My Dear Colonel Ingersoll:
I have read your Reply to my Open Letter half a dozen times, and each
time with new appreciation of your skill as an advocate. It is written
with great ingenuity, and furnishes probably as complete an argument as
you are able to give for the faith (or want of faith) that is in you.
Doubtless you think it unanswerable, and so it will seem to those who
are predisposed to your way of thinking. To quote a homely saying of Mr.
Lincoln, in which there is as much of wisdom as of wit, "For those who
like that sort of thing, no doubt that is the sort of thing they do
like." You may answer that we, who cling to the faith of our fathers,
are equally prejudiced, and that it is for that reason that we are not
more impressed by the force of your pleading. I do not deny a strong
leaning that way, and yet our real interest is the same--to get at the
truth; and, therefore, I have tried to give due weight to whatever of
argument there is in the midst of so much eloquence; but must confess
that, in spite of all, I remain in the same obdurate frame of mind as
before. With all the candor that I can bring to bear upon the question,
I find on reviewing my Open Letter scarcely a sentence to change and
nothing to withdraw; and am quite willing to leave it as my Declaration
of Faith, to stand side by side with your Reply, for intelligent and
candid men to judge between us. I need only to add a few words in taking
leave of the subject.
You seem a little disturbed that "some of my brethren" should look upon
you as "a monster" because of your unbelief. I certainly do not approve
of such language, although they would tell me that it is the only word
which is a fit response to your ferocious attacks upon what they hold
most sacred. You are a born gladiator, and when you descend into the
arena, you strike heavy blows, which provoke blows in return. In this
very Reply you manifest a particular animosity against Presbyterians.
Is it because you were brought up in that Church, of which your father,
whom you regard with filial respect and affection, was an honored
minister? You even speak of "the Presbyterian God!" as if we assumed to
appropriate the Supreme Being, claiming to be the special objects of
His favor. Is there any ground for this imputation of narrowness? On the
contrary, when we bow our knees before our Maker, it is as the God and
Father of all mankind; and the expression you permit yourself to use,
can only be regarded as grossly offensive. Was it necessary to offer
this rudeness to the religious denomination in which you were born?
And this may explain, what you do not seem fully to understand, why it
is that you are sometimes treated to sharp epithets by the religious
press and public. You think yourself persecuted for your opinions. But
others hold the same opinions without offence. Nor is it because you
express your opinions. Nobody would deny you the same freedom which is
accorded to Huxley or Herbert Spencer. It is not because you exercise
your liberty of judgment or of speech, but because of the way in which
you attack others, holding up their faith to all manner of ridicule,
and speaking of those who profess it as if they must be either knaves or
fools. It is not in human nature not to resent such imputations on that
which, however incredible to you, is very precious to them. Hence it is
that they think you a rough antagonist; and when you shock them by
such expressions as I have quoted, you must expect some pretty strong
language in return. I do not join them in this, because I know you,
and appreciate that other side of you which is manly and kindly and
chivalrous. But while I recognize these better qualities, I must add
in all frankness that I am compelled to look upon you as a man so
embittered against religion that you cannot think of it except as
associated with cant, bigotry, and hypocrisy. In such a state of mind
it is hardly possible for you to judge fairly of the arguments for its
truth.
I believe with you, that reason was given us to be exercised, and that
when man seeks after truth, his mind should be, as you say Darwin's was,
"as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass." But if he is warped
by passion so that he cannot see things truly, then is he responsible.
It is the moral element which alone makes the responsibility. Nor do I
believe that any man will be judged in this world or the next for what
does not involve a moral wrong. Hence your appalling statement, "The God
you worship will, according to your creed, torture (!) through all the
endless years the man who entertains an honest doubt," does not produce
the effect intended, simply because I do not affirm nor believe any such
thing. I believe that, in the future world, every man will be judged
according to the deeds done in the body, and that the judgment, whatever
it may be, will be transparently just. God is more merciful than man.
