Part 15

The Universalists deny that such was or is the real message of Christianity. They insist that all are finally to be saved. If that doctrine be true, then I admit that Christianity came with "tidings of great joy."

Personally I have no quarrel with the Univer-salist Church. I have no quarrel with any creed that expresses hope for all of the human race. I find fault with no one for filling the future with joy--for dreaming splendid dreams and for uttering splendid prophecies. I do not object to Christianity because it promises heaven to a few, but because it threatens the many with perdition.

It does not seem possible to me that a God who loved men to that degree that he died that they might be saved, abandons his children the moment they are dead. It seems to me that an infinite God might do something for a soul after it has reached the other world.

Is it possible that infinite wisdom can do no more than is done for a majority of souls in this world?

Think of the millions born in ignorance and filth, raised in poverty and crime. Think of the millions who are only partially developed in this world. Think of the weakness of the will, of the power of passion. Think of the temptations innumerable. Think, too, of the tyranny of man, of the arrogance of wealth and position, of the sufferings of the weak--and can we then say that an infinite God has done, in this world, all that could be done for the salvation of his children? Is it not barely possible that something may be done in another world? Is there nothing left for God to do for a poor, ignorant, criminal human soul after it leaves this world? Can God do nothing except to pronounce the sentence of eternal pain?

I insist that if the orthodox creed be true, Christianity did not come with "tidings of great joy," but that its message was and is one of eternal grief.

If the orthodox creed be true, the universe is a vast blunder--an infinite crime. Better, a thousand times, that every pulse of life should cease--better that all the gods should fall palsied from their thrones, than that the creed of Christendom should be true.

There is another question and that involves the freedom of the press.

The _Telegram_ has acted with the utmost fairness and with the highest courage. After all, the American people admire the man who takes his stand and bravely meets all comers. To be an instrumentality of progress, the press must be free. Only the free can carry a torch. Liberty sheds light.

The editor or manager of a newspaper occupies a public position, and he must not treat his patrons as though they were weak and ignorant children. He must not, in the supposed interest of any ism, suppress the truth--neither must he be dictated to by any church or any society of believers or unbelievers. The _Telegram_, by its course, has given a certificate of its manliness, and the public, by its course, has certified that it appreciates true courage.

All Christians should remember that facts are not sectarian, and that the sciences are not bound by the creeds. We should remember that there are no such things as Methodist mathematics, or Baptist botany, or Catholic chemistry. The sciences are secular. .

The Rev. Mr. Peters seems to have mistaken the issues--and yet, in some things, I agree with him. He is certainly right when he says that "Mr. Buckley's cry to boycott the Telegram is unmanly and un-American," but I am not certain that he is right when he says that it is un-Christian.

The church has not been in the habit of pursuing enemies with kind words and charitable deeds. To tell the truth, it has always been rather relentless. It has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven. There is in the history of Christendom no instance where the church has extended the hand of friendship to a man who denied the truth of its creed.

There is in the church no spirit--no climate--of compromise. In the nature of things there can be none, because the church claims that it is absolutely right--that there is only one road leading to heaven. It demands unconditional surrender. It will not bear contradiction. It claims to have the absolute truth. For these reasons it cannot consistently compromise, any more than a mathematician could change the multiplication table to meet the view of some one who should deny that five times five are twenty-five.

The church does not give its opinion--it claims to know--it demands belief. Honesty, industry, generosity count for nothing in the absence of belief. It has taught and still teaches that no man can reach heaven simply through good and honest deeds. It believes and teaches that the man who relies upon himself will be eternally punished--and why should the church forgive a man whom it thinks its God is waiting somewhat impatiently to damn?

The Rev. Mr. Peters asks--and probably honestly thinks that the questions are pertinent to the issues involved--"What has infidelity done for the world? What colleges, hospitals, and schools has it founded? What has it done for the elevation of public morals?" And he inquires what science or art has been originated by infidelity. He asks how many slaves it has liberated, how many inebriates it has reclaimed, how many fallen women it has restored, and what it did for the relief of the wounded and dying soldiers; and concludes by asking what life it ever assisted to higher holiness, and what death it has ever cheered.

Although these questions have nothing whatever to do with the matters under discussion, still it may be well enough to answer them.

