Part 25

Again he asks: "If one is not responsible for his thought, why is any one blamed for thinking as he does?" It is not a question of blame, it is a question of who is right--a question of who is wrong. Admit that every one thinks exactly as he must, that does not show that his thought is right; that does not show that his thought is the highest thought. Admit that every piece of land in the world produces what it must; that does not prove that the land covered with barren rocks and a little moss is just as good as the land covered with wheat or corn; neither does it prove that the mind has to act as the wheat or the corn; neither does it prove that the land had any choice as to what it would produce. I hold men responsible not for their thoughts; I hold men responsible for their actions. And I have said a thousand times: Physical liberty is this--the right to do anything that does not interfere with another--in other words, to act right; and intellectual liberty is this--the right to think right, and the right to think wrong, provided you do your best to think right. I have always said it, and I expect to say it always.

The reverend gentleman is also afflicted with the gradual theory. I believe in that theory.

If you will leave out inspiration, if you will leave out the direct interference of an infinite God, the gradual theory is right. It is a theory of evolution.

I admit that astronomy has been born of astrology, that chemistry came from the black art; and I also contend that religion will be lost in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in the budding of the seed, the shining of the sun, the dropping of the rain; I believe in the spreading and the growing; and that is as true in every other department of the world as it is in vegetation. I believe it; but that does not account for the Bible doctrine. We are told we have a book absolutely inspired, and it will not do to say God gradually grows. If he is infinite now, he knows as much as he ever will. If he has been always infinite, he knew as much at the time he wrote the Bible as he knows to-day; and, consequently, whatever he said then must be as true now as it was then. You see they mix up now a little bit of philosophy with religion--a little bit of science with the shreds and patches of the supernatural.

Hear this: I said in my lecture the other day that all the clergymen in the world could not get one drop of rain out of the sky. I insist on it. All the prayers on earth cannot produce one drop of rain. I also said all the clergymen of the world could not save one human life. They tried it last year. They tried it in the United States. The Christian world upon its knees implored God to save one life, and the man died. The man died! Had the man recovered the whole church would have claimed that it was in answer to prayer. The man having died, what does the church say now? What is the answer to this? The Rev. Dr. Thomas says: "There is prayer and there is rain." Good. "Can he that is himself or any one else say there is no possible relation between one and the other?" I do. Let us put it another way. There is rain and there is infidelity; can any one say there is no possible relation between the two? How does Dr. Thomas know that he is not indebted to me for this year's crops? And yet this gentleman really throws out the idea that there is some possible relation between prayer and rain, between rain and health; and he tells us that he would have died twenty-five years ago had it not been for prayer. I doubt it. Prayer is not a medicine. Life depends upon certain facts--not upon prayer. All the prayer in the world cannot take the place of the circulation of the blood. All the prayer in the world is no substitute for digestion. All the prayer in the world cannot take the place of food; and whenever a man lives by prayer you will find that he eats considerable besides. It will not do. Again: This reverend Doctor says: "Shall we say that all the love of the unseen world"--how does he know there is any love in the unseen world? "and the love of God"--how does he know there is any love in God? "heed not the cries and tears of earth?"

I do not know; but let the gentleman read the history of religious persecution. Let him read the history of those who were put in dungeons, of those who lifted their chained hands to God and mingled prayer with the clank of fetters; men that were in the dungeons simply for loving this God, simply for worshiping this God. And what did God do? Nothing. The chains remained upon the limbs of his worshipers. They remained in the dungeons built by theology, by malice, and hatred; and what did God do? Nothing. Thousands of men were taken from their homes, fagots were piled around their bodies; they were consumed to ashes, and what did God do? Nothing. The sword of extermination was unsheathed, hundreds and thousands of men, women and children perished. Women lifted their hands to God and implored him to protect their children, their daughters; and what did God do?

Nothing. Whole races were enslaved, and the cruel lash was put upon the naked back of toil. What did God do? Nothing. Children were sold from the arms of mothers. All the sweet humanities of life were trodden beneath the brutal foot of creed; and what did God do? Nothing. Human beings, his children, were tracked through swamps by bloodhounds; and what did God do? Nothing. Wild storms sweep over the earth and the shipwrecked go down in the billows; and what does God do? Nothing. There come plague and pestilence and famine. What does God do? Thousands and thousands perish. Little children die upon the withered breasts of mothers; and what does God do? Nothing.

