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BUCHANAN'S
JOURNAL OF MAN.
VOL. I. MAY, 1887. NO. 4.
CONTENTS OF JOURNAL OF MAN.
The Prophetic Faculty: War and Peace
Clearing away the Fog
The Danger of living among Christians: A Question of peace or war
Legislative Quackery, Ignorance, and Blindness to the Future
Evils that need Attention
What is Intellectual Greatness
Spiritual Wonders--Slater's Tests; Spirit Pictures; Telegraphy;
Music; Slate Writing; Fire Test
MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE--Erratum; Co-operation; Emancipation;
Inventors; Important Discovery; Saccharine; Sugar; Artificial
Ivory; Paper Pianos; Social Degeneracy; Prevention of Cruelty;
Value of Birds; House Plants; Largest Tunnel; Westward Empire
Structure of the Brain
Chapter III. Genesis of the Brain
To the Readers of the Journal--College of Therapeutics
Journal of Man--Language of Press and Readers
THE PROPHETIC FACULTY: WAR AND PEACE.
In our last issue, the psychometric faculty of prophecy was
illustrated by predictions of peace, while generals, statesmen, and
editors were promising a gigantic war. In this number the reader will
find a grand prediction of war, while statesmen and states were
anticipating peace, and a southern statesman, even upon the brink of
war, offered to drink all the blood that would be shed.
The strength of the warlike spirit and prediction at the time
psychometry was prophesying peace was conspicuous even as late as the
ninth of March, when the London correspondent of the _Sun_ wrote as
follows:
"An eminent Russian general with whom I have talked believes the plan
of Russian attack on Austria is fully developed. Galicia is to be the
battleground between the two countries. Russia will enter the province
without trouble, as there is nothing to hinder her. Then she will make
a dash to secure the important strategic railroad which runs parallel
with the Galician frontier, and seek to drive the Austrians over the
Carpathians.
"That Galicia will witness the first fighting is generally admitted, as
also that the possession of the strategic railroad, running as it does
just at the rear of the Austrian positions, would be the most vital
question. It may be interesting to say that military men of whatever
nationality look upon an early war as a certain thing. They are not
content to say they believe war is coming; they are absolutely positive
of it, and each little officer has his own personal way of conclusively
proving that this sort of peace cannot go on any longer.
"Meanwhile there are lots of straws floating about this week, which
indicate that international winds are still blowing toward war. From
Russian Poland there is reported an interruption in all kinds of
business, owing to the war scare. Manufacturers refuse to accept orders
from private persons, and financial institutions have still further
weakened business by reducing their credit to a minimum. A letter from
St. Petersburg tells of the tremendous enthusiasm of the troops at the
review by the Czar on last Saturday, of the wild cheering for his
imperial Majesty, of the loud and strident whistles audible above the
roar of the cannon with which the officers command their men, and of the
general blending of barbaric fierceness and courage with modern
discipline and fighting improvements.
"In Vienna the troops are hard at work practising with the Numannlicher
repeating rifle, with which all have been provided. The Sunday
observance act, usually rigorously enforced, has been suspended, that
the government orders for military supplies may be completed two weeks
earlier than contracted for.
"The business of the Hotchkiss gun-making concern is shown to have
increased one hundred per cent with the war scare, and the eagerness to
secure the stock, which now stands at thirty per cent premium, shows a
conviction among monied men. The capital has been subscribed fifteen
times over."
The persistent prediction of peace was speedily fulfilled. March 12 my
statement was sent to the press, and March 22 Bismarck said to Prince
Rudolph of Austria that "_peace is assured to Europe for 1887_," and
newspaper correspondents announce that the war alarm is over. Mr.
Frederick Harrison, who is travelling on foot in France, writes that
he has found no one who desires war, and that the people are not even
thinking of it.
What is the popular judgment, or even the judgment of popular leaders
worth upon any great question? The masses of mankind have their
judgments enmeshed and inwoven in a web of mechanical habituality,
compelling them to believe that what is and has been must continue to
be in the future, thus limiting their conceptions to the commonplace.
Their leaders do not rise to nobler conceptions, for if they did not
sympathize with the popular, commonplace conceptions and prejudices
they would not be leaders.
"We deem it safe to assert," says Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten in her
most valuable and interesting "History of Modern Spiritualism," "from
opinions formed upon an extensive and intimate knowledge of both North
and South, and a general understanding of the politics and parties in
both sections, that any settlement of the questions between them by
the sword was never deliberately contemplated, and that the outbreak,
no less than the magnitude and length of the mighty struggle, was all,
humanly speaking, forced on by the logic of events, rather than
through the preconcerted action of either section of the country. We
say this much to demonstrate the truly prophetic character of many of
the visions and communications which circulated amongst the
Spiritualists prior to the opening of the war."
Not only was it prophesied by the Quaker Joseph Hoag thirty years in
advance, but more fully prophesied from the spirit world by the spirit
of Gen. Washington, and again most eloquently predicted through the
lips of Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten in 1860. Yet who among all the
leaders of the people knew anything of these warnings, or was
sufficiently enlightened to have paid them any respect? The petition
of 15,000 Spiritualists was treated with contemptuous ridicule by the
American Senate, and even the demonstrable invention of Morse was
subjected to ridicule in Congress. Congressmen stand on no higher
moral plane than the people who elect them, and it is the moral
faculties that elevate men into the atmosphere of pure truth.
But ah! could we have had a Congress and State Legislatures in 1860,
composed of men sufficiently elevated in sentiment to realize the
state of the nation and the terrible necessity of preserving the peace
by conciliatory statesmanship, that four years of bloody horror and
devastation might have been spared.
Will the time ever come when nations shall be guided by wisdom
sufficient to avoid convulsions and calamities? Not until there is
sufficient intelligence and wisdom to appreciate the _science of man_,
to understand the wondrous faculties of the human soul, to follow
their guidance, and to listen to the wisdom of our ancestors as they
speak to us from a higher world.
The prophecies to which I would call attention now, came from the
upper world, and came unheeded and unproclaimed! Great truths are
always buried in silence, if possible, when they first arrive. It is
probable that the grandest prophecies in their far-reaching scope will
always come from such sources, and the grandest seers will be
inspired. The grandest prophecy of the ultimate destiny and power of
"Anthropology" came to me direct from an exalted source in the spirit
world, and no human hand had aught to do with its production. But the
human psychometric faculty has the same prophetic power in a more
limited and more practical sphere. We have no reason to affirm that
the wonderful personal prophecies of Cazotte on the brink of the
French Revolution, stated in the "Manual of Psychometry," were at all
dependent on spiritual agency.
The prophecy of our great American calamity, which purports to have
come from the spirit of Gen. Washington, appears in a book published
by Josiah Brigham in 1859, of which few of my readers have any
knowledge. The messages were written by the hand of the famous medium,
Joseph D. Stiles, between 1854 and 1857, at the house of Josiah
Brigham in Quincy, Mass., and were published at Boston in 1859, in a
large volume of 459 pages, entitled "Messages from the Spirit of John
Quincy Adams." The medium was in an unconscious trance, and the
handwriting was a fac-simile of that of John Quincy Adams. But other
spirit communications are given, and that which purports to come from
Washington was in a handwriting like his own, though not of so bold
and intellectual a style. I quote the portion of his message which
relates to the war of secession, as follows:
"The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, when they had attained the summit of
imperial wickedness and licentiousness, as the Bible informs us, fell
from their high estate by the visitation of natural penalties, and the
righteous judgments of an overruling Providence. The fall of Rome and
other large cities proves to us that no individual or nation can disobey
the irrepealable enactments of the Infinite Father, and escape the fixed
penalties attached to such transgression!
"And can boasting, sinful America indulge in the flattering, delusive
hope, that the heavy judgments which fell upon those ancient cities will
be averted from her, whose guilt is equal, if not even greater than
theirs? Does she think that Cain-like, she can escape the vigilant,
sleepless eye of that Divine Parent,
'Whose voice is heard in the rolling thunders,
And whose might is seen in the forked lightnings,'
and that He will turn a deaf ear to the cry of 'mortal agony,' daily
borne on the 'four winds of Heaven' to His throne of justice, from the
almost broken hearts of His slavery-crushed children?
"Far from it; America can no more expect mercy in her prosperous
wickedness, from the hand of Deity, that can the most degraded child of
earth expect to enjoy equal happiness and bliss with the more refined
and exalted intelligences of heaven. The Parent of all cares not for the
unity or perpetuation of a family of States, where the prosperity or
welfare of a single child of His is concerned.
"God, the eternal Father, has commissioned us, His ministers of truth
and justice, to a great and important undertaking! He has invested us
with power and authority to influence and guide the actions of mankind,
and aid them in their struggles for right and truth. He has bade us arm
ourselves with the weapons of love and justice, and hasten to the rescue
of our struggling brother man. His call is imperative and binding, and
we _must_ and WILL obey!
"We are able to discern the period rapidly approximating when man will
take up arms against his fellow-man, and go forth to contend with the
enemies of Republican liberty, and to assert at the point of the bayonet
those rights of which so large a portion of their fellow-creatures are
deprived. Again will the soil of America be saturated with the blood of
freedom-loving children, and her noble monuments, those sublime
attestations of patriotic will and determination, will tremble, from
base to summit, with the heavy roar of artillery, and the thunder of
cannon. The trials of that internal war will far exceed those of the war
of the Revolution, while the cause contended for will equal, if not
excel, in sublimity and power, that for which the children of '76
fought.
"But when the battle-smoke shall disappear, and the cannon's fearful
tones are heard no more, then will mankind more fully realize the
blessings outflowing from the mighty struggle in which they so valiantly
contended! No longer will their eyes meet with those bound in the chains
of physical slavery, or their ears listen to the heavy sobs of the
oppressed child of God. But o'er a land dedicated to the principles of
impartial liberty the King of Day will rise and set, and hearts now
oppressed with care and sorrow will rejoice in the blessings of
uninterrupted freedom.
"In this eventful revolution, what the patriots of the past failed to
accomplish their descendants will perform, with the timely assistance of
invisible powers. By their sides the heavenly hosts will labor,
imparting courage and fortitude in each hour of despondency, and urging
them onward to a speedy and magnificent triumph. Deploring, as we do,
the existence of slavery, and the means to be employed to purge it from
America, yet our sympathies will culminate to the cause of right and
justice, and give strength to those who seek to set the captive free,
and crush the monster, Slavery. The picture which I have presented is,
indeed, a hideous one. You may think that I speak with too much
assurance when I thus boldly prophesy the dissolution of the American
Confederacy, and, through it, the destruction of that gigantic
structure, human slavery! But this knowledge was not the result of a
moment's or an hour's gleaning, but nearly half a century's existence in
the seraph life. I have carefully watched my country's rising progress,
and I am thoroughly convinced that it cannot always exist under the
present Federal Constitution, and the pressure of that most terrible
sin, slavery!"
Had the people of this country been sufficiently enlightened to
investigate these messages fairly, they would have seen that there was
sufficient evidence that this warning really came from Washington, and
the pulpit would have enforced its solemn truths. But our destiny was
fixed; Washington knew that his voice would not be heeded, and that
war could not be prevented.
Again came the warning in 1860, through the lips of a more
intellectual medium, more capable of expressing the bright thought of
the higher world. Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten tells the story in her
"History of American Spiritualism," pages 416-419. She refers to the
stupid and criminal action of the Legislature of Alabama; and a
similar piece of brutality has been recommended by a committee in the
Pennsylvania Legislature recently. The following is quoted from the
History.
THE ALABAMA LEGISLATURE AND THE SPIRITS--PROPHECY IN THE ALABAMA
LEGISLATIVE HALLS--RETRIBUTION.
Sometime about the month of January, 1860, the Legislature of Alabama
passed a bill declaring that any person or persons giving public
spiritual manifestations in Alabama should be subject to a penalty of
five hundred dollars.
We have given the substance, though not the exact wording of this
edict, which was met by considerable opposition, not only on the part
of great numbers of Spiritualists resident in the State, but also by
the governor himself, who refused to give his sanction to the bill.
Mr. George Redman, the celebrated physical test medium, had just
passed through the South, and remained long enough to create an
immense interest throughout its length and breadth.
The author was already engaged to deliver a course of lectures in
Mobile, and numerous invitations were sent to her from other parts of
the State.
As Mrs. Hardinge's visit was anticipated at the very time when the
bill above named was in agitation, its friends in the Legislature
considered themselves much aggrieved by the governor's refusal to
sanction its passage, and deeming either that he was suspiciously
favorable to the cause it was designed to destroy, or that their own
case would be aggravated by the advent of the expected lecturer, they
passed their bill over the governor's veto, just twenty-four hours
before the explosion anticipated on her arrival could take place.
On landing in Mobile, Mrs. Hardinge was greeted by a large and
enthusiastic body of friends, but found herself precluded, by
legislative wisdom, from expounding the sublime truths of immortality
in a city whose walls were placarded all over with bills announcing
the arrival of Madame Leon, the celebrated "seeress and business
clairvoyant, who would show the picture of your future husband, tell
the successful numbers in lotteries, and enable any despairing lover
to secure the affections of his heart's idol," etc. Side by side with
these creditable but legalized exhibitions, were flaming announcements
of "the humbug of Spiritualism exposed by Herr Marvel," with a long
list of all the astonishing feats which "this only genuine living
wizard" would display for the benefit of the pious State where angelic
ministry might not be spoken of.
Mrs. Hardinge passed through Mobile, leaving many warm hearts behind
her, who would fain have exchanged these profane caricatures for the
glad tidings which beloved spirit friends were ready to dispense to
the world.
In passing through the capital city, Montgomery, a detention occurred
of some hours, in forming a railway connection _en route_ for Macon,
Georgia, when Mrs. Hardinge and some friends travelling in her
company, were induced to while away the tedious time by visiting the
State House. The Legislature was not sitting that day, and one of the
party, a Spiritualist, remarked that they were even then standing in
the very chamber from which the recent obnoxious enactment against
their faith had issued.
The day was warm, soft, and clear. The sweet southern breeze stirred a
few solitary pines which waved on the capitol hill, and the scene from
the windows of the legislative hall was pleasant, tranquil, and
suggestive of calm but sluggish peace.
At that period--January, 1860--not an ominous murmur, not the faintest
whisper, even, that the war spirit was abroad, and the legions of
death and ruin were lighting their brands and sharpening their
relentless swords to be drenched in the life-blood of millions, had
made itself heard in the land.
The long cherished purposes of hate and fratricidal struggle were all
shrouded in the depths of profound secrecy, and the whole southern
country might have been represented in the scene of stillness and
tranquility that lay outstretched before the eyes of the watchers, who
stood in the State House of the capital city of Alabama, on that
pleasant January afternoon.
There were present six persons besides the author, namely: Mr. and
Mrs. Adams, of Tioga County, Pennsylvania; Mrs. Waters and her son, a
Scotch lady and gentleman from Aberdeen; Mr. Halford, of New York
City; and Mr. James, of Philadelphia. All but the mother and son from
Scotland were acquainted with the author, and more or less sympathetic
with her belief; all are now living, and willing to testify to what
follows.
Suddenly Mrs. Hardinge became entranced, when the whole scene, laying
outstretched before her eyes, appeared to become filled with long
lines of glittering horse and foot soldiers, who, in martial pomp and
military discipline, filed, rank after rank and regiment after
regiment, through the streets of Montgomery, and then passed off into
distance, and were lost to view.
Meantime the crash of military music seemed to thrill through the
clairvoyant's ears, at first merely marking the tramp of the vast
bodies of infantry with a joyous rhythm, but anon, as it died off in
their receding march, wild, agonizing shrieks commingled with its
tones, and the thundering roll of the drums seemed to be muffled by
deep, low, but heart-rending groans, as of human sufferers in their
last mortal agony.
At length all was still again; the last gleam of the muskets flashed
in the sunlight and melted away in the dim horizon; the last echo of
the strangely mingled music and agony ceased, and then, over the whole
radiant landscape, there stole an advancing army of clouds, like a
march of tall gray columns, reaching from earth to the skies, and
filling the air with such a dense and hideous gloom that the whole
scene became swallowed up in the thick, serried folds of mist. In the
midst of these cloudy legions, the eye of the seeress could discern
innumerable forms who seemed to shiver and bend, as if in the whirl of
a hidden tempest, and flitted restlessly hither and thither, aimless
and hopeless, apparently driven by some invisible power from nothing
to nowhere.
And these mystic shadows, flitting about in the thick grayness, were
unbodied souls; not like visitants from the bright summer land, nor
yet beings resembling the dark, undeveloped "dwellers on the
threshold," whom earthly crimes held bound near their former homes,
but they seemed as if they were misty emanations of unripe human
bodies, scarcely conscious of their state, yet living, actual
individualities, once resident in mortal tenements, but torn from
their sheltering envelope too soon, or too suddenly, to have acquired
the strength and consistency of a fresh existence. And yet the numbers
of these restless phantoms were legion, and their multitude seemed to
be ever increasing, when, lo! this weird phantasmagoria too passed
away, but not before the seeress had, with entranced lips, described
to the listeners every feature of the scene she had witnessed.
Then the influence seemed to deepen upon her, and she pronounced words
which the young Scotchman, Mr. Waters, a phonographic writer,
transcribed upon the spot to the following effect:
"Woe, woe to thee, Alabama!
"Fair land of rest, thy peace shall depart, thy glory be
shorn, and the proud bigots, tyrants, and cowards, who have
driven God's angels back from thy cities, even in this
chamber, have sealed thy doom, and their own together.
"Woe to thee, Alabama! Ere five drear years have fled, thou
shalt sit as a widow, desolate.
"The staff from thy husband's hand shall be broken, the crown
plucked from his head, the sceptre rent from his grasp.
"Thy sons shall be slain, thy legislators mocked and bound
with the chains thou hast fastened on others.
"The blind ones, who have proscribed the spirits of love and
comfort from ministry in thy homes, shall be spirits
themselves, and ere those five years be passed, more spirits
than bodies shall wander in the streets of Alabama, homeless,
restless, and unripe, torn from their earthly tenements, and
unfit for their heavenly ones; until thy grass-grown streets
and thy moss-covered dwellings shall be the haunts of legions
of unbodied souls, whom thy crimes shall have violently thrust
into eternity!"
When this involuntary prophecy of evil import was read by the young
scribe to the disenthralled medium, her own horror and regret at its
utterance far exceeded that of any of her aghast listeners, not one of
whom, any more than herself, attached to it any other meaning than an
impression produced by temporary excitement and the sphere of the
unholy legislative chamber.
How deeply significant this fearful prophecy became during the ensuing
five years, all who were witnesses to its utterance, and many others,
to whom it was communicated in that same year, can bear witness of.
Swept into the red gulf of all-consuming war, many of the unhappy
gentlemen who had legislated against "the spirits in Alabama," became,
during the ensuing five years, spirits themselves, and have doubtless
realized the inestimable privileges which the communion they so rashly
denounced on earth was calculated to afford to the inhabitants of the
spheres.
In other respects, the fatal prophecy has been too literally
fulfilled. Many a regiment of brave men have marched out of the city
streets of Alabama, only to return as unbodied souls, and to behold
the streets grass-grown and deserted, and the thresholds which their
mortal feet might never again cross, overspread with the moss of
corruption and decay.
Alabama has truly sat "as a widow, desolate." Her strength has been
shorn, her beauty gone. No State has sent forth a greater number of
brave and devoted victims to the war than Alabama; no Southern State
has suffered more fearfully. May God and kind angels lift the war
curse from her widowed head!
The following extract from a letter, written by Mr. Adams, one of the
witnesses of the above scene, to the author, in 1864, from New York,
during a temporary sojourn there, will carry its own comment on the
fulfilment of the fatal prophecy:
"Now that my two poor boys are in daily danger of themselves
becoming 'unbodied spirits,' Emma, I continually revert to
that terrible prophecy of yours uttered in the assembly
chamber at Montgomery. Heaven knows I was then so little
prepared to expect war or any reasonable fulfilment of the
doom, that I could only look to see some great pestilence,
fire, or other sweeping calamity falling on poor Alabama. Last
night, when I read in the _Herald_ of the sweeping
extermination that had visited those two fine Alabama
regiments, I could not help going to Mrs. Adams's desk, where
she keeps the copy that young Waters made us of your prophecy,
and reading it aloud to the whole company.
"Our friend J. B., who was present, insisted upon seeing the
date, and when he saw that it was January, 1860, they were all
fairly aghast, and said if ever there was genuine prophecy it
was contained in that paper."
CLEARING AWAY THE FOG.
An esteemed correspondent writes, "For several years I have been a
reader of some of the treatises you have published in the interest of
progressive thought, and have found much to admire and reread; yet an
occasional paragraph containing the formula of orthodox theology, with
its dogma of God and Jesus, interwoven into your sequences of
argument, mystifies and perplexes my reason and judgment, and I
indulge in much speculation regarding your exact position,--whether
Christianity is to be vitalized and conserved by the discoverer of
modern science, or the Bible dogmas and traditions reinterpreted to
coincide with scientific method."
I am not aware of having ever written anything that could make my
position at all doubtful, nor do I see how doubts could arise in any
one who attends carefully to my language, and does not indulge in
drawing inferences therefrom which my language does not warrant. Upon
this very question I have expressed myself fully in published
lectures. I have never manifested any sympathy with the theology of
the churches, have never failed to speak of it in terms of absolute
denunciation, and see no reason why any one should suspect me of
leaning in that direction.
As to the recognition of God to which my correspondent objects, I
think science, as I understand it, sanctions the idea that the basic
power of the universe is spiritual and not material; that spirit may
evolve, create, and modify matter, but matter never originates spirit,
though they have a continual interaction, which it is the function of
scientists to investigate, in which investigation, anthropology,
especially in its department of sarcognomy, is a long step of
progress. My investigations have given me some additional evidence as
to the Divine existence beyond what has been recorded, but do not
sanction the personal anthropological conceptions of Deity, which
bring the Divine within the conceptions of narrow and superstitious
minds.
Having discarded the whole scheme of Christian theology, there is no
reason why I should reject the fundamental principles of religion,
which are at the basis of all religions, and which are sanctioned by
the study of man's religious nature. The spirit of the Christian
religion as it appeared among the founders of Christianity appears to
me a more perfect expression of religion than I find in any other of
the world's religions, more spiritual, devoted, loving, and heroic,
more in accordance with the true religion which belongs to man's
noblest faculties.
As for Jesus, I think the general opinion of historians and scholars
as to his historic existence is correct, but whether the historic
accounts are reliable or not I am entirely certain of his existence
to-day as one of the most exalted beings in the spirit world,--the
spirit of the Teacher who appeared in Palestine, whose principles and
purposes are the same advocated by myself, and who like all the other
exalted and ancient spirits is profoundly interested in human welfare
and in the progress of spiritual science, and reformation of the
_so-called_ Christian Church. I have had sufficient psychometric
perception at times to realize the _present_ character of such beings
as Jesus, Moses, St. John, John the Baptist, St. Peter, Confucius,
Joan of Arc, and Gen. Washington, as well as many other admirable
beings whose influence falls like dews upon many sympathetic souls.
I realize most profoundly and sadly the absence from all the high
places of society of those nobler qualities which I recognize in the
higher world, but I labor in the hope that when mankind have advanced
into the light of anthropological science they shall become
enlightened enough to sympathize with the supernal life in reverent
love, and to organize a social condition here which will bring even
the lowest classes into so satisfactory a condition that
philosophizers will no longer have to wrestle with the problem of evil
and explain the great mystery that a universe so full of the marks of
a grandly benevolent purpose should still be marred and dishonored by
human misery and degradation. It would be an unsolvable problem to-day
did we not perceive through spiritual science the immense
preponderance of good in the glorious plan of life of which this world
shows only the beginning.
As an anthropologist, I cannot but esteem and cherish the religious
element of human nature. Sincere worship is simply the most exalted
love, and fills human life with nobility and benevolence; let those
who can, worship the divine; let those who shrink from the thought of
the Infinite, worship the most exalted beings they may conceive, and
let those who cannot quite reach the exalted beings of the spirit
world, worship their parents or children, or conjugal companions,--for
worship is but unlimited love,--and they who recoil from humanity may
perhaps find something to adore in the beauty and grandeur of nature
on this globe, which every summer arrays in beauty, and in the
grandeur of stellar worlds. From love and adoration come
obedience,--which is the perfect life, for it is not slavery, but
harmony and delight.
Profound science does not take away religion, as superficial or false
science does, but develops a far nobler, holier, and more beneficent
religion than any churches comprehend. It corresponds to that ideal
religion which belongs to the higher realms of the spirit world, and
which has sometimes appeared on earth in inspired mortals, and most
often in women whose souls were devoted to love. That this religious
sentiment appeared in the time of Jesus among inspired men, I believe,
and their lives and sentiments have been to me an inspiration,
enabling me to believe in the _practicability_ of that which
philosophy teaches concerning the religious life, which without those
illustrious examples might have seemed an unattainable excellence in
the present conditions of society.
I do not object to any worship of Jesus and his illustrious associate
reformers, for true worship will lead to the imitation of their heroic
lives. They were not divine, and were too heroically faithful to truth
to put forth any such false claims, nor could they in that dark age be
profound in science, or correct in all their opinions, as they are now
in a higher world. As they were on earth I honor them; as they are in
heaven to-day I honor them far more. They silently invite us to reach
that higher plane of life on which their beneficent influence and
inspiration may be felt. Fortunate are they reach that plane.
THE DANGER OF LIVING AMONG CHRISTIANS.
A QUESTION OF PEACE OR WAR.
It is seldom that any of the great questions of the time are treated
from an ethical standpoint. Old opinions and old usages furnish the
standpoint for our press writers, our politicians, and our clergy. The
question of national defence has been under discussion for years, and
Samuel J. Tilden, who was regarded by millions as the ablest of our
statesmen, gave his whole mental power to urging its consideration
upon the American people; but if this question has ever been seriously
discussed from the ethical standpoint it has escaped my notice. The
nearest approach to the ethical view was the suggestion of the _Boston
Herald_ that in putting on the full armor of national defence the
effect might be to stimulate the haughty and warlike impulses of our
people, and thus increase the danger of war, while a defenceless
seacoast would tend to inspire prudence and moderation in our national
government.
There is a great deal of truth in this view. We have a score of
prominent politicians whose sentiments on international questions are
too much like those of a bully in private life, and they have a
dangerous amount of influence in public affairs.
Turning aside from these popular discussions, the JOURNAL OF MAN
maintains the ethical standpoint for the consideration of such
subjects; and its first suggestion would be, Why should the people--of
this country spend $120,000,000 as a preparation for slaughtering our
brethren the Christian population of Europe, the only people from whom
any danger can be apprehended--our brethren in civilization and
Christianity, our brethren too by the ties of blood?
Do they not all maintain the Christian religion (at least nominally)
by all the power of their governments and public opinion? Would not
our good people in visiting them or they in visiting us be invited to
participate in the communion service which commemorates the martyred
Teacher of the law of love? Are they not our brethren, the neighbors
to whom the command applies, "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? Is this
our Christian love, to spend a hundred and twenty millions for the
assassination of our beloved brethren--avowedly for that purpose? It
is needless to object to the word _assassination_,--wholesale murder
by armies is substantially the same thing as separate murders by each
individual of the army.
But, it is urged, we are in danger of invasion, and the bombardment of
our cities. Does any one seriously believe that a powerful nation intent
on peace--the strongest power in the world, the friend of all mankind,
ready to submit any international question to arbitration--would be in
danger of an unjust, lawless, causeless assault from the Christian
nations of Europe, who have so much to lose and nothing to gain by
war, and who have already, in their groaning, tax-burdened people, a
sufficient reminder of the folly and criminality of war? They have not
money for another war, which would bring on the dangers of bankruptcy
and the revolt of the oppressed masses.
It must be that this is seriously apprehended, or else that it is
feared that the arrogant and bullying temper of our own people or our
politicians may originate and exasperate international irritation to
the insane extreme of war.
What a horrible theory is this! Is all the civilization,
statesmanship, and Christianity of the leading nations of the earth
incapable of withholding them from such gigantic crimes? Is
Christendom the only dangerous portion of the world, where an
honorable and peaceful nation cannot exist in safety?
The heathen nations are not a source of danger. If Christendom were
annihilated to-morrow, there would be no occasion to speak of
defending our coasts or building up a powerful navy. It is apparent,
then--it is confessed--that it is very dangerous to live among these
Christian nations, or in other words, it is very _dangerous to live
among Christians_, as they are called! But do our statesmen or our
clergy suggest this view? Do they recoil from war or inspire the
people with thoughts of peace? Never! One of the conspicuous clergymen
of England was the fiercest advocate of war with Russia. The
fundamental principle of the Christianity of Jesus is dead in the
so-called Christian church, except in that little fragment, the church
of the Quakers, who, for their fidelity to the fundamental principle,
were scourged and _hanged_ in Boston by the _pious_ predecessors of
our present churches, until they were forbidden by the unsanctified
monarch, Charles II. Has the old spirit died out? Look at the
hostility to Theodore Parker--to spiritual investigation, even. See
the scornful and hostile attitude of the descendant of Cotton Mather,
Col. Higginson.
It may be a shocking proposition to say that it is dangerous to live
among Christians, but it is a sober reality, to which I invite the
attention of clergymen and moralists who wish to live up to their
profession, and who have enough of the ethical faculty to realize the
central principle of true Christianity.
If our statesmanship, religion, and education cannot protect us
against such horrors, may we not justly say it is a false
statesmanship, a false religion, and a false education? Indeed, our
whole fabric of opinion and morals is fundamentally false, and the
JOURNAL OF MAN goes to record as an indictment at the bar of heaven
against the polished barbarism of modern society, against which we
hear only a feeble and almost inaudible protest.
Boston has a highly respectable and _immensely perfunctory_ Peace
Society, amply endowed with names and numbers, of which our late
postmaster was the president, and whose presidency was vastly more
inefficient than his postmastership.
A peace society might possibly be established in Boston, if its best
people could be roused, but the society that we have is little better
than a piece of ornamental nomenclature. When there is anything to be
done it understands how not to do it. When Mr. Gladstone had performed
the most glorious act of his life in the preservation of the peace of
Europe against the fierce opposition of the turbulent element in
England, an act which will make the brightest jewel in his crown of
honor, there was an opportunity of sustaining him by American
sympathy. The voice of Americans, if they cared aught for peace,
should have been heard in Europe in commanding tones,--the voice of
the people, the voice of Legislatures, the voice of the Federal
government. An effort was made by half a dozen or less of enlightened
gentlemen in Boston to have a fitting response emanate from this city.
Dr. Miner and Hon. Stephen M. Allen realized its importance when I
first suggested it, but on that occasion the Peace Society was a
lifeless corpse. The society might have been waked up if Mr. Lowell,
then returning from England, could have been induced to co-operate. He
was approached on the subject, but would not respond,--he only said
that he _desired rest_! Alas for the hollowness of American religion
and philanthropy!
There is a nobler religion than that of American churches, a nobler
statesmanship than that of Mr. Tilden (which is a good specimen of the
popular sort), a nobler education than that of our American schools
and colleges--an education, a statesmanship, and a religion which will
wash the blood from the sword, bury the sword in the earth, and
proclaim the fraternity of man in all the nations of the earth.
Ah! when shall the demand for the supremacy of the moral law be
anything more than "the voice of one crying in the wilderness"? Is it
not possible to have a protest against the barbarism of war from men
of influence, who have sufficient mental power and strength of
character to command the attention of the nation? When Elihu Burritt
and Robert Dale Owen were alive I thought it might be possible, but it
was not attempted. Is it possible now? Is all the genius and energy of
the American people bound in fidelity to the Moloch of war? I do not
believe it, and would invite correspondence from those who share this
belief and wish to co-operate in such a movement.
We have to-day a practical subject of discussion: Shall we, the people
of the United States, tax ourselves $120,000,000 at once and an
unknown amount hereafter, to place ourselves upon a par with the
homicidal nations of Europe, and sanction by our example the
infernalism in which they have lived from Caesar to the Napoleonic
period, or shall we endeavor to introduce a true civilization, lay
aside the weapons of homicide, and urge by our powerful mediation the
disarmament of Europe, relieving the oppressed millions from
accumulating war debts, and from that infernalism of the soul which
makes the duel still an established institution in France and even in
German universities? Shall we move onward toward humane civilization,
or cling to a surviving barbarism?
The measure now proposed is an abandonment of Divine law, and a
practical pledge of this country to the infernalism of war. It is a
declaration that we do not believe peace attainable at all, and that
we indorse and seek to renew forever the blood-stained history of the
past.
Is there not among our politicians who sustained the Blair Education
bill some one whose voice may be heard in behalf of peace? Is Col.
Ingersoll too much of a pessimist to believe that American moral power
will be sufficient in time to calm the world's agitation? Let him
espouse this cause, and he will find it more practical by far than
riding down the ghosts of an effete theology. Let Henry George turn
his attention to this question, and he will find in it even more than
in the question of sovereignty over the land; for every acre on the
globe, if confiscated to-day, would pay but a portion of the boundless
cost of war. The blood alone that has incarnadined all lands is worth
vastly more than the dead soil into which it has been poured. Let Dr.
McGlynn, who has already entered on the perilous path of the reformer,
look at this question in the light of religion and philanthropy, and
he will find it more worthy of his attention than any other
practicable reform, for it is practicable now and here to roll back
the warlike policy from its approach to our national government.
Are not such questions as these worthy of the profound attention of
such men as Rev. Dr. Miner, Rev. M. J. Savage, Rev. J. K. Applebee,
and Rev. W. H. Thomas of Chicago? They are not theological dilettanti,
but earnest thinkers. Should not every Universalist and every Quaker
realize that it is time for them to stir when our nation's destiny is
under discussion, and that their voices should be heard at Washington?
The proposition is made and sustained by the influence of Mr. Tilden,
to place this country in the list of mail-clad warrior nations, and it
is rather a fascinating proposition to those who entertain pessimistic
ideas of man, and believe that all nations are ready to slay and rob
when they have a good opportunity.
Capt. F. V. Greene, late of the U. S. engineering corps, appears as
the advocate of American fortifications, and at the Massachusetts
Reform Club he presented his views substantially as follows: The
United States have 3,000 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coast, 2,200 on
the lakes, and 1,200 on the Pacific, and have cities on these coasts
aggregating a wealth of $6,000,000,000--all exposed to a hostile
fleet, which could in a short time destroy everything within
cannon-shot from the water, and drive five millions of people from
their city homes. The fortification board estimates $120,000,000 as
the sum necessary to supply cannon and forts for protection, which is
but two per cent upon the amount of property protected.
This is a very satisfactory statement of the case from the average
standpoint, which is not the ethical. But in the first place I
consider it morally sure that this country will never have a foreign
war if it models its national policy on the Divine law; and secondly,
whenever war is foreseen as probable in consequence of an intolerable
spirit of aggression and the refusal of the hostile party to submit to
arbitration, a sufficient number of cannon can be cast and placed on
floating batteries or behind iron walls to protect every endangered
point. It would be necessary only to know that our foundries were
adequate to the task; and the fact that such an armament was preparing
would be a sufficient warning to avert a hostile movement. Yet the
costly steel cannon, which require such enormous appropriations to
prepare for their manufacture on a large scale, are not absolutely
necessary. It has been shown by recent experiments that dynamite
shells of 150 pounds can be thrown two miles and a quarter by air
pressure or steam pressure from light, slender-built cannon, or steel
tubes of unusual length, which may be enlarged to compete with the
most formidable artillery. A single steel-clad vessel of the Monitor
type with such an armament could destroy a squadron.
But let arbitration be known as our fixed national policy--let us
secure also the co-operation of other nations pledged to the
arbitration policy, and war would be almost an impossibility.
Capt. Greene's exposition of the necessity of coast defence was clear
and forcible, but his concluding remarks gave a glimpse of peaceful
purposes. "He supplemented his speech by remarking that the United
States will probably be called on before long to be the arbitrator
between the nations of Europe. The latter cannot stand the financial
strain much longer, and inside of twenty years we shall probably be
the equal in population and wealth of any two, if not three, nations
of Europe, and to us will be referred all their disputes for
settlement. When we become the referees of the world we must have the
force behind us, so that when we give a decision we shall be able to
enforce it; and this can only be adequately effected by a perfect
system of coast defences."
Commander Burke of the U.S. Navy, who followed Capt. Greene "thought
that if the Irish question be settled satisfactorily, there will be no
danger of a war with England unless we desire war. He had been advised
that the English people, Great Britain and her colonies, look to the
Americans to assist them in case of war with any foreign powers, and
there is a strong sentiment of friendship for the American people for
that reason, if for no other. He believed that the use of high
explosives, by which war could be rendered more dangerous, would
result in reducing the probability of war."
Certainly if the United States would lead in a pacific policy, Great
Britain, under Gladstone, would unite in the movement, and arbitration
would ere long become the policy of the world, and would not long be
the established policy before disarmament would follow and the sword
be buried forever.
LEGISLATIVE QUACKERY, IGNORANCE, AND BLINDNESS TO THE FUTURE.
In Iowa, by the management of a medical clique, a law has been juggled
through the Legislature, under which the founders of Christianity
would have been criminals, and prolonged imprisonment might have been
as effective as crucifixion. That any class of men could have been
mean enough and shameless enough to ask for such a law is a sad
commentary on the demoralizing influence of medical schools, from
which they derived their inspiration; and that any legislative body
could have yielded to the demand is another illustration of the well
known corruption of political life.
The Iowa papers state that Mrs. Post, of McGregor, Iowa, has been
twice arrested, convicted, and fined fifty dollars and costs for
praying with the sick and curing them. European tyranny is eclipsed in
Iowa. The old world is freer than the new, if the medical clique are
allowed to rule. G. Milner Stephen performs his miraculous cures in
London with honor, and Dorothea Trudell had her house of cure by
prayer in Switzerland, which has been made famous in religious
literature. All over Europe the people enjoy a freedom in the choice
of their physicians which has been prohibited in Iowa.