Part 2

O, divine science (sciolist), we bless thy name; thou hast delivered us from the terrors of dogmatic fear! Man is but dust, and unto dust shall he return; “let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” But ere we run riot in the intoxication of our new-born freedom from divine law, does not the skeptical, cautious, scientific spirit admonish us to pause a moment and look logically at another class of possible achievements of this wonder-working, material power. In philosophical researches, analogy is a recognized and legitimate guide to truth. Admitting, then, that pure matter has done all that materialism claims it has done in the past, let us look by the light of analogy at other and graver possibilities it may have wrought in its reckless, unrestrained creations. Time is a mighty attribute of evolutionary divinities; its power seems next to infinite. In a few millions of years Alexanders, Bonapartes, Bismarks, Miltons, Edisons and Ingersols have been evolved from thoughtless chaos; now, if in limited time (for what are millions of years to eternity) such majestic mental forces have been developed from the inexhaustible store-house of _intellectual nothingness_, why should bold mathematical science deem it a “thing incredible” that in an eternity of time, with an unlimited amount of matter for capital and infinite space for a theater of action, this mind-evolving force may not have generated beings of almost infinite capacities—even a monarch who sways a scepter over more worlds than one—EVEN A GOD. Why should material philosophy cavil at the creeds which teach a righteous judgment to come? Have not the judicial elements of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen combined to organize on one planet at least courts of equity and judgment seats, and crystalized into prison walls and hand-cuffs the gallows and the hangman? Upon the established scientific principle that nature’s laws are uniform, undeviating and universal in their action, does not the analogy of earthly tribunals logically necessitate the belief that our globe is but a province of the infinite empire governed by righteous laws, of which enlightened human laws are a partial revelation.

Modern science teaches the oneness of the universe and the identity and sameness of the matter composing it. What then can be more strictly scientific and demonstrable from materialistic premises than the vast conclusion that uniform passive matter, operated upon by the same undeviating laws, must in all worlds produce the same results and evolve, as it has on our planet, intelligence in which a sense of right and justice shall predominate, and everywhere and in all time, enact and execute laws discriminating between right and wrong? What astronomical prediction, then, can be more certain of fulfillment than this moral prophecy of the final eclipse of evil and ultimate triumph of the right? With no existing power to arrest or mitigate the sentence of this relentless, carboniferous judge, how fearful may be the possible fate of those who disregard the moral laws of protoplasm. Matter has evolved a Franklin and a Morse, who learned to wield the lightning’s power. Why may there not have been evolved in the infinite past a more profound electrician, who, with his battery and etherial wires can shiver a planet with his touch? A marvelous power—the human spirit—has gained a vast control over the blind, stubborn substances and forces that created it, and by its immaterial, invisible will, can in a limited degree overrule the most imperious law of nature by throwing a stone into the air. Is it unscientific, then, or derogatory to the vaunted potency of matter to affirm that the eternal ages may have developed an intelligent will that can project a planet or sun, as the human will and muscle project the pebble? Scoff not, exalted sages, at the weak terrors of those who tremble at the dogma of a malignant devil; consider that pity and compassion are not the known chemical constituents of this soulless creator. Where, then, can we fix the limit of that unconscious, fiendish force that evolved a Nero, and incarnated in human bodies the myriads of demoniac spirits that walk the earth to-day? Egotistical scientist (sciolist) calm the cyclone, quiet the engulphing earthquake, blot from human history the records of war, pestilence, famine, the tales of St. Bartholomew and the Inquisition, and then deny by material philosophy the possibility of even a Calvinistic hell; deny the personality of man because your microscope and scalpel can not find a soul by dissecting the brain of the mathematician, and then deny a personal God because his spirit eludes the grasp of sealed crucibles and can not be detected by digging in the earth with the spade. Deny the existence of conscious life, and then in the light of reason and science deny that the forces that generate life must from necessary law work for its continuance and immortality. Extreme materialism confidently teaches the birth, death and resurrection of planetary universes; why should such grand faith stagger at the theory of the resurrection of a soul? Where is the scientific absurdity of Renan’s distant hope, that this mighty resurrection of dead worlds will embrace in its infinite scope the awakening to consciousness; the universal past consciousness of the universe. May not both theist and atheist find in this line of thought a partial answer to the oft recurring modern prayer, “Help thou mine unbelief.”—_From the Religio-Philosophic Journal._

Can you believe that all things are the result of blind, unintelligent forces, operating under mechanical laws?

THE SHASTERS AND VEDAS, AND THE CHINESE, GOVERNMENT, RELIGION, ETC.

