Chapter 15

To him says John: "You are a fellow of no delicacy. You lack spiritual discernment. You are disqualified for the expression of any opinion on spiritual truths." This is what John calls "humility," and "gentle treatment of the beliefs of others." But Thomas calls it unconscious humour.

Really, Archdeacon Wilson's claim that only those possessing spiritual discernment can discern spiritual truths means no more than that those who cannot believe in religion do not believe in religion, or that a man whose reason tells him religion is not true is incapable of believing religion is true. But what he means it to mean is that a man whose reason rejects religion is unfit to criticise religion, and that only those who accept religion as true are qualified to express an opinion as to its truth. He might as well claim that the only person qualified to criticise the Tory Party is the person who has the faculty for discerning Tory truth.

My claim is that ideas relating to spiritual things must be weighed by the same faculties as ideas relating to material things. That is to say, man can only judge in religious matters as he judges in all other matters, by his reason.

I do not say that all men have the same kind or quantity of reason. What I say is, that a man with a good intellect is a better judge on religious matters than a man, with an inferior intellect; and that by reason, and by reason alone, can truth of any kind be discerned.

The archdeacon speaks of spiritual geniuses, "geniuses in the region in which man holds communion with God." The Saints, for example. Well, if the Saints were geniuses in matters religious, the Saints ought to have been better judges of spiritual truth than other men. But was it so? The Saints believed in angels, and devils, and witches, and hell-fire and Jonah, and the Flood; in demoniacal possession, in the working of miracles by the bones of dead martyrs; the Saints accepted David and Abraham and Moses as men after God's own heart.

Many of the most spiritually gifted Christians do not believe in these things any longer. The Saints, then, were mistaken. They were mistaken about these spiritual matters in which they are alleged to have been specially gifted.

We do not believe in sorcerers, in witches, in miracle-working relics, in devils, and eternal fire and brimstone. Why? Because science has killed those errors. What is science? It is reason applied to knowledge. The faculty of reason, then, has excelled this boasted faculty of spiritual discernment in its own religious sphere.

It would be easy to multiply examples.

Jeremy Taylor was one of the most brilliant and spiritual of our divines. But his spiritual perception, as evidenced in his works, was fearfully at fault. He believed in hell-fire, and in hell-fire for all outside the pale of the Christian Church. And he was afraid of God, and afraid of death.

Archdeacon Wilson denies to us this faculty of spiritual perception. Very well. But I have enough mental acuteness to see that the religion of Jeremy Taylor was cowardly, and gloomy, and untrue.

Luther and Wesley were spiritual geniuses. They both believed in witchcraft. Luther believed in burning heretics. Wesley said if we gave up belief in witchcraft we must give up belief in the Bible.

Luther and Wesley were mistaken: their spiritual discernment had led them wrong. Their superstition and cruelty were condemned by humanity and common sense.

To me it appears that these men of "spiritual discernment" are really men of abnormally credulous and emotional natures: men too weak to face the facts.

We cannot allow the Christians to hold this position unchallenged. I regard the religious plane as a lower one than our own. I think the Christian idea of God is even now, after two thousand years of evolution, a very mean and weak one.

I cannot love nor revere a "Heavenly Father" whose children have to pray to Him for what they need, or for pardon for their sins. My children do not need to pray to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly father. Yet Christ, who came direct from God--who _was_ God--to teach all men God's will, directed us to pray to God for our daily bread, for forgiveness of our trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us into temptation! Imagine a father leading his children into temptation!

What is there so superior or so meritorious in the attitude of a religious man towards God? This good man prays: for what? He prays that something be given to him or forgiven to him. He prays for gain or fear. Is that so lofty and so noble?

But you will say: "It is not all for gain or for fear. He prays for love: because he loves God." But is not this like sending flowers and jewels to the king? The king is so rich already: but there are many poor outside his gates. God is not in need of our love: some of God's children are in need. Truly, these high ideals are very curious.

Mr. Augustine Birrell, in his _Miscellanies_, quotes a passage from "Lux Mundi"; and although I cannot find it in that book, it is too good to lose:

If this be the relation of faith to reason, we see the explanation of what seems at first sight to the philosopher to be the most irritating and hypocritical characteristic of faith. It is always shifting its intellectual defences. It adopts this or that fashion of philosophical apology, and then, when this is shattered by some novel scientific generalisation of faith, probably after a passionate struggle to retain the old position, suddenly and gaily abandons it, and takes up the new formula, just as if nothing had happened. It discovers that the new formula is admirably adapted for its purposes, and is, in fact, what it always meant, only it has unfortunately omitted to mention it. So it goes on again and again; and no wonder that the philosophers growl at those humbugs, the clergy.