It is cheerfully admitted that hospitals and asylums have been built by Christians in Christian countries, and it is also admitted that hospitals and asylums have been built in countries not Christian; that there were such institutions in China thousands of years before Christ was born, and that many centuries before the establishment of any orthodox church there were asylums on the banks of the Nile--asylums for the old, the poor, the infirm--asylums for the blind and for the insane, and that the Egyptians, even of those days, endeavored to cure insanity with kindness and affection. The same is true of India and probably of most ancient nations.

There has always been more or less humanity in man--more or less goodness in the human heart. So far as we know, mothers have always loved their children. There must always have been more good than evil, otherwise the human race would have perished. The best things in the Christian religion came from the heart of man. Pagan lips uttered the sublimest of truths, and all ages have been redeemed by honesty, heroism, and love.

But let me answer these questions in their order.

_First_--As to the schools.

It is most cheerfully admitted that the Catholics have always been in favor of education--that is to say, of education enough to make a Catholic out of a heathen. It is also admitted that Protestants have always been in favor of enough education to make a Protestant out of a Catholic. Many schools and many colleges have been established for the spread of what is called the Gospel and for the education of the clergy. Presbyterians have founded schools for the benefit of their creed. The Methodists have established colleges for the purpose of making Methodists. The same is true of nearly all the sects. As a matter of fact, these schools have in many important directions hindered rather than helped the cause of real education. The pupils were not taught to investigate for themselves. They were not allowed to think. They were told that thought is dangerous. They were stuffed and crammed with creeds--with the ideas of others. Their credulity was applauded and their curiosity condemned. If all the people had been educated in these sectarian schools, all the people would have been far more ignorant than they are. These schools have been, and most of them still are, the enemies of higher education, and just to the extent that they are under the control of theologians they are hindrances, and just to the extent that they have become secularized they have been and are a benefit.

Our public-school system is not Christian. It is secular. Yet I admit that it never could have been established without the assistance of Christians--neither could it have been supported without the assistance of others. But such is the value placed upon education that people of nearly all denominations, and of nearly all religions, and of nearly all opinions, for the most part agree that the children of a nation should be educated by the nation. Some religious people are opposed to these schools because they are not religious--because they do not teach some creed--but a large majority of the people stand by the public schools as they are. These schools are growing better and better, simply because they are growing less and less theological, more and more secular.

Infidelity, or agnosticism, or free thought, has insisted that only that should be taught in schools which somebody knows or has good reason to believe.

The greatest professors in our colleges to-day are those who have the least confidence in the supernatural, and the schools that stand highest in the estimation of the most intelligent are those that have drifted farthest from the orthodox creeds. Free thought has always been and ever must be the friend of education. Without free thought there can be no such thing--in the highest sense--as a school. Unless the mind is free, there are no teachers and there are no pupils, in any just and splendid sense.

The church has been and still is the enemy of education, because it has been in favor of intellectual slavery, and the theological schools have been what might be called the deformatories of the human mind.

For instance: A man is graduated from an orthodox university. In this university he has studied astronomy, and yet he believes that Joshua stopped the sun. He has studied geology, and yet he asserts the truth of the Mosaic cosmogony. He has studied chemistry, and yet believes that water was turned into wine. He has been taught the ordinary theory of cause and effect, and at the same time he thoroughly believes in the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. Can such an institution, with any propriety, be called a seat of learning? Can we not say of such a university what Bruno said of Oxford: "Learning is dead and Oxford is its widow."

Year after year the religious colleges are improving--simply because they are becoming more and more secular, less and less theological. Whether infidelity has founded universities or not, it can truthfully be said that the spirit of investigation, the spirit of free thought, the attitude of mental independence, contended for by those who are called infidels, have made schools useful instead of hurtful.

Can it be shown that any infidel has ever raised his voice against education? Can there be found in the literature of free thought one line against the enlightenment of the human race? Has free thought ever endeavored to hide or distort, a fact? Has it not always appealed to the senses--to demonstration? It has not said, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," but it has said, "He that hath brains to think, let him think."

The object of a school should be to ascertain truth in every direction, to the end that man may know the conditions of happiness--and every school should be absolutely free. No teacher should be bound by anything except a perceived fact. He should not be the slave of a creed, engaged in the business of enslaving others.

So much for schools.

Second--As to public morals.

Christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. Every church unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on a credit. I do not mean by this that any church consciously advocates immorality. I most cheerfully admit that thousands and thousands of ministers are endeavoring to do good--that they are pure, self-denying men, trying to make this world better. But there is a frightful defect in their philosophy. They say to the bank cashier: You must not steal, you must not take a dollar--larceny is wrong, it is contrary to all law, human and divine--but if you do steal every cent in the bank, God will as gladly, quickly forgive you in Canada as he will in the United States. On the other hand, what is called infidelity says: There is no being in the universe who rewards, and there is no being who punishes--every act has its consequences. If the act is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. It says to every human being: You must reap what you sow. There is no reward, there is no punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are the invisible and implacable police of nature. They cannot be avoided. They cannot be bribed. No power can awe them, and there is not gold enough in the world to make them pause. Even a God cannot induce them to release for one instant their victim.

This great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. If all men knew that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions--if they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is.

Free thought has attacked the morality of what is called the atonement. The innocent should not suffer for the guilty, and if the innocent does suffer for the guilty, that cannot by any possibility justify the guilty. The reason a thing is wrong is because it, in some way, causes the innocent to suffer. This being the very essence of wrong, how can the suffering of innocence justify the guilty? If there be a world of joy, he who is worthy to enter that world must be willing to carry his own burdens in this.

So much for morality.

Third--As to sciences and art.

I do not believe that we are indebted to Christianity for any science. I do not remember that one science is mentioned in the New Testament. There is not one word, so far as I remember, about education--nothing about any science, nothing about art. The writers of the New Testament seem to have thought that the world was about coming to an end. This world was to be sacrificed absolutely to the next. The affairs of this life were not worth speaking of. All people were exhorted to prepare at once for the other life.

The sciences have advanced in the proportion that they did not interfere with orthodox theology. To the extent that they were supposed to interfere with theology they have been obstructed and denounced. Astronomy was found to be inconsistent with the Scriptures, and the astronomers were imprisoned and despised. Geology contradicted the Mosaic account, and the geologists were denounced and persecuted. Every step taken in astronomy was taken in spite of the church, and every fact in geology had to fight its way. The same is true as to the science of medicine. The church wished to cure disease by necromancy, by charm and prayer, and with the bones of the saints. The church wished man to rely entirely upon God--that is to say, upon the church--and not upon himself. The physician interfered with the power and prosperity of the priest, and those who appealed to physicians were denounced as lacking faith in God. This state of things existed even in the Old Testament times. A king failed to send for the prophets, but sent for a physician, and then comes this piece of grim humor: "And Asa slept with his fathers."

The great names in science are not those of recognized saints.

Bruno--one of the greatest and bravest of men--greatest of all martyrs--perished at the stake, because he insisted on the existence of other worlds and taught the astronomy of Galileo.

Humboldt--in some respects the wisest man known to the scientific world--denied the existence of the supernatural and "the truths of revealed religion," and yet he revolutionized the thought of his day and left a legacy of intellectual glory to the race.

Darwin--greatest of scientists--so great that our time will probably be known as "Darwin's Century"--had not the slightest confidence in any possible phase of the so-called supernatural. This great man left the creed of Christendom without a foundation. He brought as witnesses against the inspiration of the Scriptures such a multitude of facts, such an overwhelming amount of testimony, that it seems impossible to me that any unprejudiced man can, after hearing the testimony, remain a believer in evangelical religion. He accomplished more than all the schools, colleges, and universities that Christianity has founded. He revolutionized the philosophy of the civilized world.

The writers who have done most for science have been the most bitterly opposed by the church. There is hardly a valuable book in the libraries of the world that cannot be found on the "Index Expurgatorius." Kant and Fichte and Spinoza were far above and beyond the orthodox-world. Voltaire did more for freedom than any other man, and yet the church denounced him with a fury amounting to insanity--called him an atheist, although he believed not only in God, but in special providence. He was opposed to the church--that is to say, opposed to slavery, and for that reason he was despised.

And what shall I say of D'Holbach, of Hume, of Buckle, of Draper, of Haeckel, of Büchner, of Tyndall and Huxley, of Auguste Comte, and hundreds and thousands of others who have filled the scientific world with light and the heart of man with love and kindness?

It may be well enough, in regard to art, to say that Christianity is indebted to Greece and Rome for its highest conceptions, and it may be well to add that for many centuries Christianity did the best it could to destroy the priceless marbles of Greece and Rome. A few were buried, and in that way were saved from Christian fury.

The same is true of the literature of the classic world. A few fragments were rescued, and these became the seeds of modern literature. A few statues were preserved, and they are to-day models for all the world.

