CHAPTER II. SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED
CHAPTER III. THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM
CHAPTER IV. MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH
CHAPTER V. ANCIENT SYMBOLISM AND MODERN LITERALISM
CHAPTER VI. ASTRAL KEYS TO BIBLE STORIES
CHAPTER VII. THE FABLE OF THE FALL
CHAPTER VIII. SEARCH FOR THE “LAST ADAM”
CHAPTER IX. WHAT IS KNOWN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
CHAPTER X. THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS
CHAPTER XI. THE IDEAL CHRIST
CHAPTER XII. JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS
CHAPTER XIII. A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS
CHAPTER XIV. A FEW FRAGMENTS
CHAPTER XV. BLOOD-SALVATION
CHAPTER XVI. THINGS THAT REMAIN
INDEX
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
THE Eliminator has now been before the public nearly two years. I have
seen nothing worthy of the name of criticism respecting it. A few
Unitarian ministers have said that Christ must have been a person
instead of a personification, for the reason that men could not have
conceived of such a perfect character without a living example, and that
the great influence exercised by him for so long a time, over so many
people, proves him to have been an historic character. These arguments
are anticipated and fully answered. (See pp. 283, 284, 306.)
Our Unitarian friends are the greatest _idealists_ upon the globe! They
only accept the Gospel biography of Jesus (and we have no other) just so
far as the story accords with what they think it ought to be. They deny
the immaculate conception and miraculous birth of the Christ, and have
very great doubts about his crucifixion and resurrection. Their Christ
is purely _ideal_. The fact is that Christendom has worshipped the
literal Jesus for the ideal Christ for nearly twenty centuries, though
their conceptions of him have been manifold and contradictory. No wonder
that so many intelligent Christian sects in the early ages of the
church utterly denied the existence of Jesus as an historic person.
(See pp. 266, 267, 357.) But there is indubitable evidence that this
_Christ character_ (called by many Unitarians the “Universal Christ”)
was mainly _mythical, drawn from the astrological riddles of the older
Pagan mythologies._
In fact, almost everything in Christianity seems to have been an
_afterthought_. It is the least original of any of the ten great
religions of the world, and the great mistake has been in making almost
everything _literal_ which the wise men of ancient times regarded as
_allegorical_. This comes from the priestly attempt to identify the
_Jewish Jesus_ with the _Oriental Christ_ Tradition is, in fact, the
main foundation of the Christian scheme, and cunning sacerdotalists have
done by artifice what history, in fact, has failed to do. But for its
moral precepts and its “enthusiasm of humanity,” Christianity would not
survive for a single century. The so-called “Apostles’ Creed” (which was
not formulated until centuries after the last Apostle slept in the
grave), and which is repeated in so many churches every Sunday, has a
greater number of historical and theological misstatements than any
other writing of the same length now extant!
There is in our day a general disposition to magnify the virtues of the
Christ of the New Testament, connected with a proposition to unite all
Christians in his leadership. This device will not succeed, because it
is as impossible to found a perfect religion upon an imperfect man as it
is upon a fallible Book. Lovers of the truth will show that the
traditional Christ is not a perfect model. (See Chapter xiii.) There is
a most significant sense in which it may be truthfully said: “Never man
spake like this man,” as no great moral teacher ever uttered so many
things that needed to be revised and explained!
May it not be the fact that both Catholic and Protestant Christians are
under a great delusion as to the facts of religion? I think so. I
believe so. I well know how difficult it is to explode a delusion that
is nearly twenty centuries old, and that is supported by a sacerdotalism
of vast wealth and learning, and whose votaries by “this craft have
their wealth.”
I nail these _Thèses_ to the church doors of all the Catholics and
Protestants in Christendom, and with Martin Luther, at the Diet of
Worms, I exclaim, “Here I stand. I cannot move! God help me!” If I am
mistaken, then my reason is at fault and all history is a lie! It is
said that when Renan died, the Pope inquired whether he had confessed
before his de-cease, and upon being told that he had not, replied,
“Well, then God will have to save him for his sincerity!” I am ready to
be judged on this ground. I sum up my latest conclusions thus: The Jesus
of the Gospels is _traditional_, the Christ of the New Testament is
_mythical_.
R. B. WESTBROOK.
1707 Oxford Street,
Philadelphia.
October 1, 1894.