That passage has a rather sinister bearing upon the Christian's claim for spiritual genius.

But, indeed, the claim is not admissible. The Churches have taught many errors. Those errors have been confuted by scepticism and science. It is no thanks to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It is to reason we owe our advance; and what a great advance it is! We have got rid of Hell, we have got rid of the Devil, we have got rid of the Christian championship of slavery, of witch-murder, of martyrdom, persecution, and torture; we have destroyed the claims for the infallibility of the Scriptures, and have taken the fetters of the Church from the limbs of Science and Thought, and before long we shall have demolished the belief in miracles. The Christian religion has defended all these dogmas, and has done inhuman murder in defence of them; and has been wrong in every instance, and has been finally defeated in every instance. Steadily and continually the Church has been driven from its positions. It is still retreating, and we are not to be persuaded to abandon our attack by the cool assurance that we are mentally unfit to judge in spiritual matters. Spiritual Discernment has been beaten by reason in the past, and will be beaten by reason in the future. It is facts and logic we want, not rhetoric.

SOME OTHER APOLOGIES

Christianity, we are told, vastly improved the relations of rich and poor.

How comes it, then, that the treatment of the poor by the rich is better amongst Jews than amongst Christians? How did it fare with the poor all over Europe in the centuries when Christianity was at the zenith of its power? How is it we have twelve millions of Christians on the verge of starvation in England to-day, with a Church rolling in wealth and an aristocracy decadent from luxury and self-indulgence? How is it that the gulf betwixt rich and poor in such Christian capitals as New York, London, and Paris is so wide and deep?

Christianity, we are told, first gave to mankind the gospel of peace. Christianity did not bring peace, but a sword. The Crusades were holy wars. The wars in the Netherlands were holy wars. The Spanish Armada was a holy expedition. Some of these holy wars lasted for centuries and cost millions of human lives. Most of them were remarkable for the barbarities and cruelties of the Christian priests and soldiers.

From the beginning of its power Christianity has been warlike, violent, and ruthless. To-day Europe is an armed camp, and it is not long since the Christian Kaiser ordered his troops to give no quarter to the Chinese.

There has never been a Christian nation as peaceful as the Indians and Burmese under Buddhism. It was King Asoka, and not Jesus Christ or St. Paul, who first taught and first established a reign of national and international peace.

To-day the peace of the world is menaced, not by the Buddhists, the Parsees, the Hindoos, or the Confucians, but by Christian hunger for territory, Christian lust of conquest, Christian avarice for the opening up of "new markets," Christian thirst for military glory, and jealousy, and envy amongst the Christian powers one of another.

Christianity, we are told, originated the Christ-like type of character. The answer stares us in the face. How can we account for King Asoka, how can we account for Buddha?

Christianity, we are told, originated hospitals.

Hospitals were founded two centuries before Christ by King Asoka in India.

Christianity, we are told, first broke down the barrier between Jew and Gentile.

How have Christians treated Jews for fifteen centuries? How are Christians treating Jews to-day in Holy Russia? How long is it since Jews were granted full rights of citizenship in Christian England?

All this, the Christian will say, applies to the false and not to the true Christianity.

Let us look, then, for an instant, at the truest and best form of Christianity, and ask what it is doing. It is preaching about Sin, Sin, Sin. It is praying to God to do for Man what Man ought to do for himself, what Man can do for himself, what Man must do for himself; for God has never done it, and will never do it for him.

And this fault in the Christian--the highest and truest Christian--attitude towards life does not lie in the Christians: it lies in the truest and best form of their religion.

It is the belief in Free Will, in Sin, and in a Heavenly Father, and a future recompense that leads the Christian wrong, and causes him to mistake the shadow for the substance.

COUNSELS OF DESPAIR

"If you take from us our religion," say the Christians, "what have you to offer but counsels of despair?" This seems to me rather a commercial way of putting the case, and not a very moral one. Because a moral man would not say: "If I give up my religion, what will you pay me?" He would say: "I will never give, up my religion unless I am convinced it is not _true_." To a moral man the truth would matter, but the cost would not. To ask what one may _gain_ is to show an absence of all real religious feeling.

The feeling of a truly religious man is the feeling that, cost what it may, he must do _right_. A religiously-minded man _could_ not profess a religion which he did not believe to be true. To him the vital question would be, not "What will you give me to desert my colours?" but "What is the _truth_?"

But, besides being immoral, the demand is unreasonable. If I say that a religion is untrue, the believer has a perfect right to ask me for proofs of my assertion; but he has no right to ask me for a new promise. Suppose I say this thing is not true, and to believe anything which is untrue is useless. Then, the believer may justly demand my reasons. But he has no right to ask me for a new dream in place of the old one. I am not a prophet, with promises of crowns and glories in my gift.

