THE ECCLESIASTICAL KINDERGARTEN.
What shall we do to be saved? is a question asked by every religious
fanatic.
Saved from what? Ignorance? Superstition? Bigotry? Or stupidity? From
idiocy or imbecility? Or, are we to be saved from poverty,
hunger, starvation, misery and wretchedness, distress and
degradation? Barbarism, savagery, or uncivilization does not enter
into consideration of these unfortunate conditions. They exist right in
the midst of us, in the highest centers of human civilization. Of what
good is the talking of spiritual welfare, salvation, and heaven to a
hungry stomach? Of what good is it to grow eloquent over celestial
conditions when the poor wretch has sunk into the mire of sloth
and apathy, when darkness, misery, and disappointment hang over
him like a pall at a funeral? Is this the man that is sinning--when
tempted to steal some trifle to satisfy hunger? Self-preservation
is the first law throughout organic nature. This poverty-stricken
individual occupies the lowest strata of civilized life. He must
be civilized--for the law makes him so. The starving must not eat,
unless charity extends a helping hand. In the state of want and
helplessness, all the inherent failings loom up into prominence, and
aid to weaken the little resisting force remaining to withstand the
temptation of wrongfully supplying his wants. The higher indulgences,
either gustatory or sexual, are not within reach of the hungry and
depressed; and salvation contemplated in the pleasures derived from
overindulgence or excesses certainly does not apply to them. The
class of persons in a position to satisfy both digestive and sexual
pleasures we find in quite another catalogue of sinners. For some of
these there is no salvation, for others there is what may be termed a
reparatory saving power, viz., confession and atonement, for which the
spiritual part of the body is not held responsible, but only the flesh.
It is precisely the men who practice these flesh-begotten sins which
the church from the time of St. Paul to the present period has been
trying to save, with little or no success.
St. Paul is the man who contributed more towards laying the foundation
for the entire Christian system than any other man in the Bible. Of
course he claims to be an Israelite of the seed of Abraham and of
the tribe of Benjamin. Jesus was of the same tribe--and probably the
other apostles that figure in the New Testament belonged to the same
tribe. That tribe is of mixed blood on the mother side. Whosoever
desires to be fully informed upon that subject, let him read Judges,
xix, xx, and xxi chapters--a story of licentiousness, barbarism, and
butchery the like of which cannot be found in any history. A Levite
with his concubine or wife came to Gibeah to lodge overnight. Some
Benjamites used and abused the woman till she died. The Levite cut the
woman up into twelve parts and sent one part to each tribe. Israel
came together in battle with the Benjamites and slaughtered man,
woman, and child. Six hundred men escaped to the wilderness, unto the
rock of Rimmon. Israel had sworn not to give them their daughters to
wife, so they helped them to get wives elsewhere, by means that are
very interesting, very savage, and very godly. I simply mention this
incident to show that the tribe of Benjamin was of mixed blood. It
was not what would be called a natural divine selection, but a forced.
Paul with his half-Grecian ideas, whose mind was permeated
with Grecian philosophy, used it largely in his argumentations,
theologico-philosophic, and in his epistolary correspondence to
enlighten and instruct his disciples.
The Israelites or Jews up to the time of Christ were not by any
means a spiritual nation. They had a god of the flesh; a sort of
cannibal god; a politico-religious god, in whose name every kind
of horror and brutality was committed. This was not Paul's God. The
garb of Socratic and Platonic philosophy adorns the spiritual phase
of Paul's idea. The dual existence is distinctly set forth (Cor. xv,
44): "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." "For
the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God" (Rom. viii, 16). "Likewise the spirit helpeth our
infirmities" (26). "For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die"
(13). "For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons
of God" (14). The notion of Paul throughout his epistles of what he
terms flesh and spirit, separating them as two distinct parts of the
body, and as having a dual existence, on one side the spiritual, the
godly, on the other the fleshy, the sinful, the earthly--is due to the
educational doctrines that then were in vogue. The anatomical knowledge
was limited, and the physiological workings of the nervous system, the
functions of the brain, were entirely unknown. The flesh and spirit
were the representatives of the muscular and nervous tissue, flesh
of the muscular, spirit of the nervous. One of the most mysterious
or hidden secrets was this function of the brain. The absence of any
positive knowledge of the nervous system until recent times, caused
many errors to creep in, and many false impressions were received by
mistake; and these blunders through ignorance have remained to a very
considerable extent fixed and unaltered.