PREFACE
Many things in this book will greatly shock, and even give heartfelt
pain to, numerous persons whom I greatly respect. I have a large share
of the love of approbation, and naturally desire the good opinion of
those with whom I have been associated in a long life. There is no
pleasure in the fact that I have to stand quite alone in the eyes of
nearly all Christendom. There is no satisfaction in being deemed a
disturber of the peace of the great majority of those “professing and
calling themselves Christians.” But, at the same time, I must not be
indifferent in matters where I believe truth is concerned.
Before I withdrew from the orthodox ministry I used to wonder why God in
his gracious providence had not seen fit to so order events as to give
us a credible and undoubted history of the incarnation and birth of his
Son Jesus Christ, and why that Saviour, who had come to repair the great
evils inflicted upon our race by Adam, had never once mentioned that
unfortunate fall.
I do not deny that there was a person named Jesus nearly nineteen
hundred years ago. I think there were several persons bearing this name
and who were contemporaneous, and that several of them were very good
men; but that any one of them was _such_ a person as is described in the
Gospels I cannot believe. I lay special emphasis on the word such.
Admitting for the sake of the argument the real, historical personality
of Jesus of Nazareth, he has by the process of _idealization_ become an
_impersonation_, and I have so attempted to make it appear; and I cannot
but think that this view is not inconsistent with the most enlightened
piety and religious devotion, while this explanation relieves us of many
things which are absurd and contradictory.
I desire to explain more fully than appears in the _Table of Contents_
the plan of this book. I first combat the policy of _suppression and
deception_, and insist that the whole truth shall be published, and have
shown that sacerdotalism is responsible for the fact that it has not
been done. As so-called Christianity is based upon Judaism, I undertake
to show the fabulous character of many of the claims of the Jews,
disclaiming all intention to asperse the character of Israelites of the
present generation.
I thought it proper in this connection to give the substance of an _open
letter_ to the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on
_Moses and the Pentateuch_—to which His Honor never responded—showing
that the “law of Sinai was not the first of which we have any
knowledge,” and that Moses was not “the greatest statesman and lawgiver
the world had ever produced,” as the Chief-Justice had affirmed in a
lecture before the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Presenting brief views of the symbolic character of the Old Testament,
and showing how “Astral Keys” unlock many Bible stories, I undertake to
show that the so-called fall of Adam is a _fable_, nothing more; and
then, as the _first_ Adam is shown to be a _myth_, I go in search for
the “_last Adam_.” Finding no knowledge of such a person except in the
New Testament, I deem it necessary to briefly show the character of this
book, that it may be determined how far it should be received as
evidence in a matter of so much importance. Then in five chapters, more
or less connected, I combat the idea of the historical, or rather
_traditional_, Jesus, and follow with an examination of the evangelical
dogma of _Blood-Salvation_, and close with a very brief summary of the
_Things that Remain_ as the foundation of faith.
I do not expect _caste_ clergymen to read this book any farther than is
necessary to denounce it. It is their way of meeting questions like
those herein discussed. I am prepared to have certain _dilettanti_
sneer-ingly say, “This book is of no critical value.” They are so
accustomed to “scholarly essays” which “are poetically sentimental and
floridly vague” that they have little respect for anything else. The
book is intended for the common people, and not for the professional
critics.
I do not expect everybody to agree with me, especially at first. Truth
can afford to wait, and in years to come many points that I have made,
which are now so startling, will be calmly and intelligently accepted.
There are probably mistakes in the book—mistakes in names, in dates, and
perhaps in facts; but these will not affect the main argument. No man
knows everything. Until recently it was never suspected by the learned
world that _The Contemplative Life_ was not written by Philo nearly
nineteen centuries ago, instead of being written by a monk in the third
century of the Christian era. Even Macaulay and Bancroft have made
mistakes, and so have many other authors of good repute.
I have always tried to preserve a _reverent spirit_—a genuine respect
for true religion and morality. I have always been profoundly religious,
and cannot remember the time when I was not devout. But I do not believe
that it is ever proper “to do evil that good may come.” In this work I
have sought only the _truth_, in the firm conviction that superstition
and falsehood cannot promote a course of _right living_, which is the
object and aim of all true religion.
