One of the most effective arts of priestcraft has been the
misrepresentation and slander of heretics. To give the unbeliever a bad
name is to prejudice believers against all communication with him.
By this means a twofold object is achieved; first, the faithful are
protected from the contagion of scepticism; secondly, the notion is
propagated that there is something essentially immoral involved in, or
attendant upon, unorthodox opinions; and thus the prevalent religious
ideas of the age become associated with the very preservation and
stability of the moral order of human society.
This piece of trickery cannot, of course, be played upon the students
of civilisation, who, as Mill remarked, are aware that many of the most
valuable contributions to human improvement have been the work of men
who knew, and rejected, the Christian faith. But it easily imposes on
the multitude, and it will never be abandoned until it ceases to be
profitable.
Sometimes it takes the form of idle stories about the death-beds of
Freethinkers, who are represented as deploring their ill-spent life, and
bewailing the impossibility of recalling the wicked opinions they have
put into circulation. At other times it takes the form of exhibiting
their failings, without the slightest reference to their virtues, as
the sum and substance of their character. When these methods are not
sufficient, recourse is had to insinuation. Particular sceptics
are spared perhaps, but Freethinkers are depicted--like the poor in
Tennyson's "Northern Farmer"--as bad in the lump. It is broadly hinted
that it is a moral defect which prevents them from embracing the popular
creed; that they reject what they do not wish to believe; that they hate
the restraints of religion, and therefore reject its principles; that
their unbelief, in short, is only a cloak for sensual indulgence or an
excuse for evading irksome obligations.
We are so accustomed to this monstrous theory of scepticism in religious
circles, that it did not astonish us, or give us the least surprise, to
read the following paragraph in the _Christian Commonwealth_--
"Free Life, and No Compulsory Virtue, was the title of a placard borne
by a pamphlet seller of the public highway a few days ago. What the
contents of the pamphlets were we do not know, but the title is a
suggestive sign of the times, and a rather more than usually plain
statement of what a good deal of modern doubt amounts to. Lord Tennyson
was severely taken to task a few years ago for making the Atheist a
villain in his 'Promise of May,' but he was about right. Much of the
doubt of the day is only an outcome of the desire to discredit and throw
off the restraints of religion and moral law in the name of freedom,
wrongly used. Free love, free life, free divorce, free Sundays, in the
majority of cases, are but synonyms for license. Those who hold the
Darwinian doctrine of descent from a kind of ape may yet see it proved
by a reversion to the beast, if men succeed in getting all the false and
pernicious freedom they want."
Now, in reply to this paragraph, we have first to observe that our
contemporary takes Lord Tennyson's name in vain. The villain of the
"Promise of May" is certainly an Agnostic, but are not the villains of
many other plays Christians? Lord Tennyson does not make the rascal's
wickedness the logical result of his principles; indeed, although
our contemporary seems ignorant of the fact, he disclaimed any such
intention, A press announcement was circulated by his eldest son, on
his behalf, that the rascal was meant to be a sentimentalist and
ne'er-do-well, who, whatever his opinions, would have come to a bad end.
When the _Commonwealth_, therefore, talks of Lord Tennyson as "about
right," it shows, in a rather vulgar way, the danger of incomplete
information. Were we to copy its manners we might use a swifter phrase.
That Atheists, in the name of freedom, throw off the restraints of moral
law, is a statement which we defy the _Commonwealth_ to prove, or in
the slightest degree to support, and we will even go to the length of
suggesting how it might undertake the task.
Turpitude of character must betray itself. Moral corruption can no more
be hidden than physical corruption. Wickedness "will out," like murder
or smallpox. A man's wife discovers it; his children shun him instead of
clinging about his knees; his neighbors and acquaintances eye him with
suspicion or dislike; his evil nature pulsates through an ever-widening
circle of detection, and in time nis bad passions are written upon his
features in the infallible lines of mouth and eyes and face. How easy,
then, it should be to pick out these Atheists. The most evil-looking
men should belong to that persuasion. But do they? We invite our
contemporary to a trial. Let it inquire the religious opinions of a
dozen or two, and see if there is an Atheist among them.