Grecian philosophers who were attempting to give a reason, or account,
for the various mental phenomena, came to conclusions which are to-day
seen to be contrary to scientific truth. He, Paul, embodied in his
writings all the speculative philosophy known at his time. This dual
existence had been taught among the Greeks for several centuries. When
Paul wrote to the Romans he was in Corinth, and when he wrote to the
Corinthians he was at Philippi, Macedonia. The rest of his epistles
were written partly from Greece, but mostly from Rome or Italy.
Nowhere in the Old Testament is mention made of spirit and flesh after
the manner of Paul. They had no knowledge of Grecian philosophy. Of
course the mental condition had undergone some changes from the time
of Ezra to Christ. Numerous sects had paved the way, and the ideas
of various nations had been exchanged. A wonderful metamorphosis
had taken place in the God during the one thousand five hundred
years that passed between Moses and Paul. The ideal of Moses was a
barbarous, cruel God--a determined, imperative, imperious God, that
had a purpose in view, a nation to form, a country to conquer. The
prince of Egypt, the successful general of a victorious army, talks;
every word is a peremptory command. The strong, powerful will of an
energetic man stands behind Jehova. There is no philosophy, but all
action. No ideality, but muscular force. No humbleness, meekness,
or mildness, but the stern exercise of a power that never flinches
in any undertaking; regardless of consequences; pitiless in battle;
fearless in the struggle, once determined must reach success. There
is no display of imagination, no spiritual reflection, no refinement,
but there is only the coarse, vulgar, savage God of Chaldean-Egyptian
modification.
The God had undergone changes in the mental agitation of the times,
and Paul had accepted the God as he conceived him, through teachings
then prevalent. An orator for a reformation, the cause of Christ he
had embraced, coupled with the learning of the Grecian literature,
his imagination led him to portray his God in the abstract--a refined
ethereal being--in truth, a gentleman of a God.
Paul was the real founder of the past and modern church system, the
giver of ideas, the furnisher of numerous themes that gave impulse
to any number of shades of the various sects now in existence, the
promulgator of modification, the pleader of a cause, the moralizer,
the humble adviser and counselor of the lowly, ignorant, and poor. He
was very earnest and sincere in the cause he had espoused, and, if
anything, proud of it--"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Rom. i, 16). Next to Jew he
was Greek. No wonder that his mind was tainted with Grecianism. His
God was an alloy of Greek and Jew Gods. The Greek philosophy helped to
refine and eliminate the barbarism and brutality out of the Mosaic God.
Our modern mountebank preachers have nothing new to agitate
and talk about in their fashionable decorated kindergartens of
Christianity. They are ever spinning round the same circle. They are
sensational, mouthing and gesticulating before a crowd they wish
to entertain, and for this they are very handsomely housed, fed,
and otherwise recompensed. They are the greedy theological leeches
of humanity. They suck the blood, but give nothing in return. Have
they advanced the cause of humanity? Is humanity any wiser to-day
than these poor ignorant creatures were at the time Paul was trying
to get a new idea into their untutored brain?
Here is a partial list of Paul's complaints (Rom. i, 29, 30, 31):
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit,
malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful. For nineteen hundred years these Christian
saints have been trying to convert the world--Jews included, for
indeed they needed it--and what has been accomplished? Does your
kindergarten church teach aught that corrects the above evils? Have
you made them all into saints?