I have a supreme disregard for literary fame. I do not shrink from being
called a _compiler_ or even a _plagiarist_. There is absolutely very
little of real _originality_ in the world. I could have followed the
course of many writers and _absorbed or assimilated_, and thus seemingly
made my own what they had written; but I have chosen to quote freely,
and so have substantially given the words of many authors of repute, and
at the same time saved myself the labor of a re-coining, which does not,
after all, deceive the intelligent reader. The books from which I
largely quote are mainly voluminous and very expensive, and some of them
are out of print. I am indebted to the learned foot-notes of Evan Powell
Meredith in his prize essay on _The Prophet of Nazareth_ for several
things, and must not fail to acknowledge my obligations to certain
living authors for valuable assistance, and especially to my friend Dr.
Alexander Wilder, who prepared at my request the substance of Chapter
X., _The Drama of the Gospels_, and who, in my judgment, has few
superiors in classical and Oriental literature.
I sympathize with those persons who will complain-ingly exclaim, “You
have taken away my Saviour, and I know not where you have laid him.” But
suppose that we do not _need a Saviour_ in the evangelical sense?
Suppose that man has not _fallen_, but that the race has been _rising_
these many centuries; and that while we have mainly to save ourselves,
all the good and great men of all ages have aided us in the work of
salvation by what they have said and done and suffered, so that instead
of one savior we really have had many saviors. I think that this view is
more reasonable and consoling than the commercial device of what is
called the “scheme of redemption,” besides having scientific facts to
sustain it.
I have preserved on the title-page some of my college degrees, to
indicate my professional studies of theology and law, and not from
motives of pedantry.
R. B. WESTBROOK.
1707 Oxford Street,
Philadelphia.
SKELETON KEYS TO SACERDOTAL SECRETS
CHAPTER I. THE WHOLE TRUTH
_“For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid
that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in
darkness, shall be heard in the light, and that which ye have spoken in
the ear, in closets, shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”—Luke 12:
2, 3._
THE assumption is general that if the faith of the common people should
be unsettled as to some things which they have heretofore been taught
regarding religion, they would immediately reject all truth, and fall
into a most deplorable state of skepticism and infidelity, and that the
existing institutions of religion would be destroyed, and public virtue
so undermined as to endanger the very foundations of morality and civil
government. This is not only the fear of conservative and timid
clergymen, but many of our prominent statesmen seem anxious lest the
enlightenment of the people in matters in which they have been cruelly
deceived should so weaken the restraints of police and governmental
authority as to result in universal anarchy and a general disregard of
the rights of property, and even of the sacredness of human life.
These foolish fears show a great want of confidence in human nature, and
falsely assume that moral character depends mainly upon an unquestioning
faith in certain dogmas which, in point of fact, have no necessary
connection with it.
The statistics of crime show that a very large majority of those who
have been seized by the strong arm of the law as dangerous members of
society are those who most heartily believe in those very dogmas of
theology which we are warned not to criticise, though we may know them
to be accretions of ignorance and superstition, and that some of them
have a natural tendency to fetter the essential principles of true
religion and that higher code of morality which alone can stand strong
under all circumstances. It is safe to affirm that ninety-nine
hundredths of the criminal class believe, or profess to believe, in the
dogmas of the dominant theology, Romish and Protestant; which are
essentially the same.
It is too often forgotten that the very first condition of good
government is faith in human nature, confidence in the people. You
always excite dishonor and dishonesty by treating men as if you think
them all rogues, and as if you expect nothing good from them, but every
conceivable evil, only as they may be restrained by the fear of pains
and penalties in this life and after death.
One great fundamental mistake of theologians and dogmatic pietists is
the baseless assumption that religion is something supernatural, not to
say anti-natural; something external to human nature and of foreign
origin; something to be received by transfusion as the result or
consequence of faith in certain dogmas or the observance of external
rites; something bottled up by the Church, like rare and precious
medicines in an apothecary-shop, to be dealt out to those who are
willing to follow priestly prescriptions and pay the required price.
The fact is, churches and scriptures and dogmas are the outcome of that
religious element which is inherent in human nature. It cannot be too
often or too strongly urged that the religious principle is _innate_ and
_ineradicable_ in mankind, and that you might as well try to destroy
man’s love of the beautiful, his desire for knowledge, his love of home
and kindred, or even his appetite for food, as to try to destroy it. It
is as natural to feel the want of religion as it is to be hungry. You
_cannot_ destroy the foundations of religion. They rest in _nature_ and
antedate all creeds and churches, and will survive them.
