English Secularism: A Confession of Belief

SO FAR as Secularism is reasonable, it must be self-extending among all who think. Adherents of that class are slowly acquired. Accessions begin in criticism, though that, as we...

"He who cannot reason is defenceless; he who fears to reason has a coward mind; he who will not reason is willing to be deceived and will deceive all who listen to him."

"Religion, as dealing with the confessedly incomprehensible, is not the basis for human union, in social, or industrial, or political circles, but only that portion of old relig...

FIRST PRINCIPLE: _Of material means as conditions of welfare in this world_.--Theology works by "spiritual" means, Secularism by _material_ means. Christians and Secularists bot...

CRITICISM in theology, as in literature, is with many an intoxication. Zest in showing what is wrong is apt to blunt the taste for what is right, which it is the true end of cri...

If a sum in arithmetic be wrong, it can be discovered by a new way of working; if a medical recipe is wrong, the effect is manifest in the health; if a political law is wrong, i...

Parts of the Bible have moral splendor in them, but no Christian will allow any one to take the parts he deems true, and reject as untrue those he deems false. He who ventured t...

LADY HESTER STANHOPE said she knew "Lord Byron must be a bad man, for he was always _intending_ something." Any improvement in the method of life is "intending something," and s...

NO ONE need go to Spain to meet with animals who kick you if you serve them. Spanish asses are to be found in every land. Could we see the legs of truth, we should find them bla...

IN 1853 the Six-Night Discussion took place in Cowper Street School Rooms, London, with the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. A report was published by Partridge and Oakley at 2s. 6d, of...

NOR is Secularism atheism. The laws of the universe are quite distinct from the question of the origin of the universe. The study of the laws of nature, which Secularism selects...

THEOLOGIANS had so choked the human mind with a dense undergrowth of dogmas that it was like cutting through an African forest, such as Stanley encountered, to find the paths of...

"It was one of the secrets of my craft in the old days, when I wanted to weld iron or work steel to a fine purpose, to begin gently. If I began, as all learners do, to strike my...

BY its nature, Secularism is tolerant with regard to religions. I once drew up a code of rules for an atheistic school. One rule was that the children should be taught the tenet...

ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error, if expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be otherwise occupied by some tenant of tru...

THE emancipation of the understanding from intimidation and penal restraint soon incited thinkers of enterprise to put their new powers to use. Theology being especially a forbi...

BEING one of the social missionaries in the propaganda of Robert Owen, I was, like H. Viewssiew, a writer of those days, a "student of realities." It soon became clear to me, as...

IN 1847 I commenced in the _Reasoner_ what I entitled "The Moral Remains of the Bible,"--a selection of some splendid moral stories, incidents, and sentences having ethical char...

SEEING this wise maxim in a paper by Auguste Comte, I asked my friend Wm. de Fonvielle, who was in communication with Comte, to learn for me the authorship of the phrase. Comte...

"It is not prudent to be in the right too soon, nor to be in the right against everybody else. And yet it sometimes happens that after a certain lapse of time, greater or lesser...

Where a monarchy is master, inquiry is apt to be a disturbing element; and though exercised in the interest of the commonwealth it is none the less resented. Where the priest is...

IT IS time now to point out, what many never seem to understand, that Secular instruction is entirely distinct from Secularism. In my earlier days the term "scientific" was the...