144
that no human being, not afflicted with delirium tremens, can understand the book of Revelation.
I am not the only one engaged in the work of destruction. Every Protestant who expresses a doubt as to the genuineness of a passage, is destroying the Bible. The gentlemen who have endeavored to treat hell as a question of syntax, and to prove that eternal punishment depends upon grammar, are helping to bring the Scriptures into contempt. Hundreds of years ago, the Catholics told the Protestant world that it was dangerous to give the Bible to the people.
The Catholics were right; the Protestants were wrong. To read is to think. To think is to investi- gate. To investigate is, finally, to deny. That book should have been read only by priests. Every copy should have been under the lock and key of bishop, cardinal and pope. The common people should have received the Bible from the lips of the ministers.
The world should have been kept in ignorance. In that way, and in that way only, could the pulpit have maintained its power. He who teaches a child the alphabet sows the seeds of heresy. I have lived to see the schoolhouse in many a village larger than the church. Every man who finds a fact, is the enemy of theology. Every man who expresses an
145
honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty.
_Question_. Mr. Talmage thinks that you laugh too much,--that you exhibit too much mirth, and that no one should smile at sacred things?
_Answer_. The church has always feared ridicule.
The minister despises laughter. He who builds upon ignorance and awe, fears intelligence and mirth. The theologians always begin by saying: "Let us be "solemn." They know that credulity and awe are twins. They also know that while Reason is the pilot of the soul, Humor carries the lamp. Whoever has the sense of humor fully developed, cannot, by any possibility, be an orthodox theologian. He would be his own laughing stock. The most absurd stories, the most laughable miracles, read in a solemn, stately way, sound to the ears of ignorance and awe like truth. It has been the object of the church for eighteen hundred years to prevent laughter.
A smile is the dawn of a doubt.
Ministers are always talking about death, and coffins, and dust, and worms,--the cross in this life, and the fires of another. They have been the enemies of human happiness. They hate to hear
146
even the laughter of children. There seems to have been a bond of sympathy between divinity and dyspepsia, between theology and indigestion. There is a certain pious hatred of pleasure, and those who have been "born again" are expected to despise "the transitory joys of this fleeting life." In this, they follow the example of their prophets, of whom they proudly say: "They never smiled."
Whoever laughs at a holy falsehood, is called a "scoffer." Whoever gives vent to his natural feel- ings is regarded as a "blasphemer," and whoever examines the Bible as he examines other books, and relies upon his reason to interpret it, is denounced as a "reprobate."
Let us respect the truth, let us laugh at miracles, and above all, let us be candid with each other.
'Question. Mr. Talmage charges that you have, in your lectures, satirized your early home; that you have described with bitterness the Sundays that were forced upon you in your youth; and that in various ways you have denounced your father as a "tyrant,"
or a "bigot," or a "fool"?
_Answer_. I have described the manner in which Sunday was kept when I was a boy. My father for
147
many years regarded the Sabbath as a sacred day.
We kept Sunday as most other Christians did. I think that my father made a mistake about that day. I have no doubt he was honest about it, and really believed that it was pleasing to God for him to keep the Sabbath as he did.
I think that Sunday should not be a day of gloom, of silence and despair, or a day in which to hear that the chances are largely in favor of your being eternally damned. That day, in my opinion, should be one of joy; a day to get acquainted with your wife and children; a day to visit the woods, or the sea, or the murmuring stream; a day to gather flowers, to visit the graves of your dead, to read old poems, old letters, old books; a day to rekindle the fires of friendship and love.
Mr. Talmage says that my father was a Christian, and he then proceeds to malign his memory. It seems to me that a living Christian should at least tell the truth about one who sleeps the silent sleep of death.
I have said nothing, in any of my lectures, about my father, or about my mother, or about any of my relatives. I have not the egotism to bring them forward. They have nothing to do with the subject
148
in hand. That my father was mistaken upon the subject of religion, I have no doubt. He was a good, a brave and honest man. I loved him living, and I love him dead. I never said to him an unkind word, and in my heart there never was of him an unkind thought. He was grand enough to say to me, that I had the same right to my opinion that he had to his. He was great enough to tell me to read the Bible for myself, to be honest with myself, and if after reading it I concluded it was not the word of God, that it was my duty to say so.
My mother died when I was but a child; and from that day--the darkest of my life--her memory has been within my heart a sacred thing, and I have felt, through all these years, her kisses on my lips.
I know that my parents--if they are conscious now --do not wish me to honor them at the expense of my manhood. I know that neither my father nor my mother would have me sacrifice upon their graves my honest thought. I know that I can only please them by being true to myself, by defending what I believe is good, by attacking what I believe is bad. Yet this min- ister of Christ is cruel enough, and malicious enough, to attack the reputation of the dead. What he says about my father is utterly and unqualifiedly false.