Even Professor Tyndall says: “The facts of religious feeling are to me
as certain as the facts of physics.”
... “The world will have religion of some kind.”... “You who have
escaped from these religions into the high and dry light of intellect
may deride them, but in doing so you deride accidents of form merely,
and fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the
nature of man. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the
problem of problems at this hour.”
Renan also writes thus: “All the symbols which serve to give shape to
the religious sentiment are imperfect, and their fate is to be one after
another rejected. But nothing is more remote from the truth than the
dream of those who seek to imagine a perfected humanity without
religion.”... “Devotion is as natural as egoism to a true-born man. The
organization of devotion _is_ religion. Let no one hope, therefore, to
dispense with religion or religious associations. Each progression of
modern society will render this want more imperious.”
We use the word religion as it was used by Cicero, in the sense of
_scruple_, implying the consciousness of a natural obligation wholly
irrespective of what one may believe concerning the gods. Religion in
its true meaning is the great fact of _duty, of oughtness_, consisting
in an honest and persistent effort to realize ideal excellence and to
transform it into actual character and practical life. Religion as a
_spirit_ and a life is objected to by none, but is admired and commended
by all. It is superstition, bigotry, credulity, and dogma that are
detestable. The religious instinct has been perverted, turned into wrong
channels, made subservient to priestcraft and kingcraft, but its basic
principle remains for ever firm. If it _could_ have been destroyed, the
machinations of priests would have annihilated it long ago. Give
yourselves no anxiety about the corner-stone of religion, but look well
to the rotten superstructures that have been reared upon it. Its
professed friends are often its real enemies. It is the false prophet
who is afraid to have his oracles subjected to tests of reason and
history. It is the evil-doer who is afraid of the light, the conscious
thief who objects to being searched. An honest man would say, “Let the
truth be published, though the heavens fell.”
The whole truth should be published, as a matter of common honesty, if
nothing more. We have no moral right to conceal the truth, any more than
we have to proclaim falsehood. He who deliberately does the one will not
hesitate long about doing the other. And this is one of the most serious
aspects of this subject. He who can bring himself to practise deceit
regarding religion will soon be a villain at heart, even if worldly
prudence is strong enough to keep him out of the penitentiary.
As a rule, the unfaithful teacher inflicts a greater evil upon his own
soul than upon his unsuspecting dupe. The deceiver is sure to be
overtaken by his own deceit. Mean men become more mean, and liars come
to believe their own oft-repeated falsehoods. This principle may in part
account for the fact that in all ages dishonest, mercenary, designing
priests have been most corrupt citizens and ready tools in the hands of
tyrants to oppress and enslave the people.
Every deceptive act blunts the moral sense, defiles and sears the
conscience, until at last the hypocrite degenerates into a slimy, subtle
human serpent that always crawls upon its belly and eats dust.
Secretiveness and deceitfulness become a second nature, and show
themselves continually even in the ordinary affairs of life. The reflex
influence of deception upon the deceiver himself is its most bitter
condemnation.
But modern preachers have a way of justifying their evasions and
prevarications by saying that even Jesus himself withheld from his own
disciples some things, for the reason that they were “not able to bear
them,” quite overlooking the fact that he is also reported to have said,
“When the Spirit of truth has come, he will teach you all things,” and
that other passage (Luke 12: 2), where Jesus is represented as saying,
“For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid
that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in
darkness, shall be heard in the light, and that which ye have spoken in
the ear, in closets, shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”
If after eighteen hundred years of Christian teaching the time has not
yet come to proclaim the whole truth, it is not likely to come for many
ages in the future. If religion is a mystery too great to be
comprehended, too sacred for reverent but untrammelled investigation,
something that can only exist with a blind, unreasoning credulity and
the utter stultification of the natural faculties of a true manhood,
then religion is not worth what it costs and should be exposed as a
delusion and a snare.
