leave them unconscious dust?\nCompared with this crime, any crime that man can by any possibility\ncommit is a virtue.\n\nThink for a moment of your God,—the keeper of an infinite penitentiary\nfilled with immortal convicts,—your God an eternal turnkey, without\nthe pardoning power. In the presence of this infinite horror, you\ncomplacently speak of the atonement,—a scheme that has not yet gathered\nwithin its horizon a billionth part of the human race,—an atonement\nwith one-half the world remaining undiscovered for fifteen hundred years\nafter it was made.\n\nIf there could be no suffering, there could be no sin. To unjustly cause\nsuffering is the only possible crime. How can a God accept the suffering\nof the innocent in lieu of the punishment of the guilty?\n\nAccording to your theory, this infinite being, by his mere will, makes\nright and wrong. This I do not admit. Right and wrong exist in the\nnature of things—in the relation they bear to man, and to sentient\nbeings. You have already admitted that \"Nature is inflexible, and that a\nviolated law calls for its consequences.\" I insist that no God can step\nbetween an act and its natural effects. If God exists, he has nothing\nto do with punishment, nothing to do with reward. From certain acts\nflow certain consequences; these consequences increase or decrease the\nhappiness of man; and the consequences must be borne.\n\nA man who has forfeited his life to the commonwealth may be pardoned,\nbut a man who has violated a condition of his own well-being cannot be\npardoned—there is no pardoning power. The laws of the State are made,\nand, being made, can be changed; but the facts of the universe cannot be\nchanged. The relation of act to consequence cannot be altered. This is\nabove all power, and, consequently, there is no analogy between the laws\nof the State and the facts in Nature. An infinite God could not change\nthe relation between the diameter and circumference of the circle.\n\nA man having committed a crime may be pardoned, but I deny the right\nof the State to punish an innocent man in the place of the pardoned—no\nmatter how willing the innocent man may be to suffer the punishment.\nThere is no law in Nature, no fact in Nature, by which the innocent can\nbe justly punished to the end that the guilty may go free. Let it be\nunderstood once for all: Nature cannot pardon.\n\nYou have recognized this truth. You have asked me what is to become\nof one who seduces and betrays, of the criminal with the blood of\nhis victim upon his hands? Without the slightest hesitation I answer,\nwhoever commits a crime against another must, to the utmost of his\npower in this world and in another, if there be one, make full and ample\nrestitution, and in addition must bear the natural consequences of his\noffence. No man can be perfectly happy, either in this world or in any\nother, who has by his perfidy broken a loving and confiding heart.\nNo power can step between acts and consequences—no forgiveness, no\natonement.\n\nBut, my dear friend, you have taught for many years, if you are a\nPresbyterian, or an evangelical Christian, that a man may seduce and\nbetray, and that the poor victim, driven to insanity, leaping from\nsome wharf at night where ships strain at their anchors in storm and\ndarkness—you have taught that this poor girl may be tormented forever\nby a God of infinite compassion. This is not all that you have taught.\nYou have said to the seducer, to the betrayer, to the one who would not\nlisten to her wailing cry,—who would not even stretch forth his hand\nto catch her fluttering garments,—you have said to him: \"Believe in the\nLord Jesus Christ, and you shall be happy forever; you shall live in the\nrealm of infinite delight, from which you can, without a shadow falling\nupon your face, observe the poor girl, your victim, writhing in the\nagonies of hell.\" You have taught this. For my part, I do not see how an\nangel in heaven meeting another angel whom he had robbed on the earth,\ncould feel entirely blissful. I go further. Any decent angel, no matter\nif sitting at the right hand of God, should he see in hell one of his\nvictims, would leave heaven itself for the purpose of wiping one tear\nfrom the cheek of the damned.\n\nYou seem to have forgotten your statement in the commencement of your\nletter, that your God is as inflexible as Nature—that he bends not to\nhuman thought nor to human will. You seem to have forgotten the line\nwhich you emphasized with italics: \"_The effect of everything which is\nof the nature of a cause, is eternal_.\" In the light of this sentence,\nwhere do you find a place for forgiveness—for your atonement? Where is\na way to escape from the effect of a cause that is eternal? Do you not\nsee that this sentence is a cord with which I easily tie your hands? The\nscientific part of your letter destroys the theological. You have put\n\"new wine into old bottles,\" and the predicted result has followed. Will\nthe angels in heaven, the redeemed of earth, lose their memory? Will\nnot all the redeemed rascals remember their rascality? Will not all\nthe redeemed assassins remember the faces of the dead? Will not all the\nseducers and betrayers remember her sighs, her tears, and the tones of\nher voice, and will not the conscience of the redeemed be as inexorable\nas the conscience of the damned?\n\nIf memory is to be forever \"the warder of the brain,\" and if the\nredeemed can never forget the sins they committed, the pain and anguish\nthey caused, then they can never be perfectly happy; and if the lost can\nnever forget the good they did, the kind actions, the loving words,\nthe heroic deeds; and if the memory of good deeds gives the slightest\npleasure, then the lost can never be perfectly miserable. Ought not the\nmemory of a good action to live as long as the memory of a bad one? So\nthat the undying memory of the good, in heaven, brings undying pain, and\nthe undying memory of those in hell brings undying pleasure. Do you not\nsee that if men have done good and bad, the future can have neither a\nperfect heaven nor a perfect hell?\n\nI believe in the manly doctrine that every human being must bear the\nconsequences of his acts, and that no man can be justly saved or damned\non account of the goodness or the wickedness of another.\n\nIf by atonement you mean the natural effect of self-sacrifice, the\neffects following a noble and disinterested action; if you mean that\nthe life and death of Christ are worth their effect upon the human\nrace,—which your letter seems to show,—then there is no question\nbetween us. If you have thrown away the old and barbarous idea that a\nlaw had been broken, that God demanded a sacrifice, and that Christ, the\ninnocent, was offered up for us, and that he bore the wrath of God and\nsuffered in our place, then I congratulate you with all my heart.\n\nIt seems to me impossible that life should be exceedingly joyous to any\none who is acquainted with its miseries, its burdens, and its tears.\nI know that as darkness follows light around the globe, so misery and\nmisfortune follow the sons of men. According to your creed, the future\nstate will be worse than this. Here, the vicious may reform; here, the\nwicked may repent; here, a few gleams of sunshine may fall upon the\ndarkest life. But in your future state, for countless billions of the\nhuman race, there will be no reform, no opportunity of doing right, and\nno possible gleam of sunshine can ever touch their souls. Do you not\nsee that your future state is infinitely worse than this? You seem to\nmistake the glare of hell for the light of morning.\n\nLet us throw away the dogma of eternal retribution. Let us \"cling to all\nthat can bring a ray of hope into the darkness of this life.\"\n\nYou have been kind enough to say that I find a subject for caricature\nin the doctrine of regeneration. If, by regeneration, you mean\nreformation,—if you mean that there comes a time in the life of a young\nman when he feels the touch of responsibility, and that he leaves his\nfoolish or vicious ways, and concludes to act like an honest man,—if\nthis is what you mean by regeneration, I am a believer. But that is\nnot the definition of regeneration in your creed—that is not Christian\nregeneration. There is some mysterious, miraculous, supernatural,\ninvisible agency, called, I believe, the Holy Ghost, that enters and\nchanges the heart of man, and this mysterious agency is like the wind,\nunder the control, apparently, of no one, coming and going when and\nwhither it listeth. It is this illogical and absurd view of regeneration\nthat I have attacked.\n\nYou ask me how it came to' pass that a Hebrew peasant, born among the\nhills of Galilee, had a wisdom above that of Socrates or Plato, of\nConfucius or Buddha, and you conclude by saying, \"This is the greatest\nof miracles—that such a being should live and die on the earth.\"\n\nI can hardly admit your conclusion, because I remember that Christ said\nnothing in favor of the family relation. As a matter of fact, his life\ntended to cast discredit upon marriage. He said nothing against the\ninstitution of slavery; nothing against the tyranny of government;\nnothing of our treatment of animals; nothing about education, about\nintellectual progress; nothing of art, declared no scientific truth, and\nsaid nothing as to the rights and duties of nations.\n\nYou may reply that all this is included in \"Do unto others as you would\nbe done by;\" and \"Resist not evil.\" More than this is necessary to\neducate the human race. It is not enough to say to your child or to\nyour pupil, \"Do right.\" The great question still remains: What is right?\nNeither is there any wisdom in the idea of non-resistance. Force without\nmercy is tyranny. Mercy without force is but a waste of tears. Take\nfrom virtue the right of self-defence and vice becomes the master of the\nworld.\n\nLet me ask you how it came to pass that an ignorant driver of camels,\na man without family, without wealth, became master of hundreds of\nmillions of human beings? How is it that he conquered and overran more\nthan half of the Christian world? How is it that on a thousand fields\nthe banner of the cross went down in blood, while that of the crescent\nfloated in triumph? How do you account for the fact that the flag of\nthis impostor floats to-day above the sepulchre of Christ? Was this a\nmiracle? Was Mohammed inspired? How do you account for Confucius, whose\nname is known wherever the sky bends? Was he inspired—this man who\nfor many centuries has stood first, and who has been acknowledged\nthe superior of all men by hundreds and thousands of millions of\nhis fellow-men? How do you account for Buddha,—in many respects the\ngreatest religious teacher this world has ever known,—the broadest,\nthe most intellectual of them all; he who was great enough, hundreds of\nyears before Christ was born, to declare the universal brotherhood of\nman, great enough to say that intelligence is the only lever capable of\nraising mankind? How do you account for him, who has had more followers\nthan any other? Are you willing to say that all success is divine? How\ndo you account for Shakespeare, born of parents who could neither read\nnor write, held in the lap of ignorance and love, nursed at the breast\nof poverty—how do you account for him, by far the greatest of the human\nrace, the wings of whose imagination still fill the horizon of human\nthought; Shakespeare, who was perfectly acquainted with the human heart,\nknew all depths of sorrow, all heights of joy, and in whose mind were\nthe fruit of all thought, of all experience, and a prophecy of all to\nbe; Shakespeare, the wisdom and beauty and depth of whose words increase\nwith the intelligence and civilization of mankind? How do you account\nfor this miracle? Do you believe that any founder of any religion could\nhave written \"Lear\" or \"Hamlet\"? Did Greece produce a man who could\nby any possibility have been the author of \"Troilus and Cressida\"? Was\nthere among all the countless millions of almighty Rome an intellect\nthat could have written the tragedy of \"Julius Caesar\"? Is not the play\nof \"Antony and Cleopatra\" as Egyptian as the Nile? How do you account\nfor this man, within whose veins there seemed to be the blood of every\nrace, and in whose brain there were the poetry and philosophy of a\nworld?\n\nYou ask me to tell my opinion of Christ. Let me say here, once for all,\nthat for the man Christ—for the man who, in the darkness, cried out,\n\"My God, why hast thou forsaken me!\" —for that man I have the greatest\npossible respect. And let me say, once for all, that the place where man\nhas died for man is holy ground. To that great and serene peasant of\nPalestine I gladly pay the tribute of my admiration and my tears. He was\na reformer in his day—an infidel in his time. Back of the theological\nmask, and in spite of the interpolations of the New Testament, I see a\ngreat and genuine man.\n\nIt is hard to see how you can consistently defend the course pursued\nby Christ himself. He attacked with great bitterness \"the religion of\nothers.\" It did not occur to him that \"there was something very cruel in\nthis treatment of the belief of his fellow-creatures.\" He denounced the\nchosen people of God as a \"generation of vipers.\" He compared them to\n\"whited sepulchres.\" How can you sustain the conduct of missionaries?\nThey go to other lands and attack the sacred beliefs of others. They\ntell the people of India and of all heathen lands, not only that their\nreligion is a lie, not only that their gods are myths, but that the\nancestors of these people—their fathers and mothers who never heard\nof God, of the Bible, or of Christ—are all in perdition. Is not this a\ncruel treatment of the belief of a fellow-creature?\n\nA religion that is not manly and robust enough to bear attack with\nsmiling fortitude is unworthy of a place in the heart or brain. A\nreligion that takes refuge in sentimentality, that cries out: \"Do not, I\npray you, tell me any truth calculated to hurt my feelings,\" is fit only\nfor asylums.