328
change a barbarian into a Catholic; every Protestant
is in favor of education enough to change a Catholic
into a Protestant; but Protestants and Catholics alike
are opposed to education that will lead to any
real philosophy and science. I admit that Portugal
is what it is, on account of the preaching of the
gospel. I admit that Portugal can point with pride
to the triumphs of what she calls civilization within
her borders, and truthfully ascribe the glory to the
church. But in a litde while, when more railroads
are built, when telegraphs connect her people with
the civilized world, a spirit of doubt, of investigation,
will manifest itself in Portugal.
When the people stop counting beads, and go to
the study of mathematics; when they think more of
plows than of prayers for agricultural purposes; when
they find that one fact gives more light to the mind
than a thousand tapers, and that nothing can by any
possibility be more useless than a priest,--then Por-
tugal will begin to cease to be what is called a
Christian nation.
I admit that Austria, with her thirty-seven millions,
is a Christian nation--including her Croats, Hungar-
ians, Servians, and Gypsies. Austria was one of the
assassins of Poland. When we remember that John
329
Sobieski drove the Mohammedans from the gates of
Vienna, and rescued from the hand of the "infidel"
the beleagured city, the propriety of calling Austria a
Christian nation becomes still more apparent. If one
wishes to know exactly how "Christian" Austria is,
let him read the history of Hungary, let him read
the speeches of Kossuth. There is one good thing
about Austria: slowly but surely she is undermining
the church by education. Education is the enemy
of superstition. Universal education does away with
the classes born of the tyranny of ecclesiasticism--
classes founded upon cunning, greed, and brute
strength. Education also tends to do away with
intellectual cowardice. The educated man is his
own priest, his own pope, his own church.
When cunning collects tolls from fear, the church
prospers.
Germany is another Christian nation. Bismarck is
celebrated for his Christian virtues.
Only a little while ago, Bismarck, when a bill was
under consideration for ameliorating the condition
of the Jews, stated publicly that Germany was a
Christian nation, that her business was to extend
and protect the religion of Jesus Christ, and that
being a Christian nation, no laws should be passed
330
ameliorating the condition of the Jews. Certainly a
remark like this could not have been made in any
other than a Christian nation. There is no freedom
of the press, there is no freedom of speech, in Ger-
many. The Chancellor has gone so far as to declare
that the king is not responsible to the people. Ger-
many must be a Christian nation. The king gets his
right to govern, not from his subjects, but from God.
He relies upon the New Testament. He is satisfied
that "the powers that be in Germany are ordained
"of God." He is satisfied that treason against the
German throne is treason against Jehovah. There
are millions of Freethinkers in Germany. They are
not in the majority, otherwise there would be more
liberty in that country. Germany is not an infidel
nation, or speech would be free, and every man
would be allowed to express his honest thoughts.
Wherever I see Liberty in chains, wherever the
expression of opinion is a crime, I know that that
country is not infidel; I know that the people are not
ruled by reason. I also know that the greatest men
of Germany--her Freethinkers, her scientists, her
writers, her philosophers, are, for the most part, in-
fidel. Yet Germany is called a Christian nation, and
ought to be so called until her citizens are free.
331
France is also claimed as a Christian country. This
is not entirely true. France once was thoroughly
Catholic, completely Christian. At the time of the
massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the French were
Christians. Christian France made exiles of the
Huguenots. Christian France for years and years
was the property of the Jesuits. Christian France
was ignorant, cruel, orthodox and infamous. When
France was Christian, witnesses were cross-examined
with instruments of torture.
Now France is not entirely under Catholic control,
and yet she is by far the most prosperous nation in
Europe. I saw, only the other day, a letter from a
Protestant bishop, in which he states that there are
only about a million Protestants in France, and only
four or five millions of Catholics, and admits, in a
very melancholy way, that thirty-four or thirty-five
millions are Freethinkers. The bishop is probably
mistaken in his figures, but France is the best housed,
the best fed, the best clad country in Europe.