But yet I will answer this queer question as fully as I can.

I do not say there is no God. I do not say there is no "Heaven," nor that the soul is not immortal. There is not enough evidence to justify me in making such assertions.

I only say, on those subjects, that I do not _know_.

I do not know about those things. There may be a God, there may be a "Heaven," there may be an immortal soul. And a man might accept all I say about religion without giving up any hope his faith may bid him hold as to a future life.

As to those "counsels of despair" the question puzzles me. Despair of what?

Let me put the matter as I see it. I think sometimes, in a dubious way, that perhaps there may be a life beyond the grave. And that is interesting. But I think my stronger, and deeper, and more permanent feeling is that when we die we die finally, and for us there is no more life at all. That is, I suppose, my real belief--or supposition. But do I despair? Why should I? The idea of immortality does not elate me very much. As I said just now, it is interesting. But I am not excited about it. If there is another innings, we will go in and play our best; and we hope we shall be very much better and kinder than we have been. But if it is sleep: well, sleep is rest, and as I feel that I have had a really good time, on the whole, I should consider it greedy to cry because I could not have it all over again. That is how I feel about it. Despair? I am one of the happiest old fogeys in all London. I have found life agreeable and amusing, and I'm glad I came. But I am not so infatuated with life that I should care to go back and begin it all again. And though a new start, in a new world, would be--yes, interesting--I am not going to howl because old Daddy Death says it is bed-time. I think somebody, or something, has been very good to allow me to come in and see the fun, and stay so long, especially as I came in, so to speak "on my face." But to beg for another invitation would be cheeky. Some of you want such a lot for nothing.

"But," you may say, "the poor, the failures, the wretched--what of them?" And I answer: "Ah! that is one of the weak points of _your_ religion, not of mine." Consider these unhappy ones, what do you offer them? You offer them an everlasting bliss, not because they were starved or outraged here--not at all. For your religion admits the probability that those who came into this world worst equipped, who have here been most unfortunate, and to whom God and man have behaved most unjustly, will stand a far greater chance of a future of woe than of happiness.

No. According to your religion, those of the poor or the weak who get to Heaven will get there, not because they have been wronged and must be righted, but because they believe that Jesus Christ can save them.

Now, contrast that awful muddle of unreason and injustice with what you call my "counsels of despair." I say there may be a future life and there may not be a future life. If there is a future life, a man will deserve it no less, and enjoy it no less, for having been happy here. If there is no future life, he who has been unhappy here will have lost both earthly happiness and heavenly hope.

Therefore, I say, it is our duty to see that all our fellow-creatures are as happy here as we can make them.

Therefore I say to my fellow-creatures, "Do not consent to suffer, and to be wronged in this world, for it is immoral and weak so to submit; but hold up your heads, and demand your rights, here and now, and leave the rest to God, or to Fate."

You see, I am not trying to rob any man of his hope of Heaven; I am only trying to inspire his hope on earth.

But I have been asked whether I think it right and wise to "shake the faith of the poor working man--the faith that has helped him so long."

What has this faith helped him to do? To bear the ills and the wrongs of this life more patiently, in the hope of a future reward? Is that the idea? But I do not want the working man to endure patiently the ills and wrongs of this life. I want him, for his own sake, his wife's sake, his children's sake, and for the sake of right and progress, to demand justice, and to help in the work of amending the conditions of life on earth.

No, I do not want to rob the working-man of his faith: I want to awaken his faith--in himself.

Religion promises us a future Heaven, where we shall meet once more those "whom we have loved long since and lost awhile," and that is the most potent lure that could be offered to poor humanity.

How much of the so-called "universal instinct of belief" arises from that pathetic human yearning for reunion with dear friends, sweet wives, or pretty children "lost awhile"? It is human love and natural longing for the dead darlings, whose wish is father to the thought of Heaven. Before that passionate sentiment reason itself would almost stand abashed: were reason antagonistic to the "larger hope"--which none can prove.

Few of us can keep our emotions from overflowing the bounds of reason in such a case. The poor, tearful desire lays a pale hand on reason's lips and gazes wistfully into the mysterious abyss of the Great Silence.

So I say of that "larger hope," cherish it if you can, and if you feel it necessary to your peace of mind. But do not mistake a hope for a certainty. No priest, nor pope, nor prophet can tell you more about that mystery than you know. It is a riddle, and your guess or mine may be as near as that of a genius. We can only guess. We do not know.

