A SERMON OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Max and I entered the church together. It is a magnificent
structure--palatial, cathedral-like, in its proportions--a gorgeous
temple of fashion, built with exquisite taste, of different-colored
marbles, and surrounded by graceful columns. Ushers, who looked like
guards in uniform, stood at the doors, to keep out the poorly-dressed
people, if any such presented themselves; for it was evident that
this so-called church was exclusively a club-house of the rich.
As we entered we passed several marble statues. It is a curious
illustration of the evolution of religion, in these latter days, that
these statues are not representations of any persons who have ever
lived, or were supposed to have lived on earth, or anywhere else; and
there was not in or about them any hint whatever of myth or antique
belief. In the pre-Christian days the work of the poet and sculptor
taught a kind of history in the statues of the pagan divinities.
Bacchus told of some ancient race that had introduced the vine into
Europe and Africa. Ceres, with her wheat-plant, recited a similar
story as to agriculture. And Zeus, Hercules, Saturn and all the rest
were, in all probability--as Socrates declared--deified men. And, of
course, Christian art was full of beautiful allusions to the life of
the Savior, or to his great and holy saints and martyrs. But here we
had simply splendid representations of naked human figures, male and
female, wondrously beautiful, but holding no associations whatever
with what you and I, my dear Heinrich, call religion.
Passing these works of art, we entered a magnificent hall. At the
farther end was a raised platform, almost embowered in flowers of
many hues, all in full bloom. The light entered through stained
windows, on the sides of the hall, so colored as to cast a weird and
luxurious effulgence over the great chamber. On the walls were a
number of pictures; some of a very sensuous character; all of great
beauty and perfect workmanship; but none of them of a religious
nature, unless we might except one of the nude Venus rising from the
sea.
The body of the hall was arranged like a great lecture-room; there
were no facilities for or suggestions of devotion, but the seats were
abundantly cushioned, and with every arrangement for the comfort of
the occupants. The hall was not more than half full, the greater part
of those present being women. Most of these were fair and beautiful;
and even those who had long passed middle age retained, by the virtue
of many cunning arts, well known to these people, much of the
appearance and freshness of youth. I might here note that the
prolongation of life in the upper classes, and its abbreviation in
the lower classes, are marked and divergent characteristics of this
modern civilization.
I observed in the women, as I had in those of the Darwin Hotel,
associated with great facial perfection, a hard and soulless look out
of the eyes; and here, even more than there, I could not but notice a
sensuality in the full, red lips, and the quick-glancing eyes, which
indicated that they were splendid animals, and nothing more.
An usher led us up one of the thickly carpeted aisles to a front pew;
there was a young lady already seated in it. I entered first, and Max
followed me. The young lady was possessed of imperial beauty. She
looked at us both quite boldly, without shrinking, and smiled a
little. We sat down. They were singing a song--I could not call it a
hymn; it was all about the "Beautiful and the Good"--or something of
that sort. The words and tune were fine, but there were no allusions
to religion, or God, or heaven, or anything else of a sacred
character. The young lady moved toward me and offered to share her
song-book with me. She sang quite sweetly, but there was no more soul
in her voice than there was in the song.
After a little time the preacher appeared on the platform. Max told
me his name was Professor Odyard, and that he was one of the most
eminent philosophers and orators of the day, but that his moral
character was not of the best. He was a large, thick-set, florid,
full-bearded man, with large lips, black hair and eyes, and swarthy
skin. His voice was sweet and flute-like, and he had evidently
perfected himself in the graces of elocution. He spoke with a great
deal of animation and action; in fact, he was a very vivacious actor.
He commenced by telling the congregation of some new scientific
discoveries, recently made in Germany, by Professor Von der Slahe, to
the effect that the whole body of man, and of all other animals and
even inanimate things, was a mass of living microbes--not in the
sense of disease or parasites, but that the intrinsic matter of all
forms was life-forms; the infinite molecules were creatures; and that
there was no substance that was not animated; and that life was
therefore infinitely more abundant in the world than matter; that
life was matter.