\n\nYou believe that Christ was God, that he was infinite in power. While in\nJerusalem he cured the sick, raised a few from the dead, and opened the\neyes of the blind. Did he do these things because he loved mankind, or\ndid he do these miracles simply to establish the fact that he was the\nvery Christ? If he was actuated by love, is he not as powerful now as\nhe was then? Why does he not open the eyes of the blind now? Why does\nhe not with a touch make the leper clean? If you had the power to give\nsight to the blind, to cleanse the leper, and would not exercise it,\nwhat would be thought of you? What is the difference between one who can\nand will not cure, and one who causes disease?\n\nOnly the other day I saw a beautiful girl—a paralytic, and yet her\nbrave and cheerful spirit shone over the wreck and ruin of her body like\nmorning on the desert. What would I think of myself, had I the power by\na word to send the blood through all her withered limbs freighted again\nwith life, should I refuse?\n\nMost theologians seem to imagine that the virtues have been produced by\nand are really the children of religion.\n\nReligion has to do with the supernatural. It defines our duties and\nobligations to God. It prescribes a certain course of conduct by means\nof which happiness can be attained in another world. The result here is\nonly an incident. The virtues are secular. They have nothing whatever to\ndo with the supernatural, and are of no kindred to any religion. A man\nmay be honest, courageous, charitable, industrious, hospitable, loving\nand pure, without being religious—that is to say, without any belief\nin the supernatural; and a man may be the exact opposite and at the same\ntime a sincere believer in the creed of any church—that is to say, in\nthe existence of a personal God, the inspiration of the Scriptures and\nin the divinity of Jesus Christ. A man who believes in the Bible may or\nmay not be kind to his family, and a man who is kind and loving in his\nfamily may or may not believe in the Bible.\n\nIn order that you may see the effect of belief in the formation of\ncharacter, it is only necessary to call your attention to the fact that\nyour Bible shows that the devil himself is a believer in the existence\nof your God, in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and in the divinity\nof Jesus Christ. He not only believes these things, but he knows them,\nand yet, in spite of it all, he remains a devil still.\n\nFew religions have been bad enough to destroy all the natural goodness\nin the human heart. In the deepest midnight of superstition some natural\nvirtues, like stars, have been visible in the heavens. Man has committed\nevery crime in the name of Christianity—or at least crimes that\ninvolved the commission of all others. Those who paid for labor with\nthe lash, and who made blows a legal tender, were Christians. Those who\nengaged in the slave trade were believers in a personal God. One\nslave ship was called \"The Jehovah.\" Those who pursued with hounds the\nfugitive led by the Northern star prayed fervently to Christ to crown\ntheir efforts with success, and the stealers of babes, just before\nfalling asleep, commended their souls to the keeping of the Most High.\n\nAs you have mentioned the apostles, let me call your attention to an\nincident.\n\nYou remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira. The apostles, having\nnothing themselves, conceived the idea of having all things in common.\nTheir followers who had something were to sell what little they had, and\nturn the proceeds over to these theological financiers. It seems that\nAnanias and Sapphira had a piece of land. They sold it, and after\ntalking the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the\ncollaterals, concluded to keep a little—just enough to keep them from\nstarvation if the good and pious bankers should abscond.\n\nWhen Ananias brought the money, he was asked whether he had kept back\na part of the price. He said that he had not. Whereupon God, the\ncompassionate, struck him dead. As soon as the corpse was removed, the\napostles sent for his wife. They did not tell her that her husband had\nbeen killed. They deliberately set a trap for her life. Not one of them\nwas good enough or noble enough to put her on her guard; they allowed\nher to believe that her husband had told his story, and that she was\nfree to corroborate what he had said. She probably felt that they were\ngiving more than they could afford, and, with the instinct of woman,\nwanted to keep a little. She denied that any part of the price had been\nkept back. That moment the arrow of divine vengeance entered her heart.\n\nWill you be kind enough to tell me your opinion of the apostles in the\nlight of this story? Certainly murder is a greater crime than mendacity.\n\nYou have been good enough, in a kind of fatherly way, to give me some\nadvice. You say that I ought to soften my colors, and that my words\nwould be more weighty if not so strong. Do you really desire that I\nshould add weight to my words? Do you really wish me to succeed? If the\ncommander of one army should send word to the general of the other that\nhis men were firing too high, do you think the general would be misled?\nCan you conceive of his changing his orders by reason of the message?\n\nI deny that \"the Pilgrims crossed the sea to find freedom to worship\nGod in the forests of the new world.\" They came not in the interest of\nfreedom. It never entered their minds that other men had the same right\nto worship God according to the dictates of their consciences that the\nPilgrims themselves had. The moment they had power they were ready to\nwhip and brand, to imprison and burn. They did not believe in religious\nfreedom. They had no more idea of liberty of conscience than Jehovah.\n\nI do not say that there is no place in the world for heroes and martyrs.\nOn the contrary, I declare that the liberty we now have was won for us\nby heroes and by martyrs, and millions of these martyrs were burned, or\nflayed alive, or torn in pieces, or assassinated by the church of God.\nThe heroism was shown in fighting the hordes of religious superstition.\n\nGiordano Bruno was a martyr. He was a hero. He believed in no God, in no\nheaven, and in no hell, yet he perished by fire. He was offered liberty\non condition that he would recant. There was no God to please, no heaven\nto expect, no hell to fear, and yet he died by fire, simply to preserve\nthe unstained whiteness of his soul.\n\nFor hundreds of years every man who attacked the church was a hero. The\nsword of Christianity has been wet for many centuries with the blood of\nthe noblest. Christianity has been ready with whip and chain and fire to\nbanish freedom from the earth.\n\nNeither is it true that \"family life withers under the cold sneer—half\npity and half scorn—with which I look down on household worship.\"\n\nThose who believe in the existence of God, and believe that they are\nindebted to this divine being for the few gleams of sunshine in this\nlife, and who thank God for the little they have enjoyed, have my entire\nrespect. Never have I said one word against the spirit of thankfulness.\nI understand the feeling of the man who gathers his family about him\nafter the storm, or after the scourge, or after long sickness, and pours\nout his heart in thankfulness to the supposed God who has protected his\nfireside. I understand the spirit of the savage who thanks his idol of\nstone, or his fetich of wood. It is not the wisdom of the one or of the\nother that I respect, it is the goodness and thankfulness that prompt\nthe prayer.\n\nI believe in the family. I believe in family life; and one of my\nobjections to Christianity is that it divides the family. Upon this\nsubject I have said hundreds of times, and I say again, that the\nroof-tree is sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft, cool\nclasp of earth, to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to the\nsun, and like a spendthrift gives its perfume to the air. The home where\nvirtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire, the fairest\nflower in all this world.\n\nWhat did Christianity in the early centuries do for the home? What have\nnunneries and monasteries, and what has the glorification of celibacy\ndone for the family? Do you not know that Christ himself offered rewards\nin this world and eternal happiness in another to those who would desert\ntheir wives and children and follow him? What effect has that promise\nhad upon family life?\n\nAs a matter of fact, the family is regarded as nothing. Christianity\nteaches that there is but one family, the family of Christ, and that all\nother relations are as nothing compared with that. Christianity teaches\nthe husband to desert the wife, the wife to desert the husband, children\nto desert their parents, for the miserable and selfish purpose of saving\ntheir own little, shriveled souls.\n\nIt is far better for a man to love his fellow-men than to love God. It\nis better to love wife and children than to love Christ. It is better\nto serve your neighbor than to serve your God—even if God exists. The\nreason is palpable. You can do nothing for God. You can do something for\nwife and children. You can add to the sunshine of a life. You can plant\nflowers in the pathway of another.\n\nIt is true that I am an enemy of the orthodox Sabbath. It is true that\nI do not believe in giving one-seventh of our time to the service of\nsuperstition. The whole scheme of your religion can be understood by any\nintelligent man in one day. Why should he waste a seventh of his whole\nlife in hearing the same thoughts repeated again and again?\n\nNothing is more gloomy than an orthodox Sabbath. The mechanic who has\nworked during the week in heat and dust, the laboring man who has barely\nsucceeded in keeping his soul in his body, the poor woman who has\nbeen sewing for the rich, may go to the village church which you have\ndescribed. They answer the chimes of the bell, and what do they hear in\nthis village church? Is it that God is the Father of the human race; is\nthat all? If that were all, you never would have heard an objection from\nmy lips. That is not all. If all ministers said: Bear the evils of this\nlife; your Father in heaven counts your tears; the time will come when\npain and death and grief will be forgotten words; I should have listened\nwith the rest. What else does the minister say to the poor people\nwho have answered the chimes of your bell? He says: \"The smallest sin\ndeserves eternal pain.\" \"A vast majority of men are doomed to suffer\nthe wrath of God forever.\" He fills the present with fear and the future\nwith fire. He has heaven for the few, hell for the many. He describes a\nlittle grass-grown path that leads to heaven, where travelers are \"few\nand far between,\" and a great highway worn with countless feet that\nleads to everlasting death.\n\nSuch Sabbaths are immoral. Such ministers are the real savages. Gladly\nwould I abolish such a Sabbath. Gladly would I turn it into a holiday,\na day of rest and peace, a day to get acquainted with your wife and\nchildren, a day to exchange civilities with your neighbors; and gladly\nwould I see the church in which such sermons are preached changed to\na place of entertainment. Gladly would I have the echoes of orthodox\nsermons—the owls and bats among the rafters, the snakes in crevices\nand corners—driven out by the glorious music of Wagner and Beethoven.\nGladly would I see the Sunday school where the doctrine of eternal fire\nis taught, changed to a happy dance upon the village green.\n\nMusic refines. The doctrine of eternal punishment degrades. Science\ncivilizes. Superstition looks longingly back to savagery.\n\nYou do not believe that general morality can be upheld without the\nsanctions of religion.\n\nChristianity has sold, and continues to sell, crime on a credit. It\nhas taught, and it still teaches, that there is forgiveness for all. Of\ncourse it teaches morality. It says: \"Do not steal, do not murder;\" but\nit adds, \"but if you do both, there is a way of escape: believe on\nthe Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.\" I insist that such a\nreligion is no restraint. It is far better to teach that there is no\nforgiveness, and that every human being must bear the consequences of\nhis acts.\n\nThe first great step toward national reformation is the universal\nacceptance of the idea that there is no escape from the consequences of\nour acts. The young men who come from their country homes into a city\nfilled with temptations, may be restrained by the thought of father and\nmother. This is a natural restraint. They may be restrained by\ntheir knowledge of the fact that a thing is evil on account of its\nconsequences, and that to do wrong is always a mistake. I cannot\nconceive of such a man being more liable to temptation because he has\nheard one of my lectures in which I have told him that the only good\nis happiness—that the only way to attain that good is by doing what he\nbelieves to be right. I cannot imagine that his moral character will be\nweakened by the statement that there is no escape from the consequences\nof his acts. You seem to think that he will be instantly led\nastray—that he will go off under the flaring lamps to the riot of\npassion. Do you think the Bible calculated to restrain him? To prevent\nthis would you recommend him to read the lives of Abraham, of Isaac, and\nof Jacob, and the other holy polygamists of the Old Testament? Should he\nread the life of David, and of Solomon? Do you think this would enable\nhim to withstand temptation? Would it not be far better to fill the\nyoung man's mind with facts so that he may know exactly the physical\nconsequences of such acts? Do you regard ignorance as the foundation of\nvirtue? Is fear the arch that supports the moral nature of man?\n\nYou seem to think that there is danger in knowledge, and that the best\nchemists are most likely to poison themselves.\n\nYou say that to sneer at religion is only a step from sneering at\nmorality, and then only another step to that which is vicious and\nprofligate.\n\nThe Jews entertained the same opinion of the teachings of Christ. He\nsneered at their religion. The Christians have entertained the same\nopinion of every philosopher. Let me say to you again—and let me say\nit once for all—that morality has nothing to do with religion. Morality\ndoes not depend upon the supernatural. Morality does not walk with the\ncrutches of miracles. Morality appeals to the experience of mankind. It\ncares nothing about faith, nothing about sacred books. Morality depends\nupon facts, something that can be seen, something known, the product of\nwhich can be estimated. It needs no priest, no ceremony, no mummery. It\nbelieves in the freedom of the human mind. It asks for investigation. It\nis founded upon truth. It is the enemy of all religion, because it has\nto do with this world, and with this world alone.