Part 2, Proposition 1.--Infinity of duration is necessarily existing.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE DEVIL,

AND OTHER BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND ESSAYS

By Charles Bradlaugh

New York:

A. K. Butts & Co., 36 Dey Street.

1874.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES BRADLAUGH.

A PAGE OF HIS LIFE.

At the request of many friends, and by way of farewell address on

leaving for America, I, for the first time in my life, pen a partial

autobiographical sketch. I do not pretend that the narrative will be a

complete picture of my life, I only vouch the accuracy of the facts

so far as I state them. I have not the right in some cases to state

political occurrences in which others now living are involved, nor have

I the courage of Jean Jacques Rousseau, to photograph my inner life. I

shall therefore state little the public may not already know. I was born

on the 26th September, 1833, in a small house in Bacchus Walk, Hoxton.

My father was a solicitor's clerk with a very poor salary, which he

supplemented by law writing. He was an extremely industrious man, and

a splendid penman. I never had the opportunity of judging his tastes or

thoughts, outside his daily labors, except in one respect, in which I

have followed in his footsteps. He was passionately fond of angling.

Until 1848 my life needs little relation. My schooling, like that of

most poor men's children, was small in quantity, and, except as to the

three R's, indifferent in quality. I remember at seven years of age

being at a national school in Abbey Street, Bethnel Green; between seven

and nine I was at another small private school in the same neighborhood,

and my "education" was completed before I was eleven years of age at a

boys' school in Coalharbor Street, Hackney Road. When about twelve years

of age I was first employed as errand lad in the solicitor's office

where my father remained his whole life through. After a little more

than two years in this occupation, I became wharf clerk and cashier to

a firm of coal merchants in Britannia Fields, City Road. While in their

employment the excitement of the Chartist movement was at its height in

England, and the authorities, frightened by the then huge continental

revolution wave, were preparing for the prosecution of some of

the leaders among the Chartists. Meetings used to be held almost

continuously all day on Sunday, and every week-night in the open air on

Bonner's Fields, near where the Consumption Hospital now stands. These

meetings were in knots from fifty to five hundred, sometimes many more,

and were occupied chiefly in discussions on theological, social, and

political questions, any bystander taking part. The curiosity of a

lad took me occasionally in the week evenings to the Bonner's Fields

gatherings. On the Sunday I, as a member of the Church of England, was

fully occupied as a Sunday-school teacher. This last-named fashion of

passing Sunday was broken suddenly. The Bishop of London was announced

to hold a confirmation in Bethnal Green. The incumbent of St. Peter's,

Hackney Road, the district in which I resided, was one John Graham

Packer, and he, desiring to make a good figure when the Bishop came,

pressed me to prepare for confirmation, so as to answer any question

the Bishop might put. I studied a little the Thirty-nine Articles of the

Church of England, and the four Gospels, and came to the conclusion

that they differed. I ventured to write the Rev. Mr. Packer a respectful

letter, asking him for aid and explanation. All he did was to denounce

my letter to my parents as Atheistical, although at that time I should

have shuddered at the very notion of becoming an Atheist, and he

suspended me for three months from my office of Sunday-school teacher.

This left me my Sundays free, for I did not like to go to church while

suspended from my teacher's duty, and I, instead, went to Bonner's

Fields, at first to listen, but soon to take part in some of the

discussions which were then always pending there.

At the commencement I spoke on the orthodox Christian side, but after

a debate with Mr. J. Savage, in the Warner Place Hall, in 1849, on the

"Inspiration of the bible," I found that my views were getting very

much tinged with Freethought, and in the winter of that year, at the

instigation of Mr. Packer, to whom I had submitted the "Diegesis" of

Robert Taylor, I--having become a teetotaler, which in his view brought

out my infidel tendencies still more vigorously--had three days given

me by my employers, after consultation with my father, to "change my

opinions or lose my situation." I am inclined to think now that the

threat was never intended to have been enforced, but was used to terrify

me into submission. At that time I hardly knew what, if any, opinions

I had, but the result was that sooner than make a show of recanting, I

left home and situation on the third day, and never returned to either.

I was always a very fluent speaker, and now lectured frequently at

the Temperance Hall, Warner Place, Hackney Road, at the small Hall in

Philpot Street, and in the open air in Bonner's Fields, where at last

on Sunday afternoons scores of hundreds congregated to hear me. My views

were then Deistical, but rapidly tending to the more extreme phase in

which they ultimately settled. I now took part in all the gatherings

held in London on behalf of the Poles and Hungarians, and actually

fancied that I could write poetry on Kossuth and Mazzini.

It was at this time I made the acquaintance of my friend and co-worker,

Mr. Austin Holyoake, at his printing office in Queen's Head Passage, and

I remember him taking me to John Street Institution, where, at one

of the pleasant Saturday evening gatherings, I met the late Mrs. Emma

Martin. At Mr. Austin Holyoake's request, Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, to

my great delight, presided at one of my lectures in Philpot Street, and

I felt special interest in the number of the _Reasoner_ which contained

a brief reference to myself and that lecture.

I wrote my first pamphlet, "A Few Words on the Christian's Creed," about

the middle of 1850, and was honored by Dr. Campbell of the _British

Banner_ with a leading article vigorously assailing me for the lectures

I had then delivered. After leaving home I was chiefly sheltered by Mrs.

Sharpies Carlile, with whose children, Hypatia, Theophila, and Julian,

I shared such comforts as were at her disposal. Here I studied hard

everything which came in my way, picking up a little Hebrew and an

imperfect smattering of other tongues. I tried to earn my living as a

coal merchant, but at sixteen, and without one farthing in my pocket,

the business was not extensive enough to be profitable. I got very poor,

and at that time was also very proud. A subscription offered me by a few

Freethinkers shocked me, and awakened me to a sense of my poverty;

so telling no one where I was going, I went away, and on the 17th of

December, 1850, was, after some difficulty, enlisted in the Seventh

Dragoon Guards. With this corps I remained until October, 1853, being

ultimately appointed orderly-room clerk; the regiment, during the whole

of the time I remained in it, being quartered in Ireland. While I was in

the regiment I was a teetotaler, and used often to lecture to the men

in the barrack-room at night, and I have more than once broken out of

Portobello barracks to deliver teetotal speeches in the small French

Street Hall, Dublin. Many times have I spoken there in my scarlet

jacket, between James Haughton and the good old father, the Rev. Dr.

Spratt, a Roman Catholic priest, then very active in the cause of

temperance. While I was in the regiment my father died, and in the

summer of 1853 an aunt's death left me a small sum, out of which

I purchased my discharge, and returned to England, to aid in the

maintenance of my mother and family.

I have now no time for the full story of my army life, which, however,

I may tell some day. Before I left the regiment I had won the esteem

of most of the privates, and of some of the officers. I quitted the

regiment with a "very good character" from the Colonel, but I am bound

to add, that the Captain would not have concurred in this character had

he had any voice in the matter. The Lieutenant-Colonel, C. P. Ainslie,

earned an eternal right to grateful mention at my hands by his

gentlemanly and considerate treatment. I can not say the same for my

Captain, who did his best to send me to jail, and whom I have not yet

quite forgiven.

On returning to civilian life I obtained employment in the daytime with

a solicitor named Rogers, and in the evening as clerk to a Building

Society; and soon after entering this employ I began again to write and

speak, and it was then I, to in some degree avoid the efforts which were

afterward made to ruin me, took the name "Iconoclast," under which all

my anti-theological work down to 1868 was done. I give Mr. Rogers'

name now for he is dead, and malice can not injure him. Many anonymous

letters were sent to him to warn him of my irreligious opinions; he

treated them all with contempt, only asking me not to let my propaganda

become an injury to his business.

Soon after my discharge from the army I had a curious adventure. While

I was away a number of poor men had subscribed their funds together and

had erected a Working Man's Hall, in Goldsmith's Row, Hackney Road. Not

having any legal advice, it turned out that they had been entrapped

into erecting their building on freehold ground without any lease or

conveyance from the freeholder, who asserted his legal right to the

building. The men consulted me, and finding that under the Statute of

Frauds they had no remedy, I recommended them to offer a penalty rent of

£20 a year. This being refused, I constituted myself into a law court,

and without any riot or breach of the peace, I, with the assistance of

a hundred stout men, took every brick of the building bodily away, and

divided the materials, so far as was possible, among the proper owners.

I think I can see now the disappointed rascal of a freeholder when he

only had his bare soil left once more. He did not escape unpunished, for

to encourage the others to contribute, he had invested some few pounds

in the building. He had been too clever; he had relied on the letter of

the law, and I beat him with a version of common-sense justice.

I lectured once or twice a week in the small Philpot Street Hall, very

often then in the Hall of Science, City Road, and then in the old John

Street Institution, until I won myself a name in the party throughout

the country. In 1855 had my first notable adventure with the authorities

in reference to the right of meeting in Hyde Park, and subsequently gave

evidence before the Royal Commission ordered by the House of Commons,

presided over by the Right Hon. Stuart Wortley. I was very proud that

day at Westminster, when, at the conclusion of my testimony against the

authorities, the Commissioner publicly thanked me, and the people who

crowded the Court of Exchequer cheered me, for the manner in which I

denied the right of Sir Richard Mayne, the then Chief Commissioner of

Police, to issue the notices forbidding the people to meet in the Park.

This was the first step in a course in which I have never flinched or

wavered.

In 1855 I undertook, with others, the publication of a series of papers,

entitled "Half-Hours with Freethinkers," the late John Watts being

one of my co-workers. I also by myself commenced the publication of my

"Commentary on the Pentateuch," which has since been entirely re-written

and now forms my "Bible: what it is."

During the autumn of 18571 paid my first lecture visit to Northampton.

Early in 1858, when Mr. Edward Truelove was suddenly arrested for

publishing the pamphlet, "Is Tyrannicide Justifiable?" I became

Honorary Secretary to the Defense, and was at the same time associated

with the conduct of the defense of Simon Bernard, who was arrested at

the instigation of the French Government for alleged complicity in the

Orsini tragedy. It was at this period I gained the friendship of poor

Bernard, which, without diminution, retained until he died; and also

the valued frendship of Thomas Allsop, which I still preserve. My

associations were from thenceforward such as to encourage in me a strong

and bitter feeling against the late Emperor Napoleon. While he was in

power I hated him, and never lost an opportunity of working against him

until the _decheance_ came. I am not sure now that I always judged him

fairly; but nothing, I think, could have tempted me to either write

or speak of him with friendliness during his life. _Le sang de mes amis

etait sur son ame_. Now that the tomb covers his remains, my hatred has

ceased; but no other feeling has arisen in its place. Should any of his

family seek to resume the Imperial purple, I should remain true to my

political declarations of sixteen years since, and should exert myself

to the uttermost to prevent France falling under another Empire. I

write this with much sadness, as 1870 to 1873 have dispelled some of

my illusions held firmly during the fifteen years which preceded. I

had believed in such men as Louis Blanc, Lodru Rollin, Victor Hugo,

as possible statesmen of France. I was mistaken. They were writers,

talkers, and poets; good men to ride on the stream, or to drown in

honest protest, but lacking force to swim against, or turn back, the

tide by the might of their will. I had believed too in a Republican

France, which is yet only in the womb of time, to be born after many

pangs and sore travailing.

In 1859 I saw Joseph Mazzini for the first time, and remained on terms

of communication with the great Italian patriot until the year 1869,

from time to time bringing him correspondence from Italy, where my

business sometimes took me. After 1869 we found ourselves holding

diverse opinions on the Franco-Prussian question--Mazzini went for

Prussia, I for France--and I never saw him again.

In June, 1858, I held my first public formal theological debate with

the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., at that time a Dissenting Minister at

Sheffield. Mr. Grant was then a man of some ability, and if he could

have forgotten his aptitudes as a circus jester, would have been a

redoubtable antagonist. During this year I was elected President of the

London Secular Society, in lieu of Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, who had

theretofore led the English Free-thought party, but who has of late

years devoted himself more completely to general journalistic work.

In November, 1858, I commenced editorial duties with the _Investigator_,

formerly conducted by the late Robert Cooper, which I continued until

August, 1859. It had but a small circulation, and was financially a very

great failure. For the encouragement of young propagandists, I may

here insert a little anecdote of my early lecturing experience. I had

lectured in Edinburgh in mid-winter, the audience was small, the profits

microscopical. I, alter paying my bill at the Temperance Hotel, where I

then stayed, had only a few shillings more than my Parliamentary fare

to Bolton, where I was next to lecture. I was out of bed at five on a

freezing morning, and could have no breakfast, as the people were not

up. I carried my luggage (a big tin box, corded round, which then held

books and clothes, and a small black bag), for I could not spare any

of my scanty cash for a conveyance or porter. The train from Edinburgh

being delayed by a severe snow-storm, the corresponding Parliamentary

had left Carlisle long before our arrival. In order to reach Bolton in

time for my lecture, I had to book by a quick train, starting in about

three-quarters of an hour, but could only book to Preston, as the

increased fare took all my money, except 4 1/2d. With this small sum

I could get no refreshment in the station, but in a little shop in

the street outside I got a mug of tea and a little hot meat pie. From

Preston, I got with great difficulty on to Bolton, handing my black bag

to the station-master there as security for my fare from Preston, until

the morning. I arrived in Bolton about quarter to eight; the lecture

commenced at eight, and I, having barely time to run to my lodgings, and

wash and change, went onto the platform cold and hungry. I shall never

forget that lecture; it was in an old Unitarian Chapel. We had no gas,

the building seemed full of a foggy mist, and was imperfectly lit with

candles. Everything appeared cold, cheerless, and gloomy. The most

amusing feature was that an opponent, endowed with extra piety

and forbearance, chose that evening to specially attack me for the

money-making and easy life I was leading. Peace to that opponent's

memory, I have never seen him since. It was while in Scotland on this

journey I made the acquaintance, and ultimately won the frendship, of

the late Alexander Campbell, of Glasgow--a generous, kindly-hearted old

Socialist Missionary, who, at a time when others were hostile, spoke

encouragingly to me, and who afterward worked with me for a long period

on this journal [_The National Reformer_]. Occasionally the lectures

were interfered with by the authorities, but this happened oftener in

the provinces than in London. In March, 1859, I was to have lectured

in Saint Martin's Hall on "Louis Napoleon," but the Government--on

a remonstrance by Count Walewski, as to language used at a previous

meeting, at which I had presided for Dr. Bernard--interfered; the hall

was garrisoned by police, and the lecture prevented. Mr. Hullah, the

then proprietor, being indemnified by the authorities, paid damages

for his breach of contract, to avoid a suit which I at once commenced

against him. Later in the same month I held a debate in Northampton with

Mr. John Bowes, a rather heavy, but well-meaning, old gentleman, utterly

unfitted for platform controversy. The press now began to deal with

me tolerably freely, and I find "boy," "young man," and "juvenile

appearance" very frequent in the comments. My want of education was an

especial matter for hostile criticism, the more particularly so when the

writer had neither heard nor seen me.

Discussions now grew on me so thick and fast that even some of the

most important debates may perhaps escape notice in this imperfect

chronicling. At Sheffield I debated with a Reverend Dr. Mensor, who

styled himself a Jewish Rabbi. He was then in the process of gaining

admission to the Church of England, and had been put forward to show my

want of scholarship. We both scrawled Hebrew characters for four nights

on a black board, to the delight and mystification of the audience,

who gave me credit for erudition, because I chalked the square letter

characters with tolerable rapidity and clearness. At Glasgow I debated

with a Mr. Court, representing the Glasgow Protestant Association, a

glib-tongued missionary, who has since gone to the bad; at Paisley with

a Mr. Smart, a very gentlemanly antagonist; and at Halifax with the Rev.

T. D. Matthias, a Welsh Baptist Minister, unquestionably very sincere.

All these were formal debates, and were reported with tolerable fullness

in the various journals. In the early part of 1860 I, aided by my

friends at Sheffield, Halifax, and other parts of England, projected the

_National Reformer_ in small shares. Unfortunately just after the

issue of its prospectus, Joseph Barker returned from America, and was

associated with me in the editorship. The arrangement was peculiar, Mr.

Barker editing the first half of the paper and I the second. It was not

precisely a happy union, and the unnatural alliance came to an end in

a very brief period. In August.1861, I officially parted company with

Joseph Barker as editor. We had been practically divorced for months

before: the first part of the paper usually contained abuse of those

who wrote in the second half. He came to me originally at Sheffield,

pretending to be an Atheist and a Republican, and soon after pretended

to be a Christian, and spoke in favor of slavery. I am sometimes

doubtful as to how far Mr. Barker deluded himself, as well as others,

in his various changes of theological and political opinions. If he

had had the slightest thoroughness in his character, he would have been

a great man; as it is, he is only a great turn-coat.

In June, 1860, I debated again with the Reverend Brewin Grant, every

Monday for four weeks, at Bradford, and during this debate had a narrow

escape of my life. In one of my journeys to London, the great Northern

train ran through the station at King's Cross, and many persons were

seriously injured. I got off with some trifling bruises and a severe

shaking.

Garibaldi having at this time made his famous Marsala effort, I

delivered a series of lectures in his aid, and am happy to be able

to record that, though at that time very poor, I sent him one hundred

guineas as my contribution by my tongue. This money was chiefly sent

through W. H. Ashurst, Esq., now Solicitor to the General Post

Office, and among the letters I preserve I have one of thanks from "G.

Garibaldi," for what I was then doing for Italy.

In this year I debated for four nights with Dr. Brindley, an old

antagonist of the Socialists, at Oldham; for two nights with the Rev.

Dr. Baylee, the President of St. Aidan's College, at Birkenhead, where

a Church of England curate manufactory was for some time carried on;

and for two nights with the Rev. Dr. Rutherford, of Newcastle. Dr.

Rutherford has since so identified himself with the cause of the

Tyneside workers, that I read with regret any harsh words that escaped

me in that debate. Although during late years I have managed to keep all

my meetings free from violence or disorder, this was not always so. In

October, 1860, I paid my first visit to Wigan, and certainly lectured

there under considerable difficulty, and incurred personal clanger, the

resident clergy actually inciting the populace to physical violence, and

part destruction of the building I lectured in. I, however, supported by

one courageous woman and her husband, persevered, and despite bricks

and kicks, visited Wigan again and again, until I had, _bon gre malgre_

improved the manners and customs of the people, so that now 1 am a

welcome speaker there. I could not improve the morals of the clergy, as

the public journals have recently shown, but that was their misfortune

not my fault. In the winter of 1860, I held two formal debates in Wigan,

all of which were fully reported in the local journals; one with Mr.

Hutchings, a respectable Nonconformist layman, and the other with the

Rev. Woodville Woodman, a Swedenborgian divine.

Early in 1861 I visited Guernsey in consequence of an attempt made by

the Law Courts of the Island to enforce the blasphemy laws against a

Mr. Stephen Bendall, who had distributed some or my pamphlets to the

Guernseyites, and had been condemned to imprisonment in default of

finding sureties not to repeat the offense. Not daring to prosecute

me, although challenged in writing, the authorities permitted drink and

leave of absence to be given to soldiers in the garrison on condition

they would try to prevent the lecture, and the house in which I lectured

was broken into by a drunken and pious mob, shouting "Kill the Infidel."

My antagonists were fortunately as cowardly as they were intolerant, and

I succeeded in quelling the riot, delivering my lecture in spite of all

opposition, although considerable damage was done to the building.

Shortly after this I visited Plymouth, where the Young Men's Christian

Association arranged to prosecute me. They were, however, a little too

hasty, and had me arrested at an open air meeting when I had scarcely

commenced my speech, having only uttered the words: "Friends, I am about

to address you on the bible." Having locked me up all night, and refused

bail, it was found by their legal adviser that a blunder had been

committed, and a charge of "exciting a breach of the peace,

and assaulting the constable in the execution of his duty," was

manufactured. It was tolerably amusing to see the number of dinners,

suppers, and breakfasts, all accompanied with pots or cups of Devonshire

cream, sent in to the Devonport Lock-up, where I was confined, by

various friends who wanted to show their sympathy. The invented charge,

though well sworn to, broke down after two days' hearing, under the

severe cross-examination to which I subjected the witnesses. I defended

myself, two lawyers appeared against me, and seven magistrates sat on

the bench, predetermined to convict me. Finding that the evidence of

the whole of the witnesses whom I wished to call was to be objected

to, because un-believers in hell were then incompetent as witnesses

according to English law, I am pleased to say that several

Nonconformists, disgusted with the bigotry and pious perjury of my

prosecutors, came forward. The result was a triumphant victory, and

a certificate of dismissal, which I wrung from the reluctant bench of

great unpaid. I was not yet satisfied; some of the magistrates had

tried to browbeat me, and I announced in court that I would deliver the

lecture I had been prevented from delivering to an audience assembled in

the borough, and that I should sue at law the Superintendent of Police

who had arrested me. The first portion of my defiance was the most

difficult to give effect to; not a hall could be hired in Devonport,

and nearly all the convenient open land being under military

jurisdiction, it was impossible to procure the tenancy of a field for

an open-air meeting. I, however, fulfilled my promise, and despite the

police and military authorities combined, delivered my lecture to an

audience assembled in their very teeth. Devonport, Stonehouse, and

Plymouth form one garrisoned and fortified town, divided by the River

Tamar. All the water to the sea is under the separate jurisdiction

of Saltash, some miles distant. I obtained a large boat on which a

temporary platform was built, and this boat was quietly moored in the

River Tamar on the Devonport side, about two fathoms from the shore.

Placards were issued stating that, acting under legal advice, I should

address the meeting and deliver the prevented lecture "near to the

Devonport Park Gates." Overwhelming force was prepared by the Devonport

authorities, and having already erred by too great haste, this time they

determined to let me fairly commence my lecture before they arrested me.

To their horror I quietly walked past the Park Gates where the crowd was

waiting, and passing down a by-lane to the river side, stepped into a

little boat, was rowed to the large one, and then delivered my lecture,

the audience who had followed me standing on an open wharf, all within

the jurisdiction of the Borough of Devonport, and I being about 9 feet

outside the borough. The face of the Mayor ready to read the riot act,

the superintendent with twenty-eight picked policemen to make sure or my

arrest, and a military force in readiness to overawe any popular

demonstration--all these were sights to remember. I am afraid the

Devonport Young Men's Christian Association did not limit themselves to

prayers and blessings on that famous Sunday.

As I had promised, the authorities refusing any apology for the wrongful

arrest, I commenced an action against Superintendent Edwards, by whom I

had been taken into custody. The borough magistrates indemnified their

officer and found funds to resist me. I fought with very little help

save from one tried, though anonymous friend, for Joseph Barker,

my co-editor, but not co-worker, in our own paper, discouraged any

pecuniary support. The cause was made a special jury one, and came on

for trial at Exeter Assizes. Unfortunately I was persuaded to brief

counsel, and Sir Robert Collier, my leader, commenced his speech with

an expression of sorrow for my opinions. This damaged me very much,

although I won the case easily after a long trial. The jury, composed

of Devonshire landowners, only gave me a farthing damages, and Mr. Baron

Channell refused to certify for costs. I was determined not to let the

matter rest here, and myself carried it to the Court _in Banco_, where

I argued it in person for two whole days, before Lord Chief Justice Erie

and a full bench of Judges. Although I did not succeed in improving my

own position, I raised public opinion in favor of free speech, and the

enormous costs incurred by the borough authorities, and which they had

to bear, have deterred them from ever again interfering either with my

lectures or those of any other speaker, and I now have crowded audiences

in the finest hall whenever I visit the three towns. These proceedings

cost me several hundred pounds, and burdened me with a debt which took

long clearing off.

In 1802, I held a four nights' discussion with a Dissenting clergyman,

the Rev. W. Barker. My opponent was probably one of the most able and

straightforward among my numerous antagonists. About this time a severe

attack of acute rheumatism prostrated me, and having soon after to visit

Italy, I, at first under medical advice, adopted the habit of drinking

the light Continental wines, and although continuing an advocate of

sobriety, I naturally ceased to take part in any teetotal gatherings.

In the struggle between the Northern and Southern States of America, my

advocacy and sympathies went with what I am glad to say was the feeling

of the great mass of the English people--in favor of the North; and

my esteemed friend, and then contributor, W. E. Adams, furnished most

valuable aid with his pen in the enlightenment of public opinion, at

a time when many of our aristocracy were openly exulting in what they

conceived to be the probable break-up of the United States Republic.

During the Lancashire cotton famine I lectured several times in aid of

the fund.

I began now also to assume a much more prominent position in the various

English political movements, and especially to speak on the Irish Church

and Irish Land questions. On the Irish questions, I owe much to my late

co-worker and contributor, poor Peter Fox Andre, a thoroughly honest

and whole-souled man, whose pen was always on the side of struggling

nationalities.

One of the disadvantages connected with a public career is, that every

vile scoundrel who is too cowardly to face you openly can libel

you anonymously. I have had, I think, my full share of this kind of

annoyance. Most of the slanders I have treated with utter contempt, and

if I had alone consulted my own feelings, should probably never have

pursued any other course. Twice, however, I have had recourse to the

judgment of the law--once in the case of a clergyman of the Church of

England, who indulged in a foul libel affecting my wife and children.

This fellow I compelled to retract every word he had uttered, and to

pay £100, which, after deducting the costs, was divided among various

charitable institutions. The reverend libeler wrote me an abject letter,

begging me not to ruin his prospects in the Church by publishing his

name; I consented, and he has since repaid my mercy by losing no

opportunity of being offensive. He is a prominent contributor to the

_Rock_, and a fierce ultra-Protestant. He must have greater confidence

in my honor than in his own, or fear of exposure would compel him to

greater reticence. The other case arose during the election, and will be

dealt with in its proper order.

It was my fortune to be associated with the Reform League from its

earliest moments until its dissolution. It is hardly worth while to

repeat the almost stereotyped story of the successful struggle made by

the League for Parliamentary Reform. E. Beales, Esq., was the President

of the League, and I was one of its Vice-Presidents, and continued

nearly the whole time of its existence a member of its executive. The

whole of my services and journeys were given to the League without the

slightest remuneration, and I repeatedly, and according to my means,

contributed to its funds. When I resigned my position on the executive I

received from Mr. George Howell, the Secretary, and from Mr. Beales,

the President, the most touching and flattering letters as to what Mr.

Beales was pleased to describe as the loyalty and utility of my services

to the League. Mr. George Howell concluded a long letter as follows:

"Be pleased to accept my assurance of sincere regards for your manly

courage, consistent and honorable conduct in our cause, and for your

kindly consideration for myself as Secretary of this great movement on

all occasions." These letters have additional value from the fact that

Mr. Beales, whom I sincerely respect, differs widely from me in matters

of faith, and Mr. Howell is, fortunately, far from having any friendly

feeling toward me. It was while on the Executive of this League that I

first became intimately acquainted with Mr. George Odger, and had reason

to be pleased with the straightforward course he pursued, and the honest

work he did as one of the Executive Committee. Mr. John Baxter Langley

and Mr. R. A. Cooper were also among my most prominent co-workers.

My sympathy with Ireland, and open advocacy of justice for the Irish,

nearly brought me into serious trouble. Some who were afterward indicted

as the chiefs of the so-called Fenian movement, came to me for advice.

So much I see others have written, and the rest of this portion of my

autobiography I may write some day. At present there are men not out of

danger whom careless words might imperil, and as regards myself I shall

not be guilty of the folly of printing language which a government might

use against me. My pamphlet on the Irish Question, published in 1866,

won a voluntary letter of warm approval from Mr. Gladstone, the only

friendly writing I ever received from him in my life.

At Huddersfield, the Philosophical Hall having been duly hired for my

lectures, pious influence was brought to bear on the lessee to

induce him to break the contract. Fortunately what in law amounted to

possession had been given, and on the doors being locked against me, I

broke them open, and delivered my lecture to a crowded and most orderly

audience. I was arrested, and an attempt was made to prosecute me before

the Huddersfield magistrates; but I defended myself with success, and

defeated with ease the Conservative solicitor, N. Learoyd, who had been

specially retained to insure my committal to jail.

In 1868 I entered into a contest with the Conservative Government which,

having been continued by the Gladstone Government, finished in 1869 with

a complete victory for myself. According to the then law every newspaper

was required to give sureties to the extent of £800 against blasphemous

or seditious libel. I had never offered to give these sureties, as they

would have probably been liable to forfeiture about once a month. In

March, 1868, the Disraeli Government insisted on my compliance with

the law. I refused. The Government then required me to stop my paper.

I printed on the next issue, "Printed in Defiance of Her Majesty's

Government." I was then served with an Attorney-General's information,

containing numerous counts, and seeking to recover enormous penalties.

I determined to be my own barrister, and while availing myself in

consultation of the best legal advice, I always argued my own case. The

interlocutory hearings before the Judges in Chambers were numerous,

for I took objection to nearly every step made by the government, and

I nearly always succeeded. I also brought the matter before Parliament,

being specially backed in this by Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. John Stuart

Mill, and Mr. E. H. J. Crawford. When the information was called on for

trial in a crowded court before Mr. Baron Martin, the Government backed

out, and declined to make a jury; so the prosecution fell to the ground.

Strange to say, it was renewed by the Gladstone Government, who had the

coolness to offer me, by the mouth of Attorney-General Collier, that

they would not enforce any penalties if I would stop the paper, and

admit that I was in the wrong. This I declined, and the prosecution now

came on for trial before Baron Bramwell and a special jury. Against me

were the Attorney-General, Sir R. Collier, the Solicitor-General, Sir J.

D. Coleridge, and Mr. Crompton Hutton. I found that these legal worthies

were blundering in their conduct of the trial, and at _nisi prius_ I

let them obtain a verdict, which however, I reversed on purely technical

grounds, after a long argument, which I sustained before Lord Chief

Baron Kelly and a full court sitting in Banco. Having miserably failed

to enforce the law against me, the Government repealed the statute, and

I can boast that I got rid of the last shackle of the obnoxious English

press laws. Mr. J. S. Mill wrote me: "You have gained a very honorable

success in obtaining a repeal of the mischievous Act by your persevering

resistance." The Government, although beaten, refused to reimburse me

any portion of the large outlay incurred in fighting them.

It has always been my ambition to enter Parliament, and at the General

Election for 1808 I, for the first time, entered the arena as a

candidate. I was beaten; but this is scarcely wonderful. I had all the

journals in England except three against me. Every idle or virulent tale

which folly could distort or calumny invent was used against me. Despite

all, I polled nearly 1,100 votes, and I obtained unasked, but not

ungratefully listened to, the public acknowledgments from the Mayor of

the borough, also from one of my competitors, Mr. Charles Gilpin, as to

the loyal manner in which I had fought the contest through.

During the election struggle libels rained from all sides. One by the

late Mr Capper, M. P., seeking reelection at Sandwich, was the monstrous

story, that in the open square at Northampton I had taken out my watch

and defied God to show his power by striking me dead in five minutes.