Paul's argument about circumcision is very ingenious. He proposes an
inward circumcision for the outward--heart and spirit (Rom. ii, 29),
circumcision through faith. His doctrine, the wages of sin is death but
the gift of God is eternal life (Rom. vi, 23), is very mischievous. It
leads men to give their flesh a full swing and leads them to a satiety
of pleasure and satisfaction of earthly bliss--lust or licentiousness,
and they let the godly or spiritual part take care of itself. This
is not education, but stupefaction. Yet our civilized spiritual
purveyors of the soul are still chewing the same theological cud of
nineteen hundred years ago. Every transgression against ourselves,
against our own body, is a transgression against the law of nature,
and the body must pay the penalty. Paul (Rom. xiii, 13) says, "Let
us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and annoying." Paul
was a great believer in spiritual gifts. Cor. xii--this chapter
has given rise to more crazes, frauds, and cheats than Paul ever
dreamed of. Verse 4: "Now these are diversities of gifts, but the
same spirit." Verse 7: "But the manifestation of spirit is given
to every man," etc. Then he enumerates the gifts--faith-healing,
miracles, prophecy, discerning spirits, speaking divers kinds of
tongues, interpretation of tongues, etc. (Cor. xii, 9, 10). This of
course opens a wide field for imposition and charlatanism. Paul being
an authority, cranks and "fakes" are not slow in taking advantage
of it. A very large percentage of the masses are ignorant, easily
made superstitious and bigoted. Any nonsensical idea is swiftly
impressed. They are satisfied with anything they are told--content with
a filled stomach and salvation hereafter. This heavenly promise is
an immense thing, an ecclesiastical bonanza. For thousands of years,
it has been an extraordinary source of income. Hundreds of thousands
have lived in ease and luxury, have enjoyed heaven on earth, and let
their poor ignorant dupes enjoy the hereafter.
Paul also gives the Catholic church a right to use the
anathema. Cor. xvi, 22: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ,
let him be Anathema, maranatha"--"Let him be accursed." The Roman
Catholic church has made good use of it. From the time the Nicean
Council was held every one of their canons--as their rules are
termed--is accompanied by an anathema for every man that does not
think, say, or believe as the church or its priests dictate. The church
institution is so well organized and the system so well regulated, that
they possess the means of squeezing the last cent out of poor ignorant
parishioners. They have so many trapdoors to catch the weary simpleton,
that if the money does not come through mass, it will come through
indulgence, or unction, or sacrament, or anything and everything. They
dispose of their spiritual wares at all prices--anywhere, everywhere,
and at all times. Here is an instructive example of teaching:
"What is the blessed Eucharist? Ans. The body and blood, soul and
divinity of Jesus Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine," etc.
The immense amount of evil done by this church is something
enormous to contemplate. If a papal medal in honor of the massacre
of St. Bartholomew's could be found and put up at auction, it would
fetch a small fortune. Literature was almost completely suppressed
by this church, by laws published under the seal of the supreme
pontiff. How few at the present day know anything of the history
of the Catholic church. Their past, their terrible black past, with
their God, their Jesus Christ, their Holy Ghost, their Holy Virgin,
and their saints--what arrogance, ambition, pride, selfishness, greed,
tyranny, licentiousness, terror and torture of the Inquisition, bloody
crimes and massacres, they were guilty of! Reflection on these many
diabolical outrages makes one's flesh creep, and one wonders why
such an institution has not been swept from the face of the earth
centuries ago. Have they done any good upon earth? From the time
of Moses until after the time of Luther, yes, up to the present
time even, they have been continuously thrusting their idea of God
into the minds of man with the sword, through blood and slaughter,
with what result? Has humanity improved? Paul has much to say about
the frailties of human nature (2 Tim. iv, 2, 3, 4): "For men shall
be lovers of their own self, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection,
truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers,
traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure," etc. The quarrels,
dissensions, and protestations of the present day among the teachers
and preachers of Christianity are a topic of entertainment in our daily
press. Heresy, blasphemy, money disputes, Briggs, Smith, Corrigan,
Wigger, etc.--what is it all about that will benefit humanity? Priest
and preacher, the modern teachers of the theological kindergarten,
have not advanced any in their methods. The civil law holds them in
check and keeps them within the bounds of their vocation. Women, the
decorations and attractions, the most numerous supporters of all church
enterprises, are not held in very high estimation by Paul. 1 Tim. ii,
9: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel,
with shame-facedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or
pearls, or costly array." Verse 11: "Let the woman learn in silence
with all subjection." Verse 12: "But I suffer not a woman to teach
nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."
