Did it ever occur to you that those absurd tales have as much claim to
be called the "word of God" as any of the rest of it? How can people
say they believe such nonsense? And how can they think it is evidence of
goodness to believe it? They say it takes a horribly wicked man to doubt
one of those yarns; and to come right out and say honestly, "I don't
believe it," will elect you, on the first ballot, to a permanent seat
in the lower house. Mr. Talmage says four out of five Christians "try to
explain away" these tales by giving them another meaning, and he urges
them not to do it. He says, stick to the original story in all its
literal bearings. The advice is certainly honest, but it would take
a brave man to follow it. And four out of five of even professed
Christians is a pretty heavy balance on the side of intellectual
integrity; and even Mr. Tal-mage's mammoth credulity fails to tip the
scale.
They simply can't believe these biblical stones, so they try to explain
the marvellous part entirely away. It has about come to this, in this
day of thought and intelligence, that when a thinking man claims to
believe these tales, and says it is an evidence of righteousness to
believe them, there are just two things to examine, his intellect and
his integrity. If one is all right the other is pretty sure to be out
of repair. Defective intellect or doubtful integrity is what he suffers
from. He has got one of them sure, and he may have both.
Now I should just like to ask you one honest question. Why should any
book bind us to sentiments that we would not tolerate if they came from
any other source? And why tolerate them coming from it? Do you know who
compiled the Bible? Do you know it was settled by vote which manuscripts
God did and which he did not write? The ballot is a very good thing to
have; but I decline to have it extend its power into eternity, and bind
my brain by the capacity of a ballot-box held by caste and saturated
with blood.
There can be but slow progress while we are weighted down by the
superstitions of ages past. The brain of the nineteenth century should
not be bound down to the capacity of the third, nor its moral sentiment
dwarfed to fit Jehovah.
But so long as the theories of revelation and vicarious atonement are
taught, we shall not need to be surprised that every murderer who is
hanged to-day says that he is going, with bloody hands, directly into
companionship with the deity of revelation. He has had ample time in
prison to re-read in the Bible (what he had previously been taught
in Sunday school), of many worse crimes than his which his spiritual
adviser assures him (to the edification and encouragement of all his
kind outside) were not only forgiven, but were actually ordered and
participated in, by the God he is going to.
That is what orthodoxy tells him! Just think of it! Do you think that is
a safe doctrine to teach to the criminal classes? Aside from its being
dishonest, is it safe? Does it not put a premium on crime? I maintain
that it is always a dangerous religion where faith in a given dogma, and
not continuous uprightness of life, is the standard of excellence. It is
a cruel religion where force is king and immorality God. It is an unjust
religion which seeks to make women serfs and men tyrants. It is an
unreasonable religion where credulity usurps the place of intellect and
judgment. It is an immoral religion where vice is deified and virtue
strangled. It is a cowardly religion where an innocent man, who was
murdered 1,800 years ago, is asked to bear the burden of your wrong acts
to-day. Aside from its impossibility that is cowardly.
Man should be taught that for every wrong he does, he must himself be
responsible--not that some one else stands between him and absolute
personal responsibility--not that Eve caused him to sin, nor that Christ
stands between him and full accountability for his every act.
And he should be taught that for every noble deed, for every act of
justice or mercy, he deserves the credit himself; that Christ does not
need it; that Christ cannot want it; and that Christ does not deserve
it.
And you will not want to "wash your hands in the blood of Christ," nor
to shed that of any other innocent man, if your motives are pure and
your lives clean.
*****