Challenged for his authority Mr. Capper pretended to have heard the

story from Mr. C. Gilpin, M. P., who indignantly denied being any party

to the falsehood. I insisted on an apology from Mr. Capper, which being

refused I sued him, but he died soon after the writ was served. The

story was not an original invention by Mr. Capper; it had been reported

of Abner Kneeland thirty years before, and is still a favorite one with

pious missionaries at street corners. A still more outrageous slander

was inserted in the _Razor_, a pseudo-comic weekly. I compelled

this journal to give a full apology, but not until after two years'

litigation, and a new trial had been ordered. When obliged to recant,

the Christian proprietor became insolvent, to avoid payment of the

costs. Unfortunately born poor, my life had been one continued struggle,

and the burden of my indebtedness was sorely swollen in this and similar

contests.

Probably the most severe, and to me certainly the most costly, struggle

has been on the oath question. Formerly it was a fatal objection against

the competency of a witness who did not believe in a Deity and in a

future state of rewards and punishments. Several attempts had been made

to alter the law, but they had all failed; and indeed Sir J. Trevelyan's

measures only provided for affirmation, and did not seek to abolish the

incompetency. In a case in which I was plaintiff in the Court of Common

Pleas, my evidence was objected to, and I determined to fight the matter

through every possible court, and to get the law changed if possible.

I personally argued the case before Lord Chief Justice Bovill and a full

Bench, in the Court of Common Pleas, and with the aid of the present Mr.

Justice Denman and the late Lord Chancellor Hatherly, the law was twice

altered in Parliament. Before victory was ultimately obtained I had to

carry the case into the Court of Error, and I prepared and sent out at

my own cost more than two hundred petitions to Parliament. Ultimately

the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Further Amendment

Act, 1870, gave Freethinkers the right to enter the witness box, and I

won my suit. The Christian defendant finished by becoming bankrupt, and

I lost a terribly large sum in debt and costs. The original debt and

interest were over £300, and the costs of the various proceedings were

very heavy.

In the winter of 1870 the Mirfield Town Hall, which had been properly

taken and paid for for two nights' lectures, was refused by the

proprietors, who barricaded the hall, and obtained a great force of

police from the neighborhood. In order that the law might be clearly

settled on this matter, I brought an action to try the question, and

although the late Mr. Justice Willis expressed himself strongly in my

favor, it was held by Mr. Justice Mellor at _nisi prius_ that nothing,

except a deed under seal or an actual demise, would avail. A mere

agreement for a user of a hall was a license revocable at will, even

when for a valuable consideration. This convinced me that when hall

proprietors break their contracts, I must enforce my rights as I did at

Huddersfield, and have done in other places.

During the Franco-Prussian struggle I remained neutral until the 4th of

September. I was against Bismark and his blood-and-iron theory, but I

was also against the Empire and the Emperor; so I took no part

with either. I was lecturing at Plymouth the day the _decheance_ was

proclaimed, and immediately after wrote my first article in favor of

Republican France. I now set to work and organized a series of meetings

in London and the provinces, some of which were cooperated in by

Dr. Congreve, Professor Beesly, and other prominent members of the

Positivist party. These meetings exercised some little effect on the

public opinion in this country, but unfortunately the collapse on the

part of France was so complete, and the resources commanded by Bismark

and Moltke so vast, that, except as expressing sympathy, the results

were barren. In October, 1870, I, without any previous communication

from myself to them, received from the Republican Government at Tours a

long and flattering letter, signed by Leon Gambetta, Adolphe Cremieux,

Al Glais Bizoin, and Admiral Fourichon, declaring that they, as members

of the "Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale, reunis en delegation a

Tours," "tiennent a honneur de vous remercier chalereusement du noble

concours que vous apportez a la cause de la France." On the 2d of

February, 1871, M. Tissot, the Charge d'Affaires of France in England,

wrote me: "Quant a moi, mon cher ami, le ne puis que constater ici,

comme je l'ai deja fait, comme je le feraien toute occasion, la dette

que nous avons contracted envers vous. Vous nous avez donne votre temps,

votre activite, votre eloquence, votre ame, la meilleure partie de

vous meme, en un mot; la France que vous avez ete seule a defendre ne

l'oubliera jamais." This is probably a too flattering estimate of my

services to France, but coming from the official representative of

the French Republic, I feel entitled to insert it. In September, 1871,

Monsieur Emmanuel Arago, member of the Provisional Government of the 4th

of September, wrote the following words upon the letter which had

been sent me, as above mentioned, in October, 1870, by the Delegate

Government of Tours: "En lisant cette lettre, j'eprouve tres vivement le

regret de n'avoir pu, en-ferme dans Paris, joindre ma signature a celles

de mes collegues de la delegation de Tours. Mr. Bradlaugh est et sera

toujours dans la Republique notre concitoyen."

During 1870, 1871, and 1872, 1 held several debates with the Rev. A.

J. Harrison, formerly of Huddersfield. The first at Newcastle, in the

splendid Town Hall of that place, was attended by about 5,000 persons.

The second debate at Bristol, was notable from being presided over by

Professor Newman. The third discussion was at Birmingham, and was an

attempt at the Socratic method, and the last platform encounter, was in

the New Hall of Science, London. Of the Rev. Mr. Harrison it is enough I

should say that, a few weeks since, when rumor put my life in danger, he

was one of the first to write a kindly and unaffected letter of sympathy

to Mrs. Bradlaugh.

When the great cry of thanksgiving was raised for the recovery of the

Prince of Wales, I could not let it pass without protest. While he lay

dangerously ill I had ceased to make any attack on himself or family,

but I made no pretense of a grief I did not feel. When the thanksgiving

day was fixed, and tickets for St. Paul's were sent by the Lord

Chamberlain to working men representatives, I felt it right to hold a

meeting of protest, which was attended by a crowded audience in the New

Hall of Science.

The "right of meeting" has given me three important occasions of

measuring swords with the Government during the last few years, and

each time defeat has attended the Government. The first, the Hyde Park

meeting, where I acted in accord with Mr. Beales, to whom as chief, let

the honor go of this conflict. The second was on the 31st July, 1871,

under the following circumstances. A meeting had been held by Mr. G.

Odger and some of his friends in Hyde Park, on Sunday the 30th of

July, to protest against the grant to Prince Arthur; this meeting was

adjourned until the following evening. Late on the Sunday afternoon,

the adjourned meeting was forbidden by the Government. Early on Monday

morning Mr. Odger applied to me to give the friends the benefit of my

legal knowledge and personal influence. I consented, and the Government

persevering, I took my share of the responsibility of the gathering,

and signed with Mr. Odger a new notice convening the meeting. The

Home Office not only served us also with a written prohibition, but

threatened and prepared to use force. I immediately gave Mr. Bruce

notice that the force would be illegal, and that it would be resisted.

At the last moment, and in fact only some half hour before the meeting

commenced, the Government abandoned its prohibition, and an enormous

meeting of a most orderly character was held in absolute defiance of the

authorities.

The more recent case was in December, 1872, when finding that Mr. Odger,

Mr. Bailey, and others, had been prosecuted under some monstrous

and ridiculous regulations invented by Mr. Ayrton, I, on my own

responsibility, determined to throw down the gauntlet to the Government.

I did this most successfully, and soon after the opening of Parliament

the obnoxious regulations were annulled.

It is at present too early to speak of the Republican movement in

England, which I have sought, and not entirely without success,

to organize on a thoroughly legal basis. It is a fair matter for

observation that my lectures on "The Impeachment of the House of

Brunswick," have been delivered to crowded audiences assembled in some

of the finest halls in England and Scotland, notably the Free Trade

Hall, Manchester, the Town Hall, Birmingham, the Town Hall, Northampton,

and the City Hall, Glasgow. It is, as far as I am aware, the first time

any English citizen has, without tumult or disorder and in buildings

belonging to various Municipalities, directly challenged the

hereditary right of the reigning family.

In penning the foregoing sketch I had purposely to omit many facts

connected with branches of Italian, Irish, and French politics. I have

also entirely omitted my own struggles for existence. The political

parts are left out because there are secrets which are not my own alone,

and which may not bear full telling for many years to come. The second,

because I hope that another year or two of hard work may enable me to

free myself from the debt load which for some time has hung heavily

round me.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE DEVIL

To have written under this head in the reign of James Rex, of pious

memory, would have, probably, procured for me, without even the perusal

of my pamphlet, the reputation of Dr. Faustus, and a too intimate

acquaintance with some of the pleasant plans of torturing to death

practiced by the clever witch-finders of that day. I profess, however,

no knowledge of the black art, and am entirely unskilled in _diablerie_,

and feel quite convinced that the few words I shall say about his

Satanic Majesty will not be cause of any unholy compacts in which bodies

or souls are signed away in ink suspiciously red.

In many countries, dealing with the Devil has been a perilous

experiment. In 1790, an unfortunate named Andre Dubuisson was confined

in the Bastile, charged with raising the Devil. To prevent even the

slightest apprehension on the part of my reader that I have any

desire or intent toward placing him unpleasantly near a black-visaged,

sulphureous-constitutioned individual, horned like an old goat, with

satyr-like legs, a tail of unpleasant length, and a disposition to buy

a body from any unfortunate wight ready to dispose of it, I have only

to assert my intention of treating the subject entirely from a biblical

point of view. Doubtless I ought to do this; the Christian Devil is

a bible institution. I say, \ advisedly, the Christian Devil, because

other religions have boasted their Devil, and it is well to prevent

confusion. But I frankly admit that none of these religions have the

honor of a Devil so devilish as our own. Indeed our Devil ought to be

the best: it costs the most. No other religion besides our own can boast

the array of Popes, Bishops, Conferences, Rectors, Incumbents, and paid

preachers of various titles. And all these to preach against the Devil!

It is necessary, before entering upon my subject, that I should confess

my little ability to do it justice. I am unable to say, certainly,

whether I am writing about a singular Devil or a plurality of Devils. In

one text "Devils" are mentioned,* recognizing a plurality; in another,

"the Devil,"** as if there was but one. We may, however, fairly assume

that either there is one Devil, more than one, or less than one; and,

having thus cleared our path from mere numerical difficulties, we will

proceed to give the Devil his due. Satan appears either to have been

a child of God, or, at any rate, a most intimate acquaintance of the

family; for we find that on "a day when the children of God came to

present themselves before the Lord, that Satan came also among them;"***

and no surprise or disapprobation is manifested at his presence. The

conversation narrated in the Book of Job as occurring between God and

the Devil has, for us, a value proportioned to the rarity of the scene,

and to the high character of the personages concerned.

* Leviticus xvii, 7.

** Luke iv, 2.

*** Job i, 6

We are, therefore, despite the infidel criticism of Martin Luther, who

condemns the Book of Job as "a sheer _argumentum fabulæ_" determined to

examine carefully the whole particulars for ourselves; and, in so doing,

we are naturally surprised to find God, the omniscient, putting to Satan

the query, Whence comest thou? We cannot suppose God, the all-wise,

ignorant upon the subject, and we can not avoid a feeling of

astonishment that such an interrogatory should have been made. Satan's

reply, assuming its correctness--and this the text leaves us no reason

to doubt--increases our surprise and augments our astonishment. The

answer given is, "From going to and fro in the earth, and from going up

and down it," In remarking on this answer, I do not address myself to

those wretched persons who, relying on their reason and common sense,

ignore the divine truth. I address myself to the true believer, and I

ask, is he not astonished to find, from his bible, that Satan could

have gone to and fro in the earth, and walked up and down, and yet not

have met God, the omnipresent, occasionally during his journeying?

The Lord makes no comment on Satan's reply, but says, "Hast thou not

considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a

perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?" It

is rather extraordinary that God should wish to have the Devil's opinion

on the only good man recorded as then living in the world: the more

extraordinary when we know that God is all-wise, and knew Satan's

opinion without asking it, and that God is immutable, and, therefore,

would not be influenced by the expression of the Devil's opinion when

uttered. Satan's answer is, "Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou

not made an hedge about him, and about all that he hath on every side?

Thou hast blest the work of his hand, and his substance is increased in

the land; but put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and

he will curse thee to thy face." What is God's reply to this audacious

assertion? Does he express his determination to protect the righteous

Job? Does he use his power to rebuke the evil tempter? No. "The Lord

said unto Satan, Behold all that he hath is in thy power; only upon

himself put forth not thine hand." And this was Job's reward for being

a perfect and upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil. He was

not sent to the Devil, but the Devil was sent to all that he had. And

he lost all without repining--sons, daughters, oxen, asses, camels and

sheep, all destroyed, and yet Job sinned not. Some divines have urged

that we here get a beautiful picture of patience and contentment

under wrong and misfortune. But I reply that it is not good to submit

patiently to wrong, or to rest contented under misfortune. I urge that

it is manlier far to resist wrong, nobler far to wage war against wrong,

better far to carefully investigate the causes of wrong and misfortune,

with a view to their removal. Contentment under wrong is a crime,

voluntary submission under oppression is not the virtue some would have

it to be.

"Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves

before the Lord [as if God's children could ever be absent from him],

and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And

the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered

the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking

up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my

servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth? a perfect and

an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? and still he

holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against HIM TO

DESTROY HIM WITHOUT CAUSE."

Can God be moved against a man to destroy him without a cause? If so,

God is neither immutable nor all-wise. Yet the bible puts into God's

mouth the terrible admission that the Devil had moved God against Job

to destroy him without cause. If true, it destroys God's goodness; if

false, then the bible is no revelation.

But Satan answered the Lord and said, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a

man hath will he give for his life; put forth thine hand now and touch

his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face."

Does the Lord now drive the Devil from his presence? Is there any

expression of wrath or indignation against his tempter? Not so. "The

Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand, but save his life."

And Job, being better than everybody else, finds himself smitten in

consequence with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

The ways of the Lord are not as our ways, or this would seem the reverse

of an encouragement to virtue.

We turn over the pages of our bible for further information on this

diabolic theme.

After reading the account of the numbering by David attentively, one is

puzzled by the apparent contradiction, that in one place "God" and in

another "Satan" occurs.*

* 1 Chron. xxi, 1; 2 Sam. xxiv, 1

But it may be that there is more harmony between God and the Devil than

ordinary men are aware. Unfortunately, we have not the advantage of

great scholarship, but one erudite commentator on the bible tells us, in

speaking of the Hebrew word Azazel: "This terrible and venerable name

of God, through the pens of biblical glossers, has been _a Devil, a

mountain_, a wilderness, and a he-goat."* Well may incomprehensibility be

an attribute of Deity, when, even to holy and reverend fathers, God has

been sometimes undistinguishable from a he-goat or a Devil. Goats

and Devils are alike represented with horns and tails. We trust

that profanity will not enlarge on this sad confusion of ideas. Not

possessing great lingual acquirements, we adhere to the English bible,

believing that religion can never be improved by mere common sense,

or human effort. We admire, without understanding, the skill of the

Missionary, who makes the word "Mooigniazimoongo" an equivalent for

God in the Sooahelee dialect, and who represents "original sin" to

the Ottomi Indian by the word "Teacatzintiliztlatlacolli," and who

recommends the Delaware to repentance as "Schiwelendamowitchewagan."

We do not wonder that in these translating thaumaturgic exploits God and

Devil get mistaken for each other.

God is a spirit. Jesus was led up of the Spirit to be tempted of the

Devil; and it is also true that spirits are very likely to lead men

to the Devil. Too intimate acquaintance with whisky toddy overnight is

often followed by the _delirium tremens_ and blue-devils on the morrow.

We advise our readers to eschew alike spirituous and spiritual mixtures.

They interfere sadly with sober thinking, and play the Devil with your

brains.

The history of the temptation of Jesus by the Devil has been dealt with

in another essay.** Yet it may be well to add the opinion of a Church of

England divine in this place: "That the Devil should appear personally

_to_ the Son of God _is certainly not more wonderful_ than that he

should, in a more remote age, have appeared _among_ the sons of God, in

the presence of God himself, to tempt and torment the righteous Job."

* G. R. Gliddon's extract from "Land's Sagra Scritura,"

chap. iii, sec. 1.

** "Who was Jesus Christ?" p. 8.

But that Satan should carry Jesus, bodily and literally, through the

air--first to the top of a high mountain, and then to the topmost

pinnacle of the temple--is wholly inadmissible, it is an insult to our

understanding.* It is pleasant to be able to find so many clergymen, in

these days, zealously repudiating their own creeds. I am not prepared to

speak strongly as to the color of the Devil; white men paint him black,

black men white; but, allowing for the prejudices of dark-colored and

fair-skinned believers, an invisible green would not be an unreasonable

tint. We presume that he is not colorless, as otherwise the Evangelists

or the persons present would have labored under considerable

difficulties in witnessing the casting out of the Devil from the man in

the synagogue.** This Devil is described as an unclean Devil, and it is,

therefore, a fair inference that there are some clean Devils as well as

dirty Devils. Printer's Devils are mostly unclean Devils, but then they

are only little Devils, and we must not make too much of them. Nearly

all the Devils seem to talk, and it has therefore been conjectured by

some bachelor metaphysicians that they are of the feminine gender, but

I see no reason to agree in this, and my wife is of a contrary opinion.

The Devils are probably good Christians--one text tells us that they

believe and tremble. It is a fact with some poor Devils that the more

they believe the more they tremble. We are told in another text that the

Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He

will have extremely bad taste, however, if he eat up the lean and bony

working-classes, while so many fat bishops and stout archdeacons remain

unconsumed.

*"Christian Records," by the Rev. Dr. Giles, p. 144.

** Luke iv, 35, 36.

Devils should be a sort of eternal salamander, for we are told there is

everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels,* and that

there is a lake of brimstone and fire, into which the Devil was cast.**

Perhaps instead of being salamander they will, while in the fire, be

rather of the 'otter tribe; but this is a question which Mr. C. H.

Spurgeon, who is a far better judge of brimstone than myself, would

be more competent to settle. The Devil has, at least upon one occasion,

figured as a controversialist. He disputed with the archangel Michael,

contending about the body of Moses;*** and in these degenerate days

of personality in debate it is pleasant to know that the religious

champion, unlike the Grants, Coopers, and Brindleys of the present

period, was very civil toward his Satanic opponent. The Devil was once

imprisoned for 1,000 years in a bottomless pit.**** If a pit has no

bottom, it seems but little confinement to shut the top; but with faith

and prayer, even a good foundation may be obtained for a bottomless pit.

It is urged by some that the Devil was the serpent of Genesis--that is,

that it was really Satan who, in this guise, tempted Eve. There is this

difficulty in the matter: the Devil is a liar,***** but in the interview

with Eve the serpent seems to have confined himself to the strict

truth.****** There is, in fact, no point of resemblance--no horns, no

hoof, nothing except the tail--which can be in any way identified.

* Matt, xxv, 41.

** Jude, 9.

*** John viii, 44.

**** Rev. xxi, 10.

***** Rev. xxi, 2.

****** Genesis iii, 4, 5, 22.

The Old Testament speaks a little of the Devils, sometimes of Satan, but

never of "The Devil," and it seems almost too much, in Matthew, to usher

him in, in the temptation scene, without introduction, and as if he were

an old acquaintance. I do not remember reading, in the Old Testament,

anything about the lake of brimstone and fire; this feature of faith

was reserved for the warmth of Christian love to inspire; the Pentateuch

makes no reference to it. Zechariah, in a vision, saw "Joshua, the

High-Priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing

at his right hand to resist him."* Why the Devil wanted to resist Joshua

is not clear; but as Joshua's garments were in a very filthy state, it

may be that he was preaching to the Priest the virtues of cleanliness.

It is often said that cleanliness is next to godliness; I honestly

confess that I should prefer a clean sinner to a dirty saint. Jesus said

that one of the twelve disciples was a Devil,** but I am not prepared

to say whether he meant the unfaithful and cowardly Peter, to whom he

intrusted the keys of Heaven, or Judas who sold him for money, just as

would nearly any bishop of the present day. The bishops preach that it

is as difficult for a rich man to get into Heaven as for a camel to

go through the eye of a needle; yet they enrich themselves, and their

families, as greedily and carelessly as if they, at any rate, never

expected to smell brimstone as a consequence. You are told to resist the

Devil, and he will flee from you;*** if this be true, he is a cowardly

Devil, and thus does not agree quite with Milton's picture of his grand,

defiant, almost heroism. But then Milton was a poet, and true religion

has but little poetry in it.

* Zechariah iii, 1.

** John vi, 70.

*** James iv, 7.

Jeroboam, one of the Jewish monarchs, ordained priests for the Devils,*

and this may be the reason why, at the present day, all the orthodox

clergy are gentlemen in black. In the time of Jesus, Satan must, when

not in the body of some mad, deaf, dumb, blind, or paralytic person,

have been in Heaven; for Jesus, on one occasion, told his disciples that

he saw Satan, as lightning, fall from Heaven.** Of course, this would

betoken a rapid descent, but although a light affair, it is no laughing

matter, and we reverently leave it to the clergy to explain the text.

Jesus told Simon Peter that Satan desired to have him, that he might

sift him as wheat;*** in this text it may be urged that Jesus was

chaffing his disciple. Paul, the apostle, seems to have looked on the

Devil much as the magistrates of Guernsey, Devonport, and Yarmouth look

on the police, for Paul delivered Hymeneus and Alexander unto Satan,

that they may learn not to blaspheme.****

Revivalists are much indebted for their evanescent successes to Hell and

the Devil, if the following extract from the experience of a Christian

preacher be reliable:

"Thomas English was one of those very noisy and active preachers who do

so much in promoting revivals." he would tell his hearers of "dwelling

with devouring fire, bearing everlasting burning, roasting on the

Devil's spit, broiling on his gridiron, being pitched about with his

fork, drinking the liquid fire, breathing the brimstone fumes, drowning

in a red-hot sea, lying on fiery beds,"***** etc.

* 2 Chron: xi, 15.

** Luke x, 18.

*** Luke xxii, 31.

**** 1 Tim. i, 20.

***** "Pilgrim's Progress from Methodism to Christianity."

In the present year the vulgar tirades of Reginald Radcliffe, Richard

Weaver, and C. H. Spurgeon (some of them delivered in Exeter Hall) will

serve to evidence that the above quotation is not the exaggeration

which some might think. In London, before crowded audiences, Mr. Weaver,

without originality, and with only the merit of copied coarseness, has

called upon the Lord to "shake the ungodly for five minutes over the

mouth of Hell." Mr. Spurgeon has drawn pictures of Hell which, if true

and revealed to him by God, are most disgustingly frightful, and which

being, as we believe, false, and but the creation of his own vulgar,

morbid fancies, induce, on our part, a feeling of contempt as well as

disgust.

The Wesleyans, some years since, made the Devil a prominent feature in

the famous "Fly-Sheet" controversy, so much so that a Wesleyan,

speaking and writing on the subject, suggested that the authors of the

"Fly-Sheets" were Devils, and another once-Wesleyan writer says: "The

first thing which made me inquire about the Devil was that I thought him

abused. I thought him bad enough, but could not help fearing that people

told lies about him. R. S------, a very zealous prayer-leader, stole

some oats, and imputed the blame to the Devil. T. C------ got drunk, and

complained in the love-feast that the Devil had been very busy with him

for some time, and then took him in an unguarded moment. B. S----- was

detected in lying, and complained that Satan had gained the advantage

over him. Old George White burned his fingers in lighting his pipe,

and declared that it was the Devil that caused him to do it; and Farmer

Duffy horsewhipped his wife, and said that he did it to beat the Devil

out of her. This make me desirous to know what influence the Devil

really had, and I was stimulated to this inquiry by my friend, Mr.

Trelevan, who assured mo that the Devil was as necessary as the Almighty

to the orthodox faith."* The fashionable preachers in the neighborhood

of Belgravia mostly eschew the Devil, and avoid the taint of brimstone;

treacle is the commodity they dispense.

* "Pilgrim's Progress from Methodism to Christianity."

For myself, the only Devil I know is that black Devil ignorance,

fostered by knavery and tyranny; a Devil personified by the credulous

many, and kept up in the past by the learned but treacherous few, who

preferred to rule the masses by their fears, rather than to guide them

through their love. This devil has, indeed, not been a roaring lion,

but a cowardly and treacherous boa constrictor; it has enveloped in its

massive folds glorious truths, and in the fierceness of its brute power

has crushed them in its writhings. But oh! a glorious day is coming:

amid the heretofore gloom of night the bright rays of the rising sun

are piercing, the light of truth dispels the mists of ignorance. Bright

facts drive out dark delusions; mighty truths triumph over pious frauds,

and no longer need men be affrighted by the notion of an omnipotent

fiend, wandering through the earth, ever seeking their damnation.

Yes--to partially adopt the phraseology of a writer in "Macmillan's

Magazine"--I do refuse to see in God a being omniscient as omnipotent,

who puts us into this world without our volition, leaves us to struggle

through it as we can, unequally pitted against an almost omnipotent and

supersubtile Devil, and then, if we fail, finally drops us out of this

world into Hell-fire, where a legion of inferior Devils find constant

and never-ending employment in inventing fresh tortures for us; our

crime being that we have not succeeded where success was rendered

impossible. No high, no manly, no humane thinkings are developed in the

doctrine of Devils and damnation. If a potent faith, it degrades alike

the teacher and the taught, by its abhorrent mercilessness; and if a

form, instead of a faith, then is the Devil doctrine a misleading sham,

which frightens weak minds and never developes strong men.

NEW LIFE OF DAVID.

In compiling a biographical account of any ancient personage,

impediments mostly arise from the uncertainty of the various traditions

out of which we gather our biography, and from the party bias and

coloring which often pervade and detract from their value. In the

present case no such obstacle is met with, no such bias can be imagined,

for, in giving the life of David, we extract it from an all-wise God's

perfect and infallible revelation to man, and thus are enabled

to present it to our readers free from any doubt, uncertainty,

or difficulty. The father of David was Jesse, an Ephrathite of

Bethlehem-judah. Jesse had either eight sons (1 Samuel xvi, 10, 11, and

xvii, 12) or only seven (1 Chron. ii, 13 to 15), and David was either

the eighth son or the seventh. Some may think this a difficulty to

commence with, but such persons will only be those who rely on their own

intellectual faculties, or who have been misled by Colenso's arithmetic.

If you, my dear reader, are in any doubt, at once consult some qualified

divine, and he will explain to you that there is really no difference

between eight and seven when rightly understood with prayer and faith,

by the help of the spirit. Arithmetic is an utterly infidel acquirement,

and one which all true believers should eschew. In proof of this, I may

observe that the proposition three times one are one is a fundamental

article of the Christian faith. David's great grandmother was the holy

harlot Rahab, and his grandmother was a lady who when unmarried went in

the night and lay at the feet of Boaz, and left in the morning before

it was light enough for any one to recognize her like her grandson she

was "prudent in matters." When young, David tended his father's sheep,

and apparently while so doing he obtained the reputation for being

cunning in playing, a mighty valiant man, and a man of war and

prudent in matters. He obtained his reputation as a soldier early and

wonderfully, for he was "but a youth," and God's most holy word asserts

that when going to fight with Goliath he tried to walk in armor, and

could not, for he was not accustomed to it (1 Samuel xvii, 39, Douay

version). Samuel shortly prior to this anointed David, and the spirit of

the Lord came upon him from that day forward. If a man takes to spirits

his life will probably be one of vice, misery, and misfortune, and if

spirits take to him the result in the end is nearly the same. Saul being

King of Israel, an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. The devil has

no ear for music, and Saul was recommended to have David to play on a

harp in order that harmony might drive this evil spirit back to the Lord

who sent it. The Jews' harp was played successfully, and Saul was often

relieved from the evil spirit by the aid of David's ministrations. There

is nothing miraculous in this; at the people's concerts many a working

man has been released from the "blue devils" by a stirring chorus, a

merry song, or patriotic anthem. David was appointed armor-bearer to

the king, but curiously enough this office does not appear to have

interfered with his duties as a shepherd; indeed the care of his

father's sheep took precedence over the care of the king's armor, and

in the time of war he "went and returned to feed his father's sheep."

Perhaps his "prudence in matters" induced him thus to take care of

himself.

A Philistine, one Goliath of Gath (whose hight was six cubits and a

span, or about nine feet six inches, at a low computation) had defied

the armies of Israel. This Goliath was (to use the vocabulary of the

reverend sporting correspondent of a certain religious newspaper) a

veritable champion of the heavy weights. He carried in all two cwt. of

armor, offensive and defensive, upon his person, and his challenge had

great weight. None dared accept it among the soldiers of Saul until the

arrival of David with some food for his brethren. David volunteered to

fight the giant, but Saul objecting that he was not competent to take

part in a conflict so dangerous, David related how he pursued a _lion

and a bear_, how he caught _him_ by his beard and slew _him_. David's

offer was accepted, he was permitted to fight the giant. In one verse

David slew the Philistine with a stone, in another verse he slew him

with the giant's own sword, while in 2 Samuel, c. xxi, v. 19, we are

told that Goliath the Gittite was slain by Elhanan. Our transalators,

who have great regard for our faiths and more for their pulpits, have

kindly inserted the words "the brother of" before Goliath. This saves

the true believer from the difficulty of understanding how Goliath of

Gath could have been killed by different men at different times. David

was previously well known to Saul, and was much loved and favored by

that monarch. He was also seen by the king before he went forth to do

battle with the gigantic Philistine. Yet Saul had forgotten his own

armor-bearer and much-loved harpist, and was obliged to ask Abner who

David was. Abner, captain of the king's host, familiar with the person

of the armor-bearer to the king, of course knew David well; he therefore

answered, "As thy soul liveth, O king, I can not tell." One day the

evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul and he prophesied. Men who are

spiritually inclined often talk great nonsense under the influence of

spirits, which they sometimes regret when sober. It is, however, an

interesting fact in ancient spiritualism to know that Saul prophesied

with a devil in him. Under the joint influence of the devil and

prophecy, he tried to kill David, and when this was repeated, even after

David had married the king's daughter (for whose wedding trousseau he

had procured an interesting and delicate offering by the slaughter of two

hundred men), then to save his own life David fled to Naioth, and Saul

sent there messengers to arrest him, but the king's messengers having

all become prophets, in the end Saul went himself, and this time the

spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he stripped off his clothes and

prophesied as hard as the rest. What he phrophesied about we do not

know. In fact, the priests have made so great deduction from the profits

during the plenitude of their power, that there has been little which is

profitable in connection with religion left for the people.