\n\nMy object is to drive fear out of the world. Fear is the jailer of\nthe mind. Christianity, superstition—that is to say, the\nsupernatural—makes every brain a prison and every soul a convict. Under\nthe government of a personal deity, consequences partake of the nature\nof punishments and rewards.\n\nUnder the government of Nature, what you call punishments and rewards\nare simply consequences. Nature does not punish. Nature does not reward.\nNature has no purpose. When the storm comes, I do not think: \"This is\nbeing done by a tyrant.\" When the sun shines, I do not say: \"This is\nbeing done by a friend.\" Liberty means freedom from personal dictation.\nIt does not mean escape from the relations we sustain to other facts in\nNature. I believe in the restraining influences of liberty. Temperance\nwalks hand in hand with freedom. To remove a chain from the body puts\nan additional responsibility upon the soul. Liberty says to the man:\nYou injure or benefit yourself; you increase or decrease your own\nwell-being. It is a question of intelligence. You need not bow to\na supposed tyrant, or to infinite goodness. You are responsible to\nyourself and to those you injure, and to none other.\n\nI rid myself of fear, believing as I do that there is no power above\nwhich can help me in any extremity, and believing as I do that there is\nno power above or below that can injure me in any extremity. I do not\nbelieve that I am the sport of accident, or that I may be dashed in\npieces by the blind agency of Nature. There is no accident, and there is\nno agency. That which happens must happen. The present is the necessary\nchild of all the past, the mother of all the future.\n\nDoes it relieve mankind from fear to believe that there is some God who\nwill help them in extremity? What evidence have they on which to found\nthis belief? When has any God listened to the prayer of any man? The\nwater drowns, the cold freezes, the flood destroys, the fire burns,\nthe bolt of heaven falls—when and where has the prayer of man been\nanswered?\n\nIs the religious world to-day willing to test the efficacy of prayer?\nOnly a few years ago it was tested in the United States. The Christians\nof Christendom, with one accord, fell upon their knees and asked God to\nspare the life of one man. You know the result. You know just as well\nas I that the forces of Nature produce the good and bad alike. You know\nthat the forces of Nature destroy the good and bad alike. You know\nthat the lightning feels the same keen delight in striking to death the\nhonest man that it does or would in striking the assassin with his knife\nlifted above the bosom of innocence.\n\nDid God hear the prayers of the slaves? Did he hear the prayers of\nimprisoned philosophers and patriots? Did he hear the prayers of\nmartyrs, or did he allow fiends, calling themselves his followers, to\npile the fagots round the forms of glorious men? Did he allow the flames\nto devour the flesh of those whose hearts were his? Why should any man\ndepend on the goodness of a God who created countless millions, knowing\nthat they would suffer eternal grief?\n\nThe faith that you call sacred—\"sacred as the most delicate manly or\nwomanly sentiment of love and honor\"—is the faith that nearly all of\nyour fellow-men are to be lost. Ought an honest man to be restrained\nfrom denouncing that faith because those who entertain it say that their\nfeelings are hurt? You say to me: \"There is a hell. A man advocating the\nopinions you advocate will go there when he dies.\" I answer: \"There is\nno hell. The Bible that teaches it is not true.\" And you say: \"How can\nyou hurt my feelings?\"\n\nYou seem to think that one who attacks the religion of his parents is\nwanting in respect to his father and his mother.\n\nWere the early Christians lacking in respect for their fathers and\nmothers? Were the Pagans who embraced Christianity heartless sons and\ndaughters? What have you to say of the apostles? Did they not heap\ncontempt upon the religion of their fathers and mothers? Did they not\njoin with him who denounced their people as a \"generation of vipers\"?\nDid they not follow one who offered a reward to those who would\ndesert fathers and mothers? Of course you have only to go back a few\ngenerations in your family to find a Field who was not a Presbyterian.\nAfter that you find a Presbyterian. Was he base enough and infamous\nenough to heap contempt upon the religion of his father and mother? All\nthe Protestants in the time of Luther lacked in respect for the religion\nof their fathers and mothers. According to your idea, Progress is a\nProdigal Son. If one is bound by the religion of his father and mother,\nand his father happens to be a Presbyterian and his mother a Catholic,\nwhat is he to do? Do you not see that your doctrine gives intellectual\nfreedom only to foundlings?\n\nIf by Christianity you mean the goodness, the spirit of forgiveness, the\nbenevolence claimed by Christians to be a part, and the principal part,\nof that peculiar religion, then I do not agree with you when you say\nthat \"Christ is Christianity and that it stands or falls with him.\"\nYou have narrowed unnecessarily the foundation of your religion. If it\nshould be established beyond doubt that Christ never existed, all that\nis of value in Christianity would remain, and remain unimpaired.\nSuppose that we should find that Euclid was a myth, the science known\nas mathematics would not suffer. It makes no difference who painted\nor chiseled the greatest pictures and statues, so long as we have the\npictures and statues. When he who has given the world a truth passes\nfrom the earth, the truth is left. A truth dies only when forgotten\nby the human race. Justice, love, mercy, forgiveness, honor, all the\nvirtues that ever blossomed in the human heart, were known and practiced\nfor uncounted ages before the birth of Christ.\n\nYou insist that religion does not leave man in \"abject terror\"—does not\nleave him \"in utter darkness as to his fate.\"\n\nIs it possible to know who will be saved? Can you read the names\nmentioned in the decrees of the Infinite? Is it possible to tell who\nis to be eternally lost? Can the imagination conceive a worse fate than\nyour religion predicts for a majority of the race? Why should not every\nhuman being be in \"abject terror\" who believes your doctrine? How many\nloving and sincere women are in the asylums to-day fearing that they\nhave committed \"the unpardonable sin\"—a sin to which your God has\nattached the penalty of eternal torment, and yet has failed to describe\nthe offence? Can tyranny go beyond this—fixing the penalty of eternal\npain for the violation of a law not written, not known, but kept in the\nsecrecy of infinite darkness? How much happier it is to know nothing\nabout it, and to believe nothing about it! How much better to have no\nGod!\n\nYou discover a \"Great Intelligence ordering our little lives, so that\neven the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements\nof character, conduce to our future happiness.\" This is an old\nexplanation—probably as good as any. The idea is, that this world is a\nschool in which man becomes educated through tribulation—the muscles\nof character being developed by wrestling with misfortune. If it is\nnecessary to live this life in order to develop character, in order to\nbecome worthy of a better world, how do you account for the fact that\nbillions of the human race die in infancy, and are thus deprived of\nthis necessary education and development? What would you think of a\nschoolmaster who should kill a large proportion of his scholars during\nthe first day, before they had even had the opportunity to look at \"A\"?\n\nYou insist that \"there is a power behind Nature making for\nrighteousness.\"\n\nIf Nature is infinite, how can there be a power outside of Nature? If\nyou mean by \"a power making for righteousness\" that man, as he becomes\ncivilized, as he becomes intelligent, not only takes advantage of\nthe forces of Nature for his own benefit, but perceives more and more\nclearly that if he is to be happy he must live in harmony with the\nconditions of his being, in harmony with the facts by which he is\nsurrounded, in harmony with the relations he sustains to others and\nto things; if this is what you mean, then there is \"a power making for\nrighteousness.\" But if you mean that there is something supernatural\nback of Nature directing events, then I insist that there can by no\npossibility be any evidence of the existence of such a power.\n\nThe history of the human race shows that nations rise and fall. There\nis a limit to the life of a race; so that it can be said of every\ndead nation, that there was a period when it laid the foundations of\nprosperity, when the combined intelligence and virtue of the people\nconstituted a power working for righteousness, and that there came\na time when this nation became a spendthrift, when it ceased to\naccumulate, when it lived on the labors of its youth, and passed from\nstrength and glory to the weakness of old age, and finally fell palsied\nto its tomb.\n\nThe intelligence of man guided by a sense of duty is the only power that\nmakes for righteousness.\n\nYou tell me that I am waging \"a hopeless war,\" and you give as a reason\nthat the Christian religion began to be nearly two thousand years before\nI was born, and that it will live two thousand years after I am dead.\n\nIs this an argument? Does it tend to convince even yourself? Could not\nCaiaphas, the high priest, have said substantially this to Christ? Could\nhe not have said: \"The religion of Jehovah began to be four thousand\nyears before you were born, and it will live two thousand years after\nyou are dead\"? Could not a follower of Buddha make the same illogical\nremark to a missionary from Andover with the glad tidings? Could he not\nsay: \"You are waging a hopeless war. The religion of Buddha began to be\ntwenty-five hundred years before you were born, and hundreds of millions\nof people still worship at Great Buddha's shrine\"?\n\nDo you insist that nothing except the right can live for two thousand\nyears? Why is it that the Catholic Church \"lives on and on, while\nnations and kingdoms perish\"? Do you consider that the \"survival of the\nfittest\"?\n\nIs it the same Christian religion now living that lived during the\nMiddle Ages? Is it the same Christian religion that founded the\nInquisition and invented the thumbscrew? Do you see no difference\nbetween the religion of Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and the Christianity\nof to-day? Do you really think that it is the same Christianity that\nhas been living all these years? Have you noticed any change in the last\ngeneration? Do you remember when scientists endeavored to prove a theory\nby a passage from the Bible, and do you now know that believers in\nthe Bible are exceedingly anxious to prove its truth by some fact that\nscience has demonstrated? Do you know that the standard has changed?\nOther things are not measured by the Bible, but the Bible has to submit\nto another test. It no longer owns the scales. It has to be weighed,—it\nis being weighed,—it is growing lighter and lighter every day. Do you\nknow that only a few years ago \"the glad tidings of great joy\"\nconsisted mostly in a description of hell? Do you know that nearly every\nintelligent minister is now ashamed to preach about it, or to read about\nit, or to talk about it? Is there any change? Do you know that but few\nministers now believe in the \"plenary inspiration\" of the Bible,\nthat from thousands of pulpits people are now told that the creation\naccording to Genesis is a mistake, that it, never was as wet as the\nflood, and that the miracles of the Old Testament are considered simply\nas myths or mistakes?\n\nHow long will what you call Christianity endure, if it changes as\nrapidly during the next century as it has during the last? What will\nthere be left of the supernatural?\n\nIt does not seem possible that thoughtful people can, for many years,\nbelieve that a being of infinite wisdom is the author of the Old\nTestament, that a being of infinite purity and kindness upheld polygamy\nand slavery, that he ordered his chosen people to massacre their\nneighbors, and that he commanded husbands and fathers to persecute wives\nand daughters unto death for opinion's sake.\n\nIt does not seem within the prospect of belief that Jehovah, the cruel,\nthe jealous, the ignorant, and the revengeful, is the creator and\npreserver of the universe.\n\nDoes it seem possible that infinite goodness would create a world in\nwhich life feeds on life, in which everything devours and is devoured?\nCan there be a sadder fact than this: Innocence is not a certain shield?\n\nIt is impossible for me to believe in the eternity of punishment. If\nthat doctrine be true, Jehovah is insane.\n\nDay after day there are mournful processions of men and women, patriots\nand mothers, girls whose only crime is that the word Liberty burst into\nflower between their pure and loving lips, driven like beasts across\nthe melancholy wastes of Siberian snow. These men, these women, these\ndaughters, go to exile and to slavery, to a land where hope is satisfied\nwith death. Does it seem possible to you that an \"Infinite Father\" sees\nall this and sits as silent as a god of stone?\n\nAnd yet, according to your Presbyterian creed, according to your\ninspired book, according to your Christ, there is another procession, in\nwhich are the noblest and the best, in which you will find the wondrous\nspirits of this world, the lovers of the human race, the teachers of\ntheir fellow-men, the greatest soldiers that ever battled for the right;\nand this procession of countless millions, in which you will find the\nmost generous and the most loving of the sons and daughters of men, is\nmoving on to the Siberia of God, the land of eternal exile, where agony\nbecomes immortal.\n\nHow can you, how can any man with brain or heart, believe this infinite\nlie?