Part 4

the man to have some company, somebody to help him trim the trees, to talk to him and cheer him up on rainy days; that, thereupon, this God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, took a knife, or a long, sharp piece of "omnipotence," and took out one of the man's sides, or a rib, and of that made a woman; that then this man and woman got along real well till a snake got into the garden and induced the woman to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; that the woman got the man to take a bite; that afterwards both of them were detected by God, who was walking around in the cool of the evening, and thereupon they were turned out of the garden, lest they should put forth their hands and eat of the tree of life, and live forever.

This foolish story has been regarded as the sacred, inspired truth; as an account substantially written by God himself; and thousands and millions of people have supposed it necessary to believe this childish falsehood, in order to save their souls. Nothing more laughable can be found in the fairy tales and folk-lore of savages. Yet this is defended by the leading Presbyterian divine, and those who fail to believe in the truth of this story are called "brazen "faced fools," "deicides," and "blasphemers."

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By this story woman in all Christian countries was degraded. She was considered too impure to preach the gospel, too impure to distribute the sacramental bread, too impure to hand about the sacred wine, too impure to step within the "holy of holies," in the Catholic Churches, too impure to be touched by a priest. Unmarried men were considered purer than husbands and fathers. Nuns were regarded as su- perior to mothers, a monastery holier than a home, a nunnery nearer sacred than the cradle. And through all these years it has been thought better to love God than to love man, better to love God than to love your wife and children, better to worship an imaginary deity than to help your fellow-men.

I regard the rights of men and women equal. In Love's fair realm, husband and wife are king and queen, sceptered and crowned alike, and seated on the self-same throne.

_Question_. Do you still insist that the Old Testa- ment upholds polygamy? Mr. Talmage denies this charge, and shows how terribly God punished those who were not satisfied with one wife.

_Answer_. I see nothing in what Mr. Talmage has said calculated to change my opinion. It has been

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admitted by thousands of theologians that the Old Testament upholds polygamy. Mr. Talmage is among the first to deny it. It will not do to say that David was punished for the crime of polygamy or concubinage. He was "a man after God's own "heart." He was made a king. He was a successful general, and his blood is said to have flowed in the veins of God. Solomon was, according to the ac- count, enriched with wisdom above all human beings. Was that a punishment for having had so many wives? Was Abraham pursued by the justice of God because of the crime against Hagar, or for the crime against his own wife? The verse quoted by Mr. Talmage to show that God was opposed to polygamy, namely, the eighteenth verse of the eight- eenth chapter of Leviticus, cannot by any ingenuity be tortured into a command against polygamy. The most that can be possibly said of it is, that you shall not marry the sister of your wife, while your wife is living. Yet this passage is quoted by Mr. Talmage as "a thunder of prohibition against having more "than one wife." In the twentieth chapter of Leviticus it is enacted: "That if a man take a wife "and her mother they shall be burned with fire." A commandment like this shows that he might take his

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wife and somebody else's mother. These passages have nothing to do with polygamy. They show whom you may marry, not how many; and there is not in Leviticus a solitary word against polygamy-- not one. Nor is there such a word in Genesis, nor Exodus, nor in the entire Pentateuch--not one word. These books are filled with the most minute directions about killing sheep, and goats and doves; about making clothes for priests, about fashioning tongs and snuffers; and yet, they contain not one word against polygamy. It never occurred to the in- spired writers that polygamy was a crime. Polygamy was accepted as a matter of course. Women were simple property.

Mr. Talmage, however, insists that, although God was against polygamy, he permitted it, and at the same time threw his moral influence against it. Upon this subject he says: "No doubt God per- "mitted polygamy to continue for sometime, just "as he permits murder and arson, theft and gam- "bling to-day to continue, although he is against "them." If God is the author of the Ten Com- mandments, he prohibited murder and theft, but he said nothing about polygamy. If he was so terribly against that crime, why did he forget to

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mention it? Was there not room enough on the tables of stone for just one word on this subject? Had he no time to give a commandment against slavery? Mr. Talmage of course insists that God had to deal with these things gradually, his idea being that if God had made a commandment against them all at once, the Jews would have had nothing more to do with him.

For instance: if we wanted to break cannibals of eating missionaries, we should not tell them all at once that it was wrong, that it was wicked, to eat missionaries raw; we should induce them first to cook the missionaries, and gradually wean them from raw flesh. This would be the first great step. We would stew the missionaries, and after a time put a little mutton in the stew, not enough to excite the suspicion of the cannibal, but just enough to get him in the habit of eating mutton without knowing it. Day after day we would put in more mutton and less missionary, until finally, the cannibal would be perfectly satisfied with clear mutton. Then we would tell him that it was wrong to eat missionary. After the can- nibal got so that he liked mutton, and cared nothing for missionary, then it would be safe to have a law upon the subject.

