Joseph Barker cannot be omitted. We find in him, from the commencement
of his public life till the present time, an ardent desire for, and
a determination to achieve, freedom of thought and ex-pression on all
subjects appertaining to theology, politics, and sociology. Possessing
a vigorous intellect, a constitution naturally strong, great oratorical
ability, and an unrivalled command oi the Saxon language, he has made
himself a power among each party with whom the transitory state of his
mind has brought him in contact. It is seldom we find men with equal
boldness, when once connected with Wesleyan Methodism, rising superior
in thought to its narrow, selfish, dogmatic, unnatural, and humiliating
views, and claiming for human nature a more dignified and exalted
position; gradually advancing to Unitarianism; ultimately to land safely
on the shore of Materialism. Joseph Barker has passed, amid persecution
and privation, through these different phases of theology, to arrive at
"Infidelity," to be, he states, a better, wiser, and happier man. In his
autobiography, we read that he was born in Bramley, an old country town
in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1806, the _day_ of his birth being
forgotten. His parents, and his ancestors, so far as is known of them,
were of humble means. His grandfather was addicted to drinking freely
of those beverages which meet with so much opposition from Mr. Barker
himself. His aunt also was unfortunate, having married a man who was
a minister, a drunkard, and a cock-fighter. His parents appear to have
been uneducated and pious; belonging to the old school of Methodists,
those who look on this life merely as a state of trial and probation;
always looking forward to enjoy their mansion in the skies--the house
not made with hands eternal in the heavens, thinking nothing
.... Worth a thought beneath,
But how _they_ may escape the death
That never, never dies.
Although living _in_ this world, they were not _of it_. It was to them,
all vanity and vexation of spirit. They attended their chapel, their
love feasts, their class-meetings, their prayer meetings, and their
revival meetings, where they would lament over the wickedness and
depravity of human nature, where they would "speak their experience,"
tell of their temptations, pray for the conversion of the world, and
sing their hymns, such as the following, which was a favorite with Mr.
Barker's family:--
"Refining fire, go through my heart,
Illuminate my soul;
Scatter my life through every part,
And sanctify the whole."
Such being the character of Mr. Barker's parents, it is no wonder that
_he_ was "brought up" under the same influence, with the same false
notions of life, of humanity, and of the world; and we cannot prize
too highly the man who had the industry to investigate, the ability to
discern, and the courage to expose the falsity of such doctrines and the
disastrous effects of such teaching.
In the extracts we shall give from Mr. Barker's works will be found that
simplicity of style and force of argument peculiar to himself. The first
extract we take shows the falsity of the orthodox doctrine of the total
depravity of human nature:--
"On looking back on the earlier periods of my life, I first see
proofs that the orthodox doctrine of original sin, or of natural total
depravity, is a falsehood. I was _not_ born totally depraved. I never
recollect the time, since I began to think and feel at all, when I had
not good thoughts, and good feelings. I never recollect the time since
I began to think and feel at all, when I had not many good thoughts, and
strong inclinations to goodness. So far was my heart from being utterly
depraved or hardened, that I sympathised, even in my childhood, with the
humblest of God's creatures, and was filled to overflowing with sorrow
at the sight of distress. I recollect one Sunday, while I was searching
about for something in one of the windows upstairs, I found a butterfly
that had been starved to death, as I supposed. When I laid hold of it,
it crumbled to pieces. My feelings were such at the thought of the
poor butterfly's sufferings, that I wept. And for all that day I could
scarcely open my lips to say a word to any one without bursting into
tears.... And I recollect well what a struggle I had when I first told a
lie. A school in the neighborhood had a feast, ours had not, so I played
the truant, after a serious struggle, to have an opportunity of seeing
the scholars walk. I had a miserable afternoon; for I felt that I was
doing wrong, and I was afraid lest my mother should find me out. My
sister found me out and told my mother, but my mother was loth to
believe her till she had asked me myself. When I went home my mother
asked me if I had been to school, and I said yes, and my mother, as she
had never found me out in a lie before, believed me. But I was sadly
distressed afterwards when I thought of what I had done. That lie
caused me days of remorse, and my sufferings were all the severer in
consequence of my mother having so readily believed what I said."
