Why do people read a book like "Robert Elsmere," and why do they
take any interest in it? Simply because they are not satisfied
with the religion of our day. The civilized world has outgrown
the greater part of the Christian creed. Civilized people have
lost their belief in the reforming power of punishment. They find
that whips and imprisonment have but little influence for good.
The truth has dawned upon their minds that eternal punishment is
infinite cruelty--that it can serve no good purpose and that the
eternity of hell makes heaven impossible. That there can be in
this universe no perfectly happy place while there is a perfectly
miserable place--that no infinite being can be good who knowingly
and, as one may say, willfully created myriads of human beings,
knowing that they would be eternally miserable. In other words,
the civilized man is greater, tenderer, nobler, nearer just than
the old idea of God. The ideal of a few thousand years ago is far
below the real of to-day. No good man now would do what Jehovah
is said to have done four thousand years ago, and no civilized
human being would now do what, according to the Christian religion,
Christ threatens to do at the day of judgment.
_Question_. Has the Christian religion changed in theory of late
years, Colonel Ingersoll?
_Answer_. A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of
the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped
what they were pleased to call the God of Nature. Now we are
convinced that Nature is as cruel as the Bible; so that, if the
God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at least has caused
earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has allowed
millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we
have arrived at the question--not as to whether the Bible is inspired
and not as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there
is a God or not. The intelligence of Christendom to-day does not
believe in an inspired art or an inspired literature. If there be
an infinite God, inspiration in some particular regard would be a
patch--it would be the puttying of a crack, the hiding of a defect
--in other words, it would show that the general plan was defective.
_Question_. Do you consider any religion adequate?
_Answer_. A good man, living in England, drawing a certain salary
for reading certain prayers on stated occasions, for making a few
remarks on the subject of religion, putting on clothes of a certain
cut, wearing a gown with certain frills and flounces starched in
an orthodox manner, and then looking about him at the suffering
and agony of the world, would not feel satisfied that he was doing
anything of value for the human race. In the first place, he would
deplore his own weakness, his own poverty, his inability to help
his fellow-men. He would long every moment for wealth, that he
might feed the hungry and clothe the naked--for knowledge, for
miraculous power, that he might heal the sick and the lame and that
he might give to the deformed the beauty of proportion. He would
begin to wonder how a being of infinite goodness and infinite power
could allow his children to die, to suffer, to be deformed by
necessity, by poverty, to be tempted beyond resistance; how he
could allow the few to live in luxury, and the many in poverty and
want, and the more he wondered the more useless and ironical would
seem to himself his sermons and his prayers. Such a man is driven
to the conclusion that religion accomplishes but little--that it
creates as much want as it alleviates, and that it burdens the
world with parasites. Such a man would be forced to think of the
millions wasted in superstition. In other words, the inadequacy,
the uselessness of religion would be forced upon his mind. He
would ask himself the question: "Is it possible that this is a
divine institution? Is this all that man can do with the assistance
of God? Is this the best?"
_Question_. That is a perfectly reasonable question, is it not,
Colonel Ingersoll?
_Answer_. The moment a man reaches the point where he asks himself
this question he has ceased to be an orthodox Christian. It will
not do to say that in some other world justice will be done. If
God allows injustice to triumph here, why not there?
Robert Elsmere stands in the dawn of philosophy. There is hardly
light enough for him to see clearly; but there is so much light
that the stars in the night of superstition are obscured.
_Question_. You do not deny that a religious belief is a comfort?