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Mr. Talmage insists that polygamy cannot exist among people who believe the Bible. In this he is mistaken. The Mormons all believe the Bible. There is not a single polygamist in Utah who does not insist upon the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments.

The Rev. Mr. Newman, a kind of peripatetic consu- lar theologian, once had a discussion, I believe, with Elder Orson Pratt, at Salt Lake City, upon the question of polygamy. It is sufficient to say of this discussion that it is now circulated by the Mormons as a campaign document. The elder overwhelmed the parson. Passages of Scripture in favor of polygamy were quoted by the hundred. The lives of all the patriarchs were brought forward, and poor parson Newman was driven from the field. The truth is, the Jews at that time were much like our forefathers. They were barbarians, and many of their laws were unjust and cruel. Polygamy was the right of all; practiced, as a matter of fact, by the rich and powerful, and the rich and powerful were envied by the poor. In such esteem did the ancient Jews hold polygamy, that the number of Solomons wives was given, simply to en- hance his glory. My own opinion is, that Solomon had very few wives, and that polygamy was not general in Palestine. The country was too poor, and

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Solomon, in all his glory was hardly able to support one wife. He was a poor barbarian king with a limited revenue, with a poor soil, with a sparse popu- lation, without art, without science and without power. He sustained about the same relation to other kings that Delaware does to other States. Mr. Talmage says that God persecuted Solomon, and yet, if he will turn to the twenty-second chapter of First Chronicles, he will find what God promised to Solomon. God, speaking to David, says: "Behold a son shall be born "to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and I will give him "rest from his enemies around about; for his name shall "be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness "unto Israel in his days. He shall build a house in my "name, and he shall be my son and I will be his father, "and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over "Israel forever." Did God keep his promise?

So he tells us that David was persecuted by God, on account of his offences, and yet I find in the twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-ninth chapter of First Chronicles, the following account of the death of David: "And he died in a good old age, full of "days, riches and honor." Is this true?

_Question_. What have you to say to the charge that you were mistaken in the number of years that

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the Hebrews were in Egypt? Mr. Talmage says that they were there 430 years, instead of 215 years.

_Answer_. If you will read the third chapter of Galatians, sixteenth and seventeenth verses, you will find that it was 430 years from the time God made the promise to Abraham to the giving of the law from Mount Sinai. The Hebrews did not go to Egypt for 215 years after the promise was made to Abraham, and consequently did not remain in Egypt more than 215 years. If Galatians is true, I am right.

Strange that Mr. Talmage should belittle the mira- cles. The trouble with this defender of the faith is that he cares nothing for facts. He makes the strangest statements, and cares the least for proof, of any man I know. I can account for what he says of me only upon the supposition that he has not read my lectures. He may have been misled by the pirated editions; Persons have stolen my lectures, printed the same ones under various names, and filled them with mistakes and things I never said. Mr. C. P. Farrell, of Washington, is my only authorized publisher. Yet Mr. Talmage prefers to answer the mistakes of literary thieves, and charge their ignorance to me.

_Question_. Did you ever attack the character of Queen Victoria, or did you draw any parallel between

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her and George Eliot, calculated to depreciate the reputation of the Queen?

_Answer_. I never said a word against Victoria. The fact is, I am not acquainted with her--never met her in my life, and know but little of her. I never happened to see her "in plain clothes, reading the "Bible to the poor in the lane,"--neither did I ever hear her sing. I most cheerfully admit that her reputation is good in the neighborhood where she resides. In one of my lectures I drew a parallel between George Eliot and Victoria. I was showing the difference between a woman who had won her position in the world of thought, and one who was queen by chance. This is what I said:

"It no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man "to be a king or emperor. The last Napoleon was "not satisfied with being the Emperor of the French. "He was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold "about his head--he wanted some evidence that he "had something of value in his head. So he wrote "the life of Julius Cæsar that he might become a "member of the French Academy. The emperors, "the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their "fellows. Compare King William with the philoso- "pher Hæckel. The king is one of the 'anointed

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"'of the Most High'--as they claim--one upon "whose head has been poured the divine petroleum "of authority. Compare this king with Hæckel, who "towers an intellectual Colossus above the crowned "mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen "Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given "her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while "George Eliot wears robes of glory, woven in the "loom of her own genius. The world is beginning "to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart." I said not one word against Queen Victoria, and did not intend to even intimate that she was not an ex- cellent woman, wife and mother. I was simply trying to show that the world was getting great enough to place a genius above an accidental queen. Mr. Tal- mage, true to the fawning, cringing spirit of ortho- doxy, lauds the living queen and cruelly maligns the genius dead. He digs open the grave of George Eliot, and tries to stain the sacred dust of one who was the greatest woman England has produced. He calls her "an adultress." He attacks her because she was an atheist--because she abhorred Jehovah, denied the inspiration of the Bible, denied the dogma of eternal pain, and with all her heart despised the Presbyterian creed. He hates her because she was great and brave

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and free--because she lived without "faith" and died without fear--because she dared to give her honest thought, and grandly bore the taunts and slanders of the Christian world.

