Part 9

The church regarded epidemics as the messengers of the good God. The "Black Death" was sent by the eternal Father, whose mercy spared some and whose justice murdered the rest. To stop the scourge, they tried to soften the heart of God by kneelings and prostrations--by processions and prayers--by burning incense and by making vows. They did not try to remove the cause. The cause was God. They did not ask for pure water, but for holy water. Faith and filth lived or rather died together. Religion and rags, piety and pollution kept company. Sanctity kept its odor.

What has the church done?

It was the enemy of art and literature. It destroyed the marbles of Greece and Rome. Beauty was Pagan. It destroyed so far as it could the best literature of the world. It feared thought--but it preserved the Scriptures, the ravings of insane saints, the falsehoods of the Fathers, the bulls of popes, the accounts of miracles performed by shrines, by dried blood and faded hair, by pieces of bones and wood, by rusty nails and thorns, by handkerchiefs and rags, by water and beads and by a finger of the Holy Ghost.

This was the literature of the church.

I admit that the priests were honest--as honest as ignorant. More could not be said.

What has the church done?

Christianity claims, with great pride, that it established asylums for the insane. Yes, it did. But the insane were treated as criminals. They were regarded as the homes--as the tenement-houses of devils. They were persecuted and tormented. They were chained and flogged, starved and killed. The asylums were prisons, dungeons, the insane were victims and the keepers were ignorant, conscientious, pious fiends. They were not trying to help men, they were fighting devils--destroying demons. They were not actuated by love--but by hate and fear.

What has the church done?

It founded schools where facts were denied, where science was denounced and philosophy despised. Schools, where priests were made--where they were taught to hate reason and to look upon doubts as the suggestions of the Devil. Schools where the heart was hardened and the brain shriveled. Schools in which lies were sacred and truths profane. Schools for the more general diffusion of ignorance--schools to prevent thought--to suppress knowledge. Schools for the purpose of enslaving the world. Schools in which teachers knew less than pupils.

What has the church done?

It has used its influence with God to get rain and sunshine--to stop flood and storm--to kill insects, rats, snakes and wild beasts--to stay pestilence and famine--to delay frost and snow--to lengthen the lives of kings and queens--to protect presidents--to give legislators wisdom--to increase collections and subscriptions. In marriages it has made God the party of the third part. It has sprinkled water on babes when they were named. It has put oil on the dying and repeated prayers for the dead. It has tried to protect the people from the malice of the Devil--from ghosts and spooks, from witches and wizards and all the leering fiends that seek to poison the souls of men. It has endeavored to protect the sheep of God from the wolves of science--from the wild beasts of doubt and investigation. It has tried to wean the lambs of the Lord from the delights, the pleasures, the joys, of life. According to the philosophy of the church, the virtuous weep and suffer, the vicious laugh and thrive, the good carry a cross, and the wicked fly. But in the next life this will be reversed. Then the good will be happy, and the bad will be damned.

The church filled the world with faith and crime.

It polluted the fountains of joy. It gave us an ignorant, jealous, revengeful and cruel God--sometimes merciful--sometimes ferocious. Now just, now infamous--sometimes wise--generally foolish. It gave us a Devil, cunning, malicious, almost the equal of God, not quite as strong--but quicker--not as profound--but sharper.

It gave us angels with wings--cherubim and seraphim and a heaven with harps and hallelujahs--with streets of gold and gates of pearl.

It gave us fiends and imps with wings like bats. It gave us ghosts and goblins, spooks and sprites, and little devils that swarmed in the bodies of men, and it gave us hell where the souls of men will roast in eternal flames. Shall we thank the church? Shall we thank the orthodox churches?

Shall we thank them for the hell they made here? Shall we thank them for the hell of the future?

II.

WE must remember that the church was founded and has been protected by God, that all the popes, and cardinals, all the bishops, priests and monks, all the ministers and exhorters were selected and set apart--all sanctified and enlightened by the infinite God--that the Holy Scriptures were inspired by the same Being, and that all the orthodox creeds were really made by him.

We know what these men--filled with the Holy Ghost--have done. We know the part they have played. We know the souls they have saved and the bodies they have destroyed. We know the consolation they have given and the pain they have inflicted--the lies they have defended--the truths they have denied. We know that they convinced millions that celibacy is the greatest of all virtues--that women are perpetual temptations, the enemies of true holiness--that monks and priests are nobler than fathers, that nuns are purer than mothers. We know that they taught the blessed absurdity of the Trinity--that God once worked at the trade of a carpenter in Palestine. We know that they divided knowledge into sacred and profane--taught that Revelation was sacred--that Reason was blasphemous--that faith was holy and facts false. That the sin of Adam and Eve brought disease and pain, vice and death into the world. We know that they have taught the dogma of special providence--that all events are ordered and regulated by God--that he crowns and uncrowns kings--preserves and destroys--guards and kills--that it is the duty of man to submit to the divine will, and that no matter how much evil there may be--no matter how much suffering--how much pain and death, man should pour out-his heart in thankfulness that it is no worse.