\n\nIs there not room for a better, for a higher philosophy? After all, is\nit not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily\nproduced, that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes and all\ncrimes, were simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of this\nperception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute\njustification for the individual? May we not find that every soul\nhas, like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like\nPrometheus to the rocks of fate?\n\nYou ask me to take the \"sober second thought.\" I beg of you to take the\nfirst, and if you do, you will throw away the Presbyterian creed; you\nwill instantly perceive that he who commits the \"smallest sin\" no\nmore deserves eternal pain than he who does the smallest virtuous deed\ndeserves eternal bliss; you will become convinced that an infinite God\nwho creates billions of men knowing that they will suffer through all\nthe countless years is an infinite demon; you will be satisfied that\nthe Bible, with its philosophy and its folly, with its goodness and its\ncruelty, is but the work of man, and that the supernatural does not and\ncannot exist.\n\nFor you personally, I have the highest regard and the sincerest\nrespect, and I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not\nto furrow the cheeks of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be\nshrieked in a mad-house. Do not make the cradle as terrible as the\ncoffin. Preach, I pray you, the gospel of Intellectual Hospitality—the\nliberty of thought and speech. Take from loving hearts the awful fear.\nHave mercy on your fellow-men. Do not drive to madness the mothers whose\ntears are falling on the pallid faces of those who died in unbelief.\nPity the erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. Do not proclaim as\n\"tidings of great joy\" that an Infinite Spider is weaving webs to catch\nthe souls of men.\n\nRobert G. Ingersoll.\n\nA Last Word to Robert G. Ingersoll\n\nMy Dear Colonel Ingersoll:\n\nI have read your Reply to my Open Letter half a dozen times, and each\ntime with new appreciation of your skill as an advocate. It is written\nwith great ingenuity, and furnishes probably as complete an argument as\nyou are able to give for the faith (or want of faith) that is in you.\nDoubtless you think it unanswerable, and so it will seem to those who\nare predisposed to your way of thinking. To quote a homely saying of Mr.\nLincoln, in which there is as much of wisdom as of wit, \"For those who\nlike that sort of thing, no doubt that is the sort of thing they do\nlike.\" You may answer that we, who cling to the faith of our fathers,\nare equally prejudiced, and that it is for that reason that we are not\nmore impressed by the force of your pleading. I do not deny a strong\nleaning that way, and yet our real interest is the same—to get at the\ntruth; and, therefore, I have tried to give due weight to whatever of\nargument there is in the midst of so much eloquence; but must confess\nthat, in spite of all, I remain in the same obdurate frame of mind as\nbefore. With all the candor that I can bring to bear upon the question,\nI find on reviewing my Open Letter scarcely a sentence to change and\nnothing to withdraw; and am quite willing to leave it as my Declaration\nof Faith, to stand side by side with your Reply, for intelligent and\ncandid men to judge between us. I need only to add a few words in taking\nleave of the subject.\n\nYou seem a little disturbed that \"some of my brethren\" should look upon\nyou as \"a monster\" because of your unbelief. I certainly do not approve\nof such language, although they would tell me that it is the only word\nwhich is a fit response to your ferocious attacks upon what they hold\nmost sacred. You are a born gladiator, and when you descend into the\narena, you strike heavy blows, which provoke blows in return. In this\nvery Reply you manifest a particular animosity against Presbyterians.\nIs it because you were brought up in that Church, of which your father,\nwhom you regard with filial respect and affection, was an honored\nminister? You even speak of \"the Presbyterian God!\" as if we assumed to\nappropriate the Supreme Being, claiming to be the special objects of\nHis favor. Is there any ground for this imputation of narrowness? On the\ncontrary, when we bow our knees before our Maker, it is as the God and\nFather of all mankind; and the expression you permit yourself to use,\ncan only be regarded as grossly offensive. Was it necessary to offer\nthis rudeness to the religious denomination in which you were born?\n\nAnd this may explain, what you do not seem fully to understand, why it\nis that you are sometimes treated to sharp epithets by the religious\npress and public. You think yourself persecuted for your opinions. But\nothers hold the same opinions without offence. Nor is it because you\nexpress your opinions. Nobody would deny you the same freedom which is\naccorded to Huxley or Herbert Spencer. It is not because you exercise\nyour liberty of judgment or of speech, but because of the way in which\nyou attack others, holding up their faith to all manner of ridicule,\nand speaking of those who profess it as if they must be either knaves or\nfools. It is not in human nature not to resent such imputations on that\nwhich, however incredible to you, is very precious to them. Hence it is\nthat they think you a rough antagonist; and when you shock them by\nsuch expressions as I have quoted, you must expect some pretty strong\nlanguage in return. I do not join them in this, because I know you,\nand appreciate that other side of you which is manly and kindly and\nchivalrous. But while I recognize these better qualities, I must add\nin all frankness that I am compelled to look upon you as a man so\nembittered against religion that you cannot think of it except as\nassociated with cant, bigotry, and hypocrisy. In such a state of mind\nit is hardly possible for you to judge fairly of the arguments for its\ntruth.\n\nI believe with you, that reason was given us to be exercised, and that\nwhen man seeks after truth, his mind should be, as you say Darwin's was,\n\"as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass.\" But if he is warped\nby passion so that he cannot see things truly, then is he responsible.\nIt is the moral element which alone makes the responsibility. Nor do I\nbelieve that any man will be judged in this world or the next for what\ndoes not involve a moral wrong. Hence your appalling statement, \"The God\nyou worship will, according to your creed, torture (!) through all the\nendless years the man who entertains an honest doubt,\" does not produce\nthe effect intended, simply because I do not affirm nor believe any such\nthing. I believe that, in the future world, every man will be judged\naccording to the deeds done in the body, and that the judgment, whatever\nit may be, will be transparently just. God is more merciful than man.\nHe desireth not the death of the wicked. Christ forgave, where men would\ncondemn, and whatever be the fate of any human soul, it can never be\nsaid that the Supreme Ruler was wanting either in justice or mercy.\nThis I emphasize because you dwell so much upon the subject of future\nretribution, giving it an attention so constant as to be almost\nexclusive. Whatever else you touch upon, you soon come back to this as\nthe black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its\nmighty shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come. Your\ndenunciations of this \"inhuman\" belief are so reiterated that one would\nbe left to infer that there is nothing else in Religion; that it is all\nwrath and terror. But this is putting a part for the whole. Religion\nis a vast system, of which this is but a single feature: it is but one\ndoctrine of many; and indeed some whom no one will deny to be devout\nChristians, do not hold it at all, or only in a modified form, while\nwith all their hearts they accept and profess the Religion that Christ\ncame to bring into the world.\n\nArchdeacon Farrar, of Westminster Abbey, the most eloquent preacher in\nthe Church of England, has written a book entitled \"Eternal Hope,\" in\nwhich he argues from reason and the Bible, that this life is not \"the\nbe-all and end-all\" of human probation; but that in the world to come\nthere will be another opportunity, when countless millions, made wiser\nby unhappy experience, will turn again to the paths of life; and that so\nin the end the whole human race, with the exception of perhaps a few who\nremain irreclaimable, will be recovered and made happy forever. Others\nlook upon \"eternal death\" as merely the extinction of being, while\nimmortality is the reward of pre-eminent virtue, interpreting in that\nsense the words, \"The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is\neternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.\" The latter view might\nrecommend itself to you as the application of \"the survival of the\nfittest\" to another world, the worthless, the incurably bad, of the\nhuman race being allowed to drop out of existence (an end which can\nhave no terrors for you, since you look upon it as the common lot of all\nmen,) while the good are continued in being forever. The acceptance\nof either of these theories would relieve your mind of that \"horror of\ngreat darkness\" which seems to come over it whenever you look forward to\nretribution beyond the grave.\n\nBut while conceding all liberty to others I cannot so easily relieve\nmyself of this stern and rugged truth. To me moral evil in the universe\nis a tremendous reality, and I do not see how to limit it within the\nbounds of time. Retribution is to me a necessary part of the Divine law.\nA law without a penalty for its violations is no law. But I rest the\nargument for it, not on the Bible, but _on principles which you yourself\nacknowledge_. You say, \"There are no punishments, no rewards: there are\nconsequences.\" Very well, take the \"consequences,\" and see where they\nlead you. When a man by his vices has reduced his body to a wreck and\nhis mind to idiocy, you say this is the \"consequence\" of his vicious\nlife. Is it a great stretch of language to say that it is his\n\"punishment,\" and nonetheless punishment because self-inflicted? To the\npoor sufferer raving in a madhouse, it matters little what it is called,\nso long as he is experiencing the agonies of hell. And here your theory\nof \"consequences,\" if followed up, will lead you very far. For if\nman lives after death, and keeps his personal identity, do not the\n\"consequences\" of his past life follow him into the future? And if his\nexistence is immortal, are not the consequences immortal also? And what\nis this but endless retribution?\n\nBut you tell me that the moral effect of retribution is destroyed by the\neasy way in which a man escapes the penalty. He has but to repent, and\nhe is restored to the same condition before the law as if he had not\nsinned. Not so do I understand it. \"I believe in the forgiveness of\nsins,\" but forgiveness does not reverse the course of nature; it does\nnot prevent the operation of natural law. A drunkard may repent as he is\nnearing his end, but that does not undo the wrong that he has done, nor\navert the consequences. In spite of his tears, he dies in an agony of\nshame and remorse. The inexorable law must be fulfilled.\n\nAnd so in the future world. Even though a man be forgiven, he does not\nwholly escape the evil of his past life. A retribution follows him even\nwithin the heavenly gates; for if he does not suffer, still that bad\nlife has so shriveled up his moral nature as to diminish his power of\nenjoyment. There are degrees of happiness, as one star differeth from\nanother star in glory; and he who begins wrong, will find that it is\nnot as well to sin and repent of it as not to sin at all. He enters the\nother world in a state of spiritual infancy, and will have to begin at\nthe bottom and climb slowly upward.\n\nWe might go a step farther, and say that perhaps heaven itself has not\nonly its lights but its shadows, in the reflections that must come even\nthere. We read of \"the book of God's remembrance,\" but is there not\nanother book of remembrance in the mind itself—a book which any man may\nwell fear to open and to look thereon? When that book is opened, and we\nread its awful pages, shall we not all think \"what might have been?\" And\nwill those thoughts be wholly free from sadness? The drunken brute who\nbreaks the heart that loved him may weep bitterly, and his poor wife may\nforgive him with her dying lips; but he cannot forgive himself , and\nnever can he recall without grief that bowed head and that broken\nheart. This preserves the element of retribution, while it does not shut\nthe door to forgiveness and mercy.\n\nBut we need not travel over again the round of Christian doctrines.\nMy faith is very simple; it revolves around two words; God and\nChrist. These are the two centres, or, as an astronomer might say, the\ndouble-star, or double-sun, of the great orbit of religious truth.\n\nAs to the first of these, you say \"There can be no evidence to my mind\nof the existence of such a being, and my mind is so that it is incapable\nof even thinking of an infinite personality;\" and you gravely put to me\nthis question: \"Do you really believe that this world is governed by an\ninfinitely wise and good God? Have you convinced even yourself of this?\"\nHere are two questions—one as to the existence of God, and the other\nas to His benevolence. I will answer both in language as plain as it is\npossible for me to use.\n\nFirst, Do I believe in the existence of God? I answer that it is\nimpossible for me not to believe it. I could not disbelieve it if I\nwould. You insist that belief or unbelief is not a matter of choice or\nof the will, but of evidence. You say \"the brain thinks as the\nheart beats, as the eyes see.\" Then let us stand aside with all our\nprepossessions, and open our eyes to what we can see.\n\nWhen Robinson Crusoe in his desert island came down one day to the\nseashore, and saw in the sand the print of a human foot, could he help\nthe instantaneous conviction that a man had been there? You might have\ntried to persuade him that it was all chance,—that the sand had been\nwashed up by the waves or blown by the winds, and taken this form, or\nthat some marine insect had traced a figure like a human foot,—you\nwould not have moved him a particle. The imprint was there, and the\nconclusion was irresistible: he did not believe—he knew that some human\nbeing, whether friend or foe, civilized or savage, had set his foot upon\nthat desolate shore. So when I discover in the world (as I think I do)\nmysterious footprints that are certainly not human, it is not a question\nwhether I shall believe or not: I cannot help believing that some Power\ngreater than man has set foot upon the earth.