Part 3

I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles, its contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believed in the existence of devils--talked and made bargains with them, expelled them from people and animals.

This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do not exist--that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane. These stories about devils demonstrate the human, the ignorant origin of the New Testament. I gave up the New Testament because it rewards credulity, and curses brave and honest men, and because it teaches the infinite horror of eternal pain.

V.

HAVING spent my youth in reading books about religion--about the "new birth"--the disobedience of our first parents, the atonement, salvation by faith, the wickedness of pleasure, the degrading consequences of love, and the impossibility of getting to heaven by being honest and generous, and having become somewhat weary of the frayed and raveled thoughts, you can imagine my surprise, my delight when I read the poems of Robert Burns.

I was familiar with the writings of the devout and insincere, the pious and petrified, the pure and heartless. Here was a natural honest man. I knew the works of those who regarded all nature as depraved, and looked upon love as the legacy and perpetual witness of original sin. Here was a man who plucked joy from the mire, made goddesses of peasant girls, and enthroned the honest man. One whose sympathy, with loving arms, embraced all forms of suffering life, who hated slavery of every kind, who was as natural as heaven's blue, with humor kindly as an autumn day, with wit as sharp as Ithuriel's spear, and scorn that blasted like the simoon's breath. A man who loved this world, this life, the things of every day, and placed above all else the thrilling ecstasies of human love.

I read and read again with rapture, tears and smiles, feeling that a great heart was throbbing in the lines.

The religious, the lugubrious, the artificial, the spiritual poets were forgotten or remained only as the fragments, the half remembered horrors of monstrous and distorted dreams.

I had found at last a natural man, one who despised his country's cruel creed, and was brave and sensible enough to say: "All religions are auld wives' fables, but an honest man has nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come."

One who had the genius to write Holy Willie's Prayer--a poem that crucified Calvinism and through its bloodless heart thrust the spear of common sense--a poem that made every orthodox creed the food of scorn--of inextinguishable laughter.

Burns had his faults, his frailties. He was intensely human. Still, I would rather appear at the "Judgment Seat" drunk, and be able to say that I was the author of "A man's a man for 'a that," than to be perfectly sober and admit that I had lived and died a Scotch Presbyterian.

I read Byron--read his Cain, in which, as in Paradise Lost, the Devil seems to be the better god--read his beautiful, sublime and bitter lines--read his Prisoner of Chillon--his best--a poem that filled my heart with tenderness, with pity, and with an eternal hatred of tyranny.

I read Shelley's Queen Mab--a poem filled with beauty, courage, thought, sympathy, tears and scorn, in which a brave soul tears down the prison walls and floods the cells with light. I read his Skylark--a winged flame--passionate as blood--tender as tears--pure as light.

I read Keats, "whose name was writ in water"--read St. Agnes Eve, a story told with such an artless art that this poor common world is changed to fairy land--the Grecian Urn, that fills the soul with ever eager love, with all the rapture of imagined song--the Nightingale--a melody in which there is the memory of morn--a melody that dies away in dusk and tears, paining the senses with its perfectness.

And then I read Shakespeare, the plays, the sonnets, the poems--read all. I beheld a new heaven and a new earth; Shakespeare, who knew the brain and heart of man--the hopes and fears, the loves and hatreds, the vices and the virtues of the human race; whose imagination read the tear-blurred records, the blood-stained pages of all the past, and saw falling athwart the outspread scroll the light of hope and love; Shakespeare, who sounded every depth--while on the loftiest peak there fell the shadow of his wings.

I compared the Plays with the "inspired" books--Romeo and Juliet with the Song of Solomon, Lear with Job, and the Sonnets with the Psalms, and I found that Jehovah did not understand the art of speech. I compared Shakespeare's women--his perfect women--with the women of the Bible. I found that Jehovah was not a sculptor, not a painter--not an artist--that he lacked the power that changes clay to flesh--the art, the plastic touch, that moulds the perfect form--the breath that gives it free and joyous life--the genius that creates the faultless.

The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with Shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems.

VI.

UP to this time I had read nothing against our blessed religion except what I had found in Burns, Byron and Shelley. By some accident I read Volney, who shows that all religions are, and have been, established in the same way--that all had their Christs, their apostles, miracles and sacred books, and then asked how it is possible to decide which is the true one. A question that is still waiting for an answer.