Let me be understood. I do not say and I do not think that the church was dishonest, that the clergy were insincere. I admit that all religions, all creeds, all priests, have been naturally produced. I admit, and cheerfully admit, that the believers in the supernatural have done some good--not because they believed in gods and devils--but in spite of it.

I know that thousands and thousands of clergymen are honest, self-denying and humane--that they are doing what they believe to be their duty--doing what they can to induce men and women to live pure and noble lives. This is not the result of their creeds--it is because they are human.

What I say is that every honest teacher of the supernatural has been and is an unconscious enemy of the human race.

What is the philosophy of the church--of those who believe in the supernatural?

Back of all that is--back of all events--Christians put an infinite Juggler who with a wish creates, preserves, destroys. The world is his stage and mankind his puppets. He fills them with wants and desires, with appetites and ambitions--with hopes and fears--with love and hate. He touches the springs. He pulls the strings--baits the hooks, sets the traps and digs the pits.

The play is a continuous performance.

He watches these puppets as they struggle and fail. Sees them outwit each other and themselves--leads them to every crime, watches the births and deaths--hears lullabies at cradles and the fall of clods on coffins. He has no pity. He enjoys the tragedies--the desperation--the despair--the suicides. He smiles at the murders, the assassinations,--the seductions, the desertions--the abandoned babes of shame. He sees the weak enslaved--mothers robbed of babes--the innocent in dungeons--on scaffolds. He sees crime crowned and hypocrisy robed.

He withholds the rain and his puppets starve. He opens the earth and they are devoured. He sends the flood and they are drowned. He empties the volcano and they perish in fire. He sends the cyclone and they are torn and mangled. With quick lightnings they are dashed to death. He fills the air and water with the invisible enemies of life--the messengers of pain, and watches the puppets as they breathe and drink. He creates cancers to feed upon their flesh--their quivering nerves--serpents, to fill their veins with venom,--beasts to crunch their bones--to lap their blood.

Some of the poor puppets he makes insane--makes them struggle in the darkness with imagined monsters with glaring eyes and dripping jaws, and some are made without the flame of thought, to drool and drivel through the darkened days. He sees all the agony, the injustice, the rags of poverty, the withered hands of want--the motherless babes--the deformed--the maimed--the leprous, knows the tears that flow--hears the sobs and moans--sees the gleam of swords, hears the roar of the guns--sees the fields reddened with blood--the white faces of the dead. But he mocks when their fear cometh, and at their calamity he fills the heavens with laughter. And the poor puppets who are left alive, fall on their knees and thank the Juggler with all their hearts.

But after all, the gods have not supported the children of men, men have supported the gods. They have built the temples. They have sacrificed their babes, their lambs, their cattle. They have drenched the altars with blood. They have given their silver, their gold, their gems. They have fed and clothed their priests--but the gods have given nothing in return. Hidden in the shadows they have answered no prayer--heard no cry--given no sign--extended no hand--uttered no word. Unseen and unheard they have sat on their thrones, deaf and dumb--paralyzed and blind. In vain the steeples rise--in vain the prayers ascend.

And think what man has done to please the gods. He has renounced his reason--extinguished the torch of his brain, he has believed without evidence and against evidence. He has slandered and maligned himself. He has fasted and starved. He has mutilated his body--scarred his flesh--given his blood to vermin. He has persecuted, imprisoned and destroyed his fellows. He has deserted wife and child. He has lived alone in the desert. He has swung-censers and burned incense, counted beads and sprinkled himself with holy water--shut his eyes, clasped his hands--fallen upon his knees and groveled in the dust--but the gods have been silent--silent as stones.

Have these cringings and crawlings--these cruelties and absurdities--this faith and foolishness pleased the gods?

We do not know.

Has any disaster been averted--any blessing obtained? We do not know.

Shall we thank these gods?

Shall we thank the church's God?

Who and what is he?

They say that he is the creator and preserver of all that has been--of all that is--of all that will be--that he is the father of angels and devils, the architect of heaven and hell--that he made the earth--a man and woman--that he made the serpent who tempted them, made his own rival--gave victory to his enemy--that he repented of what he had done--that he sent a flood and destroyed all of the children of men with the exception of eight persons--that he tried to civilize the survivors and their children--tried to do this with earthquakes and fiery serpents --with pestilence and famine. But he failed. He intended to fail. Then he was born into the world, preached for three years, and allowed some savages to kill him. Then he rose from the dead and went back to heaven.