149
Right here, it may be well enough for me to say, that long before my father died, he threw aside, as unworthy of a place in the mind of an intelligent man, the infamous dogma of eternal fire; that he regarded with abhorrence many passages in the Old Testament; that he believed man, in another world, would have the eternal opportunity of doing right, and that the pity of God would last as long as the suffering of man. My father and my mother were good, in spite of the Old Testament. They were mer- ciful, in spite of the one frightful doctrine in the New.
They did not need the religion of Presbyterianism.
Presbyterianism never made a human being better.
If there is anything that will freeze the generous current of the soul, it is Calvinism. If there is any creed that will destroy charity, that will keep the tears of pity from the cheeks of men and women, it is Presbyterianism. If there is any doctrine calcu- lated to make man bigoted, unsympathetic, and cruel, it is the doctrine of predestination. Neither my father, nor my mother, believed in the damnation of babes, nor in the inspiration of John Calvin.
Mr. Talmage professes to be a Christian. What effect has the religion of Jesus Christ had upon him?
Is he the product--the natural product--of Chris-
150
tianity? Does the real Christian violate the sanctity of death? Does the real Christian malign the memory of the dead? Does the good Christian defame unanswering and unresisting dust?
But why should I expect kindness from a Chris- tian? Can a minister be expected to treat with fairness a man whom his God intends to damn? If a good God is going to burn an infidel forever, in the world to come, surely a Christian should have the right to persecute him a little here.
What right has a Christian to ask anybody to love his father, or mother, or wife, or child? According to the gospels, Christ offered a reward to any one who would desert his father or his mother. He offered a premium to gentlemen for leaving their wives, and tried to bribe people to abandon their little children. He offered them happiness in this world, and a hundred fold in the next, if they would turn a deaf ear to the supplications of a father, the beseeching cry of a wife, and would leave the out- stretched arms of babes. They were not even allowed to bury their fathers and their mothers. At that time they were expected to prefer Jesus to their wives and children. And now an orthodox minister says that a man ought not to express his honest
151
thoughts, because they do not happen to be in accord with the belief of his father or mother.
Suppose Mr. Talmage should read the Bible care- fully and without fear, and should come to the honest conclusion that it is not inspired, what course would he pursue for the purpose of honoring his parents?
Would he say, "I cannot tell the truth, I must lie, "for the purpose of shedding a halo of glory around "the memory of my mother"? Would he say: "Of "course, my father and mother would a thousand "times rather have their son a hypocritical Christian "than an honest, manly unbeliever"? This might please Mr. Talmage, and accord perfectly with his view, but I prefer to say, that my father wished me to be an honest man. If he is in "heaven" now, I am sure that he would rather hear me attack the "inspired" word of God, honestly and bravely, than to hear me, in the solemn accents of hypocrisy, defend what I believe to be untrue.
I may be mistaken in the estimate angels put upon human beings. It may be that God likes a pretended follower better than an honest, outspoken man--one who is an infidel simply because he does not under- stand this God. But it seems to me, in my unregenerate condition, touched and tainted as I am by original sin,
152
that a God of infinite power and wisdom ought to be able to make a man brave enough to have an opinion of his own. I cannot conceive of God taking any particular pride in any hypocrite he has ever made.
Whatever he may say through his ministers, or whatever the angels may repeat, a manly devil stands higher in my estimation than an unmanly angel. I do not mean by this, that there are any unmanly angels, neither do I pretend that there are any manly devils. My meaning is this: If I have a Creator, I can only honor him by being true to myself, and kind and just to my fellow-men. If I wish to shed lustre upon my father and mother, I can only do so by being absolutely true to myself.
Never will I lay the wreath of hypocrisy upon the tombs of those I love.
Mr. Talmage takes the ground that we must defend the religious belief of our parents. He seems to forget that all parents do not believe exactly alike, and that everybody has at least two parents. Now, suppose that the father is an infidel, and the mother a Christian, what must the son do? Must he "drive "the ploughshare of contempt through the grave of "the father," for the purpose of honoring the mother; or must he drive the ploughshare through the grave
153
of the mother to honor the father; or must he com- promise, and talk one way and believe another? If Mr. Talmage's doctrine is correct, only persons who have no knowledge of their parents can have liberty of opinion. Foundlings would be the only free people. I do not suppose that Mr. Talmage would go so far as to say that a child would be bound by the religion of the person upon whose door-steps he was found. If he does not, then over every foundling hospital should be these words: "Home of Intel- "lectual Liberty."
_Question_. Do you suppose that we will care nothing in the next world for those we loved in this?
Is it worse in a man than in an angel, to care nothing for his mother?
_Answer_. According to Mr. Talmage, a man can be perfectly happy in heaven, with his mother in hell.
He will be so entranced with the society of Christ, that he will not even inquire what has become of his wife. The Holy Ghost will keep him in such a state of happy wonder, of ecstatic joy, that the names, even, of his children will never invade his memory.
It may be that I am lacking in filial affection, but I would much rather be in hell, with my parents
154