What evidence has Dr. Thomas that the cries and tears of man have ever touched the heart of God? Let us be honest. I appeal to the history of the world; I appeal to the tears, and blood, and agony, and imprisonment, and death of hundreds and millions of the bravest and best. Have they ever touched the heart of the Infinite? Has the hand of help ever been reached from heaven? I do not know; but I do not believe it.

Dr. Thomas tells me that is orthodox Christianity. What right has he to tell what is orthodox Christianity? He is a heretic. He had too much brain to remain in the Methodist pulpit. He had a doubt--and a doubt is born of an idea. And his doctrine has been declared by his own church to be unorthodox. They have passed on his case and they have found him unconstitutional. What right has he to state what is orthodox? And here is what he says: "Christianity"--orthodox Christianity I suppose he means--"teaches, concerning the future world, that rewards and punishments are carried over from time to eternity; that the principles of the government of God are the same there as here; that character, and not profession determines destiny; and that Humboldt, and Dickens, and all others who have gone and shall go to that world shall receive their just rewards; that souls will always be in the place in which for the time, be it now or a million years hence, they are fitted. That is what Christianity teaches."

If it does, never will I have another word to say against Christianity. It never has taught it. Christianity--orthodox Christianity--teaches that when you draw your last breath you have lost the last opportunity for reformation. Christianity teaches that this little world is the eternal line between time and eternity, and if you do not get religion in this life, you will be eternally damned in the next. That is Christianity. They say: "Now is the accepted time." If you put it off until you die, that is too late; and the doctrine of the Christian world is that there is no opportunity for reformation in another world. The doctrine of orthodox Christianity is that you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ here in this life, and it will not do to believe on him in the next world. You must believe on him here and that if you fail here, God in his infinite wisdom will never give you another chance. That is orthodox Christianity; and according to orthodox Christianity, the greatest, the best and the sublimest of the world are now in hell. And why is it that they say it is not orthodox Christianity? I have made them ashamed of their doctrine. When I called to their attention the fact that such men as Darwin, such men as Emerson, Dickens, Longfellow, Laplace, Shakespeare, and Humboldt, were in hell, it struck them all at once that the company in heaven would not be very interesting with such men left out.

And now they begin to say: "We think the Lord will give those men another chance." I have succeeded in my mission beyond my most sanguine expectations. I have made orthodox ministers deny their creeds; I have made them ashamed of their doctrine--and that is glory enough. They will let me in, a few years after I am dead. I admit that the doctrine that God will treat us as we treat others--I admit that is taught by Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but it is not taught by the Orthodox church. I want that understood. I admit also that Dr. Thomas is not orthodox, and that he was driven out of the church because he thought God too good to damn men forever without giving them the slightest chance. Why, the Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that question. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory--that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial.

Dr. Thomas, all I ask of you is to tell all that you think. Tell your congregation whether you believe the Bible was written by divine inspiration. Have the courage and the grandeur to tell your people whether, in your judgment, God ever upheld slavery.

Do not shrink. Do not shirk. Tell your people whether God ever upheld polygamy. Do not shrink. Tell them whether God was ever in favor of religious persecution. Stand right to it. Then tell your people whether you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad one and the bad one get the credit. Be honor bright. Tell what you really think and there will not be as much difference between you and myself as you imagine.

The next gentleman, I believe, is the Rev. Dr. Lorimer. He comes to the rescue, and I have an idea of his mental capacity from the fact that he is a Baptist. He believes that the infinite God has a choice as to the manner in which a man or babe shall be dampened. This gentleman regards modern infidelity as "pitifully shallow" as to its intellectual conceptions and as to its philosophical views of the universe and of the problems regarding man's place in it and of his destiny. "Pitifully shallow!"

What is the modern conception of the universe? The modern conception is that the universe always has been and forever will be. The modern conception of the universe is that it embraces within its infinite arms all matter, all spirit, all forms of force, all that is, all that has been, all that can be. That is the modern conception of this universe. And this is called "pitiful."

What is the Christian conception? It is that all the matter in the universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a Jewish Jehovah who made it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs of this world. And they even go so far as to say that that Being made experiments in which he signally failed. That Being made man and woman and put them in a garden and allowed them to become totally depraved. That Being of infinite wisdom made hundreds and millions of people when he knew he would have to drown them. That Being peopled a planet like this with men, women and children, knowing that he would have to consign most of them to eternal fire. That is a pitiful conception of the universe. That is an infamous conception of the universe. Give me rather the conception of Spinoza, the conception of Humboldt, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Tyndall and of every other man who has thought. I love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom it feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity.