\n\nIt is a fashion among atheistic philosophers to make light of the\nargument from design; but \"my mind is so that it is incapable\" of\nresisting the conclusion to which it leads me. And (since personal\nquestions are in order) I beg to ask if it is possible for you to take\nin your hands a watch, and believe that there was no \"design\" in its\nconstruction; that it was not made to keep time, but only \"happened\" so;\nthat it is the product of some freak of nature, which brought together\nits parts and set it going. Do you not know with as much positiveness as\ncan belong to any conviction of your mind, that it was not the work of\naccident, but of design; and that if there was a design, there was a\ndesigner? And if the watch was made to keep time, was not the eye made\nto see and the ear to hear? Skeptics may fight against this argument as\nmuch as they please, and try to evade the inevitable conclusion, and\nyet it remains forever entwined in the living frame of man as well as\nimbedded in the solid foundations of the globe. Wherefore I repeat, it\nis not a question with me whether I will believe or not—I cannot help\nbelieving; and I am not only surprised, but amazed, that you or\nany thoughtful man can come to any other conclusion.' In wonder and\nastonishment I ask, \"Do you really believe\" that in all the wide\nuniverse there is no Higher Intelligence than that of the poor human\ncreatures that creep on this earthly ball? For myself, it is with the\npro-foundest conviction as well as the deepest reverence that I repeat\nthe first sentence of my faith: \"I believe in God the Father Almighty.\"\n\nAnd not the Almighty only, but the Wise and the Good. Again I ask, How\ncan I help believing what I see every day of my life? Every morning,\nas the sun rises in the East, sending light and life over the world, I\nbehold a glorious image of the beneficent Creator. The exquisite beauty\nof the dawn, the dewy freshness of the air, the fleecy clouds floating\nin the sky—all speak of Him. And when the sun goes down, sending shafts\nof light through the dense masses that would hide his setting, and\ncasting a glory over the earth and sky, this wondrous illumination is\nto me but the reflection of Him who \"spreadeth out the heavens like a\ncurtain; who maketh the clouds His chariot; who walketh upon the wings\nof the wind.\"\n\nHow much more do we find the evidences of goodness in man himself:\nin the power of thought; of acquiring knowledge; of penetrating the\nmysteries of nature and climbing among the stars. Can a being endowed\nwith such transcendent gifts doubt the goodness of his Creator?\n\nYes, I believe with all my heart and soul in One who is not only\nInfinitely Great, but Infinitely Good; who loves all the creatures He\nhas made; bending over them as the bow in the cloud spans the arch of\nheaven, stretching from horizon to horizon; looking down upon them with\na tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold. \"Like\nas a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear\nHim; for He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust.\"\n\nOn the question of immortality you are equally \"at sea.\" You know\nnothing and believe nothing; or, rather, you know only that you do not\nknow, and believe that you do not believe. You confess indeed to a faint\nhope, and admit a bare possibility, that there may be another life,\nthough you are in an uncertainty about it that is altogether bewildering\nand desperate. But your mind is so poetical that you give a certain\nattractiveness even to the prospect of annihilation. You strew the\nsepulchre with such flowers as these:\n\n\"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that the idea of\nimmortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart,\nwith its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and\nrocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor\nof any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to\nebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long\nas love kisses the lips of death.\n\n\"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not know, we\ncannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a\nday; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings;\nthe rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings rapture and\nlove to every one.\"\n\nBeautiful words! but inexpressibly sad! It is a silver lining to the\ncloud, and yet the cloud is there, dark and impenetrable. But perhaps\nwe ought not to expect anything clearer and brighter from one who\nrecognizes no light but that of Nature.\n\nThat light is very dim. If it were all we had, we should be just where\nCicero was, and say with him, and with you, that a future life was \"to\nbe hoped for rather than believed.\" But does not that very uncertainty\nshow the need of a something above Nature, which is furnished in Him who\n\"was crucified, dead and buried, and the third day rose again from the\ndead?\" It is the Conqueror of Death who calls to the fainthearted: \"I am\nthe Resurrection and the Life.\" Since He has gone before us, lighting\nup the dark passage of the grave, we need not fear to follow, resting on\nthe word of our Leader: \"Because I live, ye shall live also.\"\n\nThis faith in another life is a precious inheritance, which cannot\nbe torn from the agonized bosom without a wrench that tears every\nheartstring; and it was to this I referred as the last refuge of a poor,\nsuffering, despairing soul, when I asked: \"Does it never occur to you\nthat there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of\nyour fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another life hangs all that\nrelieves the darkness of their present existence?\" The imputation of\ncruelty you repel with some warmth, saying (with a slight variation of\nmy language): \"When I deny the existence of perdition, you reply that\nthere is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of my\nfellow-creatures.\" Of course, this change of words, putting perdition in\nthe place of immortal life and hope, was a mere inadvertence. But it\nwas enough to change the whole character of what I wrote. As I described\n\"the treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures,\" I did think it\n\"very cruel,\" and I think so still.\n\nWhile correcting this slight misquotation, I must remove from your mind\na misapprehension, which is so very absurd as to be absolutely comical.\nIn my Letter referring to your disbelief of immortality, I had said:\n\"With an air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience\nby storm, you confess your ignorance of what perhaps others are better\nacquainted with, when you say, 'This world is all that I know anything\nabout, so far as I recollect'\" Of course \"what perhaps others are\nbetter acquainted with\" was a part of what you said, or at least implied\nby your manner (for you do not convey your meaning merely by words,\nbut by a tone of voice, by arched eyebrows, or a curled lip); and yet,\ninstead of taking the sentence in its plain and obvious sense, you\naffect to understand it as an assumption on my part to have some private\nand mysterious knowledge of another world (!), and gravely ask me, \"Did\nyou by this intend to say that you know anything of any other state of\nexistence; that you have inhabited some other planet; that you lived\nbefore you were born; and that you recollect something of that other\nworld or of that other state?\" No, my dear Colonel! I have been a good\ndeal of a traveler, and have seen all parts of this world, but I have\nnever visited any other. In reading your sober question, if I did not\nknow you to be one of the brightest wits of the day, I should be tempted\nto quote what Sidney Smith says of a Scotchman, that \"you cannot get a\njoke into his head except by a surgical operation!\"\n\nBut to return to what is serious: you make light of our faith and\nour hopes, because you know not the infinite solace they bring to the\ntroubled human heart. You sneer at the idea that religion can be a\n\"consolation.\" Indeed! Is it not a consolation to have an Almighty\nFriend? Was it a light matter for the poor slave mother, who sat alone\nin her cabin, having been robbed of her children, to sing in her wild,\nwailing accents:\n    \"Nobody knows the sorrows I've seen:\n    Nobody knows but Jesus?\"\n\nWould you rob her of that Unseen Friend—the only Friend she had on\nearth or in heaven?\n\nBut I will do you the justice to say that your want of religious faith\ncomes in part from your very sensibility and tenderness of heart. You\ncannot recognize an overruling Providence, because your mind is so\nharassed by scenes that you witness. Why, you ask, do men suffer so? You\ndraw frightful pictures of the misery which exists in the world, as a\nproof of the incapacity of its Ruler and Governor, and do not hesitate\nto say that \"any honest man of average intelligence could do vastly\nbetter.\" If you could have your way, you would make everybody happy;\nthere should be no more poverty, and no more sickness or pain.\n\nThis is a pleasant picture to look at, and yet you must excuse me for\nsaying that it is rather a child's picture than that of a stalwart man.\nThe world is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged\nlike children: spoiled children they would soon become. It is an arena\nof conflict, in which we are to develop the manhood that is in us. We\nall have to take the \"rough-and-tumble\" of life, and are the better\nfor it—physically, intellectually, and morally. If there be any true\nmanliness within us, we come out of the struggle stronger and better;\nwith larger minds and kinder hearts; a broader wisdom and a gentler\ncharity.\n\nPerhaps we should not differ on this point if we could agree as to the\ntrue end of life. But here I fear the difference is irreconcilable. You\nthink that end is happiness: I think it is character. I do not believe\nthat the highest end of life upon earth is to \"have a good time to get\nfrom it the utmost amount of enjoyment;\" but to be truly and greatly\nGOOD; and that to that end no discipline can be too severe which leads\nus \"to suffer and be strong.\" That discipline answers its end when it\nraises the spirit to the highest pitch of courage and endurance. The\nsplendor of virtue never appears so bright as when set against a dark\nbackground. It was in prisons and dungeons that the martyrs showed the\ngreatest degree of moral heroism, the power of\n    \"Man's unconquerable mind.\"\n\nBut I know well that these illustrations do not cover the whole case.\nThere is another picture to be added to those of heroic struggle and\nmartyrdom—that of silent suffering, which makes of life one long agony,\nand which often comes upon the good, so that it seems as if the best\nsuffered the most. And yet when you sit by a sick bed, and look into a\nface whiter than the pillow on which it rests, do you not sometimes mark\nhow that very suffering refines the nature that bears it so meekly? This\nis the Christian theory: that suffering, patiently borne, is a means\nof the greatest elevation of character, and, in the end, of the highest\nenjoyment. Looking at it in this light, we can understand how it should\nbe that \"the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be\ncompared [or even to be named] with the glory which shall be revealed.\"\nWhen the heavenly morning breaks, brighter than any dawn that blushes\n\"o'er the world,\" there will be \"a restitution of all things:\" the poor\nwill be made rich, and the most suffering the most serenely happy; as in\nthe vision of the Apocalypse, when it is asked \"What are these which are\narrayed in white robes, and whence came they?\" the answer is, \"These are\nthey which came our of great tribulation.\"\n\nIn this conclusion, which is not adopted lightly, but after innumerable\nstruggles with doubt, after the experience and the reflection of years,\nI feel \"a great peace.\" It is the glow of sunset that gilds the approach\nof evening. For (we must confess it) it is towards that you and I are\nadvancing. The sun has passed the meridian, and hastens to his going\ndown. Whatever of good this life has for us (and I am far from being one\nof those who look upon it as a vale of tears) will soon be behind us. I\nsee the shadows creeping on; yet I welcome the twilight that will soon\ndarken into night, for I know that it will be a night all glorious with\nstars. As I look upward, the feeling of awe is blended with a strange,\noverpowering sense of the Infinite Goodness, which surrounding me like\nan atmosphere:\n    \"And so beside the Silent Sea,\n    I wait the muffled oar;\n    No harm from Him can come to me\n    On ocean or on shore.\n    I know not where His Islands lift\n    Their fronded palms in air;\n    I only know I cannot drift\n    Beyond His love and care.\"\n\nWould that you could share with me this confidence and this hope! But\nyou seem to be receding farther from any kind of faith. In one of your\nclosing paragraphs, you give what is to you \"the conclusion of the whole\nmatter.\" After repudiating religion with scorn, you ask, \"Is there not\nroom for a better, for a higher philosophy?\" and thus indicate the true\nanswer to be given, to which no words can do justice but your own:\n\n\"After all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been\nnecessarily produced; that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes\nand all crimes, were simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of\nthis perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute\njustification for the individual? May we not find that every soul\nhas, like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like\nPrometheus to the rocks of fate?\"\n\nIf this be the end of all philosophy, it is equally the end of \"all\nthings.