I read Gibbon, the greatest of historians, who marshaled his facts as skillfully as Cæsar did his legions, and I learned that Christianity is only a name for Paganism--for the old religion, shorn of its beauty--that some absurdities had been exchanged for others--that some gods had been killed--a vast multitude of devils created, and that hell had been enlarged.

And then I read the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Let me tell you something about this sublime and slandered man. He came to this country just before the Revolution. He brought a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, at that time the greatest American.

In Philadelphia, Paine was employed to write for the _Pennsylvania Magazine_. We know that he wrote at least five articles. The first was against slavery, the second against duelling, the third on the treatment of prisoners--showing that the object should be to reform, not to punish and degrade--the fourth on the rights of woman, and the fifth in favor of forming societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals.

From this you see that he suggested the great reforms of our century.

The truth is that he labored all his life for the good of his fellow-men, and did as much to found the Great Republic as any man who ever stood beneath our flag.

He gave his thoughts about religion--about the blessed Scriptures, about the superstitions of his time. He was perfectly sincere and what he said was kind and fair.

The Age of Reason filled with hatred the hearts of those who loved their enemies, and the occupant of every orthodox pulpit became, and still is, a passionate maligner of Thomas Paine.

No one has answered--no one will answer, his argument against the dogma of inspiration--his objections to the Bible.

He did not rise above all the superstitions of his day. While he hated Jehovah, he praised the God of Nature, the creator and preserver of all. In this he was wrong, because, as Watson said in his Reply to Paine, the God of Nature is as heartless, as cruel as the God of the Bible.

But Paine was one of the pioneers--one of the Titans, one of the heroes, who gladly gave his life, his every thought and act, to free and civilize mankind.

I read Voltaire--Voltaire, the greatest man of his century, and who did more for liberty of thought and speech than any other being, human or "divine." Voltaire, who tore the mask from hypocrisy and found behind the painted smile the fangs of hate. Voltaire, who attacked the savagery of the law, the cruel decisions of venal courts, and rescued victims from the wheel and rack. Voltaire, who waged war against the tyranny of thrones, the greed and heartlessness of power. Voltaire, who filled the flesh of priests with the barbed and poisoned arrows of his wit and made the pious jugglers, who cursed him in public, laugh at themselves in private. Voltaire, who sided with the oppressed, rescued the unfortunate, championed the obscure and weak, civilized judges, repealed laws and abolished torture in his native land.

In every direction this tireless man fought the absurd, the miraculous, the supernatural, the idiotic, the unjust. He had no reverence for the ancient. He was not awed by pageantry and pomp, by crowned Crime or mitered Pretence. Beneath the crown he saw the criminal, under the miter, the hypocrite.

To the bar of his conscience, his reason, he summoned the barbarism and the barbarians of his time. He pronounced judgment against them all, and that judgment has been affirmed by the intelligent world. Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.

I read Zeno, the man who said, centuries before our Christ was born, that man could not own his fellow-man.

"No matter whether you claim a slave by purchase or capture, the title is bad. They who claim to own their fellow-men, look down into the pit and forget the justice that should rule the world."

I became acquainted with Epicurus, who taught the religion of usefulness, of temperance, of courage and wisdom, and who said: "Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?"

I read about Socrates, who when on trial for his life, said, among other things, to his judges, these wondrous words: "I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty."

So, I read about Diogenes, the philosopher who hated the superfluous--the enemy of waste and greed, and who one day entered the temple, reverently approached the altar, crushed a louse between the nails of his thumbs, and solemnly said: "The sacrifice of Diogenes to all the gods." This parodied the worship of the world--satirized all creeds, and in one act put the essence of religion.

Diogenes must have know of this "inspired" passage--"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins."

I compared Zeno, Epicurus and Socrates, three heathen wretches who had never heard of the Old Testament or the Ten Commandments, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three favorites of Jehovah, and I was depraved enough to think that the Pagans were superior to the Patriarchs--and to Jehovah himself.

VII.

MY attention was turned to other religions, to the sacred books, the creeds and ceremonies of other lands--of India, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, of the dead and dying nations.

I concluded that all religions had the same foundation--a belief in the supernatural--a power above nature that man could influence by worship--by sacrifice and prayer.

I found that all religions rested on a mistaken conception of nature--that the religion of a people was the science of that people, that is to say, their explanation of the world--of life and death--of origin and destiny.

I concluded that all religions had substantially the same origin, and that in fact there has never been but one religion in the world. The twigs and leaves may differ, but the trunk is the same.