He desireth not the death of the wicked. Christ forgave, where men would
condemn, and whatever be the fate of any human soul, it can never be
said that the Supreme Ruler was wanting either in justice or mercy.
This I emphasize because you dwell so much upon the subject of future
retribution, giving it an attention so constant as to be almost
exclusive. Whatever else you touch upon, you soon come back to this as
the black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its
mighty shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come. Your
denunciations of this "inhuman" belief are so reiterated that one would
be left to infer that there is nothing else in Religion; that it is all
wrath and terror. But this is putting a part for the whole. Religion
is a vast system, of which this is but a single feature: it is but one
doctrine of many; and indeed some whom no one will deny to be devout
Christians, do not hold it at all, or only in a modified form, while
with all their hearts they accept and profess the Religion that Christ
came to bring into the world.
Archdeacon Farrar, of Westminster Abbey, the most eloquent preacher in
the Church of England, has written a book entitled "Eternal Hope," in
which he argues from reason and the Bible, that this life is not "the
be-all and end-all" of human probation; but that in the world to come
there will be another opportunity, when countless millions, made wiser
by unhappy experience, will turn again to the paths of life; and that so
in the end the whole human race, with the exception of perhaps a few who
remain irreclaimable, will be recovered and made happy forever. Others
look upon "eternal death" as merely the extinction of being, while
immortality is the reward of pre-eminent virtue, interpreting in that
sense the words, "The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." The latter view might
recommend itself to you as the application of "the survival of the
fittest" to another world, the worthless, the incurably bad, of the
human race being allowed to drop out of existence (an end which can
have no terrors for you, since you look upon it as the common lot of all
men,) while the good are continued in being forever. The acceptance
of either of these theories would relieve your mind of that "horror of
great darkness" which seems to come over it whenever you look forward to
retribution beyond the grave.
But while conceding all liberty to others I cannot so easily relieve
myself of this stern and rugged truth. To me moral evil in the universe
is a tremendous reality, and I do not see how to limit it within the
bounds of time. Retribution is to me a necessary part of the Divine law.
A law without a penalty for its violations is no law. But I rest the
argument for it, not on the Bible, but _on principles which you yourself
acknowledge_. You say, "There are no punishments, no rewards: there are
consequences." Very well, take the "consequences," and see where they
lead you. When a man by his vices has reduced his body to a wreck and
his mind to idiocy, you say this is the "consequence" of his vicious
life. Is it a great stretch of language to say that it is his
"punishment," and nonetheless punishment because self-inflicted? To the
poor sufferer raving in a madhouse, it matters little what it is called,
so long as he is experiencing the agonies of hell. And here your theory
of "consequences," if followed up, will lead you very far. For if
man lives after death, and keeps his personal identity, do not the
"consequences" of his past life follow him into the future? And if his
existence is immortal, are not the consequences immortal also? And what
is this but endless retribution?
But you tell me that the moral effect of retribution is destroyed by the
easy way in which a man escapes the penalty. He has but to repent, and
he is restored to the same condition before the law as if he had not
sinned. Not so do I understand it. "I believe in the forgiveness of
sins," but forgiveness does not reverse the course of nature; it does
not prevent the operation of natural law. A drunkard may repent as he is
nearing his end, but that does not undo the wrong that he has done, nor
avert the consequences. In spite of his tears, he dies in an agony of
shame and remorse. The inexorable law must be fulfilled.
And so in the future world. Even though a man be forgiven, he does not
wholly escape the evil of his past life. A retribution follows him even
within the heavenly gates; for if he does not suffer, still that bad
life has so shriveled up his moral nature as to diminish his power of
enjoyment. There are degrees of happiness, as one star differeth from
another star in glory; and he who begins wrong, will find that it is
not as well to sin and repent of it as not to sin at all. He enters the
other world in a state of spiritual infancy, and will have to begin at
the bottom and climb slowly upward.
