_Question_. What have you to say about the attack of Dr. Buckley
on you, and your lecture?
_Answer_. I never heard of Dr. Buckley until after I had lectured
in Brooklyn. He seems to think that it was extremely ill bred in
me to deliver a lecture on the "Liberty of Man, Woman and Child,"
during Lent. Lent is just as good as any other part of the year,
and no part can be too good to do good. It was not a part of my
object to hurt the feelings of the Episcopalians and Catholics.
If they think that there is some subtle relation between hunger
and heaven, or that faith depends upon, or is strengthened by
famine, or that veal, during Lent, is the enemy of virtue, or that
beef breeds blasphemy, while fish feeds faith--of course, all this
is nothing to me. They have a right to say that vice depends upon
victuals, sanctity on soup, religion on rice and chastity on cheese,
but they have no right to say that a lecture on liberty is an insult
to them because they are hungry. I suppose that Lent was instituted
in memory of the Savior's fast. At one time it was supposed that
only a divine being could live forty days without food. This
supposition has been overthrown.
It has been demonstrated by Dr. Tanner to be utterly without
foundation. What possible good did it do the world for Christ to
go without food for forty days? Why should we follow such an
example? As a rule, hungry people are cross, contrary, obstinate,
peevish and unpleasant. A good dinner puts a man at peace with
all the world--makes him generous, good natured and happy. He
feels like kissing his wife and children. The future looks bright.
He wants to help the needy. The good in him predominates, and he
wonders that any man was ever stingy or cruel. Your good cook is
a civilizer, and without good food, well prepared, intellectual
progress is simply impossible. Most of the orthodox creeds were
born of bad cooking. Bad food produced dyspepsia, and dyspepsia
produced Calvinism, and Calvinism is the cancer of Christianity.
Oatmeal is responsible for the worst features of Scotch Presbyterianism.
Half cooked beans account for the religion of the Puritans. Fried
bacon and saleratus biscuit underlie the doctrine of State Rights.
Lent is a mistake, fasting is a blunder, and bad cooking is a crime.
_Question_. It is stated that you went to Brooklyn while Beecher
and Talmage were holding revivals, and that you did so for the
purpose of breaking them up. How is this?
_Answer_. I had not the slightest idea of interfering with the
revivals. They amounted to nothing. They were not alive enough
to be killed. Surely one lecture could not destroy two revivals.
Still, I think that if all the persons engaged in the revivals had
spent the same length of time in cleaning the streets, the good
result would have been more apparent. The truth is, that the old
way of converting people will have to be abandoned. The Americans
are getting hard to scare, and a revival without the "scare" is
scarcely worth holding. Such maniacs as Hammond and the "Boy
Preacher" fill asylums and terrify children. After saying what he
has about hell, Mr. Beecher ought to know that he is not the man
to conduct a revival. A revival sermon with hell left out--with
the brimstone gone--with the worm that never dies, dead, and the
Devil absent--is the broadest farce. Mr. Talmage believes in the
ancient way. With him hell is a burning reality. He can hear the
shrieks and groans. He is of that order of mind that rejoices in
these things. If he could only convince others, he would be a
great revivalist. He cannot terrify, he astonishes. He is the
clown of the horrible--one of Jehovah's jesters. I am not responsible
for the revival failure in Brooklyn. I wish I were. I would have
the happiness of knowing that I had been instrumental in preserving
the sanity of my fellow-men.
_Question_. How do you account for these attacks?
_Answer_. It was not so much what I said that excited the wrath
of the reverend gentlemen as the fact that I had a great house.
They contrasted their failure with my success. The fact is, the
people are getting tired of the old ideas. They are beginning to
think for themselves. Eternal punishment seems to them like eternal
revenge. They see that Christ could not atone for the sins of
others; that belief ought not to be rewarded and honest doubt
punished forever; that good deeds are better than bad creeds, and
that liberty is the rightful heritage of every soul.
_Question_. Were you an admirer of Lord Beaconsfield?
_Answer_. In some respects. He was on our side during the war,
and gave it as his opinion that the Union would be preserved. Mr.
Gladstone congratulated Jefferson Davis on having founded a new
nation. I shall never forget Beaconsfield for his kindness, nor
Gladstone for his malice. Beaconsfield was an intellectual gymnast,
a political athlete, one of the most adroit men in the world. He
had the persistence of his race. In spite of the prejudices of
eighteen hundred years, he rose to the highest position that can
be occupied by a citizen. During his administration England again
became a Continental power and played her game of European chess.
I have never regarded Beaconsfield as a man controlled by principle,
or by his heart. He was strictly a politician. He always acted
as though he thought the clubs were looking at him. He knew all
the arts belonging to his trade. He would have succeeded anywhere,
if by "succeeding" is meant the attainment of position and power.
But after all, such men are splendid failures. They give themselves
and others a great deal of trouble--they wear the tinsel crown of
temporary success and then fade from public view. They astonish
the pit, they gain the applause of the galleries, but when the
curtain falls there is nothing left to benefit mankind. Beaconsfield
held convictions somewhat in contempt. He had the imagination of
the East united with the ambition of an Englishman. With him, to
succeed was to have done right.
_Question_. What do you think of him as an author?
_Answer_. Most of his characters are like himself--puppets moved
by the string of self-interest. The men are adroit, the women
mostly heartless. They catch each other with false bait. They
have great worldly wisdom. Their virtue and vice are mechanical.
They have hearts like clocks--filled with wheels and springs. The
author winds them up. In his novels Disraeli allows us to enter
the greenroom of his heart. We see the ropes, the pulleys and the
old masks. In all things, in politics and in literature, he was
cold, cunning, accurate, able and successful. His books will, in
a little while, follow their author to their grave. After all,
the good will live longest.
--Washington correspondent, _Brooklyn Eagle_, April 24, 1881.