David lived in exile for some time, having collected around him every

one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one

that was discontented. Saul made several fruitless attempts to effect

his capture, with no better result than that he twice placed himself in

the power of David, who twice showed the mercy to a cruel king which he

never conceded to an unoffending people. David having obtruded himself

upon Achish, King of Gath, and doubtful of his safety, feigned madness

to cover his retreat. He then lived a precarious life, sometimes levying

a species of blackmail upon defenseless farmers. Having applied to

one farmer to make him some compensation for permitting the farm to go

unrobbed, and his demand not having been complied with, David, who is

a man after the heart of the God of mercy, immediately determined to

murder the farmer and all his household for their wicked reluctance in

submitting to his extortions. The wife of farmer Nabal compromised the

matter. David "accepted her person" and ten days afterward Nabal was

found dead in his bed. David afterward went with six hundred men and

lived under the protection of Achish, king of Gath; and while thus

residing (being the anointed one of a God who says "Thou shalt not

steal,") he robbed the inhabitants of the surrounding places; being also

obedient to the statute "Thou 1 shalt do no murder," he slaughtered, and

left neither man nor woman alive to report his robberies to King Achish;

and as he "always walked in the ways" of a God to whom "lying lips are

an abomination," he made false reports to Achish in relation to his

actions. Of course this was all for the glory of God, whose ways are

not as our ways. Soon the Philistines were engaged in another of the

constantly recurring conflicts with the Israelites. Who offered them the

help of himself and band? Who offered to make war on his own countrymen?

David, the man after God's own heart, who obeyed his statutes and who

walked in his ways to do only that which was right in the sight of God.

The Philistines rejected the traitor's aid, and saved David from the

consummation of this baseness. While David was making this unpatriotic

proffer of his services to the Philistines, his own city of Ziglag was

captured by the Amalekites, who were doubtless endeavoring to avenge

some of the most unjustifiable robberies and murders perpetrated by

David and his followers in their country. David's own friends evidently

thought that this misfortune was a retribution for David's crimes, for

they spoke of stoning him. The Amalekites had captured and carried off

every thing, but they do not seem to have maltreated or killed any of

their enemies. David was less merciful. He pursued them, recaptured the

spoil, and spared not a man of them, save 400 who escaped on camels. In

consequence of the death of Saul, David soon after was elevated to the

throne of Judah, while Ishbosheth, son of Saul, was made King of Israel.

But Ishbosheth, having been assassinated, David slew the assassins, when

they, hoping for reward, brought him the news, and he reigned ultimately

over Israel also.

As my religious readers are doubtless aware, the Lord God of Israel,

after the time of Moses, usually dwelt on the top of an ark or box,

between two figures of gold, and on one occasion David made a journey

with his followers to Baal, to bring thence the ark of God. They placed

it on a new cart drawn by oxen. On their journey the oxen stumbled and

consequently shook the cart, and one of the drivers, whose name was

Uzzah, fearing that God might be tumbled to the ground, took hold of the

ark, apparently in order to steady it, and prevent it from overturning.

God, who is a God of love, was much displeased that any one should

presume to do any such act of kindness, and killed Uzzah on the spot as

a punishment for his error. This shows that if a man sees the Church

of God tumbling down, he should never try to prop it up; if it be not

strong enough to save itself the sooner it falls the better for human

kind--that is, if they keep away from it while it is falling. David was

much displeased that the Lord had killed Uzzah; in fact, David seems

to have wished for a monopoly of slaughter, and always manifested

displeasure when killing was done unauthorized by himself. Being

displeased, David would not take the ark to Jerusalem; he left it in the

house of Obed Edom, but as the Lord proved more kind to Obed Edom than

he had done to Uzzah, David determined to bring it away, and he did so,

and David danced before the ark in a state of semi-nudity, for which he

was reproached by Michal. The story is one which, by itself, would be as

entertaining to a depraved mind as any Holywell-Street pamphlet, if Lord

Campbell's act did not prevent the publication of indecencies. The pages

of God's most holy word, we believe, do not come within the scope of

the act, and lovers of obscene language may therefore have legal

gratification so long as the bible shall exist. The God of Israel, who

had been leading a wandering life for many years, and who had "walked

in a tent and in a tabernacle," and "from tent to tent," and "from one

tabernacle to another," and who "had not dwelt in any house" since the

time that he brought the Isrealites out of Egypt, was offered "an house

for him to dwell in," but he declined to accept it during the lifetime

of David, although he promised to permit the son of David to erect him

such an abode. David being now a powerful monarch, and having many wives

and concubines, saw one day the beautiful wife of one of his soldiers.

To see, with this licentious monarch, was to crave for the gratification

of his lust. The husband, Uriah, was fighting for the king, yet David

was base enough to steal his wife's virtue during Uriah's absence in

the field of battle. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," was one of

the commandments, yet we are told by God of this David, "who kept my

commandments, and who followed me with all his heart to do only that

which was right in mine eyes" (1 Kings, c. xiv, v. 8). David having

seduced the wife, sent for her husband, wishing to make him condone his

wife's dishonor, as many a man has done in other lands, when a king or

prince has been the seducer. Some hold that virtue in rags is less worth

than vice when coroneted. Uriah would not be thus tricked, and David,

the pious David, coolly planned, and without mercy caused to be

executed, the treacherous murder of Uriah. God is all just; and David

having committed adultery and murder, God punished and killed an

innocent child, which had no part or share in David's crime, and never

chose that it should be born from the womb of Bathsheba. After this the

king David was even more cruel and merciless than before. Previously

he had systematically slaughtered the inhabitants of Moab, now he sawed

people with saws, cut them with harrows and axes, and made them pass

through brick-kilns. Yet of this man God said he "did that which was

right in mine eyes." So bad a king, so treacherous a man, a lover so

inconstant, a husband so adulterous, of course was a bad father, having

bad children. We are little surprised, therefore, to read that his son

Ammon robbed his sister, David's daughter Tamar, of her virtue; and that

Ammon was afterward slain by his own brother, David's son Absalom, and

are scarcely astonished that Absalom himself, on the house-top, in the

sight of all Israel, should complete his father's shame by an act worthy

a child of God's selected people. Yet these are God's chosen race, and

this is the family of the man "who walked in God's ways all the days of

his life."

God, who is all-wise and all-just, and who is not a man that he should

repent, had repented that he, had made Saul king because Saul spared

one man. In the reign of David the same good God sent a famine for three

years on the decendants of Abraham, and upon being asked his reason for

thus starving his chosen ones, the reply of the Deity was that he sent

the famine on the subjects of David because Saul slew the Gibeonites.

Satisfactory reason!--because Oliver Cromwell slew the Royalists, God

will punish the subjects of Charles the Second. One reason is to profane

eyes equivalent to the other, but a bishop or even a rural dean

would show how remarkably God's justice was manifested. David was not

behindhand in justice. He had sworn to Saul that he would not cut off

his seed--i.e. that he would not destroy Saul's family. He therefore

took two of Saul's sons, and five of Saul's grandsons, and gave them up

to the Gibeonites, who hung them. Strangely wonderful are the ways

of the Lord! Saul slew the Gibeonites, therefore years afterward God

starves Judah. The Gibeonites hang men who had nothing to do with the

crime of Saul, except that they are his decendants, and then we are told

"the Lord was intreated for the land." Perhaps David wanted to get rid

of the royal family of Saul. The anger of the Lord being kindled against

Israel, and he wanting some excuse for punishing the decendants of

Jacob, moved David to number his people. The Chronicles say that it was

Satan, and pious people may thus learn that there is little

difference between God and the Devil when rightly understood. Both

are personifications founded in the ignorance of the masses, and their

continuance will cease with their credulousness. David caused a census

to be taken of the tribes of Israel and Judah. There is a trivial

disagreement to the extent of about 270,000 soldiers between Samuel and

Chronicles, but the readers must not allow so slight an inaccuracy as

this to stand between them and heaven. What are 270,000 men when looked

at prayerfully? The idea that any doubt should arise is to a devout

mind at the same time profane and preposterous. Infidels suggest that

1,570,000 soldiers form a larger army than the Jews are likely to have

possessed. I can only add that as God is omnipotent, there is no reason

to limit his power of increasing or decreasing miraculously the armament

of the Jewish nation. David, it seems, did wrong in numbering his

people, although we are never told that he did wrong in robbing or

murdering their neighbors, or in pillaging peaceful agriculturists.

David said, "I have sinned." The king having done wrong, an all-merciful

God brought a pestilence on the people, and murdered 70,000 Israelites for

an offense which their ruler had committed. The angel who was engaged

in this terrible slaughter stood somewhere between heaven and earth, and

stretched forth his hand with a drawn sword in it to destroy Jerusalem

itself, but even the blood-thirsty Deity of the bible "repented him of

the evil," and said to the angel, "It is enough." Many volumes might be

written to answer the inquiries--Where did the angel stand, and on what?

Of what metal was the sword, and where was it made? As it was a drawn

one, where was the scabbard? and did the angel wear a sword belt?

Examined in a pious frame of mind, much holy instruction may be derived

from the attempt at solution of these problems.

David now grows old and weak, and at last, notwithstanding that he has

the advantage of a pretty maiden to cherish him, he wears out, and his

death hour comes. Oh! for the dying words of the Psalmist! What pious

instruction shall we derive from the deathbed scene of the man after

God's own heart! Listen to the last words of Judah's expiring

monarch. You who have been content with the pious frauds and forgeries

perpetrated with reference to the deathbeds and dying words of the

great, the generous, the witty Voltaire, the manly, the self-denying,

the incorruptible Thomas Paine, the humane, simple, child-like man, yet

mighty poet, Shelley--you who have turned away from these with horror,

unfounded if real, come with me to the death couch of the special

favorite of God. Bathsheba's child stands by his side. Does any thought

of the murdered Uriah rack old David's brain, or has a tardy repentance

effaced the bloody stain from the pages of his memory? What does the

dying David say? Does he talk of cherubs, angels, and heavenly choirs?

Nay, none of these things pass his lips. Does he make a confession

of his crime-stained life, and beg his son to be a better king, a truer

man, a more honest citizen, a wiser father? Nay, not so--no word or

sigh of regret, no expression of remorse or repentance escaped his lips.

What does the dying David say? This foul adulterer, whom God has made

king; this red-handed robber, whose life has been guarded by "our Father

which art in Heaven;" this perjured king, whose lying lips have found

favor in the sight of God, and who when he dies is safe for Heaven. Does

David repent? Nay--like the ravenous tiger or wolf, which once tasting

blood is made more eager for the prey, he yearns for blood; he dies, and

with his dying breath begs his son to bring the grey hairs of two old

men down to the grave with blood. Yet this is the life of God's anointed

king, the chief one of God's chosen people.

David is alleged to have written several Psalms. In one of these he

addresses God in the phraseology of a member of the P. R. praising Deity

that he had smitten all of his enemies on the cheek bone and broken the

teeth of the ungodly. In these days, when "muscular Christianity" is

not without advocates, the metaphor which presents God as a sort of

magnificent Benicia Boy may find many admirers. In the eighteenth Psalm,

David describes God as with "smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire

out of his mouth," by which "coals were kindled." He represents God as

coming down from heaven, and says "he rode upon a cherub." The learned

Parkhurst gives a likeness of a one-legged, four-winged, four-faced

animal, part lion, part bull, part eagle, part man, and if a cloven foot

be any criterion, part devil also. This description, if correct,

will give some idea to the faithful of the wonderful character of the

equestrian feats of Deity.

In the twenty-sixth Psalm, the writer, if David, exposes his own

hypocrisy in addition to his other vices. He has the impudence to tell

God that he has been a man of integrity and truth; that he has avoided

evildoers, although if we are to believe the thirty-eighth Psalm, the

vile hypocrite must have already been subject to a loathsome disease--a

penalty consequent on his licentiousness and criminality. In another

Psalm, David the liar tells God that "he that telleth lies shall not

tarry in my sight." To understand his malevolent nature we can not do

better than quote his prayer to God against an enemy (Psalm cix, 6-14):

"6. Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right

hand.

"7. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer

become sin.

"8. Let his days be few: and let another take his office.

"9. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

"10. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek

their bread also out of their desolate places.

"11. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath: and let the strangers

spoil his labor.

"12. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be

any to favor his fatherless children.

"13. Let his posterity be cut off: and in the generation following let

their name be blotted out.

"14. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord: and

let not the sin of his mother be blotted out."

A full consideration of the life of David must give great help to each

orthodox reader in promoting and sustaining his faith. While he is

spoken of by Deity as obeying all the statutes and keeping all the

commandments, we are astonished to find that murder, theft, lying,

adultery, licentiousness, and treachery are among the crimes which may

be laid to his charge. David was a liar, God is a God of truth; David

was merciless, God is merciful, and of long suffering; David was a

thief, God says "Thou shalt not steal;" David was a murderer, God says

"Thou shalt do no murder;" David took the wife of Uriah, and "accepted"

the wife of Nabal, God says "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife;"

Yet, notwithstanding all these things, David was a man after God's own

heart.

Had this Jewish monarch any redeeming traits in his character? Was he

a good citizen? If so, the bible has carefully concealed every action

which would entitle him to such an appellation, and in lieu has given

us the record of his attempted extortion in the case of Nabal, and

furnished us with a notice of his horde of followers--outlawed,

discontented, and in debt. Was he a kind and constant husband? Was

he grateful to those who aided him in his hour of need? Nay; like the

wounded serpent which, half frozen by the wayside, is warmed into new

life in the traveler's breast, and then treacherously stabs him with his

poisoned fangs, so David robbed and murdered the friends and allies of

the King of Gath, who had afforded him refuge against the pursuit of

Saul. Does his patriotism outshine his many vices? Does his love of

country efface his many misdoings? Not even this. David was a heartless

traitor who volunteered to serve against his own countrymen, and would

have done so had not the Philistines rejected his treacherous help. Was

he a good king? So say the priesthood now; but where is the evidence of

his virtue? His crimes brought a plague and pestilence on his

subjects, and his reign is a continued succession of wars, revolts, and

assassinations, plottings and counterplots.

The life of David is a dark blot on the page of human history, and our

best hope is that if a spirit from God inspired the writer, then that it

was a lying spirit, and that he has given us fiction instead of truth.

NEW LIFE OF JACOB.

It is pleasant work to present to the reader sketches of God's chosen

people. More especially is it an agreeable task to recapitulate the

interesting events occurring during the life of a man whom God has

loved. Jacob was the son of Isaac; the grandson of Abraham. These three

men were so free from fault, their lives so unobjectionable, that the

God of the bible delighted to be called the "God of Abraham, the God of

Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It is true, Abraham owned slaves, was not

exact as to the truth, and, on one occasion, turned his wife and child

out to the mercies of a sandy desert. That Isaac in some sort followed

his father's example and disingenuous practices, and that Jacob was

without manly feeling, a sordid, selfish, unfraternal cozener, a

cowardly trickster, a cunning knave, but they must nevertheless have

been good men, for God was "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and

the God of Jacob." The name Jacob is not inappropriate. Kalisch says:

"This appellation, if taken in its obvious etymological meaning, implies

a deep ignominy; for the root from which it is derived signifies _to

deceive, to defraud,_ and in such a despicable meaning the same form

of the word is indeed used elsewhere (Jeremiah ix, 3). Jacob would,

therefore, be nothing else but the crafty _impostor_; in this sense

Esau, in the heat of his animosity, in fact clearly explains the word,

justly is his name called Jacob (cheat) because he has cheated me

twice" (Genesis xxvii, 30). According to the ordinary orthodox bible

chronology, Jacob was born about 1836 or 1837 B. C, that is, about 2,168

years from "in the beginning," his father Isaac being then sixty years

of age. There is a difficulty connected with Holy Scripture chronology

which would be insuperable were it not that we have the advantage of

spiritual aids in elucidation of the text. This difficulty arises from

the fact that the chronology of the bible, in this respect, like the

major portion of bible history, is utterly unreliable. But we do not

look to the Old or New Testament for mere commonplace, everyday facts;

or if we do, severe will be the disappointment of the truthseeker; we

look there for mysteries, miracles, paradoxes, and perplexities, and

have no difficulties in finding the objects of our search. Jacob was

born, together with his twin brother, Esau, in consequence of special

entreaty addressed by Isaac to the Lord on behalf of Rebekah, to whom

he had been married about nineteen years, and who was yet childless.

Infidel physiologists (and it is a strange, though not unaccountable,

fact that all who are physiologists are also in so far infidel) assert

that prayer would do little to repair the consequence of such disease,

or such abnormal organic structure, as would compel sterility. But our

able clergy are agreed that the bible was not intended to teach us

science; or, at any rate, we have learned that its attempts in that

direction are most miserable failures. Its mission is to teach the

unteachable; to enable us to comprehend the incomprehensible. Before

Jacob was born God decreed that he and his descendants should obtain

the mastery over Esau and his descendants--"the elder shall serve the

younger."* The God of the bible is a just God, but it is hard for

weak flesh to discover the justice of this proemial decree, which so

sentenced to servitude the children of Esau before their father's birth.

*Gen. xxv, 23.

Jacob came into the world holding by his brother's heel, like some

cowardly knave in the battle of life, who, not daring to break a gap in

the hedge of conventional prejudice, which bars his path, is yet ready

enough to follow some bolder warrior, and to gather the fruits of his

courage. "And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of

the field: and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents." One day Esau

returned from his hunting faint and wearied to the very point of death.

He was hungry, and came to Jacob, his twin and only brother, saying,

"Feed me, I pray thee,"* "for I am exceedingly faint."** In a like case

would not any man so entreated immediately offer to the other the best

at his command, the more especially when that other is his only brother,

born at the same time, from the same womb, suckled at the same breast,

fed under the same roof? But Jacob was not a man and a brother, he

was one of God's chosen people, and one who had been honored by God's

prenatal selection. "If a man come unto me and hate not his brother, he

can not be my disciple." So taught Jesus the Jew, in after time, but

in this earlier age Jacob the Jew, in practice, anticipated the later

doctrine. It is one of the misfortunes of theology, if not its crime,

that profession of love to God is often accompanied with bitter and

active hate of man. Jacob was one of the founders of the Jewish race,

and even in this their pre-historic age, the instinct for driving a hard

bargain seems strongly developed. "Jacob said" to Esau, "Sell me this

day thy birthright." The famished man vainly expostulated, and the

birthright was sold for a mess of pottage.

* Gen. xxv, 30

** Douay version.

If to-day one man should so meanly and cruelly take advantage of his

brother's necessities to rob him of his birthright, all good and honest

men would shun him as an unbrotherly scoundrel and most contemptible

knave; yet, less than 4,000 years ago, a very different standard of

morality must have prevailed. Indeed, if God is unchangeable, divine

notions of honor and honesty must to-day be widely different from those

of our highest men. God approved and endorsed Jacob's conduct. His

approval is shown by his love afterward expressed for Jacob, his

endorsement by his subsequent attention to Jacob's welfare. We may learn

from this tale, so pregnant with instruction, that any deed which to

the worldly and sensible man appears like knavery while understood

literally, becomes to the devout and prayerful man an act of piety when

understood spiritually. Much faith is required to thoroughly understand

this; _for example_, it looks like swindling to collect poor children's

halfpence and farthings in the Sunday schools for missionary purposes

abroad, and to spend thereout two or three hundred pounds in an annual

jubilatory dinner for well-fed pauper parsons at home; and so thought

the noble lord who wrote to the _Times_ under the initials S. G. O. If

he had possessed more faith and less sense, he would have seen the

piety and completely overlooked the knavery of the transaction. Pious

preachers and clever commentators declare that Esau despised his

birthright. I do not deny that they might back their declaration by

scripture quotations, but I do deny that the narrative ought to convey

any such impression. Esau's words were, "Behold I am at the point to

die: and what profit shall this birthright be to me?"

Isaac growing old, and fearing from his physical infirmities the near

approach of death, was anxious to bless Esau before he died, and

directed him to take quiver and bow and go out in the field to hunt some

venison for a savory meat, such as old Isaac loved. Esau departed, but

when he had left his father's presence in order to fulfill his request,

Jacob appeared on the scene. Instigated by his mother, he, by an abject

stratagem, passed himself off as Esau. With a savory meat prepared by

Rebekah, he came into his father's presence, and Isaac said, "Who art

thou, my son?" Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. The Lord loved

Jacob, yet Jacob lied to his old blind father, saying, "I am Esau,

thy first-born." Isaac had some doubts: these are manifested by his

inquiring how it was that the game was killed so quickly. Jacob, whom

God loved, in a spirit of shameless blasphemy replied, "Because the

Lord thy God brought it to me." Isaac still hesitated, fancying that he

recognized the voice to be the voice of Jacob, and again questioned him,

saying, "Art thou my very son Esau?" God is the God of truth and loved

Jacob, yet Jacob said, "I am." Then Isaac blessed Jacob, believing that

he was blessing Esau: and God permitted the fraud to be successful, and

himself also blessed Jacob. In that extraordinary composition known

as the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told that by faith Isaac blessed

Jacob. But what faith had Isaac? Faith that Jacob was Esau? His belief

was produced by deceptive appearances. His faith resulted from false

representations. And there are very many men in the world who have

no better foundation for their religious faith than had Isaac when he

blessed Jacob, believing him to be Esau. In the Douay bible I find the

following note on this remarkable narrative: "St. Augustine (X. contra

mendacium c. 10), treating at large upon this place, excuseth Jacob from

a lie, because thi's whole passage was mysterious, as relating to the

preference which was afterward to be given to the Gentiles before the

carnal Jews, which Jacob, by prophetic light, might understand. So far

it is certain that the first birthright, both by divine election and by

Esau's free cession, belonged to Jacob; so that if there were any lie

in the case, it would be no more than an officious and venial one." How

glorious to be a pa triarch, and to have a real saint laboring years

after your death to twist your lies into truth by aid of prophetic

light. Lying is at all times most disreputable, but at the deathbed the

crime is rendered more heinous. The death hour would have awed many men

into speaking the truth, but it had little effect on Jacob. Although

Isaac was about to die, this greedy knave cared not, so that he got from

the dying man the sought-for prize. God is said to love righteousness

and hate iniquity, yet he loved the iniquitous Jacob, and hated the

honest Esau. All knaves are tinged more or less with cowardice. Jacob

was no exception to the rule. His brother enraged at the deception

practiced upon Isaac, threatened to kill Jacob. Jacob was warned by his

mother and fled. Induced by Rebekah, Isaac charged Jacob to marry one of

Laban's daughters. On the way to Haran, where Laban dwell, Jacob rested

and slept. While sleeping he dreamed; ordinarily dreams have little

significance, but in the bible they are more important. Some of the most

weighty and vital facts (?) of the bible are communicated in dreams,

and rightly so; if the men had been wide awake, they would have probably

rejected the revelation as absurd. So much does that prince of darkness,

the devil, influence mankind against the bible in the daytime, that it

is when all is dark, and our eyes are closed, and the senses dormant,

that God's mysteries are most clearly seen and understood. Jacob "saw

in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof

touching heaven; the angels of God ascending and descending by it, and

_the Lord leaning upon the ladder_." In the ancient temples of India,

and in the mysteries of Mithra, the seven-stepped ladder by which the

spirits ascended to heaven is a prominent feature, and one of probably

far higher antiquity than the age of Jacob. Did paganism furnish the

groundwork for the patriarch's dream? "No man hath seen God at any

time." God is "invisible." Yet Jacob saw the invisible God, whom no man

hath seen or can see, either standing above a ladder or leaning upon it.

True, it was all a dream. Yet God spoke to Jacob; but perhaps that was

a delusion too. We find by scripture that God threatens to send to some

"strong delusions, that they might believe a lie and be damned." Poor

Jacob was much frightened, as any one might be, to dream of God leaning

on so long a ladder. What if it had broken and the dreamer underneath it?

Jacob's fears were not so powerful but that his shrewdness and

avarice had full scope in a sort of half-vow, half-contract, made in the

morning. Jacob said, "If God will be with me and will keep me in this

way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so

that I shall come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the

Lord be my God." The inference deducible from this conditional statement

is, that if God failed to complete the items enumerated by Jacob, then

the latter would have nothing to do with him. Jacob was a shrewd Jew,

who would have laughed to scorn the preaching, "Take no thought, saying,

what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we

be clothed?"

After this contract, Jacob went on his journey, and reached the house of

his mother's brother, Laban, into whose service he entered. "Diamond

cut diamond" would be an appropriate heading to the tale which gives the

transactions between Jacob the Jew and Laban the son of Nahor. Laban had

two daughters. Rachel, the youngest, was "beautiful and well-favored;"

Leah, the elder, was "blear-eyed." Jacob served for the pretty one;

but on the wedding-day Laban made a feast, and gave Jacob the ugly Leah

instead of the pretty Rachel. Jacob being (according to Josephs) both in

drink and in the dark, it was morning ere he discovered his error. After

this Jacob served for Rachel also, and then the remainder of the chapter

of Jacob's servitude to Laban is but the recital of a series of

frauds and trickeries. Jacob embezzled Laban's property, and Laban

misappropriated and changed Jacob's wages. In fact, if Jacob had not

possessed the advantage of divine aid, he would probably have failed

in the endeavor to cheat his master; but God, who says "Thou shalt

not covet thy neighbor's house, nor anything that is thy neighbor's,"

encouraged Jacob in his career of criminality. At last, Jacob, having

amassed a large quantity of property, determined to abscond from

his employment, and taking advantage of his uncle's absence at

sheepshearing, "he stole away unawares," taking with him his wives, his

children, flocks, herds, and goods. To crown the whole, Rachel, worthy

wife of a husband so fraudulent, stole her father's gods. In the present

day the next phase would be the employment of Mr. Sergeant Vericute, of

the special detective department, and the issue of bills as follows:

"ONE HUNDRED SHEKELS REWARD,

Absconded, with a large amount of property,

JACOB, THE JEW.

Information to be given to Laban, the Syrian, at Haran, in the

East, or to Mr. Serjeant Vericute, Scotland Yard."

But in those days God's ways were not as our ways. God came to Laban

in a dream and compounded the felony, saying, "Take heed thou speak

not anything harshly against Jacob."* This would probably prevent Laban

giving evidence in a police court against Jacob, and thus save him from

transportation or penal servitude. After a reconciliation and treaty had

been effected between Jacob and Laban, the former went on his way "and

the angel of God met him." Angels are not included in the circle with

which I have at present made acquaintance, and I hesitate, therefore, to

comment on the meeting between Jacob and the angels. Balaam's ass, at

a later period, shared the good fortune which was the lot of Jacob, for

that animal also had a meeting with an angel. Jacob was the grandson

of the faithful Abraham to whom angels also appeared. Perhaps angelic

apparitions are limited to asses and the faithful. On this point I

do not venture to assert, and but timidly suggest. It is somewhat

extraordinary that Jacob should have manifested no surprise at meeting

a host of angels. Still more worthy of note is it that our good

translators elevate the same words into "angels" in verse 1, which they

degrade into "messengers" in verse 3. John Bellamy, in his translation,

says the "angels were not immortal angels," and it is very probable John

Bellamy was right.

* Genesis xxxi, 24, Douay version.

Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, and heard that the latter was

coming to meet him followed by 400 men. Jacob, a timorous knave at best,

became terribly afraid. He, doubtless, remembered the wrongs inflicted

upon Esau, the cruel extortion of the birthright, and the fraudulent

obtainment of the dying Isaac's blessing. He, therefore, sent forward

to his brother Esau a large present as a peace offering. He also divided

the remainder of his flocks, herds, and goods, into two divisions, that

if one were smitten, the other might escape; sending these on, he was

left alone. While alone he wrestled with either a man, or an angel, or

God. The text says "a man," the heading to the chapter says "an angel,"

and Jacob himself says that he has "seen God face to face." Whether God,

angel, or man, it was not a fair wrestle, and were the present editor of

_Bell's Life_ referee, he would, unquestionably, declare it to be most

unfair to touch "the hollow of Jacob's thigh" so as to put it "out

of joint," and, consequently, award the result of the match to Jacob.

Jacob, notwithstanding the injury, still kept his grip, and the

apocryphal wrestler, finding himself no match at fair struggling, and

that foul play was unavailing, now tried entreaty, and said, "Let me

go, for the day breaketh." Spirits never appear in the daytime, when,

if they did appear, they could be seen and examined; they are more often

visible in the twilight, in the darkness, and in dreams. Jacob would

not let go, his life's instinct for bargaining prevailed, and probably,

because he could get nothing else, he insisted on his opponent's

blessing before he let him go. In the Roman Catholic version of the

bible there is the following note: Chap, xxxii, 24. _A man, etc._

"This was an angel in human shape, as we learn from _Osee_ (xii, 4). He

is called _God_ (xv, 28 and 30), because he represented the son of

God. This wrestling in which Jacob, assisted by God, was a match for an

angel, was so ordered (v. 28) that he might learn by this experiment of

the divine assistance, that neither Esau nor any other man should have

power to hurt him." How elevating it must be to the true believer to

conceive God helping Jacob to wrestle with his own representative. Read

prayerfully, doubtless, the spiritual and inner meaning of the text (if

it have one) is most transcendental. Read sensibly, the literal and only

meaning the text conveys is that of an absurd tradition of an ignorant

age. On the morrow Jacob met Esau:

"And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and

kissed him; and they wept.

"And he said, What meanest thou by all this drove which I met? And he

said these are to find grace in the sight of my lord.

"And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto

thyself."

The following expressive comment, from the able pen of Mr. Holyoake,

deserves transcription: "The last portion of the history of Jacob and

Esau is very instructive. The coward fear of Jacob to meet his brother

is well delineated. He is subdued by a sense of his treacherous guilt.

The noble forgiveness of Esau invests his memory with more respect than

all the wealth Jacob won, and all the blessings of the Lord he received.

Could I change my name from Jacob to Esau, I would do it in honor of

him. The whole incident has a dramatic interest. There is nothing in

the Old or New Testament equal to it. The simple magnanimity of Esau is

scarcely surpassed by anything in Plutarch. In the conduct of Esau we

see the triumph of time, of filial affection, and generosity over a deep

sense of execrable treachery, unprovoked and irrevocable injury." Was

not Esau a merciful, generous man? Yet God hated him, and shut him out

of all share in the promised land. Was not Jacob a mean, prevaricating

knave, a crafty, abject cheat? Yet God loved and rewarded him. How

great are the mysteries in this bible representation of an all-good

and all-loving God thus hating good and loving evil. At the time of the

wrestling, a promise was made, which is afterward repeated by God to

Jacob, that the latter should not be any more called Jacob, but

Israel. This promise was not strictly kept; the name "Jacob" being used

repeatedly, mingled with that of Israel in the after part of Jacob's

history. Jacob had a large family; his sons are reputedly the heads of

the twelve Jewish tribes. We have not much space to notice them: suffice

it to say that one Joseph, who was much loved by his father, was sold by

his brethren into slavery. This transaction does not seem to have called

for any special reproval from God. Joseph, who from early life was

skilled in dreams, succeeded by interpreting the visions of Pharaoh in

obtaining a sort of premiership in Egypt; while filling this office he

managed to act like the Russells and the Greys of our own time. We are

told that he "_placed_ his father and his brethren, and gave them a

possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land." Joseph made

the parallel still stronger between himself and a more modern head of

the Treasury Bench; he not only gave his own family the best place in

the land, but he also, by a trick of statecraft, obtained the land for

the king, made slaves of the people, and made it a law over the land

of Egypt that the king should be entitled to one-fifth of the produce,

always, of course, excepting and saving the rights of the priest. Judah,

another brother, sought to have burned a woman by whom he had a child.