We might go a step farther, and say that perhaps heaven itself has not
only its lights but its shadows, in the reflections that must come even
there. We read of "the book of God's remembrance," but is there not
another book of remembrance in the mind itself--a book which any man may
well fear to open and to look thereon? When that book is opened, and we
read its awful pages, shall we not all think "what might have been?" And
will those thoughts be wholly free from sadness? The drunken brute who
breaks the heart that loved him may weep bitterly, and his poor wife may
forgive him with her dying lips; but _he cannot forgive himself _, and
_never_ can he recall without grief that bowed head and that broken
heart. This preserves the element of retribution, while it does not shut
the door to forgiveness and mercy.
But we need not travel over again the round of Christian doctrines.
My faith is very simple; it revolves around two words; God and
Christ. These are the two centres, or, as an astronomer might say, the
double-star, or double-sun, of the great orbit of religious truth.
As to the first of these, you say "There can be no evidence to my mind
of the existence of such a being, and my mind is so that it is incapable
of even thinking of an infinite personality;" and you gravely put to me
this question: "Do you really believe that this world is governed by an
infinitely wise and good God? Have you convinced even yourself of this?"
Here are two questions--one as to the existence of God, and the other
as to His benevolence. I will answer both in language as plain as it is
possible for me to use.
First, Do I believe in the existence of God? I answer that it is
impossible for me not to believe it. I could not disbelieve it if I
would. You insist that belief or unbelief is not a matter of choice or
of the will, but of evidence. You say "the brain thinks as the
heart beats, as the eyes see." Then let us stand aside with all our
prepossessions, and open our eyes to what we can see.
When Robinson Crusoe in his desert island came down one day to the
seashore, and saw in the sand the print of a human foot, could he help
the instantaneous conviction that a man had been there? You might have
tried to persuade him that it was all chance,--that the sand had been
washed up by the waves or blown by the winds, and taken this form, or
that some marine insect had traced a figure like a human foot,--you
would not have moved him a particle. The imprint was there, and the
conclusion was irresistible: he did not believe--he knew that some human
being, whether friend or foe, civilized or savage, had set his foot upon
that desolate shore. So when I discover in the world (as I think I do)
mysterious footprints that are certainly not human, it is not a question
whether I shall believe or not: I cannot help believing that some Power
greater than man has set foot upon the earth.
It is a fashion among atheistic philosophers to make light of the
argument from design; but "my mind is so that it is incapable" of
resisting the conclusion to which it leads me. And (since personal
questions are in order) I beg to ask if it is possible for you to take
in your hands a watch, and believe that there was no "design" in its
construction; that it was not made to keep time, but only "happened" so;
that it is the product of some freak of nature, which brought together
its parts and set it going. Do you not know with as much positiveness as
can belong to any conviction of your mind, that it was not the work of
accident, but of design; and that if there was a design, there was a
designer? And if the watch was made to keep time, was not the eye made
to see and the ear to hear? Skeptics may fight against this argument as
much as they please, and try to evade the inevitable conclusion, and
yet it remains forever entwined in the living frame of man as well as
imbedded in the solid foundations of the globe. Wherefore I repeat, it
is not a question with me whether I will believe or not--I cannot help
believing; and I am not only surprised, but amazed, that you or
any thoughtful man can come to any other conclusion.' In wonder and
astonishment I ask, "Do you really believe" that in all the wide
universe there is no Higher Intelligence than that of the poor human
creatures that creep on this earthly ball? For myself, it is with the
pro-foundest conviction as well as the deepest reverence that I repeat
the first sentence of my faith: "I believe in God the Father Almighty."
And not the Almighty only, but the Wise and the Good. Again I ask, How
can I help believing what I see every day of my life? Every morning,
as the sun rises in the East, sending light and life over the world, I
behold a glorious image of the beneficent Creator. The exquisite beauty
of the dawn, the dewy freshness of the air, the fleecy clouds floating
in the sky--all speak of Him. And when the sun goes down, sending shafts
of light through the dense masses that would hide his setting, and
casting a glory over the earth and sky, this wondrous illumination is
to me but the reflection of Him who "spreadeth out the heavens like a
curtain; who maketh the clouds His chariot; who walketh upon the wings
of the wind."
