I HAVE read the report of the Rev. R. Heber Newton's sermon and I
am satisfied, first, that Mr. Newton simply said what he thoroughly
believes to be true, and second, that some of the conclusions at which
he arrives are certainly correct. I do not regard Mr. Newton as a
heretic or sceptic. Every man who reads the Bible must, to a greater or
less extent, think for himself. He need not tell his thoughts; he has
the right to keep them to himself. But if he undertakes to tell them,
then he should be absolutely honest.
The Episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the world. For
many, years the foremost members and clergymen in that church have been
giving some new meanings to the old words and phrases. Words are no
more exempt from change than other things in nature. A word at one time
rough, jagged, harsh and cruel, is finally worn smooth. A word known
as slang, picked out of the gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes
respectable and finally is found in the mouths of the best and purest.
We must remember that in the world of art the picture depends not alone
on the painter, but on the one who sees it. So words must find some part
of their meaning in the man who hears or the man who reads. In the old
times the word "hell" gave to the hearer or reader the picture of a vast
pit filled with an ocean of molten brimstone, in which innumerable souls
were suffering the torments of fire, and where millions of devils were
engaged in the cheerful occupation of increasing the torments of the
damned. This was the real old orthodox view.
As man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and less vivid.
Finally, some expressed their doubts about the brimstone, and others
began to think that if the Devil was, and is, really an enemy of God he
would not spend his time punishing sinners to please God. Why should
the Devil be in partnership with his enemy, and why should he inflict
torments on poor souls who were his own friends, and who shared with him
the feeling of hatred toward the Almighty?
As men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn in their
minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not have created
persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures, or that they were
to suffer eternal punishment, because there could be no possible object
in eternal punishment--no reformation, no good to be accomplished--and
certainly the sight of all this torment would not add to the joy of
heaven, neither would it tend to the happiness of God.
So the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a consequence
and not an infliction. Then they took another step and concluded that
every soul, in every world, in every age, should have at least the
chance of doing right. And yet persons so believing still used the word
"hell," but the old meaning had dropped out.
So with regard to the atonement. At one time it was regarded as a kind
of bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many souls. This was a
barbaric view. Afterward, the mind developing a little, the idea got in
the brain that the life of Christ was worth its moral effect. And yet
these people use the word "atonement," but the bargain idea has been
lost.
Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is given to that
word depends upon the man who uses it--depends for the most part on the
age in which he lives, the country in which he was born. The same is
true of the word "freedom." Millions and millions of people boasted that
they were the friends of freedom, while at the same time they enslaved
their fellow-men. So, in the name of justice every possible crime has
been perpetrated and in the name of mercy every instrument of torture
has been used.
Mr. Newton realizes the fact that everything in the world changes; that
creeds are influenced by civilization, by the acquisition of knowledge,
by the progress of the sciences and arts--in other words, that there
is a tendency in man to harmonize his knowledge and to bring about a
reconciliation between what he knows and what he believes. This will be
fatal to superstition, provided the man knows anything.
Mr. Newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing confidence in
the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks common sense; that
the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and that it is impossible
to feel that the innocent can rightfully suffer for the guilty, or that
the suffering of innocence can in any way justify the crimes of the
wicked. I think he is mistaken, however, when he says that the early
church softened or weakened the barbaric passions. I think the early
church was as barbarous as any institution that ever gained a footing
in this world. I do not believe that the creed of the early church, as
understood, could soften anything. A church that preaches the eternity
of punishment has within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to
make it grow.
So Mr. Newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the organized
Christianity of to-day is not the leader in social progress. No one now
goes to a synod to find a fact in science or on any subject. A man in
doubt does not ask the average minister; he regards him as behind the
times. He goes to the scientist, to the library. He depends upon the
untrammelled thought of fearless men.
The church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich, of the
respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the men who,
having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to succeed.
The spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as it is in the
average club. There is the same exclusive feeling, and this feeling in
the next world is to be heightened and deepened to such an extent that a
large majority of our fellow-men are to be eternally excluded.
The peasants of Europe--the workingmen--do not go to the church for
sympathy. If they do they come home empty, or rather empty hearted.
So, in our own country the laboring classes, the mechanics, are not
depending on the churches to right their wrongs. They do not expect the
pulpits to increase their wages. The preachers get their money from
the well-to-do--from the employeer class--and their sympathies are with
those from whom they receive their wages.
The ministers attack the pleasures of the world. They are not so much
scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating meat on
Friday. They regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins. They are not
touching the real, vital issues of the day, and their hearts do not
throb in unison with the hearts of the struggling, the aspiring, the
enthusiastic and the real believers in the progress of the human race.
It is all well enough to say that we should depend on Providence, but
experience has taught us that while it may do no harm to say it, it will
do no good to do it. We have found that man must be the Providence of
man, and that one plow will do more, properly pulled and properly held,
toward feeding the world, than all the prayers that ever agitated the
air.
So, Mr. Newton is correct in saying, as I understand him to say, that
the hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox religion.
Neither, in my judgment, has the belief in the existence of a God
anything in fact to do with real religion. The old doctrine that God
wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon
all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished
the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the
worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of
the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes
hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have
every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.
Man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself; that special
providence is a mistake. This being so, the old religions must go down,
and in their place man must depend upon intelligence, industry, honesty;
upon the facts that he can ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his
own efforts. Then religion becomes a thing of this world--a religion to
put a roof above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home, a
religion that rewards virtue here.
If Mr. Newton's sermon is in accordance with the Episcopal creed, I
congratulate the creed. In any event, I think Mr. Newton deserves great
credit for speaking his thought. Do not understand that I imagine that
he agrees with me. The most I will say is that in some things I agree
with him, and probably there is a little too much truth and a little too
much humanity in his remarks to please the bishop.
There is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been persecuted for
thinking God bad. When any one has said that he believed God to be so
good that he would, in his own time and way, redeem the entire human
race, and that the time would come when every soul would be brought home
and sit on an equality with the others around the great fireside of
the universe, that man has been denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked
wretch.--New York Herald, December 13,1888.