_Question_. Now that a lull has come in politics, I thought I
would come and see what is going on in the religious world?
_Answer_. Well, from what little I learn, there has not been much
going on during the last year. There are five hundred and twenty-
six Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, and two hundred of
these churches have not received a new member for an entire year,
and the others have scarcely held their own. In Illinois there
are four hundred and eighty-three Presbyterian Churches, and they
have now fewer members than they had in 1879, and of the four
hundred and eighty-three, one hundred and eighty-three have not
received a single new member for twelve months. A report has been
made, under the auspices of the Pan-Presbyterian Council, to the
effect that there are in the whole world about three millions of
Presbyterians. This is about one-fifth of one per cent. of the
inhabitants of the world. The probability is that of the three
million nominal Presbyterians, not more than two or three hundred
thousand actually believe the doctrine, and of the two or three
hundred thousand, not more than five or six hundred have any true
conception of what the doctrine is. As the Presbyterian Church
has only been able to induce one-fifth of one per cent. of the
people to even call themselves Presbyterians, about how long will
it take, at this rate, to convert mankind? The fact is, there
seems to be a general lull along the entire line, and just at
present very little is being done by the orthodox people to keep
their fellow-citizens out of hell.
_Question_. Do you really think that the orthodox people now
believe in the old doctrine of eternal punishment, and that they
really think there is a kind of hell that our ancestors so carefully
described?
_Answer_. I am afraid that the old idea is dying out, and that
many Christians are slowly giving up the consolations naturally
springing from the old belief. Another terrible blow to the old
infamy is the fact that in the revised New Testament the word Hades
has been substituted. As nobody knows exactly what Hades means,
it will not be quite so easy to frighten people at revivals by
threatening them with something that they don't clearly understand.
After this, when the impassioned orator cries out that all the
unconverted will be sent to Hades, the poor sinners, instead of
getting frightened, will begin to ask each other what and where
that is. It will take many years of preaching to clothe that word
in all the terrors and horrors, pains, and penalties and pangs of
hell. Hades is a compromise. It is a concession to the philosophy
of our day. It is a graceful acknowledgment to the growing spirit
of investigation, that hell, after all, is a barbaric mistake.
Hades is the death of revivals. It cannot be used in song. It
won't rhyme with anything with the same force that hell does. It
is altogether more shadowy than hot. It is not associated with
brimstone and flame. It sounds somewhat indistinct, somewhat
lonesome, a little desolate, but not altogether uncomfortable.
For revival purposes, Hades is simply useless, and few conversions
will be made in the old way under the revised Testament.
_Question_. Do you really think that the church is losing ground?
_Answer_. I am not, as you probably know, connected with any
orthodox organization, and consequently have to rely upon them for
my information. If they can be believed, the church is certainly
in an extremely bad condition. I find that the Rev. Dr. Cuyler,
only a few days ago, speaking of the religious condition of Brooklyn
--and Brooklyn, you know, has been called the City of Churches--
states that the great mass of that Christian city was out of Christ,
and that more professing Christians went to the theatre than to
the prayer meeting. This, certainly, from their standpoint, is a
most terrible declaration. Brooklyn, you know, is one of the great
religious centres of the world--a city in which nearly all the
people are engaged either in delivering or in hearing sermons; a
city filled with the editors of religious periodicals; a city of
prayer and praise; and yet, while prayer meetings are free, the
theatres, with the free list entirely suspended, catch more Christians
than the churches; and this happens while all the pulpits thunder
against the stage, and the stage remains silent as to the pulpit.
At the same meeting in which the Rev. Dr. Cuyler made his astounding
statements the Rev. Mr. Pentecost was the bearer of the happy news
that four out of five persons living in the city of Brooklyn were
going down to hell with no God and with no hope. If he had read
the revised Testament he would have said "Hades," and the effect
of the statement would have been entirely lost. If four-fifths of
the people of that great city are destined to eternal pain, certainly
we cannot depend upon churches for the salvation of the world. At
the meeting of the Brooklyn pastors they were in doubt as to whether
they should depend upon further meetings, or upon a day of fasting
and prayer for the purpose of converting the city.