How much more do we find the evidences of goodness in man himself:
in the power of thought; of acquiring knowledge; of penetrating the
mysteries of nature and climbing among the stars. Can a being endowed
with such transcendent gifts doubt the goodness of his Creator?
Yes, I believe with all my heart and soul in One who is not only
Infinitely Great, but Infinitely Good; who loves all the creatures He
has made; bending over them as the bow in the cloud spans the arch of
heaven, stretching from horizon to horizon; looking down upon them with
a tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold. "Like
as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear
Him; for He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust."
On the question of immortality you are equally "at sea." You know
nothing and believe nothing; or, rather, you know only that you do not
know, and believe that you do not believe. You confess indeed to a faint
hope, and admit a bare possibility, that there may be another life,
though you are in an uncertainty about it that is altogether bewildering
and desperate. But your mind is so poetical that you give a certain
attractiveness even to the prospect of annihilation. You strew the
sepulchre with such flowers as these:
"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that the idea of
immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart,
with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and
rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor
of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to
ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long
as love kisses the lips of death.
"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not know, we
cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a
day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings;
the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings rapture and
love to every one."
Beautiful words! but inexpressibly sad! It is a silver lining to the
cloud, and yet the cloud is there, dark and impenetrable. But perhaps
we ought not to expect anything clearer and brighter from one who
recognizes no light but that of Nature.
That light is very dim. If it were all we had, we should be just where
Cicero was, and say with him, and with you, that a future life was "to
be hoped for rather than believed." But does not that very uncertainty
show the need of a something above Nature, which is furnished in Him who
"was crucified, dead and buried, and the third day rose again from the
dead?" It is the Conqueror of Death who calls to the fainthearted: "I am
the Resurrection and the Life." Since He has gone before us, lighting
up the dark passage of the grave, we need not fear to follow, resting on
the word of our Leader: "Because I live, ye shall live also."
This faith in another life is a precious inheritance, which cannot
be torn from the agonized bosom without a wrench that tears every
heartstring; and it was to this I referred as the last refuge of a poor,
suffering, despairing soul, when I asked: "Does it never occur to you
that there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of
your fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another life hangs all that
relieves the darkness of their present existence?" The imputation of
cruelty you repel with some warmth, saying (with a slight variation of
my language): "_When I deny the existence of perdition_, you reply that
there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of my
fellow-creatures." Of course, this change of words, putting perdition in
the place of immortal life and hope, was a mere inadvertence. But it
was enough to change the whole character of what I wrote. As I described
"the treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures," I did think it
"very cruel," and I think so still.
While correcting this slight misquotation, I must remove from your mind
a misapprehension, which is so very absurd as to be absolutely comical.
In my Letter referring to your disbelief of immortality, I had said:
"With an air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience
by storm, you confess your ignorance of what perhaps others are better
acquainted with, when you say, 'This world is all that I know anything
about, _so far as I recollect_'" Of course "what perhaps others are
better acquainted with" was a part of what you said, or at least implied
by your manner (for you do not convey your meaning merely by words,
but by a tone of voice, by arched eyebrows, or a curled lip); and yet,
instead of taking the sentence in its plain and obvious sense, you
affect to understand it as an assumption on my part to have some private
and mysterious knowledge of another world (!), and gravely ask me, "Did
you by this intend to say that you know anything of any other state of
existence; that you have inhabited some other planet; that you lived
before you were born; and that you recollect something of that other
world or of that other state?" No, my dear Colonel! I have been a good
deal of a traveler, and have seen all parts of this world, but I have
never visited any other. In reading your sober question, if I did not
know you to be one of the brightest wits of the day, I should be tempted
to quote what Sidney Smith says of a Scotchman, that "you cannot get a
joke into his head except by a surgical operation!"
