WE have found, at last, that other nations have sacred books much
older than our own, and that these books and records were and are
substantiated by traditions and monuments, by miracles and martyrs,
christs and apostles, as well as by prophecies fulfilled. In all of
these nations differences of opinion as to the authenticity and meaning
of these books arose from time to time, precisely as they have done and
still do with us, and upon these differences were founded sects that
manufactured creeds. These sects denounced each other, and preached with
the sword and endeavored to convince with the fagot. Our theologians
were greatly astonished to find in other bibles the same stories,
precepts, laws, customs and commands that adorn and stain our own. At
first they accounted for this, by saying that these books were in part
copies of the Jewish Scriptures, mingled with barbaric myths. To such an
extent did they impose upon and insult probability, that they declared
that all the morality of the world, all laws commanding right and
prohibiting wrong, all ideas respecting the unity of a Supreme Being,
were borrowed from the Jews, who obtained them directly from God. The
Christian world asserts with warmth, not always born of candor, that
the Bible is the source, origin, and fountain of law, liberty, love,
charity, and justice; that it is the intellectual and moral sun of the
world; that it alone gives happiness here, and alone points out the
way to joy hereafter; that it contains the only revelation from the
Infinite; that all others are the work of dishonest and mistaken men.
They say these things in spite of the fact that the Jewish nation was
one of the weakest and most barbaric of the past; in spite of the fact
that the civilization of Egypt and India had commenced to wane before
that of Palestine existed. To account for all the morality contained in
the sacred books of the Hindus, by saying that it was borrowed from
the wanderers in the Desert of Sinai, from the escaped slaves of the
Egyptians, taxes to the utmost the credulity of ignorance, bigotry, and
zeal.
The men who make these assertions are not superior to other men. They
have only the facts common to all, and they must admit that these facts
do not force the same conclusions upon all. They must admit that men
equally honest, equally well informed as themselves, deny their premises
and conclusions. They must admit that had they been born and educated in
some other country, they would have had a different religion, and would
have regarded with reverence and awe the books they now hold as false
and foolish. Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the
judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a
grave countenance as the titlepage and preface to a most learned volume.
So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn
ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors,
and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter
how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his
soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments
would be urged. There is the same evidence in favor of the inspiration
of the Koran and Bible. Both are substantiated in exactly the same way.
It is just as wicked and unreasonable to be a heretic in Constantinople
as in New York. To deny the claims of Christ and Mohammed is alike
blasphemous. It all depends upon where you are when you make the denial.
No religion has ever fallen that carried with it down to dumb death a
solitary fact. Mistakes moulder with the temples in which they were
taught, and countless superstitions sleep with their dead priests.
Yet Christians insist that the religions of all nations that have fallen
from wealth and power were false, with of course the solitary exception
of the Jewish, simply because the nations teaching them dropped from
their dying hands the swords of power. This argument drawn from the
fate of nations proves no more than would one based upon the history
of persons. With nations as with individuals, the struggle for life is
perpetual, and the law of the survival of the fittest applies equally to
both.
It may be that the fabric of our civilization will crumbling fall to
unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and even
memory forgets. Perhaps the blind Samson of some imprisoned force,
released by thoughtless chance, may so wreck and strand the world that
man, in stress and strain of want and fear, will shudderingly crawl back
to savage and barbaric night. The time may come in which this thrilled
and throbbing earth, shorn of all life, will in its soundless orbit
wheel a barren star, on which the light will fall as fruitlessly as
falls the gaze of love upon the cold, pathetic face of death.