Another thing to which this gentleman objects is that I propose to banish such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin and our relations to the present and to the possible future from human thought.

I have never said so. Never. I have said, One world at a time. Why? Do not make yourself miserable about another. Why? Because I do not know anything about it, and it may be good. So do not worry. That is all. Y or do not know where you are going to land. It may be the happy port of heaven. Wait until you get there. It will be time enough to make trouble then. This is what I have said. I have said that the golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. I do not know. I admit it. Life is a shadowy strange and winding road on which we travel for a few short steps, just a little way from the cradle with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet wayside inn where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is "Good-Night!" Whether there is a good morning I do not know, but I am willing to wait.

Let us think these high and splendid thoughts. Let us build palaces for the future, but do not let us spend time making dungeons for men who happen to differ from us. I am willing to take the conceptions of Humboldt and Darwin, of Haeckel and Spinoza, and I am willing to compare their splendid conceptions with the doctrine embraced in the Baptist creed. This gentleman has his ideas upon a variety of questions, and he tells me that, "No one has a right to say that Dickens, Longfellow, and Darwin are castaways!" Why not? They were not Christians. They did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. And, if orthodox religion be true, they are castaways. But he says: "No one has the right to say that orthodoxy condemns to perdition any man who has struggled toward the right, and who has tried to bless the earth he is raised on." That is what I say, but that is not what orthodoxy says. Orthodoxy says that the best man in the world, if he fails to believe in the existence of God, or in the divinity of Christ, will be eternally lost. Does it not say it? Is there an orthodox minister in this town now who will stand up and say that an honest atheist can be saved? He will not. Let any preacher say it, and he will be tried for heresy.

I will tell you what orthodoxy is. A man goes to the day of judgment, and they cross-examine him, and they say to him:

"Did you believe the Bible?"

"No."

"Did you belong to the church?"

"No."

"Did you take care of your wife and children?"

"Yes?"

"Pay your debts?"

"Yes."

"Love your country?"

"Yes."

"Love the whole world?"

"Yes."

"Never made anybody unhappy?"

"Not that I know of. If there is any man or woman that I ever wronged let them stand up and say so. That is the kind of man I am; but," said he, "I did not believe the Bible. I did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and, to tell you the truth, I did not believe in the existence of God. I now find I was mistaken; but that was my doctrine." Now, I want to know what, according to the orthodox church, is done with that man?

He is sent to hell.

That is their doctrine.

Then the next fellow comes. He says:

"Where did you come from?"

And he looks off kind of stiffly, with his head on one side and he says:

"I came from the gallows. I was just hung."

"What were you hung for?"

"Murdering my wife. She wasn't a Christian either, she got left. The day I was hung I was washed in the blood of the Lamb."

That is Christianity. And they say to him: "Come in! Let the band play!"

That is orthodox Christianity. Every man that is hanged--there is a minister there, and the minister tells him he is all right. All he has to do is just to believe on the Lord.

Another objection this gentleman has, and that is that I am scurrilous. Scurrilous! And the gentleman, in order to show that he is not scurrilous, calls infidels, "donkeys, serpents, buzzards." That is simply to show that he is not scurrilous.

Dr. Lorimer is also of the opinion that the mind thinks independently of the will; and I propose to prove by him that it does. He is the last man in the world to controvert that doctrine--the last man. In spite of himself his mind absorbed the sermon of another man, and he repeated it as his own. I am satisfied he is an honest man; consequently his mind acted independently of his will, and he furnishes the strongest evidence in favor of my position that it is possible to conceive. I am infinitely obliged to him for the testimony he has unconsciously offered.

He also takes the ground that infidelity debases a man and renders him unfit for the discharge of the highest duties pertaining to life, and that we show the greatest shallowness when we endeavor to overthrow Calvinism. What is Calvinism? It is the doctrine that an infinite God made millions of people, knowing that they would be damned. I have answered that a thousand times. I answer it again. No God has a right to make a mistake, and then damn the mistake. No God has a right to make a failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. No God has a right to make an investment that will not finally pay a dividend.

