A leading London newspaper, the _Daily Chronicle_, has recently opened
it columns to a discussion of the question, "Is Christianity Played
Out?" Mr. Robert Buchanan thinks that it is, and we are of the same
opinion. But in a certain sense Christianity is _not_ played out. To
use a common expression, "there's money in it." That is incontestable.
Despite the "poverty" of the "lower clergy," for whom so many appeals
are made, the clerical business beats all others, if we compare the
amount of investment with the size of the dividend. Relatively speaking,
the profits are magnificent. There are curates with only a workman's
wages, and of course they merit our deepest sympathy. It is quite
shocking to think that a disciple of the "_poor_ Carpenter of Nazareth"
has to subsist, and support his ten children, on such a miserable
pittance. It is a calamity which calls for tears of blood. But, on the
other hand, there are Archbishops with princely incomes, Bishops with
lordly revenues, Deans and Canons with fine salaries and snug quarters;
and between the two extremes of the fat bishop and the lean curate is a
long line of gradations, in which, if we strike an average, the result
is very far from despicable. It may be added that while the leading
Nonconformist ministers, at least in England, do not rival the great
Church dignitaries in the matter of income, they often run up to a
thousand a year and sometimes over it. Taking the average of their
incomes, we have no hesitation in saying it is beyond what they would
earn in the ordinary labor market. Still, so far as they are not paid
by the State, as the Church clergy _are_, we have no personal reason for
complaint. This is a free country--especially for Christians; and if
the lay disciples of the poor Carpenter like to pay his professional
apostles a fancy price for their work, it is no concern of ours from a
business point of view. Nevertheless, as the said apostles are _public_
men, who set up as other people's _teachers_, we have a right to express
an opinion as to the consistency between their preaching and their
practice.
Our gallant colleague, Joseph Symes, who is nobly upholding the
Freethought banner in Australia, once asked, "Who's to be Damned if
Christianity is True?" Certainly, he said, the clergy stand a fine
chance. They are more likely to go to Hades than the congregations they
preach to. On on average they are better off. They preach, or _should_
preach, the blessings of poverty, and the curse, nay, the damnableness,
of wealth. According to the teaching of Jesus, as we read it in the
Sermon on the Mount, and as we find it illustrated in the parable
of Dives and Lazarus, every pauper is pretty sure of a front seat in
heaven; and every man of property or good income is equally sure of warm
quarters in hell. But you do not meet parsons in workhouses, though some
of them get a good deal of outdoor relief. Go into a country parish
and look for the clergyman's house; you will not find it difficult
to discover. The best residence is the squire's, the next best is the
parson's. Everywhere the clericals appropriate as much as they can of
the good things of this world. They find it quite easy to worship God
and Mammon together. The curate has his eye on a vicarage; the vicar
has his on a deanery; the dean has his on a bishopric. The Dissenting
minister is open to improve his position. Sometimes he is invited to
another church. He wrestles with the Lord, and makes inquiries. If they
prove satisfactory, he recognises "a call." Other people, in ordinary
business, would honestly say they were accepting a better situation; but
the man of God is above all that, so he obeys the Lord's voice and goes
to a position of "greater service," though it would puzzle him to show
an extra soul saved by the exchange. Yes, the poor Carpenter's apostles
strive to make the best of this world, and take their chance of the
next. They are wise in their generation; they resemble the serpent in
the text, however they neglect the dove. And for all these things God
shall bring them into account--that is, if the gospel be true; for
nothing is more certain, according to the gospel, than that the poor
will be saved, and those who are not poor will be damned.
Benjamin Disraeli called the Conservative government of Sir Robert Peel
"an organised hypocrisy." Modern Christianity appears to us to merit
the same description. The note of modern apologetics is the phrase of
"Christ-like." In one respect the gentlemen who strike this note _are_
Christ-like. They live on the gifts of the faithful, including those of
"rich women." But the likeness ends there. In other respects they are
dissimilar to their Master. He _died_ upon the cross, and they _live_
upon the cross. Yes, and many of them get far more on the cross than
they would ever get on the square.
Doubtless we shall be censured in vigorous biblical language for
speaking so plainly. But we mean every word we say, and are prepared to
make it good in discussion. Men should practise what they preach. Those
who teach that poverty is a blessing should themselves be poor. Those
who teach that God Almighty cried "Woe unto you rich!" should avoid
the curse of wealth. If they do not, they are hypocrites. It is no use
mincing the matter. Plain speech is best on such occasions. When the
great Dr. Abernethy told a gouty, dyspeptic, rich patient to "live on
sixpence a day and earn it," his advice was more wholesome than the most
dexterous rigmarole.
Nothing could better show than the conduct of the clergy that
Christianity _is_ played out, if it means the teaching of the Sermon on
the Mount. Those who preach it cannot practise it; what is more, they do
not mean to. The late Archbishop of York, while Bishop of Peterborough,
wrote a magazine article on this Sermon on the Mount, in which he urged
that any Society that was based upon it would go to ruin in a week. He
was paid at that time £4,500 a year to-preach this Sermon on the Mount,
and he did so--in the pulpit; then he mounted another rostrum, and
cried, "For God's sake don't practise it."
"Blessed be ye poor" and "Woe unto you rich" are texts with which the
Church has bamboozled the multitude in the interest of the privileged
classes. The disinherited sons of earth were promised all sorts of fine
compensations in Kingdom-Come; meanwhile kings, aristocrats, priests,
and all the rest of the juggling and appropriating tribe, battened on
the fruits of other men's labor. The poor were like the dog crossing
the stream, and seeing the big shadow of his piece of meat in the
water. "Seize the shadow!" the priests cried. The poor did so. But the
substance-was not lost. It was snapped up and shared by priestcraft and
privilege.
The people have been told that the gospel is a cheap thing--without
money and without price. That is the prospectus. But the gospel is
frightfully dear in reality. Religion costs more than education. England
spends more in preparing her sons and daughters for the next world than
in training them for this world. Yet the next world may be nothing but
a dream, and certainly we _know_ nothing about it; while this world is
a solid and often a solemn fact, with its business as well as its
pleasures, its work as well as its enjoyments, its duties as well as its
privileges. To keep people out of hell, and guide them to heaven (places
that only exist in the map of faith), we spend over twenty millions a
year. This is a sum which, if wisely devoted, would remedy the worst
evils of human society in a single generation. It would found countless
institutions of culture and innocent recreation; and, by means of
experiments, it would solve a host of social problems. Instead of doing
this, we keep up a huge army of black-coats to fight an imaginary
Devil; yet we call ourselves a _practical_ people. Christianity has it
roots-deep down in the _wealth_ of England, and this is the secret of
its power, allied of course with its usurped authority over the minds
of little children. The-churches and chapels are mostly social
institutions, Sunday resorts of the "respectable" classes. For any
purpose connected with the real welfare of the people Christianity
might just as well be dead and buried--as it will be when the people see
the truth.