George Eliot tenderly carried in her heart the burdens of our race. She looked through pity's tears upon the faults and frailties of mankind. She knew the springs and seeds of thought and deed, and saw, with cloudless eyes, through all the winding ways of greed, ambition and deceit, where folly vainly plucks with thorn-pierced hands the fading flowers of selfish joy--the highway of eternal right. Whatever her relations may have been--no matter what I think, or others say, or how much all regret the one mistake in all her self-denying, loving life--I feel and know that in the court where her own conscience sat as judge, she stood acquitted--pure as light and stainless as a star.

How appropriate here, with some slight change, the wondrously poetic and pathetic words of Laertes at Ophelia's grave:

_Leave her i' the earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall this woman be, When thou liest howling!_

I have no words with which to tell my loathing for a man who violates a noble woman's grave.

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_Question_. Do you think that the spirit in which Mr. Talmage reviews your lectures is in accordance with the teachings of Christianity?

_Answer_. I think that he talks like a true Presby- terian. If you will read the arguments of Calvin against the doctrines of Castalio and Servetus, you will see that Mr. Talmage follows closely in the footsteps of the founder of his church. Castalio was such a wicked and abandoned wretch, that he taught the innocence of honest error. He insisted that God would not eternally damn a man for being honestly mistaken. For the utterance of such blasphemous sentiments, abhorrent to every Christian mind, Calvin called him "a dog of Satan, and a child of hell." In short, he used the usual arguments. Castalio was banished, and died in exile. In the case of Servetus, after all the epithets had been exhausted, an appeal was made to the stake, and the blasphemous wretch was burned to ashes.

If you will read the life of John Knox, you will find that Mr. Talmage is as orthodox in his methods of dealing with infidels, as he is in his creed. In my opinion, he would gladly treat unbelievers now, as the Puritans did the Quakers, as the Episcopalians did the Presbyterians, as the Presbyterians did the Baptists,

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and as the Catholics have treated all heretics. Of course, all these sects will settle their differences in heaven. In the next world, they will laugh at the crimes they committed in this.

The course pursued by Mr. Talmage is consistent. The pulpit cannot afford to abandon the weapons of falsehood and defamation. Candor sows the seeds of doubt. Fairness is weakness. The only way to suc- cessfully uphold the religion of universal love, is to denounce all Freethinkers as blasphemers, adulterers, and criminals. No matter how generous they may appear to be, no matter how fairly they may deal with their fellow-men, rest assured that they are actuated by the lowest and basest motives. Infidels who out- wardly live honest and virtuous lives, are inwardly vicious, virulent and vile. After all, morality is only a veneering. God is not deceived with the varnish of good works. We know that the natural man is totally depraved, and that until he has been regene- rated by the spirit of God, he is utterly incapable of a good action. The generosity of the unbeliever is, in fact, avarice. His honesty is only a form of larceny. His love is only hatred. No matter how sincerely he may love his wife,--how devoted he may be to his children,--no matter how ready he may be 'to

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sacrifice even his life for the good of mankind, God, looking into his very heart, finds it only a den of hissing snakes, a lair of wild, ferocious beasts, a cage of unclean birds.

The idea that God will save a man simply because he is honest and generous, is almost too preposterous for serious refutation. No man should rely upon his own goodness. He should plead the virtue of another. God, in his infinite justice, damns a good man on his own merits, and saves a bad man on the merits of another. The repentant murderer will be an angel of light, while his honest and unoffending victim will be a fiend in hell.

A little while ago, a ship, disabled, was blown about the Atlantic for eighty days. Everything had been eaten. Nothing remained but bare decks and hunger. The crew consisted of Captain Kruger and nine others. For nine days, nothing had been eaten. The captain, taking a revolver in his hand, said: "Mates, some "one must die for the rest. I am willing to sacrifice "myself for you." One of his comrades grasped his hand, and implored him to wait one more day. The next morning, a sail was seen upon the horizon, and the dying men were rescued.

To an ordinary man,--to one guided by the light of

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reason,--it is perfectly clear that Captain Kruger was about to do an infinitely generous action. Yet Mr. Talmage will tell us that if that captain was not a Christian, and if he had sent the bullet crashing through his brain in order that his comrades might eat his body, and live to reach their wives and homes,-- his soul, from that ship, would have gone, by dark and tortuous ways, down to the prison of eternal pain.