A third, named Reuben, was guilty of the grossest vice, equaled only

by that of Absalon the son of David; of Simeon and Levi, two more of

Jacob's sons, it is said that "Instruments of cruelty were in their

habitations;" their conduct, as detailed in the 34th chapter of Genesis,

alike shocks by its treachery and its mercilessness. After Jacob had

heard that his son Joseph was governor in Egypt, but before he had

journeyed farther than Beer-sheba, God spake unto him in the visions of

the night, and probably forgetting that he had given him a new name,

or being more accustomed to the old one, said, "Jacob, Jacob," and then

told him to go down into Egypt, where Jacob died after a residence

of about seventeen years, when 147 years of age. Before Jacob died he

blessed, first the sons of Joseph, and then his own children, and at

the termination of his blessing to Ephraim and Manasseh we find the

following speech addressed to Joseph: "Moreover, I have given to thee

one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the

Amorite with my sword and with my bow." This speech implies warlike

pursuit on the part of Jacob, of which the bible gives no record, and

which seems incompatible with his recorded life. The sword of craft

and the bow of cunning are the only weapons in the use of which he was

skilled. When his sons murdered and robbed the Hivites, fear seems to

have been Jacob's most prominent characteristic. It is not my duty, nor

have I space here, to advocate any theory of interpretation, but it may

be well to mention that many learned men contend that the whole history

of Jacob is but an allegory. That the twelve patriarchs but typify the

twelve signs of the zodiac, as do the twelve great gods of the Pagans,

and twelve apostles of the gospels.

From the history of Jacob it is hard to draw any conclusions favorable

to the man whose life is narrated. To heap additional epithets on his

memory would be but waste of time and space. I conclude by regretting

that if God loved one brother and hated another, he should have so

unfortunately selected for his love the one whose whole career shows him

in a most despicable light.

NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.

Most undoubtedly father Abraham is a personage whose history should

command our attention, if only because he figures as the founder of the

Jewish race--a race which, having been promised protection and favor by

Deity, appear to have experienced little else besides the infliction, or

sufferance of misfortune and misery. Men are taught to believe that

God, following out a solemn covenant made with Abraham, suspended the

operations of Nature to aggrandize the Jews; that he promised always

to bless and favor them if they adhered to his worship and obeyed the

priests. The promised blessings were, usually, political authority,

individual happiness and sexual power, long life, and great wealth;

the threatened curses for idolatry or disobedience: disease, loss of

property and children, mutilation, death. Among the blessings: the

right to kill, plunder, and ravish their enemies, with protection, while

pious, against any subjection to retaliatory measures. And all this

because they were Abraham's children!

Abraham is an important personage. Without Abraham, no Jesus, no

Christianity, no Church of England, no bishops, no tithes, no church

rates. But for Abraham England would have lost all these blessings.

Abraham was the great-grandfather of Judah, the head of the tribe to

which God's father, Joseph, belonged.

In gathering materials for a short biographical sketch, we are at the

same time comforted and dismayed by the fact that the only reliable

account of Abraham's career is that furnished by the book of Genesis,

supplemented by a few brief references in other parts of the bible, and

that, outside "God's perfect and infallible revelation to man," there is

no reliable account of Abraham's existence at all. We are comforted

by the thought that Genesis is unquestioned by the faithful, and is at

present protected by Church and State against heretic assaults; but we

are dismayed when we think that, if Infidelity, encouraged by Colenso

and Kalisch, upsets Genesis, Abraham will have little historical claim

on our attention Some philologists have asserted that Brama and Abraham

are alike corruptions of Abba Rama, or Abrama, and that Sarah is

identical with Sarasvati. Abram, is a Chaldean compound, meaning father

of the elevated, or exalted father [------] is a compound of Chaldee

and Arabic, signifying father of a multitude. In part V of his work

Colenso mentions that Adonis was formerly identified with Abram, "high

father," Adonis being the personified sun.

Leaving incomprehensible philology for the ordinary authorized version

of our bibles, we find that Abraham was the son of Terah. The text does

not expressly state where Abraham was born, and I can not therefore

describe his birthplace with that accuracy of detail which a true

believer might desire, but I may add that he "dwelt in old time on the

other side of the flood." (Joshua xxiv, 2, 3.) The situation of such

dwelling involves a geographical problem most unlikely to be solved

unless the inquirer is "half seas over." Abraham was born when Terah,

his father, was seventy years of age; and, accord-ing to Genesis, Terah

and his family came forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and went to Haran

and dwelt there. We turn to the map to look for Ur of the Chaldees,

anxious to discover it as possibly Abraham's place of nativity, but find

that the translators of God's inspired word have taken a slight liberty

with the text by substituting "Ur of the Chaldees" for "Aur Kasdim," the

latter being, in plain English, _the light of the magi, or conjurers, or

astrologers_. [------] is stated by Kalisch to have been made the basis

for many extraordinary legends, as to Abraham's rescue from the flames.

Abraham, being born--according to Hebrew chronology, 2,083 years after

the creation, and according to the Septuagint 3,549 years after the

event--when his father was seventy, grew so slowly that when his father

reached the good old age of 205 years, Abraham had only arrived at 75

years, having, apparently, lost no less than 60 year's growth during

his father's lifetime. St. Augustine and St Jerome gave this up as a

difficulty inexplicable. Calmet endeavors to explain it, and makes it

worse. But what real difficulty is there? Do you mean, dear reader,

that it is impossible Abraham could have lived 135 years, and yet be

only 75 years of age? Is this your objection? It is a sensible one,

I admit, but it is an Infidel one. Eschew sense, and, retaining only

religion, ever remember that with God all things are possible. Indeed,

I have read myself that gin given to young children stunts their growth;

and who shall say what influence of the spirit prevented the full

development of Abraham's years? It is a slight question whether Abraham

and his two brothers were not born the same year; if this be so, he

might have been a small child, and not grown so quickly as he would have

otherwise done. "The Lord" spoke to Abraham, and promised to make of him

a great nation, to bless those who blessed Abraham, and to curse those

who cursed him. I do not know precisely which Lord it was that spake

unto Abraham. In the Hebrew it says it was [------] Jeue, or, as our

translators call it, Jehovah; but as God said (Exodus vi, 2) that by the

name "Jehovah was I not known" to either Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, we

must conclude either that the omniscient Deity had forgotten the matter,

or that a counterfeit Lord had assumed a title to which he had no right.

The word Jehovah, which the book of Exodus says Abraham did not know,

is nearly always the name by which Abraham addresses or speaks of the

Jewish Deity.

Abraham having been promised protection by the God of Truth, initiated

his public career with a diplomacy of statement worthy of Talleyrand,

Thiers, or Gladstone. He represented his wife Sarah as his sister,

which, if true, is a sad reproach to the marriage. The ruling Pharaoh,

hearing the beauty of Sarah commended, took her into his house, she

being at that time a fair Jewish dame, between 60 and 70 years of age,

and he entreated Abraham well for her sake, and he had sheep and oxen,

asses and servants, and camels. We do not read that Abraham objected in

any way to the loss of his wife. The Lord, who is all-just, finding

out that Pharaoh had done wrong, not only punished the king, but also

punished the king's household, who could hardly have interfered with his

misdoings. Abraham got his wife back, and went away much richer by the

transaction. Whether the conduct of father Abraham in pocketing quietly

the price of the insult--or honor--offered to his wife is worthy of

modern imitation, is a question I leave to be discussed by Convocation

when it has finished with the Athanasian Creed. After this transaction

we are not surprised to hear that Abraham was very rich in "silver

and gold." So was the Duke of Marlborough after the King had taken his

sister in similar manner into his house. In verse 19 of chapter xii,

there is a curious mistranslation in our version. The text is: "It is

for that I had taken her for my wife," our version has: "_I might have

taken_ her." The Douay so translates as to take a middle phrase, leaving

it doubtful whether or not Pharaoh actually took Sarah as his wife.

In any case, the Egyptian king acted well throughout. Abraham plays the

part of a timorous, contemptible hypocrite. Strong enough to have fought

for his wife, he sold her. Yet Abraham was blessed for his faith, and

his conduct is our pattern!

Despite his timorousness in the matter of his wife, Abraham was a man

of wonderful courage and warlike ability. To rescue his relative,

Lot:--with whom he could not live on the same land without quarreling,

both being religious--he armed 318 servants, and fought with four

powerful kings, defeating them and recovering the spoil. Abraham's

victory was so decisive that the king of Sodom, who fled and fell (xiv,

10) in a previous encounter, now met Abraham alive (see v, 17), to

congratulate him on his victory. Abraham was also offered bread and wine

by Melchisedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God. Where was

Salem? Some identify it with Jerusalem, which it can not be, as Jebus

was not so named until after the time of the Judges (Judges xix, 10).

How does this King, of this unknown Salem, never heard of before or

after, come to be priest of the Most High God? These are queries for

divines--orthodox disciples believe without inquiring. Melchisedek was

most unfortunate as far as genealogy is concerned. He had no father. I

do not mean by this that any bar sinister defaced his escutcheon. He not

only was without a father, but without mother also; he had no beginning

of days or end of life, and is therefore probably at the present time an

extremely old gentleman, who would be an invaluable acquisition to any

antiquarian association fortunate enough to cultivate his acquaintance.

God having promised Abraham a numerous family, and the promise not

having been in any part fulfilled, the patriarch grew uneasy and

remonstrated with the Lord, who explained the matter thoroughly to

Abraham when the latter was in a deep sleep, and a dense darkness

prevailed. Religions explanations come with greater force under these

or similar conditions. Natural or artificial light and clear-sightedness

are always detrimental to spiritual manifestations.

Abraham's wife had a maid named Hagar, and she bore to Abraham a child

named Ishmael; at the time Ishmael was born, Abraham was 86 years of

age. Just before Ishmael's birth Hagar was so badly treated that she ran

away. As she was only a slave, God persuaded Hagar to return, and humble

herself to her mistress.

Thirteen years afterward God appeared to Abraham, and instituted the

rite of circumcision--which rite had been practiced long before by other

nations--and again renewed the promise. The rite of circumcision was

not only practiced by nations long anterior to that of the Jews, but

appears, in many cases, not even to have been pretended as a religious

rite. (See Kalisch, Genesis, p. 386; Cahen, Genese, p. 43) After God

had "left off talking with him, God went up from Abraham." As God is

infinite, he did not, of course, go up; but still the bible says God

went up, and it is the duty of the people to believe that he did so,

especially as the infinite Deity then and now resides habitually in

"heaven," wherever that may be. Again the Lord appeared to Abraham,

either as three men or angels, or as one of the three; and Abraham, who

seemed hospitably inclined, invited the three to wash their feet, and to

rest under the tree, and gave butter and milk and dressed calf, tender

and good, to them, and they did eat; and after the inquiry as to where

Sarah then was, the promise of a son is repeated. Sarah--then by her own

admission an old woman, stricken in years--laughed when she heard this,

and the Lord said, "Wherefore did Sarah laugh?" and Sarah denied it,

but the Lord said, "Nay, but thou didst laugh." The three then went

toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them as a guide; and the Lord

explained to Abraham that some sad reports had reached him about Sodom

and Gomorrah, and that he was then going to find out whether the report

was reliable. God is infinite, and was always therefore at Sodom and

Gomorrah, but had apparently been temporarily absent; he is omniscient,

and therefore knew everything which was happening at Sodom and Gomorrah,

but he did not know whether or not the people were as wicked as they

had been represented to him. God, Job tells us, "put no trust in his

servants, and his angels he charged with folly." Between the rogues and

the fools, therefore, the all-wise and all-powerful God seems to be as

liable to be mistaken in the reports made to him as any monarch might be

in reports made by his ministers. Two of the three men, or angels, went

on to Sodom, and left the Lord with Abraham, who began to remonstrate

with Deity on the wholesale destruction contemplated, and asked him to

spare the city if fifty righteous should be found within it. God said,

"If I find fifty righteous within the city, then will I spare the place

for their sakes." God being all-wise, he knew there were not fifty

in Sodom, and was deceiving Abraham. By dint of hard bargaining, in

thorough Hebrew fashion, Abraham, whose faith seemed tempered by

distrust, got the stipulated number reduced to ten, and then "the Lord

went his way."

Jacob Ben Chajim, in his introduction to the Rabbinical bible, p. 28,

tells us that the Hebrew text used to read in verse 22: "And Jehovah

still stood before Abraham;" but the scribes altered it, and made

Abraham stand before the Lord, thinking the original text offensive to

Deity.

The 18th chapter of Genesis has given plenty of work to the divines.

Augustin contended that God can take food, though he does not require

it. Justin compared "the eating of God with the devouring power of the

fire." Kalisch sorrows over the holy fathers "who have taxed all their

ingenuity to make the act of eating compatible with the attributes of

Deity."

In the Epistle to the Romans, Abraham's faith is greatly praised. We are

told, iv, 19, 20, that:

"Being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when

he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's

womb."

"He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong

in faith, giving glory to God."

Yet, so far from Abraham giving God glory, we are told in Genesis, xvii,

17, that:

"Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, shall

a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old, and shall Sarah,

that is ninety years old, bear?"

The Rev. Mr. Boutell says that "the declaration which caused Sarah to

'laugh,' shows the wonderful familiarity which was then permitted to

Abraham in his communications with God."

After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham journeyed south

and sojourned in Gerar, and either untaught or too well taught by his

previous experience, again represented his wife as his sister, and

Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. As before, we find

neither remonstrance nor resistance recorded on the part of Abraham.

This time God punished, _a la_ Malthus, the women in Abimelech's house

for an offense they did not commit, and Sarah was again restored to her

husband, with sheep, oxen, men-servants, and women-servants, and money.

Infidels object that the bible says Sarah "was old and well stricken

in age;" that "it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women;"

that she was more than ninety years of age; and that it is not likely

King Abimelech would fall in love with an ugly old woman. We reply,

"_chacun a son gout?_" It is clear that Sarah had not ceased to be

attractive, as God resorted to especial means to protect her virtue

from Abimelech. At length Isaac is born, and his mother Sarah now urges

Abraham to expel Hagar and her son, "and the thing was very grievous in

Abraham's sight because of his son;" the mother being only a bondwoman

does not seem to have troubled him. God, however, approving Sarah's

notion, Hagar is expelled, "and she departed and wandered in the

wilderness, and the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the

child under one of the shrubs." She had apparently carried the

child, who being at least more than fourteen, and according to some

calculations as much as seventeen years of age, must have been a heavy

child to carry in a warm climate.

God never did tempt any man at any time, but he "did tempt Abraham" to

kill Isaac by offering him as a burnt offering. The doctrine of human

sacrifice is one of the holy mysteries of Christianity, as taught in the

Old and New Testament. Of course, judged from a religious or biblical

standpoint, it can not be wrong, as, if it were, God would not have

permitted Jephtha to sacrifice his daughter by offering her as a burnt

offering, nor have tempted Abraham to sacrifice his son, nor have said

in Leviticus, "None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be

redeemed; but shall surely be put to death" (xxvii, 29), nor have in the

New Testament worked out the monstrous sacrifice of his only son Jesus,

at the same time son and begetting father.

Abraham did not seem to be entirely satisfied with his own conduct when

about to kill Isaac, for he not only concealed from his servants his

intent, but positively stated that which was not true, saying, "I and

the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." If he

meant that he and Isaac would come again to them, then he knew that the

sacrifice would not take place. Nay, Abraham even deceived his own son,

who asked him where was the lamb for the burnt offering? But we learn

from the New Testament that Abraham acted in this and other matters "by

faith," so his falsehoods and evasions, being results and aids of faith,

must be dealt with in an entirely different manner from transactions

of every-day life. Just as Abraham stretched forth his hand to slay his

son, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and prevented the

murder, saying, "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast

not withheld thy son." This would convey the impression that up to that

moment the angel of the Lord was not certain upon the subject.

In Genesis xiii, God says to Abraham, "Lift up now thine eyes, and look

from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward and

westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and

to thy seed for ever. Arise, walk through the land, in the length of

it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee." Yet, as is

admitted by the Rev. Charles Boutell, in his "Bible Dictionary," "The

only portion of territory in that land of promise, of which Abraham

became possessed" was a graveyard, which he had bought and paid for.

Although Abraham was too old to have children _before_ the birth of

Isaac, he had many children _after_ Isaac is born. He lived to "a good

old age," and died "full of years," but was yet younger than any of

those who preceded him, and whose ages are given in the bible history,

except Nahor.

Abraham gave "all that he had to Isaac," but appears to have distributed

the rest of the property among his other children, who were sent to

enjoy it somewhere down East.

According to the New Testament, Abraham is now in Paradise, but Abraham

in heaven is scarcely an improvement upon Abraham on-earth. When he

was entreated by an unfortunate in hell for a drop of water to cool his

tongue, father Abraham replied, "Son, remember that in thy life-time

thou receivedst thy good things, and now thou art tormented," as if the

reminiscence of past good would alleviate present and future continuity

of evil.

NEW LIFE OF MOSES.

The "Life of Abraham" was presented to our readers, because, as the

nominal founder of the Jewish race, his position entitled him to that

honor. The "Life of David," because, as one of the worst men and worst

kings ever known, his history might afford matter for reflection to

admirers of monarchical institutions and matter for comment to the

advocates of a republican form of government. The "Life of Jacob" served

to show how basely mean and contemptibly deceitful a man might become,

and yet enjoy God's love. Having given thus a brief outline of the

career of the patriarch, the king, and the knave, the life of a priest

naturally presents itself as the most fitting to complement the present

quadrifid series.

Moses, the great grandson of Levi, was born in Egypt, not far distant

from the banks of the Nile, a river world-famous for its inundations,

made familiar to ordinary readers by the travelers who have journeyed to

discover its source, and held in bad repute by strangers, especially on

account of the carnivorous Saurians who infest its waters. The mother

and father of our hero were both of the tribe of Levi, and were named

Jochebed and Amram. The infant Moses was, at the age of three months,

placed in an ark of bulrushes by the river's brink. This was done in

order to avoid the decree of extermination propounded by the reigning

Pharaoh against the male Jewish children. The daughter of Pharaoh,

coming down to the river to bathe, found the child and took compassion

upon him, adopting him as her son. Of the early life of Moses we have

but scanty record. We are told in the New Testament that he was learned

in the wisdom of the Egyptians,* and that, "when he was come to years

he refused by faith** to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter."

Perhaps the record from which the New Testament writers quoted has been

lost; it is certain that the present version of the Old Testament does

not contain those statements. The record which is lost _may_ have been

God's original revelation to man, and of which our bible _may_ be

an incomplete version. I am little grieved by the supposition that a

revelation may have been lost, being, for my own part, more inclined to

think that no revelation has ever been made. Josephus says that, when

quite a baby, Moses trod contemptuously on the crown of Egypt. The

Egyptian monuments and Exodus are both silent on this point. Josephus

also tells us that Moses led the Egyptians in war against the

Ethiopians, and married Tharbis, the daughter of the Ethiopian monarch.

This also is omitted both in Egyptian history and in the sacred record.

When Moses was grown, according to the Old Testament, or when he was 40

years of age according to the New, "it came into his heart to visit his

brethren the children of Israel." "And he spied an Egyptian smiting

a Hebrew." "And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that

there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand." The

New Testament says that he did it, "for he supposed that his brethren

would understand how that God, by his hand, would deliver them."***

* Acts, vii, 21.

** Hebrews, xi, 24.

*** Acts, vii, 25.

But this is open to the following objections: The Old Testament says

nothing of the kind; there was no man to see the homicide, and as Moses

hid the body, it is hard to conceive how he could expect the Israelites

to understand a matter of which they not only had no knowledge whatever,

but which he himself did not think was known to them; if there were

really no man present, the story of the after accusation against Moses

needs explanation: it might be further objected that it does not

appear that Moses at that time did even himself conceive that he had

any mission from God to deliver his people. Moses fled from the wrath

of Pharaoh, and dwelt in Midian, where he married the daughter of one

Reuel, or Jethro. This name is not of much importance, but it is strange

that if Moses wrote the books of the Pentateuch he was not more exact

in designating so near a relation. While acting as shepherd to his

father-in-law, "he led the flock to the back side of the desert," and

"the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire:" that is, the

angel was either a flame, or was the object which was burning, for this

angel appeared in the midst of a bush which burned with fire, but was

not consumed. This flame appears to have been a luminous one, for it was

a "great sight," and attracted Moses, who turned aside to see it.

But the luminosity would depend on substance ignited and rendered

inacandescent. Is the angel of the Lord a substance susceptible of

ignition and incandescence? Who knoweth? If so, will the fallen angels

ignite and burn in hell! God called unto Moses out of the midst of the

bush. It is hard to conceive an infinite God in the middle of a

bush; yet as the law of England says that we must not "deny the Holy

Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be of divine authority," in

order not to break the law, I advise all to believe that, in addition

to being in the middle of a bush, the infinite and all-powerful God

also sat on the top of a box, dwelt sometimes in a tent, afterward in

a temple; although invisible, appeared occasionally; and being a spirit

without body or parts, was hypostatically incarnate as a man. Moses,

when spoken to by God, "hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon

God." If Moses had known that God was _invisible_ he would have escaped

this fear.

God told Moses that the cry of the children of Israel had reached him,

and that he had _come down_ to deliver them, and that Moses was to lead

them out of Egypt. Moses does not seem to have placed entire confidence

in the phlegmonic divine communication, and asked, when the Jews should

question him on the name of the Deity, what answer should he make?

It does not appear from this that the Jews, if they had so completely

forgotten God's name, had much preserved the recollection of the promise

comparatively so recently made to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. The

answer given according to our version is "I am that I am;" according

to the Douay, "I am who am." God, in addition, told Moses that the Jews

should spoil the Egyptians of their wealth; but even this promise of

plunder so congenial to the nature of a bill-discounting Jew of the

bible type, did not avail to overcome the scruples of Moses. God

therefore taught him to throw his rod on the ground, and thus transform

it into a serpent, from which pseudo-serpent Moses at first fled in

fear, but on his taking it by the tail it resumed its original shape,

Moses, with even other wonders at command, still hesitated; he had an

impediment in his speech. God cured this by the appointment of Aaron,

who was eloquent, to aid his brother. God directed Moses to return

to Egypt, but his parting words must somewhat have damped the future

legislator's hope of any speedy or successful ending to his mission. God

said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall not let the people

go." On the journey back to Egypt God met Moses "by the way in the inn,

and sought to kill him." I am ignorant as to the causes which prevented

the omnipotent Deity from carrying out his intention; the text does

not explain the matter, and I am not a bishop or a D. D., and I do not

therefore feel justified in putting my assumptions in place of God's

revelation. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and asked that the Jews

might be permitted to go three days' journey in the wilderness; but the

King of Egypt not only refused their request, but gave them additional

tasks, and in consequence Moses and Aaron went again to the Lord, who

told them, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the

name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them."

Whether God had forgotten that the name of Jehovah was known to Abraham,

or whether he was here deceiving Moses and Aaron, are points the

solution of which I leave to the faithful, referring them to the fact

that Abraham called a place* Jehovah-Jireh.

* Genesis xxii, 14

After this Moses and Aaron again went to Pharaoh and worked wonderfully

in his presence. Thaumaturgy is coming into fashion again, but the

exploits of Moses far exceeded any of those performed by Mr. Home or the

Davenport brothers. Aaron flung down his rod, and it became a serpent;

the Egyptian magicians flung down their rods, which became serpents

also; but the rod of Aaron, as though it had been a Jew money-lender or

a tithe collecting parson, swallowed up these miraculous competitors,

and the Jewish leaders could afford to laugh at their defeated rival

conjurors. Moses and Aaron carried on the miracle-working for some time.

All the water of the land of Egypt was turned by them into blood, but

the magicians did so with their enchantments, and it had no effect on

Pharaoh. Then showers of frogs, at the instance of Aaron, covered the

land of Egypt; but the Egyptians did so with their enchantments, and

frogs abounded still more plentifully. The Jews next tried their hands

at the production of lice, and here--to the glory of God be it

said--the infidel Egyptians failed to imitate them. It is written that

"cleanliness is next to godliness," but we can not help thinking that

godliness must have been far from cleanliness when the former so soon

resulted in lice. The magicians were now entirely discomfited. The

preceding wonders seem to have affected all the land of Egypt; but in

the next miracle the swarms of flies sent were confined to Egyptians

only, and were not extended to Goshen, in which the Israelites dwelt.

The next plague in connection with the ministration of Moses and Aaron

was that "all the cattle of Egypt died." After "all the cattle" were

dead, a boil was sent, breaking forth with blains upon man and beast.

This failing in effect, Moses afterward stretched forth his hand

and smote "both man and beast" with hail, then covered the land with

locusts, and followed this with a thick darkness throughout the land--a

darkness which _might_ have been felt. Whether it was felt is a matter

on which I am unable to pass an opinion. After this, the Egyptians being

terrified by the destruction of their first-born children, the Jews,

at the instance of Moses, borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver,

jewels of gold, and raiment; and they spoiled the Egyptians. The fact

is, that the Egyptians were in the same position as the payers of church

rates, tithes, vicars' rates, and Easter dues: they lent to the Lord's

people, who are good borrowers, but slow when repayment is required.

They prefer promising you a crown of glory to paying you at once five

shillings in silver. Moses led the Jews through the Red Sea, which

proved a ready means of escape, as may be easily read in Exodus, which

says that the Lord "made the sea dry land" for the Israelites, and

afterward not only overwhelmed in it the Egyptians who sought to follow

them, but, as Josephus tells us, the current of the sea actually carried

to the camp of the Hebrews the arms of the Egyptians, so that the

wandering Jews might not be destitute of weapons. After this the

Israelities were led by Moses into Shur, where they were without water

for three days, and the water they afterward found was too bitter to

drink until a tree had been cast into the well. The Israelites were then

fed with manna, which, when gathered on Friday, kept for the Sabbath,

but rotted if kept from one week day to another. The people grew tired

of eating manna, and complained, and God sent fire among them and burned

them up in the uttermost parts of the camp; and after this the people

wept and said, "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish we

did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and

the onions and the garlic; but now there is nothing at all beside this

manna before our eyes." This angered the Lord, and he gave them a feast

of quails, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it

was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled, and he smote the Jewish

people with a very great plague.*

* Numbers xi.

The people again in Rephidim were without water, and Moses therefore

smote the Rock of Horeb with his rod, and water came out of the rock.

At Rephidim the Amalekites and the Jews fought together, and while

they fought, Moses, like a prudent general, went to the top of a hill,

accompanied by Aaron and Hur, and it came to pass that when Moses held

up his hands Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hands Amalek

prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put

it under him, and he sat thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands,

the one on the one side and the other on the other side, and his hands

were steady until the going down of the sun, and Joshua discomfited

Amalek, and his people with the edge of the sword. How the true believer

ought to rejoice that the stone was so convenient, as otherwise the Jews

might have been slaughtered, and there might have been no royal line of

David, no Jesus, no Christianity. That stone should be more valued than

the precious black stone of the Moslem; it is the corner-stone of the

system, the stone which supported the Mosaic rule. God is everywhere,

but Moses went _up_ unto him, and the Lord called to him _out_ of a

mountain and came to him _in_ a thick cloud, and descended on Mount

Sinai _in_ a fire, in consequence of which the mountain smoked, and the

Lord _came down upon the top_ of the mountain and called Moses _up_ to

him; and then the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and also

those precepts which follow, in which Jews are permitted to buy their

fellow-countrymen for six years, and in which it is provided that, if

the slave-master shall give his six-year slave a wife, and she bear him

sons or daughters, that the wife and the children shall be the property

of her master. In these precepts it is also permitted that a man may

sell his own daughter for the most base purposes. Also that a master

may beat his slave so that if he do not die until a few days after the

ill-treatment, the master shall escape justice because the slave is

his money. Also that Jews may buy strangers and keep them as slaves for

ever. While Moses was up in the mount the people clamored for Aaron to

make them gods. Moses had stopped away so long that the people gave him

up for lost. Aaron, whose duty it was to have pacified and restrained

them, and to have kept them in the right faith, did nothing of the kind.

He induced them to bring all their gold, and then made it into a calf,

before which he built an altar, and then proclaimed a feast. Manners and

customs change. In those days the Jews did see the God that Aaron took

their gold for, but now the priests take the people's gold, and the poor

contributors do not even see a calf for their pains, unless indeed

they are near a mirror at the time when they are making their voluntary

contributions. And the Lord told Moses what happened, and said, "I

have seen this people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people. Now,

therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and

that I may consume them." Moses would not comply with God's request,

but remonstrated, and expostulated, and begged him not to afford the

Egyptians an opportunity of speaking against him. Moses succeeded in

changing the unchangeable, and the Lord repented of the evil which he

thought to do unto his people.

Although Moses would not let God's "wrath wax hot" his own "anger waxed

hot," and he broke, in his rage, the two tables of stone which God had

given him, and on which the Lord had graven and written with his own

finger. We have now no means of knowing in what language God wrote,

or whether Moses afterward took any pains to rivet together the broken

pieces. It is almost to be wondered at that the Christian Evidence

Societies have not sent missionaries to search for these pieces of the

tables, which may even yet remain beneath the mount. Moses took the calf

which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and

strewed it upon water and made the children of Israel drink of it.

After this Moses armed the priests and killed 3,000 Jews, "and the

Lord plagued the people because they had made the calf which Aaron had

made."* Moses afterward pitched the tabernacle without the camp; and the

cloudy pillar in which the Lord went, descended and stood at the door

of the tabernacle; and the Lord talked to Moses "face to face, as a man

would to his friend."** And the Lord then told Moses, "Thou canst not

see my face, for there shall no man see me and live."*** Before this

Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of

Israel, "saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet, as it

were, a paved work of sapphire stone,... and upon the nobles of the

children of Israel he laid not his hand; also they saw God, and did eat

and drink."****

* Exodus xxxii, 35.

** Ib. xxxiii, 11.

*** Ib. xxxiii, 20.

**** Ib. xxiv,9.

Aaron, the brother of Moses, died under very strange circumstances. The

Lord said unto Moses, "Strip Aaron of his garments and put them upon

Eleazar, his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall

die there." And Moses did as the Lord commanded, and Aaron died there on

the top of the mount, where Moses had taken him. There does not appear

to have been any coroner's inquest in the time of Aaron, and the

suspicious circumstances of the death of the brother of Moses have been

passed over by the faithful.

When Moses was leading the Israelites over Moab, Balak the King of the

Moabites sent to Balaam in order to get Balaam to curse the Jews. When

Balak's messengers were with Balaam, God came to Balaam also, and asked

what men they were. Of course God knew, but he inquired for his own

wise purposes, and Balaam told him truthfully. God ordered Balaam not to

curse the Jews, and therefore the latter refused, and sent the Moabitish

messengers away. Then Balak sent again high and mighty princes under

whose influence Balaam went mounted on an ass, and God's anger was

kindled against Balaam, and he sent an angel to stop him by the way; but

the angel did not understand his business well, and the ass first ran

into a field, and then close against the wall, and it was not until

the angel removed to a narrower place that he succeeded in stopping the

donkey; and when the ass saw the angel she fell down. Balaam did not see

the angel at first; and, indeed we may take it as a fact of history that

asses have always been the most ready to perceive angels.