And then he went on to speak of the recent great discoveries made by
Professor Thomas O'Connor, of the Oregon University, which promise to
end the reign of disease on earth, and give men patriarchal leases of
life. More than a century ago it had been observed, where the
bacteria of contagious disorders were bred in culture-infusions, for
purposes of study, that after a time they became surrounded by masses
of substance which destroyed them. It occurred to Professor O'Connor,
that it was a rule of Nature that life preyed on life, and that every
form of being was accompanied by enemies which held its over-growth
in check: the deer were eaten by the wolves; the doves by the hawks;
the gnats by the dragon-flies.
"Big fleas had little fleas to bite 'em,
And these had lesser still, ad infinitum."
Professor O'Connor found that, in like manner, bacteria, of all
kinds, were devoured by minuter forms of life. Recovery from sickness
meant that the microbes were destroyed by their natural enemies
before they had time to take possession of the entire system; death
resulted where the vital powers could not hold out until the balance
of nature was thus re-established. He found, therefore, that the
remedy for disease was to take some of the culture-infusion in which
malignant bacteria had just perished, and inject it into the veins of
the sick man. This was like stocking a rat-infested barn with
weasels. The invisible, but greedy swarms of bacilli penetrated every
part of the body in search of their prey, and the man recovered his
health. Where an epidemic threatened, the whole community was to be
thus inoculated, and then, when a wandering microbe found lodgment in
a human system, it would be pounced upon and devoured before it could
reproduce its kind. He even argued that old age was largely due to
bacteria; and that perpetual youth would be possible if a germicide
could be found that would reach every fiber of the body, and destroy
the swarming life-forms which especially attacked the vital forces of
the aged.
And then he referred to a new invention by a California scientist,
named Henry Myers, whereby telephonic communication had been
curiously instituted with intelligences all around us--not spirits or
ghosts, but forms of life like our own, but which our senses had
hitherto not been able to perceive. They were new forms of matter,
but of an extreme tenuity of substance; and with intellects much like
our own, though scarcely of so high or powerful an order. It was
suggested by the preacher that these shadowy earth-beings had
probably given rise to many of the Old-World beliefs as to ghosts,
spirits, fairies, goblins, angels and demons. The field in this
direction, he said, had been just opened, and it was difficult to
tell how far the diversity and multiplicity of creation extended. He
said it was remarkable that our ancestors had not foreseen these
revelations, for they knew that there were sound-waves both above and
below the register of our hearing; and light-waves of which our eyes
were able to take no cognizance; and therefore it followed, _a
priori_, that nature might possess an infinite number of forms of
life which our senses were not fitted to perceive. For instance, he
added, there might be right here, in this very hall, the houses and
work-shops and markets of a multitude of beings, who swarmed about
us, but of such tenuity that they passed through our substance, and
we through theirs, without the slightest disturbance of their
continuity. All that we knew of Nature taught us that she was
tireless in the prodigality of her creative force, and boundless in
the diversity of her workmanship; and we now knew that what the
ancients called spirit was simply an attenuated condition of matter.
The audience were evidently keenly intellectual and highly educated,
and they listened with great attention to this discourse. In fact, I
began to perceive that the office of preacher has only survived, in
this material age, on condition that the priest shall gather up,
during the week, from the literary and scientific publications of the
whole world, the gems of current thought and information, digest them
carefully, and pour them forth, in attractive form, for their
delectation on Sunday. As a sort of oratorical and poetical reviewer,
essayist and rhapsodist, the parson and his church had survived the
decadence of religion.
"Nature," he continued, "is as merciless as she is prolific. Let us
consider the humblest little creature that lives--we will say the
field-mouse. Think what an exquisite compendium it is of bones,
muscles, nerves, veins, arteries--all sheathed in such a delicate,
flexible and glossy covering of skin. Observe the innumerable and
beautiful adjustments in the little animal: the bright, pumping,
bounding blood; the brilliant eyes, with their marvelous powers; the
apprehending brain, with its sentiments and emotions, its loves, its
fears, its hopes; and note, too, that wonderful net-work, that
telegraphic apparatus of nerves which connects the brain with the
eyes and ears and quick, vivacious little feet. One who took but a
half view of things would say, 'How benevolent is Nature, that has so
kindly equipped the tiny field-mouse with the means of
protection--its quick, listening ears; its keen, watchful eyes; its
rapid, glancing feet!' But look a little farther, my brethren, and
what do you behold? This same benevolent Nature has formed another,
larger creature, to watch for and spring upon this 'timorous little
beastie,' even in its moments of unsuspecting happiness, and rend,
tear, crush and mangle it to pieces. And to this especial work Nature
has given the larger animal a set of adjustments as exquisitely
perfect as those it has conferred on the smaller one; to-wit: eyes to
behold in the darkness; teeth to tear; claws to rend; muscles to
spring; patience to wait; and a stomach that clamors for the blood of
its innocent fellow-creature.
