We are told that the divine origin and truth of Christianity are proved
by the marvellous success of that religion. But it seems to me that the
reverse is proved by its failure.
Christianity owed its magnificent opportunities (which it has wasted) to
several accidental circumstances. Just as the rise of Buddhism was made
possible by the act of King Asoka in adopting it as the State Religion
of his vast Indian kingdom, was the rise of Christianity made possible
by the act of the Emperor Constantine in adopting it as the State
religion of the far-stretched Roman Empire.
Christianity spread rapidly because the Roman Empire was ripe for a
new religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling
powers. It throve because it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven
in one hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The older
religions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe or threat to
conjure with.
Christianity overcame opposition by murdering or cursing all who
resisted its advance. It exterminated scepticism by stifling knowledge,
and putting a merciless veto on free thought and free speech, and by
rewarding philosophers and discoverers with the faggot and the chain. It
held its power for centuries by force of hell-fire, and ignorance, and
the sword; and the greatest of these was ignorance.
Nor must it be supposed that the persecution and the slaughter of
"Heretics" and "Infidels" was the exception. It was the rule. Motley,
the American historian, states that Torquemada, during eighteen years'
command of the Inquisition, burnt more than ten thousand people alive,
and punished nearly a hundred thousand with infamy, confiscation of
property, or perpetual imprisonment.
To be a Jew, a Moslem, a Lutheran, a "wizard," a sceptic, a heretic was
to merit death and torture. One order of Philip of Spain condemned to
death as "heretics" _the entire population of the Netherlands_. Wherever
the Christian religion was successful the martyrs' fires burned, and the
devilish instruments of torture were in use. For some twelve centuries
the Holy Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day the
term "free thought" is a term of reproach. The shadow of the fanatical
priest, that half-demented coward, sneak, and assassin, still blights
us. Although that holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous
casuistries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and whips of
steel, has been defeated by the humanity he scorned and the knowledge
he feared, yet he has left a taint behind him. It is still held that it
ought to be an unpleasant thing to be an Infidel.
And, yes, there were other factors in the "success" of Christianity. The
story of the herald angels, the wise men from the east, the manger,
the child God, the cross, and the gospel of mercy and atonement, and
of universal brotherhood and peace amongst the earthly children of
a Heavenly Father, whose attribute was love--this story, possessed a
certain homely beauty and sentimental glamour which won the allegiance
of many golden-hearted and sweet-souled men and women. These lovely
natures assimilated from the chaotic welter of beauty and ashes called
the Christian religion all that was pure, and rejected all that was
foul. It was the light of such sovereign souls as Joan of Arc and
Francis of Assisi that saved Christianity from darkness and the pit; and
how much does that religion owe to the genius of Wyclif and Tyndale, of
Milton and Handel, of Mozart and Thomas a Kempis, of Michael Angelo and
Rafael, and the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer?
There are good men and good women by millions in the Christian ranks
to-day, and it is their virtue, and their zeal, and their illumination
of its better qualities, and charitable and loyal shelter of its follies
and its crimes, that keep the Christian religion still alive.
Christianity has been for fifteen hundred years the religion of the
brilliant, brave, and strenuous races in the world. And what has it
accomplished? And how does it stand to-day?
Is Christianity the rule of life in America and Europe? Are the masses
of people who accept it peaceful, virtuous, chaste, spiritually minded,
prosperous, happy? Are their national laws based on its ethics? Are
their international politics guided by the Sermon on the Mount? Are
their noblest and most Christlike men and women most revered and
honoured? Is the Christian religion loved and respected by those outside
its pale? Are London and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Berlin,
Vienna, Brussels, and Rome centres of holiness and of sweetness and
light? From Glasgow to Johannesburg, from Bombay to San Francisco is God
or Mammon king?
If a tree should be known by its fruit, the Christian religion has small
right to boast of its success.
But the Christian will say, "This is not Christianity, but its
caricature." Where, then, is the saving grace, the compelling power,
of this divine religion, which, planted by God Himself, is found after
nineteen centuries to yield nothing but leaves?
After all these sad ages of heroism and crime, of war and massacre,
of preaching and praying, of blustering and trimming; after all this
prodigal waste of blood and tears, and labour and treasure, and genius
and sacrifice, we have nothing better to show for Christianity than
European and American Society to-day.
And this ghastly heart-breaking failure proves the Christian religion to
be the Divine Revelation of God!