\" Not only does it make an end of us and of our hopes of\nfuturity, but of all that makes the present life worth living—of\nall freedom, and hence of all virtue. There are no more any moral\ndistinctions in the world—no good and no evil, no right and no wrong;\nnothing but grim necessity. With such a creed, I wonder how you can ever\nstand at the bar, and argue for the conviction of a criminal. Why should\nhe be convicted and punished for what he could not help? Indeed he is\nnot a criminal, since there is no such thing as crime. He is not to\nblame. Was he not \"lashed to the wild horse of passion,\" carried away by\na power beyond his control?\n\nWhat cruelty to thrust him behind iron bars! Poor fellow! he deserves\nour pity. Let us hasten to relieve him from a position which must be so\npainful, and make our humble apology for having presumed to punish him\nfor an act in which he only obeyed an impulse which he could not resist.\nThis will be \"absolute justification for the individual.\" But what will\nbecome of society, you do not tell us.\n\nAre you aware that in this last attainment of \"a better, a higher\nphilosophy\" (which is simply absolute fatalism), you have swung round\nto the side of John Calvin, and gone far beyond him? That you, who have\nexhausted all the resources of the English language in denouncing\nhis creed as the most horrible of human beliefs—brainless, soulless,\nheartless; who have held it up to scorn and derision; now hold to the\nblackest Calvinism that was ever taught by man? You cannot find words\nsufficient to express your horror of the doctrine of Divine decrees;\nand yet here you have decrees with a vengeance—predestination and\ndamnation, both in one. Under such a creed, man is a thousand times\nworse off than under ours: for he has absolutely no hope. You may say\nthat at any rate he cannot suffer forever. You do not know even that;\nbut at any rate he suffers as long as he exists. There is no God above\nto show him pity, and grant him release; but as long as the ages roll,\nhe is \"lashed to the rocks of fate,\" with the insatiate vulture tearing\nat his heart!\n\nIn reading your glittering phrases, I seem to be losing hold of\neverything, and to be sinking, sinking, till I touch the lowest\ndepths of an abyss; while from the blackness above me a sound like a\ndeath-knell tolls the midnight of the soul. If I believed this I should\ncry, God help us all! Or no—for there would be no God, and even this\nlast consolation would be denied us: for why should we offer a prayer\nwhich can neither be heard nor answered? As well might we ask mercy from\n\"the rocks of fate\" to which we are chained forever!\n\nRecoiling from this Gospel of Despair, I turn to One in whose face there\nis something at once human and divine—an indescribable majesty, united\nwith more than human tenderness and pity; One who was born among the\npoor, and had not where to lay His head, and yet went about doing good;\npoor, yet making many rich; who trod the world in deepest loneliness,\nand yet whose presence lighted up every dwelling into which He came; who\ntook up little children in His arms, and blessed them; a giver of joy to\nothers, and yet a sufferer himself; who tasted every human sorrow, and\nyet was always ready to minister to others' grief; weeping with them\nthat wept; coming to Bethany to comfort Mary and Martha concerning their\nbrother; rebuking the proud, but gentle and pitiful to the most abject\nof human creatures; stopping amid the throng at the cry of a blind\nbeggar by the wayside; willing to be known as \"the friend of sinners,\"\nif He might recall them into the way of peace; who did not scorn even\nthe fallen woman who sank at His feet, but by His gentle word, \"Neither\ndo I condemn thee; go and sin no more,\" lifted her up, and set her in\nthe path of a virtuous womanhood; and who, when dying on the cross,\nprayed: \"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.\" In this\nFriend of the friendless, Comforter of the comfortless, Forgiver of the\npenitent, and Guide of the erring, I find a greatness that I had not\nfound in any of the philosophers or teachers of the world. No voice\nin all the ages thrills me like that which whispers close to my heart,\n\"Come unto me and I will give you rest,\" to which I answer: This is my\nMaster, and I will follow Him.\n\nHenry M. Field.\n\nLetter to Dr. Field\n\nMy Dear Mr. Field:\n\nWith great pleasure I have read your second letter, in which you seem to\nadmit that men may differ even about religion without being responsible\nfor that difference; that every man has the right to read the Bible for\nhimself, state freely the conclusion at which he arrives, and that it is\nnot only his privilege, but his duty to speak the truth; that Christians\ncan hardly be happy in heaven, while those they loved on earth are\nsuffering with the lost; that it is not a crime to investigate, to\nthink, to reason, to observe, and to be governed by evidence; that\ncredulity is not a virtue, and that the open mouth of ignorant wonder\nis not the only entrance to Paradise; that belief is not necessary to\nsalvation, and that no man can justly be made to suffer eternal pain for\nhaving expressed an intellectual conviction.\n\nYou seem to admit that no man can justly be held responsible for his\nthoughts; that the brain thinks without asking our consent, and that we\nbelieve or disbelieve without an effort of the will.\n\nI congratulate you upon the advance that you have made. You not only\nadmit that we have the right to think, but that we have the right to\nexpress our honest thoughts. You admit that the Christian world no\nlonger believes in the fagot, the dungeon, and the thumbscrew. Has the\nChristian world outgrown its God? Has man become more merciful than his\nmaker? If man will not torture his fellow-man on account of a difference\nof opinion, will a God of infinite love torture one of his children for\nwhat is called the sin of unbelief? Has man outgrown the Inquisition,\nand will God forever be the warden of a penitentiary? The walls of the\nold dungeons have fallen, and light now visits the cell where brave\nmen perished in darkness. Is Jehovah to keep the cells of perdition in\nrepair forever, and are his children to be the eternal prisoners?\n\nIt seems hard for you to appreciate the mental condition of one who\nregards all gods as substantially the same; that is to say, who thinks\nof them all as myths and phantoms born of the imagination,—characters\nin the religious fictions of the race. To you it probably seems strange\nthat a man should think far more of Jupiter than of Jehovah. Regarding\nthem both as creations of the mind, I choose between them, and I prefer\nthe God of the Greeks, on the same principle that I prefer Portia\nto Iago; and yet I regard them, one and all, as children of the\nimagination, as phantoms born of human fears and human hopes.\n\nSurely nothing was further from my mind than to hurt the feelings of any\none by speaking of the Presbyterian God. I simply intended to speak of\nthe God of the Presbyterians. Certainly the God of the Presbyterian\nis not the God of the Catholic, nor is he the God of the Mohammedan or\nHindoo. He is a special creation suited only to certain minds. These\nminds have naturally come together, and they form what we call the\nPresbyterian Church. As a matter of fact, no two churches can by any\npossibility have precisely the same God; neither can any two human\nbeings conceive of precisely the same Deity. In every man's God there\nis, to say the least, a part of that man. The lower the man, the lower\nhis conception of God. The higher the man, the grander his Deity must\nbe. The savage who adorns his body with a belt from which hang the\nscalps of enemies slain in battle, has no conception of a loving, of\na forgiving God; his God, of necessity, must be as revengeful, as\nheartless, as infamous as the God of John Calvin.\n\nYou do not exactly appreciate my feeling. I do not hate Presbyterians; I\nhate Presbyterianism. I hate with all my heart the creed of that church,\nand I most heartily despise the God described in the Confession of\nFaith. But some of the best friends I have in the world are afflicted\nwith the mental malady known as Presbyterianism. They are the victims of\nthe consolation growing out of the belief that a vast majority of their\nfellow-men are doomed to suffer eternal torment, to the end that their\nCreator may be eternally glorified. I have said many times, and I say\nagain, that I do not despise a man because he has the rheumatism; I\ndespise the rheumatism because it has a man.\n\nBut I do insist that the Presbyterians have assumed to appropriate to\nthemselves their Supreme Being, and that they have claimed, and that\nthey do claim, to be the \"special objects of his favor.\" They do claim\nto be the very elect, and they do insist that God looks upon them as\nthe objects of his special care. They do claim that the light of Nature,\nwithout the torch of the Presbyterian creed, is insufficient to guide\nany soul to the gate of heaven. They do insist that even those who never\nheard of Christ, or never heard of the God of the Presbyterians, will be\neternally lost; and they not only claim this, but that their fate will\nillustrate not only the justice but the mercy of God. Not only so, but\nthey insist that the morality of an unbeliever is displeasing to God,\nand that the love of an unconverted mother for her helpless child is\nnothing less than sin.\n\nWhen I meet a man who really believes the Presbyterian creed, I think of\nthe Laocoon. I feel as though looking upon a human being helpless in the\ncoils of an immense and poisonous serpent. But I congratulate you with\nall my heart that you have repudiated this infamous, this savage creed;\nthat you now admit that reason was given us to be exercised; that God\nwill not torture any man for entertaining an honest doubt, and that in\nthe world to come \"every man will be judged according to the deeds done\nin the body.\"\n\nLet me quote your exact language: \"I believe that in the future world\nevery man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body.\" Do\nyou not see that you have bidden farewell to the Presbyterian Church?\nIn that sentence you have thrown away the atonement, you have denied the\nefficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ, and you have denied the necessity\nof belief. If we are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, that\nis the end of the Presbyterian scheme of salvation. I sincerely\ncongratulate you for having repudiated the savagery of Calvinism.\n\nIt also gave me great pleasure to find that you have thrown away, with\na kind of glad shudder, that infamy of infamies, the dogma of eternal\npain. I have denounced that inhuman belief; I have denounced every creed\nthat had coiled within it that viper; I have denounced every man who\npreached it, the book that contains it, and with all my heart the God\nwho threatens it; and at last I have the happiness of seeing the editor\nof the New York Evangelist admit that devout Christians do not believe\nthat lie, and quote with approbation the words of a minister of the\nChurch of England to the effect that all men will be finally recovered\nand made happy.\n\nDo you find this doctrine of hope in the Presbyterian creed? Is this\nstar, that sheds light on every grave, found in your Bible? Did Christ\nhave in his mind the shining truth that all the children of men will at\nlast be filled with joy, when he uttered these comforting words: \"Depart\nfrom me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his\nangels\"?\n\nDo you find in this flame the bud of hope, or the flower of promise?\n\nYou suggest that it is possible that \"the incurably bad will be\nannihilated,\" and you say that such a fate can have no terrors for me,\nas I look upon annihilation as the common lot of all. Let us examine\nthis position. Why should a God of infinite wisdom create men and women\nwhom he knew would be \"incurably bad\"? What would you say of a mechanic\nwho was forced to destroy his own productions on the ground that they\nwere \"incurably bad\"? Would you say that he was an infinitely wise\nmechanic? Does infinite justice annihilate the work of infinite wisdom?\nDoes God, like an ignorant doctor, bury his mistakes?\n\nBesides, what right have you to say that I \"look upon annihilation as\nthe common lot of all\"? Was there any such thought in my Reply? Do you\nfind it in any published words of mine? Do you find anything in what I\nhave written tending to show that I believe in annihilation? Is it not\ntrue that I say now, and that I have always said, that I do not know?\nDoes a lack of knowledge as to the fate of the human soul imply a belief\nin annihilation? Does it not equally imply a belief in immortality?\n\nYou have been—at least until recently—a believer in the inspiration\nof the Bible and in the truth of its every word. What do you say to the\nfollowing: \"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts;\neven one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other;\nyea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above\na beast.\" You will see that the inspired writer is not satisfied with\nadmitting that he does not know. \"As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth\naway; so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.\" Was it\nnot cruel for an inspired man to attack a sacred belief?\n\nYou seem surprised that I should speak of the doctrine of eternal pain\nas \"the black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its\nmighty shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come.\"\nIf that doctrine be true, what else is there worthy of engaging the\nattention of the human mind? It is the blackness that extinguishes\nevery star. It is the abyss in which every hope must perish. It leaves a\nuniverse without justice and without mercy—a future without one ray\nof light, and a present with nothing but fear. It makes heaven an\nimpossibility, God an infinite monster, and man an eternal victim.\nNothing can redeem a religion in which this dogma is found. Clustered\nabout it are all the snakes of the Furies.\n\nBut you have abandoned this infamy, and you have admitted that we are to\nbe judged according to the deeds done in the body. Nothing can be nearer\nself-evident than the fact that a finite being cannot commit an infinite\nsin; neither can a finite being do an infinitely good deed. That is to\nsay, no one can deserve for any act eternal pain, and no one for any\ndeed can deserve eternal joy. If we are to be judged by the deeds done\nin the body, the old orthodox hell and heaven both become impossible.