The unhappy and unnatural effects of theology on the minds of earnest,
truth-seeking men--the total prostration of manly dignity, the
perversion of the mental faculties, and the debasement of human nature,
is truly stated by Mr. Barker in the following extract:--
"I also recollect being very much troubled with dreadful and
indescribably awful dreams, and for several months during certain parts
of the year I was accustomed to rise during my sleep, and walk about the
house in a state of sleep for hours together. I say in a state of sleep:
but I cannot exactly describe the state in which I was. It was not
_perfect_ sleep, and yet I was not properly awake. My eyes were open,
and I saw, as far as I can remember, the things around me, and 1 could
hear what was said to me. But neither what I saw nor what I heard seemed
to have power to penetrate far enough into my soul to awake me properly.
During those occasions, I was frequently very unhappy, dreadfully
unhappy, most horribly miserable. Sometimes I fancied I had been doing
something wrong, and my fancied offence seemed horrible beyond all
expression, and alarmed and overwhelmed me with unutterable terrors and
distress. On one occasion I fancied that both I and my father had
both been doing something wrong, and this seemed most horrible and
distressing of all; and as I wandered about in my mysterious state, I
howled most piteously, and cried and wept as if my heart would break. I
never recollect being roused from that dismal state while I was walking
about the house, except twice. Once when I struck my shins violently
against a large earthenware bowl and hurt myself sadly; and another was
when I was attempting to go up the chimney: I put my foot upon fire
and burnt myself, and that awoke me. I suffered in this way for several
years. After I went to bed at night I soon fell asleep, and slept
perhaps an hour or nearly two. I would then begin to cry, or moan,
or howl, and at times to sing. One night I sang a whole hymn of eight
verses through; the hymn in Wesley's Hymn Book, beginning
With glorious clouds encompassed round
Whom angels dimly see,
Will the unsearchable be found
Or God appear to me?'"
Few persons who have not attended the "class-meetings" of the Wesleyan
Methodists can form an adequate idea of the stereotyped phrases and
absurd sayings indulged in by those who "speak their experience,"
etc., at those meetings. Certain sentences are learned, and uttered
indiscriminately, without reference to time, place, or other conditions.
Mr. Barker, after speaking of the recklessness of speech thus indulged
in, says:--
"In many cases this false way of speaking is the result of mere
thoughtlessness perhaps, or of ignorance, joined with the notion that it
is their duty to pray, or to say something in public. The parties have
no _intention_ to deceive: but being called on to speak, or invited to
pray, they begin, and catch hold of such words as they can find, whether
right or wrong, whether true or false. And their words are oftener
foolish or false, than wise or true. Their talk is at times most foolish
and ridiculous. I will give an example or two. It is customary for
people, when praying for preachers, to say, 'Lord, bless thy servants
when they stand up to declare thy word: be thou _mouth matter, and
wisdom_ to them.' This has some meaning in it when offered in reference
to a preacher, especially a preacher about to preach. In other cases
it would be most foolish and ridiculous. Yet I once heard a person in a
prayer-meeting at Chester use this same form of expression in behalf
of the sick and the dying. 'O Lord,' said he, 'bless the sick and the
afflicted, and those that are in the article of death;--be thou mouth,
matter, and wisdom to them.' At another prayer-meeting at Chester, on a
_Friday_ evening, one of the leaders gave out the following lines:--
'Another six days' work is done;
Another _Sabbath_ is begun.' etc.
I once heard a woman say in class, 'I do thank God that he ever gave me
a desire to see that _death_ that never, never _dies._'"
Soon after Mr. Barker became "religious" and attended his
class-meetings, he awaited the usual "call" to preach the gospel.
Accordingly, having received the "call," he became a Methodist preacher,
belonging to the Old Connexion, the New Connexion, and then advancing to
Unitarianism, ultimately arriving at the climax of Freethought, in
which cause he is now so distinguished an advocate. While a Methodist
preacher, he was induced by a neighbor, an Atheist, to read Carlile's
"Republican." We can readily understand why Christians are taught not
to read "Infidel" works. The effect the "Republican" produced on Mr.
Barker's mind would be augmented, did those Christians investigate what
they so often ignorantly denounce. In reference to the "Republican,"
Mr. Barker says:--
"I was very much struck in reading some portions of the work
[Carlile's], and agitated and shaken by its arguments on some points.