_Answer_. There is one thing that it is impossible for me to
comprehend. Why should any one, when convinced that Christianity
is a superstition, have or feel a sense of loss? Certainly a man
acquainted with England, with London, having at the same time
something like a heart, must feel overwhelmed by the failure of
what is known as Christianity. Hundreds of thousands exist there
without decent food, dwelling in tenements, clothed with rags,
familiar with every form of vulgar vice, where the honest poor eat
the crust that the vicious throw away. When this man of intelligence,
of heart, visits the courts; when he finds human liberty a thing
treated as of no value, and when he hears the judge sentencing
girls and boys to the penitentiary--knowing that a stain is being
put upon them that all the tears of all the coming years can never
wash away--knowing, too, and feeling that this is done without the
slightest regret, without the slightest sympathy, as a mere matter
of form, and that the judge puts this brand of infamy upon the
forehead of the convict just as cheerfully as a Mexican brands his
cattle; and when this man of intelligence and heart knows that
these poor people are simply the victims of society, the unfortunates
who stumble and over whose bodies rolls the Juggernaut--he knows
that there is, or at least appears to be, no power above or below
working for righteousness--that from the heavens is stretched no
protecting hand. And when a man of intelligence and heart in
England visits the workhouse, the last resting place of honest
labor; when he thinks that the young man, without any great
intelligence, but with a good constitution, starts in the morning
of his life for the workhouse, and that it is impossible for the
laboring man, one who simply has his muscle, to save anything; that
health is not able to lay anything by for the days of disease--when
the man of intelligence and heart sees all this, he is compelled
to say that the civilization of to-day, the religion of to-day,
the charity of to-day--no matter how much of good there may be
behind them or in them, are failures.
A few years ago people were satisfied when the minister said: "All
this will be made even in another world; a crust-eater here will
sit at the head of the banquet there, and the king here will beg
for the crumbs that fall from the table there." When this was
said, the poor man hoped and the king laughed. A few years ago
the church said to the slave: "You will be free in another world,
and your freedom will be made glorious by the perpetual spectacle
of your master in hell." But the people--that is, many of the
people--are no longer deceived by what once were considered fine
phrases. They have suffered so much that they no longer wish to
see others suffer and no longer think of the suffering of others
as a source of joy to themselves. The poor see that the eternal
starvation of kings and queens in another world will be no compensation
for what they have suffered there. The old religions appear vulgar
and the ideas of rewards and punishments are only such as would
satisfy a cannibal chief or one of his favorites.
_Question_. Do you think the Christian religion has made the world
better?
_Answer_. For many centuries there has been preached and taught
in an almost infinite number of ways a supernatural religion.
During all this time the world has been in the care of the Infinite,
and yet every imaginable vice has flourished, every imaginable pang
has been suffered, and every injustice has been done. During all
these years the priests have enslaved the minds, and the kings the
bodies, of men. The priests did what they did in the name of God,
and the kings appeal to the same source of authority. Man suffered
as long as he could. Revolution, reformation, was simply a re-
action, a cry from the poor wretch that was between the upper and
the nether millstone. The liberty of man has increased just in
the proportion that the authority of the gods has decreased. In
other words, the wants of man, instead of the wishes of God, have
inaugurated what we call progress, and there is this difference:
Theology is based upon the narrowest and intensest form of selfishness.
Of course, the theologian knows, the Christian knows, that he can
do nothing for God; consequently all that he does must be and is
for himself, his object being to win the approbation of this God,
to the end that he may become a favorite. On the other side, men
touched not only by their own misfortunes, but by the misfortunes
of others, are moved not simply by selfishness, but by a splendid
sympathy with their fellow-men.
_Question_. Christianity certainly fosters charity?
_Answer_. Nothing is more cruel than orthodox theology, nothing
more heartless than a charitable institution. For instance, in
England, think for a moment of the manner in which charities are
distributed, the way in which the crust is flung at Lazarus. If
that parable could be now retold, the dogs would bite him. The
same is true in this country. The institution has nothing but
contempt for the one it relieves. The people in charge regard the
pauper as one who has wrecked himself. They feel very much as a
man would feel rescuing from the water some hare-brained wretch
who had endeavored to swim the rapids of Niagara--the moment they
reach him they begin to upbraid him for being such a fool. This
course makes charity a hypocrite, with every pauper for its enemy.
