_Question_. You have seen some accounts of the recent sermon of
Dr. Tyng on "Miracles," I presume, and if so, what is your opinion
of the sermon, and also what is your opinion of miracles?
_Answer_. From an orthodox standpoint, I think the Rev. Dr. Tyng
is right. If miracles were necessary eighteen hundred years ago,
before scientific facts enough were known to overthrow hundreds
and thousands of passages in the Bible, certainly they are necessary
now. Dr. Tyng sees clearly that the old miracles are nearly worn
out, and that some new ones are absolutely essential. He takes
for granted that, if God would do a miracle to found his gospel,
he certainly would do some more to preserve it, and that it is in
need of preservation about now is evident. I am amazed that the
religious world should laugh at him for believing in miracles. It
seems to me just as reasonable that the deaf, dumb, blind and lame,
should be cured at Lourdes as at Palestine. It certainly is no
more wonderful that the law of nature should be broken now than
that it was broken several thousand years ago. Dr. Tyng also has
this advantage. The witnesses by whom he proves these miracles
are alive. An unbeliever can have the opportunity of cross-
examination. Whereas, the miracles in the New Testament are
substantiated only by the dead. It is just as reasonable to me
that blind people receive their sight in France as that devils were
made to vacate human bodies in the holy land.
For one I am exceedingly glad that Dr. Tyng has taken this position.
It shows that he is a believer in a personal God, in a God who is
attending a little to the affairs of this world, and in a God who
did not exhaust his supplies in the apostolic age. It is refreshing
to me to find in this scientific age a gentleman who still believes
in miracles. My opinion is that all thorough religionists will have
to take the ground and admit that a supernatural religion must be
supernaturally preserved.
I have been asking for a miracle for several years, and have in a
very mild, gentle and loving way, taunted the church for not
producing a little one. I have had the impudence to ask any number
of them to join in a prayer asking anything they desire for the
purpose of testing the efficiency of what is known as supplication.
They answer me by calling my attention to the miracles recorded in
the New Testament. I insist, however, on a new miracle, and,
personally, I would like to see one now. Certainly, the Infinite
has not lost his power, and certainly the Infinite knows that
thousands and hundreds of thousands, if the Bible is true, are now
pouring over the precipice of unbelief into the gulf of hell. One
little miracle would save thousands. One little miracle in Pittsburg,
well authenticated, would do more good than all the preaching ever
heard in this sooty town. The Rev. Dr. Tyng clearly sees this,
and he has been driven to the conclusion, first, that God can do
miracles; second, that he ought to, third, that he has. In this
he is perfectly logical. After a man believes the Bible, after he
believes in the flood and in the story of Jonah, certainly he ought
not to hesitate at a miracle of to-day. When I say I want a miracle,
I mean by that, I want a good one. All the miracles recorded in
the New Testament could have been simulated. A fellow could have
pretended to be dead, or blind, or dumb, or deaf. I want to see
a good miracle. I want to see a man with one leg, and then I want
to see the other leg grow out.
I would like to see a miracle like that performed in North Carolina.
Two men were disputing about the relative merits of the salve they
had for sale. One of the men, in order to demonstrate that his
salve was better than any other, cut off a dog's tail and applied
a little of the salve to the stump, and, in the presence of the
spectators, a new tail grew out. But the other man, who also had
salve for sale, took up the piece of tail that had been cast away,
put a little salve at the end of that, and a new dog grew out, and
the last heard of those parties they were quarrelling as to who
owned the second dog. Something like that is what I call a miracle.
_Question_. What do you believe about the immortality of the soul?
Do you believe that the spirit lives as an individual after the
body is dead?
_Answer_. I have said a great many times that it is no more
wonderful that we should live again than that we do live. Sometimes
I have thought it not quite so wonderful for the reason that we
have a start. But upon that subject I have not the slightest
information. Whether man lives again or not I cannot pretend to
say. There may be another world and there may not be. If there
is another world we ought to make the best of it after arriving
there. If there is not another world, or if there is another world,
we ought to make the best of this. And since nobody knows, all
should be permitted to have their opinions, and my opinion is that
nobody knows.
If we take the Old Testament for authority, man is not immortal.
