Health. And what is better calculated to increase the happiness of mankind than to know that the doctrine of eternal pain is infinitely and absurdly false?
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Take theology from the world, and natural Love remains, Science is still here, Music will not be lost, the page of History will still be open, the walls of the world will still be adorned with Art, and the niches rich with Sculpture.
Take theology from the world, and we all shall have a common hope,--and the fear of hell will be removed from every human heart.
Take theology from the world, and millions of men will be compelled to earn an honest living.
Impudence will not tax credulity. The vampire of hypocrisy will not suck the blood of honest toil.
Take theology from the world, and the churches can be schools, and the cathedrals universities.
Take theology from the world, and the money wasted on superstition will do away with want.
Take theology from the world, and every brain will find itself without a chain.
There is a vast difference between what is called infidelity and theology.
Infidelity is honest. When it reaches the confines of reason, it says: "I know no further."
Infidelity does not palm its guess upon an ignorant world as a demonstration.
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Infidelity proves nothing by slander--establishes nothing by abuse.
Infidelity has nothing to hide. It has no "holy "of holies," except the abode of truth. It has no curtain that the hand of investigation has not the right to draw aside. It lives in the cloudless light, in the very noon, of human eyes.
Infidelity has no bible to be blasphemed. It does not cringe before an angry God.
Infidelity says to every man: Investigate for yourself. There is no punishment for unbelief.
Infidelity asks no protection from legislatures. It wants no man fined because he contradicts its doc- trines.
Infidelity relies simply upon evidence--not evi- dence of the dead, but of the living.
Infidelity has no infallible pope. It relies only upon infallible fact. It has no priest except the interpreter of Nature. The universe is its church.
Its bible is everything that is true. It implores every man to verify every word for himself, and it implores him to say, if he does not believe it, that he does not.
Infidelity does not fear contradiction. It is not afraid of being laughed at. It invites the scrutiny
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of all doubters, of all unbelievers. It does not rely upon awe, but upon reason. It says to the whole world: It is dangerous not to think. It is dan- gerous not to be honest. It is dangerous not to investigate. It is dangerous not to follow where your reason leads.
Infidelity requires every man to judge for himself.
Infidelity preserves the manhood of man.
_Question_. Mr. Talmage also says that you are trying to put out the light-houses on the coast of the next world; that you are "about to leave everybody "in darkness at the narrows of death"?
_Answer_. There can be no necessity for these light-houses, unless the God of Mr. Talmage has planted rocks and reefs within that unknown sea.
If there is no hell, there is no need of any light- house on the shores of the next world; and only those are interested in keeping up these pretended light-houses who are paid for trimming invisible wicks and supplying the lamps with allegorical oil.
Mr. Talmage is one of these light-house keepers, and he knows that if it is ascertained that the coast is not dangerous, the light-house will be abandoned, and the keeper will have to find employment else-
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where. As a matter of fact, every church is a use- less light-house. It warns us only against breakers that do not exist. Whenever a mariner tells one of the keepers that there is no danger, then all the keepers combine to destroy the reputation of that mariner.
No one has returned from the other world to tell us whether they have light-houses on that shore or not; or whether the light-houses on this shore--one of which Mr. Talmage is tending--have ever sent a cheering ray across the sea.
Nature has furnished every human being with a light more or less brilliant, more or less powerful.
That light is Reason; and he who blows that light out, is in utter darkness. It has been the business of the church for centuries to extinguish the lamp of the mind, and to convince the people that their own reason is utterly unreliable. The church has asked all men to rely only upon the light of the church.
Every priest has been not only a light-house but a guide-board. He has threatened eternal damna- tion to all who travel on some other road. These guide-boards have been toll-gates, and the principal reason why the churches have wanted people to go their road is, that tolls might be collected. They
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have regarded unbelievers as the owners of turnpikes do people who go 'cross lots. The toll-gate man always tells you that other roads are dangerous-- filled with quagmires and quicksands.
Every church is a kind of insurance society, and proposes, for a small premium, to keep you from eternal fire. Of course, the man who tells you that there is to be no fire, interferes with the business, and is denounced as a malicious meddler and blas- phemer. The fires of this world sustain the same relation to insurance companies that the fires of the next do to the churches.
Mr. Talmage also insists that I am breaking up the "life-boats." Why should a ship built by infinite wisdom, by an infinite shipbuilder, carry life-boats?
The reason we have life-boats now is, that we are not entirely sure of the ship. We know that man has not yet found out how to make a ship that can certainly brave all the dangers of the deep. For this reason we carry life-boats. But infinite wisdom must surely build ships that do not need life-boats. Is there to be a wreck at last? Is God's ship to go down in storm and darkness? Will it be necessary at last to forsake his ship and depend upon life-boats?
For my part, I do not wish to be rescued by a life-
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boat. When the ship, bearing the whole world, goes down, I am willing to go down with it--with my wife, with my children, and with those I have loved.
I will not slip ashore in an orthodox canoe with somebody else's folks,--I will stay with my own.
What a picture is presented by the church! A few in life's last storm are to be saved; and the saved, when they reach shore, are to look back with joy upon the great ship going down to the eternal depths!
This is what I call the unutterable meanness of or- thodox Christianity.
Mr. Talmage speaks of the "meanness of in- "fidelity."
The meanness of orthodox Christianity permits the husband to be saved, and to be ineffably happy, while the wife of his bosom is suffering the tortures of hell.
The meanness of orthodox Christianity tells the boy that he can go to heaven and have an eternity of bliss, and that this bliss will not even be clouded by the fact that the mother who bore him writhes in eternal pain.
The meanness of orthodox Christianity allows a soul to be so captivated with the companionship of angels as to forget all the old loves and friend- ships of this world.
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The meanness of orthodox Christianity, its un- speakable selfishness, allows a soul in heaven to exult in the fact of its own salvation, and at the same time to care nothing for the damnation of all the rest.
The orthodox Christian says that if he can only save his little soul, if he can barely squeeze into heaven, if he can only get past Saint Peter's gate, if he can by hook or crook climb up the opposite bank of Jordan, if he can get a harp in his hand, it matters not to him what becomes of brother or sister, father or mother, wife or child. He is willing that they should burn if he can sing.
Oh, the unutterable meanness of orthodox Chris- tianity, the infinite heartlessness of the orthodox angels, who with tearless eyes will forever gaze upon the agonies of those who were once blood of their blood and flesh of their flesh!