The world is getting better, and the ministers, all your life and all mine, have been crying out from the pulpit that we are all going wrong, that immorality was stalking through the land, that crime was about to engulf the world, and yet, in spite of all their prophecies, the world has steadily grown better, and there is more justice, more charity, more kindness, more goodness, and more liberty in the world to-day than ever before. And there is more infidelity in the world to-day than ever before.

A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.

* The attention of the Morning Advertiser readers was, in the issue of February 27th, called to two sets of facts transpiring contemporaneously in this city. One was the starving condition of four hundred cloakmakers who had struck because they could not live on reduced wages. Arbitration had failed; two hundred of the number, seeing starvation staring them in the face, were forced to give up the fight, and the remaining number continued to do battle for higher wages

While these cloakmakers were in the extremity of destitution, millionaires were engaged in subscribing to a fund "for the extension of the church." The extension committee, received at the home of Jay Gould, had met with such signal success as to cause comment throughout the city. The host subscribed ten thousand dollars, his daughter twenty-five hundred and the assembled guests sums ranging between five hundred and one thousand. The Morning Advertiser made inquiry as to whether any of the money contributed for the extension of the church would find its way into the pockets of the hungry cloakmakers.

Dr. John Hall said he did not have time to discuss the matter of aiding the needy poor, as there were so many other things that demanded his immediate attention.

Mr. Warner Van Norden, Treasurer of the Church Extension Committee, was seen at his office in the North American Bank, of which institution he is President.

He took the view that the cloakmakers had brought their trouble upon themselves, and it was not the duty of the charitable to extend to them direct aid.

Generally speaking, he was not in favor of helping the poor and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the church.

"The experience of centuries, said he, "teaches us that the giving of alms to the poor only encourage them in their idleness and their crimes. The duty of the church is to save men's a souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally.

"It is best to teach people to rely upon their own resources. If the poor felt that they could get material help, they would want it always. In these days if a man or woman can't get along it's their own fault. There is my typewriter. She was brought up in a tenement house. Now she gets two dollars a day, and dresses better than did the lords and ladies of other times. You'll find that where people are poor, it's their own fault.

"After all, happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of material things--it is the soul that makes life worth living. You should come to our Working Girls' Club and see this fact illustrated. There you will see girls who have been working all day, singing hymns and following the leader in prayer."

Don't you think there are many worthy poor in this city who need material help?" was asked.

"No, sir; I do not," said Mr. Van Norden. "If a man or woman wants money, they should work for It."

"But is employment always to be had?"

"I think it is by Americans. You'll find that most of the people out of work are those who are not adapted to the conditions of this country.

Colonel Robert Ingersoll was asked what he thought of such philosophy.--New York Morning Advertiser, March 10,1892.

_Question_. Have you read the article in the Morning Advertiser entitled "Workers Starving"?

_Answer._ I have read it, and was greatly surprised at the answers made to the reporter of the Advertiser.

_Question_. What do you think of the remarks of the Rev. John Hall and by Mr. Warner Van Norden, Treasurer of the "Church Extension Committee"?

_Answer._ My opinion is that Dr. Hall must have answered under some irritation, or that the reporter did not happen to take down all he said. It hardly seems probable that Dr. Hall should have said that he had no time to discuss the matter of aiding the needy poor, giving as a reason that there were so many other things that demanded his immediate attention. The church is always insisting that it is, above all things, a charitable institution; that it collects and distributes many millions every year for the relief of the needy, and it is always quoting: "Sell that thou hast and give to the poor." It is hard to imagine anything of more importance than to relieve the needy, or to succor the oppressed. Of course, I know that the church itself produces nothing, and that it lives on contributions; but its claim is that it receives from those who are able to give, and gives to those who are in urgent need.

I have sometimes thought, that the most uncharitable thing in the world is an organized charity. It seems to have the peculiarities of a corporation, and becomes as soulless as its kindred. To use a very old phrase, it generally acts like "a beggar on horseback."

Probably Dr. Hall, in fact, does a great deal for the poor, and I imagine that he must have been irritated or annoyed when he made the answer attributed to him in the _Advertiser_. The good Samaritan may have been in a hurry, but he said nothing about it. The Levites that passed by on the other side seemed to have had other business. Understand me, I am saying nothing against Dr. Hall, but it does seem to me that there are few other matters more important than assisting our needy fellow-men.

_Question_. What do you think of Mr. Warner Van Norden's sentiments as expressed to the reporter?