Only a little while ago, France was overrun, trampled
into the very earth, by the victorious hosts of Ger-
many, and France purchased her peace with the
savings of centuries. And yet France is now rich and
prosperous and free, and Germany poor, discontented
332
and enslaved. Hundreds and thousands of Germans,
unable to find liberty at home, are coming to the
United States.
I admit that England is a Christian country. Any
doubts upon this point can be dispelled by reading
her history--her career in India, what she has done
in China, her treatment of Ireland, of the American
Colonies, her attitude during our Civil war; all these
things show conclusively that England is a Christian
nation.
Religion has filled Great Britain with war. The
history of the Catholics, of the Episcopalians, of
Cromwell--all the burnings, the maimings, the brand-
ings, the imprisonments, the confiscations, the civil
wars, the bigotry, the crime--show conclusively that
Great Britain has enjoyed to the full the blessings of
"our most holy religion."
Of course, Mr. Talmage claims the United States
as a Christian country. The truth is, our country is
not as Christian as it once was. When heretics were
hanged in New England, when the laws of Virginia
and Maryland provided that the tongue of any man
who denied the doctrine of the Trinity should be
bored with hot iron,, and that for the second offence
he should suffer death, I admit that this country was
333
Christian. When we engaged in the slave trade,
when our flag protected piracy and murder in every
sea, there is not the slightest doubt that the United
States was a Christian country. When we believed
in slavery, and when we deliberately stole the labor
of four millions of people; when we sold women
and babes, and when the people of the North
enacted a law by virtue of which every Northern
man was bound to turn hound and pursue a human
being who was endeavoring to regain his liberty, I
admit that the United States was a Christian nation.
I admit that all these things were upheld by the Bible
--that the slave trader was justified by the Old Testa-
ment, that the bloodhound was a kind of missionary
in disguise, that the auction block was an altar, the
slave pen a kind of church, and that the whipping-
post was considered almost as sacred as the cross.
At that time, our country was a Christian nation.
I heard Frederick Douglass say that he lectured
against slavery for twenty years before the doors
of a single church were opened to him. In New
England, hundreds of ministers were driven from
their pulpits because they preached against the
crime of human slavery. At that time, this country
was a Christian nation.
334
Only a few years ago, any man speaking in favor
of the rights of man, endeavoring to break a chain
from a human limb, was in danger of being mobbed
by the Christians of this country. I admit that Dela-
ware is still a Christian State. I heard a story about
that State the other day.
About fifty years ago, an old Revolutionary soldier
applied for a pension. He was asked his age, and he
replied that he was fifty years old. He was told that
if that was his age, he could not have been in the
Revolutionary War, and consequently was not en-
titled to any pension. He insisted, however, that he
was only fifty years old. Again they told him that
there must be some mistake. He was so wrinkled,
so bowed, had so many marks of age, that he must
certainly be more than fifty years old. "Well," said
the old man, "if I must explain, I will: I lived forty
"years in Delaware; but I never counted that time,
"and I hope God won't."
The fact is, we have grown less and less Christian
every year from 1620 until now, and the fact is that
we have grown more and more civilized, more and
more charitable, nearer and nearer just.
Mr. Talmage speaks as though all the people in
what he calls the civilized world were Christians. Ad-
335
mitting this to be true, I find that in these countries
millions of men are educated, trained and drilled to
kill their fellow Christians. I find Europe covered
with forts to protect Christians from Christians, and
the seas filled with men-of-war for the purpose of
ravaging the coasts and destroying the cities of Chris-
tian nations. These countries are filled with prisons,
with workhouses, with jails and with toiling, ignorant
and suffering millions. I find that Christians have
invented most of the instruments of death, that
Christians are the greatest soldiers, fighters, de-
stroyers. I find that every Christian country is taxed
to its utmost to support these soldiers; that every
Christian nation is now groaning beneath the grievous
burden of monstrous debt, and that nearly all these
debts were contracted in waging war. These bonds,
these millions, these almost incalculable amounts,
were given to pay for shot and shell, for rifle and
torpedo, for men-of-war, for forts and arsenals, and
all the devilish enginery of death. I find that each
of these nations prays to God to assist it as against
all others; and when one nation has overrun, ravaged
and pillaged another, it immediately returns thanks
to the Almighty, and the ravaged and pillaged kneel
and thank God that it is no worse.