The time for the religious _Kabala_ has passed, and ambiguities,
concealments, and evasions are no longer to be tolerated. Martin Luther
builded better than he knew when he proclaimed the right of private
judgment in matters of religion. It has taken two hundred years for this
fundamental principle to become thoroughly accepted by the people; but
so firmly is it now established that bigoted ecclesiastics might as well
attempt to resist the trend of an earthquake, stop the rising of the
sun, and turn the light of noonday into the darkness of midnight as to
attempt to arrest the progress of a true religious rationalism. The mad
ravings of fanatics will have no more influence than the pope’s bull had
on the comet. Learning is no longer monopolized by a few monks and
ministers. For every five clergymen who are abreast with the times, the
progress of modern thought, and the conclusions of science, there are
fifty laymen who are familiar with the writings of Humboldt, Darwin,
Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and scores of other scientists, to whom the
world is more indebted for true progress than to all the lazy monks and
muttering priests who have lived since the world began. The fact is, the
old delusion that men must look to the sacerdotal class exclusively, or
even mainly, for religious truth, has been for ever banished from the
minds of intelligent men. The literature of the day is full of free
thought and downright rationalism, and even the secular newspaper is a
missionary of religious progress and reform, and brings stirring
messages of intellectual progress every day to our breakfast-tables. The
world moves, and those who attempt to stop it are sure to be crushed.
The pretence that anything is too sacred for investigation and
publication will not stand the light of this wide-awake nineteenth
century.
It is often said that the common people are not ready for the whole
truth. In 1873, Dr. J. G. Holland, then editor of _Scribner’s Monthly_,
wrote to Dr. Augustus Blauvelt declining to publish an article on “The
Divine and Infallible Inspiration of the Bible,” and added, “I believe
you are right. I should like to speak your words to the world; but if I
do speak them it will pretty certainly cost me my connection with the
magazine. This sacrifice I am willing to make if duty requires it. I am
afraid of nothing but doing injury to the cause I love.... In short, you
see that I sincerely doubt whether the Christian world is ready for this
article.... Instead of the theologians the _people_ would howl.... I
cannot yet carry my audience in such a revolution. Perhaps I shall be
able to do so by and by, but as I look at it to-day it seems
impossible.... My dear friend, I believe in you. You are in advance of
your time. You have great benefits in your hands for your time. You are
free and true. And I mourn sadly and in genuine distress that I cannot
speak your words with a tongue which all my fellow-Christians can hear.
They will not hear them yet. They will some time....”
Dr. Holland has passed away and cannot reply to criticism. Let us be
kind and charitable. He intended to be right, but he was mistaken. The
people do not howl when the truth is published, even though their
prejudices may be aroused; and no tedious preparation is now necessary
to be able to hear the whole truth. The masses of the people are hungry
for knowledge, and it is high time that they be honestly fed. They now
more than half suspect that they have been deceived by those some of
whom they have educated by their charities and liberally paid to teach
them the truth. When, in 1875, _Scribner’s Monthly_ did publish Dr.
Blauvelt’s articles on “Modern Skepticism,” it was not the people that
“howled.” It was the clergy. Some of them demanded a new editor; others
warned the people from the pulpit not to patronize _Scribner_; and one
distinguished man declared that the magazine must be “stamped out,” and
at once organized a most powerful ecclesiastical combination against the
freedom of the press; and yet the _North American Review_ and other
similar magazines are today doing more to settle long-mooted religious
questions than all the pulpits in Christendom; and the people do not
howl. No respectable enterprising publisher now hesitates to publish a
book of real merit, however much its doctrines may differ from the
dominant faiths. The masses of the people are determined to know all
that can be known of the history, philosophy, and principles of
religion; and the greater the effort to conceal and suppress the truth
the stronger will be the demand for its full and undisguised
proclamation.
That there is a general drifting away from the old formulas of religious
doctrine everybody knows, and yet there is more practical religion in
the world to-day than in any previous age. It does not consist in
fastings and attendance upon ecclesiastical rites and ordinances; but it
takes the form of universal education, of providing homes for friendless
infancy and old age, of the prevention of cruelty to children and even
to brute animals, of the more rational and humane treatment of lunatics,
paupers, and criminals, ameliorating the miseries of prisons and
hospitals,—in short, of elevating and improving the condition of
universal humanity. These truly religious works do not depend upon any
particular statement of religious belief, for all sects and persons of
no sect are equally engaged in them.
Charities would not cease if all creeds should be abandoned or should be
so revised as not to be recognized by the disciples of Calvin and
Wesley, and if every priest in the land should henceforth give up the
mummeries and puerilities of the Dark Ages.
Religion, as the “enthusiasm of humanity,” the cultivation of all the
virtues, and the practice of the highest morality growing out of the
inalienable rights of man in all the relations of life, is a fixed fact.
