Some time ago I went to hear a noted minister, who preached a sermon
about the "fruit of the tree of knowledge" to a congregation composed,
as most congregations are, chiefly of women. Yet his sermon was a
monument of insult, bigotry, and dogmatic intolerance that would have
done honor to a witch-hunter several centuries ago. That women will
subject themselves to such insults week after week, and that there are
still men who will condescend to offer them, is a sad commentary upon
their self-respect as well as upon the degrading influence of their
religion.
Why will they listen to such nonsense? Perhaps woman was made of a rib
and so should be held as flesh and blood only, devoid of intellect. But
I don't know that she was; I was not there to see, and, in fact, none of
my family were; and since they tell us that the only gentleman present
upon that interesting occasion was asleep, I don't know who could have
told the story in the first place.
It is always a surprise to me that women will sit, year after year, and
be told that, because of a story as silly and childish as it is unjust,
she is responsible for all the ills of life; that because, forsooth,
some thousands of years ago a woman was so horribly wicked as to eat an
apple, she must and should occupy a humble and penitent position, and
remain forever subject to the dictates of ecclesiastical pretenders. It
is so silly, so childish, that for people of sense to accept it seems
almost incredible.
According to the story, she was deceived. According to the story, she
believed that she was doing a thing which would give greater knowledge
and a broader life, and she had the courage to try for it. According to
the story, she first evinced the desire to be more and wiser than a mere
brute, and incidentally gave her husband an opportunity to invent the
first human lie (a privilege still dear to the heart), a field which up
to that time had been exclusively worked by the reptiles. But they never
got a chance at it again. From the time that Adam entered the lists,
competition was too lively for any of the lower animals to stand a ghost
of a chance at it, and that may account for the fact that, from that
time to this, nobody has ever heard a snake tell a lie or volunteer
information to a woman. The Church has had a monopoly of these
profitable perquisites ever since. The serpent never tried it again. He
turned woman over to the clergy, and from that time to this they have
been the instructors who have told her which apple to bite, and how big
a bite to take. She has never had a chance since to change her diet.
From that day to this she has had apple pie, stewed apple, dried apple,
baked apple, apple-jack, and cider; and this clergyman that I heard,
started out fresh on apple-sauce. He seemed to think--"anything for a
change." You would have thought, to hear him, that the very worst
thing that ever happened to this world was the birth of the desire
for knowledge, and that such desire in woman had been the curse of all
mankind.
But it seems to me that if in this day of intelligence a minister
preaches or acts upon such dogmas, women should scorn him both as a
teacher and as a man. If a creed or Church upholds such doctrines they
should shun it as they would a pest-house. If any system or any book
of religion teaches such principles they should exert every effort to
utterly destroy its influence. I want to do what I can to show women
that the mercury of self-respect must fall several degrees at the church
door, and that the light of reason must go out.
In this sermon that I speak of, we were warned "not to be wise above
that which is written." As if a man should bind his thoughts and
knowledge down to what was known, believed, or written in ages past!
As though a man should fear and tremble, should hesitate to reach out
after, to labor to know, all that his intellect and energy can compass.
As though to be good he must accept situations, sentiments, ideas
ready-made, and dwarf his intellect and bind his mental ability by the
capacity of somebody else.
"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
"He that hath eyes to see, let him see."
And he that hath a brain to think, let him think. What is his intellect
for? Why is his mind one vast interrogation point? Why should not Eve
have grasped with eagerness the fruit of the tree of knowledge?
A taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge does drive man from the
paradise of ignorance, does send him forth a laborer in the vast fields
of speculation and thought, where there is no rest, and no possibility
of the cessation of labor so long as his energies and his love of truth
remain to impel him to the conquest of the infinite domain that lies
unexplored beyond.
But would any man sell what is gained in liberty, in strength, in
breadth, in conscious superiority, for the delights which every brute
has left him in his stagnant paradise of ignorance and rest? What man
in this nineteenth century can unblushingly say he would not choose the
labor with all its pain, the effort with all its failure, the struggle
with all its exhaustion? Why try to bind the human mind by the silly
theory that a God requires man to crush out or subject the intellect he
has given him? Whatever religion may have gained by such a course, think
what morality and progress have lost by it!
What has not woman lost by that silly fable which made her responsible
for transgression? Honor her for it! Honor her the more if it was she
who first dared the struggle rather than lose her freedom or crush her
reason. _If_ she learned first that the price of ignorance and slavery
was too great to pay for the luxury of idleness--honor her for it. The
acceptance of such contemptible stories, as told by the clergy _in
all ages and in all religions_ as the "word of God," has done more to
enslave and injure women's intellects, and to brutalize men, than has
been done by any other influence; and our boasted superior civilization
is not the result of the Christian religion, but has been won step
by step in despite of it.* For the Church has fought progress with a
vindictive bitterness and power found in no other antagonist--from the
time, long ago, when it crushed Galileo for daring to know more than its
"inspired" leaders could ever learn, down to yesterday, when it raised a
wild howl against Prof. Tyndall for making a simple statement, in itself
absolutely incontrovertible.
* See Lecture 3, "Theological Fictions."
It had to yield to Galileo as the people grew beyond its power to blind
them to his truth. It is yielding every hour to-day to Tyndall from the
same dire necessity; while its nimble devotees vie with each other in
proclaiming that they thought that way all the time; had neglected
to say so (through an oversight); but that it was one of their very
strongest holds from the beginning. They have recently told us that
modern scientific doctrines (evolution included) are "plainly indicated
in the Bible," and that Science has at last worked up towards the
comprehension of scriptural truths.
It used to be the fashion to burn the man who got up a new theory or
discovered a new law of nature that interfered with the "revelation"
theory; but the style now is to go into the mental gymnastic business
and "reconcile" the old dogma with the new truth. The only kind of
reconciling the Church ever thought of in the days of her power, was to
become reconciled to the death of the scientist or thinker. To-day she
can take evolution and revelation, shake them up in a theological bag,
and then bring them forth so marvellously alike in appearance that their
own father would not know them apart. And the rest of us can't recognize
them at all.
To-morrow, when she has to yield her whole field to science, she will
hasten to assure us that it was only a few mistaken souls who ever
objected to Col. Ingersoll's style of theology; and that if we would
only interpret the Bible aright (and understood Hebrew) we should at
once discover that Col. Ingersoll was the "biggest card" they had had
yet.
You may not live until that to-morrow; I may not live until that
to-morrow; but it is as sure to come as it is certain that the old
tenets have yielded one by one before the irresistible march of an age
of intelligence and freedom, in which a priest or a Church can no longer
be judge, jury, and counsel.
Not long ago I heard two gentlemen--one a very devout Christian--talking
about what use the Church could make of Col. Ingersoll's teachings. One
said he was such a moral man, and always insisted so strongly upon right
action in this world, that it was a pity he did not have more faith. He
said, "What a power he would be in the Church! What a preacher he would
make! He would be a second St. Paul--I have been praying for years for
his conversion." "Well," said the other, "you needn't waste your time
any longer; softening of the brain doesn't run in Robert's family."