336
Mr. Talmage is welcome to all the evidence he can
find in the history of what he is pleased to call the
civilized nations of the world, tending to show the
inspiration of the Bible.
And right here it may be well enough to say again,
that the question of inspiration can not be settled by
the votes of the superstitious millions. It can not be
affected by numbers. It must be decided by each
human being for himself. If every man in this world,
with one exception, believed the Bible to be the in-
spired word of God, the man who was the exception
could not lose his right to think, to investigate, and to
judge for himself.
_Question_. You do not think, then, that any of the
arguments brought forward by Mr. Talmage for the
purpose of establishing the inspiration of the Bible,
are of any weight whatever?
_Answer_. I do not. I do not see how it is possible
to make poorer, weaker or better arguments than he
has made.
Of course, there can be no "evidence" of the in-
spiration of the Scriptures. What is "inspiration"?
Did God use the prophets simply as instruments?
Did he put his thoughts in their minds, and use their
337
hands to make a record? Probably few Christians
will agree as to what they mean by "inspiration."
The general idea is, that the minds of the writers of
the books of the Bible were controlled by the divine
will in such a way that they expressed, independently
of their own opinions, the thought of God. I believe it
is admitted that God did not choose the exact words,
and is not responsible for the punctuation or syntax.
It is hard to give any reason for claiming more for
the Bible than is claimed by those who wrote it.
There is no claim of "inspiration" made by the writer
of First and Second Kings. Not one word about the
author having been "inspired" is found in the book
of Job, or in Ruth, or in Chronicles, or in the Psalms,
or Ecclesiastes, or in Solomon's Song, and nothing is
said about the author of the book of Esther having
been "inspired." Christians now say that Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John were "inspired" to write the
four gospels, and yet neither Mark, nor Luke, nor
John, nor Matthew claims to have been "inspired."
If they were "inspired," certainly they should have
stated that fact. The very first thing stated in each
of the gospels should have been a declaration by the
writer that he had been "inspired," and that he was
about to write the book under the guidance of God,
338
and at the conclusion of each gospel there should
have been a solemn statement that the writer had
put down nothing of himself, but had in all things
followed the direction and guidance of the divine
will. The church now endeavors to establish the
inspiration of the Bible by force, by social ostracism,
and by attacking the reputation of every man who
denies or doubts. In all Christian countries, they
begin with the child in the cradle. Each infant is
told by its mother, by its father, or by some of its
relatives, that "the Bible is an inspired book." This
pretended fact, by repetition "in season and out of
"season," is finally burned and branded into the
brain to such a degree that the child of average
intelligence never outgrows the conviction that the
Bible is, in some peculiar sense, an "inspired" book.
The question has to be settled for each generation.