The poor African that pours out his heart to his deity of stone is on an exact religious level with the robed priest who supplicates his God. The same mistake, the same superstition, bends the knees and shuts the eyes of both. Both ask for supernatural aid, and neither has the slightest thought of the absolute uniformity of nature.

It seems probable to me that the first organized ceremonial religion was the worship of the sun. The sun was the "Sky Father," the "All Seeing," the source of life--the fireside of the world. The sun was regarded as a god who fought the darkness, the power of evil, the enemy of man.

There have been many sun-gods, and they seem to have been the chief deities in the ancient religions. They have been worshiped in many lands--by many nations that have passed to death and dust.

Apollo was a sun-god and he fought and conquered the serpent of night. Baldur was a sun-god. He was in love with the Dawn--a maiden. Chrishna was a sun-god. At his birth the Ganges was thrilled from its source to the sea, and all the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and bud and flower. Hercules was a sun-god and so was Samson, whose strength was in his hair--that is to say, in his beams. He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the shadow--the darkness. Osiris, Bacchus, and Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, and Quetzalcoatl, Prometheus, Zoroaster, and Perseus, Cadom, Lao-tsze, Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses, were all sun-gods.

All of these gods had gods for fathers and their mothers were virgins. The births of nearly all were announced by stars, celebrated by celestial music, and voices declared that a blessing had come to the poor world. All of these gods were born in humble places--in caves, under trees, in common inns, and tyrants sought to kill them all when they were babes. All of these sun-gods were born at the winter solstice--on Christmas. Nearly all were worshiped by "wise men." All of them fasted for forty days--all of them taught in parables--all of them wrought miracles--all met with a violent death, and all rose from the dead.

The history of these gods is the exact history of our Christ.

This is not a coincidence--an accident. Christ was a sun-god. Christ was a new name for an old biography--a survival--the last of the sun-gods. Christ was not a man, but a myth--not a life, but a legend.

I found that we had not only borrowed our Christ--but that all our sacraments, symbols and ceremonies were legacies that we received from the buried past. There is nothing original in Christianity.

The cross was a symbol thousands of years before our era. It was a symbol of life, of immortality--of the god Agni, and it was chiseled upon tombs many ages before a line of our Bible was written.

Baptism is far older than Christianity--than Judaism. The Hindus, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had Holy Water long before a Catholic lived. The eucharist was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the goddess of the fields--Bacchus of the vine. At the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat and said: "This is the flesh of the goddess." They drank wine and cried: "This is the blood of our god."

The Egyptians had a Trinity. They worshiped Osiris, Isis and Horus, thousands of years before the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were known.

The Tree of Life grew in India, in China, and among the Aztecs, long before the Garden of Eden was planted.

Long before our Bible was known, other nations had their sacred books.

The dogmas of the Fall of Man, the Atonement and Salvation by Faith, are far older than our religion.

In our blessed gospel,--in our "divine scheme,"--there is nothing new--nothing original. All old--all borrowed, pieced and patched.

Then I concluded that all religions had been naturally produced, and that all were variations, modifications of one,--then I felt that I knew that all were the work of man.

VIII.

THE theologians had always insisted that their God was the creator of all living things--that the forms, parts, functions, colors and varieties of animals were the expressions of his fancy, taste and wisdom--that he made them all precisely as they are to-day--that he invented fins and legs and wings--that he furnished them with the weapons of attack, the shields of defence--that he formed them with reference to food and climate, taking into consideration all facts affecting life.

They insisted that man was a special creation, not related in any way to the animals below him. They also asserted that all the forms of vegetation, from mosses to forests, were just the same to-day as the moment they were made.

Men of genius, who were for the most part free from religious prejudice, were examining these things--were looking for facts. They were examining the fossils of animals and plants--studying the forms of animals--their bones and muscles--the effect of climate and food--the strange modifications through which they had passed.

Humboldt had published his lectures--filled with great thoughts--with splendid generalizations--with suggestions that stimulated the spirit of investigation, and with conclusions that satisfied the mind. He demonstrated the uniformity of Nature--the kinship of all that lives and grows--that breathes and thinks.

Darwin, with his Origin of Species, his theories about Natural Selection, the Survival of the Fittest, and the influence of environment, shed a flood of light upon the great problems of plant and animal life.

These things had been guessed, prophesied, asserted, hinted by many others, but Darwin, with infinite patience, with perfect care and candor, found the facts, fulfilled the prophecies, and demonstrated the truth of the guesses, hints and assertions. He was, in my judgment, the keenest observer, the best judge of the meaning and value of a fact, the greatest Naturalist the world has produced.