"And what lesson does this learned and cultured age draw from these
facts? Simply this: that the plan of Nature necessarily involves
cruelty, suffering, injustice, destruction, death.
"We are told by a school of philanthropists more numerous in the old
time, fortunately, than they are at present, that men should not be
happy while their fellow-men are miserable; that we must decrease our
own pleasures to make others comfortable; and much more of the same
sort. But, my brethren, does Nature preach that gospel to the cat
when it destroys the field-mouse? No; she equips it with special
aptitudes for the work of slaughter.
"If Nature, with her interminable fecundity, pours forth millions of
human beings for whom there is no place on earth, and no means of
subsistence, what affair is that of ours, my brethren? We did not
make them; we did not ask Nature to make them. And it is Nature's
business to feed them, not yours or mine. Are we better than Nature?
Are we wiser? Shall we rebuke the Great Mother by caring for those
whom she has abandoned? If she intended that all men should be happy,
why did she not make them so? She is omnipotent. She permits evil to
exist, when with a breath of her mouth she could sweep it away
forever. But it is part of her scheme of life. She is indifferent to
the cries of distress which rise up to her, in one undying wail, from
the face of the universe. With stony eyes the thousand-handed goddess
sits, serene and merciless, in the midst of her worshipers, like a
Hindoo idol. Her skirts are wet with blood; her creation is based on
destruction; her lives live only by murder. The cruel images of the
pagan are truer delineations of Nature than the figures which typify
the impotent charity of Christendom--an exotic in the midst of an
alien world.
"Let the abyss groan. Why should we trouble ourselves. Let us close
our ears to the cries of distress we are not able to relieve. It was
said of old time, 'Many are called, but few chosen.' Our ancestors
placed a mythical interpretation on this text; but we know that it
means:--many are called to the sorrows of life, but few are chosen to
inherit the delights of wealth and happiness. Buddha told us,
'Poverty is the curse of Brahma'; Mahomet declared that 'God smote
the wicked with misery'; and Christ said, 'The poor ye have always
with you.' Why, then, should we concern ourselves about the poor?
They are part of the everlasting economy of human society. Let us
leave them in the hands of Nature. She who made them can care for
them.
"Let us rejoice that out of the misery of the universe we are
reserved for happiness. For us are music, painting, sculpture, the
interweaving glories of the dance, the splendors of poetry and
oratory, the perfume of flowers, all delicate and dainty viands and
sparkling wines and nectars; and above all Love! Love! Entrancing,
enrapturing Love! With its glowing cheeks--its burning eyes--its hot
lips--its wreathing arms--its showering kisses--its palpitating
bosoms--its intertwining symmetry of beauty and of loveliness."
Here the young lady with the song book drew up closer to me, and
looked up into my eyes with a gaze which no son of Adam could
misunderstand. I thought of Estella, like a true knight, and turned
my face to the preacher. While his doctrines were, to me, utterly
heartless and abominable, there was about him such an ecstasy of
voluptuousness, associated with considerable intellectual force and
passionate oratory, that I was quite interested in him as a
psychological study. I could not help but think by what slow stages,
through many generations, a people calling themselves Christians
could have been brought to this curious commingling of
intellectuality and bestiality; and all upon the basis of
indifference to the sorrows and sufferings of their fellow-creatures.
"On with the dance!" shouted the preacher, "though we dance above
graves. Let the very calamities of the world accentuate our
pleasures, even as the warm and sheltered fireside seems more
delightful when we hear without the roar of the tempest. The ancient
Egyptians brought into their banquets the mummied bodies of the dead,
to remind them of mortality. It was a foolish custom. Men are made to
feast and made to die; and the one is as natural as the other. Let
us, on the other hand, when we rejoice together, throw open our
windows, that we may behold the swarming, starving multitudes who
stream past our doors. Their pinched and ashy faces and hungry eyes,
properly considered, will add a flavor to our viands. We will rejoice
to think that if, in this ill-governed universe, all cannot be blest,
we at least rise above the universal wretchedness and are reserved
for happiness.