The evidence is not sufficient, and the foundation of
Christianity is perpetually insecure. Beneath this great
religious fabric there is no rock. For eighteen centu-
ries, hundreds and thousands and millions of people
have been endeavoring to establish the fact that the
Scriptures are inspired, and since the dawn of science,
since the first star appeared in the night of the
Middle Ages, until this moment, the number of
339
people who have doubted the fact of inspiration
has steadily increased. These doubts have not been
born of ignorance, they have not been suggested by
the unthinking. They have forced themselves upon
the thoughtful, upon the educated, and now the ver-
dict of the intellectual world is, that the Bible is not
inspired. Notwithstanding the fact that the church
has taken advantage of infancy, has endeavored to
control education, has filled all primers and spelling-
books and readers and text books with superstition--
feeding all minds with the miraculous and super-
natural, the growth toward a belief in the natural
and toward the rejection of the miraculous has been
steady and sturdy since the sixteenth century. There
has been, too, a moral growth, until many passages
in the Bible have become barbarous, inhuman and
infamous. The Bible has remained the same, while
the world has changed. In the light of physical and
moral discovery, "the inspired volume" seems in
many respects absurd. If the same progress is made
in the next, as in the last, century, it is very easy to
predict the place that will then be occupied by the
Bible. By comparing long periods of time, it is easy
to measure the advance of the human race. Com-
pare the average sermon of to-day with the average
340
sermon of one hundred years ago. Compare what
ministers teach to-day with the creeds they profess
to believe, and you will see the immense distance
that even the church has traveled in the last century.
The Christians tell us that scientific men have
made mistakes, and that there is very little certainty
in the domain of human knowledge. This I admit.
The man who thought the world was flat, and who
had a way of accounting for the movement of the
heavenly bodies, had what he was pleased to call a
philosophy. He was, in his way, a geologist and an
astronomer. We admit that he was mistaken; but
if we claimed that the first geologist and the first
astronomer were inspired, it would not do for us to
admit that any advance had been made, or that any
errors of theirs had been corrected. We do not
claim that the first scientists were inspired. We do
not claim that the last are inspired. We admit that
all scientific men are fallible. We admit that they do
not know everything. We insist that they know but
little, and that even in that little which they are sup-
posed to know, there is the possibility of error. The
first geologist said: "The earth is flat." Suppose
that the geologists of to-day should insist that that
man was inspired, and then endeavor to show that
341
the word "flat," in the "Hebrew," did not mean
quite flat, but just a little rounded; what would we
think of their honesty? The first astronomer in-
sisted that the sun and moon and stars revolved
around this earth--that this little earth was the centre
of the entire system. Suppose that the astronomers
of to-day should insist that that astronomer was in-
spired, and should try to explain, and say that he
simply used the language of the common people, and
when he stated that the sun and moon and stars re-
volved around the earth, he merely meant that they
"apparently revolved," and that the earth, in fact,
turned over, would we consider them honest men?
You might as well say that the first painter was in-
spired, or that the first sculptor had the assistance of
God, as to say that the first writer, or the first book-
maker, was divinely inspired. It is more probable
that the modern geologist is inspired than that the an-
cient one was, because the modern geologist is nearer
right. It is more probable that William Lloyd Gar-
rison was inspired upon the question of slavery than
that Moses was. It is more probable that the author
of the Declaration of Independence spoke by divine
authority than that the author of the Pentateuch did.
In other words, if there can be any evidence of
342
"inspiration," it must lie in the fact of doing or
saying the best possible thing that could have been
done or said at that time or upon that subject.
To make myself clear: The only possible evidence
of "inspiration" would be perfection--a perfection ex-
celling anything that man unaided had ever attained.
An "inspired" book should excel all other books; an
inspired statue should be the best in this world; an in-
spired painting should be beyond all others. If the Bible
has been improved in any particular, it was not, in that
particular, ''inspired." If slavery is wrong, the Bible is
not inspired. If polygamy is vile and loathsome, the
Bible is not inspired. If wars of extermination are cruel
and heartless, the Bible is not "inspired." If there is
within that book a contradiction of any natural fact; if
there is one ignorant falsehood, if there is one mistake,
then it is not "inspired." I do not mean mistakes that
have grown out of translations; but if there was in
the original manuscript one mistake, then it is not
"inspired." I do not demand a miracle; I do not
demand a knowledge of the future; I simply demand
an absolute knowledge of the past. I demand an ab-
solute knowledge of the then present; I demand a
knowledge of the constitution of the human mind--
of the facts in nature, and that is all I demand.
343
_Question_. If I understand you, you think that all
political power should come from the people; do you
not believe in any "special providence," and do you
take the ground that God does not interest himself
in the affairs of nations and individuals?
_Answer_. The Christian idea is that God made the
world, and made certain laws for the government of
matter and mind, and that he never interferes except
upon special occasions, when the ordinary laws fail to
work out the desired end. Their notion is, that the
Lord now and then stops the horses simply to show
that he is driving. It seems to me that if an infinitely
wise being made the world, he must have made it
the best possible; and that if he made laws for the
government of matter and mind, he must have made
the best possible laws. If this is true, not one of
these laws can be violated without producing a posi-
tive injury. It does not seem probable that infinite
wisdom would violate a law that infinite wisdom had
made.
Most ministers insist that God now and then in-
terferes in the affairs of this world; that he has not
interfered as much lately as he did formerly. When
the world was comparatively new, it required alto-
gether more tinkering and fixing than at present.
344
Things are at last in a reasonably good condition,
and consequently a great amount of interference is
not necessary. In old times it was found necessary fre-
quently to raise the dead, to change the nature of fire
and water, to punish people with plagues and famine,
to destroy cities by storms of fire and brimstone, to
change women into salt, to cast hailstones upon
heathen, to interfere with the movements of our
planetary system, to stop the earth not only, but
sometimes to make it turn the other way, to arrest
the moon, and to make water stand up like a wall.
Now and then, rivers were divided by striking them
with a coat, and people were taken to heaven in
chariots of fire. These miracles, in addition to curing
the sick, the halt, the deaf and blind, were in former
times found necessary, but since the "apostolic age,"
nothing of the kind has been resorted to except in
Catholic countries. Since the death of the last
apostle, God has appeared only to members of the
Catholic Church, and all modern miracles have been
performed for the benefit of Catholicism. There is
no authentic account of the Virgin Mary having ever
appeared to a Protestant. The bones of Protestant
saints have never cured a solitary disease. Protest-
ants now say that the testimony of the Catholics can
345
not be relied upon, and yet, the authenticity of every
book in the New Testament was established by Cath-
olic testimony. Some few miracles were performed
in Scotland, and in fact in England and the United
States, but they were so small that they are hardly
worth mentioning. Now and then, a man was struck
dead for taking the name of the Lord in vain. Now
and then, people were drowned who were found in
boats on Sunday. Whenever anybody was about to
commit murder, God has not interfered--the reason
being that he gave man free-will, and expects to hold
him accountable in another world, and there is no
exception to this free-will doctrine, but in cases
where men swear or violate the Sabbath. They are
allowed to commit all other crimes without any in-
terference on the part of the Lord.
My own opinion is, that the clergy found it neces-
sary to preserve the Sabbath for their own uses, and
for that reason endeavored to impress the people
with the enormity of its violation, and for that purpose
gave instances of people being drowned and suddenly
struck dead for working or amusing themselves on that
day. The clergy have objected to any other places of
amusement except their own, being opened on that
day. They wished to compel people either to go to
346
church or stay at home. They have also known
that profanity tended to do away with the feelings
of awe they wished to cultivate, and for that reason
they have insisted that swearing was one of the most
terrible of crimes, exciting above all others the wrath
of God.
There was a time when people fell dead for having
spoken disrespectfully to a priest. The priest at that
time pretended to be the visible representative of
God, and as such, entitled to a degree of reverence
amounting almost to worship. Several cases are
given in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland where
men were deprived of speech for having spoken
rudely to a parson.
These stories were calculated to increase the im-
portance of the clergy and to convince people that
they were under the special care of the Deity. The
story about the bears devouring the little children
was told in the first place, and has been repeated
since, simply to protect ministers from the laughter
of children. There ought to be carved on each side
of every pulpit a bear with fragments of children in
its mouth, as this animal has done so much to protect
the dignity of the clergy.