Moses may have been a great author, but we have little means of

ascertaining what he wrote in the present day. Divines talk of Genesis

to Deuteronomy as the five books of Moses, but Eusebius, in the fourth

century, attributed them to Ezra, and Saint Chrysostom says that the

name of Moses has been affixed to the books without authority, by

persons living long after him. It is quite certain that if Moses lived

3,300 years ago, he did not write in square letter Hebrew, and this

because the character has not existed so long. It is indeed doubtful if

it can be carried back 2,000 years. The ancient Hebrew character, though

probably older than this, yet is comparatively modern among the ancient

languages of the earth.

It is urged by orthodox chronologists that Moses was born about 1450

B. C., and that the Exodus took place about 1401 B. C. Unfortunately

"there are no recorded dates in the Jewish Scriptures that are

trustworthy." Moses, or the Hebrews, not being mentioned upon Egyptian

monuments from the twelfth to the seventeenth century B. C. inclusive,

and never being alluded to by any extant writer who lived prior to the

Septuagint translation at Alexandria (commencing in the third century

B. C.), there are no extraneous aids, from sources alien to the Jewish

Books through which any information, worthy of historical acceptance,

can be gathered elsewhere about him or them.*

Moses died in the land of Moab when he was 120 years of age. The Lord

buried Moses in a valley of Moab, over against Bethpeor, but no man

knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day. Josephus says that "a cloud

came over him on the sudden and he disappeared in a certain valley." The

devil disputed about the body of Moses, contending with the Archangel

Michael;** but whether the devil or the angel had the best of the

discussion, the bible does not tell us.

De Beauvoir Priaulx,*** looking at Moses as a counselor, leader, and

legislator, says: "Invested with this high authority, he announced to

the Jews their future religion, and announced it to them as a state

religion, and as framed for a particular state, and that state only.

* Gliddon's Types of Mankind: Mankind's Chronology, p. 711.

** Jude, v. 9.

*** Questiones Mosaicæ, p. 488.

He gave this religion, moreover, a creed so narrow and negative--he

limited it to objects so purely temporal, he crowded it with observances

so entirely ceremonial or national--that we find it difficult to

determine whether Moses merely established this religion in order

that by a community of worship he might induce in the tribe-divided

Israelites that community of sentiment which would constitute them a

nation; or, whether he only roused them to a sense of their national

dignity, in the hope that they might then more faithfully perform the

duties of priests and servants of Jehovah. In other words, we hesitate

to decide whether in the mind of Moses the state was subservient to the

purposes of religion, or religion to the purposes of state."

The same writer observes* that, according to the Jewish writings, Moses

"is the friend and favorite of the Deity. He is one whose prayers and

wishes the Deity hastens to fulfill, one to whom the Deity makes

known his designs. The relations between God and the prophet are most

intimate. God does not disdain to answer the questions of Moses, to

remove his doubts, and even occasionally to receive his suggestions, and

to act upon them even in opposition to his own predetermined decrees."

* Questiones Mosaicæ p. 418.

NEW LIFE OF JONAH

Jonah was the son of Amittai of Gath-hepher, which place divines

identify with Gittah-hepher of the Children of Zebulun. Dr. Iuman says

that Gath-hepher means "the Heifer's trough." Gesenius translates it

"the wine-press of the well." Bible dictionaries say that Gath-hepher

is the same as el-Meshhad, and affirm that the tomb of Jonah was "long

shown on a rocky hill near the town." The blood of Saint Januarius is

shown in Naples to this day. Nothing is known of the sex or life of

Amittai, except that Jonah was his or her son, and that Gath-hepher was

her or his place of residence; but to a true believer these two facts,

even though standing utterly alone, will be pregnant with instruction.

To the skeptic and railer, Amittai is as an unknown quantity in an

algebraic problem. Jonah was not a very common proper name, [------]

means a dove, and some derive it from the Arabic root--to be weak,

gentle; so that one meaning of Jonah, according to Gesenius, would be

feeble, gentle bird. The prophet Jonah was by no means a feeble, gentle

bird; he was rather a bird of prey. Certainly it was his intention to

become a bird of passage. The date of the birth of Jonah is not given;

the margin of my bible dates the book of Jonah B. C. cir. 862, and my

bible dictionary fixes the date of the matter to which the book relates

at "about B. C. 830." If from any reason either of these dates should be

disagreeable to the reader, he can choose any other date without fear

of anachronism. Jonah was a prophet; so is Dr. Cumming, so is Brigham

Young; there is no evidence that Jonah followed any other profession.

Jonah's profit probably hardly equaled that realized by the Archbishop

of Canterbury, but he had money enough to pay his fare "from the

presence of the Lord" to Tarshish. The exact distance of this voyage may

be easily calculated by remembering that the Lord is omnipresent, and

then measuring from his boundary to Tarshish. The fare may be worked out

by the differential calculus after evening prayer.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah; when or how the word came the text

does not record, and to any devout mind it is enough to know that it

came. The first time in the world's history that the word of the Lord

ever came to anybody, may be taken to be when Adam and Eve "heard the

voice of the Lord" "walking in the Garden" of Eden "in the cool of the

day." Between the time of Adam and Jonah a long period had elapsed; but

human nature, having had many prophets, was very wicked. The Lord wanted

Jonah to go with a message to Nineveh. Nineveh was apparently a city of

three days' journey in size. Allowing twenty miles for each day,

this would make the city about 60 miles across, or about 180 miles

in circumference. Some faint idea may be formed of this vast city,

by adding together London, Paris, and New York, and then throwing

in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Marseilles, Naples,

Spurgeon's Tabernacle. Jonah knowing that the Lord did not always carry

out his threats or perform his promises, did not wish to go to Nineveh,

and "rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord," The

Tarshish for which Jonah intended his flight was either in Spain or

India or elsewhere. I am inclined, after deep reflection and examination

of the best authorities, to give the preference to the third-named

locality. When Cain went "out of the presence of the Lord," he went into

the Land of Nod, but whether Tarshish is in that or some other country

there is no evidence to determine. To get to Tarshish, Jonah--instead

of going to the port of Tyre, which was the nearest to his reputed

dwelling, and by far the most commodious--went to the more distant and

less convenient port of Joppa, where he found a ship going to Tarshish;

"so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them

into Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord." Jonah was, however, very

short-sighted. Just as in the old Greek mythology, winds and waves are

made warriors for the gods, so the God of the Hebrews "sent out a great

wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that

the ship was like to be broken." Luckily she was not an old leaky

vessel, over-laden and heavily insured; one which the sanctimonious

owners desired to see at the bottom, and which the captain did not care

to save. Christianity and civilization were yet to bring forth that

glorious resultant, a pious English ship-owner, with a newly-painted,

but, under the paint, a worn and rusty iron vessel, long abandoned

as unfit, but now fresh named, and so insured that Davy Jones' locker

becomes the most welcome haven of refuge. "The mariners were afraid....

and cast forth the wares" into the sea to lighten the ship. But where

was Jonah during this noise? Men trampling on deck, hoarse and harsh

words of command, and the fury of the storm troubled not our prophet.

Sea-sickness, which spares not the most pious, had no effect upon him.

"Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast

asleep." The battering of the waves against the sides disturbed not his

devout slumbers; the creaking of the vessel's timbers spoiled not his

repose. Despite the pitching and rolling of the vessel Jonah "was fast

asleep." Had he been in the comfortable berth of a Cunarder, it would

not have been easy to sleep through such a storm. Had he been in the

hold of a smaller vessel on the Bay of Biscay, finding himself now with

his head lower than his heels, and now with his body playing hide and

seek among loose articles of cargo, it would have required great absence

of mind to prevent waking. Had he only been on an Irish steamer carrying

cattle on deck, between Bristol and Cork, with a portion of the bulwarks

washed away, and a squad of recruits "who cried every man to his God,"

he would have found the calmness of undisturbed slumber difficult.

But Jonah was on board the Joppa and Tarshish boat, and he "was fast

asleep." As the crew understood the theory of storms, they of course

knew that when there is a tempest at sea it is sent by God, because he

is offended by some one on board the vessel. Modern scientists scout

this notion, and pretend to track storm waves across the world, and to

affix storm signals in order to warn mariners. They actually profess to

predict atmospheric changes, and to explain how such changes take place.

Church clergymen know how futile science is, and how potent prayers are,

for vessels at sea. The men on the Joppa vessel said, "every one to his

fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause

this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah."

It was always a grave question in sacred metaphysics as to whether

God directed Jonah's lot, and, if yes, whether the casting of lots

is analogous to playing with loaded dice. The Bishop of Lincoln, who

understands how far cremation may render resurrection awkward, is the

only divine capable of thoroughly resolving this problem. For ordinary

Christians it is enough to know that the lot fell upon Jonah.

Before the crew commenced casting lots to find out, they had cast lots

of their wares overboard, so that when the lot fell on Jonah it was much

lighter than it would have been had the lot fallen upon him during his

sleep. Still, if not stunned by the lot which fell upon him, he stood

convicted as the cause of the tempest and the crews. "Then said they

unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us;

What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country?

and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew;

and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the

dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why

hast thou done this? For the men-knew that he fled from the presence of

the Lord, because he had told them. Then said they unto him, What shall

we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought,

and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me

forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you; for I know that

for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed

hard to bring it to the land; but they could not; for the sea wrought,

and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord,

and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish

for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O

Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast

him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging." No pen can

improve this story; it is so simple, so natural, so child-like. Every

one has heard of casting oil on troubled waters. It stands to reason

that a fat prophet would produce the same effect. What a striking

illustration of the power of faith it will be when bishops leave their

own sees in order to be in readiness to calm an ocean storm. Or if not

a bishop, at least a curate; and even a lean curate, for with sea air,

a ravenous appetite, and a White Star Line cabin bill of fare of

breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, and supper, fatness would soon be arrived

at. In the interests of science I should like to see an episcopal

prophet occasionally thrown overboard during a storm. The experiment

must in any case be advantageous to humanity; should the tempest be

stilled, then the ocean would be indeed the broad way, not leading to

destruction; should the storm not be conquered, there would even then be

promotion in the Church, and happiness to many at the mere cost of one

bishop. "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah."

Jesus says the fish was a whale. A whale would have needed preparation,

and the statement has an air of _vraisemblance_. The fish did swallow

Jonah. "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."

Poor Jonah! and poor fish! Poor Jonah, for it can scarcely be pleasant,

even if you escape suffocation, to be in a fish's belly with too much

to drink, and no room to swallow, and your solids either raw or too much

done. Poor fish! for even after preparation it must be disagreeable to

have one's poor stomach turned into a sort of prayer meeting. Jonah was

taken in; but the fish found that taking in a parson was a feat neither

easy nor healthy. After Jonah had uttered guttural sounds from inside

the fish's belly for three days and three nights, the Lord spake unto

the fish, and the fish was sick of Jonah, "and it vomited out Jonah upon

the dry land." Some skeptics urged that a whale could not have swallowed

Jonah; but once, at Todmorden, a Church of England clergyman, who had

been curate to the Reverend Charles Kingsley, got rid of this as an

objection by assuring us that he should have equally believed the story

had it stated that Jonah had swallowed the whale. And then the word of

the Lord came to Jonah once more, and this time Jonah obeyed. He was to

take God's message to the citizens of Nineveh. "And Jonah began to enter

into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days,

and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Should Jonah come to London in the

present day with a similar message, he would meet scant courtesy from

our clergy. A foreigner and using a strange tongue, he would probably

find himself in Colney Hatch or Hanwell. To come to England in the name

of Mahomet or Buddha, or Osiris or Jupiter, would have little effect.

But the Ninevites do not seem even to have raised the question that the

God of the Hebrews was not their God. They listened to Jonah, and

"the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on

sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word

came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid

his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes.

And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the

decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast,

herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water: but

let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God:

yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence

that is in their hands." The consumption of sackcloth for covering

every man and beast must have been rather large, and the Nineveh

sackcloth manufacturers must have had enormous stocks on hand to supply

the sudden demand. The city article of the _Nineveh Times_, if such a

paper existed, would probably have described "sackcloth firm, with

a tendency to rise." Man and beast, all dressed in or covered with

sackcloth! It would be sometimes difficult to distinguish a Ninevite

man from a Ninevite beast, the dress being similar for all. This is a

difficulty, however, other nations have shared with the Ninevites. Men

and women may sometimes be seen in London dressed in broadcloth and

satins, and, though their clothing is distinguishable enough, their

conduct is sometimes so beastly that the naked beasts are the more

respectable.

Nineveh was frightened, and Nineveh moaned, and Nineveh determined to

do wrong: no more. "And God saw their works, that they turned from their

evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would

do unto them; and he did it not." God, the unchangeable, changed his

purpose, and spared the city, which in his infinite wisdom he had

doomed. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." It

was enough to vex a saint to be sent to prophesy the destruction of the

city in six weeks, and then nothing at all to happen. "And he prayed

unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying,

when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish."

Jonah did not like to be a discredited prophet and cried, "Therefore

now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for

me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?"

Jonah, knowing the Lord, was still curious and uncertain as well as

angry. He was a prophet and a skeptic. "So Jonah went out of the city,

and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and

sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the

city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over

Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his

grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a

worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it

withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared

a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he

fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to

die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for

the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then

said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou

hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and

perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city,

wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that can not discern

between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"

The Lord seems to have overlooked that Jonah had more pity on himself

than the gourd, whose only value to him was as a shade from the sun.

Jonah, too, might have reminded the Lord that there were more than

120,000 persons similarly situated at the deluge and at the slaughter

of the Midianites, and that the "much cattle" had never theretofore been

reckoned in the divine decrees of mercy.

Here ends the new life of Jonah. Of the prophet's childhood we know

nothing; of his middle age no more than we have here related; of his old

age and death we have nothing to say. It is enough for good Christians

to know that "Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly;

so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of

the earth." According to Jesus the story of Jonah is as true as Gospel.

WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST?

Many persons will consider the question heading this pamphlet as one to

which the Gospels have given a sufficient answer, and that no further

inquiry is necessary. We, in reply, point out that while the general

Christian body affirm that Jesus was God incarnate on earth, the

Unitarian Christians, less in numerical strength, but numbering a large

proportion of the more intelligent and humane, absolutely deny this

divinity; and even in the earliest ages of the Christian Church

heretics were found who scrupled not to deny that Jesus had ever existed

in the flesh. Under these circumstances, it is well to prosecute the

inquiry to the uttermost, that our faith may rest on sure foundations.

The history of Jesus Christ is contained in four books, or gospels. We

know not with any degree of certainty, and have now no means of knowing,

when these gospels were written, we know not where they were written,

and we know not by whom they were written. Until after the year A. D.

200, no author, except Irenæus, professes to mention any gospels by

Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and there is no sufficient evidence to

identify the gospels we have with the writings to which Irenseus refers.

The Church has, however, kindly provided us with an author for each

gospel, and the early Fathers have proved there ought to be four

gospels, because there are four seasons, four principal points to the

compass, etc. Our duty is simply to believe. With regard to the gospel

first in order, it is true that divines themselves disagree as to the

language in which it was written. Some allege that the original was in

Hebrew, others deny that our Greek version has any of the characters

of a translation. This increases our difficulty, but if we wish

for temporal welfare we must believe with the party which is most

fashionable, and if we simply wish for truth, we had better disregard

all parties and avoid their creeds. Our authorized English translation

of the four gospels is made from the received Greek version; this

version was made at Alcala in Spain, and the MSS. from which it was

obtained were afterward sold by the pious Christians and manufactured

into sky-rockets by one Torjo, a firework maker. So that the same

Christians who threaten us with the pains of hell if we reject the

gospels, actually condemned their own books to brimstone and fire. The

only variation in the mode of burning is this--the holy MSS., when made

into sky-rockets, were shot upward and burnt in their ascent to the

heavenly regions, and we are to burn in our descent into the lower

regions of the bottomless pit.

We do not know the hour, the day, the month, or the year, in which Jesus

was born. The only point on which divines generally agree is, that he

was not born on Christmas Day. The Oxford chronology places the matter

in no clearer light, and more than thirty learned authorities give us a

period of over seven years difference in their reckoning. The place of

his birth is also uncertain, as may be ascertained by careful reference

to the text. For instance, the Jews in the very presence of Jesus

reproached him that he ought to have been born at Bethlehem, and he

never ventured to say, "I was born there." (John vii, 41, 42, 52.)

Jesus was the son of David the son of Abraham (Matthew i), and his

descent from Abraham is traced through Isaac, who was born of Sarai

(whom the writer of the Epistle to Galatians, chap, iv, v. 24, says was

a covenant and not a woman), and ultimately through Joseph, who was not

only not his father, but is not shown to have had any relationship to

Jesus at all, and through whom the genealogy should not be traced.

There are two genealogies in the four gospels which have the merit of

contradicting each other, and these in part may be collated with the Old

Testament genealogy, which has the advantage of agreeing with neither.

Much prayer and faith will be required in this introduction to the

history of Jesus. The genealogy of Matthew possesses peculiar points

of interest to a would-be believer. It is self-contradictory, counts

thirteen names as fourteen without explanation, and omits the names of

three kings without apology. Matthew (i, 13), says Abiud was the son

of Zorobabel. Luke says Zorobabel's son was Rhesa. The Old Testament

contradicts both, and gives Meshullam and Hananiah and Shelomith, their

sister (1 Chron. iii, 19), as the names of Zorobabel's children. Some

Greek MSS. insert "Joram" into Luke iii, 33. I do not know whether we

shall be damned for omitting or for inserting Joram: those who believe

had better look to this. Jesus was born without a father after his

mother had been visited by the angel Gabriel, who "came in unto her"

with a message from God. His reputed father, Joseph, had two fathers,

one named Jacob, the other named Heli. The divines feeling this to be a

difficulty, have kindly invented a statement that Heli was the father

of Mary. The birth of Jesus was miraculously announced to Mary and to

Joseph by visits of an angel, but they so little regarded the miraculous

annunciation that they marveled soon after at things spoken by Simeon,

which were much less wonderful in character. Jesus was the Son of God,

or God manifest in the flesh, and his birth was first discovered by

some wise men or astrologers. The God of the bible, who is a spirit, had

previously said that these men were an abomination in his sight, and

he therefore, doubtless, preferred them to be his first visitors in the

flesh to keep up his character for incomprehensibility. These men saw

_his_ star in the East, but it did not tell them much, for they were

obliged to come and ask information from Herod the king. Herod inquired

of the chief priests and scribes; and it is evident Jeremiah was right,

if he said, "The prophets prophecy falsely and the priests bear rule by

their means," for these chief priests, like the Brewin Grants and the

Brindleys of the present day, misquoted to suit their purposes, and

invented a false prophecy by omitting a few words from, and adding a

few words to, a text until it suited their purpose. The star, after they

knew where to go, and no longer required its aid, led the wise men and

went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child

was. The story will be better understood if the reader will walk out

at night and notice some star, and then see how many houses it will be

over. The writer of the third gospel does not appear to have been aware

of the star story, and he therefore invents an angel who tells some

shepherds; but as this last named adventure does not appear to have

happened in the reign of Herod at all, perhaps Jesus was born twice.

After the wise men had left Jesus, an angel warned Joseph to flee with

him and Mary into Egypt, and Joseph did fly and remained there with the

young child and his mother until the death of Herod; and this was done

to fulfill a prophecy. On referring to Hosea (xi, 1), we find the words

have no reference whatever to Jesus, and that, therefore, either the

tale of the flight is invented as a fulfillment of the prophecy, or the

prophecy manufactured to support the tale of the flight. The Jesus of

the third gospel never went into Egypt at all in his childhood; perhaps

there were two Jesus Christs?

When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age he was baptized by John

in the river Jordan. John, who knew him, according to the writer of the

first gospel, forbade him directly he saw him; but, according to the

writer of the fourth gospel, he knew him not, and had, therefore, no

occasion to forbid him. God is an "invisible" "spirit," whom no man hath

seen (John i, 18), or can see. (Exodus xxxiii, 20); but John, who was

a man, saw the spirit of God descending like a dove. God is everywhere,

but at that time was in heaven, from whence he said, "This is my beloved

Son, in whom I am well pleased." Although John heard this from God's own

mouth, he did not always believe it, but sometime after sent two of his

disciples to Jesus to inquire if he were really the Christ (Matthew xi,

2, 3).

Immediately after the baptism, Jesus was led up of the spirit into the

wilderness to be tempted of the devil. I do not know anything about

either "the spirit" or "the devil" here mentioned, and the writer does

not explain anything about them; he speaks of them familiarly, as old

acquaintances. Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and in those

days he did eat nothing. Of course it would be difficult to find a more

severe fast--forty days and nights is a long period to abstain from

food. Moses fasted twice that period. Such fasts take place in religious

books, but they are seldom found in every-day life. Such fasts are

nearly miraculous. Miraculous events are events which never happened in

the past, do not take place in the present, and never will occur in the

future. Jesus was God, and by his power as God fasted. This all must

believe. The only difficulty is, to understand on the hypothesis of his

divinity, what made him hungry. When Jesus was hungry the devil tempted

him by offering him stones, and asking him to make them bread. We

have heard of men having hard nuts to crack, but that stones should

be offered to a hungry man for extempore bread-making hardly seems a

probable temptation. Which temptation came next is a matter of doubt.

The Holy Ghost, which the clergy assert inspired Matthew and Luke, does

not appear to have inspired them both alike, and they relate the story

of the temptation in different order. According to one, the devil next

taketh Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and tempts him to throw

himself to the bottom, by quoting Scripture that angels should bear him

in their arms. Jesus was, however, either a disbeliever in Scripture,

or remembered that the devil, like other gentlemen in black, grossly

misquoted to suit his purpose, and the temptation failed. The devil then

took Jesus to an exceedingly high mountain, from whence he showeth him

all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory thereof, in a moment of

time, which was very quick. It is urged that this did not include a view

of the antipodes, but only referred to the kingdoms then known. If this

be true, it must have been a long look from Judea to China, which was

then a known kingdom. The eye of faith will, however, see things afar

off and sometimes will also see things which are not. The mountain must

have been very high--much higher than the diameter of the earth; it must

have been solid in proportion, therefore would have capsized the earth

in its revolutions, if even temporarily placed upon it. The devil then

offered Jesus, who was the same as God, and therefore omnipotent, all

the kingdoms of the world, if he, Jesus the omnipotent God, would fall

down and worship his own creature, the devil. Some object that if God is

the creator and omnipotent ruler of the world, then the devil would have

no control over the kingdoms of the world, and that the offer could be

no temptation as it was made to Jesus, who was both God omnipotent and

all-wise, as well as man. These objectors may easily be answered by

asserting that it requires a proper submission of the intellect, and

an abhorrence of worldly reason, in order properly to understand these

books. After this Jesus taught the multitudes. His teachings will form

the subject of a separate tract. We are here only endeavoring to answer

our preliminary question by a narration of his history.

After the temptation, Jesus is alleged to have worked many miracles,

casting out devils, and otherwise creating marvels among the inhabitants

of Judea. Bedevilment is now at a sad discount, and if a second Jesus of

Nazareth were in this heretical age to boast that he possessed the power

of casting out devils, he would stand a fair chance of expiating

his offense by a three months' penance with hard labor in the highly

polished interior of some borough jail. Now if men be sick and they have

a little wisdom, the physician is resorted to, who administers medicine

to cure the disease. If men have much wisdom they study physiology,

while they have health, in order to prevent sickness altogether. In the

time of the early Christians prayer and faith (James v, 14, 15) occupied

the position of utility since usurped by rhubarb, jalap, _et similibus_.

Men who had lost their sight in the time of Christ were attacked not by

disease but by the devil; we have heard of men seeing double who have

allowed spirits to get into their heads. In the days of Jesus one spirit

would make a man blind, or deaf, or dumb; occasionally a number of

devils would get into a man and drive him mad. We do not doubt this, nor

do we ask our readers to doubt. We are grieved to be obliged to add

that although we do not doubt the story of devils, neither do we believe

them. Our state of mind is neither that of doubt, nor of absolute

conviction of their correctness. On one occasion, Jesus met either one

man (Mark v, 2) or two men (Matthew viii, 28) possessed with devils. I

am not in a position to advance greater reasons for believing that it

was one man who was possessed than for believing there were two in the

clutches of the devils. The probabilities are equal--that is, the

amount of probability is not greater upon the one side than upon the

other--that is, there is no probability on either side. The devils knew

Jesus and addressed him by name. Jesus was not so familiar with the imp,

or imps, and we find inquired the name of the particular devil he was

addressing. The answer given in Latin would induce a belief that the

devils usually spoke in that tongue. This may be an error, but, of

course, it is well to give consideration to every particular when we

know we are to be eternally damned if we happen to believe the wrong

statement. Jesus wanted to cast out the devils, this they do not seem

to have cared about, but they appear to have had a decided objection to

being cast out of the country. Whether Palestine was the native country

of the devils, and that therefore they were loth to quit it, I know not,

but it is likely enough, as Christianity is alleged to have had its rise

there. A compromise was agreed to, and at their own request the devils

were transferred to a herd of swine. People who believe this may be said

to "go the whole hog." The Jesus of the four gospels is also alleged

to have fed large multitudes of people under circumstances of a most

ultra-thaumaturgic character. To the first book of Euclid is, prefixed

an axiom that "the whole is greater than its part." John Wesley

is alleged to have eschewed mathematics lest it should lead him to

Infidelity. John Wesley was wise, for if any man be foolish enough to

accept Euclid's axiom, he will be compelled to reject the miraculous

feeding of 5,000 people with five loaves and two small fishes. It is

difficult under any circumstances to perform a miracle. The original

difficulty is rather increased than diminished by the assertion that

after the multitude had been fed, twelve baskets full of fragments

remained. Perhaps the loaves were very large or the baskets very small.

Jesus is related to have walked on the sea at a time when it was very

stormy, and when, to use the words of the text, "the sea arose by reason

of a great wind that blew." Walking on the water is a great feat if it

be calm, but when the waves run high it is still more wonderful. Perhaps

it was because Jesus must have been often engulfed by the angry waves,

that one sect prefers baptism by complete immersion. We admire this

miracle; we know how difficult it is for a man to keep his head above

water in the affairs of life.

The miracle of turning water into wine at Cana, in Galilee, is worthy of

considerable attention, in the endeavor to answer the question, Who

was Jesus Christ? Jesus and his disciples had been called to a marriage

feast, and when there the company fell short of wine. The mother of

Jesus to whom the Catholics offer worship, and pay great adoration,

informed Jesus of the deficiency. Jesus, who was very meek and gentle,

answered her in the somewhat uncourteous and unmeaning phrase, "Woman,

what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." His mother

seemed to have expected a miracle by her conduct, yet if the fourth

gospel speak the truth, that was the beginning of miracle working on the

part of Jesus. Perhaps something had previously happened which is not

recorded, and which would explain this apparent inconsistency. We must

exert our faith to fill up any little gap which may be in the way of

salvation. Jesus having obtained six waterpots full of water, turned

them into wine. Teetotalers who reject spirits in bottles, but accept

spiritual teachings, and who can not believe God would specially provide

means of drunkenness, urge that this wine was not of intoxicating

quality. We will hope their hypothesis is a correct one, but there

is nothing to justify it in our text. In fact, the curious connection

between the phrase "well drunk" and the time at which the miracle was

performed, would almost warrant the allegation that the guests were

already in such a state as to render unnecessary the administration of

further intoxicants. The moral effects of this miracle are not easily

conceivable by carnal minds.

Shortly after this Jesus went to the temple, and in a meek and quiet

manner, with a scourge of small curds drove thereout the cattle dealers

and money changers who had assembled there in the ordinary course of

their business. It is hardly probable that the Jews would have permitted

this without violent resistance to so rough a course of procedure. The

writer of the fourth gospel placed this event very early in the public

life of Jesus. The writer of the third gospel fixes the occurrence

much later. Perhaps it happened twice, or perhaps they have both made a

mistake in the time.

The Jesus of the four gospels is alleged to have been God all-wise;

being hungry, he went to a fig-tree, when the season of figs was not yet

come. Of course there were no figs upon the tree, and Jesus then caused

the tree to wither away. This is an interesting account to a true

orthodox trinitarian. Such a one will believe: first, that Jesus was

God, who made the tree, and prevented it from bearing figs; second, that

God the all-wise, who is not subject to human passions, being hungry,

went to the fig-tree, on which he knew there would be no figs, expecting

to find some there; third, that God the all-just then punished the tree

because it did not bear figs in opposition to God's eternal ordination.

This account is a profound mystery to a truly religious man. He bow's

his head, flings his carnal reason away, and looks at the matter in a

prayerful spirit, with an eye of faith. Faith as a grain of mustard

seed will remove a mountain. The only difficulty is to get the grain

of faith; all is easy when that is done. The "eye of faith" is a great

help, it sometimes enables men to see that which does not exist. Jesus

had a disciple named Peter, who, having much faith, was a great rascal

and denied his leader in his hour of need. Jesus was previously aware

that Peter would be a rascal, and he gave him the keys of the kingdom of

heaven, and told him that whatsoever be bound on earth should be bound

in heaven. Many an honest man has been immured in a dungeon, and has had

the key turned on him by a rascally jailor. It is to be regretted that

the like should be promised for all eternity. Peter was to have denied

Jesus three times before the cock should crow (Matt. 26, 34). The cock

was doubtless an infidel cock, and would not wait. He crowed before

Peter's second denial (Mark xiv, 68).

Commentators urge that the words used do not refer to the crowing of any

particular cock, but to a special hour of the morning called "cockcrow."

The commentators have but one difficulty to get over, and that is, that

if the gospel be true, their explanation is false.

Peter's denial becomes the more extraordinary when we remember that he

had seen Moses, Jesus, and Elias talking together, and had heard a voice

from a cloud say, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

If Peter could thus deny Jesus after having heard God vouch his

divinity, and if Peter not only escapes punishment but gets the office

of gatekeeper to heaven, how much should we escape punishment and

obtain reward, who only deny because we can not help it, and who have no

corroborative evidence of sight or hearing to compel our faith?

The Jesus of the first gospel promised that, as Jonas was three days and

three nights in the whale's belly, so he (Jesus) would be three days

and three nights in the heart of the earth. Yet he was buried on Friday

evening, and was out of the grave before Saturday was over. Of course

this is susceptible of explanation; you must have faith and believe

that in some other language something else was said which ought to be

translated differently. Or, if you can not believe thus, then you must

have faith until you stretch the one day and part of another day, and

one night and part of another night, into three days and three nights.

Our orthodox translators have made Jesus perform a curious equestrian

feat on his entry into Jerusalem. The text says, they "brought the ass

and the colt and put on them their clothes and set him thereon." Perhaps

this does not mean that he rode on both at one time.

On the cross, the Jesus of the four gospels, who was God, cried out, "My

God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" God can not forsake himself.

