We say that a thing is "warped" that was once nearer level, flat, or straight; that it is "impaired" when it was once nearer perfect, and that it is "dislocated" when once it was united. Consequently, you have said that at some time the human constitution was unwarped, unimpaired, and with each part working in harmony with all. You seem to believe in the degeneracy of man, and that our unfortunate race, starting at perfection, has traveled downward through all the wasted years.
It is hardly possible that our ancestors were perfect. If history proves anything, it establishes the fact that civilization was not first, and savagery afterwards. Certainly the tendency of man is not now toward barbarism. There must have been a time when language was unknown, when lips had never formed a word. That which man knows, man must have learned. The victories of our race have been slowly and painfully won.
It is a long distance from the gibberish of the savage to the sonnets of Shakespeare--a long and weary road from the pipe of Pan to the great orchestra voiced with every tone from the glad warble of a mated bird to the hoarse thunder of the sea. The road is long that lies between the discordant cries uttered by the barbarian over the gashed body of his foe and the marvelous music of Wagner and Beethoven. It is hardly possible to conceive of the years that lie between the caves in which crouched our naked ancestors crunching the bones of wild beasts, and the home of a civilized man with its comforts, its articles of luxury and use,--with its works of art, with its enriched and illuminated walls.
Think of the billowed years that must have rolled between these shores.
Think of the vast distance that man has slowly groped from the dark dens and lairs of ignorance and fear to the intellectual conquests of our day.
Is it true that these deformities, these warped, impaired, and dislocated constitutions indispose men to belief? Can we in this way account for the doubts entertained by the intellectual leaders of mankind?
It will not do, in this age and time, to account for unbelief in this deformed and dislocated way. The exact opposite must be true. Ignorance and credulity sustain the relation of cause and effect. Ignorance is satisfied with assertion, with appearance. As man rises in the scale of intelligence he demands evidence. He begins to look back of appearance.
He asks the priest for reasons. The most ignorant part of Christendom is the most orthodox.
You have simply repeated a favorite assertion of the clergy, to the effect that man rejects the gospel because he is naturally depraved and hard of heart--because, owing to the sin of Adam and Eve, he has fallen from the perfection and purity of Paradise to that "impaired" condition in which he is satisfied with the filthy rags of reason, observation and experience.
The truth is, that what you call unbelief is only a higher and holier faith. Millions of men reject Christianity because of its cruelty. The Bible was never rejected by the cruel. It has been upheld by countless tyrants--by the dealers in human flesh--by the destroyers of nations--by the enemies of intelligence--by the stealers of babes and the whippers of women.
It is also true that it has been held as sacred by the good, the self-denying, the virtuous and the loving, who clung to the sacred volume on account of the good it contains and in spite of all its cruelties and crimes.
You are mistaken when you say that all "the faults of all the Christian bodies and subdivisions of bodies have been carefully raked together,"
in my Reply to Dr. Field, "and made part and parcel of the indictment against the divine scheme of salvation."
No thoughtful man pretends that any fault of any Christian body can be used as an argument against what you call the "divine scheme of redemption."
I find in your Remarks the frequent charge that I am guilty of making assertions and leaving them to stand without the assistance of argument or fact, and it may be proper, at this particular point, to inquire how you know that there is "a divine scheme of redemption."
My objections to this "divine scheme of redemption" are: _first_, that there is not the slightest evidence that it is divine; _second_, that it is not in any sense a "scheme," human or divine; and _third_, that it cannot, by any possibility, result in the redemption of a human being.
It cannot be divine, because it has no foundation in the nature of things, and is not in accordance with reason. It is based on the idea that right and wrong are the expression of an arbitrary will, and not words applied to and descriptive of acts in the light of consequences.
It rests upon the absurdity called "pardon," upon the assumption that when a crime has been committed justice will be satisfied with the punishment of the innocent. One person may suffer, or reap a benefit, in consequence of the act of another, but no man can be justly punished for the crime, or justly rewarded for the virtues, of another. A "scheme"
that punishes an innocent man for the vices of another can hardly be called divine. Can a murderer find justification in the agonies of his victim? There is no vicarious vice; there is no vicarious virtue. For me it is hard to understand how a just and loving being can charge one of his children with the vices, or credit him with the virtues, of another.