The object of many of its articles was to prove Christianity irrational
and false. The principal doctrines which it assailed were such as the
trinity--the common notion about the fall of man, and its effects upon
the human race--the Calvinistic notions of eternal, universal, and
absolute predestination, unconditional election and reprobation--the
Calvinistic notion of God's sovereignty or partiality--the utter
depravity of every human being born into the world, and yet the
obligation of those utterly depraved beings to steer clear of all evil,
and to do all that is right and good, on pain of eternal damnation. The
doctrine of satisfaction to justice, was also assailed, and the doctrine
of the immortality of the human soul, and the notion that because it is
immaterial, it must, as a consequence, be immortal.... The consequence
was, that my mind was thrown into a state of doubt and suspense. I
cannot say that I doubted the truth of the Christian religion exactly,
but still I doubted the truth of certain doctrines which I had been
taught to regard as parts of that religion. I can briefly describe the
doubts I had. I neither saw clearly that those doctrines to which he
objected were no part of the Christian religion, nor could I see any way
by which these doctrines could be defended and proved to be rational and
true. One thing began to seem almost certain, either that Christianity
was not true, or that those doctrines as generally laid down, were
no parts of the Christian religion. This led to investigation. I was
wishful to ascertain whether those doctrines which were assailed as
irrational, were parts of Christianity or not. I began to converse on
the subject with one of my religious companions, and I began to read on
the subject as I had opportunity. My companion was rather troubled and
alarmed at the doubts I expressed with respect to the correctness of
some of the common doctrines of what was considered orthodoxy; still,
what I had said had some influence on his mind, for he told me shortly
after, that he wished he had never heard my doubts, for what I had said
had spoiled some of his best sermons; he would never be able to preach
them with comfort more.... During my residence in that [Newcastle]
circuit, my views on many subjects became anti-Methodistical to a very
great extent indeed. I now no longer held the prevailing views with
respect to the nature of justifying faith, the witness of the Spirit,
regeneration, sanctification, and the like. In reading Wesley's works,
I was astonished at the great number of unmeaning and inconsistent
passages which I met with. In many of his views I perfectly agreed with
him? but with a vast amount of what he said on other subjects, I could
not help but disagree.... About this time, finding that there was little
likelihood that I should be tolerated in the New Connexion unless I
could allow my mind to be enslaved, and feeling that I should be obliged
sooner or later to break loose from Methodistical restraint, and speak
and act with freedom, I thought of visiting Mr. Turner, the Unitarian
minister of Newcastle, and seeking an interview with him. I had
heard something to the effect that Unitarians were great lovers of
freedom--that they did not bind their ministers and members by any human
creeds, but left them at liberty to investigate the whole system of
Christianity thoroughly, and to judge as to what were its doctrines
and duties for themselves, and to preach what they believe to be true
without restraint and persecution, and I thought if this was the case,
they must be a very happy people. But from other things which I had
heard respecting them, I was led to regard them with something
of horror--to look, on them as persons who trifled with Scripture
authority, as persons who had rushed from the extremes of false
orthodoxy into the extremes of Infidelity. I was in consequence
prevented from visiting Mr. Turner, and I remained in comparative
ignorance of the Unitarian body, in ignorance both of their principles
and of their character, still shut up in the dungeons of orthodox
slavery."
"The dungeons of orthodox slavery" did not long contain Mr. Barker; for
he afterwards became better acquainted with the Unitarians, and formed
one of their most energetic preachers. But Unitarianism, appearing to
him at first true in its doctrine and free in its advocacy, shortly
became insufficient for the cravings of his mind; and, at length, he
found himself outside all the churches. The Bible, which at one period
of his life seemed to him a perfect revelation from "God" now appeared
only the production of erring and half-informed men; and having a
thorough knowledge of its contents, he resolved to employ the remainder
of his life in confuting the false notions of its "divine authority."
America presenting a congenial residence, he resolved to visit that
country and purchase some land, upon which he might occupy his leisure
from lecturing and writing. Having settled in the country, he considered
something should be said on the Bible. Accordingly, in November, 1852,
a Bible Convention was held at Salem, Ohio, Mr. Barker being appointed
President, he extract the following from his speech, as illustrating the
uncertainty of the Bible translations, the character of the translators,
and the nature of the manuscripts from which the translations are
made:--