Jesus was God himself. Yet God forsook Jesus, and the latter cried out

to know why he was forsaken. This is one of the mysteries of the holy

Christian religion which, "unless a man rightly believe without doubt he

shall perish everlastingly."

At the crucifixion of Jesus wonderful miracles took place. "The graves

were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came

out of the grave after his resurrection and appeared unto many." We do

not know which saints these were. Whether they numbered among them St.

Abraham, who permitted his wife to incur the risk of dishonor, and who

accepted riches to gild his shame; who turned his wife into the desert

with one bottle of water and some bread. Saint Lot, of whom the less

said the purer our pages; Saint Judah, who wanted to burn alive a woman

he had gotten with child; Saint Jacob, the liar and cheat; Saint Joseph,

the model prime minister, who bought the people's rights with their own

corn; Saint Moses, the conjuror, who killed 3,000 Jews because his own

brother Aaron had persuaded them to make a golden calf; Saint Jael, the

blessed above all women, because she drove most treacherously a nail

into the skull of a sleeping guest; Saint Samson, who slew one thousand

men with the jawbone of an ass; Saint Gideon, who frightened a

large body of Midianites, with trumpets, pitchers, and lanterns. Poor

Midianites, they had all been exterminated long before Gideon's time;

it must have been an extraordinary providence to bring them into life

in order to frighten them; but God's ways are not as our ways. This is

a digression--in plain language, we do not know who "the saints" were.

They "appeared unto many," but there is not the slightest evidence that

any one ever saw them. Their "bodies" came out of the graves, so we

suppose that the bodies of the saints do not decompose like those of

ordinary human beings. As the saints rose, so did Jesus. As they had

their bodies, so had he. He must have much changed in the grave, for his

disciples did not know him when he stood on the shore (John xxi, 4).

According to the first gospel Jesus appeared to two women after his

resurrection, and afterward met eleven of his disciples by appointment

on a mountain in Galilee. We do not know when the appointment was made;

the only verse on which divines rely as being capable of bearing this

construction is Matt, xxxi, 32, and that voice is silent both as to

place and time--in fact, gives no promise of any meeting whatever.

According to the second gospel, he appeared first to one women, and

when she told the disciples they did not believe it. Yet we are bound

to unhesitatingly accept that which the disciples of Jesus rejected. We

have an advantage which perhaps the disciples lacked. We have several

different stories of the same event, and we can select that which

appears to us the most probable. The disciples might have been so

unfortunate as to have only one account. By the second gospel we learn

that instead of the eleven going to Galilee after Jesus, he came to

them as they sat at meat. In the third gospel, wo are told that he first

appeared to two of his disciples at Emmaus, and they did not know him

until they had been a long time in his company--in fact, according to

the text, it was evening before they recognized him, so we suppose the

light of faith supplied the want of the light of day. Unfortunately

directly they saw him they did not see him, for as soon as they knew him

he vanished out of their sight. He immediately afterward appeared to the

eleven at Jerusalem, and not at Galilee, as stated in the first Gospel.

Jesus asked for some meat, and the disciples gave him a portion of a

broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and he did eat. In these degenerate

days it is hard to believe in a ghost eating fried fish, yet we must try

to do it for our soul's sake, which otherwise may be burned for ever

in the fire that is never quenched. There is certainly nothing more

improbable in God the Son eating broiled fish after he was dead, than

there is in believing God the Father ate dressed calf, tender and good,

prepared for him by Abraham (_vide_ Genesis xviii). A truly pious and

devout mind will not look at the letter which killeth, but for the

spirit which maketh alive. Jesus was afterward taken up into heaven, a

cloud received him, and he was missed. God of course is everywhere,

and heaven is not more above than below, but it is necessary we should

believe that Jesus has ascended into heaven to sit on the right hand

of God, who is infinite and has no right hand. Our question at the

commencement was, "Who was Jesus Christ?" Was he a man?--surely not.

Born without a father, in the lifetime of Herod, according to Luke.

Residing in Egypt, according to Matthew, at a period in which, if Luke

be true, he never could have visited Egypt at all. His whole career

is, not simply a series of improbabilities, not simply a series of

absurdities, but, in truth, a series of fables destitute of foundation

in fact.

Who was Christ? born of a virgin. So was Chrishna, the Hindoo god

incarnate. The story of Chrishna is identical in many respects with that

of Jesus. The story of Chrishna was current long prior to the birth of

Jesus. The story of Chrishna is believed by the inhabitants of Hindostan

and disbelieved by the English, who say it is a myth, a fable. We add

that both are equally true, and that both are equally false.

Who was Jesus Christ? A man or a myth? His history being a fable, is

the hero a reality? Do you allege that it was impossible to forge

books so large as the gospels? then the answer is that Christians

were skilled in the art of forging epistles, gospels, acts, decrees of

councils, etc. Will you urge that this only applies to the Romish Church?

Then you will admit that your stream runs from a polluted fountain?

Who was Jesus Christ? Who was Saint Patrick, who excelled the reptiles

from Ireland? Who was Fin ma coul? Who was Odin? Perhaps there was

a man who really lived and performed some special actions attracting

popular attention, but beyond this Jesus Christ is a fiction.

WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?

The doctrines of Jesus may be sought for and found in a small compass.

Four thin gospels are alleged to contain nearly the entirety of his

sayings, and as most Englishmen are professedly Christians, it might be

fairly supposed that the general public were conversant with Christ's

teachings. This, however, is not the case. The bulk of professors

believe from custom rather than from reading. They profess a faith as

they follow a fashion--because others have done so before them. What

did Jesus teach? Manly self-reliant resistance of wrong, and practice

of right? No; the key-stone of his whole teaching may be found in the

text, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of

heaven."*

* Matthew v, 3.

Is poverty of spirit the chief among virtues, that Jesus gives it the

prime place in his teaching? Is poverty of spirit a virtue at all?

Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty of spirit, fullness of rightful

purpose, these are virtues; but poverty of spirit is a crime. When men

are poor in spirit, then do the proud and haughty in spirit oppress and

trample upon them, but when men are true in spirit and determined (as

true men should be) to resist and prevent evil, wrong, and injustice

whenever they can, then is their greater opportunity for happiness here,

and no lesser fitness for the enjoyment of further happiness, in some

may-be heaven, hereafter. Are you poor in spirit, and are you smitten;

in such case what did Jesus teach? "Unto whom that smiteth thee on the

one cheek, offer also the other."* 'Twere better far to teach that "he

who courts oppression shares the crime." Rather say, if smitten once,

take careful measure to prevent a future smiting. I have heard men

preach passive resistance, but this teaches actual invitation of injury,

a course degrading in the extreme.

Shelley breathed higher humanity in his noble advice:

"Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms and looks, which are

Weapons of an unvanquished war."

There is a wide distinction between the passive resistance to wrong and

the courting of further injury at the hands of the wrongdoer. I have in

no case seen this better illustrated than in Mr. George Jacob Holyoake's

history of his imprisonment in Gloucester Jail,** where passive

resistance saved him from the indignity of a prison dress, and also from

compulsory attendance at morning prayer in the prison chapel, which in

his case would have been to him an additional insult. But the teaching

of Jesus goes much beyond this kind of conduct; the poverty of spirit

principle is enforced to the fullest extent--"Him that taketh away thy

cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that

asketh of thee, and from him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not

again."*** Poverty of person is the only possible sequence to this

extraordinary manifestation of poverty of spirit.

* Luke vi, 29.

** "Last trail by Jury for Atheism."

*** Luke vi, 29, 30.

Poverty of person is attended with many unpleasantnesses; and if Jesus

knew that poverty of goods would result from his teaching, we might

expect some notice of this. And so there is--as if he wished to keep the

poor content through their lives with poverty, he says, "Blessed be ye

poor for yours is the kingdom of God."* "But woe unto you that are rich,

for you have received your consolation."** He pictures one in hell,

whose only related vice is that in life he was rich; and another in

heaven, whose only related virtue is that in life he was poor.*** He at

another time tells his hearers that it is as difficult for a rich man

to get into heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.****

The only intent of such teaching could be to induce the poor to remain

content with the want and misery attendant on their wretched state in

this life, in the hope of a higher recompense in some future life. Is

it good to be content with poverty? Nay, 'tis better far to investigate

the cause of such poverty, with a view to its cure and prevention. The

doctrine is a most horrid one which declares that the poor shall not

cease from the face of the earth. Poor in spirit and poor in pocket.

With no courage to work for food, or money to purchase it! We might well

expect to find the man who held these doctrines with empty stomach also;

and what does Jesus teach?--"Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye

shall be filled."***** He does not say when the filling shall take

place, but the date is evidently postponed until the time when you will

have no stomachs to replenish. It is not in this life that the hunger

is to be sated. Do you doubt me, turn again to your Testament and read,

"Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger."****** This must

surely settle the point.

* Luke vi, 20.

** Luke vi, 24.

*** Luke xvi, 19--81.

**** Luke xviii, 25.

***** Luke vi, 21.

****** Luke vi, 25.

It would be but little vantage to the hungry man to bless him by filling

him, if, when he had satisfied his appetite, he were met by a curse

which had awaited the completion of his repast. Craven in spirit,

with an empty purse and hungry mouth--what next? The man who has not

manliness enough to prevent wrong will probably bemoan his hard fate,

and cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes he endures. And what

does Jesus teach?--"Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh."*

Is this true, and if true, when? "Blessed are they that mourn, for they

shall be comforted."** Aye, but when? Not while they mourn and weep.

Weeping for the past is vain; 'tis past, and a deluge of tears will

never wash away its history. Weeping for the present is worse than

vain--it obstructs your sight. In each minute of your life the aforetime

future is present-born, and you need dry and keen eyes to give it and

yourself a safe and happy deliverance. When shall they that mourn be

comforted? Are slaves that weep salt teardrops on their steel shackles

comforted in their weeping? Nay, but each pearly overflow, as it falls,

rusts mind as well as fetter. Ye who are slaves and weep, will never

be comforted until ye dry your eyes and nerve your arms, and, in the

plenitude of your manliness,

"Shake your chains to earth like dew,

Which in sleep have fallen on you."

Jesus teaches that the poor, the hungry and the wretched shall be

blessed? This is not so. The blessing only comes when they have ceased

to be poor, hungry and wretched. Contentment under poverty, hunger and

misery is high treason, not to yourself alone, but to your fellows.

These three, like foul diseases, spread quickly wherever humanity is

stagnant and content with wrong.

* Luke vi, 31.

** Matthew v, 4.

What did Jesus teach? "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."* So

far well, but how if thy neighbor will not hear thy doctrine when thou

preacheth the "glad tidings of great joy" to him? Then forgetting all

thy love, and with bitter hatred that a theological disputant alone can

manifest, thou "shalt shake off the dust from your feet," and by so

doing make it more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of

Sodom and Gomorrah than for your unfortunate neighbor who has ventured

to maintain an opinion of his own, and who will not let you be his

priest.** It is, indeed, a mockery to speak of love, as if love to one

another could result from the dehumanizing and isolating faith required

from the disciple of Jesus. Ignatius Loyola in this, at least, was more

consistent than his Protestant brethren, "If any man come unto

me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and

brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my

disciple."*** "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came

not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set men at variance

against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the

daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes they shall

be of his own household.****" "Every one that hath forsaken houses, or

brethren, or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or

lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit

everlasting life."***** The teaching of Jesus is, in fact, save

yourself by yourself. The teaching of humanity should be, to save

yourself save your fellow.

* Matthew xix, 19.

** Matthew x, 14,15.

*** Luke xiv, 26.

**** Matthew x, 84--86.

***** Matthew xix, 29.

The human family is a vast chain, each man and woman a link. There is

no snapping off one link and preserving for it an entirety of happiness;

our joy depends on our brother's also. But what does Jesus teach? That

"many are called, but few are chosen;" that the majority will inherit

an eternity of misery, while it is but the minority who obtain eternal

happiness. And on what is the eternity of bliss to depend? On a

truthful course of life? Not so. Jesus puts Father Abraham in Heaven,

whose reputation for faith outstrips his character for veracity. The

passport througli Heaven's portals is faith. "He that believeth and

baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be damned."*

Are you married? Have you a wife you love? She dies and you. You from

your first speech to your last had ever said, "I believe," much as a

clever parrot might say it, if well taught. You had never examined your

reasons for your faith for, like a true believer should, you distrusted

the efficacy of your carnal reason. You said, therefore, "I believe in

God and Jesus Christ," because you had been taught to say it, and you

would have as glibly said, "I believe in Allah, and in Mahomet his

prophet," had your birthplace been a few degrees more eastward, and your

parents and instructors Turks. You believed in this life and awake in

Heaven. Your much-loved wife did not think as you did--she could not.

Her organization, education and temperament were all different from your

own. She disbelieved because she could not believe. She was a good

wife, but she disbelieved, A good and affectionate mother, but she

disbelieved. A virtuous and kindly woman, but she disbelieved. And you

are to be happy for an eternity in Heaven, while she is writhing in

agony in Hell.

* Mark xvi,16.

If true, I could say with Shelley, of this Christianity, that it

"Peoples earth with demons, hell with men,

And heaven with slaves."

It is often urged that Jesus is the Savior of the world, that he brought

redemption without let or stint to the whole human race. But what did

Jesus teach? "Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and into any city of

the Samaritan enter ye not."* These were his injunctions to those whom

he first sent out to preach. "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of

the house of Israel," is his hard answer to the poor Syrophenician woman

who is entreating succor for her child. Christianity, as first taught by

Jesus, was for the Jews alone, and it is only upon his rejection by them

that the world at large has the opportunity of salvation afforded it.

"He came unto his own and his own received him not,"** Why should the

Jews be more God's own than the Gentiles? Is God the creator of all?

and did he create the descendant of Abraham with greater right and

privilege than all other men? Then, indeed, is great and grievous

injustice done. You and I had no choice whether we would be born Jews

or Gentiles; yet to the accident of such a birth is attached the first

offer of a salvation which if accepted, shuts out all beside. The

Kingdom of Heaven is a prominent feature in the teachings of Jesus, and

it may be well to ascertain, as precisely as we can, the picture drawn

by God incarnate of his own special domain. 'Tis likened to a wedding

feast, to which the invited guests coming not, servants are sent out

into the highways to gather all they can find--both good and bad. The

King comes in to see his motley array of guests, and findeth one without

a wedding garment.

* Matt. x, 5.

** John i, 11.

The King inquired why he came into the feast without one, and the man,

whoso attendance has been compulsorily enforced, is speechless. And who

can wonder? he is a guest from necessity, not choice, he neither chose

the fashion of his coming or his attiring. Then comes the King's decree,

the command of the all-merciful and loving King of Heaven: "Bind him

hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping

and gnashing of teeth." Commentators urge that it was the custom to

provide wedding garments for all guests, and that this man is punished

for his nonacceptance of the customary and ready robe. The text does not

warrant this position, but assigns, as an explanation of the parable,

that an invitation to the heavenly feast will not insure its partakal,

for that many are called, but few are chosen. What more of the

Kingdom of Heaven? "There shall be joy in Heaven over one sinner that

repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no

repentance."* Nay, it is urged that the greater sinner one has been, the

better saint he makes, and the more he has sinned, so much the more he

loves God. "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."** Is

not this indeed asserting that a life of vice, with its stains washed

away by a death-bed repentance, is better than a life of consistent and

virtuous conduct? Why should the fatted calf be killed for the prodigal

son?*** Why should men be taught to make to themselves friends of the

mammon of unrighteousness?

These ambiguities, these assertions of punishment and forgiveness of

crime, instead of directions for its prevention and cure, are serious

detractions from a system alleged to have been inculcated by one for

whom his followers claim divinity.

* Luke xv, 7.

** Luke 7, 47.

*** Luke xv, 27.

Will you again turn back to the love of Jesus as the redeeming feature

of the whole? Then, I ask you, read the story of the fig-tree* withered

by the hungry Jesus. The fig-tree, if he were all-powerful God, was

made by him, he limited its growth and regulated its development. He

prevented it from bearing figs, expected fruit where he had rendered

fruit impossible, and in his _infinite love_ was angry that the tree had

not upon it that which it could not have. Tell me the love expressed in

that remarkable speech which follows one of his parables, and in which

he says: "For, I say unto you, that unto every one which hath shall

be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be

taken away from him. But those, mine enemies, which would not that I

should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me."**

What love is expressed by that Jesus who, if he were God, represents

himself as saying to the majority of his unfortunate creatures (for it

is the few who are chosen): 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting

fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.'***

* Matt xxi, 18-22; Mark xi, 12-24.

** Luke xix, 26,17.

*** Matt, xxv, 41.

Far from love is this horrid notion of eternal torment. And yet the

popular preachers of to-day talk first of love and then of

"Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire,

Where poisonous and undying worms prolong

Eternal misery to those hapless slaves,

Whose life has been a penance for its crimes."

In reading the sayings attributed to Jesus, all must be struck by the

passage which so extraordinarily influenced the famous Origen.* If he

understood it aright, its teachings are most terrible. If he understood

it wrongly, what are we to say for the wisdom of teaching which

expresses so vaguely the meaning which it rather hides than discovers

by its words? The general intent of Christ's teaching seems to be an

inculcation of neglect of this life, in the search for another. "Labor

not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which en-dureth unto

everlasting life."** "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat,

or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on....

take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or

wherewithal shall we be clothed?.... But seek ye first the Kingdom of

God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto

you." The effect of these texts, if fully carried out, would be most

disastrous; they would stay all scientific discoveries, prevent all

development of man's energies. It is in the struggle for existence here

that men are compelled to become acquainted with the conditions which

compel happiness or misery. It is only by the practical application of

that knowledge, that the wants of society are understood and satisfied,

and disease, poverty, hunger, and wretchedness, prevented. Jesus

substitutes "I believe," for "I think," and puts "watch and pray,"

instead of "think and act." Belief is made the most prominent feature,

and is, indeed, the doctrine which pervades, permeates, and governs all

Christianity. It is represented that, at the judgment, the world will

be reproved "Of sin because they believe not." This teaching is most

disastrous; man should be incited to active thought: belief is a cord

which would bind him to the teachings of an uneducated past.

* Matt. xix, 12.

** Matt, xxiv, 41.

Thought, mighty thought, mighty in making men most manly, will

burst this now rotting cord, and then--shaking off the cobwebbed and

dust-covered traditions of dark old times, humanity shall stand crowned

with a most glorious diadem of facts, which, like gems worn on a bright

summer's day, shall grow more resplendent as they reflect back the rays

of truth's meridian sun. Fit companion to blind belief in slave-like

prayer. Men pray as though God needed most abject entreaty ere he

would grant them justice. What does Jesus teach on this? What is his

direction on prayer? "After this manner pray ye: Our Father, which art

in heaven." Do you think that God is the Father of all, when you pray

that he will enable you to defeat some other of his children, with whom

your nation is at war? And why "which art in Heaven?" Where is Heaven?

you look upward, and if you were at the antipodes, would look upward

still. But that upward would be downward to us. Do you know where Heaven

is, if not, why say "which art in Heaven?" Is God infinite, then he is

in earth also, why limit him to Heaven? "Hallowed be thy name." What is

God's name? and if you know it not, how can you hallow it? How can God's

name be hallowed even if you know it? "Thy kingdom come." What is God's

kingdom, and will your praying bring it quicker? Is it the Judgment day,

and do you say "Love one another," pray for the more speedy arrival of

that day on which God may say to your fellow, "depart ye cursed into

everlasting fire?" "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." How

is God's will done in heaven? If the devil be a fallen angel, there must

have been rebellion even there. "Give us this day our daily bread," Will

the prayer get it without work? No. Will work get it without the prayer?

Yes? Why pray then for bread to God, who says, "Blessed be ye that

hunger.... woe unto you that are full?" "And forgive us our debts, as we

forgive our debtors." What debts have you to God? Sins? Samuel Taylor

Coleridge says, "A sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the

agent, and not in the compulsion of circumstances. Circumstances are

compulsory, from the absence of a power to resist or control them: and

if the absence likewise be the effect of circumstances.... the evil

derives from the circumstances.... and such evil is not sin."* Do you

say that you are independent of all circumstances, that you can control

them, that you have a free will? Mr. Buckle says that the assertion

of a free will "involves two assumptions, of which the first, though

possibly true, has never been proved, and the second is unquestionably

false. These assumptions are that there is an independent faculty,

called consciousness, and that the dictates of that faculty are

infallible."** "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from

evil." Do you think God will possibly lead you into temptation? if so,

you can not think him all-good, if not all-good he is not God, if God,

the prayer is a blasphemy.

* "Aids to Reflection," 1843, p. 200.

** "History of Civilization," vol. i, p. 14.

I close this paper with the last scene in Jesus' life, not meaning that

I have--in these few pages--fully examined his teachings; but hoping

that enough is even here done to provoke inquiry and necessitate debate,

Jesus, according to the general declaration of Christian divines, came

to die, and what does he teach by his death? The Rev. F. D. Maurice it

is, I think, who well says, "That he who kills for a faith must be

weak, that he who dies for a faith must be strong." How did Jesus die?

Giordano Bruno, and Julius Caesar Vanini, were burned for Atheism. They

died calm, heroic defiant of wrong. Jesus, who could not die, courted

death, that he, as God, might accept his own atonement, and might pardon

man for a sin which he had not committed, and in which he had no share.

The death he courted came, and when it came he could not face it, but

prayed to himself that he might not die. And then, when on the cross,

if two of the gospels do him no injustice, his last words--as there

recorded--were a bitter cry of deep despair, "My God, my God, why hast

thou forsaken me?" The Rev. Enoch Mellor, in his work on the Atonement,

says, "I seek not to fathom the profound mystery of these words. To

understand their full import would require one to experience the agony

of desertion they express." Do the words, "My God, my God, why hast

thou forsaken me?" express an "agony" caused by a consciousness of

"desertion?" Doubtless they do; in fact, if this be not the meaning

conveyed by the despairing death-cry, then there is in it no meaning

whatever. And if those words do express a "bitter agony of desertion,"

then they emphatically contradict the teachings of Jesus. "Before

Abraham was, I am." "I and my father are one." "Thou shalt not tempt the

Lord thy God." These were the words of Jesus, words conveying (together

with many other such texts) to the reader an impression that divinity

was claimed by the man who uttered them. If Jesus had indeed been God,

the words "My God, my God," would have been a mockery most extreme. God

could not have deemed himself forsaken by himself. The dying Jesus, in

that cry, confessed himself either the dupe of some other teaching, a

self-deluded enthusiast, or an arch-imposter, who, in the bitter cry,

with the wide-opening of the flood-gates through which life's stream ran

out, confessed aloud that he, at least, was no deity, and deemed himself

a God-forsaken man. The garden scene of agony is fitting prelude to this

most terrible act. Jesus, who is God, prays to himself, in "agony he

prayed most earnestly."* He refuses to hear his own prayers, and he,

the omnipotent, is forearmed against his coming trial by an angel from

heaven, who "strengthened" the great Creator. Was Jesus the son of God?

Praying, he said, "Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that

thy Son also may glorify thee."** And was he glorified? His death

and resurrection most strongly disbelieved in the very city where they

happened, if, indeed, they ever happened at all. His doctrines rejected

by the only people to whom he preached them. His miracles denied by

the only nation where they are alleged to have been performed; and he

himself thus on the cross, crying out, "My God, my God, why hast thou

forsaken me?" Surely no further comment is needed on this head, to

point more distinctly to the most monstrous mockery the text reveals.

* Luke, xxii, 44.

** John, xvii, 2.

To those who urge that the course I take is too bold, or that the

problems I deal with are two deep or sacred, I will reply in Herschel's

version of Schiller,

Wouldst thou reach perfection's goal,

Stay not! rest not!

Forward strain,

Hold not hand, and draw not rein.

Perseverance strikes the mark,

Expansion clears whatever is dark,

Truth in the abyss doth dwell,

My say is said--now fare the well.

THE TWELVE APOSTLES.

All, good Christians, indeed all Christians--for are there any who are

not models of goodness?--will desire that their fellow-creatures

who are unbelievers should have the fullest possible information,

biographical or otherwise, as to the twelve persons specially chosen by

Jesus to be his immediate followers. It is not for the instruction of

the believer that I pen this brief essay; he would be equally content

with his faith in the absence of all historic vouchers. Indeed a pious

worshiper would cling to his creed not only without testimony in its

favor, but despite direct testimony against it. It is to those not

within the pale of the church that I shall seek to demonstrate

the credibility of the history of the twelve apostles. The short

biographical sketch here presented is extracted from the first five

books of the New Testament, two of which at least are attributed to two

of the twelve. It is objected by heretical men who go as far in their

criticisms on the Gospels as Colenso does with the Pentateuch, that not

one of the gospels is original or written by any of the apostles; that,

on the contrary, they were preceded by numerous writings, since lost or

rejected, these in their turn having for their basis the oral tradition

which preceded them. It is alleged that the four gospels are utterly

anonymous, and that the fourth gospel is subject to strong suspicions

of spuriousness. It would be useless to combat, and I therefore boldly

ignore these attacks on the authenticity of the text, and proceed with

my history. The names of the twelve are as follows: Simon, surnamed

Peter; Andrew, his brother; James and John, the sons of Zebedee; Andrew;

Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; James, the son of Alphaeus; Simon, the

Canaanite; Judas Iscariot; and a twelfth, as to whose name there is

some uncertainty; it was either Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus, or Judas. It is

in Matthew alone (x, 3) that the name of Lebbaeus is mentioned thus:

"Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus." We are told, on this point, by

able biblicists, that the early MSS. have not the words "whose surname

was Thaddaeus," and that these words have probably been inserted to

reconcile the gospel according to Matthew with that attributed to Mark.

How good must have been the old fathers who sought to improve upon the

Holy Ghost by making clear that which inspiration had left doubtful! In

the English version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by our

Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between Matthew and Mark is

completed by omitting the words "Lebbaeus whose surname was," leaving

only the name "Thaddaeus" in Matthew's text. This omission must be

correct, being by the authority of an infallible church. If Matthew x,

3, and Mark iii, 18, be passed as reconciled, although the first

calls the twelfth disciple Lebbaeus, and the second gives him the name

Thaddaeus, there is yet the difficulty that in Luke vi, 16, corroborated

by John xiv, 22, there is a disciple spoken of as "Judas, not Iscariot."

"Judas, the brother of James." Commentators have endeavored to clear

away this last difficulty by declaring that Thaddaeus is a Syriac word,

having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been answered by the

objection that if Matthew's Gospel uses Thaddæus in lieu of Judas, then

he ought to speak of Thaddaeus Iscariot, which he does not; and it is

further objected also that while there are some grounds for suggesting

a Hebrew original for the gospel attributed to Matthew, there is not the

slightest pretense for alleging that Matthew wrote in Syriac. It is to

be hoped that the unbelieving reader will not stumble on the threshold

of his study because of a little uncertainty as to a name. What is in a

name? The Jewish name which we read as Jesus is really Joshua, but the

name to which we are most accustomed seems the one we should adhere to.

Simon Peter being the first named among the disciples of Jesus, deserves

the first place in this notice. The word "Simon" may be rendered, if

taken as a Greek name, _flatnose_ or _ugly_. Some of the ancient Greek

and Hebrew names are characteristic of peculiarities in the individual,

but no one knows whether Peter's nose had anything to do with his name.

Simon is rather a Hebrew name, but Peter is Greek, signifying a _rock_

or _stone_. Peter is supposed to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven,

and his second name may express his stony insensibility to all appeals

by infidels for admittance to the celestial regions. Lord Byron's

"Vision of Judgment" is the highest known authority as to Saint Peter's

celestial duties, but this nobleman's poems are only fit for very pious

readers. Peter, ere he became a parson, was by trade a fisher, and

when Jesus first saw Peter, the latter was in a vessel fishing with his

brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea of Galilee, Jesus walking by

the sea said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of

men."* The two brothers did so, and they became Christ's disciples. The

successors of Peter have since reversed the apostles' early

practice: instead of now casting their nets into the sea, the modern

representatives of the disciples of Jesus draw the sees into their nets,

and, it is believed, find the result much more profitable. When Jesus

called Peter no one was with him but his brother Andrew; a little

further on, the two sons of Zebedee were in a ship with their father

mending nets. This is the account of Peter's call given in the gospel

according to Matthew, and as Matthew was inspired by the Holy Ghost, who

is identical with God the Father, who is one with God the Son, who is

Jesus, the account is doubtless free from error. In the Gospel according

to John, which is likewise inspired in the same manner, from the

same source, and with similar infallibility, we learn that Andrew was

originally a disciple of John the Baptist, and that when Andrew first

saw Jesus, Peter was not present, but Andrew went and found Peter who,

if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him "we have found

the Messiah," and that Andrew then brought Peter to Jesus, who said,

"Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas." There

is no mention in this gospel narrative of the sons of Zebedee being a

little further on, or of any fishing in the sea of Galilee. This call is

clearly on land, whether or not near the sea of Galilee does not appear.

In the Gospel according to Luke, which is as much inspired as either of

the two before-mentioned gospels, and, therefore equally authentic with

each of them, we are told** that when the call took place, Jesus and

Peter were both at sea. Jesus had been preaching to the people, who,

pressing upon him, he got into Simon's ship, from which he preached.

* Matthew iv, 18-22.

** Luke v, 1-11.

After this he directed Simon to put out into the deep and let down

the nets. Simon answered, "Master, we have toiled all night and taken

nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net." No sooner

was this done than the net was filled to breaking, and Simon's partners,

the two sons of Zebedee, came to help, when, at the call of Jesus, they

brought their ships to land, and followed him. From these accounts the

unbeliever may learn that when Jesus called Peter, either both Jesus and

Peter were on the land, or one was on land and the other on sea, or both

of them were at sea. He may also learn that the sons of Zebedee were

present at the time, having come to help to get in the great catch, and

were called with Peter; or that they were further on, sitting mending

nets with their father, and were called afterward; or that they were

neither present nor near at hand. He may also be assured that Simon was

in his ship when Jesus came to call him, and that Jesus was on land

when Andrew, Simon's brother, found Simon and brought him to Jesus to

be called. The unbeliever must not hesitate because of any apparent

incoherence or contradiction in the narrative. With faith it is easy to

harmonize the three narratives above quoted, especially when you know

that Jesus had visited Simon's house before the call of Simon,* but did

not go to Simon's house until after Simon had been called.** Jesus

went to Simon's house and cured his wife's mother of a fever. Robert

Taylor,*** commenting on the fever-curing miracle, says: "St. Luke tells

us that this fever had taken the woman, not that the woman had taken the

fever, and not that the fever was a very bad fever, or a yellow fever,

or a scarlet fever, but that it was a great fever--that is, I suppose,

a fever six feet high at least; a personal fever, a rational and

intelligent fever, that would yield to the power of Jesus' argument, but

would never have given way to James' powder. So we are expressly told

that Jesus rebuked the fever--that is, he gave it a good scolding; asked

it, I dare say, how it could be so unreasonable as to plague the poor

old woman so cruelly, and whether it wasn't ashamed of itself; and

said, perhaps, _Get out you naughty, wicked fever, you_; and such like

objurgatory language, which the fever, not used to being rebuked in such

a manner, and being a very sensible sort of fever, would not stand, but

immediately left the old woman in high dudgeon." This Robert Taylor,

although a clergyman of the Church of England, has been convicted of

blasphemy and imprisoned for writing in such wicked language about the

bible. Simon Peter, as a disciple, performed many miracles, some when in

company with Jesus, and more when separately by himself. These miracles,

though themselves un-vouched by any reliable testimony, and disbelieved

by the people among whom they worked, are strong evidence in favor of

the apostolic character claimed for Peter.

