When the day comes when offences against the intellect are deemed as
great crimes as offences against the person, intellectual gag-law
will meet with no more respect than lynch-law does to-day, and will
be recognized as the expression of an undeveloped moral and social
condition. Choking an opinion into or out of a man's mind is no more
respectable than the same argument applied to his body.
Any form of faith, any religion, that has the vicarious element in it,
is an insult to the intellect. It is based upon the idea of a God of
revenge, a ruler infamously unjust. It is a system utterly ineffectual
without the wanton sacrifice of helpless innocence under fangs of
beastly cruelty--a revenge that has no thought of the redress of wrong
by its punishment--a revenge that simply requires a victim--and blood!
Even with those two elements of the plan it is still impotent until
it has appealed to the basest element in every human breast--the
willingness to accept happiness that is bought by the agony of another!
It is too abjectly selfish and groveling to command the least respect
from a noble character or a great, tender soul. It severs the ties of
affection without compunction. It destroys all loyalty. It says, "No
matter what becomes of my loved ones--those who would die to help me--I
must save my soul." Without the use of the microscope, however, such a
soul would never know whether it was saved or not.
What sort of a soul would it be that could have a heaven apart from
those it loved? It would not be big enough to save, and its heaven would
not be good enough to have.
I prefer the philosophy, the dignified loyalty and love for the dead of
the old Goth, the captive warrior whom the Christians persuaded to be
baptized. As he stood by the font he asked the bishop, "Where are
the souls of my heathen ancestors?" The bishop, with great alacrity,
replied, "In hell."
The brave old warrior, the loyal Goth, drew his skins about him and
said, "I would prefer, if you do not object, to go to my people;" and he
left unbaptized.
That was heathen philosophy; but I think I prefer it to the Christianity
of a devout man, a Sunday-school superintendent, whom I know. He is
a great light in a Christian church today. He worships the beautiful
provisions of vicarious atonement. He refused his mother her dying wish,
and on the following Sunday atoned for the inhuman act by singing with
unusual unction, "How gentle God's commands," and reading with devout
fervor, "The Lord is my shepherd, _I_ shall not want." His mother, who
had the same shepherd, had wanted for much. She even wanted for a stone
to mark her grave, because the money she had left for that purpose
her holy son thought best to use, vicariously, upon himself. That man
believes in the Bible absolutely. He is a good Christian, and he abhors
an infidel! He knows he is going to heaven because he has faith in
Christ, and Christ had an extra stab on his account. He is willing to
take his heavenly home through the blood of Christ, and his earthly one
out of the pockets of a dead mother. The blood of the murdered Nazarene
obliterates the infamy of his acts over her dishonored grave.
And this is perfectly consistent! A religion of faith, a religion that
gets its good vicariously and shifts its sins and responsibilities on
to the past, is a religion that can never elevate character; _it simply
makes a man more intensely what he was before_. It is all self,
self, self. Think of the infinitesimal smallness, the irredeemable
worthlessness, the unutterable meanness of a soul that could forsake
those it had loved, and be happy believing that they were suffering and
eternally lost!
Yet who does not know men who go tramping about the country, living
on the charity of their dupes, and declaring that "the Lord is their
Shepherd, _they_ shall not want," whose families want for almost every
comfort of life? And this is true orthodox doctrine. "Ye shall forsake
father, mother, wife, and children," for what?--to "follow me!" Think of
the infamy of it!
If that is the kind of souls that go to heaven, I shall do all I can to
keep mine amongst more respectable spirits. I will go with the Goth. I
could suffer in hell (if there were such a place) with those I love, and
keep my self-respect.
If I believed I could be happy in heaven with my loved ones in agony
below--if I believed it of myself--there is no vile, slime-covered
reptile on earth that I would so loathe! Forsake father, mother,
husband, children to save my soul! Never! I will go with my people!