The church kindergarten instructions are based upon the writings and
teachings of both the Old and the New Testament. Who wrote them, or
who compiled them, matters little. They are the accepted doctrines
of the church or churches. Whether orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whether
monotheism or polytheism, whether the idolatry of calf or idolatry
of the figure of Jesus or the Virgin, it amounts to one and the same
thing. It is of no serious consequence whether Paul actually wrote
the Epistles or some one wrote them in his name several hundred
years later; or whether John wrote his Revelations; or Moses the
Pentateuch; or whether the whole Bible was compiled a thousand years
after Moses. The whole fabric is based upon error, partly due to the
times when it was written, partly due to the state of civilization,
to the educational status, to the ignorance and superstition of the
times, the limited knowledge of nature, and the undeveloped mental
faculties, the misinterpretation and misconstruction of every phase
and phenomenon their perceptive faculties were unable to explain,
the impressions received from the outward world or the feelings and
emotions that agitated them within. It is no easy task to overcome the
prejudices of the times in which we live. We are instinctively opposed
to any innovation, whether the new ideas are an improvement on the old
or not. For many generations, and for centuries, the various church
organizations have been teaching the old, antiquated idea that the
Bible was a supernatural production, that either God had written it
or had inspired man to do the work. What does it signify who wrote
Æsop's fables, Homer's Iliad, the five books of Moses, Isaiah,
or the New Testament, or even Shakespeare? They are written. The
question really is, whether the contents are true, are fabulous or
historically correct. For many years it has been a recognized fact that
the Bible is a composition of fable, fiction, facts, misunderstanding,
and misstatement. We only need glance at the absurd trials that are
now going on at this present time. These gentlemen, Briggs and Smith,
are not the first to doubt the truth of the book. Hundreds have doubted
before them. It is skepticism that produces evolution and revolution in
the accepted form of worship and faith and belief. Abraham, Socrates,
Christ, Luther, and hundreds have doubted. They were skeptics in
consequence of a superior insight into the propaganda of certain
accepted beliefs. Every speculative theory has been doubted. Great
sciences are never doubted. Theology, the offspring of idolatry and
mythology, is a purely speculative science--if indeed it can be classed
as a science. Therefore, it has always been laboring under a cloud of
doubt. What wonder, then, that modern scholars, even clergymen, of
superior ability, become skeptics when they compare modern science,
modern truth, with ancient fable and falsehood? The debates on
progressive sanctification, a middle state, whether sanctification
is complete or incomplete at death--where is the heresy? where
is the blasphemy? What are these overgrown, lopsided educated men
thinking about--these self-constituted righteous bigots, what are
they squabbling about? Was not Abraham a heretic and a blasphemer to
the Chaldeans, Jesus Christ a heretic and a blasphemer to the Jews,
Socrates a heretic and a blasphemer to the Greeks, Luther a heretic and
a blasphemer to the Most Holy Apostolic Roman Catholic Church? Why,
the entire theological doctrine, the whole spiritual code of morals,
all the articles of faith and creeds and canons of the church, all the
figures and carvings of Christ, all the paintings, all the steeples,
all the belfries on this earth's surface--what are they for? What are
all the mountebank church costumes for? What is the use for a man to
disguise himself in a stage costume of the Egyptian period, to scare a
lot of ignorant boobies? Of what use are your incense, your prayer, and
your blessing, your self-conceited holiness, your pretended sanctity,
and your priestly hypocrisy? What is it all for? To save sinners? What
shall we do to be saved? All this ecclesiastical humbug, preaching
and pulpit noise and theological humbug, is about crushing out sin,
saving the sinner, and all the supernatural thunder is brought to
bear upon the great sinning organs--to wit, the stomach and the sexual
organs, to regulate these. God and gods, angels, prophets, and spirits
labored--and what is more monstrous and more extravagantly ridiculous,
the young man Jesus Christ had to be sacrificed--to save you from
overloading your stomach--or rather abusing your stomach--and from
overindulging in sexual exercises. Remember, every crime, known or
unknown, recognized or not recognized, every evil and every wickedness,
every abomination or pollution or defilement, springs from these two
sources. I am not taking diseases into consideration, such as David
describes in Psalm xxxviii, for example.