* Luke iv, 88.

** Matthew viii, 14.

*** Devil's Pulpit, vol. i., p. 148.

On one occasion the whole of the disciples were sent away by Jesus in a

ship, the Savior remaining behind to pray. About the fourth watch of the

night, when the ship was in the midst of the sea, Jesus went unto his

disciples, walking on the sea. Though Jesus went unto his disciples, and

as an expeditious way, I suppose, of arriving with them, he would have

passed by them, but they saw him, and supposing him to be a spirit,

cried out. Jesus bid them be of good cheer, to which Peter answered,

"Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee."* Jesus said, "Come," and

Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus. But the sea being wet and

the wind boisterous, Peter became afraid, and instead of walking on

the water began to sink into it, and cried out "Lord save me," and

immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter.

Some object that the two gospels according to John and Mark, which both

record the feat of water-walking by Jesus, omit all mention of Peter's

attempt. Probably the Holy Ghost had good reasons for omitting it.

A profane mind might make a jest of an Apostle "half seas over," and

ridicule an apostolic gatekeeper who could not keep his head above

water.

Peter's partial failure in this instance should drive away all unbelief,

as the text will show that it was only for lack of faith that Peter lost

his buoyancy. Simon is called Bar-Jonah, that is, son of Jonah; but I

am not aware if he is any relation to the Jonah who lived under water in

the belly of a fish three days and three nights.

It was Simon Peter who, having told Jesus he was the Son of God, was

answered, "Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood hath not

revealed it unto thee."** We find a number of disciples shortly before

this, and in Peter's presence, telling Jesus that he was the Son of

God,*** but there is no real contradiction between the two texts. It

was on this occasion that Jesus said to Simon, "Thou art Peter, and

upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not

prevail against it, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of

Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in

Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in

Heaven."

* Matt, xiv, 23; Mark vi, 45.

** Matt. xvi, 17.

*** Matt, xiv, 33.

Under these extraordinary declarations from the mouth of God the Son,

the Bishops of Rome have claimed, as successors of Peter, the same

privileges, and their pretensions have been, acceded to by some of the

most powerful monarchs of Europe.

Under this claim the Bishops, or Popes of Rome, have at various times

issued Papal Bulls, by which they have sought to bind the entire world.

Many of these have been very successful, but in 1302, Philip the Fair,

of France, publicly burned the Pope Boniface's Bull after an address in

which the States-General had denounced, in words more expressive than

polite, the right of the Popes of Rome to Saint Peter's keys on earth.

Some deny that the occupiers of the episcopal seat in the seven-hilled

city are really of the Church of Christ, and they point to the bloody

quarrels which have raged between men contending for the Papal dignity.

They declare that those Vicars of Christ have more than once resorted to

fraud, treachery, and murder, to secure the Papal dignity. They point to

Stephen VII, the son of an unmarried priest, who cut off the head of his

predecessor's corpse; to Sergius III, convicted of assassination; to

John X, who was strangled in the bed of his paramour Theodora; to John

XI, son of Pope Sergius III, famous only for his drunken debauchery;

to John XII, found assassinated in the apartments of his mistress; to

Benedict IX, who both purchased and sold the Pontificate; to Gregory VII,

_pseudo_ lover of the Countess Matilda, and the author of centuries of

war carried on by his successors. And if these suffice not, they point

to Alexander Borgia, whose name is but the echo of crime, and whose

infamy will be as lasting as history.

It is answered, "by the fruit ye shall judge of the tree." It is useless

to deny the vine's existence because the grapes are sour. Peter,

the favored disciple, it is declared was a rascal, and why not his

successors? They have only to repent, and there is more joy in heaven

over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine righteous

men. Such language is very terrible, and arises from allowing the carnal

reason too much freedom.

All true believers will be familiar with the story of Peter's sudden

readiness to deny his Lord and teacher in the hour of danger, and will

easily draw the right moral from the mysterious lesson here taught, but

unbelievers may be a little puzzled by the common infidel objections on

this point. These objections, therefore, shall be first stated, and

then refuted in the most orthodox fashion. It is objected that all the

denials were to take place before the cock should crow,* but that only

one denial actually took place before the cock crew.** That the first

denial by Peter that he knew Jesus, or was one of his disciples, was at

the door to the damsel,*** but was inside while sitting by the fire,****

that the second denial was to a man, and apparently still sitting by the

fire,***** but was to a maid when he was gone out into the porch.

That these denials, or, at any rate, the last denial, were all in the

presence of Jesus,****** who turned and looked at Peter, but that the

first denial was at the door, Jesus being inside the palace, the second

denial out in the porch, Jesus being still inside,******* and the third

denial also outside.

* Matt. xxvi, 34.

** Luke xxii, 34.

*** John xiii, 38.

**** Mark xiv, 68.

***** John xviii, 17.

****** Luke xxii, 57., Luke xxii, 58., Luke xxii, 61.

******* Mark xiv, 69.

The refutation of these paltry objections is simple, but as none but an

infidel would need to hear it, we refrain from penning it. None but a

disciple of Paine, or follower of Voltaire, would permit himself to be

drawn to the risk of damnation on the mere question of when some cock

happened to crow, or the particular spot on which a recreant apostle

denied his master.

Two of the twelve apostles, whose names are not, given, saw Jesus after

he was dead, on the road to Emmaus, but they did not know him; toward

evening they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. In broad

daylight they did not know him; at evening time they knew him. While

they did not know him they could see him; when they did know him they

could not see him. Well may true believers declare that the ways of the

Lord are wonderful. One of the apostles, Thomas called Didymus, set the

world an example of unbelief. He disbelieved the other disciples when

they said to him "we have seen the Lord," and required to see Jesus,

though dead, alive in the flesh, and touch the body of his crucified

master. Thomas the apostle had his requirements complied with--he saw,

he touched, and he believed. The great merit is to believe without any

evidence-- "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, he that

believeth not shall be damned." How it was that Thomas the Apostle did

not know Jesus when he saw him shortly after near the sea of Tiberias,

is another of the mysteries of the Holy Christian religion. The acts of

the apostles after the death of Jesus deserve treatment in a separate

paper; the present essay is issued in the meantime to aid the Bishop of

London in his labors to stem the rising tide of infidelity.

THE ATONEMENT.

"Quel est donc ce Dieu qui fait mourir Dieu pour apaiser

Dieu?"

Adam's sin is the corner-stone of Christianity; the keystone of the

arch. Without the fall there is no redeemer, for there is no fallen one

to be redeemed. It is, then, to the history of Adam that the examinant

of the atonement theory should first direct his attention. To try

the doctrine of the atonement by the aid of science would be fatal to

Christianity. As for the man, Adam, 6,000 years ago the first of the

human race, his existence is not only unvouched for by science, but is

actually questioned by the timid, and challenged by the bolder exponents

of modern ethnology. The human race is traced back far beyond the period

fixed for Adam's sin. Egypt and India speak for humanity busy with wars,

cities and monuments, prior to the date given for the garden scene in

Eden. The fall of Adam could not have brought sin upon mankind, and

death by sin, if hosts of men and women had lived and died ages before

the words "thou shalt surely die" were spoken by God to man. Nor could

all men inherit Adam's misfortune, if it be true that it is not to one

center, but to many centers of origin that we ought to trace back the

various races of mankind. The theologian who finds no evidence of death

prior to the offense shared by Adam and Eve is laughed to scorn by the

geologist who point to the innumerable petrifactions on the earth's

bosom, which with a million tongues declare more potently than

loudest speech thai organic life in myriads of myriads was destroyed

incalculable ages before man's era on our world.

Science, however, has so little to offer in support of any religious

doctrine, and so much to advance against all purely theologic tenets,

that we turn to a point giving the Christian greater vantage ground;

and, accepting for the moment his premises, we deny that he can maintain

the possibility of Adam's sin, and yet consistently affirm the existence

of an All-wise, All-powerful, and All-good God. Did Adam sin? We will

take the Christian's bible in our hands to answer the question, first

defining the word sin. What is sin? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says, "A

sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in

the compulsion of circumstances...." An act to be sin must be original,

and a state or act that has not its origin in the will may be calamity,

deformity, or disease, but sin it can not be. It is not enough that

the act appears voluntary, or that it has the most hateful passions or

debasing appetite for its proximate cause and accompaniment. All these

may be found in a madhouse, where neither law nor humanity permit us to

condemn the actor of sin. The reason of law declared the maniac not a

free agent, and the verdict follows, of course _Not guilty?_ Did Adam

sin?

The bible story is that a Deity created one man and one woman; that he

placed them in a garden wherein he had also placed a tree which was good

for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one

wise. That although he had expressly given the fruit of every tree

bearing seed for food, he, nevertheless, commanded them not to eat of

the fruit of this attractive tree, under penalty of death. Supposing

Adam to have at once disobeyed this injunction, would it have been sin?

The fact that God had made the tree good for food, pleasant to the

eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, would have surely been

sufficient circumstance of justification on the God-created inducement

to partake of its fruit. The inhibition lost its value as against the

enticement. If the All-wise had intended the tree to be avoided, would

he have made its allurements so overpowering to the senses? But the

case does not rest here. In addition to all the attractions of the tree,

and as though there were not enough, there is a subtle serpent, gifted

with suasive speech, who, either wiser or more truthful than the

All-perfect Deity, says that although God has threatened immediate death

as the consequence of disobedience to his command, yet they "shall not

die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be

opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." The tempter is

stronger than the tempted, the witchery of the serpent is too great for

the spellbound woman, the decoy tree is too potent in its temptations;

overpersuaded herself by the honey-tongued voice of the seducer,

she plucks the fruit and gives to her husband also. And for this their

offspring are to suffer! The yet unborn children are to be the victims

of God's vengeance on their parents' weakness--though he had made them

weak; though, indeed, he had created the tempter sufficiently strong to

practice upon this weakness, and had arranged the causes predisposing

man and woman to commit the offense--if, indeed, it be an offense to

pluck the fruit of a tree which gives knowledge to the eater. It is for

this fall that Jesus is to atone. He is sacrificed to redeem the world's

inhabitants from the penalties for a weakness (for sin it was not)

they had no share in. It was not sin, for the man was influenced by

circumstances pre-arranged by Deity, and which man was powerless to

resist or control. But if man was so influenced by such circumstances,

then it was God who influenced man--God who punished the human race for

an action to the commission of which he impelled their progenitor.

Adam did not sin. He ate of the fruit of a tree which God had made good

to be eaten. He was induced to this through the indirect persuasion of

a serpent God had made purposely to persuade him. But even if Adam did

sin, and even he and Eve, his wife, were the first parents of the whole

human family, what have we to do with their sin? We, unborn when the

act was committed and without choice as to coming into the world. Does

Jesus atone for Adam's sin? Adam suffered for his own offense; he,

according to the curse, was to eat in sorrow of the fruit of the earth

all his life as punishment for his offense. Atonement, after punishment,

is surely a superfluity. Did the sacrifice of Jesus serve as atonement

for the whole world, and, if yes, for all sin, or for Adam's sin only?

If the atonement is for the whole world, does it extend to unbelievers

as well as to believers in the efficacy? If it only includes believers,

then what has become of those generations who, according to the bible,

for 4,000 years succeeded each other in the world without faith in

Christ because without knowledge of his mission? Should not Jesus have

come 4,000 years earlier, or, at least, should he not have come when the

ark on Ararat served as monument of God's merciless vengeance, which had

made the whole earth a battle-field, whereon the omnipotent had crushed

the feeble, and had marked his prowess by the innumerable myriads of

decayed dead? If it be declared that, though the atonement by Jesus

only applies to believers in his mission so far as regards human beings

born since his coming, yet that it is wider in its retrospective effect,

then the answer is that it is unfair to those born after Jesus to make

faith the condition precedent to the saving efficacy of atonement,

especially if belief be required from all mankind posterior to the

Christian era, whether they have heard of Jesus or not. Japanese,

Chinese, savage Indians, Kaffirs, and others, have surely a right to

complain of this atonement scheme, which insures them eternal damnation

by making it requisite to believe in a Gospel of which they have no

knowledge. If it be contended that belief shall only be required from

those to whom the gospel of Jesus has been preached, and who have had

afforded to them the opportunity of its acceptance, then how great a

cause of complaint against Christian missionaries have those peoples

who, without such missions, might have escaped damnation for unbelief.

The gates of hell are opened to them by the earnest propagandist, who

professes to show the road to heaven.

But does this atonement serve only to redeem the human family from the

curse inflicted by Deity in Eden's garden for Adam's sin, or does

it operate as satisfaction for all sin? If the salvation is from the

punishment for Adam's sin alone, and if belief and baptism are, as

Jesus himself affirms, to be the sole conditions precedent to any saving

efficacy in the much-lauded atonement by the Son of God, then what

becomes of a child that only lives a few hours, is never baptized,

and, never having any mind, consequently never has any belief? Or what

becomes of one idiot born who, throughout his dreary life, never has

mental capacity for the acceptance, or examination of, or credence in,

any religious dogmas whatever? Is the idiot saved who can not believe?

Is the infant saved that can not believe? I, with some mental faculties

tolerably developed, can not believe. Must I be damned? If so,

fortunate short-lived babe! lucky idiot! That the atonement should not

be effective until the person to be saved has been baptized is at least

worthy of comment; that the sprinkling a few drops of water should

quench the flames of hell is a remarkable feature in the Christian's

creed.

"One can't but think it somewhat droll

Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul."

How many fierce quarrels have raged on the formula of baptism among

those loving brothers in Christ who believe he died for them! How

strange an idea that, though God has been crucified to redeem mankind,

it yet needs the font of water to wash away the lingering stain of

Adam's crime.

One minister of the Church of England, occupying the presidential chair

of a well-known training college for church clergymen in the north of

England, seriously declared, in the presence of a large auditory and of

several church dignitaries, that the sin of Adam was so potent in its

effect that if a man _had never been born, he would yet have been damned

for sin!_ That is, he declared that man existed before birth, and

that he committed sin before he was born; and if never born, would,

notwithstanding, deserve to suffer eternal torment for that sin!

It is almost impossible to discuss seriously a doctrine so monstrously

absurd, and yet it is not one whit more ridiculous than the ordinary

orthodox and terrible doctrine that God, the undying, in his infinite

love, killed himself under the form of his son to appease the cruel

vengeance of God, the just and merciful, who, without this, would have

been ever vengeful, unjust and merciless. The atonement theory, as

presented to us by the bible, is in effect as follows: God creates

man, surrounded by such circumstances as the divine mind chose, in the

selection of which man had no voice, and the effects of which on man

were all foreknown and predestined by Deity. The result is man's fall

on the very first temptation, so frail the nature with which he was

endowed, or so powerful the temptation to which he was subjected. For

this fall not only does the All-merciful punish Adam, but also his

posterity; and this punishment went on for many centuries, until God,

the immutable, changed his purpose of continual condemnation of men

for sins they had no share in, and was wearied with his long series of

unjust judgments on those whom he created in order that he might judge

them. That, then, God sent his son, who was himself and was also his

own father, and who was immortal, to die upon the cross, and, by this

sacrifice, to atone for the sin which God himself had caused Adam to

commit, and thus to appease the merciless vengeance of the All-merciful,

which would otherwise have been continued against men yet unborn for an

offense they could not have been concerned in or accessory to. Whether

those who had died before Christ's coming are redeemed the bible does

not clearly tell us. Those born after are redeemed only on condition of

their faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice offered, and in the truth

of the history of Jesus's life. The doctrine of salvation by sacrifice

of human life is the doctrine of a barbarous and superstitous age; the

outgrowth of a brutal and depraved era. The God who accepts the bloody

offering of an innocent victim in lieu of punishing the guilty culprit

shows no mercy in sparing the offender: he has already satiated his lust

for vengeance on the first object presented to him.

Yet sacrifice is an early and prominent, and, with slight exception,

an abiding feature in the Hebrew record--sacrifice of life finds

appreciative acceptance from the Jewish Deity. Cain's offering of fruits

is ineffective but Abel's altar, bearing the firstlings of his flock,

and the fat thereof, finds respect in the sight of the Lord. While the

face of the earth was disfigured by the rotting dead, after God in his

infinite mercy had deluged the world, then it was that the ascending

smoke from Noah's burnt sacrifice of bird and beast produced pleasure in

heaven, and God himself smelled a sweet savor from the roasted meats.

To reach atonement for the past by sacrifice is worse than folly--it

is crime. The past can never be recalled, and the only reference to it

should be that, by marking its events, we may avoid its evil deeds and

improve upon its good ones. For Jesus himself--can man believe in him?

--in his history contained in anonymous pamphlets uncorroborated by

contemporary testimony?--this history, in which, in order to fulfill

a prophecy which does not relate to him, his descent from David is

demonstrated by tracing through two self-contradictory genealogies the

descent of Joseph who was not his father--this history, in which the

infinite God grows, from babyhood and hus cradle through childhood to

manhood, as though he were not God at all--this history, full of absurd

wonders, devils, magicians, and evil spirits, rather fit for an Arabian

Night's legend than the word of God to his people--this history,

with its miraculous raisings of the dead to life, disbelieved and

contradicted by the people among whom they are alleged to have been

performed; but, nevertheless, to be accepted by us to-day with all

humility--this history, with the Man-God subject to human passions and

infirmities, who comes to die, and who prays to his heavenly father

(that is, to himself) that he will spare him the bitter cup of

death--who is betrayed, having himself, ere he laid the foundations

of the world, predestined Judas to betray him, and who dies, being God

immortal crying with his almost dying breath, "My God! my God! why hast

thou forsaken me?"

WERE ADAM AND EVE OUR FIRST PARENTS?

This question, Were Adam and Eve our first parents? is indeed one of

most grave importance. If the answer be a negative one, it is, in fact,

a denial of the whole scheme of Christianity. The Christian theory is

that Adam, the common father of the whole human race, sinned, and that

by his sin he dragged down all his posterity to a state from which

redemption was needed; and that Jesus is, and was, the Redeemer, by

whom all mankind are and were saved from the consequences of the fall

of Adam. If Adam, therefore, be proved not to be the first man--if it be

shown that it is not to Adam the various races of mankind are indebted

for their origin, then the whole hypothesis of fall and redemption is

dissipated.

In a pamphlet like the present it is impossible to give any statement

and analysis of the various hypotheses as to the origin of the human

race. I frankly admit that my only wish and intent is, to compel people

to examine the bible record for themselves, instead of making it their

fetich, bowing down before it without thought. I am inclined to the

opinion that the doctrine of a plurality of sources for the various

types of the human race is a correct one; that wherever the conditions

for life have been found, there also has been the degree of life

resultant on those conditions. My purpose in this essay is not to

demonstrate the correctness of my own thinking, but rather to illustrate

the incorrectness of the Geneiacal teaching. Were Adam and Eve our

first parents? On the one hand an answer in the affirmative to this

question can be obtained from the bible, which asserts Adam and Eve

to be the first man and woman made by God, and fixes the date of their

making about 6,000 years, little more or less, from the present time. On

the other hand, it seems to me that science emphatically declares man to

have existed on the earth for a far more extended period; affirms that,

as far as we can trace man, we find him in isolated groups, diverse in

type, till we lose him in the ante-historic period; and, with nearly

equal distinctness, denies that the various existing races find their

common parentage in one pair. It is only on the first point that

I attack the bible chronology of man's existence. I am aware that

compilations based upon the authorized version of the Old Testament

Scriptures are open to objection, and that while from the Hebrew

1,656 years represent the period from Adam to the Deluge generally

acknowledged, the Samaritan Pentateuch only yields for the same period

1,307 years, while the Septuagint version furnishes 2,242 years; there

is, I am also informed, on the authority of a most erudite Egyptologist,

a fatal objection to the Septuagint chronology--_i. e._, that it makes

Methusaleh outlive the flood.*

The deluge occurred, according to the Septuagint, in the year of

the world 2,242, and, by adding up the generations previous to

Methusaleh's--

Adam..............................................230

Seth..............................................205

Enos..............................................190

Cainan............................................170

Malaleel..........................................165

Jared.............................................162

Enoch.............................................165

.................................................1287

* Sharpe's History of Egypt, page 196.

--we shall find that he was born in the year of the world 1,287. He

lived 969 years, and therefore died in 2,256. But this is fourteen years

after the deluge.

The Rev. Dr. Lightfoot, who wrote about 1,644, fixes the month of the

creation at September, 5,572 years preceding the date of his book,

and says that Adam was expelled from Eden on the day in which he was

created.* In the London _Ethnological Journal_, for which I am indebted

to the kindness of its Editor, an able ethnologist and careful thinker,

the reader will find a chronology of Genesis ably and elaborately

examined. At present, for our immediate purpose, we will take the

ordinary. English bible, which gives the following result:

From Adam to Abraham (Gen. v and xi)............. 2008

From Abraham to Isaac (Gen. xxi, 5)............... 100

From Isaac to Jacob (Gen. xxv, 26).................. 60

From Jacob going into Egypt (Gen. xlvii, 9)......... 130

Sojourn in Egypt (Exod. xii, 41)..................... 480

Duration of Moses* leadership (Exod. vii, 7; xxxi, 2). 40

Thence to David, about............................. 400

From David to Captivity, fourteen generations (27),

about twenty-two reigns..........................478

Captivity to Jesus, fourteen generations, about...... 593

4234 Less disputed 230 years of sojourn in Egypt......230

4004 From Adam to Abraham the dates are certain, if we take the bible

statement, and there is certainly no portion of the orthodox text,

except the period of the Judges, which will admit any considerable

extension of the ordinary Oxford chronology.

* Harmony of the Four Evangelists, and Harmony of the Old

Testament.

The book of Judges is not a book of history. Everything in it is

recounted without chronological order. It will suffice to say, that the

ciphers which we find in the book of Judges, and in the first book of

Samuel, yield us, from the death of Joshua to the commencement of the

reign of Saul, the sum total of 500 years, which would make, since the

exode from Egypt, 565 years; whereas the first book of Kings counts but

480 years, from the going out of Egypt down to the foundation of the

temple under Solomon. According to this we must suppose that several of

the Judges governed simultaneously.*

* Munk's Palestine, p. 231.

In reading Alfred Maury's profound essay on the classification of

tongues, I was much struck with the fact that he, in his philological

researches, traces back some of the ancient Greek mythologies to

a Sanscrit source. He has the following remark, worthy of earnest

attention: "The God of Heaven, or the sky, is called by the Greeks _Zeus

Pater_; and let us here notice that the pronunciation of Z resembles

very much that of D, inasmuch as the word Zeus becomes in the genitive

_Dios_. The Latins termed the same God _Dies-piter_, or Jupiter Now in

the Veda the God of Heaven is called Dyash-pitai." What is this but the

original of our own Christian God, the father, the [------] (_Jeue_)

pater of the Old Testament? I introduce this remark for the purpose

of shaking a very commonly entertained opinion that the Hebrew Records,

whether or not God-inspired, are at any rate the most antique, and are

written in a primitive tongue. Neither is it true that Hebrew mythology

is the most ancient, nor the Hebrew language the most primitive; on

the contrary, the mythology is clearly derived, and the language in a

secondary or tertiary state.

What is the value of this book of Genesis, which is the sole authority

for the hypothesis that Adam and Eve, about 5,865 years ago, were

the sole founders of the peoples now living on the face of the earth?

Written we know not by whom, we know not when, and we know not in what

language. If we respect the book, it must be from its internal

merits; its author is to us unknown. Eusebius, Chrysostom, and Clemens

Alexandrinus alike agree that the name of Moses should not stand at

the head of Genesis as the author of the book. As to its internal merit

Origen did not hesitate to declare the contents of the first and second

chapters of Genesis to be purely figurative. Our translation of it has

been severely criticised by the learned and pious Bellamy, and by

the more learned and less pious Sir William Drummond. Errors almost

innumerable have been pointed out, the correctness of the Hebrew

text itself questioned, and yet this book is an unerring guide to the

students of ethnology. They may do anything, everything, except stray

out of the beaten track. We have, therefore, on the one hand, an

anonymous book, which indeed does not take you back so much as 6,000

years, for at least 1,600 years must be deducted for the Noachian

deluge, when the world's inhabitants were again reduced to one family,

one race, one type. On the other hand, we have now existing Eskimo men,

of the Arctic realm; Chinamen, of the Asiatic realm; Englishmen, of the

European realm; Sahara negroes, of the African realm; Fuegians, of

the American realm; New Zealanders, of the Polynesian realm; the Malay,

representative of the realm which bears his name; the Tasmanian, of the

Australian realm, with other families of each realm too numerous

for mention here; dark and fair, black-skinned and white-skinned,

woolly-haired and straight-haired; low forehead, high forehead;

Hottentot limb, Negro limb, Caucasian limb. Do all these different and

differing structures and colors trace their origin to one pair? To Adam

and Eve, or rather to Noah and his family? Or are they (the various

races) indigenous to their nature, soils, and climates? And are these

various types naturally resultant, with all their differences, from the

differing conditions for life persistent to and consistent with them?

The question, then, really is this: Have the different races of men all

found their common parent in Noah, about 4,300 years ago? Assuming the

unity of the races or species of men now existing, there are but three

suppositions on which the diversity now seen can be accounted for:

"1. A miracle, or direct act of the Almighty, in changing one type into

another.

"2. The gradual action of physical causes, such as climate, food, mode

of life, etc.

"3. Congenital or accidental varieties."*

We may fairly dismiss entirely from our minds the question of miracle.

Such a miracle is nowhere recorded in the bible, and it lies upon any

one hardy enough to assert that the present diversity has a miraculous

origin to show some kind of reasons for his faith, some kind of evidence

for our conviction, and until this is done we have no reason to dwell on

the first hypothesis.

Of the permanence of type under its own climatic conditions--that is, in

the country to which it is indigenous--we have overwhelming proof in

the statue of an ancient Egyptian scribe, taken from a tomb of the fifth

dynasty, 5,000 years old, and precisely corresponding to the Fellah of

the present day.**

* "Types of Mankind," Dr. Nott, p. 57.

** M. Pulzsky on Iconography--"Indigenous Races," p. 111.

The sand had preserved the color of the statuette, which, from its

portrait-like beauty, marks a long era of art-progress preceding its

production. It antedates the orthodox era of the flood, carries us back

to a time when, if the bible were true, Adam was yet alive, and still we

find before it kings reigning and ruling in mighty Egypt. Can the reader

wonder that these facts are held to impeach the orthodox faith?

On the second point Dr. Nott writes: "It is a commonly received error

that the influence of a hot climate is gradually exerted on successive

generations, until one species of mankind is completely changed into

another.... This idea is proven to be false.... A sunburnt cheek is

never handed down to succeeding generations. The exposed parts of the

body are alone tanned by the sun, and the children of the white-skinned

Europeans in New Orleans, Mobile, and the West Indies are born as fair

as their ancestors, and would remain so if carried back to a colder

climate."*

Pure negroes and negresses, transported from Central Africa to England,

and marrying among themselves, would never acquire the characteristics

of the Caucasian races; nor would pure Englishmen and Englishwomen,

emigrating to Central Africa, and in like manner intermarrying, ever

become negroes or negresses. The fact is, that while you don't bleach

the color of the dark-skinned African by placing him in London, you

bleach the life out of him; and _vice versa_ with the Englishman.**

* "Types of Mankind," p. 58.

** "Indigenous Races of the Earth," p. 458. The alleged

discovery of white-skinned negroes in Western Africa does

not affect this question: it is not only to the color of the

skin, but also the general negro characteristics that the

above remarks apply.

For a long time there has been ascribed to man the faculty of adapting

himself to every climate. The following facts will show the ascription a

most erroneous one: "In Egypt the austral negroes are, and the Caucasian

Memlooks were, unable to raise up even a third generation; in

Corsica French families vanish beneath Italian summers. Where are the

descendants of the Romans, the Vandals, or the Greeks in Africa? In

Modern Arabia, 1830 years after Mahomed Ali had got clear of the Morea

war, 18,000 Arnaots (Albanians) were soon reduced to some 400 men.

At Gibraltar, in 1817, a negro regiment was almost annihilated by

consumption. In 1841, during the three weeks on the Niger, 130 Europeans

out of 145 caught African fever, and 40 died; out of 158 negro sailors

only eleven were affected, and not one died. In 1809 the British

Expedition to Walchereen failed in the Netherlands through marsh fever.

About the same time, in St. Domingo, about 15,000 French soldiers died

from malaria. Of 30,000 Frenchmen, only 8,000 survived exposure to that

Antillian island; while the Dominicanized African negro, Tous-saint

L'Overture, retransported to Europe, was perishing from the chill of his

prison in France."

On the third point we again quote Dr. Nott: "The only argument left,

then, is that of congenital varieties or peculiarities, which are said

to spring up and be transmitted from parent to child, so as to form new

races. Let us pause for a moment to illustrate this fanciful idea. The

negroes of Africa, for example, are admitted not to be offsets from some

other race which have been gradually blackened and changed in a moral

and physical type by the action of climate, but it is asserted that

'once, in the flight of ages,' some genuine little negro, or rather many

such, were born of Caucasian, Mongol, or other light-skinned parents,

and then have turned about and changed the type of the inhabitants of a

whole continent. So, in America, the countless aborigines found on this

continent, which we have reason to believe were building mounds before

the time of Abraham, are the offspring of a race changed by accidental

or congenital varieties. Thus, too, old China, India, Australia, Oceana,

etc., all owe their types, physical and mental, to congenital and

accidental varieties, and are descended from Adam and Eve! Can human

credulity go further, or human ingenuity invent any argument more

absurd?"

But even supposing these objections to the second and third suppositions

set aside, there are two other propositions which, if affirmed, as I

believe they may be, entirely overthrow the orthodox assertion "that

Adam and Eve, six thousand years ago, were the first pair; and that all

diversities now existing must find their common source in Noah--less

than four thousand three hundred years from the present time." These two

are as follows.

1. That man may be traced back on the earth long prior to the alleged

Adamic era.

2. That there are diversities traceable as existing among the human race

four thousand five hundred years ago as marked as in the present day.

To illustrate the position that man may be traced back to a period long

prior to the Adamic era, we refer our readers to the chronology of the

late Baron Bunsen, who, while allowing about 22,000 years for man's

existence on earth, fixes the following dates, after a patient

examination of the Nilotic antiquities:

Egyptians under a republican form.............. 10,000 B. C.