But to return to what is serious: you make light of our faith and
our hopes, because you know not the infinite solace they bring to the
troubled human heart. You sneer at the idea that religion can be a
"consolation." Indeed! Is it not a consolation to have an Almighty
Friend? Was it a light matter for the poor slave mother, who sat alone
in her cabin, having been robbed of her children, to sing in her wild,
wailing accents:
"Nobody knows the sorrows I've seen:
Nobody knows but Jesus?"
Would you rob her of that Unseen Friend--the only Friend she had on
earth or in heaven?
But I will do you the justice to say that your want of religious faith
comes in part from your very sensibility and tenderness of heart. You
cannot recognize an overruling Providence, because your mind is so
harassed by scenes that you witness. Why, you ask, do men suffer so? You
draw frightful pictures of the misery which exists in the world, as a
proof of the incapacity of its Ruler and Governor, and do not hesitate
to say that "any honest man of average intelligence could do vastly
better." If you could have your way, you would make everybody happy;
there should be no more poverty, and no more sickness or pain.
This is a pleasant picture to look at, and yet you must excuse me for
saying that it is rather a child's picture than that of a stalwart man.
The world is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged
like children: spoiled children they would soon become. It is an arena
of conflict, in which we are to develop the manhood that is in us. We
all have to take the "rough-and-tumble" of life, and are the better
for it--physically, intellectually, and morally. If there be any true
manliness within us, we come out of the struggle stronger and better;
with larger minds and kinder hearts; a broader wisdom and a gentler
charity.
Perhaps we should not differ on this point if we could agree as to the
true end of life. But here I fear the difference is irreconcilable. You
think that end is happiness: I think it is character. I do not believe
that the highest end of life upon earth is to "have a good time to get
from it the utmost amount of enjoyment;" but to be truly and greatly
GOOD; and that to that end no discipline can be too severe which leads
us "to suffer and be strong." That discipline answers its end when it
raises the spirit to the highest pitch of courage and endurance. The
splendor of virtue never appears so bright as when set against a dark
background. It was in prisons and dungeons that the martyrs showed the
greatest degree of moral heroism, the power of
"Man's unconquerable mind."
But I know well that these illustrations do not cover the whole case.
There is another picture to be added to those of heroic struggle and
martyrdom--that of silent suffering, which makes of life one long agony,
and which often comes upon the good, so that it seems as if the best
suffered the most. And yet when you sit by a sick bed, and look into a
face whiter than the pillow on which it rests, do you not sometimes mark
how that very suffering refines the nature that bears it so meekly? This
is the Christian theory: that suffering, patiently borne, is a means
of the greatest elevation of character, and, in the end, of the highest
enjoyment. Looking at it in this light, we can understand how it should
be that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared [or even to be named] with the glory which shall be revealed."
When the heavenly morning breaks, brighter than any dawn that blushes
"o'er the world," there will be "a restitution of all things:" the poor
will be made rich, and the most suffering the most serenely happy; as in
the vision of the Apocalypse, when it is asked "What are these which are
arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" the answer is, "These are
they which came our of great tribulation."
In this conclusion, which is not adopted lightly, but after innumerable
struggles with doubt, after the experience and the reflection of years,
I feel "a great peace." It is the glow of sunset that gilds the approach
of evening. For (we must confess it) it is towards that you and I are
advancing. The sun has passed the meridian, and hastens to his going
down. Whatever of good this life has for us (and I am far from being one
of those who look upon it as a vale of tears) will soon be behind us. I
see the shadows creeping on; yet I welcome the twilight that will soon
darken into night, for I know that it will be a night all glorious with
stars. As I look upward, the feeling of awe is blended with a strange,
overpowering sense of the Infinite Goodness, which surrounding me like
an atmosphere:
"And so beside the Silent Sea,
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His Islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care."