He knew that he would fail, knew that he would be killed. In fact he arranged everything himself and brought everything to pass just as he had predestined it an eternity before the world was. All who believe these things will be saved and they who doubt or deny will be lost.

Has this God good sense?

Not always. He creates his own enemies and plots against himself. Nothing lives, except in accordance with his will, and yet the devils do not die.

What is the matter with this God? Well, sometimes he is foolish--sometimes he is cruel and sometimes he is insane.

Does this God exist? Is there any intelligence back of Nature? Is there any being anywhere among the stars who pities the suffering children of men?

We do not know.

Shall we thank Nature?

Does Nature care for us more than for leaves, or grass, or flies?

Does Nature know that we exist? We do not know.

But we do know that Nature is going to murder us all.

Why should we thank Nature? If we thank God or Nature for the sunshine and rain, for health and happiness, whom shall we curse for famine and pestilence, for earthquake and cyclone--for disease and death?

III.

IF we cannot thank the orthodox churches--if we cannot thank the unknown, the incomprehensible, the supernatural--if we cannot thank Nature--if we can not kneel to a Guess, or prostrate ourselves before a Perhaps--whom shall we thank?

Let us see what the worldly have done--what has been accomplished by those not "called," not "set apart," not "inspired," not filled with the Holy Ghost--by those who were neglected by all the Gods.

Passing over the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, their poets, philosophers and metaphysicians--we will come to modern times.

In the 10th century after Christ the Saracens--governors of a vast empire--"established colleges in Mongolia, Tartary, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Morocco, Fez and in Spain." The region owned by the Saracens was greater than the Roman Empire. They had not only colleges--but observatories. The sciences were taught. They introduced the ten numerals--taught algebra and trigonometry--understood cubic equations--knew the art of surveying--they made catalogues and maps of the stars--gave the great stars the names they still bear--they ascertained the size of the earth--determined the obliquity of the ecliptic and fixed the length of the year. They calculated eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets and occultations of stars. They constructed astronomical instruments. They made clocks of various kinds and were the inventors of the pendulum. They originated chemistry--discovered sulphuric and nitric acid and alcohol.

"They were the first to publish pharmacopoeias and dispensatories.

"In mechanics they determined the laws of falling bodies. They understood the mechanical powers, and the attraction of gravitation.

"They taught hydrostatics and determined the specific gravities of bodies.

"In optics they discovered that a ray of light did not proceed from the eye to an object--but from the object to the eye."

"They were manufacturers of cotton, leather, paper and steel.

"They gave us the game of chess.

"They produced romances and novels and essays on many subjects.

"In their schools they taught the modern doctrines of evolution and development." They anticipated Darwin and Spencer.

These people were not Christians. They were the followers, for the most part, of an impostor--of a pretended prophet of a false God. And yet while the true Christians, the men selected by the true God and filled with the Holy Ghost were tearing out the tongues of heretics, these wretches were irreverently tracing the orbits of the stars. While the true believers were flaying philosophers and extinguishing the eyes of thinkers, these godless followers of Mohammed were founding colleges, collecting manuscripts, investigating the facts of nature and giving their attention to science. Afterward the followers of Mohammed became the enemies of science and hated facts as intensely and honestly as Christians. Whoever has a revelation from God will defend it with all his strength--will abhor reason and deny facts.

But it is well to know that we are indebted to the Moors--to the followers of Mohammed--for having laid the foundations of modern science. It is well to know that we are not indebted to the church, to Christianity, for any useful fact.

It is well to know that the seeds of thought were sown in our minds by the Greeks and Romans, and that our literature came from those seeds. The great literature of our language is Pagan in its thought--Pagan in its beauty--Pagan in its perfection. It is well to know that when Mohammedans were the friends of science, Christians were its enemies. How consoling it is to think that the friends of science--the men who educated their fellows--are now in hell, and that the men who persecuted and killed philosophers are now in heaven! Such is the justice of God.

The Christians of the Middle Ages, the men who were filled with the Holy Ghost, knew all about the worlds beyond the grave, but nothing about the world in which they lived. They thought the earth was flat--a little dishing if anything--that it was about five thousand years old, and that the stars were little sparkles made to beautify the night.

The fact is that Christianity was in existence for fifteen hundred years before there was an astronomer in Christendom. No follower of Christ knew the shape of the earth.

The earth was demonstrated to be a globe, not by a pope or cardinal--not by a collection of clergymen--not by the "called" or the "set apart," but by a sailor. Magellan left Seville, Spain, August 10th, 1519, sailed west and kept sailing west, and the ship reached Seville, the port it left, on Sept. 7th, 1522.

The world had been circumnavigated. The earth was known to be round. There had been a dispute between the Scriptures and a sailor. The fact took the sailor's side.

In 1543 Copernicus published his book, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies."