It is a natural endowment, coeval with humanity in its development and
progress, and is as absolutely indestructible as manhood itself.
So far from being true is the assumption that religion would be
imperilled by the exposure of the false dogmas of theology and the
heathenish rites and superstitious ceremonies of ecclesiasticism, it is
clear to many minds that the myths of dogmatic theology and the
absurdities of primitive ages are the chief obstacles in the way of the
free course of true religion; and it may safely be affirmed that the
distinguishing dogmas of the dominant theology, Catholic and Protestant,
as will hereafter be shown, are essentially demoralizing and logically
_tend_ to undermine and corrupt public virtue. It is not intended to
affirm that churches and theologians do no good and that their entire
influence is bad. They teach much that is humane in principle and moral
in practice, and so do good for society. Nevertheless, it is true that
much of the rotten morality of the times can be philosophically traced
to the influence of a false theology. The main dogmas of Romish and
orthodox Protestant creeds are false, and it is absurd to suppose that a
pure system of public virtue can be founded upon ignorance,
superstition, and falsehood.
But, after all, we are asked, Does it make any odds what one believes if
he is only sincere in his faith?
The obvious answer is, that the more sincerely you believe a lie the
more dangerous is your faith. The more trustfully you build upon a sandy
foundation the sooner and greater will be the fall and ruin of the
superstructure. The more implicitly you confide in a dishonest partner
or agent the more successful will be his robbery. There is no safety in
error and falsehood. The Westminster divines well said, “Truth is in
order to righteousness.” There can be no true righteousness inherent in
a system of superstition and falsehood. The failure of the Church to
reach the masses and to establish a condition of public honesty superior
to the ancient heathen morality shows that there must be some serious
defect in its methods.
But the crushing objection to theological agitation and free discussion
is the common one that “it is unwise to unsettle and destroy the faith
of the people in the dominant theology unless there is something better
to offer them as a substitute.”
There is something better. Truth is always better and safer than
falsehood. In the discussions which are to follow an attempt will be
made to show that there is a _natural religion_ which accords with
enlightened reason, and which cannot fail to furnish a firm scientific
foundation for _the highest morality_. The common saying, that “it is
better to have a false religion than no religion,” contains two
groundless assumptions—viz. that it is possible for a man to have _no_
religion, and that that which is false may be dignified with the name
_religion_. It is about time that things should be called by their right
names, and that superstition and falsehood should not be deemed
necessary to public morality.
For a religion (so called) of superstition and falsehood there must be a
religion of _natural science_ that cannot be overthrown, and which cannot
fail to make its way among men as knowledge shall increase and the
principles of true religious philosophy shall be better
understood. We should not be frightened at the cowardly cry of
“destructive criticism.” We _must_ pull down before we can reconstruct.
CONCLUSIONS.
(1) To imitate the example of the early Christian Fathers in fraud,
falsehood, and forgery for the promotion of religion is a policy
that is too shocking to the moral sense of civilized men
everywhere to be tolerated. To withhold or suppress the truth is a
crime against humanity and contrary to the spirit of this age; and
those who do it are the enemies of progress and unworthy to be
recognized as the authoritative teachers of the world.
(2) Those who publish that which is false or suppress what is true not
only do a great wrong to the people, but, if possible, do a
greater wrong to their own souls, and must suffer the
consequences. They must have an awful reckoning with eternal,
retributive justice.
(3) It is a most egregious mistake to suppose that the people cannot
be trusted with the whole truth—that their sense of right is so
dull and flimsy that on the slightest discovery of the errors in
which they have been instructed from infancy they would lose
confidence in all truth and rightfulness and rush riotously to
ruin. If the people must be hoodwinked for ever, then the
distinguishing principle of the Protestant Reformation and the
basic principles of our American Declaration of Independence and
republican government are false and delusive, and we should return
to mediæval times and to feudal and autocratic government in
Church and State.
(4) It is high time that men should see that dogma is not religion;
that blind faith is more to be feared than rational skepticism and
scientific investigation; that whatever is opposed to reason and
science in theology can be spared, not only without any loss, but
greatly to the advantage of true religion and sound morality. All
the religion that is worth having is _natural and rational_, and
corresponds with the facts of the universe as they are
demonstrated by the crucibles of science and the inductions of a
sound philosophy. The principal moral obligations of men grow out
of their relations to each other in life, and nothing can be more
complete than the Golden Rule, emphasized in the Sermon on the
Mount, but as clearly taught in the Jewish _Babylonian Talmud_,
and in the twenty-fourth Maxim of the Chinese philosopher
Confucius, and many others centuries before the Christian era.