Men who wish to be known as scientific skeptics and unbelievers often boast that the above-mentioned books are more worthy of respect than the books of the Bible. For the benefit of all who may not have access to those books, the following, from Duff’s India, credited to the Shasters, may be of service in the search after truth:

“Brahm produced an egg. All the primary atoms, qualities, and principles, the seeds of future worlds, that had been evolved from the substance of Brahm, were now collected together and deposited in the newly produced egg. And into it, along with them, entered the self-existent himself, under the assumed form of Brahma; and then he sat vivifying, expanding, and combining the elements, during four thousand three hundred millions of solar years. During this amazing period the wondrous egg floated like a bubble on the water, increasing constantly in size. At length the supreme, who dwelt therein, burst the shell of the stupendous egg and issued forth under a new form with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand arms. Along with him issued another form, huge and measureless, which speedily matured into the present glorious universe.”—_Shasters._

In Hindostan we may see on one hand the trident of Neptune, the eagle of Jupiter, the satyrs of Bacchus, the bow of Cupid and the chariot of the Sun; on the other, we hear the cymbals of Rhea, the songs of the Muses, and the pastoral tales of Apollo Nomius. The Hindoos enumerate four grand periods in the world’s history called _yugs_. The first comprehends one million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand years. The second, one million two hundred and ninety-six thousand; the third, eight hundred and sixty-four thousand years, and the fourth four hundred and twenty-three thousand years. Four thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven of the last yug expired in eighteen hundred and forty-three. The incredibility of their chronology will be seen at a glance, if you recollect that it is claimed that one of their sovereigns lived through the whole of the first yug. Veda is a generic name for their four oldest and most sacred books, containing simply a revelation directly from Brahma.

Many unbelievers in this, and the old world, who have set themselves against our Bible, have indorsed the Vedas as scientific, without so much as having read or known one line in them. These Vedas profess to go back through _maha yugs_ of 4,320,000 years of men. A thousand of these _maha_ yugs, or 4,320,000,000 of years make a _kalpa_, or one day of the life of Brahma, and his night is of equal length; a hundred such days and nights measure the time of his life.

These books give, as facts, seven great continents, separated by that many rivers and seven mountain-chains four hundred thousand miles high. They record a hundred sons to one king, ten thousand to another, and sixty thousand to another. These kings were in no danger from violating the command to “multiply and replenish the earth;” but there is one difficulty, at least, about the records concerning the seventy thousand and one hundred sons born to these three kings, and that is this, the records say: They were all born in a pumpkin and nourished in pans of milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a sage, and restored to life by the waters of the Ganges. Those same sacred books say: The moon is fifty thousand leagues higher than the sun, and that it shines by its own light and animates our body; they say, the sun goes behind the Someyra Mountains and this makes the night; they say, these mountains are many thousand miles high, and are situated in the middle of our earth; they say, our earth is flat and triangular, having seven stories, each one of peculiar beauty, having its own inhabitants, and each one having a sea. The first story of earth, they say, is composed of _honey_, the second is composed of _sugar_, the third of _butter_, the fourth of _wine_; and the whole thing is carried upon the heads of elephants, and when these shake themselves earthquakes are produced. Among the astronomical calculations which confirm all this there are accounts of floods of waters rising to the Polar star. How is that for a flood?

Infidel, if you read this, and remember that you have been guilty of foisting the Vedas against the Hebrew Scriptures, hide your face and do it no more. The Hindoos worship cats and monkeys and holy bulls and sticks and stones. They are yet sacrificing their infants in that sacred river, _Ganges_. The car of Juggernaut, ’tis said, is yet rolling on its bloody wheels, and women are yet burned upon the dead bodies of their husbands. What is the trouble with those unfortunates? Well, they enjoy freedom from the Bible, freedom from the Bible God, and freedom from the Protestant and Catholic clergy—the freedom that the infidels of the United States concern themselves so much about. Give them what they plead for and it will not be long until they will have more hell than they will love or worship. Infidels boast of the worth of the writings of Confucius and the religion of the Chinese. Let us look after their condition. Here it is, as given in the Universal Vocabulary. As they are esteemed by unbelievers so ancient as to put to shame all others pretending to antiquity, we must be allowed to make the test of their religious and scientific tree by its fruits. First. “If a person be suspected of treason he is put to death in a slow and painful manner, all his relations in the first degree are beheaded, his female relations sold into slavery, and all his connections residing in his house are put to death. If a physician treat the case of a patient in any way different from established rules, and the patient dies, he is treated as guilty of homicide, though, if on his trial it be shown that it was a mere error, he is redeemed from death, but must quit his practice forever. When a debtor is unable to meet the demand of his creditor he receives thirty blows, and the same number may be repeated from time to time till the debt is paid. In case the creditor violently seize the debtor’s goods he is liable to eighty blows. In order to the collection of debts, it is customary for creditors to enter the houses of their debtors on the first day of the year and pronounce their claims with a loud voice, and continue there until they are reimbursed. It is said that this teazing proves a successful method of collecting debts; inasmuch as the debtor, fearing that something may befall the creditor while in his house, and, therefore, suspicion fall on him, he is moved to use all possible endeavors to answer the demand. Women are sold in marriage and the highest bidder takes them. Their government is patriarchial and despotic. The emperor is styled Holy Son of Heaven, Sole Governor of the Earth. Their religion is paganism.”

