Do not be alarmed, dear reader; there is no need to rush out into the
street, like poor old Lot flying from the doomed Cities of the Plain.
Sit down and take it easy. Let your fire-insurance policy slumber in
its nest. Lean back in your chair, stretch out your legs, and prepare
to receive another dose of Free-thought physic--worth a guinea a bottle.
So! Are you ready? Very well then, let us begin.
What would man be without fire? Would he not be a perfect barbarian? His
very food, even the meat, would have to be eaten raw, and as knives
and forks would be unknown, it would have to be devoured with hands and
teeth. We read that the Tartar horseman will put a beefsteak under his
saddle, and supple and cook it in a ten-mile ride; but we cannot all
follow his example, and many would think the game was not worth the
candle. But not only should we be obliged to eat our food uncooked;
we should enjoy none of the blessings and comforts bestowed upon us by
science, which absolutely depends on fire. Nay, our houses would be too
cold to shelter us in the winter, and we should be compelled to burrow
in the ground. The whole human race would have to live in tropical
countries; all the temperate regions would be deserted; and as it is
in the temperate regions that civilisation reaches its highest and most
permanent developments, the world would be reduced to a condition of
barbarism if not of savagery.
No wonder, then, that this mighty civiliser has figured so extensively
in legend and mythology. "Next to the worship of the sun," says Max
Müller, "there is probably no religious worship so widely diffused as
that of Fire." At bottom, indeed, the two were nearly identical. The
flame of burning wood was felt to be akin to the rays of the sun, and
its very upward motion seemed an aspiration to its source. Sun and fire
alike gave warmth, which meant life and joy; without them there
reigned sterility and death. Do we not still speak of the _sunshine_
of prosperity, and of basking in the _rays_ of fortune? Do we not still
speak of the _fire_ of life, of inspiration, of love, of heroism? And
thus when the tide of our being is at the flood, we instinctively think
of our father the Sun, in whom, far more than in invisible gods, we live
and move--for we are all his children.
Like everything else in civilised existence, fire was a human discovery.
But superstitious ages imagined that so precious a thing must
have descended from above. Accordingly the Greeks (to take but one
illustration) fabled that Prometheus stole Jove's fire from Heaven and
gave it to mankind. And as the gods of early ages are not too friendly
to human beings, it was also fabled that Prometheus incurred the fierce
anger of Jove, who fastened him to a rock on Mount Caucasus, where
he was blistered by day and frozen by night, while Jove's vulture
everlastingly preyed upon his vitals.
The sun himself, in oriental countries, shining down implacably in times
of prolonged drought, became a terrible demon, and as Baal or Moloch was
worshipped with cruel and bloody rites. The corruption of the best
is the worst; beneficence changes to malignity. Thus fire, which is a
splendid servant, is an awful master. The very wild beasts dread it.
Famishing lions and tigers will not approach the camp-fire to seize
their prey. Men have something of the same instinctive apprehension. How
soon the nerves are disturbed by the smell of anything burning in the
house. Raise the cry of "Fire!" in a crowded building, and at once
the old savage bursts through the veneer of civilisation. It is
helter-skelter, the Devil take the hindmost. The strong trample upon the
weak. Men and women turn to devils. Even if the cry of "Fire!" be raised
in a church--where a believer might wish to die, and where he might feel
himself booked through to glory--there is just the same stampede. People
who sit and listen complacently to the story of eternal roastings in an
everlasting hell, will fight like maniacs to escape a singeing. Rather
than go to heaven in a chariot of fire they will plod for half a century
in this miserable vale of tears.
Man's dread of fire has been artfully seized upon by the priests. All
over the world these gentlemen are in the same line of business--trading
upon the credulous terrors of the multitude. They fill Hell with fire,
because it frightens men easily, and the fuel costs nothing. If they
had to find the fuel themselves Hell would be cold in twenty-four hours.
"Flee from the wrath to come," they exclaim. "What is it?" ask the
people. "Consuming fire," the priests exclaim, "nay, not consuming; you
will burn in it without dying, without losing a particle of flesh, for
ever and ever." Then the people want to get saved, and the priests issue
insurance policies, which are rendered void by change of opinion or
failure to pay the premium.
Buddhist pictures of hell teach the eye the same lesson that is taught
the ear by Christian sermons. There are the poor damned wretches rolling
in the fire; there are the devils shovelling in fuel, and other devils
with long toasting-forks thrusting back the victims that shove their
noses out of the flames.
Wherever the priests retain their old power over the people's minds they
still preach a hell of literal fire, and deliver twenty sermons on Hades
to one on Paradise. Hell, in fact, is always as hot as the people will
stand it. The priests reduce the temperature with natural reluctance.
Every degree lost is a sinking of their power and profit.
Even in England--the land of Shakespeare and Shelley, Newton and Darwin,
Mill and Spencer--the cry of "Fire!" is still raised in thousands of
pulpits. Catholics bate no jot of their fiery damnation; Church of
England clergymen hold forth on brimstone--with now and then a dash of
treacle--in the rural districts and small towns; it is not long
since the Wesleyans turned out a minister who was not cocksure about
everlasting torment; Mr. Spurgeon preaches hell (hot, without sugar) in
mercy to perishing souls; and General Booth, who caters for the silliest
and most ignorant Christians, works hell into his trade-mark.
"Blood and Fire" is a splendid summary of the orthodox faith. All who
would be saved must be washed in the Blood of the Lamb--a disgusting
ablution! All who are not saved fall into the Fire. A blood-bath or a
sulphur-bath is the only alternative.
Happily, however, the people are becoming more civilised and more
humane. Science and popular education are working wonders. Reason,
self-reliance, and sympathy are rapidly developing. The old primitive
terrors are losing their hold upon us, and the callous dogmas of savage
religion are growing impossible. Priests cannot frighten men who possess
a high sense of human dignity; and the doctrine of an angry God, who
will burn his own children in hell, is loathsome to those who will fight
the flames and smoke of a burning house to save the life of an unknown
fellow creature.
How amusing, in these circumstances, are the wrigglings of the
"advanced" Christians. Archdeacon Farrar, for instance, in despite of
common sense and etymology, contends that "everlasting" fire only means
"eternal" fire. What a comfort the distinction would be to a man in
Hell! Away with such temporising! Let the ghastly old dogma be defied.
Sensible people should simply laugh at the priests who still raise the
cry of "Fire!"