He had some idea of the vastness of the stars--of the astronomical spaces--of the insignificance of this world.

Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Bruno, one of the greatest men this world has produced, gave his thoughts to his fellow-men. He taught the plurality of worlds. He was a Pantheist, an Atheist, an honest man. He called the Catholic Church the "Triumphant Beast." He was imprisoned for many years, tried, convicted, and on the 16th day of February, 1600, burned in Rome by men filled with the Holy Ghost, burned on the spot where now his monument rises. Bruno, the noblest, the greatest of all the martyrs. The only one who suffered death for what he believed to be the truth. The only martyr who had no heaven to gain, no hell to shun, no God to please. He was nobler than inspired men, grander than prophets, greater and purer than apostles. Above all the theologians of the world, above the makers of creeds, above the founders of religions rose this serene, unselfish and intrepid man.

Yet Christians, followers of Christ, murdered this incomparable man. These Christians were true to their creed. They believed that faith would be rewarded with eternal joy, and doubt punished with eternal pain. They were logical. They were pious and pitiless--devout and devilish--meek and malicious--religious and revengeful--Christ-like and cruel--loving with their mouths and hating with their hearts. And yet, honest victims of ignorance and fear.

What have the wordly done?

In 1608, Lippersheim, a Hollander, so arranged lenses that objects were exaggerated.

He invented the telescope.

He gave countless worlds to our eyes, and made us citizens of the Universe.

In 1610, on the night of January 7th, Galileo demonstrated the truth of the Copernican system, and in 1632, published his work on "The System of the World."

What did the church do?

Galileo was arrested, imprisoned, forced to fall upon his knees, put his hand on the Bible, and recant. For ten years he was kept in prison--for ten years until released by the pity of death. Then the church--men filled with the Holy Ghost--denied his body burial in consecrated ground. It was feared that his dust might corrupt the bodies of those who had persecuted him.

In 1609, Kepler published his book "Motions of the Planet Mars." He, too, knew of the attraction of gravitation and that it acted in proportion to mass and distance. Kepler announced his Three Laws. He found and mathematically expressed the relation of distance, mass, and motion. Nothing greater has been accomplished by the human mind.

Astronomy became a science and Christianity a superstition.

Then came Newton, Herscheland Laplace. The astronomy of Joshua and Elijah faded from the minds of intelligent men, and Jehovah became an ignorant tribal god.

Men began to see that the operations of Nature were not subject to interference. That eclipses were not caused by the wrath of God--that comets had nothing to do with the destruction of empires or the death of kings, that the stars wheeled in their orbits without regard to the actions of men. In the sacred East the dawn appeared.

What have the wordly done?

A few years ago a few men became wicked enough to use their senses. They began to look and listen. They began to really see and then they began to reason. They forgot heaven and hell long enough to take some interest in this world. They began to examine soils and rocks. They noticed what had been done by rivers and seas. They found out something about the crust of the earth. They found that most of the rocks had been deposited and stratified in the water--rocks 70,000 feet in thickness. They found that the coal was once vegetable matter. They made the best calculations they could of the time required to make the coal, and concluded that it must have taken at least six or seven millions of years. They examined the chalk cliffs, found that they were composed of the microscopic shells of minute organisms, that is to say, the dust of these shells. This dust settled over areas as large as Europe and in some places the chalk is a mile in depth. This must have required many millions of years.

Lyell, the highest authority on the subject, says that it must have required, to cause the changes that we know, at least two hundred million years. Think of these vast deposits caused by the slow falling of infinitesimal atoms of impalpable dust through the silent depths of ancient seas! Think of the microscopical forms of life, constructing their minute houses of lime, giving life to others, leaving their mansions beneath the waves, and so through countless generations building the foundations of continents and islands.

Go back of all life that we now know--back of all the flying lizards, the armored monsters, the hissing serpents, the winged and fanged horrors--back to the Laurentian rocks--to the eozoon, the first of living things that we have found--back of all mountains, seas and rivers--back to the first incrustation of the molten world--back of wave of fire and robe of flame--back to the time when all the substance of the earth blazed in the glowing sun with all the stars that wheel about the central fire.

Think of the days and nights that lie between!--think of the centuries, the withered leaves of time, that strew the desert of the past!

Nature does not hurry. Time cannot be wasted--cannot be lost. The future remains eternal and all the past is as though it had not been--as though it were to be. The infinite knows neither loss nor gain.

We know something of the history of the world--something of the human race; and we know that man has lived and struggled through want and war, through pestilence and famine, through ignorance and crime, through fear and hope, on the old earth for millions and millions of years.

At last we know that infallible popes, and countless priests and clergymen, who had been "called," filled with the Holy Ghost, and presidents of colleges, kings, emperors and executives of nations had mistaken the blundering guesses of ignorant savages for the wisdom of an infinite God.