\n\nSo, too, you have recognized the great and splendid truth that sin\ncannot be predicated of an intellectual conviction. This is the first\ngreat step toward the liberty of soul. You admit that there is no\nmorality and no immorality in belief—that is to say, in the simple\noperation of the mind in weighing evidence, in observing facts, and in\ndrawing conclusions. You admit that these things are without sin and\nwithout guilt. Had all men so believed there never could have been\nreligious persecution—the Inquisition could not have been built, and\nthe idea of eternal pain never could have polluted the human heart.\n\nYou have been driven to the passions for the purpose of finding what you\nare pleased to call \"sin\" and \"responsibility\" and you say, speaking of\na human being, \"but if he is warped by passion so that he cannot see\nthings truly, then is he responsible.\" One would suppose that the use of\nthe word \"cannot\" is inconsistent with the idea of responsibility. What\nis passion? There are certain desires, swift, thrilling, that quicken\nthe action of the heart—desires that fill the brain with blood, with\nfire and flame—desires that bear the same relation to judgment that\nstorms and waves bear to the compass on a ship. Is passion necessarily\nproduced? Is there an adequate cause for every effect? Can you by any\npossibility think of an effect without a cause, and can you by any\npossibility think of an effect that is not a cause, or can you think of\na cause that is not an effect? Is not the history of real civilization\nthe slow and gradual emancipation of the intellect, of the judgment,\nfrom the mastery of passion? Is not that man civilized whose reason sits\nthe crowned monarch of his brain—whose passions are his servants?\n\nWho knows the strength of the temptation to another? Who knows how\nlittle has been resisted by those who stand, how much has been resisted\nby those who fall? Who knows whether the victor or the victim made the\nbraver and the more gallant fight? In judging of our fellow-men we\nmust take into consideration the circumstances of ancestry, of race,\nof nationality, of employment, of opportunity, of education, and of the\nthousand influences that tend to mold or mar the character of man. Such\na view is the mother of charity, and makes the God of the Presbyterians\nimpossible.\n\nAt last you have seen the impossibility of forgiveness. That is to say,\nyou perceive that after forgiveness the crime remains, and its children,\ncalled consequences, still live. You recognize the lack of philosophy\nin that doctrine. You still believe in what you call \"the forgiveness\nof sins,\" but you admit that forgiveness cannot reverse the course of\nnature, and cannot prevent the operation of natural law. You also admit\nthat if a man lives after death, he preserves his personal identity, his\nmemory, and that the consequences of his actions will follow him through\nall the eternal years. You admit that consequences are immortal. After\nmaking this admission, of what use is the old idea of the forgiveness\nof sins? How can the criminal be washed clean and pure in the blood of\nanother? In spite of this forgiveness, in spite of this blood, you have\ntaken the ground that consequences, like the dogs of Actaeon, follow even\na Presbyterian, even one of the elect, within the heavenly gates. If you\nwish to be logical, you must also admit that the consequences of good\ndeeds, like winged angels, follow even the atheist within the gates of\nhell.\n\nYou have had the courage of your convictions, and you have said that\nwe are to be judged according to the deeds done in the body. By that\njudgment I am willing to abide. But, whether willing or not, I must\nabide, because there is no power, no God that can step between me and\nthe consequences of my acts. I wish no heaven that I have not earned,\nno happiness to which I am not entitled. I do not wish to become an\nimmortal pauper; neither am I willing to extend unworthy hands for alms.\n\nMy dear Mr. Field, you have outgrown your creed—as every Presbyterian\nmust who grows at all. You are far better than the spirit of the Old\nTestament; far better, in my judgment, even than the spirit of the New.\nThe creed that you have left behind, that you have repudiated, teaches\nthat a man may be guilty of every crime—that he may have driven his\nwife to insanity, that his example may have led his children to the\npenitentiary, or to the gallows, and that yet, at the eleventh hour, he\nmay, by what is called \"repentance,\" be washed absolutely pure by\nthe blood of another and receive and wear upon his brow the laurels of\neternal peace. Not only so, but that creed has taught that this wretch\nin heaven could look back on the poor earth and see the wife, whom he\nswore to love and cherish, in the mad-house, surrounded by imaginary\nserpents, struggling in the darkness of night, made insane by his\nheartlessness—that creed has taught and teaches that he could look back\nand see his children in prison cells, or on the scaffold with the noose\nabout their necks, and that these visions would not bring a shade of\nsadness to his redeemed and happy face. It is this doctrine, it is this\ndogma—so bestial, so savage as to beggar all the languages of men—that\nI have denounced. All the words of hatred, loathing and contempt, found\nin all the dialects and tongues of men, are not sufficient to express my\nhatred, my contempt, and my loathing of this creed.\n\nYou say that it is impossible for you not to believe in the existence of\nGod. With this statement, I find no fault. Your mind is so that a belief\nin the existence of a Supreme Being gives satisfaction and content. Of\ncourse, you are entitled to no credit for this belief, as you ought\nnot to be rewarded for believing that which you cannot help believing;\nneither should I be punished for failing to believe that which I cannot\nbelieve.\n\nYou believe because you see in the world around you such an adaptation\nof means to ends that you are satisfied there is design. I admit that\nwhen Robinson Crusoe saw in the sand the print of a human foot, like and\nyet unlike his own, he was justified in drawing the conclusion that\na human being had been there. The inference was drawn from his own\nexperience, and was within the scope of his own mind. But I do not\nagree with you that he \"knew\" a human being had been there; he had only\nsufficient evidence upon which to found a belief. He did not know the\nfootsteps of all animals; he could not have known that no animal except\nman could have made that footprint: In order to have known that it was\nthe foot of man, he must have known that no other animal was capable of\nmaking it, and he must have known that no other being had produced in\nthe sand the likeness of this human foot.\n\nYou see what you call evidences of intelligence in the universe, and you\ndraw the conclusion that there must be an infinite intelligence. Your\nconclusion is far wider than your premise. Let us suppose, as Mr.\nHume supposed, that there is a pair of scales, one end of which is\nin darkness, and you find that a pound weight, or a ten-pound weight,\nplaced upon that end of the scale in the light is raised; have you the\nright to say that there is an infinite weight on the end in darkness, or\nare you compelled to say only that there is weight enough on the end in\ndarkness to raise the weight on the end in light?\n\nIt is illogical to say, because of the existence of this earth and\nof what you can see in and about it, that there must be an infinite\nintelligence. You do not know that even the creation of this world,\nand of all planets discovered, required an infinite power, or infinite\nwisdom. I admit that it is impossible for me to look at a watch and draw\nthe inference that there was no design in its construction, or that\nit only happened. I could not regard it as a product of some freak of\nnature, neither could I imagine that its various parts were brought\ntogether and set in motion by chance. I am not a believer in chance. But\nthere is a vast difference between what man has made and the materials\nof which he has constructed the things he has made. You find a watch,\nand you say that it exhibits, or shows design. You insist that it is so\nwonderful it must have had a designer—in other words, that it is too\nwonderful not to have been constructed. You then find the watchmaker,\nand you say with regard to him that he too must have had a designer, for\nhe is more wonderful than the watch. In imagagination you go from\nthe watchmaker to the being you call God, and you say he designed the\nwatchmaker, but he himself was not designed because he is too wonderful\nto have been designed. And yet in the case of the watch and of the\nwatchmaker, it was the wonder that suggested design, while in the case\nof the maker of the watchmaker the wonder denied a designer. Do you not\nsee that this argument devours itself?\n\nIf wonder suggests a designer, can it go on increasing until it denies\nthat which it suggested?\n\nYou must remember, too, that the argument of design is applicable to\nall. You are not at liberty to stop at sunrise and sunset and growing\ncorn and all that adds to the happiness of man; you must go further. You\nmust admit that an infinitely wise and merciful God designed the fangs\nof serpents, the machinery by which the poison is distilled, the ducts\nby which it is carried to the fang, and that the same intelligence\nimpressed this serpent with a desire to deposit this deadly virus in\nthe flesh of man. You must believe that an infinitely wise God so\nconstructed this world, that in the process of cooling, earthquakes\nwould be caused—earthquakes that devour and overwhelm cities and\nstates. Do you see any design in the volcano that sends its rivers of\nlava over the fields and the homes of men? Do you really think that a\nperfectly good being designed the invisible parasites that infest the\nair, that inhabit the water, and that finally attack and destroy the\nhealth and life of man? Do you see the same design in cancers that you\ndo in wheat and corn? Did God invent tumors for the brain? Was it his\ningenuity that so designed the human race that millions of people should\nbe born deaf and dumb, that millions should be idiotic? Did he knowingly\nplant in the blood or brain the seeds of insanity? Did he cultivate\nthose seeds? Do you see any design in this?\n\nMan calls that good which increases his happiness, and that evil which\ngives him pain. In the olden time, back of the good he placed a God;\nback of the evil a devil; but now the orthodox world is driven to admit\nthat the God is the author of all.\n\nFor my part, I see no goodness in the pestilence—no mercy in the bolt\nthat leaps from the cloud and leaves the mark of death on the breast of\na loving mother. I see no generosity in famine, no goodness in disease,\nno mercy in want and agony.\n\nAnd yet you say that the being who created parasites that live only\nby inflicting pain—the being responsible for all the sufferings of\nmankind—you say that he has \"a tenderness compared to which all human\nlove is faint and cold.\" Yet according to the doctrine of the orthodox\nworld, this being of infinite love and tenderness so created nature\nthat its light misleads, and left a vast majority of the human race to\nblindly grope their way to endless pain.\n\nYou insist that a knowledge of God—a belief in God—is the foundation\nof social order; and yet this God of infinite tenderness has left for\nthousands and thousands of years nearly all of his children without a\nrevelation. Why should infinite goodness leave the existence of God in\ndoubt? Why should he see millions in savagery destroying the lives of\neach other, eating the flesh of each other, and keep his existence a\nsecret from man? Why did he allow the savages to depend on sunrise\nand sunset and clouds? Why did he leave this great truth to a few\nhalf-crazed prophets, or to a cruel, heartless, and ignorant church? The\nsentence \"There is a God\".could have been imprinted on every blade of\ngrass, on every leaf, on every star. An infinite God has no excuse for\nleaving his children in doubt and darkness.\n\nThere is still another point. You know that for thousands of ages men\nworshiped wild beasts as God. You know that for countless generations\nthey knelt by coiled serpents, believing those serpents to be gods. Why\ndid the real God secrete himself and allow his poor, ignorant, savage\nchildren to imagine that he was a beast, a serpent? Why did this God\nallow mothers to sacrifice their babes? Why did he not emerge from the\ndarkness? Why did he not say to the poor mother, \"Do not sacrifice your\nbabe; keep it in your arms; press it to your bosom; let it be the solace\nof your declining years. I take no delight in the death of children; I\nam not what you suppose me to be; I am not a beast; I am not a serpent;\nI am full of love and kindness and mercy, and I want my children to be\nhappy in this world\"? Did the God who allowed a mother to sacrifice her\nbabe through the mistaken idea that he, the God, demanded the sacrifice,\nfeel a tenderness toward that mother \"compared to which all human love\nis faint and cold\"? Would a good father allow some of his children to\nkill others of his children to please him?\n\nThere is still another question. Why should God, a being of infinite\ntenderness, leave the question of immortality in doubt? How is it that\nthere is nothing in the Old Testament on this subject? Why is it that\nhe who made all the constellations did not put in his heaven the star\nof hope? How do you account for the fact that you do not find in the\nOld Testament, from the first mistake in Genesis, to the last curse in\nMalachi, a funeral service? Is it not strange that some one in the Old\nTestament did not stand by an open grave of father or mother and say:\n\"We shall meet again\"? Was it because the divinely inspired men did not\nknow?\n\nYou taunt me by saying that I know no more of the immortality of the\nsoul than Cicero knew. I admit it. I know no more than the lowest\nsavage, no more than a doctor of divinity—that is to say, nothing.