To satisfy the wants of these organs, leads to greed, selfishness,
fraud, forgery, deception, falsehood, corruption, etc. The pleasures
resulting therefrom are accompanied by vanity, pride, pamperedness,
envy, jealousy, hate, discontent, etc. The indulgences are known as
drunkenness, lust, lasciviousness, fornication, adultery, obscenity,
debauchery, whoredom, luxury, revelry, and by many other terms. These
form the theme of the prophets and the burden of the apostles. These
are the sins, the vices, they have been trying to crush and wipe out
with their theological absurdities for several thousand years. They
have created all sorts of bugaboos to frighten fools, idiots, and
stupid ignoramuses into discipline. They have created hell, purgatory,
dark and deep pits, brimstone and fire. The gentleman devil, or
Mr. Satan, presides over the lower regions, conducts their affairs,
only to accommodate the spiritual fraternity, from the pope to the
Rev. Sam Patch. But in order to be saved, to go to heaven--an imaginary
abode in the atmosphere, a sort of ethereal paradise in the upper
strata of the air that surrounds this globe, either with or without
sunlight--in order to get one up there some clown of a priest will
mumble off masses, a sort of ribald fustian composition that will raise
your spirit or your soul right up into the pure upper strata of this
terrestrial atmospheric crust. Of course if there are seven heavens
you must pay accordingly. In case, however, you miss the aerial place,
the heaven, and accidentally become one of the devil's subjects, it
stands to reason that Satan requires an extra fee to release you from
eternal punishment--which the good, pious priest puts into his pocket.
It is a pertinent question to ask our spiritual advisers, whether
or not the Christian kindergarten makes a specialty of guarding and
regulating, by the celestial medium of the Son of God, the Holy Ghost,
the digestive apparatus and the organs of procreation. Because all
the sins and vices originate with these. The devil, or Satan, holds
his jubilee in the pleasures and extravagant indulgences of man and
woman. The church has long since been deprived of its political power
and importance. The civil law regulates minor and major crimes, and
provides punishment therefor. The only function left for the Christian
church, the ecclesiastical kindergarten, is advisory, admonitory,
accompanied with frivolous promises--Be good, you well-dressed ladies
and gentlemen; pray to our shadows, kneel before yon figure on the
cross, sprinkle yourselves with holy water, and contribute liberally
toward our support and sustain our kindergarten, then we bless you
and give you a pass to the heavenly regions. Basta! Only believe,
have faith, never mind about understanding, common sense, and reason,
then you surely will be saved, and have a white and clean gown fresh
from the laundry, a pair of wings, a golden crown, and you can have
your choice of either a trumpet or a harp, which you may either blow
or touch, and may sit at the feet of an old man with a long white
beard, on a golden chair, his feet resting on the clouds, surrounded
by an innumerable host of angels and cherubim that will make music
everlasting, where spiritual fountains will keep you cool, oh, and
a vast deal more which can not be here recited. Anyone who desires a
full and complete description of this celestial paradise, this heaven,
including Abraham's bosom, the right hand of Jesus, his beloved
Father, and the Holy Ghost in the bargain, may obtain it by making
proper application. Ah! what a blessing it would be for the whole
human family if the churches were utilized for educational purposes
wherein truths, scientific truths, could be taught; where young people
could meet to amuse themselves, or be instructed in something useful;
where young men and women could entertain themselves by feeding off the
tree of knowledge, instead of loafing round saloons, round the street
corners, gambling-houses, dives or pool rooms. Young and old must have
a pastime, and a place to pass this time; if the state or community
does not provide such places in densely populated districts, where
are these poor, ignorant creatures to go to? Talk about charity! A
large bulk of our charities are advertising schemes. I do not call
what I here advocate a charity, but a right. If we want to improve
the public morals, if we desire to educate the young men and women,
provide district temples for amusement and instruction, open from 10
A.M. to 10 P.M., where they may assemble after working hours, sit,
talk, read, or play--may educate the brain, the nervous and muscular
tissues, so that both these master tissues may perform their functions
skillfully, naturally, and judiciously.
Our scientific scholars throughout the world have long since dispensed
with the supernatural. Know the natural, is the modern shibboleth. If
you want to take care of the machine, understand the machinery, and
if you want the coming generation to understand something about it,
it is certain that the saloon is not the proper place for it.
We ought to guard our public institutions with jealous care. Our public
non-sectarian schools are the places for our children. The public
schools ought to be numerous enough to accommodate every citizen's
children in the land. I think it bad grace for any foreigner to come
here to give us advice upon that subject. Archbishop Satolli, papal
ablegate, said at the recent meeting of the American archbishops in
New York, on "The settling of the school question and the giving of
religious education:" "To the Catholic church belong the duty and
divine right of teaching all nations to believe the truth of the
gospel, and to observe whatsoever Christ commanded.