The theological view began to look small and mean.

Spencer gave his theory of evolution and sustained it by countless facts. He stood at a great height, and with the eyes of a philosopher, a profound thinker, surveyed the world. He has influenced the thought of the wisest.

Theology looked more absurd than ever.

Huxley entered the lists for Darwin. No man ever had a sharper sword--a better shield. He challenged the world. The great theologians and the small scientists--those who had more courage than sense, accepted the challenge. Their poor bodies were carried away by their friends.

Huxley had intelligence, industry, genius, and the courage to express his thought. He was absolutely loyal to what he thought was truth. Without prejudice and without fear, he followed the footsteps of life from the lowest to the highest forms.

Theology looked smaller still.

Haeckel began at the simplest cell, went from change to change--from form to form--followed the line of development, the path of life, until he reached the human race. It was all natural. There had been no interference from without.

I read the works of these great men--of many others--and became convinced that they were right, and that all the theologians--all the believers in "special creation" were absolutely wrong.

The Garden of Eden faded away, Adam and Eve fell back to dust, the snake crawled into the grass, and Jehovah became a miserable myth.

IX.

I TOOK another step. What is matter--substance? Can it be destroyed--annihilated? Is it possible to conceive of the destruction of the smallest atom of substance? It can be ground to powder--changed from a solid to a liquid--from a liquid to a gas--but it all remains. Nothing is lost--nothing destroyed.

Let an infinite God, if there be one, attack a grain of sand--attack it with infinite power. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot surrender. It defies all force. Substance cannot be destroyed.

Then I took another step.

If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created.

The indestructible must be uncreateable.

And then I asked myself: What is force?

We cannot conceive of the creation of force, or of its destruction. Force may be changed from one form to another--from motion to heat--but it cannot be destroyed--annihilated.

If force cannot be destroyed it could not have been created. It is eternal.

Another thing--matter cannot exist apart from force. Force cannot exist apart from matter. Matter could not have existed before force. Force could not have existed before matter. Matter and force can only be conceived of together. This has been shown by several scientists, but most clearly, most forcibly by Büchner.

Thought is a form of force, consequently it could not have caused or created matter. Intelligence is a form of force and could not have existed without or apart from matter. Without substance there could have been no mind, no will, no force in any form, and there could have been no substance without force.

Matter and force were not created. They have existed from eternity. They cannot be destroyed.

There was, there is, no creator. Then came the question: Is there a God? Is there a being of infinite intelligence, power and goodness, who governs the world?

There can be goodness without much intelligence--but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.

In nature I see, or seem to see, good and evil--intelligence and ignorance--goodness and cruelty--care and carelessness--economy and waste. I see means that do not accomplish the ends--designs that seem to fail.

To me it seems infinitely cruel for life to feed on life--to create animals that devour others.

The teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me with horror. What can be more frightful than a world at-war? Every leaf a battle-field--every flower a Golgotha--in every drop of water pursuit, capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for life. On every blade of grass, something that kills,--something that suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak--the superior on the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the strong--the inferior on the superior--the highest food for the lowest--man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal. Everywhere pain, disease and death--death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child--death that fills the world with grief and tears.

How can the orthodox Christian explain these things?

I know that life is good. I remember the sunshine and rain. Then I think of the earthquake and flood. I do not forget health and harvest, home and love--but what of pestilence and famine? I cannot harmonize all these contradictions--these blessings and agonies--with the existence of an infinitely good, wise and powerful God.

The theologian says that what we call evil is for our benefit--that we are placed in this world of sin and sorrow to develop character. If this is true I ask why the infant dies? Millions and millions draw a few breaths and fade away in the arms of their mothers. They are not allowed to develop character.

The theologian says that serpents were given fangs to protect themselves from their enemies. Why did the God who made them, make enemies? Why is it that many species of serpents have no fangs?

The theologian says that God armored the hippopotamus, covered his body, except the under part, with scales and plates, that other animals could not pierce with tooth or tusk. But the same God made the rhinoceros and supplied him with a horn on his nose, with which he disembowels the hippopotamus.

The same God made the eagle, the vulture, the hawk, and their helpless prey.

On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design.

If God created man--if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic?

Should the inferior man thank God? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God? Should the slave thank God?

The theologian says that God governs the wind, the rain, the lightning. How then can we account for the cyclone, the flood, the drought, the glittering bolt that kills?