Mrs. Ward compelled Robert Elsmere to perceive, in some slight
degree, the failure of Christianity to do away with vice and
suffering, with poverty and crime. We know that the rich care but
little for the poor. No matter how religious the rich may be, the
sufferings of their fellows have but little effect upon them. We
are also beginning to see that what is called charity will never
redeem this world.
The poor man willing to work, eager to maintain his independence,
knows that there is something higher than charity--that is to say,
justice. He finds that many years before he was born his country
was divided out between certain successful robbers, flatterers,
cringers and crawlers, and that in consequence of such division
not only he himself, but a large majority of his fellow-men are
tenants, renters, occupying the surface of the earth only at the
pleasure of others. He finds, too, that these people who have done
nothing and who do nothing, have everything, and that those who do
everything have but little. He finds that idleness has the money
and that the toilers are compelled to bow to the idlers. He finds
also that the young men of genius are bribed by social distinctions
--unconsciously it may be--but still bribed in a thousand ways.
He finds that the church is a kind of waste-basket into which are
thrown the younger sons of titled idleness.
_Question_. Do you consider that society in general has been made
better by religious influences?
_Answer_. Society is corrupted because the laurels, the titles,
are in the keeping and within the gift of the corrupters. Christianity
is not an enemy of this system--it is in harmony with it. Christianity
reveals to us a universe presided over by an infinite autocrat--a
universe without republicanism, without democracy--a universe where
all power comes from one and the same source, and where everyone
using authority is accountable, not to the people, but to this
supposed source of authority. Kings reign by divine right. Priests
are ordained in a divinely appointed way--they do not get their
office from man. Man is their servant, not their master.
In the story of Robert Elsmere all there is of Christianity is left
except the miraculous. Theism remains, and the idea of a protecting
Providence is left, together with a belief in the immeasurable
superiority of Jesus Christ. That is to say, the miracles are
discarded for lack of evidence, and only for lack of evidence; not
on the ground that they are impossible, not on the ground that they
impeach and deny the integrity of cause and effect, not on the
ground that they contradict the self-evident proposition that an
effect must have an efficient cause, but like the Scotch verdict,
"not proven." It is an effort to save and keep in repair the
dungeons of the Inquisition for the sake of the beauty of the vines
that have overrun them. Many people imagine that falsehoods may
become respectable on account of age, that a certain reverence goes
with antiquity, and that if a mistake is covered with the moss of
sentiment it is altogether more credible than a parvenu fact. They
endeavor to introduce the idea of aristocracy into the world of
thought, believing, and honestly believing, that a falsehood long
believed is far superior to a truth that is generally denied.
_Question_. If Robert Elsmere's views were commonly adopted what
would be the effect?
_Answer_. The new religion of Elsmere is, after all, only a system
of outdoor relief, an effort to get successful piracy to give up
a larger per cent. for the relief of its victims. The abolition
of the system is not dreamed of. A civilized minority could not
by any possibility be happy while a majority of the world were
miserable. A civilized majority could not be happy while a minority
were miserable. As a matter of fact, a civilized world could not
be happy while one man was really miserable. At the foundation of
civilization is justice--that is to say, the giving of an equal
opportunity to all the children of men. Secondly, there can be no
civilization in the highest sense until sympathy becomes universal.
We must have a new definition for success. We must have new ideals.
The man who succeeds in amassing wealth, who gathers money for
himself, is not a success. It is an exceedingly low ambition to
be rich to excite the envy of others, or for the sake of the vulgar
power it gives to triumph over others. Such men are failures. So
the man who wins fame, position, power, and wins these for the sake
of himself, and wields this power not for the elevation of his
fellow-men, but simply to control, is a miserable failure. He may
dispense thousands of millions in charity, and his charity may be
prompted by the meanest part of his nature--using it simply as a
bait to catch more fish and to prevent the rising tide of indignation
that might overwhelm him. Men who steal millions and then give a
small percentage to the Lord to gain the praise of the clergy and
to bring the salvation of their souls within the possibilities of
imagination, are all failures.