\n\nIs it not, however, a curious fact that there is less belief in\nthe immortality of the soul in Christian countries than in heathen\nlands—that the belief in immortality, in an orthodox church, is faint\nand cold and speculative, compared with that belief in India, in China,\nor in the Pacific Isles? Compare the belief in immortality in America,\nof Christians, with that of the followers of Mohammed. Do not Christians\nweep above their dead? Does a belief in immortality keep back their\ntears? After all, the promises are so far away, and the dead are so\nnear—the echoes of words said to have been spoken more than eighteen\ncenturies ago are lost in the sounds of the clods that fall on the\ncoffin, And yet, compared with the orthodox hell, compared with the\nprison-house of God, how ecstatic is the grave—the grave without a\nsigh, without a tear, without a dream, without a fear. Compared with\nthe immortality promised by the Presbyterian creed, how beautiful\nannihilation seems. To be nothing—how much better than to be a convict\nforever. To be unconscious dust—how much better than to be a heartless\nangel.\n\nThere is not, there never has been, there never will be, any consolation\nin orthodox Christianity. It offers no consolation to any good and\nloving man. I prefer the consolation of Nature, the consolation of hope,\nthe consolation springing from human affection. I prefer the simple\ndesire to live and love forever.\n\nOf course, it would be a consolation to know that we have an \"Almighty\nFriend\" in heaven; but an \"Almighty Friend\" who cares nothing for us,\nwho allows us to be stricken by his lightning, frozen by his winter,\nstarved by his famine, and at last imprisoned in his hell, is a friend I\ndo not care to have.\n\nI remember \"the poor slave mother who sat alone in her cabin, having\nbeen robbed of her children;\" and, my dear Mr. Field, I also remember\nthat the people who robbed her justified the robbery by reading passages\nfrom the sacred Scriptures. I remember that while the mother wept, the\nrobbers, some of whom were Christians, read this: \"Buy of the heathen\nround about, and they shall be your bondmen and bondwomen forever.\" I\nremember, too, that the robbers read: \"Servants be obedient unto your\nmasters;\" and they said, this passage is the only message from the\nheart of God to the scarred back of the slave. I remember this, and I\nremember, also, that the poor slave mother upon her knees in wild and\nwailing accents called on the \"Almighty Friend,\" and I remember that her\nprayer was never heard, and that her sobs died in the negligent air.\n\nYou ask me whether I would \"rob this poor woman of such a friend?\" My\nanswer is this: I would give her liberty; I would break her chains. But\nlet me ask you, did an \"Almighty Friend\" see the woman he loved \"with a\ntenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold,\" and\nthe woman who loved him, robbed of her children? What was the \"Almighty\nFriend\" worth to her? She preferred her babe.\n\nHow could the \"Almighty Friend\" see his poor children pursued by\nhounds—his children whose only crime was the love of liberty—how could\nhe see that, and take sides with the hounds? Do you believe that the\n\"Almighty Friend\" then governed the world? Do you really think that he\n    \"Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast,\n    Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost\"?\n\nDo you believe that the \"Almighty Friend\" saw all of the tragedies that\nwere enacted in the jungles of Africa—that he watched the wretched\nslave-ships, saw the miseries of the middle passage, heard the blows of\nall the whips, saw all the streams of blood, all the agonized faces of\nwomen, all the tears that were shed? Do you believe that he saw and knew\nall these things, and that he, the \"Almighty Friend,\" looked coldly down\nand stretched no hand to save?\n\nYou persist, however, in endeavoring to account for the miseries of the\nworld by taking the ground that happiness is not the end of life. You\nsay that \"the real end of life is character, and that no discipline can\nbe too severe which leads us to suffer and be strong.\" Upon this subject\nyou use the following language: \"If you could have your way you would\nmake everybody happy; there would be no more poverty, and no more\nsickness or pain.\" And this you say, is a \"child's picture, hardly\nworthy of a stalwart man.\" Let me read you another \"child's picture,\"\nwhich you will find in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, supposed\nto have been written by St. John, the Divine: \"And I heard a great voice\nout of heaven saying, behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and\nhe will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself\nshall be with them, and be their God; and God shall wipe away all tears\nfrom their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor\ncrying, neither shall there be any more pain.\".\n\nIf you visited some woman living in a tenement, supporting by her poor\nlabor a little family—a poor woman on the edge of famine, sewing, it\nmay be, her eyes blinded by tears—would you tell her that \"the world\nis not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged like\nchildren.\"? Would you tell her that to think of a world without poverty,\nwithout tears, without pain, is \"a child's picture\"? If she asked you\nfor a little assistance, would you refuse it on the ground that by being\nhelped she might lose character? Would you tell her: \"God does not wish\nto have you happy; happiness is a very foolish end; character is what\nyou want, and God has put you here with these helpless, starving babes,\nand he has put this burden on your young life simply that you may suffer\nand be strong. I would help you gladly, but I do not wish to defeat the\nplans of your Almighty Friend\"? You can reason one way, but you would\nact the other.\n\nI agree with you that work is good, that struggle is essential; that\nmen are made manly by contending with each other and with the forces\nof nature; but there is a point beyond which struggle does not make\ncharacter; there is a point at which struggle becomes failure.\n\nCan you conceive of an \"Almighty Friend\" deforming his children because\nhe loves them? Did he allow the innocent to languish in dungeons because\nhe was their friend? Did he allow the noble to perish upon the scaffold,\nthe great and the self-denying to be burned at the stake, because he had\nthe power to save? Was he restrained by love? Did this \"Almighty Friend\"\nallow millions of his children to be enslaved to the end that the\n\"splendor of virtue might have a dark background\"? You insist that\n\"suffering patiently borne, is a means of the greatest elevation of\ncharacter, and in the end of the highest enjoyment.\" Do you not then\nsee that your \"Almighty Friend\" has been unjust to the happy—that he is\ncruel to those whom we call the fortunate—that he is indifferent to the\nmen who do not suffer—that he leaves all the happy and prosperous\nand joyous without character, and that in the end, according to your\ndoctrine, they are the losers?\n\nBut, after all, there is no need of arguing this question further. There\nis one fact that destroys forever your theory—and that is the fact that\nmillions upon millions die in infancy. Where do they get \"elevation of\ncharacter\"? What opportunity is given to them to \"suffer and be strong\"?\nLet us admit that we do not know. Let us say that the mysteries of\nlife, of good and evil, of joy and pain, have never been explained. Is\ncharacter of no importance in heaven? How is it possible for angels,\nliving in \"a child's picture,\" to \"suffer and be strong\"? Do you not see\nthat, according to your philosophy, only the damned can grow great—only\nthe lost can become sublime?\n\nYou do not seem to understand what I say with regard to what I call the\nhigher philosophy. When that philosophy is accepted, of course there\nwill be good in the world, there will be evil, there will still be right\nand wrong. What is good? That which tends to the happiness of sentient\nbeings. What is evil? That which tends to the misery, or tends to lessen\nthe happiness of sentient beings. What is right? The best thing to\nbe done under the circumstances—that is to say, the thing that will\nincrease or preserve the happiness of man. What is wrong? That which\ntends to the misery of man.\n\nWhat you call liberty, choice, morality, responsibility, have nothing\nwhatever to do with this. There is no difference between necessity and\nliberty. He who is free, acts from choice. What is the foundation of\nhis choice? What we really mean by liberty is freedom from personal\ndictation—we do not wish to be controlled by the will of others. To us\nthe nature of things does not seem to be a master—Nature has no will.\n\nSociety has the right to protect itself by imprisoning those who prey\nupon its interests; but it has no right to punish. It may have the right\nto destroy the life of one dangerous to the community; but what has\nfreedom to do with this? Do you kill the poisonous serpent because\nhe knew better than to bite? Do you chain a wild beast because he is\nmorally responsible? Do you not think that the criminal deserves the\npity of the virtuous?\n\nI was looking forward to the time when the individual might feel\njustified—when the convict who had worn the garment of disgrace might\nknow and feel that he had acted as he must.\n\nThere is an old Hindoo prayer to which I call your attention:\n    \"Have mercy, God, upon the vicious;\n    Thou hast already had mercy upon the just by making them just.\"\n\nIs it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily\nproduced? This, of course, would end in the justification of men. Is not\nthat a desirable thing? Is it not possible that intelligence may at last\nraise the human race to that sublime and philosophic height?\n\nYou insist, however, that this is Calvinism. I take it for granted that\nyou understand Calvinism—but let me tell you what it is. Calvinism\nasserts that man does as he must, and that, notwithstanding this fact,\nhe is responsible for what he does—that is to say, for what he is\ncompelled to do—that is to say, for what God does with him; and that,\nfor doing that which he must, an infinite God, who compelled him to do\nit, is justified in punishing the man in eternal fire; this, not because\nthe man ought to be damned, but simply for the glory of God.\n\nStarting from the same declaration, that man does as he must, I reach\nthe conclusion that we shall finally perceive in this fact justification\nfor every individual. And yet you see no difference between my\ndoctrine and Calvinism. You insist that damnation and justification\nare substantially the same; and yet the difference is as great as human\nlanguage can express. You call the justification of all the world \"the\nGospel of Despair,\" and the damnation of nearly all the human race the\n\"Consolation of Religion.\"\n\nAfter all, my dear friend, do you not see that when you come to speak\nof that which is really good, you are compelled to describe your ideal\nhuman being? It is the human in Christ, and only the human, that you by\nany possibility can understand. You speak of one who was born among\nthe poor, who went about doing good, who sympathized with those who\nsuffered. You have described, not only one, but many millions of the\nhuman race, Millions of others have carried light to those sitting\nin darkness; millions and millions have taken children in their arms;\nmillions have wept that those they love might smile. No language can\nexpress the goodness, the heroism, the patience and self-denial of the\nmany millions, dead and living, who have preserved in the family of man\nthe jewels of the heart. You have clad one being in all the virtues of\nthe race, in all the attributes of gentleness, patience, goodness, and\nlove, and yet that being, according to the New Testament, had to his\ncharacter another side. True, he said, \"Come unto me and I will give\nyou rest;\" but what did he say to those who failed to come? You pour out\nyour whole heart in thankfulness to this one man who suffered for the\nright, while I thank not only this one, but all the rest. My heart goes\nout to all the great, the self-denying and the good,—to the founders of\nnations, singers of songs, builders of homes; to the inventors, to\nthe artists who have filled the world with beauty, to the composers of\nmusic, to the soldiers of the right, to the makers of mirth, to honest\nmen, and to all the loving mothers of the race.\n\nCompare, for one moment, all that the Savior did, all the pain and\nsuffering that he relieved,—compare all this with the discovery of\nanaesthetics. Compare your prophets with the inventors, your Apostles\nwith the Keplers, the Humboldts and the Darwins.\n\nI belong to the great church that holds the world within its starlit\naisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that\nfinds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light\nand love the germs of good in every soul.\n\nMost men are provincial, narrow, one sided, only partially developed. In\na new country we often see a little patch of land, a clearing in which\nthe pioneer has built his cabin. This little clearing is just large\nenough to support a family, and the remainder of the farm is still\nforest, in which snakes crawl and wild beasts occasionally crouch. It\nis thus with the brain of the average man. There is a little clearing,\na little patch, just large enough to practice medicine with, or sell\ngoods, or practice law; or preach with, or do some kind of business,\nsufficient to obtain bread and food and shelter for a family, while\nall the rest of the brain is covered with primeval forest, in which\nlie coiled the serpents of superstition and from which spring the wild\nbeasts of orthodox religion.\n\nNeither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it\nnecessary to assert what we do not know. No cause is great enough to\ndemand a sacrifice of candor. The mysteries of life and death, of good\nand evil, have never yet been solved.\n\nI combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an\neternity of pain—those only who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts of\nmen—those only who poison all the springs of life, and seat a skeleton\nat every feast.\n\nLet us banish the shriveled hags of superstition; let us welcome the\nbeautiful daughters of truth and joy.\n\nRobert G. Ingersoll.\n"
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