Is it possible that Christ would eternally damn a man for doing exactly what Christ would have done, had he been infinitely generous, under the same cir- cumstances? Is not self-denial in a man as praise- worthy as in a God? Should a God be worshiped, and a man be damned, for the same action?

According to Mr. Talmage, every soldier who fought for our country in the Revolutionary war, who was not a Christian, is now in hell. Every soldier, not a Christian, who carried the flag of his country to vic- tory--either upon the land or sea, in the war of 1812, is now in hell. Every soldier, not a Christian, who fought for the preservation of this Union,--to break the chains of slavery--to free four millions of people --to keep the whip from the naked back--every man who did this--every one who died at Andersonville and Libby, dreaming that his death would help make

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the lives of others worth living, is now a lost and wretched soul. These men are now in the prison of God,--a prison in which the cruelties of Libby and Andersonville would be regarded as mercies,--in which famine would be a joy.

THIRD INTERVIEW.

_Sinner. Is God infinite in wisdom and power?

Parson. He is.

Sinner. Does he at all times know just what ought to be done?

Parson. He does.

Sinner. Does he always do just what ought to be done?

Parson. He does.

Sinner. Why do you pray to him?

Parson. Because he is unchangeable._

_Question_. I want to ask you a few questions about Mr. Talmage's third sermon. What do you think of it?

_Answer_. I often ask myself the questions: Is there anything in the occupation of a minister,--any- thing in his surroundings, that makes him incapable of treating an opponent fairly, or decently? Is there anything in the doctrine of universal forgiveness that compels a man to speak of one who differs with him only in terms of disrespect and hatred? Is it neces- sary for those who profess to love the whole world, to hate the few they come in actual contact with?

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Mr. Talmage, no doubt, professes to love all man- kind,--Jew and Gentile, Christian and Pagan. No doubt, he believes in the missionary effort, and thinks we should do all in our power to save the soul of the most benighted savage; and yet he shows anything but affection for the "heathen" at home. He loves the ones he never saw,--is real anxious for their wel- fare,--but for the ones he knows, he exhibits only scorn and hatred. In one breath, he tells us that Christ loves us, and in the next, that we are "wolves "and dogs." We are informed that Christ forgave even his murderers, but that now he hates an honest unbeliever with all his heart. He can forgive the ones who drove the nails into his hands and feet,-- the one who thrust the spear through his quivering flesh,--but he cannot forgive the man who entertains an honest doubt about the "scheme of salvation." He regards the man who thinks, as a "mouth-maker "at heaven." Is it possible that Christ is less for- giving in heaven than he was in Jerusalem? Did he excuse murderers then, and does he damn thinkers now? Once he pitied even thieves; does he now abhor an intellectually honest man?

_Question_. Mr. Talmage seems to think that you have no right to give your opinion about the Bible.

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Do you think that laymen have the same right as ministers to examine the Scriptures?

_Answer_. If God only made a revelation for preachers, of course we will have to depend on the preachers for information. But the preachers have made the mistake of showing the revelation. They ask us, the laymen, to read it, and certainly there is no use of reading it, unless we are permitted to think for ourselves while we read. If after reading the Bible we believe it to be true, we will say so, if we are honest. If we do not believe it, we will say so, if we are honest.

But why should God be so particular about our believing the stories in his book? Why should God object to having his book examined? We do not have to call upon legislators, or courts, to protect Shakespeare from the derision of mankind. Was not God able to write a book that would command the love and admiration of the world? If the God of Mr. Talmage is infinite, he knew exactly how the stories of the Old Testament would strike a gentle- man of the nineteenth century. He knew that many would have their doubts,--that thousands of them-- and I may say most of them,--would refuse to believe that a miracle had ever been performed.

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Now, it seems to me that he should either have left the stories out, or furnished evidence enough to con- vince the world. According to Mr. Talmage, thou- sands of people are pouring over the Niagara of unbelief into the gulf of eternal pain. Why does not God furnish more evidence? Just in proportion as man has developed intellectually, he has demanded additional testimony. That which satisfies a barbarian, excites only the laughter of a civilized man. Cer- tainly God should furnish evidence in harmony with the spirit of the age. If God wrote his Bible for the average man, he should have written it in such a way that it would have carried conviction to the brain and heart of the average man; and he should have made no man in such a way that he could not, by any possibility, believe it. There certainly should be a harmony between the Bible and the human brain. If I do not believe the Bible, whose fault is it? Mr. Talmage insists that his God wrote the Bible for me. and made me. If this is true, the book and the man should agree. There is no sense in God writing a book for me and then making me in such a way that I cannot believe his book.

_Question_. But Mr. Talmage says the reason why you hate the Bible is, that your soul is poisoned; that

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the Bible "throws you into a rage precisely as pure "water brings on a paroxysm of hydrophobia."