And why should we call anything a "divine scheme" that has been a failure from the "fall of man" until the present moment? What race, what nation, has been redeemed through the instrumentality of this "divine scheme"? Have not the subjects of redemption been for the most part the enemies of civilization? Has not almost every valuable book since the invention of printing been denounced by the believers in the "divine scheme"? Intelligence, the development of the mind, the discoveries of science, the inventions of genius, the cultivation of the imagination through art and music, and the practice of virtue will redeem the human race. These are the saviors of mankind.
You admit that the "Christian churches have by their exaggerations and shortcomings, and by their faults of conduct, contributed to bring about a condition of hostility to religious faith."
If one wishes to know the worst that man has done, all that power guided by cruelty can do, all the excuses that can be framed for the commission of every crime, the infinite difference that can exist between that which is professed and that which is practiced, the marvelous malignity of meekness, the arrogance of humility and the savagery of what is known as "universal love," let him read the history of the Christian Church.
Yet, I not only admit that millions of Christians have been honest in the expression of their opinions, but that they have been among the best and noblest of our race.
And it is further admitted that a creed should be examined apart from the conduct of those who have assented to its truth. The church should be judged as a whole, and its faults should be accounted for either by the weakness of human nature, or by reason of some defect or vice in the religion taught,--or by both.
Is there anything in the Christian religion--anything in what you are pleased to call the "Sacred Scriptures" tending to cause the crimes and atrocities that have been committed by the church?
It seems to be natural for man to defend himself and the ones he loves.
The father slays the man who would kill his child--he defends the body.
The Christian father burns the heretic--he defends the soul.
If "orthodox Christianity" be true, an infidel has not the right to live. Every book in which the Bible is attacked should be burned with its author. Why hesitate to burn a man whose constitution is "warped, impaired and dislocated," for a few moments, when hundreds of others will be saved from eternal flames?
In Christianity you will find the cause of persecution. The idea that belief is essential to salvation--this ignorant and merciless dogma--accounts for the atrocities of the church. This absurd declaration built the dungeons, used the instruments of torture, erected the scaffolds and lighted the fagots of a thousand years.
What, I pray you, is the "heavenly treasure" in the keeping of your church? Is it a belief in an infinite God? That was believed thousands of years before the serpent tempted Eve. Is it the belief in the immortality of the soul? That is far older. Is it that man should treat his neighbor as himself? That is more ancient. What is the treasure in the keeping of the church? Let me tell you. It is this: That there is but one true religion--Christianity,--and that all others are false; that the prophets, and Christs, and priests of all others have been and are impostors, or the victims of insanity; that the Bible is the one inspired book--the one authentic record of the words of God; that all men are naturally depraved and deserve to be punished with unspeakable torments forever; that there is only one path that leads to heaven, while countless highways lead to hell; that there is only one name under heaven by which a human being can be saved; that we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; that this life, with its few and fleeting years, fixes the fate of man; that the few will be saved and the many forever lost. This is "the heavenly treasure" within the keeping of your church.
And this "treasure" has been guarded by the cherubim of persecution, whose flaming swords were wet for many centuries with the best and bravest blood. It has been guarded by cunning, by hypocrisy, by mendacity, by honesty, by calumniating the generous, by maligning the good, by thumbscrews and racks, by charity and love, by robbery and assassination, by poison and fire, by the virtues of the ignorant and the vices of the learned, by the violence of mobs and the whirlwinds of war, by every hope and every fear, by every cruelty and every crime, and by all there is of the wild beast in the heart of man.
With great propriety it may be asked: In the keeping of which church is this "heavenly treasure"? Did the Catholics have it, and was it taken by Luther? Did Henry the VIII. seize it, and is it now in the keeping of the Church of England? Which of the warring sects in America has this treasure; or have we, in this country, only the "rust and cankers"? Is it in an Episcopal Church, that refuses to associate with a colored man for whom Christ died, and who is good enough for the society of the angelic host?
But wherever this "heavenly treasure" has been, about it have always hovered the Stymphalian birds of superstition, thrusting their brazen beaks and claws deep into the flesh of honest men.
You were pleased to point out as the particular line justifying your assertion "that denunciation, sarcasm, and invective constitute the staple of my work," that line in which I speak of those who expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy, and add: "I take this as a specimen of the mode of statement which permeates the whole."
Dr. Field commenced his Open Letter by saying: "I am glad that I know you, _even though some of my brethren look upon you as a monster, because of your unbelief_."