"For the rest the provisions of the Council of Baltimore are yet
in force, and in a general way will remain so, to wit: Not only out
of our paternal love do we exhort Catholic parents, but we command
them, by all the authority we possess, to procure a truly Christian
and Catholic education for the beloved offspring given them of God,
born again in baptism unto Christ, and destined for heaven, to shield
and secure them throughout childhood and youth from the dangers of
a mere worldly education, and therefore to send them to parochial or
other truly Catholic schools."
The beloved offspring given them of God? Nonsense! About as much born
of God as a calf, or a flower. Offspring are the natural result of a
natural cause. "Born again in baptism unto Christ, and destined for
heaven"--would it not be well to ascertain what the Catholic church has
ever done to elevate and educate the masses? Does not the educational
system of Peter Dens, Satolli, and Co. consist merely of: 1. To hear
mass on Sundays and all holy days of obligation; 2. To fast and abstain
on the days commanded; 3. To receive worthily the blessed Eucharist at
Easter, or within the time appointed; 4. To confess our sins at least
once a year; 5. To contribute to the support of our pastor; 6. Not to
solemnize marriage at the forbidden times, nor to marry persons within
the forbidden degrees of kindom or otherwise prohibited by the church
nor clandestinely? The dirt and filth, the nauseating nastiness, of
the cesspool of the "Moral Theology" of Peter Dens cannot be printed
in the English language. Or perhaps Mr. Satolli will educate the
children to mumble over and over the litany of the blessed Virgin,
quoted in another chapter, and all the rest of the instructions in
mortal sin, venial sin, precepts of the church, infidels and heretics,
decalogue, grace, justification, merit, virtue of faith, articles of
faith, apostolic creed, church visibility, marks, holiness, authority,
infallibility, concerning ecclesiastical councils, supreme pontiff,
signs of the cross, magic, miracles, sacrament, worship of relics,
worship of images, resurrection, heaven, hell, perdition, purgatory,
etc., etc.
Satolli and his confréres would rather have parish schools, to educate
the young in their ecclesiastical stupidities, and draw the funds from
the state treasury in order to sustain them. The Roman Catholic church,
in its career as an educational medium, has not contributed one iota
towards the progress and advancement of civilization. The opposition of
its clergy has always been the severest and most bloody. Humanity "owes
them no thanks for the culture and privileges it now enjoys. The church
interferes and checks every step forward. The clergy are determined to
keep the masses ignorant as long as it is possible. Greed, selfishness,
rapacity, dominion, self-righteousness, and self-sanctification
have ever been their chief characteristics. Every act and every
transaction is justifiable so long as their ends and objects are
gained. Satolli represents the pope's big toe, that is ready to be
firmly planted on the neck of our public school system, whenever
the power of state or nation is secured. The wily priests with
their Jesuitic craftiness never lose an opportunity. In a republic
they are republicans, in a monarchy they are monarchists. They are
anything and everything--but the church with all its abominations
first. All else must be subservient to their will, to their power,
to their use. They are intolerant, bigoted, and tyrannical all the
time. Whether it be to prevent the Methodists from establishing a
church in Austria, or to intrude their priestly interference in the
public school methods in Waterford, Saratoga, it is the same impudent
aggression that has characterized them for ages. They are bound to
keep the people ignorant, superstitious, and slaves to their system,
in spite of all the existing civilizing influences. What we want,
and what we must have, is a public school system of education free
from all sectarian bias, with neither catechism nor Bible-reading,
neither prayers nor psalm-singing, but a thorough instruction in all
matters of a nature directly beneficial in the conduct of this life.