Would that you could share with me this confidence and this hope! But
you seem to be receding farther from any kind of faith. In one of your
closing paragraphs, you give what is to you "the conclusion of the whole
matter." After repudiating religion with scorn, you ask, "Is there not
room for a better, for a higher philosophy?" and thus indicate the true
answer to be given, to which no words can do justice but your own:
"After all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been
necessarily produced; that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes
and all crimes, were simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of
this perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute
justification for the individual? May we not find that every soul
has, like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like
Prometheus to the rocks of fate?"
If this be the end of all philosophy, it is equally the end of "all
things." Not only does it make an end of us and of our hopes of
futurity, but of all that makes the present life worth living--of
all freedom, and hence of all virtue. There are no more any moral
distinctions in the world--no good and no evil, no right and no wrong;
nothing but grim necessity. With such a creed, I wonder how you can ever
stand at the bar, and argue for the conviction of a criminal. Why should
he be convicted and punished for what he could not help? Indeed he is
not a criminal, since there is no such thing as crime. He is not to
blame. Was he not "lashed to the wild horse of passion," carried away by
a power beyond his control?
What cruelty to thrust him behind iron bars! Poor fellow! he deserves
our pity. Let us hasten to relieve him from a position which must be so
painful, and make our humble apology for having presumed to punish him
for an act in which he only obeyed an impulse which he could not resist.
This will be "absolute justification for the individual." But what will
become of society, you do not tell us.
Are you aware that in this last attainment of "a better, a higher
philosophy" (which is simply absolute fatalism), you have swung round
to the side of John Calvin, and gone far beyond him? That you, who have
exhausted all the resources of the English language in denouncing
his creed as the most horrible of human beliefs--brainless, soulless,
heartless; who have held it up to scorn and derision; now hold to the
blackest Calvinism that was ever taught by man? You cannot find words
sufficient to express your horror of the doctrine of Divine decrees;
and yet here you have decrees with a vengeance--predestination and
damnation, both in one. Under such a creed, man is a thousand times
worse off than under ours: for he has absolutely no hope. You may say
that at any rate he cannot suffer forever. You do not know even that;
but at any rate _he suffers as long as he exists_. There is no God above
to show him pity, and grant him release; but as long as the ages roll,
he is "lashed to the rocks of fate," with the insatiate vulture tearing
at his heart!
In reading your glittering phrases, I seem to be losing hold of
everything, and to be sinking, sinking, till I touch the lowest
depths of an abyss; while from the blackness above me a sound like a
death-knell tolls the midnight of the soul. If I believed this I should
cry, God help us all! Or no--for there would be no God, and even this
last consolation would be denied us: for why should we offer a prayer
which can neither be heard nor answered? As well might we ask mercy from
"the rocks of fate" to which we are chained forever!
Recoiling from this Gospel of Despair, I turn to One in whose face there
is something at once human and divine--an indescribable majesty, united
with more than human tenderness and pity; One who was born among the
poor, and had not where to lay His head, and yet went about doing good;
poor, yet making many rich; who trod the world in deepest loneliness,
and yet whose presence lighted up every dwelling into which He came; who
took up little children in His arms, and blessed them; a giver of joy to
others, and yet a sufferer himself; who tasted every human sorrow, and
yet was always ready to minister to others' grief; weeping with them
that wept; coming to Bethany to comfort Mary and Martha concerning their
brother; rebuking the proud, but gentle and pitiful to the most abject
of human creatures; stopping amid the throng at the cry of a blind
beggar by the wayside; willing to be known as "the friend of sinners,"
if He might recall them into the way of peace; who did not scorn even
the fallen woman who sank at His feet, but by His gentle word, "Neither
do I condemn thee; go and sin no more," lifted her up, and set her in
the path of a virtuous womanhood; and who, when dying on the cross,
prayed: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." In this
Friend of the friendless, Comforter of the comfortless, Forgiver of the
penitent, and Guide of the erring, I find a greatness that I had not
found in any of the philosophers or teachers of the world. No voice
in all the ages thrills me like that which whispers close to my heart,
"Come unto me and I will give you rest," to which I answer: This is my
Master, and I will follow Him.
Henry M. Field.