Zell’s Encyclopedia gives the following items as true to-day: “Their husbandry is, to a great extent, nullified by the rude and ill-adapted implements employed therefor, and also by the smallness of the farms. Hence, agriculture, as scientifically considered, is but little advanced.” The form of government is strictly patriarchial. The emperor, who bears the various euphuistic titles of the “Brother of the Sun and Moon.” _Teen-tsye_, or the “Sun of Heaven;” _Ta-hwang-li_, or the “Great Emperor;” and _Wansuy-yay_, or the “Lord of a Myriad Years,” is regarded as the father of his people, and has unlimited power over all his subjects. The emperor is spiritual as well as temporal sovereign, and as high priest of the empire, can alone, with his immediate representatives and ministers, perform the great religious ceremonies. The bamboo, as the chief instrument of government, is applied without distinction, to the highest and lowest Chinese.

The imperial palaces are of great extent, consisting of a series of courts, with galleries and halls of audience beautifully painted. The temples differ greatly in form and size. The ordinary temples or _joss-houses_, consist each of one chamber _containing an idol_. This, gentle reader, is the store-house of pagan idolatry to which some unbelievers in Indiana and elsewhere resort for names or titles by which to designate the houses of Christian worship in our own country. How would those men like to emigrate to China, where they could have a language that suits their taste, and a literature and religion about which they have boasted so much? If Chinese government, religion, and literature and science be so old as is claimed by Chinamen, and by infidels in our country, and its age be the cause of its great superiority in religion and science, may we not thank the Lord that we are young?

ANCIENT COSMOGONIES.

The Mosaic method found in the first chapter of the book of Genesis is not the method of physical science; this seeks, by induction, after laws, principles and causes, stepping backwards step by step, seeking, by the light of physical science, the character of that unit which lies at the base of the whole series of all created things. “The world by wisdom knew not God.” The truth of this statement is monumented by the literature of the unbelievers of the nineteenth century. To-day, men who refuse Bible instruction talk of the unknown and the unknowable, thus conceding that their efforts as naturalists, or “natural men,” are not sufficient in their results to disclose the character of the great first cause. The same great failure has been, and ever will be, made by all mere naturalists. In view of this fact it is well that Moses gives us at once the great first cause in the phrase, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There is in this sentence no limitation of time, so there is room here for astronomical ages, cycle upon cycle. There was time enough in that beginning for the present system of planets to be arranged from a single nebulous mass. In it we have a picture of matter in a crude condition, without fixedness of form, surrounded with darkness. Then comes the commencement of the great work of preparing our planet for the home of man, by the spirit of God moving over the chaos. There is nothing in this statement that should perplex any man, unless he is that fool who “says in his heart there is no God.” If the chaos here described was matter in a rare, gaseous condition, floating in space, molecular motion produced by the spirit of God brooding over it, and a chemical change producing electricity may have given the light called the first day.