The state of transition is rapidly forcing itself upon the minds of
men. They can no longer be held in submission. They believe no more in
the antiquated notions of four thousand years ago--though modified and
decorated to suit modern times. Notwithstanding the ecclesiastical
hedges, fences, walls, and draw-bridges that have been erected by
priests' sagacity and cunning in order to prevent encroachments on
their theological fortifications, it is plain that there is a natural
wearing and tearing of effete notions of the past. That the structure,
erected on a false and fictitious foundation, has already given
way, Protestants can testify. And as the Protestants have yielded
to dissenters, etc., so must they all gradually crumble--before
the battering-ram of scientific truth first, next before the
advancing intelligence of the masses, and lastly before the press,
which indiscriminately lays bare before the public every wrangle,
every squabble, and every dissension occurring among the followers
of Christ. Neither faith, grace, nor brotherly love, the holy kiss
of Paul included, prevents these saintly gentlemen from exercising
their greed, selfishness, and covetousness, as well as throwing dirt
at one another. Father Corrigan vs. Cahenslyism and Wigger--they keep
the pecuniary pot boiling. There is neither malice nor jealousy,
but all is for the love of Christ. Dollars and cents? These pious
brethren would scorn the idea. At Professor Smith's trial for heresy
the ladies of Mount Auburn church presented the heretic with a basket
of flowers. When in old times we find heretics tried by the Roman
Catholic church, Are heretics rightly punished with death? asks the
priest. St. Thomas answers in the affirmative. Latimer and Ridley
were treated to an excellent bonfire at Oxford, 1555, for being
heretics. Nor did Cranmer receive white and pink roses in a bed of
fern leaves and smilax. What a change! Professors Smith and Briggs
are proud to be heretics. They are praised and complimented for
being heretics, and no doubt will be well taken care of when these
frivolous proceedings have terminated. Guilty or not guilty, they
have gained notoriety enough to place them in an excellent position
for the rest of their lives. I call that a high, very sensible, and
very respectable sort of martyrdom. Both these gentlemen ought to
be very grateful to science for having brought about such a change,
that gives them the privilege of differing from their spiritual
brethren and becoming respectable heretics with baskets of roses. O
Civilization, how much have we to thank you for all this! It is so
lovely to be a heretic, a blasphemer, and a martyr in this present
generation! What a pity that Daniel's Mene, mene, Tekel upharsin is
not quite applicable to the present condition of Christianity. The
great ecclesiastical bugbear of Christianity, backed by their God,
their Son, Holy Ghost, Virgin Mary, saints, popes, Heaven and
Hell, and their infinite methods of salvation, is nothing near so
terrible as he used to be. That bugbear has been tamed, and is,
comparatively speaking, gentle. His appetites and his passions have
been subdued. Indeed Paul deserves no small credit for polishing
the Mosaic God. It is only occasionally that Paul mentions his God's
wrath or severity, and very mildly too. Paul's God comes near being
esthetic. The Mosaic God is muscular and energetic. Paul's God is
mild and persuasive. The Mosaic God was a fighting god, conquering
territory and molding a political nation. Paul's God has quite another
line of business, sin-forgiving and soul-saving. The Mosaic God was
all alone engaged in business. Paul's God is a firm--Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost. The occupation of sin-forgiving and soul-saving is
carried on with great ceremonials in our Christian kindergartens,
accompanied with music, prayer, and psalm-singing. The sins are
derived, directly or indirectly, from two organs in the main--to wit,
digestive and sexual. Any man or woman that cannot perceive the truth
of the above must be exceedingly obtuse. Does anyone believe that the
teachings and preachings, with all the complementary paraphernalia
and other numerous accessories, are necessary to save us or guard
us against transgressions or sin? Supposing all the churches and
buildings assigned to the worship of God or gods, and all the priests
and preachers, disappeared from the surface of this terrestrial
globe, would this planet come to a standstill, or the sun cease
to shine? Would the elements entering into the composition of the
numerous substances found on or within this earth change their relative
proportion, construction, or chemical relation? We need not have the
slightest apprehension. New systems of ideas have always displaced
and replaced the old systems. As we advance from cycle to cycle,
this is continuously taking place. The hand gave way to the stick,
the stick to the spade, the spade to the hand-plow, the hand-plow to
oxen, oxen to horses, horses to steam, etc. It is the natural progress
from one step to another, in every branch of thought, learning,
and industry. It is a higher education and a better comprehension
of the human machinery, a knowledge of the proper functions of the
nervous and muscular tissues, a keener insight into the necessities
of life, a regulation and control of the organs of organic life, a
riper judgment, and a more evenly balanced brain power. The churches
with their ethics and refined methods of the present day, with their
eloquent admonitions constantly repeated, cannot be regarded in any
other light than as a theological kindergarten for a fashionable
musical Sunday entertainment.