"Rejoice, therefore, my children, in your wealth, in your health, in
your strength, in your bodies, and in your loves. Ye are the flower
and perfection of mankind. Let no plea shorten, by one instant, your
pleasures. Death is the end of all things--of consciousness; of
sensation; of happiness. Immortality is the dream of dotards. When ye
can no longer enjoy, make ready for the grave; for the end of Love is
death.
"And what is Love? Love is the drawing together of two beings, in
that nature-enforced affinity and commingling, when out of the very
impact and identity of two spirits, life, triumphant life, springs
into the universe.
"What a powerful impulse is this Love? It is nature-wide. The rushing
together of the chemical elements; the attraction of suns and
planets--all are Love. See how even the plant casts its pollen abroad
on the winds, that it may somewhere reach and rest upon the loving
bosom of a sister-flower; and there, amid perfume and sweetness and
the breath of zephyrs, the great mystery of life is re-enacted. The
plant is without intellect, but it is sensible to Love.
"And who shall doubt, when he contemplates the complicated mechanism
by which, everywhere, this God-Nature--blind as to pain and sin and
death, but tender and solicitous as to birth and life--makes Love
possible, imperative, soulful, overwhelming, that the purposed end
and aim of life is Love. And how pitiful and barren seem to us the
lives of the superstitious and ascetic hermits of the ancient world,
who fled to desert places, to escape from Love, and believed that
they were overcoming the foul fiend by prayers and fastings and
scourgings. But outraged Nature, mighty amid the ruins of their
blasted hearts, reasserted herself, and visited them even in dreams;
and the white arms and loving lips of woman overwhelmed them with hot
and passionate caresses, in visions against which they strove in vain.
"Oh, my brethren, every nerve, fiber, muscle, and 'petty artery of
the body,' participates in Love. Love is the conqueror of death,
because Love alone perpetuates life. Love is life! Love is religion!
Love is the universe! Love is God!" And with this climax he sat down
amid great applause, as in a theater.
I need scarcely say to you, my dear Heinrich, that I was absolutely
shocked by this sermon. Knowing, as you do, the kind and pure and
gentle doctrines taught in the little church in our mountain home,
where love means charity for man and worship of God, you may imagine
how my blood boiled at this cruel, carnal and heartless harangue. The
glowing and picturesque words which he poured out were simply a
carpet of flowers spread over crawling serpents.
The audience of course were familiar with these doctrines. The
preacher owed his success, indeed, to the fact that he had
courageously avowed the sentiments which had dwelt in the breasts of
the people and had been enacted in their lives for generations. The
congregation had listened with rapt attention to this eloquent echo
of their own hearts; this justification of their Nature-worship; this
re-birth of Paganism. The women nestled closer to the men at the
tender passages; and I noticed many a flashing interchange of
glances, between bold, bright eyes, which told too well that the
great preacher's adjurations were not thrown away upon unwilling
listeners.
Another song was sung; and then there was a rustle of silks and
satins. The audience were about to withdraw. The preacher sat upon
his sofa, on the platform, mopping his broad forehead with his
handkerchief, for he had spoken with great energy. I could restrain
myself no longer. I rose and said in a loud voice, which at once
arrested the movement of the congregation:
"Reverend sir, would you permit a stranger to make a few comments on
your sermon?"
"Certainly," he replied, very courteously; "we welcome discussion.
Will you step to the platform?"
"No," I replied; "with your permission I shall speak from where I
stand.
"I can only say to you that I am inexpressibly shocked and grieved by
your discourse.
"Are you blind? Can you not see that Christianity was intended by God
to be something better and nobler, superimposed, as an after-birth of
time, on the brutality of the elder world? Does not the great
doctrine of Evolution, in which you believe, preach this gospel? If
man rose from a brute form, then advanced to human and savage life,
yet a robber and a murderer; then reached civility and culture, and
philanthropy; can you not see that the fingerboard of God points
forward, unerringly, along the whole track of the race; and that it
is still pointing forward to stages, in the future, when man shall
approximate the angels? But this is not your doctrine. Your creed
does not lead forward; it leads backward, to the troglodyte in his
cavern, splitting the leg-bones of his victim to extract the marrow
for his cannibalistic feast. _He_ would have enjoyed your sermon!"