Here is that troublesome word _day_. Why should it give trouble to any scientist? It is a part of his duty to know that neither this word nor the context in the first chapter of Genesis, nor biblical usage, requires us to limit the term to a period of twenty-four hours. But the context does limit it, in its first occurrence, to an indefinite period of _light_. “GOD CALLED THE LIGHT DAY!” In the fourth verse of the second chapter the word is used to cover the whole period of time past, both the beginning and the subsequent six work-days of the Almighty, thus: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, IN THE DAY when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” This is no modern invention, gotten up to serve a purpose; for Augustine so understood this matter in the fourth century. He called them “ineffable days,” describing them as alternate pauses in the work of God. Such was the interpretation given by the first Christians. Why should we try to measure this term day, in its first occurrences, by a chronometer which did not come into use until the fourth day? The notion that these days were twenty-four hours, sprang up in the middle ages, and is the child of the literalism and realism of those times. Moses gives seven great constructive periods of light, which beautifully harmonize with the seven great geological ages lying this side of his beginning. How he came to do this has perplexed the incredulous scholar and historian beyond measure; it is, indeed, a remarkable fact in literature, but it gives strength to the faith of the intelligent Christian. God was with Moses; his cosmogony bears evidence of inspiration. Compare his narrative with the cosmogonies of the ancient nations. There is but little similitude; if there was much it would not prove identity. It would be strange if the ancient nations should have no truth in their cosmogonies. And if they had, would it not be more strange for Moses to leave it out on that account? It would be well to remind you just here that the Almighty, and doubtless his man Moses also, knew that men possessed at least _common sense_. In the New Testament we have the word tartarus in its verb form. Where did it come from? The Apostle Peter, guided by the divine spirit, found it in Grecian mythology. Is it to be thrown out on that account? Nay, verily. A man of God, that is, a prophet, in any of the ancient ages as far back as Moses, is not to be regarded as under obligations to shun a truth because it was already in use among men. The man who would claim such a silly thing ought to be discarded from scientific and literary circles as a blockhead. The cosmogony of the Babylonians represents the beginning of things in darkness and water; in which great non-descript animals, hideous monsters, half-beasts and half-men, made their appearance; then a woman, who personates the creative spirit or principle, was split into two parts, and the heaven and the earth produced by the division. Next Belus, the supreme divinity, cut off his own head, and his blood, trickling down and mingling with the dust of the earth, produced human creatures having intelligence and spiritual life. The Phœnician cosmogony presents, first, an ether or a mist diffused in space. Next, a wind arose, and from this motion proceeded a Spiritual God, from whom proceeded an egg, which, being divided, produced the heavens and the earth. Next, the noise of thunder awakened beings into spiritual life. The Egyptian cosmogony presents a principal divinity, whose name was Ptah, the world-creating power, who shaped the cosmic egg, which again appears here, as in the Phœnician. Next, there followed from Ptah a long succession of gods, with many offices and powers—solar, telluric and spiritual—from whom, after a time, proceeded _demigods_, and then from these proceeded heroes, until the link of our humanity was reached. According to Grote, Grecian mythology opens with the gods prior, as well as superior, to man; it then descends gradually to heroes and then to the human race. Along with their gods are presented many monsters, ultra-human and extra-human, who can’t consistently be styled gods, but who partake with gods and man in the attributes of free-will, conscious agency and susceptibility of pleasure and pain—such as the Harpies, the Gorgons, the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, etc. After a great struggle, or contest, among these wonderful creatures, there arises a stable government of Zeus, the chief among the gods. Then appears chaos, then the broad, firm, flat earth, with deep and dark tartarus below, and from these proceed different divinities and creatures, some grand and terrible, some simply monsters; their relations to each other violate all notions of decency and morality; their wars and slaughters, their gross and abominable crimes issue in successive creative products upon earth, which terminate at last in the appearance of man.

Next we will give you the cosmogony of the Vedas, as it is presented in what is known as the mystic hymn of the Vedas. It is _Pantheistic to the core_. “It is one of the earliest relics of Hindu thought and devotion:”

“Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven’s broad woof outstretched above. What covered all? What sheltered? What concealed? Was it the water’s fathomless abyss? There was not death—yet was there naught immortal; There was no confine betwixt day and night; The only One breathed breathless by itself; OTHER than It NOTHING since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound—an ocean without light. The germ that still lay covered in the husk Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. Then first came love upon it, the new spring Of mind—yea, poets in their hearts discerned, Pondering, this bond between created things And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven? Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose— Nature below, and power and will above. Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here? Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? The gods themselves came later into being? Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? He from whom all this creation came, Whether his will created or was mute, The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven, He knows it—or perchance even He knows it not.”

—The Rig-Veda, book 10, hymn 129. Translated from Max Mullers’ “Chips from a German Workshop.”

This is Pantheistic throughout, and although it presents no absurd combinations of matter and spirit, yet it puts the material creation before the creation of the spiritual, and scarcely allows consciousness to “the One,” “the It,” from which, somehow, the creation proceeded. The Book of Menu, which is of equal value with the Veda among the Hindoos, gives the following account of the creation:

“Menu sat reclined, with his attention fixed on one object, the supreme God, when the divine sages approached him, and, after mutual salutations in due form, delivered the following address: Deign, sovereign ruler, to apprise us of the sacred laws in their order, as they must be followed by all the four classes, and by each of them, in their several degrees, together with the duties of every mixed class; for thou, Lord, and thou only among mortals, knowest the true sense, the first principle, and the prescribed ceremonies of this universal, supernatural Veda, unlimited in extent and unequalled in authority.