Is it wise, then, to sell even a fraction of your liberty of thought or deed for a paper promise which the Bank of Futurity may fail to honour? Is it wise, is it needful, to abandon a single right, to abate one just demand, to neglect one possibility of happiness here and now, in order to fulfil the conditions laid down for the attainment of that promised Heaven by a crowd of contradictory theologians who know no more about God or about the future than we know ourselves?

Death has dropped a curtain of mystery between us and those we love. No theologian knows, nor ever did know, what is hidden behind that veil.

Let us, then, do our duty here, try to be happy here, try to make others happy here, and when the curtain lifts for us--we shall see.

CONCLUSION THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

I have been asked why I have "gone out of my way to attack religion," why I do not "confine myself to my own sphere and work for Socialism, and what good I expect to do by pulling down without building up."

In reply I beg to say:

1. That I have not "gone out of my way" to attack religion. It was because I found religion _in_ my way that I attacked it.

2. That I am working for Socialism when I attack a religion which is hindering Socialism.

3. That we must pull down before we can build up, and that I hope to do a little building, if only on the foundation.

But these questions arose from a misconception of my position and purpose.

I have been called an "Infidel," a Socialist, and a Fatalist. Now, I am an Agnostic, or Rationalist, and I am a Determinist, and I am a Socialist. But if I were asked to describe myself in a single word, I should call myself a Humanist.

Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism are factors in the sum; and the sum is Humanism.

Briefly, my religion is to do the best I can for humanity. I am a Socialist, a Determinist, and a Rationalist because I believe that Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism will be beneficial to mankind.

I oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian religion is beneficial to mankind, and because I think it is an obstacle in the way of Humanism.

I am rather surprised that men to whom my past work is well known should suspect me of making a wanton and purposeless attack upon religion. My attack is not wanton, but deliberate; not purposeless, but very purposeful and serious. I am not acting irreligiously, but religiously. I do not oppose Christianity because it is good, but because it is not good enough.

There are two radical differences between Humanism and Christianity.

Christianity concerns itself with God and Man, putting God first and Man last.

Humanism concerns itself solely with Man, so that Man is its first and last care. That is one radical difference.

Then, Christianity accepts the doctrine of Free Will, with its consequent rewards and punishments; while Humanism embraces Determinist doctrines, with their consequent theories of brotherhood and prevention. And that is another radical difference.

Because the Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and the drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the Humanist regards them as men and women who have been wronged.

The Christian remedy is to punish crime and to preach repentance and salvation to "sinners." The Humanist remedy is to remove the causes which lead or drive men into crime, and so to prevent the manufacture of "sinners."

Let us consider the first difference. Christianity concerns itself with the relations of Man to God, as well as with the relations between man and man. It concerns itself with the future life as well as with the present life.

Now, he who serves two causes cannot serve each or both of them as well as he could serve either of them alone.

He who serves God and Man will not serve Man as effectually as he who gives himself wholly to the service of Man.

As the religion of Humanism concerns itself solely with the good of humanity, I claim that it is more beneficial to humanity than is the Christian religion, which divides its service and love between Man and God.

Moreover, this division is unequal. For Christians give a great deal more attention to God than to Man.

And on that point I have to object, first, that although they _believe_ there is a God, they do not _know_ there is a God, nor what He is like. Whereas they do know very well that there are men, and what they are like. And, secondly, that if there be a God, that God does not need their love nor their service; whereas their fellow-creatures do need their love and their service very sorely.

And, as I remarked before, if there is a Father in Heaven, He is likely to be better pleased by our loving and serving our fellow-creatures (His children) than by our singing and praying to Him, while our brothers and sisters (His children) are ignorant, or brutalised, or hungry, or in trouble.

I speak as a father myself when I say that I should not like to think that one of my children would be so foolish and so unfeeling as to erect a marble tomb to my memory while the others needed a friend or a meal. And I speak in the same spirit when I add that to build a cathedral, and to spend our tears and pity upon a Saviour who was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, while women and men and little children are being crucified in our midst, without pity and without help, is cant, and sentimentality, and a mockery of God.

Please note the words I use. I have selected them deliberately and calmly, because I believe that they are true and that they are needed.

Christians are very eloquent about Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Our Father which is in Heaven. I know nothing about gods and heavens. But I know a good deal about Manchester and London, and about men and women; and if I did not feel the real shames and wrongs of the world more keenly, and if I did not try more earnestly and strenuously to rescue my fellow-creatures from ignorance, and sorrow, and injustice than most Christians do, I should blush to look death in the face or call myself a man.

I choose my words deliberately again when I say that to me the most besotted and degraded outcast tramp or harlot matters more than all the gods and angels that humanity ever conjured up out of its imagination.

The Rev. R. F. Horton, in his answer to my question as to the need of Christ as a Saviour, uttered the following remarkable words: