IS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO CHRISTIANITY?
"But," says the believer, again, as a last resort, "Jesus, whether
real or mythical, has certainly saved the world, and is its only
hope." If this assertion can be supported with facts, then surely it
would matter very little whether Jesus really lived and taught, or
whether he is a mere picture. Although even then it would be more
truthful to say we have no satisfactory evidence that such a teacher
as Jesus ever lived, than to affirm dogmatically his existence, as it
is now done. Whatever Jesus may have done for the world, he has
certainly not freed us from the obligation of telling the truth. I
call special attention to this point. Because Jesus has saved the
world, granting for the moment that he has, is no reason why we should
be indifferent to the truth. Nay, it would show that Jesus has not
saved the world, if we can go on and speak of him as an actual
existence, born of a virgin and risen from the dead, and in his name
persecute one another--oppose the advance of science, deny freedom of
thought, terrorize children and women with pictures of hell-fire and
seek to establish a spiritual monopoly in the world, when the evidence
in hand seems clearly to indicate that such a person never existed.
We shall quote a chapter from Christian history to give our readers an
idea of how much the religion of Jesus, when implicitly believed in,
can do for the world. We have gone to the earliest centuries for our
examples of the influence exerted by Christianity upon the ambitions
and passions of human nature, because it is generally supposed that
Christianity was then at its best. Let us, then, present a picture of
the world, strictly speaking, of the Roman Empire, during the first
four or five hundred years after its conversion to Christianity.
We select this specific period, because Christianity was at this time
fifteen hundred years nearer to its source, and was more virile and
aggressive than it has ever been since.
Shakespeare speaks of the uses of adversity; but the uses of
prosperity are even greater. The proverb says that "adversity tries a
man." While there is considerable truth in this, the fact is that
prosperity is a much surer criterion of character. It is impossible to
tell, for instance, what a man will do who has neither the power nor
the opportunity to do anything. "Opportunity," says a French writer,
"is the cleverest devil." Both our good and bad qualities wait upon
opportunity to show themselves. It is quite easy to be virtuous when
the opportunity to do evil is lacking. Behind the prison bars, every
criminal is a penitent, but the credit belongs to the iron bars and
not to the criminal. To be good when one cannot be bad, is an
indifferent virtue.
It is with institutions and religions as with individuals--they should
be judged not by what they pretend in their weakness, but by what they
do when they are strong. Christianity, Mohammedanism and Judaism, the
three kindred religions--we call them kindred because they are related
in blood and are the offspring of the same soil and climate--these
three kindred religions must be interpreted not by what they profess
today, but by what they did when they had both the power and the
opportunity to do as they wished.
When Christianity, or Mohammedanism, was professed only by a small
handful of men--twelve fishermen, or a dozen camel-drivers of the
desert--neither party advocated persecution. The worst punishment
which either religion held out was a distant and a future punishment;
but as soon as Christianity converted an Emperor, or Mohammed became
the victorious warrior,--that is to say, as soon as, springing forth,
they picked up the sword and felt their grip sure upon its hilt, this
future and distant punishment materialized into a present and
persistent persecution of their opponents. Is not that suggestive?
Then, again, when in the course of human evolution, both Christianity
and Mohammedanism lost the secular support--the throne, the favor of
the courts, the imperial treasury--they fell back once more upon
future penalties as the sole menace against an unbelieving world. As
religion grows, secularly speaking, weaker, and is more completely
divorced from the temporal, even the future penalties, from being both
literal and frightful, pale into harmless figures of speech.
It was but a short time after the conversion of the Emperor
Constantine, that the following edict was published throughout the
provinces of the Roman Empire:
"O ye enemies of truth, authors and counsellors of death--we enact by this
law that none of you dare hereafter to meet at your conventicles...nor
keep any meetings either in public buildings or private houses. We
have commanded that all your places of meeting--your temples--be pulled
down or confiscated to the Catholic Church."
The man who affixed his signature to this edict was a monarch, that is
to say, a man who had the power to do as he liked. The man and
monarch, then, who affixed his imperial signature to this _first_
document of persecution in Europe--the first, because, as Renan has
beautifully remarked, "We may search in vain the whole Roman law
before Constantine for a single passage against freedom of thought,
and the history of the imperial government furnishes no instance of a
prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine,"--this is glory
enough for the civilization 'which we call _Pagan_ and which was
replaced by the Asiatic religion--the man and the monarch who fathered
the first instrument of persecution in our Europe, who introduced into
our midst the crazed hounds of religious wars, unknown either in
Greece or Rome, Constantine, has been held up by Cardinal Newman as "a
pattern to all succeeding monarchs." Only an Englishman, a European,
infected with the malady of the East, could hold up the author of such
an edict,--an edict which prostitutes the State to the service of a
fad--as "a pattern."
If we asked for a modern illustration of what a church will do when it
has the power, there is the example of Russia. Russia is today
centuries behind the other European nations. She is the most
unfortunate, the most ignorant, the most poverty-pinched country, with
the most orthodox type of Christianity. What is the difference between
Greek Christianity, such as prevails in Russia, and American
Christianity! Only this: The Christian Church in Russia has both the
power and the opportunity to do things, while the Christian church in
America or in France has not. We must judge Christianity as a religion
by what it does in Russia, more than by what it does not do in France
or America. There was a time when the church did in France and in
England what it is doing now in Russia, which is a further
confirmation of the fact that a religion must be judged not by what it
pretends in its weakness, but by what it does when it can. In Russia,
the priest can tie a man's hands and feet and deliver him up to the
government; and it does so. In Protestant countries, the church, being
deprived of all its badges and prerogatives, is more modest and
humble. The poet Heine gives eloquent expression to this idea when he
says: "Religion comes begging to us, when it can no longer burn us."
There will be no revolution in Russia, nor even any radical
improvement of existing conditions, so long as the Greek Church has
the education of the masses in charge. To become politically free, men
must first be intellectually emancipated. If a Russian is not
permitted to choose his own religion, will he be permitted to choose
his own form of government? If he will allow a priest to impose his
religion upon him, why may he not permit the Czar to impose despotism
upon him? If it is wrong for him to question the tenets of his
religion, is it not equally wrong for him to discuss the laws of his
government? If a slave of the church, why may he not be also a slave
of the state? If there is room upon his neck for the yoke of the
church, there will be room, also, for the yoke of the autocracy. If he
is in the habit of bending his knees, what difference does it make to
how many or to whom he bends them?
Not until Russia has become religiously emancipated, will she conquer
political freedom. She must first cast out of her mind the fear of the
church, before she can enter into the glorious fellowship of the free.
In Turkey, all the misery of the people will not so much as cause a
ripple of discontent, because the Moslem has been brought up to submit
to the Sultan as to the shadow on earth of Allah. Both in Russia and
Turkey, the protestants are the heretics. The orthodox Turk and the
orthodox Christian permit without a murmur both the priest and the
king to impose upon them at the point of a bayonet, the one his
religion, and the other his government. It is only by taking the
education of the masses out of the hands of the clergy that either
country can enjoy any prosperity. Orthodoxy and autocracy are twins.
Let me now try to present to you a picture of the world under
Christianity about the year 400 of the present era. Let us discuss
this phase of the subject in a liberal spirit, extenuating nothing,
nor setting down aught in malice. Please interpret what I say in the
next few minutes metaphorically, and pardon me if my picture is a
repellant one.
We are in the year of our Lord, 400:
I rose up early this morning to go to church. As I approached the
building, I saw there a great multitude of people unable to secure
admission into the edifice. The huge iron doors were closed, and upon
them was affixed a notice from the authorities, to the effect that all
who worshiped in this church would, by the authority of the state, be
known and treated hereafter as "infamous heretics," and be exposed to
the extreme penalty of the law if they persisted in holding services
there. But the party to which I belonged heeded not the prohibition,
but beat against the doors furiously and effected an entrance into the
church. The excitement ran high; men and leaders shouted, gesticulated
and came to blows. The Archbishop was urged to ascend his episcopal
throne and officiate at the altar in spite of the formal interdiction
against him. He consented. But he had not proceeded far when soldiers,
with a wild rush, poured into the building and began to discharge
arrows at the panic-stricken people. Instantly pandemonium was let
loose. The officers commanding the soldiers demanded the head of the
offending Archbishop. The worshipers made an attempt to resist; then
blood was shed, the sight of which reeled people's heads, and, in an
instant, the sanctuary was turned into a house of murder. Taking
advantage of the uproar, the Archbishop, assisted by his secretaries,
escaped through a secret door behind the altar.
[Illustration: Engraving of XV Century Representing the Trinity.]
On my way home from this terrible scene, I fell upon a procession of
monks. They were carrying images and relics, and a banner upon which
were inscribed these words: "The Virgin Mary, Mother of God." As they
marched on, their number increased by new additions. But suddenly they
encountered another band of monks, carrying a different banner,
bearing the same words which were on the other party's banner, but
instead of "The Virgin Mary, Mother of God," their banner read: "The
Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ." The two processions clashed, and
a bloody encounter followed; in an instant images, relics and banners
were all in an indiscriminate heap. The troops were called out again,
but such was the zeal of the conflicting parties that not until the
majority of them were disabled and exhausted, was tranquility
restored.
Looking about me, I saw the spire of a neighboring church. My
curiosity prompted me to wend my steps thither. As soon as I entered,
I was recognized as belonging to the forbidden sect, and in an instant
a hundred fists rained down blows upon my head. "He has polluted the
sanctuary," they cried. "He has committed sacrilege." "No quarter to
the enemies of the true church," cried others, and it was a miracle
that, beaten, bruised, my clothes torn from my back, I regained the
street. A few seconds later, looking up the streets, I saw another
troop of soldiers, rushing down toward this church at full speed. It
seems that while I was being beaten in the main auditorium, in the
baptistry of the church they were killing, in cold blood, the
Archbishop, who was suspected of a predilection for the opposite
party, and who had refused to retract or resign from his office. The
next day I heard that one hundred and thirty-seven bodies were taken
out of this building.
Seized with terror, I now began to run, but, alas, I had worse
experiences in store for me. I was compelled to pass the principal
square in the center of the city before I could reach a place of
safety. When I reached this square, it had the appearance of a
veritable battlefield. It was Sunday morning, and the partisans of
rival bishops, differing in their interpretation of theological
doctrines, were fighting each other like maddened, malignant
creatures. One could hear, over the babel of discordant yells,
scriptural phrases. The words, "The Son is equal to the Father," "The
Father is greater than the Son," "He is begotten of the same substance
as the Father," "He is of like substance, but not of the same
substance," "You are a heretic," "You are an atheist," were invariably
accompanied with blows, stabs and sword thrusts, until, as an eye-
witness, I can take an oath that I saw the streets leading out of the
square deluged with palpitating human blood. Suddenly the commander of
the cavalry, Hermogenes, rode upon the scene of feud and bloodshed. He
ordered the followers of the rival bishops to disperse, but instead of
minding his authority, the zealots of both sides rushed upon his
horse, tore the rider from the saddle and began to beat him with clubs
and stones which they picked up from the street. He managed to escape
into a house close by, but the religious rabble surrounded the house
and set fire to it. Hermogenes appeared at the window, begging for his
life. He was attacked again, and killed, and his mangled body dragged
through the streets and rushed into a ditch.
The spectacle inflamed me, being a sectarian myself. I felt ashamed
that I was not showing an equal zeal for _my_ party. I, too, longed to
fight, to kill, to be killed, for my religion. And, anon! the
opportunity presented itself. I saw, looking up the street to my
right, a group of my fellow-believers, who, like myself, shut out of
their own church by the orthodox authorities, armed with whips loaded
with lead and with clubs, were entering a house. I followed them. As
we went in, we commanded the head of the family and his wife to
appear. When they did, we asked them if it was true that in their
prayers to Mary they had refrained from the use of the words, "The
mother of God." They hesitated to give a direct answer, whereupon we
used the club, and then, the scourge. Then they said they believed in
and revered the blessed virgin, but would not, even if we killed them,
say that she was the mother of God. This obstinacy exasperated us and
we felt it to be our religious duty, for the honor of our divine
Queen, to perpetrate such cruelties upon them as would shock your
gentle ears to hear. We held them over slowly burning fires, flung
lime into their eyes, applied roasted eggs and hot irons to the
sensitive parts of their bodies, and even gagged them to force the
sacrament into their mouths.....As we went from house to house, bent
upon our mission, I remember an expression of one of the party who
said to the poor woman who was begging for mercy: "What! shall I be
guilty of defrauding the vengeance of God of its victims?" A sudden
chill ran down my back. I felt my flesh creep. Like a drop of poison
the thought embodied in those words perverted whatever of pity or
humanity was left in me, and I felt that I was only helping to secure
victims with which to feed the vengeance of God!
[Illustration: Trinity in XIII Century.]
I was willing to be a monster for the glory of God!
The Christian sect to which I belonged was one of the oldest in
Christendom. Our ancestors were called the Puritans of the fourth and
fifth centuries. We believe that no one can be saved outside of our
communion. When a Christian of another church joins us, we re-baptize
him, for we do not believe in the validity of other baptisms. We are
so particular that we deny our cemeteries to any other Christians than
our own members. If we find that we have, by mistake, buried a member
of another church in our cemetery, we dig up his bones, that he may
not pollute the soil. When one of the churches of another denomination
falls into our hands, we first fumigate the building, and with a sharp
knife we scrape the wood off the altars upon which other Christian
priests have offered prayers. We will, under no consideration, allow a
brother Christian from another church to commune with us; if by
stealth anyone does, we spare not his life. But we are persecuted just
as severely as we persecute, ourselves. [Footnote: This sect
(Donatist) and others, lasted for a long time, and made Asia and
Africa a hornet's nest,--a blood-stained arena, of feud and riot and
massacre, until Mohammedanism put an end, in these parts of the world,
not only to these sects, but to Christianity itself.]
As the sun was setting, fatigued with the holy Sabbath's religious
duties, I started to go home. On my way back, I saw even wilder,
bloodier scenes, between rival ecclesiastical factions, streets even
redder with blood, if possible, yea, certain sections of the city
seemed as if a storm of hail, or tongues of flame had swept over them.
Churches were on fire, cowled monks attacking bishops' residences,
rival prelates holding uproarious debates, which almost always
terminated in bloodshed, and, to cap the day of many vicissitudes, I
saw a bear on exhibition which had been given its freedom by the
ruler, as a reward for his faithful services in devouring heretics.
The Christian ruler kept two fierce bears by his own chamber, to which
those who did not hold the orthodox faith were thrown in his presence
while he listened with delight to their groans.
When I reached home, I was panting for breath. I had lived through
another Sabbath day. [Footnote: If the reader will take the pains to
read Dean Milman's History of Christianity, and his History of Latin
Christianity; also Gibbon's Downfall of the Roman Empire, and
Mosheim's History of Christianity, he will see that we have
exaggerated nothing. The Athanasian and the Arian, the Donatist and
Sabellian, the Nestorian and Alexandrian factions converted the early
centuries into a long reign of terror.]
I feel like covering my face for telling you so grewsome a tale. But
if this were the fourth or the fifth century, instead of the
twentieth, and this were Constantinople, or Alexandria, or Antioch,
instead of Chicago, I would have spent just such a Sunday as I have
described to you. In giving you this concentrated view of human
society in the great capitals of Christendom in the year 400, I have
restrained, rather than spurred, my imagination. Remember, also, that
I have confined my remarks to a specific and short period in history,
and have excluded from my generalization all reference to the
centuries of religious wars which tore Europe limb from limb,--the
wholesale exterminations, the crusades, which represented one of the
maddest spells of misguided and costly zeal which ever struck our
earth, the persecution of the Huguenots, the extermination of the
Albigenses and of the Waldenses,--the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the
Inquisition with its red hand upon the intellect of Europe, the
Anabaptist outrages in Germany, the Smithfield fires in England, the
religious outrages in Scotland, the Puritan excesses in America,--the
reign of witchcraft and superstition throughout the twenty centuries--I
have not touched my picture with any colors borrowed from these
terrible chapters in the history of our unfortunate earth. I have also
left out all reference to Papal Rome, with its dungeons, its stakes,
its massacres and its burnings. I have said nothing of Galileo,
Vanini, Campanella or Bruno. I have passed over all this in silence.
You can imagine, now, how much more repellant and appalling this
representation of the Roman world under Christianity would have been
had I stretched my canvas to include also these later centuries.
But I tremble to be one-sided or unjust, and so I hasten to say that
during the twenty centuries' reign of our religion, the world has also
seen some of the fairest flowers spring out of the soil of our earth.
During the past twenty centuries there have been men and women,
calling themselves Christians, who have been as generous, as heroic
and as deeply consecrated to high ideals as any the world has ever
produced. Christianity has, in many instances, softened the manners of
barbarians and elevated the moral tone of primitive peoples. It gives
us more pleasure to speak of the good which religions have
accomplished than to call attention to the evil they have caused. But
this raises a very important question. "Why do you not confine
yourself," we are often asked, "to the virtues you find in
Christianity or Mohammedanism, instead of discussing so frequently
their short-comings? Is it not better to praise than to blame, to
recommend than to find fault?" This is a fair question, and we may
just as well meet it now as at any other time.
Such is the economy of nature that no man, or institution or religion,
can be altogether evil. The poet spoke the truth when he said: "There
is a soul of goodness in things evil." Evil, in a large sense, is the
raw material of the good. All things contribute to the education of
man. The question, then, whether an institution is helpful or hurtful,
is a relative one. The character of an institution, as that of an
individual, is determined by its ruling passion. Despotism, for
instance, is generally considered to be an evil. And yet, a hundred
good things can be said of despotism. The French people, over a
hundred years ago, overthrew the monarchy. And yet the monarchy had
rendered a thousand services to France. It was the monarchy that
created France, that extended her territory, developed her commerce,
built her great cities, defended her frontiers against foreign
invasion, and gave her a place among the first-class nations of
Europe. Was it just, then, to pull down an institution that had done
so much for France?
Why did the Americans overthrow British rule in this country? Had not
England rendered innumerable services to the colony? Was she not one
of the most progressive, most civilizing influences in the modern
world? Was it just, then, that we should have beaten out of the land a
government that had performed for us so many friendly acts?
Referring once more to the case of Russia: Why do the awakened people
in that country demand the overthrow of the autocracy? Is there
nothing good to be said of Russian autocracy? Have not the Czars loved
their country and fought for her prosperity? Have they not brought
Russia up to her present size, population and political influence in
Europe? Have they not beautified her cities and enacted laws for the
protection of their subjects? Is it right, then, in spite of all these
things that autocracy has done for Russia, to seek to overthrow it?
Once more: Why do the missionaries go into India and China and Japan
trying to replace the ancestral religion of these people with the
Christian faith? Why does the missionary labor to overthrow the
worship of Buddha, Confucius and Zoroaster? Have not these great
teachers helped humanity? Have they not rendered any services to their
countrymen? Are there no truths in their teachings? Are there no
virtues in their lives? Is it right, then, that the missionary should
criticise these ancient faiths?
[Illustration: Conception of Trinity, Ninth Century.]
Let us take an example from nearer home. We were talking some years
ago with a gentleman who had just returned from Dowie's Zion. He was
surprised to find there a clean, orderly and well-behaved people,
apparently quite happy. He said that after his experiences there, he
would rather do business with Dowie and his men than with the average
member of other religious bodies. He found the Dowieites honest,
reliable and peaceful. Now, all this may be true, and I hope it is;
but what of it? Dowieism is an evil, notwithstanding this recital of
its virtues. It is an evil, because it arrests the intellectual
development of man, because it makes dwarfs of the people it converts,
because it pinches the forehead of each convert into that of either a
charlatan or an idiot. We regret to have to use these harsh terms. But
Dowieism is denounced, because it brings up human beings as if they
were sheep, because it robs them of the most glorious gift of life,
the freedom to grow, Dowieism is an evil, because it makes the human
race mediocre by contracting its intellect down to the measure of a
creed. We would much rather that the Dowieites smoked and drank and
swore, than that they should fear to think. There is hope for a bad
man. There is no hope for the stupid.
In the case of an institution or a religion, then, it is not by adding
up the debit and credit columns and striking a balance sheet that the
question whether it has helped or hurt mankind is to be determined. We
cannot, for instance, place ninety-nine vices in one column, and a
hundred virtues in another, and conclude therefrom that the
institution or the religion should be preserved. Nor, conversely
speaking, can we place a hundred vices against ninety-nine virtues,
and, therefore, condemn, the institution. Even as a man is hanged for
one act in his life, in spite of the thousand good acts which may be
quoted against the one evil deed, so an institution or a religion is
honored or condemned, as we said above, for its _ruling passion_.
Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity have done much good, just as
other religions have, but they are condemned today by modern thought,
because they are a conspiracy against reason--because they combat
progress, as if it were a crime!
Another criticism frequently advanced against us is that we fail to
realize that all the evil of which Christianity is said to have been
the cause, is only the result of human ignorance and passion. When
attention is called, for instance, to the intolerance and stubborn
opposition to science, of Christianity, the answer given is, that this
conduct is not only not inspired by the spirit of Christianity, but
that it is in direct contradiction to its teachings. The Christians
claim that all the luminous chapters in history have been inspired by
their religion, all its sorrowful and black pages have been written by
the passions of men. But this apology, which, we regret to say, is in
every preacher's mouth, is not an honest one. In our opinion, both
Mohammedanism and Christianity, as also Judaism, are responsible for
the evil as well as the good they have accomplished in the world. They
are responsible for the lives they have destroyed, as for the lives
they have saved. They are responsible for the passions they have
aroused,--for the hatred, the persecutions and the religious wars of
the centuries, as for the piety and charity they have encouraged.
The central idea in all the three religions mentioned above, is that
God has revealed his will to man. There is, we say frankly, the root
of all the evil which religion has inflicted upon our unfortunate
earth. The poison is in both the flower and the fruit which that idea
brings forth. If it be true that God has revealed his will, that he
has told us, for instance, to believe in the Trinity, the atonement,
the fall of man, and the dogma of eternal punishment, and we refuse to
do so, will we not, then, be regarded as the most odious, the most
heinous, the most rebellious, the most sacrilegious, the most stiff-
necked, the most criminal people in the world? Think of refusing to
believe as God has dictated to us! Think of saying _no!_ to one's
Creator and Father in Heaven! Think of the consequences of differing
with God, and tempting others to do the same! Is it at all strange
that during the early centuries of Christianity, the people who
hesitated to agree with the deity, or to believe as he wanted them to,
were looked upon as incarnate fiends, as the accomplices of the devil
and the enemies of the human race, and were treated accordingly?
The doctrine of salvation by faith makes persecution inevitable. If to
refuse to believe in the Trinity, or in the divinity of Christ, is a
crime against God and will be punished by an eternity of hell in the
next world, and if such a man endangers the eternal salvation of his
fellows, is it not the duty of all religious people to endeavor to
exterminate him and his race, now arid here? How can Christian people
tolerate the rebel against their God, when God himself has pronounced
sentence of death against him? Why not follow the example of the
deity, as set forth in the persecutions of the Old Testament?
When we have a God for a teacher, the highest and surest virtue is
unconditional acquiescence. Judaism, Mohammedanism and Christianity,
in giving us a God for a teacher, have taken away from us the liberty
to think for ourselves. Each one of these three religions makes
unconditional obedience the price of the salvation it offers, but do
you know what other word in the English language unconditional
obedience is a synonym of?--Silence! A dumb world, a tongue-tied
humanity alone can be saved! The good man is the man on his knees with
his mouth in the dust. But silence is sterility! Silence is slavery!
Think, then, of the character of a religion which makes free speech,
free thought, a crime--which hurls hell against the Protestant!
There is a third question to be answered: It is true, they say to us,
that there are many things in the Koran, the Old Testament and the
New, which are really injurious, and which ought to be discarded, but
there are also many beautiful principles, noble sentiments and high
educational maxims in these scriptures. Why not, then, dwell upon
these, and pass in silence over the objectionable teachings of these
religions? It is not necessary to repeat again that in all so-called
sacred scriptures, there are glorious truths. It could not have been
otherwise. All literature, whether secular or religious, is the voice
of man and sweeps the whole compass of human love and hope. We have no
objection to quoting from the Veddas, the Avestas, the Koran or the
Bible; nor do we hesitate to admire and enjoy and praise generously
the ravishingly beautiful utterances of the poets and prophets of all
times and climes. Nevertheless, it remains true that the modern world
finds more practical help and inspiration in secular authors, in the
books of science and philosophy, than in these so-called inspired
scriptures. Jesus, who is popularly believed to have preached the
Sermon on the Mount, has said little or nothing which can help the
modern world as much as the scientific revelations of a student like
Darwin, or of a philosopher like Herbert Spencer, or of a poet like
Goethe or Shakespeare. We know this will sound like blasphemy to the
believer, but a moment's honest and fearless reflection will convince
everyone of the fact that neither Mohammed nor Jesus had in view
modern conditions when they delivered their sermons. Jesus could have
had no idea of a world outside of his little Palestine. The thought of
the many races of the world mingling together in one country could
never have occurred to him. His vision did not embrace the vista of
two thousand years, nor did his mind rise to the level of the problems
which today tax the brain and heart of man. Jesus believed implicitly
that the world would speedily come to an end, that the sun and the
moon would soon fall from the face of the sky, and that people living
then in Palestine would not taste of death before they saw "the Son of
Man return upon the clouds." Jesus had no idea of a progressive
evolution of humanity. It was beyond him to conceive the consolidation
of the nations into one fellowship, the new resources which science
would tap, or the new energies which human industry would challenge.
Jesus was in peaceful ignorance of the social and international
problems which confront the world of today. The Sermon on the Mount,
then, which is said to be the best in our gospels, can be of little
help to us, for it could not have been meant for us. And it is very
easy to show that the modern world ignores, not out of disrespect to
Jesus, but by the force of circumstances and the evolution of society,
the principles contained in that renowned sermon.
I was waiting for transportation at the corner of one of the principal
streets of Chicago, the other day, when, looking about me, I saw the
tremendous buildings which commerce and wealth have reared in our
midst. On one hand was a savings bank, on the other a colossal
national bank, and up and down the street a thousand equally solid and
substantial buildings, devoted to the interests of commerce and
civilization. To bring out and emphasize the wide breach between the
man who preached the Sermon on the Mount, and progressive and
aggressive, busy and wealthy, modern Chicago, I took the words of
Jesus and mentally inscribed them upon the walls of these buildings.
Upon the savings bank--and a savings bank represents economy,
frugality, self-sacrifice, self-restraint,--the desire of the people
to provide for the uncertainties of the future, to lay by something
for the education of their children, for the maintenance of their
families when they themselves have ceased to live,--I printed upon the
facade of this institution, figuratively speaking, these words of the
Oriental Jesus:
"Take no thought of the morrow, for the morrow will take care of
itself."
And upon the imposing front of the national bank, I wrote: "Lay not up
for yourselves treasures on earth." If we followed these teachings,
would not our industrial and social life sink at once to the level of
the stagnating Asiatics?
Pursuing this comparison between Jesus and modern life, I inscribed
upon the handsome churches whose pews bring enormous incomes, and on
the palatial residences of Bishops, with salaries of from twenty-five
to a hundred thousand dollars, these words:
"How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of Heaven," and,
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven."
In plain words, the gospel condemns wealth, and cries, "Woe unto you
rich," and "Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor," which, by the
way, would only be shifting the temptation of wealth from one class to
another. Buckle was nearer the truth, and more modern in spirit, when
he ascribed the progress of man to the pursuit of truth and the
acquisition of wealth.
But let us apply the teachings of Jesus to still other phases of
modern life. Some years ago our Cuban neighbors appealed to the United
States for protection against the cruelty and tyranny of Spanish rule.
We sent soldiers over to aid the oppressed and down-trodden people in the
Island. Now, suppose, instead of sending iron-clads and admirals,--Schley,
Sampson and Dewey,--we had advised the Cubans to "resist not evil,"
and to "_submit_ to the powers that be," or suppose the General of our
army, or the Secretary of our navy, had counseled seriously our
soldiers to remember the words of Jesus when fighting the Spaniards:
"If a man smite thee on one cheek," etc. Write upon our halls of
justice and courthouses and statute books, and on every lawyer's desk,
these solemn words of Jesus: "He that taketh away thy coat, let him
have thy cloak also."
Introduce into our Constitution, the pride and bulwark of our
liberties, guaranteeing religious freedom unto all,--these words of
Paul: "If any man preach any other gospel than that which I have
preached unto you, let him be accursed." Think of placing nearly fifty
millions of our American population under a curse!
Tell this to the workers in organized charities: "Give to every man
that asketh of thee," which, if followed, would make a science of
charity impossible.
To the workingmen, or the oppressed seeking redress and protesting
against evil, tell this: "Blessed are they that are persecuted," which
is equivalent to encouraging them to submit to, rather than to resist,
oppression.
Or upon our colleges and universities, our libraries and laboratories
consecrated to science, write the words: "The wisdom of this world is
foolishness with God," and "God has chosen the foolish to confound the
wise."
Ah, yes, the foolish of Asia, it is true, succeeded in confounding the
philosophers of Europe. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, did
replace Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Caesar and the
Antonines! But it was a trance, a spell, a delirium only, and it did
not last,--it could not last. The charm is at last broken. Europe is
forever free from the exorcism of Asia.
I believe the health and sanity and virtue of our Europe would
increase a hundred fold, if we could, from this day forth, cease to
pretend professing by word of mouth what in our own hearts and lives
we have completely outgrown. If we could be sincere and brave; if our
leaders and teachers would only be honest with themselves and honest
with the modern world, there would, indeed, be a new earth and a new
humanity.
But the past is past. It is for us to sow the seeds which in the day
of their fruition shall emancipate humanity from the pressing yoke of
a stubborn Asiatic superstition, and push the future even beyond the
beauty and liberty of the old Pagan world!
[Illustration: Figures on a Phoenician Vase, Showing the Use of the
Cross, Evidently in Some Ceremony of a Religious Nature.]
CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM
Christianity as an Asiatic cult is not suitable to European races. To
prove this, let us make a careful comparison between Paganism and
Christianity. There are many foolish things, and many excellent
things, in both the Pagan and the Christian religions. We are not
concerned with particular beliefs and rites; it is Paganism as a
philosophy of life, and Christianity as a philosophy of life, that we
desire to investigate. And at the threshold of our investigation we
must bear in mind that Paganism was born and grew into maturity in
Europe, while Asia was the cradle of Christianity. It would be
superfluous to undertake to prove that in politics, in government, in
literature, in art, in science, in the general culture of the people,
Europe was always in advance of Asia.
Do we know of any good reason, when it comes to religion, why Asia
should be incomparably superior to anything Europe has produced in
that line? Unless we believe in miracles, the natural inference would
be that a people who were better educated in every way than the
Asiatics should have also possessed the better religion. I admit that
this is only inferential, or _a priori_ reasoning, and that it still
remains to be shown by the recital of facts, that Europe not only
ought to have produced a better religion than Asia, but that she
did.
In my opinion, between the Pagan and Christian view of life there is
the same difference that there is between a European and an Asiatic.
What makes a Roman a Roman, a Greek a Greek, and a Persian a Persian?
That is a very interesting, but also a very difficult question. Why
are not all nations alike? Why is the oak more robust than the spruce?
What are the subtle influences which operate in the womb of nature,
where "the embryos of races are nourished into form and
individuality?" I cannot answer that question satisfactorily, and I am
not going to attempt to answer it at all. We know there is a radical
difference between the European and the Asiatic; we know that Oriental
and Occidental culture are the antitheses of each other, and nowhere
else is this seen more clearly than in their interpretations of the
universe, that is to say, in their religions.
In order to understand the Oriental races, we must discover the
standpoint from which they take their observations.
But first, it is admitted, of course, that there are Europeans who are
more Asiatic in their habits of life and thought than the Asiatics
themselves, and, conversely, there are Asiatics who in spirit, energy
and progressiveness are abreast of the most advanced representatives
of European culture.
Nor has Asia been altogether barren; she has blossomed in many spots,
and she nursed the flame of civilization at a time when Europe was not
yet even cradled.
To show the intellectual point of view of the Asiatic, let me quote a
passage from the Book of Job, which certainly is an Oriental
composition, and one of the finest:
"How, then, can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean that
is born of a woman? _Man that is a worm, and the son of man, which
is a worm_."
This, then, is the standpoint of the Oriental. He believes he is a
poor little worm. His philosophy must necessarily _trail_ in the dust.
A worm cannot have the thoughts of an eagle; a worm cannot have the
imagination of a _Titan_; a worm sees the world only as a worm may.
This is the angle of vision of the Asiatic. He calls himself a worm,
and naturally his view of life shrinks to the limits of his
standpoint. To he perfectly fair, however, we must admit there are
passages in all the bibles of the Orient which are as daring as those
found in any European book, but they represent only the strayings of
the Oriental mind, not its normal pulse. The habitual accent of the
Oriental is that man, calling a woman his mother, is a worm. In the
Psalms of David, or whoever wrote the book, we read these words: "_I
am a worm, and not a man_." What did the Oriental see in the worm,
which induced him to select it out of all things as the original, so
to speak, of man? The worm _crawls_ and _creeps_ and _writhes_.
Nothing is so distressing as to see its helpless wiggling--and its
home is in the dust; dirt is its daily food. Moreover, it is in danger
of being stamped or trampled into annihilation at any instant. A worm
_represents the minimum_ of worth,--the dregs in the cup of existence;
it is the scum or the froth of life, which one may blow into the air.
It is impossible to descend lower than this in self-abasement.
When the Oriental, therefore, says that man is a worm or "I am a
worm," he is just as much _obeying the cumulative_ pressure of his
Asiatic ancestry, and voicing the inherited submission of the Oriental
mind, as Prometheus, with the vulture at his breast, and shaking his
hand in the face of the gods, expresses the revolt of the European
mind. The normal state for the Asiatic is submission; for the European
it is independence. Slavery has a fascination for the children of the
east. The air of independence is too sharp for them. They crave a
master, a Sultan or a Czar, who shall own them body and soul. Through
long practice, they have acquired the art of servility and flattery,
of salaams and prostrations--an art in which they have become so
efficient that it would be to them like throwing away so much capital
to abandon its practice. They expect to go to Heaven on their knees.
This is not said to hurt the feelings of the races of the Orient. We
are explaining the influence of absolutism upon the products and
tendencies of the human mind. The religion of the Orient, then,
notwithstanding its many beautiful features like its politics, is a
_product of the suppressed_ mind, which finds in the creeping worm of
the dust the measure of its own worth. How different is the European
from the Asiatic in this respect! The latter crawls upon the stage of
this magnificent universe with the timidity, hesitancy and tremblings
of a worm. True to his bringing up, he falls prostrate, overwhelmed by
the marvelous immensities opening before him and the abysses yawning
at his feet. He contracts and dwindles in size, imploring with
outstretched hands to be spared because he is a poor worm. It is a
part of his religion or philosophy that if he admits he is nothing but
a worm, the dread powers will not consider him a rival or a rebel, but
will look upon him as a confirmed subject, and permit him to live.
This is his art, the strategy by which he hopes to secure his
salvation.
There has never been a republic in Asia, which is another way of
saying that the Asiatic mind has never asserted its independence.
Hence its thought smacks of slavery. In politics, as in religion, the
Asiatic has always been passive. He has never been an actor, but only
a spectator. It is his to nod the head, fold the arms and bend the
knee. On earth he must have a king and a pope, and in heaven an Allah
or a Jehovah. He has not been created for himself, but for the glory
of his earthly and heavenly Lords. This radical difference between
European self-appreciation and Asiatic self-depreciation furnishes the
key to the problem under discussion.
Paganism is the religion of a self-governing race. Buddhism, Judaism,
Mohammedanism, and Christianity are religions born on a soil where man
is owned by another. It will be impossible to imagine Marcus Aurelius,
for instance, crawling upon his knees before any being, or calling
himself a worm. One must have in his blood the taint of a thousand
years of slavery, before he can stoop so low. Marcus Aurelius was a
gentleman. The European conception of a gentleman implies self-respect
and independence; the Oriental conception of a gentleman implies self-
abasement and acquiescence. The Oriental gentleman is a man who serves
his king as though he were his slave.
But observe now how the Oriental proceeds to pull down his mind to the
level of his body, which he has likened to a worm. When I was still a
Presbyterian minister, I was invited to address a Sunday-school camp-
meeting at Asbury Park in New Jersey. There were other speakers
besides myself; one of them, known as a Sunday-school leader, had
brought with him a chart of the human heart, which, when he arose to
address the children, he spread on a blackboard before them: "This is
a picture of your heart before you have accepted Jesus. What do you
think of it?" he asked the school. "It is all black," was the answer;
and it was. He had drawn a totally black picture to represent the
heart of the child before conversion.
In all the literature of Pagandom, there is not the least intimation
of so fearful an idea as the total depravity of human nature. The
Pagans never thought, spoke, or heard of such a thing. It was
inconceivable to them; they would have recoiled from it as from a
species of barbarism. How radically different, then, must European
culture have been from the Asiatic. There is a gulf well-nigh
impassible between the thought of a free-born citizen and that of the
oppressed and enslaved Oriental.
But let us continue. Not satisfied with thinking of himself as a worm,
and of his intellectual and moral nature as totally degraded, the
Oriental strikes with the same paralyzing stroke, at _the world in
which he lives_, until it, too, withers and becomes an ugly and
heinous thing. He calls the world a "vale of tears," ruled by the
powers of darkness, and groaning under a primeval curse. "The world,
the flesh and the devil" become a trio of iniquity and sin. Some of
you in your earlier days must have sung that Methodist hymn which
represents the world as a snare and a delusion:
"The world is a fleeting show
For man's illusion given."
Given! Think of believing that the world has been purposely given us
to lead us astray. The thought staggers the mind. It suggests a
terrible conspiracy against man. For his ruin, sun, moon and stars co-
operate with the devil. Help! we cry, as we realize our inability to
cope with the tremendous powers hurling themselves against us like
billows of the raging sea, and taking our breath away. It suggests
that we are placed in a world which has been made purposely beautiful,
in order to tempt us into sin. Think of such a belief! It is that of a
slave. It is Asiatic; it is not European. Neither you nor I, in all
our readings, have ever come across any such attitude toward nature in
Pagan literature. The Greeks and the Romans loved nature and made
lovely gods out of. every running brook, caressing zephyr, dancing
wave, glistening dew, sailing cloud, beaming star, beautiful woman, or
brave man. The Oriental suspects nature and regards her smiles--the
shining of the sun, the perfume of the meadows, the swell of the sea,
the fluttering of the branches tipped with blossoms, the emerald
grass, the sapphire sky--looks upon all these as the seductive
advances of a prostitute in whose embrace lurks death!
But, once more; not satisfied with dragging the world down to the
plane of his totally depraved nature, and that again to the level of
the worm, the Asiatic projects his fatal thought into the next world
and, crossing the grave, that silent and painless home of a tired
race, he crowds the beyond with a thousand thousand pains and aches
and horrors and fires--with sulphur and brimstone and burning hells.
His frightened imagination invokes dark and infernal beings without
number, fanning with their dark wings the very air he breathes. This
is too revolting to think of. Poor slave! Inured to suffering,--to the
lash, to oppression's crushing heel,--he dare not dream of a painless
future, of a quiet, peaceful sleep at life's end, nor has he the
divine audacity to invent a new world wherein the misery and slavery
of his present existence will be impossible,--where all his tyrants
will be dead, where he shall taste of sweet freedom and become himself
a god. In his timidity and shrinking submission, with the spring of
his heart broken, his spirit crushed, all independence strangled in
his soul,--he puts in the biggest corner of his heaven even,--a
_hell_!
Nor does he pause there, but, stinging his slave imagination once
more, he declares that this future of torture and hell-fire is
_everlasting_. He cannot improve upon that. Deeper in degradation
he cannot descend. That is the darkest thought he can have, and,
strange to say, he hugs it to his bosom as a mother would her child.
The doctrine of hell is the thought of a slave and of a coward. No
free-horn man, no brave soul could ever have invented so abhorrent an
idea. Only under a regime of absolutism, only under an Oriental Sultan
whose caprice is law, whose vengeance is terrible, whose favors are
fickle, whose power is crushing, whose greed is insatiable, whose
torture instruments are without number, and whose dark dungeons always
resound with the rattling of chains and the groans of martyrs--only
under such a regime could man have invented an unending hell. But we
were mistaken when we said that hell was the darkest that the Asiatic
was capable of. He has grafted upon the European mind a belief which
is darker still.
Is there anything more precious in human life than children? The
sternest heart melts, the fiercest features relax, at the sight of an
innocent, sweet, laughing, frolicking babe in its mother's arms. Look
at its glorious eyes, so full of surprises, so deep, so appealing!
Look at the soft round hands, the little feet, the exquisite mouth,
opening like a bud! Hear its prattle, which is nothing but the mind
beginning to stir! Watch its gestures, the first language of the
child! See it with its tiny arms about its mother's neck. Mark its joy
when it is kissed. What else in our human world is more beautiful,
more divine? And yet, and yet, the slave creed of Asia has drawn into
its burning net of damnation even the cradle. John Burroughs describes
how in a Catholic cemetery near where he lives he was shown a
neglected, unkept corner, used for the burial of unbaptized children.
Consecrated ground is denied to them, and so their poor bodies are
huddled together in this profane plot, unblessed and unsaved. I do not
wish to live in a world where such absurdities are not only
countenanced, but where they are exalted even to the dignity of a
religion!
O holy children! O sweet children! huddled together in unconsecrated
ground, and thus exposed to the cruelty of indescribable demons! Can
you hear me? I am a man of compassion. I can forgive the murderer. I
can pardon and pity the meanest wretch and take him into my arms, but
I confess that even if I had a heart as big as the ocean, I could not,
I would not, forgive the creed that can be guilty of such inhumanity
against you,--dear, innocent ones, who were born to breathe but for a
moment the harsh air of this world! When such gloom overpowers me and
wrings from my lips such hard words, I find some little respite in
contemplating the old Pagan world in its best days. I hasten for
consolation to my Pagan friends, and in their sanity find healing for
my bruised heart.
In one of his letters, the Greek Plutarch says this about children,
which I want you to compare with what St. Augustine, the
representative of the Asiatic creed, says on the same subject. "It is
irreligious," writes Plutarch, "to lament for those pure souls (the
children) who have passed into a better life and a happier dwelling
place." [Footnote: Plutarch Ad Uxorem. Comp. Lecky's History of
European Morals. Vol. I.] Compare this Pagan tenderness for children
with the Asiatic doctrine of infant damnation but recently thrown out
of the Presbyterian creed. Yet, if St. Augustine is to be believed, it
is a heresy to reject the damnation of unbaptized infants: "Whosoever
shall tell," writes this Father of the church, "that infants shall be
quickened in Christ who died without partaking in his sacrament, does
both contradict the apostles' teaching and condemn the whole church."
[Footnote: St. Augustine Epist. 166.] It is infinitely more religious
to disagree with the apostles and the church, if that is their
teaching. The Pagan view of children is the holier view. The doctrine
of the damnation of children could only find lodgment in the brain of
a slave or a madman. It is Asiatic and altogether foreign to the
culture of Europe.
All that we have advanced thus far may be summed up in one phrase:
Asia invented the idea that man is a _fallen_ being. This idea, which
is the _dors espinal_,--the backbone--of Christianity, never for once
entered the mind of the European. We have already quoted from Job and
the Psalms; the following is from the book of Jeremiah: "The heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." This is one of the
texts upon which the doctrine of the fall of man is based. We repeat
that only under a religion of slavery, where one slave vies with
another to abase himself before his lords and masters, could such an
idea have been invented. There is not a man in all our sacred
scriptures who could stand before the deity erect and unabashed, or
who could speak in the accents of a Cicero who said, "We boast justly
of our own virtue, which we could not do if we derived it from the
deity and not from ourselves," or this from Epictetus, "It is
characteristic of a wise man that he looks for all his good and evil
from himself." Such independence was foreign to a race that believed
itself _fallen_.
In further confirmation of our position, it may be said that the
models which the Pagans set up for emulation were men like themselves,
only nobler. The models which the Orientals set up for imitation, on
the other hand, were supernatural beings, or men who were supposed to
possess supernatural powers. The great men for the Oriental are men
who can work miracles, who possess magical powers, who possess secrets
and can know how to influence the deity,--Moses, Joshua, David,
Joseph, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul,--all demi-divinities. The Pagans, on the
other hand, selected natural men, men like themselves, who had earned
the admiration of their fellows. Let me quote to you Plutarch's
eloquent sentence relative to this subject: "Whenever we begin an
enterprise or take possession of a charge, or experience a calamity,
we place before our eyes the examples of the greatest men of our own
or of bygone ages, and we ask ourselves how Plato, or Epaminondas, or
Lycurgus, or Agesilaus, would have acted. Looking into these
personages, as into a faithful mirror, we can remedy our defects in
word or deed."