[Great excitement in the congregation.]
"And your gospel of Love. What is it but beastliness? Like the old
Greeks and Romans, and all undeveloped antiquity, you deify the
basest traits of the fleshly organism; you exalt an animal incident
of life into the end of life. You drive out of the lofty temples of
the soul the noble and pure aspirations, the great charities, the
divine thoughts, which should float there forever on the pinions of
angels; and you cover the floor of the temple with crawling
creatures, toads, lizards, vipers--groveling instincts, base
appetites, leprous sensualities, that befoul the walls of the house
with their snail-like markings, and climb, and climb, until they look
out of the very windows of the soul, with such repellent and brutish
eyes, that real love withers and shrinks at the sight, and dies like
a blasted flower.
"O shallow teacher of the blind, do you not see that Christianity was
a new force, Heaven-sent, to overcome that very cruelty and
heartlessness of Nature which you so much commend? Nature's offspring
was indeed the savage, merciless as the creed you preach. Then came
God, who breathed a soul into the nostrils of the savage. Then came
One after Him who said the essence of all religion was man's love for
his fellow man, and for the God that is over all; that the highest
worship of the Father was to heal the sick, and feed the hungry, and
comfort the despised and rejected, and lift up the fallen. And
love!--that was true love, made up in equal parts of adoration and of
pity! Not the thing you call love, which makes these faces flush with
passion and these eyes burn with lust!"
I had gotten thus far, and was proceeding swimmingly, very much to my
own satisfaction, when an old woman who stood near me, and who was
dressed like a girl of twenty, with false rubber shoulders and neck
and cheeks, to hide the ravages of time, hurled a huge hymn-book, the
size of a Bible, at me. Age had not impaired the venerable woman's
accuracy of aim, nor withered the strength of her good right arm; and
the volume of diluted piety encountered me, with great force, just
below my right ear, and sent me reeling over against Max. As I rose,
nothing disconcerted, to renew my discourse, I found the air full of
hymn-books, cushions, umbrellas, overshoes, and every other missile
they could lay their hands on; and then I perceived that the whole
congregation, men, women, children, preacher, clerks and ushers, were
all advancing upon me with evil intent. I would fain have staid to
have argued the matter out with them, for I was full of a great many
fine points, which I had not yet had time to present, but Max, who
never had any interest in theological discussions, and abhorred a
battle with Amazons, seized me by the arm and literally dragged me
out of the church. I continued, however, to shout back my anathemas
of the preacher, and that worthy answered me with floods of abuse;
and the women screamed, and the men howled and swore; and altogether
it was a very pretty assemblage that poured forth upon the sidewalk.
"Come along," said Max; "you will be arrested, and that will spoil
everything."
He hurried me into a carriage and we drove off. Although still full
of the debate, I could not help but laugh when I looked back at the
multitude in front of the church. Every one was wildly ejaculating,
except some of the sisters, who were kissing the hands and face of
the preacher--dear, good man--to console him for the hateful insults
I had heaped upon him! They reminded me of a swarm of hornets whose
paper domicile had been rudely kicked by the foot of some wandering
country boy.
"Well, well," said Max, "you are a strange character! Your impulses
will some time cost you your life. If I did not think so much of you
as I do, I should tell you you were a great fool. Why couldn't you
keep quiet? You surely didn't hope to convert that congregation, any
more than you could have converted the Council of the Plutocracy."
"But, my dear fellow," I replied, "it was a great comfort to me to be
able to tell that old rascal just what I thought of him. And you
can't tell--it may do some good."
"No, no," said Max; "the only preacher that will ever convert that
congregation is Cæsar Lomellini. Cæsar is a bigger brute than they
are--which is saying a good deal. The difference is, they are brutes
who are in possession of the good things of this world; and Cæsar is
a brute who wants to get into possession of them. And there is
another difference: they are polished and cultured brutes, and Cæsar
is the brute natural,--'the unaccommodated man' that Lear spoke of."