In reply I simply said: "The statement in your Letter that some of your brethren look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief tends to show that those who love God are not always the friends of their fellow-men. Is it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally damned--that they are by nature depraved--that there is no soundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look upon others as monsters? And yet some of your brethren, who regard unbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of another, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy." Is there any denunciation, sarcasm or invective in this?
Why should one who admits that he himself is totally depraved call any other man, by way of reproach, a monster? Possibly, he might be justified in addressing him as a fellow-monster.
I am not satisfied with your statement that "the Christian receives as alms all whatsoever he receives at all." Is it true that man deserves only punishment? Does the man who makes the world better, who works and battles for the right, and dies for the good of his fellow-men, deserve nothing but pain and anguish? Is happiness a gift or a consequence? Is heaven only a well-conducted poorhouse? Are the angels in their highest estate nothing but happy paupers? Must all the redeemed feel that they are in heaven simply because there was a miscarriage of justice? Will the lost be the only ones who will know that the right thing has been done, and will they alone appreciate the "ethical elements of religion"?
Will they repeat the words that you have quoted: "Mercy and judgment are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other"? or will those words be spoken by the redeemed as they joyously contemplate the writhings of the lost?
No one will dispute "that in the discussion of important questions calmness and sobriety are essential." But solemnity need not be carried to the verge of mental paralysis. In the search for truth,--that everything in nature seems to hide,--man needs the assistance of all his faculties. All the senses should be awake. Humor should carry a torch, Wit should give its sudden light, Candor should hold the scales, Reason, the final arbiter, should put his royal stamp on every fact, and Memory, with a miser's care, should keep and guard the mental gold.
The church has always despised the man of humor, hated laughter, and encouraged the lethargy of solemnity. It is not willing that the mind should subject its creed to every test of truth. It wishes to overawe.
It does not say, "He that hath a mind to think, let him think;" but, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." The church has always abhorred wit,--that is to say, it does not enjoy being struck by the lightning of the soul. The foundation of wit is logic, and it has always been the enemy of the supernatural, the solemn and absurd.
You express great regret that no one at the present day is able to write like Pascal. You admire his wit and tenderness, and the unique, brilliant, and fascinating manner in which he treated the profoundest and most complex themes. Sharing in your admiration and regret, I call your attention to what might be called one of his religious generalizations: "Disease is the natural state of a Christian."
Certainly it cannot be said that I have ever mingled the profound and complex in a more fascinating manner.
Another instance is given of the "tumultuous method in which I conduct, not, indeed, my argument, but my case."
Dr. Field had drawn a distinction between superstition and religion, to which I replied: "You are shocked at the Hindoo mother when she gives her child to death at the supposed command of her God. What do you think of Abraham, of Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah himself?"
These simple questions seem to have excited you to an unusual degree, and you ask in words of some severity:
"Whether this is the tone in which controversies ought be carried on?"
And you say that--"not only is the name of Jehovah encircled in the heart of every believer with the pro-foundest reverence and love, but that the Christian religion teaches, through the incarnation, a personal relation with God so lofty that it can only be approached in a deep, reverential calm." You admit that "a person who deems a given religion to be wicked, may be led onward by logical consistency to impugn in strong terms the character of the author and object of that religion,"
but you insist that such person is "bound by the laws of social morality and decency to consider well the terms and meaning of his indictment."
Was there any lack of "reverential calm" in my question? I gave no opinion, drew no indictment, but simply asked for the opinion of another. Was that a violation of the "laws of social morality and decency"?
It is not necessary for me to discuss this question with you. It has been settled by Jehovah himself. You probably remember the account given in the eighteenth chapter of I. Kings, of a contest between the prophets of Baal and the prophets of Jehovah. There were four hundred and fifty prophets of the false God who endeavored to induce their deity to consume with fire from heaven the sacrifice upon his altar. According to the account, they were greatly in earnest. They certainly appeared to have some hope of success, but the fire did not descend.
"And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said 'Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure, he sleepeth and must be awaked.'"
Do you consider that the proper way to attack the God of another? Did not Elijah know that the name of Baal "was encircled in the heart of every believer with the profoundest reverence and love"? Did he "violate the laws of social morality and decency"?
But Jehovah and Elijah did not stop at this point. They were not satisfied with mocking the prophets of Baal, but they brought them down to the brook Kishon--four hundred and fifty of them--and there they murdered every one.
Does it appear to you that on that occasion, on the banks of the brook Kishon--"Mercy and judgment met together, and that righteousness and peace kissed each other"?