In my judgment, it would be much better to devise ways and means
to keep a good many people from fasting in Brooklyn. If they had
more meat, they could get along with less meeting. If fasting
would save a city, there are always plenty of hungry folks even in
that Christian town. The real trouble with the church of to-day
is, that it is behind the intelligence of the people. Its doctrines
no longer satisfy the brains of the nineteenth century; and if the
church proposes to hold its power, it must lose its superstitions.
The day of revivals is gone. Only the ignorant and unthinking can
hereafter be impressed by hearing the orthodox creed. Fear has in
it no reformatory power, and the more intelligent the world grows
the more despicable and contemptible the doctrine of eternal misery
will become. The tendency of the age is toward intellectual liberty,
toward personal investigation. Authority is no longer taken for
truth. People are beginning to find that all the great and good
are not dead--that some good people are alive, and that the
demonstrations of to-day are fully equal to the mistaken theories
of the past.
_Question_. How are you getting along with Delaware?
_Answer_. First rate. You know I have been wondering where Comegys
came from, and at last I have made the discovery. I was told the
other day by a gentleman from Delaware that many years ago Colonel
Hazelitt died; that Colonel Hazelitt was an old Revolutionary
officer, and that when they were digging his grave they dug up
Comegys. Back of that no one knows anything of his history. The
only thing they know about him certainly, is, that he has never
changed one of his views since he was found, and that he never
will. I am inclined to think, however, that he lives in a community
congenial to him. For instance, I saw in a paper the other day
that within a radius of thirty miles around Georgetown, Delaware,
there are about two hundred orphan and friendless children. These
children, it seems, were indentured to Delaware farmers by the
managers of orphan asylums and other public institutions in and
about Philadelphia. It is stated in the paper, that:
"Many of these farmers are rough task-masters, and if a boy fails
to perform the work of an adult, he is almost certain to be cruelly
treated, half starved, and in the coldest weather wretchedly clad.
If he does the work, his life is not likely to be much happier,
for as a rule he will receive more kicks than candy. The result
in either case is almost certain to be wrecked constitutions,
dwarfed bodies, rounded shoulders, and limbs crippled or rendered
useless by frost or rheumatism. The principal diet of these boys
is corn pone. A few days ago, Constable W. H. Johnston went to
the house of Reuben Taylor, and on entering the sitting room his
attention was attracted by the moans of its only occupant, a little
colored boy, who was lying on the hearth in front of the fireplace.
The boy's head was covered with ashes from the fire, and he did
not pay the slightest attention to the visitor, until Johnston
asked what made him cry. Then the little fellow sat up and drawing
on old rag off his foot said, 'Look there.' The sight that met
Johnston's eye was horrible beyond description. The poor boy's
feet were so horribly frozen that the flesh had dropped off the
toes until the bones protruded. The flesh on the sides, bottoms,
and tops of his feet was swollen until the skin cracked in many
places, and the inflamed flesh was sloughing off in great flakes.
The frost-bitten flesh extended to his knees, the joints of which
were terribly inflamed. The right one had already begun suppurating.
This poor little black boy, covered with nothing but a cotton shirt,
drilling pants, a pair of nearly worn out brogans and a battered
old hat, on the morning of December 30th, the coldest day of the
season, when the mercury was seventeen degrees below zero, in the
face of a driving snow storm, was sent half a mile from home to
protect his master's unshucked corn from the depredations of
marauding cows and crows. He remained standing around in the snow
until four o'clock, then he drove the cows home, received a piece
of cold corn pone, and was sent out in the snow again to chop stove
wood till dark. Having no bed, he slept that night in front of
the fireplace, with his frozen feet buried in the ashes. Dr. C.
H. Richards found it necessary to cut off the boy's feet as far
back as the ankle and the instep."
This was but one case in several. Personally, I have no doubt that
Mr. Reuben Taylor entirely agrees with Chief Justice Comegys on
the great question of blasphemy, and probably nothing would so
gratify Mr. Reuben Taylor as to see some man in a Delaware jail
for the crime of having expressed an honest thought. No wonder
that in the State of Delaware the Christ of intellectual liberty
has been crucified between the pillory and the whipping-post. Of
course I know that there are thousands of most excellent people in
that State--people who believe in intellectual liberty, and who
only need a little help--and I am doing what I can in that direction
--to repeal the laws that now disgrace the statute book of that
little commonwealth. I have seen many people from that State lately
who really wish that Colonel Hazelitt had never died.
