_Question_. How were you affected by the announcement that the
united prayers of the Salvationists and Christian Endeavorers were
to be offered for your conversion?
_Answer_. The announcement did not affect me to any great extent.
I take it for granted that the people praying for me are sincere
and that they have a real interest in my welfare. Of course, I
thank them one and all. At the same time I can hardly account for
what they did. Certainly they would not ask God to convert me
unless they thought the prayer could be answered. And if their
God can convert me of course he can convert everybody. Then the
question arises why he does not do it. Why does he let millions
go to hell when he can convert them all. Why did he not convert
them all before the flood and take them all to heaven instead of
drowning them and sending them all to hell. Of course these
questions can be answered by saying that God's ways are not our
ways. I am greatly obliged to these people. Still, I feel about
the same, so that it would be impossible to get up a striking
picture of "before and after." It was good-natured on their part
to pray for me, and that act alone leads me to believe that there
is still hope for them. The trouble with the Christian Endeavorers
is that they don't give my arguments consideration. If they did
they would agree with me. It seemed curious that they would advise
divine wisdom what to do, or that they would ask infinite mercy to
treat me with kindness. If there be a God, of course he knows what
ought to be done, and will do it without any hints from ignorant
human beings. Still, the Endeavorers and the Salvation people may
know more about God than I do. For all I know, this God may need
a little urging. He may be powerful but a little slow; intelligent
but sometimes a little drowsy, and it may do good now and then to
call his attention to the facts. The prayers did not, so far as
I know, do me the least injury or the least good. I was glad to
see that the Christians are getting civilized. A few years ago
they would have burned me. Now they pray for me.
Suppose God should answer the prayers and convert me, how would he
bring the conversion about? In the first place, he would have to
change my brain and give me more credulity--that is, he would be
obliged to lessen my reasoning power. Then I would believe not
only without evidence, but in spite of evidence. All the miracles
would appear perfectly natural. It would then seem as easy to
raise the dead as to waken the sleeping. In addition to this, God
would so change my mind that I would hold all reason in contempt
and put entire confidence in faith. I would then regard science
as the enemy of human happiness, and ignorance as the soil in which
virtues grow. Then I would throw away Darwin and Humboldt, and
rely on the sermons of orthodox preachers. In other words, I would
become a little child and amuse myself with a religious rattle and
a Gabriel horn. Then I would rely on a man who has been dead for
nearly two thousand years to secure me a seat in Paradise.
After conversion, it is not pretended that I will be any better so
far as my actions are concerned; no more charitable, no more honest,
no more generous. The great difference will be that I will believe
more and think less.
After all, the converted people do not seem to be better than the
sinners. I never heard of a poor wretch clad in rags, limping into
a town and asking for the house of a Christian.
I think that I had better remain as I am. I had better follow the
light of my reason, be true to myself, express my honest thoughts,
and do the little I can for the destruction of superstition, the
little I can for the development of the brain, for the increase of
intellectual hospitality and the happiness of my fellow-beings.
One world at a time.
--_New York Journal_, December 15, 1895.