The Old Testament shows man how he lost immortality. According to
Genesis, God prevented man from putting forth his hand and eating
of the Tree of Life. It is there stated, had he succeeded, man
would have lived forever. God drove him from the garden, preventing
him eating of this tree, and in consequence man became mortal; so
that if we go by the Old Testament we are compelled to give up
immortality. The New Testament has but little on the subject. In
one place we are told to seek for immortality. If we are already
immortal, it is hard to see why we should go on seeking for it.
In another place we are told that they who are worthy to obtain
that world and the resurrection of the dead, are not given in
marriage. From this one would infer there would be some unworthy
to be raised from the dead. Upon the question of immortality, the
Old Testament throws but little satisfactory light. I do not deny
immortality, nor would I endeavor to shake the belief of anybody
in another life. What I am endeavoring to do is to put out the
fires of hell. If we cannot have heaven without hell, I am in
favor of abolishing heaven. I do not want to go to heaven if one
soul is doomed to agony. I would rather be annihilated.
My opinion of immortality is this:
First.--I live, and that of itself is infinitely wonderful.
Second.--There was a time when I was not, and after I was not, I
was. Third.--Now that I am, I may be again; and it is no more
wonderful that I may be again, if I have been, than that I am,
having once been nothing. If the churches advocated immortality,
if they advocated eternal justice, if they said that man would be
rewarded and punished according to deeds; if they admitted that
some time in eternity there would be an opportunity given to lift
up souls, and that throughout all the ages the angels of progress
and virtue would beckon the fallen upward; and that some time, and
no matter how far away they might put off the time, all the children
of men would be reasonably happy, I never would say a solitary word
against the church, but just as long as they preach that the majority
of mankind will suffer eternal pain, just so long I shall oppose
them; that is to say, as long as I live.
_Question_. Do you believe in a God; and, if so, what kind of a
God?
_Answer_. Let me, in the first place, lay a foundation for an
answer.
First.--Man gets all food for thought through the medium of the
senses. The effect of nature upon the senses, and through the
senses upon the brain, must be natural. All food for thought,
then, is natural. As a consequence of this, there can be no
supernatural idea in the human brain. Whatever idea there is must
have been a natural product. If, then, there is no supernatural
idea in the human brain, then there cannot be in the human brain
an idea of the supernatural. If we can have no idea of the
supernatural, and if the God of whom you spoke is admitted to be
supernatural, then, of course, I can have no idea of him, and I
certainly can have no very fixed belief on any subject about which
I have no idea.
There may be a God for all I know. There may be thousands of them.
But the idea of an infinite Being outside and independent of nature
is inconceivable. I do not know of any word that would explain my
doctrine or my views upon the subject. I suppose Pantheism is as
near as I could go. I believe in the eternity of matter and in
the eternity of intelligence, but I do not believe in any Being
outside of nature. I do not believe in any personal Deity. I do
not believe in any aristocracy of the air. I know nothing about
origin or destiny. Between these two horizons I live, whether I
wish to or not, and must be satisfied with what I find between
these two horizons. I have never heard any God described that I
believe in. I have never heard any religion explained that I
accept. To make something out of nothing cannot be more absurd
than that an infinite intelligence made this world, and proceeded
to fill it with crime and want and agony, and then, not satisfied
with the evil he had wrought, made a hell in which to consummate
the great mistake.
_Question_. Do you believe that the world, and all that is in it
came by chance?
_Answer_. I do not believe anything comes by chance. I regard
the present as the necessary child of a necessary past. I believe
matter is eternal; that it has eternally existed and eternally will
exist. I believe that in all matter, in some way, there is what
we call force; that one of the forms of force is intelligence. I
believe that whatever is in the universe has existed from eternity
and will forever exist.
Secondly.--I exclude from my philosophy all ideas of chance. Matter
changes eternally its form, never its essence. You cannot conceive
of anything being created. No one can conceive of anything existing
without a cause or with a cause. Let me explain; a thing is not
a cause until an effect has been produced; so that, after all,
cause and effect are twins coming into life at precisely the same
instant, born of the womb of an unknown mother. The Universe in
the only fact, and everything that ever has happened, is happening,
or will happen, are but the different aspects of the one eternal
fact.
--_The Dispatch_, Pittsburg, Pa., December 11, 1880.