_Question_. What has the press generally said with regard to the
action of Judge Comegys? Do they, so far as you know, justify his
charge?
_Answer_. A great many papers having articles upon the subject
have been sent to me. A few of the religious papers seem to think
that the Judge did the best he knew, and there is one secular paper
called the _Evening News_, published at Chester, Pa., that thinks
"that the rebuke from so high a source of authority will have a
most excellent effect, and will check religious blasphemers from
parading their immoral creeds before the people." The editor of
this paper should at once emigrate to the State of Delaware, where
he properly belongs. He is either a native of Delaware, or most
of his subscribers are citizens of that country; or, it may be that
he is a lineal descendant of some Hessian, who deserted during the
Revolutionary war. Most of the newspapers in the United States
are advocates of mental freedom. Probably nothing on earth has
been so potent for good as an untrammeled, fearless press. Among
the papers of importance there is not a solitary exception. No
leading journal in the United States can be found upon the side of
intellectual slavery. Of course, a few rural sheets edited by
gentlemen, as Mr. Greeley would say, "whom God in his inscrutable
wisdom had allowed to exist," may be found upon the other side,
and may be small enough, weak enough and mean enough to pander to
the lowest and basest prejudices of their most ignorant subscribers.
These editors disgrace their profession and exert about the same
influence upon the heads as upon the pockets of their subscribers
--that is to say, they get little and give less.
_Question_. Do you not think after all, the people who are in
favor of having you arrested for blasphemy, are acting in accordance
with the real spirit of the Old and New Testaments?
_Answer_. Of course, they act in exact accordance with many of
the commands in the Old Testament, and in accordance with several
passages in the New. At the same time, it may be said that they
violate passages in both. If the Old Testament is true, and if it
is the inspired word of God, of course, an Infidel ought not be
allowed to live; and if the New Testament is true, an unbeliever
should not be permitted to speak. There are many passages, though,
in the New Testament, that should protect even an Infidel. Among
them is this: "Do unto others as ye would that others should do
unto you." But that is a passage that has probably had as little
effect upon the church as any other in the Bible. So far as I am
concerned, I am willing to adopt that passage, and I am willing to
extend to every other human being every right that I claim for
myself. If the churches would act upon this principle, if they
would say--every soul, every mind, may think and investigate for
itself; and around all, and over all, shall be thrown the sacred
shield of liberty, I should be on their side.
_Question_. How do you stand with the clergymen, and what is their
opinion of you and of your views?
_Answer_. Most of them envy me; envy my independence; envy my
success; think that I ought to starve; that the people should not
hear me; say that I do what I do for money, for popularity; that I
am actuated by hatred of all that is good and tender and holy in
human nature; think that I wish to tear down the churches, destroy
all morality and goodness, and usher in the reign of crime and
chaos. They know that shepherds are unnecessary in the absence of
wolves, and it is to their interest to convince their sheep that
they, the sheep, need protection. This they are willing to give
them for half the wool. No doubt, most of these minsters are
honest, and are doing what they consider their duty. Be this as
it may, they feel the power slipping from their hands. They know
that the idea is slowly growing that they are not absolutely
necessary for the protection of society. They know that the
intellectual world cares little for what they say, and that the
great tide of human progress flows on careless of their help or
hindrance. So long as they insist upon the inspiration of the
Bible, they are compelled to take the ground that slavery was once
a divine institution; they are forced to defend cruelties that
would shock the heart of a savage, and besides, they are bound to
teach the eternal horror of everlasting punishment.
They poison the minds of children; they deform the brain and pollute
the imagination by teaching the frightful and infamous dogma of
endless misery. Even the laws of Delaware shock the enlightened
public of to-day. In that State they simply fine and imprison a
man for expressing his honest thoughts; and yet, if the churches
are right, God will damn a man forever for the same offence. The
brain and heart of our time cannot be satisfied with the ancient
creeds. The Bible must be revised again. Most of the creeds must
be blotted out. Humanity must take the place of theology.
Intellectual liberty must stand in every pulpit. There must be
freedom in all the pews, and every human soul must have the right
to express its honest thought.
--Washington correspondent, _Brooklyn Eagle_, March 19, 1881.