Again, a certain amount of evil disposition _must_ produce a certain
percentage of criminal conduct. Accordingly the gaols should contain a
large proportion of Atheists. But _do_ they? Statistics prove they do
_not_. When the present writer was imprisoned for "blasphemy," and was
asked his religion, he answered "None," to the wide-eyed astonishment
of the official who put the question. Atheists were scarce in the
establishment. Catholics were there, and red tickets were on their
cell-doors; Protestants were there, and white tickets marked their
apartments; Jews were there, and provision was made for their special
observances; but the Atheist was the _rara avis_, the very phoenix of
Holloway Gaol.
Let us turn to another method of investigation. During the last ten
years four members have been expelled from the House of Commons. One of
them was not expelled in the full sense of the word; he was, however,
thrust by brute force from the precincts of the House. His name was
Charles Bradlaugh, and he was an Atheist. But what was his crime? Simply
this: he differed from his fellow members as to his competence to take
the parliamentary oath, and the ultimate event proved that he was
right and they were wrong. Now what were the crimes of the three other
members, who were completely and absolutely expelled? Captain Verney was
found guilty of procuration for seduction, Mr. Hastings was found guilty
of embezzlement, and Mr. De Cobain was pronounced guilty of evading
justice, while charged with unnatural offences. Mr. Jabez Spencer
Balfour might also have been expelled, if he had not accepted the
Chiltern Hundreds. Now all these _real_ delinquents were Christians, and
even ostentatious Christians. Compare them with Charles Bradlaugh,
the Atheist, and say which side has the greatest cause for shame and
humiliation.
Are Atheists conspicuous in the Divorce Court? Is it not Christian
reputations that are smirched in that Inquisition? Do Atheists, or any
species of unbelievers, appear frequently before the public as promoters
of bubble companies, and systematic robbers of orphans and widows? Is it
not generally found, in the case of great business collapses, that
the responsible persons are Christians? Is it not a fact that their
profession of Christianity is usually in proportion to the depth of
their rascality?
Not long since the Bishop of Chester, backed up by Mr. Waugh, of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, publicly declared
that the worst ill-users of little ones were artisan Secularists. He
was challenged to give evidence of the assertion, but he preferred to
maintain what is called "a dignified silence." Mr. Waugh was challenged
to produce proofs from the Society's archives, and he also declined. It
is enough to affirm infamy against Freethinkers; proof is unnecessary;
or, rather, it is unobtainable. Singularly, there have been several
striking cases of brutal treatment of children since Mr. Waugh and
Bishop Jayne committed themselves to this indefensible assertion, and in
no instance was the culprit a Secularist, though some of them, including
Mrs. Montagu, were devout Christians.
There are other methods of inquiry into the wickedness of Atheists,
but we have indicated enough to set the _Commonwealth_ at work, and we
invite it to begin forthwith. And while it is getting ready we beg to
observe that theologians have always described "free-dem" as "license,"
whereas it is nothing of the kind. Freedom is the golden mean between
license and slavery. The breaking of arbitrary fetters, forged by
ignorance and intolerance, does not mean a fall into loose living.
The heretic in religion, while resenting outside control, by his very
perception of the vast and far-reaching consequences of human action, is
often chained to "the most timid sanctities of life."
With respect to "the Darwinian theory of descent from a kind of ape,"
we have a word for our contemporary. The annual meeting of the British
Association was held at Oxford in 1860. Darwin's _Descent of Man_ had
recently been published, and the air was full of controversy. Bishop
Wilberforce, in the course of a derisive speech, turned to Professor
Huxley and asked whether it was on the mother's or father's side that
his grandfather had been an ape. Huxley replied that man had no reason
to be ashamed of having an ape for a grandfather. "If there is an
ancestor," he continued, "whom I should feel shame in recalling it
would be a _man_"--one who meddled with scientific questions he did not
understand, only to obscure them by aimless rhetoric, and indulgence in
"eloquent digressions and appeals to religious prejudice." This
rebuke was administered thirty-three years ago, but it is still worth
remembering, and perhaps the _Commonwealth_ may find in it something
applicable to itself.