"To what parish do you belong?"
"I don't know nothing about parishes."
"Who confirmed you?"
"Nobody."
"Then how do you belong to the Episcopalian Church?"
"Well, last Winter I went down to Arkansas visiting, and while I was
there, I went to a church and it was called 'Piscopal,' and I heard
them say that they had done the things they ought not to have done, and
left undone the things they ought to have done, and I says to myself,
'That is my fix exactly,' and ever since then I've considered myself a
'Piscopal'!"
And I came to the conclusion that that is why the membership of that
church is so large!
* * * * *
I know but little about the Methodists, but I do know that John Wesley,
one of the founders of that church, believed in witchcraft, and was one
of the latest of its supporters.
History tells us that Brother Wesley preached a sermon entitled, _The
Cause and Cure of Earthquakes_. He said that earthquakes were caused
by sin, and the only way to stop them was to believe in his theology
and teachings, thus showing great knowledge of seismology; but people
who bank on gullibility are usually safe. I know the Methodists make a
great hullabaloo about their religion, and appear to think their God is
deaf.
The Methodist Conference has refused to allow women to be delegates to
the General Conference. The Methodist sisters should discipline the
Church.
* * * * *
What I know about the Universalists I like. They seem to think that
we are all in the same boat, and that one stands as good a chance as
another, of which I approve. When I was a child, Sylvanus Cobb, at that
time the great Universalist preacher, preached in the adjoining town.
One Sunday, my father and I went to hear him. His sermon caused a great
commotion, and the Baptist who preached that terrific sermon about Hell
said to my mother, "There is a wicked man about here preaching that
everybody is to be saved; but, Sister Young, let us hope for better
things!"
* * * * *
I believe that the Unitarians, as a class, think for themselves. I
approve of that, and the Evangelical Alliance disapproves of them. That
is in their favor.
I taught school at Lee, New Hampshire, fifty years ago. One of the
committee was a Unitarian, and one was a Quaker. I was tired of
selecting suitable reading matter from that obscene old book, the
Bible, and I suggested that we read from some other book, which we did
for two mornings, when the Unitarian materialized at the schoolhouse,
and with much suavity suggested that we read from the Bible every
morning, and recite the Lord's Prayer; and I, teaching school for my
bread and butter, bowed to the suggestion, and the next morning said:
"Pupils, Mr. Smith prefers that we read from the Bible. Therefore, we
will this morning read the startling and authentic account of Jonah
whilst he was stopping at the submarine hotel." That is the most
narrow-minded thing I ever knew about a Unitarian; but I always thought
Mr. Smith voiced the opinion of the parents of the pupils rather than
his own.
I am somewhat acquainted with the Church of the Latter-Day Saints,
alias the Mormons. They are a prudent, industrious, painstaking people,
and only about two per cent of them ever _did_ practise polygamy, and
that is a very small proportion for any Christian church. Brigham
Young never did have but seventeen wives, but Solomon had five hundred
wives, and one thousand other lady friends, and David, whose honor
and humility show greater in his psalms than in the history of his
ordinary, every-day life, was, as the Bible says, a man after God's own
heart.
I am sure that Brigham Young compared favorably with David. And if God
interviewed Moses, why shouldn't he have interviewed Joe Smith?
There are more than one thousand religions. They are founded mostly on
fraud. All their saviors had virgins for mothers, and gods for fathers.
The churches own more than thirteen billions of property, and they are
_all_ too dishonest to pay honest taxes. Many of the churches couldn't
be run three weeks without the women. They do all the work, for which
they get no credit.
The churches claim all the distinguished people, especially after
they are dead and hence can not deny their claims. They have many
times claimed that Abraham Lincoln was a churchman. The Honorable
H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, an old friend of Lincoln, said it is
false. Lincoln belonged to no church, and at one time said, "I have
never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in
giving my assent without mental reservation to the long, complicated
statements of Christian doctrine, which characterize their articles of
belief, and confessions of faith." But still they claim him. Honest,
very!
* * * * *
No institution in modern civilization is so tyrannical and so unjust to
women as is the Christian church. The history of the Church does not
contain a single suggestion for the equality of woman with man, and
still the Church claims that woman owes her advancement to the Bible.
She owes it much more to the dictionary.
History, both ancient and modern, tells us that the condition of women
is most degraded in those countries where Church and State are in
closest affiliation (such as, Spain, Italy, Russia and Ireland), and
most advanced in nations where the power of ecclesiasticism is markedly
on the wane. It has been proved that, whatever progress woman has made
in any department of effort, she has accomplished independent of, and
in opposition to, the so-called inspired and infallible Word of God;
and that the Bible has been of more injury to her than has any other
book ever written in the history of the world.
William Root Bliss, in his _Side Glimpses From the Colonial
Meetinghouse_, tells us many startling truths concerning the Puritans,
and reminds me of what Chauncey M. Depew said--that the _first_ thing
the Puritans did, after they landed at Plymouth, was to fall on their
knees, and the _second_ thing was to fall on the Aborigines.
The business of trading in slaves was not immoral by the estimate of
public opinion in Colonial times. A deacon of the church in Newport
esteemed the slave trade, with its rum accessories, as home missionary
work. It is said that on the first Sunday after the arrival of his
slaves he was accustomed to offer thanks that an overruling Providence
had been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of
benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings of a Gospel dispensation.
At a Bridgewater town meeting of the year Sixteen Hundred Seventy-six,
a vote was called to see what should be done with the money that was
made from selling the Indians.
John Bacon of Barnstable directed in his will that his Indian slave
Dinah be sold and the proceeds used "by my executors in buying Bibles."
By men who sat in the Colonial meetinghouse, the first fugitive-slave
law was formed. This law became a part of the Articles of Confederation
between all the New England Colonies.
The affinity between _rum_ and the religion of Colonial times was
exemplified in the license granted John Vyall to keep a house of
entertainment in Boston. He must keep it near the meetinghouse of the
Second Church, where he extended his invitation to thirsty sinners who
were going to hear John Mayo or Increase Mather preach.
* * * * *
The importation of slaves began early. The first arrival at Boston
was by the ship _Desire_, on February Twenty-sixth, Sixteen Hundred
Thirty-seven, bringing negroes, tobacco and cotton from Barbados. She
had sailed from Boston eleven months before, carrying Indian captives
to the Bermudas to be sold as slaves, and thus she became noted as the
first New England slave-ship.
In time, slaves were brought to Boston direct from Africa.
Advertisements of just-arrived negroes to be sold may be seen in the
Boston _News Letter_ of the years Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six and
Seventeen Hundred Twenty-seven. The pious Puritans did not hesitate to
sell slaves on the auction-block. I find in the Boston _News Letter_
of September Nineteenth, Seventeen Hundred Fifteen, a notice of an
auction-sale at Newport, Rhode Island, of several Indians, men and
boys, and a very likely negro man. They were treated in all respects as
merchandise, and were rated with horses and cattle.
Peter Faneuil, to whom Boston is indebted for its Cradle of Liberty,
was deep in the business. In an inventory of the property of Parson
Williams of Deerfield, in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine, his slaves
were rated with his horses and cows. "Believe and be baptized" is all
that was essential. I think many of them would have been improved by
anchoring them out overnight.
A negro preacher whom I knew came to me when I was in Florida, and
said: "What shall I preach about tomorrow? I'se done preached myself
'plumb out.' I'se worked on election sanctification and damnation
predestination till I can't say another word to save my life."