Ascension of Bytis, the Theban, first Priest King. 9,085

Elective Kings in Egypt......................... 7,280

Hereditary Kings in Upper and Lower Egypt (a

double empire) form......................... 5,143*

* Nott and Gliddon, "Indigenous Races," page 687.

The assertion of such an antiquity for Egypt is no modern hypothesis.

Plato puts language into the mouth of an Egyptian first claiming in that

day an antecedent 10,000 years for painting and sculpture in Egypt. This

has long been regarded as fabulous because it was contrary to the Hebrew

chronology.

If this be the result of the researches into Egyptian archæology, the

reader will scarcely be surprised to find me endeavoring from other

sources to get corroborative evidence of a still more astonishing

character.

There are few who now pretend that the whole _creation (?)_ took place

6,000 years ago, although if it be true that God made all in six days,

and man on the sixth, then the universe would only be more ancient than

Adam by some five days. To state the age of the earth at 6,000 years

is simply preposterous, when we ascertain that it would require about

4,000,000 of years for the formation of the fossiliferous rocks alone,

and that 15,000,000 of years have been stated as a moderate estimate

for the antiquity of our globe. The deltas of the great rivers afford

corroboration to our position as to man's duration. The delta of the

Nile, formed by immense quantities of sedimentary matter, which in

like manner is still carried down and deposited, has not perceptibly

increased during the last 3,000 years. "In the days of the earliest

Pharaohs, the delta, as it now exists, was covered with ancient cities

and filled with a dense population, whose civilization must have

required a period going back far beyond any date that has yet been

assigned to the deluge of Noah, or even to the creation of the world."*

From borings which have been made at New Orleans to the depth of 600

feet, from excavations for public works, and from examinations in parts

of Louisiana, where the range between high and low water is much greater

than it is at New Orleans, no less than ten distinct cypress forests

divided from each other by eras of aquatic plants, etc., have been

traced, arranged vertically above each other; and from these and other

data it is estimated by Dr. Benet Dowler that the age of the delta is

at least 158,000 years; and in the excavations above referred to human

remains have been found below the further forest level, making it appear

that the human race existed in the delta of the Mississippi more than

57,000 years ago.**

It is further urged, by the same competent writer, that human bones

discovered on the coast of Brazil near Santas, and on the borders of

a lake called Lagoa Santa, by Captain Elliott and Dr. Lund, thoroughly

incorporated with a very hard breccia, every one in a fossil state,

demonstrate that aboriginal man in America antedates the Mississippi

alluvia, and that he can even boast a geological antiquity, because

numerous species of animals have become extinct since American

humanity's first appearance.***

* Gliddon's "Types of Mankind," page 335.

** "Types," pages 336 to 369.

*** "Types," pages 350 and 357.

With reference to the second point, as to the possibility of tracing

back the diversities of the Human Race to an antediluvian date, it

is simply sufficient to point on the one side to the remains of the

American Indian disentombed from the Mississippi forests, and on

the other to the Egyptian monuments, tombs, pyramids, and stuccoes,

revealing to us Caucasian men, and Negro men, their diversities as

marked as in the present day. Sir William Jones, in his day, claimed for

Sanscrit literature a vast antiquity, and asserted the existence of the

religions of Egypt, Greece, India, and Italy, prior to the Mosaic

era. So far as Egypt is concerned the researches of Lepsius, Bunsen,

Champollion, Lenormant, Gliddon, and others, have fully verified the

position of the learned president of the Asiatic Society.

We have Egyptian statues of the third dynasty, going back far beyond

the 4,300 years, which would give the orthodox era of the deluge, and

taking us over the 4,500 years fixed by our second proposition. The

fourth dynasty is rich in pyramids, tombs, and statues; and, according

to Lepsius, this dynasty commenced 3,426 B. C, or about 5,287 years from

the present date.

In reading a modern work on the orthodox side,* I have been much pained

by the constant assumption that the long chronologists must be in error,

because their views do not coincide with orthodox teachings. Orthodox

authors treat their heterodox brethren as unworthy of credit, because

of their heterodoxy. The writer asserts** that the earliest reference

to the Negro tribes is in the era of the 12th dynasty. Supposing for a

moment this to be correct, I ask what even then will be the state of

the argument? The 12th dynasty, according to Lepsius, ends about 4,000

years ago. The orthodox chronology fixes the deluge about 300 years

earlier. Will any sane man argue that there was sufficient lapse of

time in three centuries for the development of Caucasian and Negro man

from one family?

* "Archaia," by Dr. Dawson.

** "Archaia," page 306.

The fact is that we trace back the various types of man now known, not

to one center, not to one country, not to one family, not to one pair,

but we trace them to different centers, to distinct countries, to

separate families, probably to many pairs. Wherever the conditions for

life are found, there are living beings also. The conditions of

climate, soil, etc., of Central Africa, differ from those of Europe. The

indigenous races of Central Africa differ from those of Europe.

Without pretending, in the present limited essay, to do more than index

some of the most prominent features of the case, I yet hope that enough

is here stated to interest my readers in the prosecution of future

inquiry upon the important question which serves as the title to these

pages. I put forward no knowledge from myself, but am ready to listen

to the teachings of wiser men; and while I shrink from the ordinary

orthodox assertion of Adamic unity of origin, accompanied as it is by

threats of pains and penalties if rejected, I am yet ready to receive

it, if it can be presented to me associated with facts, and divested

of those future hell-fire torments and present societarian persecutions

which now form its chief, if not sole, supports.

The rejection of the bible account of the peopling of the world involves

also the rejection, as has been already remarked, of the entire scheme

of Christianity. According to the orthodox rendering of both New and

Old Testament teaching, all men are involved in the curse which followed

Adam's sin. But if the account of the Fall be mythical, not historical;

if Adam and Eve--supposing them to have ever existed--were preceded on

the earth by many nations and empires, what becomes of the doctrine that

Jesus came to redeem mankind from a sin committed by one who was not the

common father of all humanity?

Reject Adam, and you can not accept Jesus. Refuse to believe Genesis,

and you can not give credence to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. The

Old and New Testaments are so connected together that to dissolve the

union is to destroy the system. The account of the Creation and Fall of

Man is the foundation-stone of the Christian Church. If this stone

be rotten, the superstructure can not be stable. It is therefore most

important that those who profess a faith in Christianity should consider

facts which so vitally and materially affect the creed they hold.

A PLEA FOR ATHEISM.

Gillespie says that "an Atheist propagandist seems a nondescript monster

created by Nature in a moment of madness." Despite this opinion, it is

as the propagandist of Atheism that I pen the following lines, in the

hope that I may succeed in removing some few of the many prejudices

which have been created against not only the actual holders of Atheistic

opinions, but also against those wrongfully suspected of entertaining

such ideas. Men who have been famous for depth of thought, for excellent

wit, or great genius, have been recklessly assailed as Atheists by

those who lacked the high qualifications against which the spleen of

the calumniators was directed. Thus, not only has Voltaire been without

ground accused of Atheism, but Bacon, Locke, and Bishop Berkeley

himself, have, among others, been denounced by thoughtless or

unscrupulous pietists as inclining to Atheism, the ground for the

accusation being that they manifested an inclination to improve human

thought.

It is too often the fashion with persons of pious reputation to speak in

unmeasured language of Atheism as favoring immorality, and of Atheists

as men whose conduct is necessarily vicious, and who have adopted

atheistic views as a disparate defiance against a Deity justly offended

by the badness of their lives. Such persons urge that among the

proximate causes of Atheism are vicious training, immoral and profligate

companions, licentious living, and the like. Dr. John Pye Smith, in his

"Instructions on Christian Theology," goes so far as to declare that

"nearly all the Atheists upon record have been men of extremely

debauched and vile conduct." Such language from the Christian advocate

is not surprising, but there are others who, professing great desire for

the spread of Freethought, and with pretensions to rank among acute and

liberal thinkers, declare Atheism impracticable, and its teachings cold,

barren, and negative. In this brief essay I shall except to each of the

above allegations, and shall endeavor to demonstrate that Atheism

affords greater possibility for human happiness than any system yet

based on Theism, or possible to be founded thereon, and that the lives

of true Atheists must be more virtuous, because more human, than those

of the believers in Deity, the humanity of the devout believer often

finding itself neutralized by a faith with which it is necessarily in

constant collision. The devotee piling the faggots at the _auto de fe_

of a heretic, and that heretic his son, might, notwithstanding, be a

good father in every respect but this. Heresy, in the eyes of the

believer, is highest criminality, and outweighs all claims of family or

affection.

Atheism, properly understood, is in nowise a cold, barren negative; it

is, on the contrary, a hearty, fruitful affirmation of all truth, and

involves the positive assertion and action of highest humanity.

Let Atheism be fairly examined, and neither condemned--its defense

unheard--on the _ex parte_ slanders of the professional preachers of

fashionable orthodoxy, whose courage is bold enough while the pulpit

protects the sermon, but whose valor becomes tempered with discretion

when a free platform is afforded and discussion claimed; nor misjudged

because it has been the custom to regard Atheism as so unpopular as to

render its advocacy impolitic. The best policy against all prejudice is

to assert firmly the verity. The Atheist does not say "There is no God,"

but he says, "I know not what you mean by God: I am without idea of

God; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct

affirmation. I do not deny God, because I can not deny that of which I

have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer is so

imperfect that he is unable to define it to me." If you speak to the

Atheist of God as a creator, he answers that the conception of creation

is impossible. We are utterly unable to construe it in thought as

possible that the complement of existence has been either increased

or diminished, much less can we conceive an absolute origination of

substance. We can not conceive either, on the one hand, nothing becoming

something, or on the other, something becoming nothing. The Theist who

speaks of God creating the universe, must either suppose that Deity

evolved it out of himself, or that he produced it from nothing. But the

Theist can not regard the universe as evolution of Deity, because this

would identify Universe and Deity, and be Pantheism rather than Theism.

There would be no distinction of substance--in fact, no creation. Nor

can the Theist regard the universe as created out of nothing, because

Deity is, according to him, necessarily eternal and infinite. His

existence being eternal and infinite, precludes the possibility of the

conception of vacuum to be filled by the universe if created. No one can

even think of any point of existence in extent or duration and say here

is the point of separation between the creator and the created.

Indeed, it is not possible for the Theist to imagine a beginning to

the universe. It is not possible to conceive either an absolute

commencement, or an absolute termination of existence; that is, it is

impossible to conceive a beginning before which you have a period when

the universe has yet to be: or to conceive an end, after which the

universe, having been, no longer exists. It is impossible in thought

to originate or annihilate the universe. The Atheist affirms that he

cognizes to-day effects, that these are at the same time causes and

effects--causes to the effects they precede, effects to the causes they

follow. Cause is simply everything without which the effect would not

result, and with which it must result. Cause is the means to an end,

consummating itself in that end. The Theist who argues for creation must

assert a point of time, that is, of duration, when the created did not

yet exist. At this point of time either something existed or nothing;

but something must have existed, for out of nothing nothing can come.

Something must have existed, because the point fixed upon is that of the

duration of something. This something must have been either finite or

infinite; if finite, it could not have been God; and if the something

were infinite, then creation was impossible, as it is impossible to add

to infinite existence.

If you leave the question of creation and deal with the government of

the universe, the difficulties of Theism are by no means lessened. The

existence of evil is then a terrible stumbling-block to the Theist.

Pain, misery, crime, poverty, confront the advocate of eternal goodness,

and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of Deity as

all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful. Evil is either caused by God, or

exists independently; but it can not be caused by God, as in that case

he would not be all-good; nor can it exist independently, as in

that case he would not be all-powerful. Evil must either have had a

beginning, or it must be eternal; but, according to the Theist, it can

not be eternal, because God alone is eternal. Nor can it have had a

beginning, for if it had it must either have originated in God,

or outside of God; but, according to the Theist, it can not have

originated in God, for he is all-good, and out of all-goodness evil

can not originate; nor can evil have originated outside of God, for,

according to the Theist, God is infinite, and it is impossible to go

outside of or beyond infinity.

To the Atheist this question of evil assumes an entirely different

aspect. He declares that evil is a result, but not a result from God or

Devil. He affirms that by conduct founded on knowledge of the laws of

existence it is possible to ameliorate and avoid present evil, and, as

our knowledge increases, to prevent its future recurrence.

Some declare that the belief in God is necessary as a check to crime.

They allege that the Atheist may commit murder, lie, or steal, without

fear of any consequences. To try the actual value of this argument, it

is not unfair to ask, Do Theists ever steal? If yes, then in each such

theft, the belief in God and his power to punish has been inefficient as

a preventive of the crime. Do Theists ever lie or murder? If yes, the

same remark has farther force--hell-fire failing against the lesser

as against the greater crime. The fact is that these who use such an

argument overlook a great truth--i.e., that all men seek happiness,

though in very diverse fashions. Ignorant and miseducated men often

mistake the true path to happiness, and commit crime in the endeavor to

obtain it. Atheists hold that by teaching mankind the real road to human

happiness, it is possible to keep them from the by-ways of criminality

and error. Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God

offers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous

act itself immediate good is insured to the doer and the circle

surrounding him. Atheism would preserve man from lying, stealing,

murdering now, not from fear of an eternal agony after death, but

because these crimes make this life itself a course of misery.

While Theism, asserting God as the creator and governor of the

universe, hinders and checks man's efforts by declaring God's will to

be the sole directing and controlling power, Atheism, by declaring all

events to be in accordance with natural laws--that is, happening in

certain ascertainable sequences--stimulates man to discover the best

conditions of life, and offers him the most powerful inducements to

morality. While the Theist provides future happiness for a scoundrel

repentant on his death bed, Atheism affirms present and certain

happiness for the man who does his best to live here so well as to have

little cause for repenting hereafter.

Theism declares that God dispenses health and inflicts disease, and

sickness and illness are regarded by the Theist as visitations from an

angered Deity, to be borne with meekness and content. Atheism declares

that physiological knowledge may preserve us from disease by preventing

our infringing the law of health, and that sickness results not as

the ordinance of offended Deity, but from ill-ventilated dwellings and

workshops, bad and insufficient food, excessive toil, mental suffering,

exposure to inclement weather, and the like--all these finding root in

poverty, the chief source of crime and disease; that prayers and piety

afford no protection against fever, and that if the human being be kept

without food he will starve as quickly whether he be Theist or Atheist,

theology being no substitute for bread.

When the Theist ventures to affirm that his God is an existence other

than and separate from the so-called material universe, and when

he invests this separate, hypothetical existence with the several

attributes of omniscence, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternity, infinity,

immutability, and perfect goodness, then the Atheist, in reply says, "I

deny the existence of such a being."

It becomes very important, in order that injustice may not be done

to the Theistic argument, that we should have--in lieu of a clear

definition, which it seems useless to ask for--the best possible clue to

the meaning intended to be conveyed by the word God. If it were not

that the word is an arbitrary term, invented for the ignorant, and

the notions suggested by which are vague and entirely contingent upon

individual fancies, such a clue could be probably most easily and

satisfactorily obtained by tracing back the word "God," and ascertaining

the sense in which it was used by the uneducated worshipers who have

gone before us; collating this with the more modern Theism, qualified

as it is by the superior knowledge of to-day. Dupuis says: "The word God

appears intended to express the force universal, and eternally active,

which endows all nature with motion according to the laws of a constant

and admirable harmony; which develops itself in the diverse forms of

organized matter, which mingles with all, gives life to all; which seems

to be one through all its infinitely varied modifications, and inheres

in itself alone."

In the "Bon Sens" of Cure Meslier, it is asked, "Qu'est ce que Dieu?"

and the answer is: "It is an abstract word coined to designate the

hidden force of Nature, or rather it is a mathematical point having

neither length, breadth, nor thickness."

The orthodox fringe of the Theism of to-day is Hebraistic in its

origion--that is, it finds its root in the superstition and ignorance

of a petty and barbarous people nearly destitute of literature, poor in

language, and almost entirely wanting in high conceptions of humanity.

It might, as Judaism is the foundation of Christianity, be fairly

expected that the ancient Jewish Records would aid us in our search

after the meaning to be attached to the word "God." the most prominent

words in Hebrew rendered God or Lord in English are [------] _Jeue_, and

[------] _Aleim_. The first word, Jeue, called by our orthodox Jehovah,

is equivalent to "that which exists," and indeed embodies in itself the

only possible trinity in unity--i. e. past, present, and future. There

is nothing in this Hebrew word to help you to any such definition as is

required for the sustenance of modern Theism. The most you can make of

it by any stretch of imagination is equivalent to the declaration "I

am, I have been, I shall be." The word [----] is hardly ever spoken by

religious Jews, who actually in reading substitute for it, Adonai, an

entirely different word. Dr. Wall notices the close resemblance in

sound between the word _Yehowa_ or _Yeue_, or Jehovah, and Jove. In

fact [--------], Jupiter and Jeue, pater, (God the father) present still

closer resemblance in sound. Jove is also [----] or [----] or [----],

whence the word Deus and our Deity. The Greek mythology, far more

ancient than that of the Hebrews, has probably found for Christianity

many other and more important features of coincidence than that of a

similarly sounding name. The word [----] traced back affords us no help

beyond that it identifies Deity with the universe. Plato says that the

early Greeks thought that the only Gods were the sun, moon, earth, stars

and heaven. The word Aleim, assists us still less in defining the

word God, for Parkhurst translates it as a plural noun signifying "the

curser," deriving it from the verb _to curse_. Finding that philology

aids us but little, we must endeavor to arrive at the meaning of the

word "God" by another rule. It is utterly impossible to fix the

period of the rise of Theism among any particular people, but it is,

notwithstanding, comparatively easy, if not to trace out the development

of Theistic ideas, at any rate to point to their probable course of

growth among all peoples.

Keightley, in his "Origin of Mythology," says: "Supposing, for the sake

of hypothesis, a race of men in a state of total or partial ignorance

of Deity, their belief in many gods may have thus commenced. They saw

around them various changes brought about by human agency, and hence

they knew the power of intelligence to produce effects. When they beheld

other and greater effects, they ascribed them to some unseen being,

similar but superior to man." They associated particular events with

special unknown beings (gods), to each of whom they ascribed either a

peculiarity of power, or a sphere of action not common to other gods.

Thus one was god of the sea, anothor god of war, another god of love,

another ruled the thunder and lightning; and thus through the various

elements of the universe and passions of humankind, so far as they were

then known.

This mythology became modified with the advancement of human knowledge.

The ability to think has proved itself oppugnant to and destructive of

the desire to worship. Science has razed altar after altar heretofore

erected to the unknown gods, and pulled down deity after deity from

the pedestals on which ignorance and superstition had erected them. The

priest who had formerly spoken as the oracle of God lost his sway, just

in proportion as the scientific teacher succeeded in impressing mankind

with a knowledge of the facts around them. The ignorant who had hitherto

listened unquestioning during centuries of abject submission to their

spiritual preceptors, at last commenced to search and examine for

themselves, and were guided by experience rather than by church

doctrine. To-day it is that advancing intellect which challenges the

reserve guard of the old armies of superstition, and compels a

conflict which humankind, must in the end have great gain by the forced

enunciation of the truth.

From the word "God" the Theist derives no argument in his favor;

it teaches nothing, defines nothing, demonstrates nothing, explains

nothing. The Theist answers that this is no sufficient objection, that

there are many words which are in common use to which the same objection

applies. Even admitting that this were true, it does not answer the

Atheist's objection. Alleging a difficulty on the one side is not a

removal of the obstacle already pointed out on the other.

The Theist declares his God to be not only immutable, but also

infinitely intelligent, and says: "Matter is either essentially

intelligent, or essentially non-intelligent; if matter were essentially

intelligent, no matter could be without intelligence; but matter can

not be essentially intelligent, because some matter is not intelligent,

therefore matter is essentially non-intelligent: but there is

intelligence, therefore there must be a cause for the intelligence,

independent of matter; this must be an intelligent being--i.e.., God."

The Atheist answers, I do not know what is meant, in the mouth of the

Atheist, by "matter." "Matter," "substance," "existence," are three

words having the same signification in the Atheist's vocabulary. It is

not certain that the Theist expresses any very clear idea when he uses

the words "matter" and "intelligence." Reason and understanding are

sometimes treated as separate faculties, yet it is not unfair to presume

that the Theist would include them both under the word intelligence.

Perception is the foundation of the intellect. The perceptive faculty,

or perceptive faculties, differs or differ in each animal, yet in

speaking of matter that Theist uses the word "intelligence" as though

the same meaning were to be understood in every case. The recollection

of the perceptions is the exercise of a different faculty from the

perceptive faculty, and occasionally varies disproportionately; thus an

individual may have great perceptive faculties, and very little memory,

or the reverse, yet memory, as well as perception, is included in

intelligence. So also the faculty of comparing between two or more

perceptions; the faculty of judging and the faculty of reflecting--all

these are subject to the same remarks, and all these and other faculties

are included in the word intelligence. We answer, then, that "God"

(whatever that word may mean) can not be intelligent. He can never

perceive; the act of perception results in the obtaining a new idea,

but if God be omniscient his ideas have been eternally the same. He

has either been always and always will be perceiving, or he has never

perceived at all. But God can not have been always perceiving, because

if he had he would always have been obtaining fresh knowledge, in which

case he must have some time had less knowledge than now; that is he

would have been less perfect; that is, he would not have been God: he

can never recollect or forget, he can never compare, reflect nor

judge. There can not be perfect intelligence without understanding; but

following Coleridge, "understanding is the faculty of judging according

to sense." The faculty of whom? Of some person, judging according to

that person's senses? But has "God" senses? Is there anything beyond

"God" for "God" to sensate? There can not be perfect intelligence

without reason. By reason we mean that faculty or aggregation of

faculties which avails itself of past experience to predetermine, more

or less accurately, experience in the future, and to affirm truths which

sense perceives, experiment verifies, and experience confirms. To

God there can be neither past nor future, therefore to him reason is

impossible. There can not be perfect intelligence without will, but

has God will? If God wills, the will of the all-powerful must be

irresistible; the will of the infinite must exclude all other wills.

God can never perceive. Perception and sensation are identical. Every

sensation is accompanied by pleasure or pain. But God, if immutable, can

neither be pleased nor pained. Every fresh sensation involves a change

in mental and perhaps in physical condition. God, if immutable, can not

change. Sensation is the source of all ideas, but it is only objects

external to the mind which can be sensated. If God be infinite there can

be no objects external to him, and therefore sensation must be to him

impossible. Yet without perception where is intelligence?

God can not have memory or reason--memory is of the past, reason for the

future, but to God immutable there can be no past, no future. The words

past, present, and future, imply change; they assert progression of

duration. If God be immutable, to him change is impossible. Can you have

intelligence destitute of perception, memory, and reason? God can not

have the faculty of judgment--judgment implies in the act of judging

a conjoining or disjoining of two or more thoughts, but this involves

change of mental condition. To God, the immutable, change is impossible.

Can you have intelligence, yet no perception, no memory, no reason, no

judgment? God can not think. The law of the thinkable is that the thing

thought must be separated from the thing which is not thought. To think

otherwise would be to think of nothing--to have an impression with no

distinguishing mark, would be to have no impression. Yet this separation

implies change, and to God, immutable, change is impossible. Can you

have intelligence without thought? If the Theist replies to this that

he does not mean by infinite intelligence as an attribute of Deity an

infinity of the intelligence found in a finite degree of humankind,

then he is bound to explain, clearly and distinctly, what other

"intelligence" he means, and until this be done the foregoing statements

require answer.

The Atheist does not regard "substance" as either essentially

intelligent or the reverse. Intelligence is the result of certain

conditions of existence. Burnished steel is bright--that is, brightness

is the necessity of a certain condition of existence. Alter the

condition, and the characteristic of the condition no longer exists. The

only essential of substance is its existence. Alter the wording of the

Theist's objection. Matter is either essentially bright, or essentially

non-bright. If matter were essentially bright, brightness should be the

essence of all matter; but matter can not be essentially bright, because

some matter is not bright, therefore matter is essentially non-bright;

but there is brightness, therefore there must be a cause for this

brightness independent of matter; that is, there must be an essentially

bright being--i.e., God.

Another Theistic proposition is thus stated: "Every effect must have

a cause; the first cause universal must be eternal: _ergo_, the first

cause universal must be God." This is equivalent to saying that "God"

is "first cause." But what is to be understood by cause? Defined in

the absolute, the word has no real value. "Cause," therefore, cannot be

eternal. What can be understood by "first cause?" To us the two words

convey no meaning greater than would be conveyed by the phrase "round

triangle." Cause and effect are correlative terms--each cause is the

effect of some precedent; each effect the cause of its consequent. It

is impossible to conceive existence terminated by a primal or initial

cause. The "beginning," as it is phrased, of the universe, is not

thought out by the Theist, but conceded without thought. To adopt the

language of Montaigne, "Men make themselves believe that they believe."

The so-called belief in _Creation_ is nothing more than the prostration

of the intellect on the threshold of the unknown. We can only cognize

the ever-succeeding phenomena of existence as a line in continuous and

eternal evolution. This line has to us no beginning; we trace it back

into the misty regions of the past but a little way; and however far

we may be able to journey, there is still the great beyond Then what is

meant by "universal cause?" Spinoza gives the following definition

of cause, as used in its absolute signification: "By cause of itself I

understand that, the essence of which involves existence, or that, the

nature of which can only be considered as existent." That is, Spinoza

treats "cause" absolute and "existence" as two words having the same

meaning. If his mode of defining the word be contested, then it has no

meaning other than its relative signification, of a means to an end.

"Every effect must have a cause." Every effect implies the plurality of

effects, and necessarily that each effect must be finite; but how is

it possible from a finite effect to logically deduce a universal, i.e.,

infinite, cause?

There are two modes of argument presented by Theists, and by which,

separately or combined, they seek to demonstrate the being of a

God. These are familiarly known as the arguments _a priori_ and _a

posteriori_.

The a posteriori argument has been popularized in England by Paley, who

has ably endeavored to bide the weakness of his demonstration under an

abundance of irrelevant illustration. The reasoning of Paley is very

deficient in the essential points where it most needed strength. It is

utterly impossible to prove by it the eternity or infinity of Deity. As

an argument founded on analogy, the design argument, at the best, could

only entitle its propounder to infer the existence of a finite cause,

or, rather, of a multitude of finite causes. It ought not to be

forgotten that the illustrations of the eye, the watch, and the man,

even if admitted as instances of design, or, rather, of adaptation,

are instances of eyes, watches, and men, designed or adapted out of

pre-existing substance, by a being of the same kind of substance, and

afford, therefore, no demonstration in favor of a designer, alleged to

have actually created substance out of nothing, and also alleged to have

created a substance entirely different from himself. The _a posteriori_

argument can never demonstrate infinity for Deity. Arguing from an

effect finite in extent, the most it could afford would be a cause

sufficient for that effect, such cause being possibly finite in extent

and duration. And as the argument does not demonstrate God's infinity,

neither can it, for the same reason, make out his omniscience, as it is

clearly impossible to logically claim infinite wisdom for a God possibly

only finite. God's omnipotence remains unproved for the same reason, and

because it is clearly absurd to argue that God exercises power where

he may not be. Nor can the _a posteriori_ argument show God's absolute

freedom, for, as it does nothing more than seek to prove a finite God,

it is quite consistent with the argument that God's existence is limited

and controlled in a thousand ways. Nor does this argument show that God

always existed; at the best the proof is only that some cause, enough

for the effect, existed before it, but there is no evidence that this

cause differs from any other causes, which are often as transient as

the effect itself. And as it does not demonstrate that God has always

existed, neither does it demonstrate that he will always exist, or even

that he now exists. It is perfectly in accordance with the arguement,

and with the analagy of cause and effect that the effect may remain

after the cause has ceased to exist. Nor does the argument from design

demonstrate one God. It is quite consistent with this argument that a

separate cause existed for each effect, or mark of design, discovered,

or that several causes contributed to some or one of such effects. So

that if the argument be true, it might result in a multitude of petty

deities, limited in knowledge, extent, duration, and power; and, still

worse, each one of this multitude of gods may have had a cause which

would also be finite in extent and duration, and would require another,

and so on, until the design argument loses the reasoner among an

innumerable crowd of deities, none of whom can have the attributes

claimed for God.

The design argument is defective as an argument from analogy, because it

seeks to prove a Creator God who designed, but does not explain whether

this God has been eternally designing, which would be absurd; or,

if he at some time commenced to design, what then induced him so to

commence. It is illogical, for it seeks to prove an immutable Deity by

demonstrating a mutation on the part of Deity.

It is unnecessary to deal specially with each of the many writers who

have used from different standpoints the _a posteriori_ form of argument

in order to prove the existence of Deity. The objections already stated

apply to the whole class; and, although probably each illustration

used by the theistic advocate is capable of an elucidation entirely at

variance with his argument, the main features of objection are the same.

The argument _a posteriori_ is a method of proof in which the premises

are composed of some position of existing facts, and the conclusion

asserts a position antecedent to those facts. The argument is from given

effects to their causes. It is one form of this argument which asserts

that man has a moral nature, and from this seeks to deduce the existence

of a moral governor. This form has the disadvantage that its premises

are illusory. In alleging a moral nature for man, the Theist overlooks

the fact that the moral nature of man differs somewhat in each

individual, differs considerably in each nation, and differs entirely in

some peoples. It is dependent on organization and education: these are

influenced by climate, food, and mode of life. If the argument from

man's nature could demonstrate anything, it would prove a murdering God

for the murderer, a lascivious God for the licentious man, a dishonest

God for the thief, and so through the various phases of human

inclination. The _a priori_ arguments are methods of proof in which the

matter of the premises exists in the order of conception antecedently to

that of the conclusion. The argument is from cause to effect. Among the

prominent Theistic advocates relying upon the _a priori_ argument

in England are Dr. Samuel Clarke, the Rev. Moses Lowman, and William

Gillespie. As this last gentleman condemns his predecessors for having

utterly failed to demonstrate God's existence, and as his own treatise

on the "Necessary Existence of God" comes to us certified by the praise

of Lord Brougham and the approval of Sir William Hamilton, it is to Mr.

William Gillespie that the reader shall be directed.

The propositions are first stated entirely, so that Mr. Gillespie may

not complain of misrepresentation:

1. Infinity of extension is necessarily existing.

2. Infinity of extension is necessarily indivisible.

Corollary.--Infinity of extension is necessarily immovable.

3. There is necessarily a being of infinity of extension.

4. The being of infinity of extension is necessarily of unity and

simplicity.

Sub-proposition.--The material universe is finite in extension.

5. There is necessarily but one being of infinity of expansion.

Part 2, Proposition 1.--Infinity of duration is necessarily existing.

2. Infinity of duration is necessarily indivisible. Corollary.--Infinity

of duration is necessarily immovable.

3. There is necessarily a being of infinity of duration.

4. The being of infinity of duration is necessarily of unity and

simplicity.

Sub-proposition.--The material universe is finite in duration.

Corollary.--Every succession of substances is finite in duration.

5. There is necessarily but one being of infinity of duration.