Robert Elsmere gains our affection and our applause to the extent
that he gives up what are known as orthodox views, and his wife
Catherine retains our respect in the proportion that she lives the
doctrine that Elsmere preaches. By doing what she believes to be
right, she gains our forgiveness for her creed. One is astonished
that she can be as good as she is, believing as she does. The
utmost stretch of our intellectual charity is to allow the old wine
to be put in a new bottle, and yet she regrets the absence of the
old bottle--she really believes that the bottle is the important
thing--that the wine is but a secondary consideration. She misses
the label, and not having perfect confidence in her own taste, she
does not feel quite sure that the wine is genuine.
_Question_. What, on the whole, is your judgment of the book?
_Answer_. I think the book conservative. It is an effort to save
something--a few shreds and patches and ravelings--from the wreck.
Theism is difficult to maintain. Why should we expect an infinite
Being to do better in another world than he has done and is doing
in this? If he allows the innocent to suffer here, why not there?
If he allows rascality to succeed in this world, why not in the
next? To believe in God and to deny his personality is an exceedingly
vague foundation for a consolation. If you insist on his personality
and power, then it is impossible to account for what happens. Why
should an infinite God allow some of his children to enslave others?
Why should he allow a child of his to burn another child of his,
under the impression that such a sacrifice was pleasing to him?
Unitarianism lacks the motive power. Orthodox people who insist
that nearly everybody is going to hell, and that it is their duty
to do what little they can to save their souls, have what you might
call a spur to action. We can imagine a philanthropic man engaged
in the business of throwing ropes to persons about to go over the
falls of Niagara, but we can hardly think of his carrying on the
business after being convinced that there are no falls, or that
people go over them in perfect safety. In this country the question
has come up whether all the heathen are bound to be damned unless
they believe in the gospel. Many admit that the heathen will be
saved if they are good people, and that they will not be damned
for not believing something that they never heard. The really
orthodox people--that is to say, the missionaries--instantly see
that this doctrine destroys their business. They take the ground
that there is but one way to be saved--you must believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ--and they are willing to admit, and cheerfully to
admit, that the heathen for many generations have gone in an unbroken
column down to eternal wrath. And they not only admit this, but
insist upon it, to the end that subscriptions may not cease. With
them salary and salvation are convertible terms.
The tone of this book is not of the highest. Too much stress is
laid upon social advantages--too much respect for fashionable folly
and for ancient absurdity. It is hard for me to appreciate the
feelings of one who thinks it difficult to give up the consolations
of the gospel. What are the consolations of the Church of England?
It is a religion imposed upon the people by authority. It is the
gospel at the mouth of a cannon, at the point of a bayonet, enforced
by all authority, from the beadle to the Queen. It is a parasite
living upon tithes--these tithes being collected by the army and
navy. It produces nothing--is simply a beggar--or rather an
aggregation of beggars. It teaches nothing of importance. It
discovers nothing. It is under obligation not to investigate. It
has agreed to remain stationary not only, but to resist all
innovation. According to the creed of this church, a very large
proportion of the human race is destined to suffer eternal pain.
This does not interfere with the quiet, with the serenity and repose
of the average clergyman. They put on their gowns, they read the
service, they repeat the creed and feel that their duty has been
done. How any one can feel that he is giving up something of value
when he finds that the Episcopal creed is untrue is beyond my
imagination. I should think that every good man and woman would
overflow with joy, that every heart would burst into countless
blossoms the moment the falsity of the Episcopal creed was
established.
Christianity is the most heartless of all religions--the most
unforgiving, the most revengeful. According to the Episcopalian
belief, God becomes the eternal prosecutor of his own children.
I know of no creed believed by any tribe, not excepting the tribes
where cannibalism is practiced, that is more heartless, more inhuman
than this. To find that the creed is false is like being roused
from a frightful dream, in which hundreds of serpents are coiled
about you, in which their eyes, gleaming with hatred, are fixed on
you, and finding the world bathed in sunshine and the songs of
birds in your ears and those you love about you.
--_New York World_, November 18, 1888.