Of course it will be admitted that there is much art in Christian lands, because, in spite of the creeds, Christians, so-called, have turned their attention to this world. They have beautified their homes, they have endeavored to clothe themselves in purple and fine linen. They have been forced from banquets or from luxury by the difficulty of camels going through the eyes of needles or the impossibility of carrying water to the rich man. They have cultivated this world, and the arts have lived. Did they obey the precepts that they find in their sacred writings there would be no art, they would "take no thought for the morrow," they would "consider the lilies of the field."

Fourth--As to the liberation of slaves.

It was exceedingly unfortunate for the Rev. Mr. Peters that he spoke of slavery. The Bible upholds human slavery--white slavery. The Bible was quoted by all slaveholders and slave-traders. The man who went to Africa to steal women and children took the Bible with him. He planted himself firmly on the Word of God. As Whittier says of Whitefield:

"He bade the slave ship speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."

So when the poor wretches were sold to the planters, the planters defended their action by reading the Bible. When a poor woman was sold, her children torn from her breast, the auction block on which she stood was the Bible; the auctioneer who sold her quoted the Scriptures; the man who bought her repeated the quotations, and the ministers from the pulpit said to the weeping woman, as her child was carried away: "Servants, be obedient unto your masters."

Freethinkers in all ages have been opposed to slavery. Thomas Paine did more for human liberty than any other man who ever stood upon the western world. The first article he ever wrote in this country was one against the institution of slavery. Freethinkers have also been in favor of free bodies. Freethinkers have always said "free hands," and the infidels, the wide world over, have been friends of freedom.

Fifth--As to the reclamation of inebriates.

Much has been said, and for many years, on the subject of temperance--much has been uttered by priests and laymen--and yet there seems to be a subtle relation between rum and religion. Scotland is extremely orthodox, yet it is not extremely temperate. England is nothing if not religious, and London is, par excellence, the Christian city of the world, and yet it is the most intemperate. The Mohammedans--followers of a false prophet--do not drink.

Sixth--As to the humanity of infidelity.

Can it be said that people have cared for the wounded and dying only because they were orthodox?

Is it not true that religion, in its efforts to propagate the creed of forgiveness by the sword, has caused the death of more than one hundred and fifty millions of human beings? Is it not true that where the church has cared for one orphan it has created hundreds? Can Christianity afford to speak of war?

The Christian nations of the world to-day are armed against each other. In Europe, all that can be gathered by taxation--all that can be borrowed by pledging the prosperity of the future--the labor of those yet unborn--is used for the purpose of keeping Christians in the field, to the end that they may destroy other Christians, or at least prevent other Christians from destroying them. Europe is covered with churches and fortifications, with temples and with forts--hundreds of thousands of priests, millions of soldiers, countless Bibles and countless bayonets--and that whole country is oppressed and impoverished for the purpose of carrying on war. The people have become deformed by labor, and yet Christianity boasts of peace.

Seventh--"And what death has infidelity ever cheered?"

Is it possible for the orthodox Christian to cheer the dying when the dying is told that there is a world of eternal pain, and that he, unless he has been forgiven, is to be an eternal convict? Will it cheer him to know that, even if he is to be saved, countless millions are to be lost? Is it possible for the Christian religion to put a smile upon the face of death?

On the other hand, what is called infidelity says to the dying: What happens to you will happen to all. If there be another world of joy, it is for all. If there is another life, every human being will have the eternal opportunity of doing right--the eternal opportunity to live, to reform, to enjoy. There is no monster in the sky. There is no Moloch who delights in the agony of his children. These frightful things are savage dreams.

Infidelity puts out the fires of hell with the tears of pity.

Infidelity puts the seven-hued arch of Hope over every grave.

Let us then, gentlemen, come back to the real questions under discussion. Let us not wander away.

Robert G. Ingersoll.

Jan'y 9, 1891.

INGERSOLL CONTINUES THE BATTLE.

V.

NO one objects to the morality of Christianity.

The industrious people of the world--those who have anything--are, as a rule, opposed to larceny; a very large majority of people object to being murdered, and so we have laws against larceny and murder. A large majority of people believe in what they call, or what they understand to be, justice--at least as between others. There is no very great difference of opinion among civilized people as to what is or is not moral.

It cannot truthfully be said that the man who attacks Buddhism attacks all morality. He does not attack goodness, justice, mercy, or anything that tends in his judgment to the welfare of mankind; but he attacks Buddhism. So one attacking what is called Christianity does not attack kindness, charity, or any virtue. He attacks something that has been added to the virtues. He does not attack the flower, but what he believes to be the parasite.