The Westminster Catechism, which in its essentials is a resume of our
Asiatic religion, emphasizes the doctrine of the fall of man, of which
the Pagan world knew nothing, and refused to believe it until priests
succeeded in dominating the mind of Europe: "The catechism following
the Scripture teaches that...we are not only a disinherited family,
but we are personally depraved and demoralized." [Footnote:
Westminster Catechism, Comments.] Goodness! the Oriental imagination,
abused by slavery, cannot rid itself of the idea of being
disinherited, turned out into the cold, orphaned and smitten with
moral sores from head to foot. To the Pagan, such a description of man
would have been the acme of absurdity. Again: "It (the fall) affirms
that he (man) is all wrong, in all things and all the time."
[Footnote: Westminster Catechism, Comments.] If this was comforting
news to the Asiatic, the Pagan world would have rejected the idea as
unworthy of men in their senses. Once more: "All mankind by their fall
lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made
liable to all miseries in this life and to the pains of hell forever."
[Footnote: Westminster Catechism, Comments.] And this is the Gospel we
have imported from Asia!
Is it not pathetic? Could slavery ever strike a deeper bottom than
that? Standing before his owner, the Asiatic, of his own choice, hands
himself over to be degraded, to be placed in chains and delivered up
to the torments of hell forever. I despair of man. I would cry my
heart out if I permitted myself to dwell upon the folly and stupidity
and slavery of which man voluntarily makes himself the victim. Think
of it! A man and a woman, nobody knows where or when, are supposed to
have tasted of the fruit of a tree; the Oriental mind, with its
crouching imagination, pounces upon this flimsy, fanciful tale with
the appetite of a carrion crow, and exalts it to the dignity of an
excuse for the eternal damnation of a whole world. I am dazed! I can
say no more!
Let us recapitulate. The Oriental distrust of the natural man, born of
self-depreciation, which is the fruit of prolonged slavery, develops
into a sort of mental canker spreading at a raging pace until the
whole universe, with its glorious sun and stars, becomes an object of
horror and loathing. Not satisfied with thinking of himself as a worm,
of his intellectual and moral nature as totally depraved, he
communicates his disease to the world in which he lives until it, too,
shrinks and wastes away. Then the disease, finding no more on this
side of the grave to feed upon, leaps over the grave and converts the
beyond, the virgin worlds, into an _inferno_ with which to satiate its
fear. Indeed frightful are the thoughts of a slave people!
Let me now, in conclusion, call your attention to another difference
between the Occidental and the Oriental mind. When the body is feeble
or ill-nourished, it is less liable to resist disease; likewise when the
mind is alarmed, cowed, or pinched with fear, it becomes more exposed
to superstition. Superstition is the disease of the mind. It will keep
away from robust minds, as physical disease from a body in health. Now,
the Asiatic mind, scared into silence and subjection,--starved to a
mere shadow of what it should be, falls an easy prey to all the maladies
that mind is heir to. The European mind, on the other hand, with room
and air to move and grow in, develops a vitality which offers resistance
to all attacks of mental disease. That explains why superstition thrives
with ignorance and slavery, and expires when science and liberty gain
the ascendency. Sanitary precautions prevent physical disease; knowledge
and liberty constitute the therapeutics of the mind. Why is the Oriental
so prone or partial to miracle and mystery? His mind is sick. To believe
is easier to him than to reason. He follows the line of the least
resistance: he has invented faith that he may not have to think. The
mental cells in his brain are so starved, so devitalized, that they have
to be whipped into movement. Only the bizarre, the monstrous, the
supernatural,--demons, ghosts, dream worlds, miracles and mysteries,--can
hold his attention. Not science, but metaphysics, barren speculation,--is
the product of the Oriental mind. The philosopher Bacon describes the
Asiatic when he speaks of men who "have hitherto dwelt but little, or
rather only slightly touched upon experience, whilst they have wasted
much time on theories and fictions of the imagination."
Again: I sometimes think that if it be true that monotheism, the idea
of one God, was first discovered in Asia, it must have been suggested
to them by the regime of Absolutism, under which they lived. Unlike
Asia, democratic Europe believed in a republic of gods. Polytheism is
more consonant with the republican idea, than monotheism. If we would
let the American President rule the land without the aid of the two
houses of congress or his cabinet ministers, his power would be
infinitely more than it is now, but his gain would be the people's
loss. His increased power would only represent so much more power
taken away from the people. One God means not only more slaves, but
more abject, more helpless ones. One God is a centralization which
reduces man's liberty to a minimum. With more gods, and gods at times
disagreeing among themselves, and all bidding for man's support, man
would count for more. The Greeks could not tolerate a Jehovah, or an
Allah, before whom the Oriental rabble bent the knee. "Allah knows,"
exclaims the Moslem; that is why the Mohammedans continue in
ignorance. "Allah is great," cries again the Turk. That is why he
himself is small. The more powerful the sovereign, the smaller the
subject.
Now this leads us to a final reflection upon the difference between
the mind brought up under restraint,--in slavery,--and the mind of the
free. "The Pagan," to quote Lecky, "believed that to become acceptable
to the deity, one must be virtuous;" the Asiatic doctrine, on the
contrary, taught that "the most heroic efforts of human virtue are
insufficient to avert a sentence of eternal condemnation, unless
united with an implicit belief" in the dogmas of religion. In other
words, the noblest of men cannot be saved by his own merits of
character alone, for even when we have done our best, we are but
"unprofitable slaves," quoting a Bible text. Only by the merits of
Christ, or by the grace of God, can any man be saved. Have you ever
paused to think of the purport of this piece of Orientalism? It wipes
out every imaginable claim or right of man. Even when he is just and
great and good, he has no rights, he is as vile as the vilest. Only
the favor of the king can save,--only the grace of God, who can save
the thief on the cross if he so pleases. Is he not absolute? If he
extends his scepter, you live; if he smiles you are spared; if he
patronizes you, you are fortunate. He says, live! you live. He says,
die! you die. This is the apotheosis of despotism exalted into a
revelation.
What, then, is our creed, but the thoughts of an eastern slave
population, cringing before the throne of a Sultan, and one by one
signing away their liberties? "The foundation of all real grandeur is
a spirit of proud and lofty independence," says Buckle; but that is
not the spirit of Asia, or of its religion. It is, and we ought to try
to keep it, the spirit of the Western world.
I cannot imagine how we in this country, born of sturdy parents, born
of the freedom-loving Pagans of Rome and Greece, born of men who shook
their hands in the face of heaven, and pulled the gods off their
thrones when they violated the rights of man,--I cannot understand how
we have thrown overboard the proud, lofty spirit of independence of
the Pagans,--our forefathers, and taken upon our necks the strangling
yoke of the slave-thought of Asia!
[Illustration: Christ, Half Woman, at Baptism in Jordan. Cathedral of
Chartres, France.]