(5) Instead of loading down religion with Oriental myths and fables,
instead of a gorgeous ritualism and surpliced priests, borrowed
literally from the ancient paganism, instead of dogmas and creeds
and unquestioning faith and blind submission to ecclesiastical
dictation and rule, we want sound moral instruction in the great
fundamental truths of nature and of science, which will always be
found to strengthen and confirm the principles of true religion.
These are the sources from which to gain light. We want less creed
and more ethical culture, less profession and paraphernalia in
religious worship and more practical philosophy and common sense.
(6) The man who in scientific matters would make false representations
and conceal the real truth would be deemed an impostor, and the
time has come when hypocrites and cowards in theology should be
made to feel their degradation and be forced into an open
abandonment of “ways that are dark and tricks that are vain.” If
we would scorn delusions in natural philosophy, if we would
correct errors in oceanic charts, astronomical diagrams, and
geographical maps, why should we hesitate to correct the most
egregious blunders regarding those things which are infinitely
more important? Can we with any proper sense of propriety and
right connive at falsehood and uphold and strengthen it by our
silence and cowardly negligence in failing to expose it? Are not
all delusions debasing and opposed to the progress of truth and
the elevation of mankind? In all the departments of human
knowledge religion and morality are most imperative in their
demands for pure and unadulterated truth; and he who does not
recognize this fact sins grievously against his own soul, against
the human family, and against the truth and its eternal Author,
the God of all truth.
(7) Finally, let it not be overlooked that it will not, for many
reasons, be possible much longer to keep the people in ignorance,
and to palm off upon them myths for veritable history and a system
of theology plainly at variance with the conclusions of science,
the facts of history, and the spiritual and moral consciousness of
every true and well-developed man. The schoolmaster is abroad, and
the spirit of fearless investigation is in the air, and men
_will,_ sooner or later, find out what is true; and when they come
to understand how they have been imposed upon by their cowardly
teachers, a fearful _reaction_ will be the result; and woe to the
hypocrite and time-server when that time comes! It is therefore
not only good principle, but good policy, to tell the whole truth
now. The following copy of a book-notice well describes the
prevalent policy regarding matters of faith:
“A theory of religious philosophy which is much commoner among us than
most of us think, but which has never been expressed so fully or so
attractively as in the story of Marius.
“‘Submit,’ it seems to say, ‘to the religious order about you, accept
the common beliefs, or at least behave as if you accepted them, and live
habitually in the atmosphere of feeling and sensation which they have
engendered and still engender; surrender your feeling while still
maintaining the intellectual citadel intact; pray, weep, dream with the
majority while you think with the elect; only so will you obtain from
life all it has to give, its most delicate flavor, its subtlest aroma.’”
Against such a _sham_ the writer heartily protests, as against the
villainous maxim, quoted from memory, accredited to Aristotle: “_Think_
with the sages and philosophers, but _talk_ like the common people.”
Come what may, let us cease to profess what we have ceased to believe.
“The two learned people of the village,” says Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,
telling of his fanciful Arrowhead Village, “were the rector and the
doctor. These two worthies kept up the old controversy between the
professions which grows out of the fact that one studies nature from
below upward, and the other from above downward. The rector maintained
that physicians contracted a squint which turns their eyes inwardly,
while the muscles which roll their eyes upward become palsied. The
doctor retorted that theological students developed a third eyelid—the
_nictitating membrane_, which is so well known in birds, and which
serves to shut out, not all light, but _all the light they do not
want._”
The Presbyterians have provided for a _revision_ of their creed, though
they have stultified themselves by certain restrictions, _shutting out
the light they do not want!_ Let us hope that the time will soon come
when men will be honest enough and brave enough to follow the truth
wherever it may lead. Let there be perfect veracity above all things,
more especially in matters of religion. It is not a question of
courtesies which deceive no one. To profess what is not believed is
immoral. Immorality and untruth can never lead to morality and virtue;
all language which conveys untruth, either in substance or appearance,
should be amended so that words can be understood in their recognized
meanings, without equivocal explanations or affirmations. Let historic
facts have their true explanation.