CHAPTER I.

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...THE...

MAN FROM MARS

HIS MORALS, POLITICS

AND RELIGION

BY

WILLIAM SIMPSON

THIRD EDITION

Revised and Enlarged by an Extended Preface and a

Chapter on Woman Suffrage

Press of

E. D. Beattie, 207 Sacramento St.

San Francisco

Copyright, 1900, by the Author.

TO THE MEMORY

OF

JAMES LICK

who, by his munificent bequests to

SCIENCE, INDUSTRY, CHARITY AND EDUCATION

has indicated in the manner of their disposal, that humanity, wisdom,

and enlightenment, arising out of the convictions of modern thought,

which holds these, his beneficiaries to be the noblest and divinest

pursuits of mankind, and the only possible agencies in the betterment

of society.

This Book is reverently inscribed

BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

Any one advanced in life who has enjoyed opportunities of knowledge

derived from association with men and books, and who has an inclination

to reach the bottom of things by his own independent thought, is apt to

arrive at conclusions regarding the world and society very different

from those which had been early impressed upon him by his superiors

and teachers. From a suspicion, at first reluctantly accepted, but

finally confirmed beyond a doubt, he finds that he has been deceived

in many things. The discovery arouses no indignation because he

knows that his early instructors were in most cases the victims of

misdirection themselves, and are therefore not to be held accountable

for the promulgation of errors which they had mistaken for truths. His

self-emancipation has so filled his mind with a better hope for the

future of the world, and a higher opinion of his fellow men, that the

delight and satisfaction of the discovery overcomes every sentiment

except pity for those who had been leading him astray, and if the

feeling of condemnation or censure comes to his mind at all, it is only

for those few who live and thrive upon those delusions having their

origin in the past, and whose chief purpose in life is to keep them

alive and to bolster them up among the multitude.

In the new light that has come to him, the world and society have

been transformed to his view and understanding. He discovers goodness

in many places where his teachers had denied its existence, and its

definition has become so changed, under his broader vision, that

humanity seems teeming with it everywhere, and is ruled by it, and

those departments of it most affecting society he observes to be

increasing, and that instead of like an exotic in uncongenial soil,

hard to be retained by mankind, it is perpetuated and cherished by

natural human impulses. He finds, also, that the sum of badness in

the world has been greatly exaggerated by his teachers, and that

those branches of it most interfering with the welfare of society are

gradually being lessened, and are likely to work out their extinction

by the penalties of public disapproval. These convictions make the

world seem a brighter and better dwelling place. They reveal to him

the possibilities of its future, and tend to divert his higher aims

from the obscure paths where tradition had been leading them, into more

fruitful channels. The truth will have at last dawned upon him, bearing

evidences in this age that none but the unenlightened can doubt, that

superstition, during many of the centuries past, has belittled the

world, and has discouraged humanity in improving it, under the mistaken

assumption of the world’s small comparative importance in the great

outcome; the circumstantial particulars, of which, it pretends to hold

by divine revelation. Having rid himself of these beliefs by a process

of reasoning, and the assistance of the available knowledge of his

time, he arrives at the conclusion that the best work of humanity is

not, altogether that taught by the creeds, and that its most divinely

inspired motives are those which tend to increase the knowledge of

worldly things, those which add to the sum of goodness in society by

exhibiting its practical effect toward happiness, and those also which

assist in the great end of equalizing the burdens and enjoyments of

life among all.

Having these conclusions firmly established in his mind, and the

undeserved reverence from early training removed, he becomes

especially fitted to examine these old beliefs, and to pass judgment

upon them, without that taint of blind devotional fervor which the

unremitted teaching of many centuries has rendered current in the

world. He observes of these old beliefs, that during their supremacy,

when their control of society was complete and unquestioned, the

material progress of mankind was least, without any compensating

condition to make up for the darkness, and dead mental activity that

had fallen upon it; except that apparent hypnotic influence from the

doctrines taught, which made men careless of their miseries, and

indifferent to the things of the earth. He observes, further, of

these old beliefs, that as modern knowledge reduces their hold of

authority among men, the world improves as it never did before. Even

charity, kindness, and good will to men, adopted, and long taught as an

inseparable part of them, multiply more rapidly as their weight in the

management of human affairs grow less. From these well attested facts

he arrives at the conviction that those religious societies, founded

upon, and which have for centuries labored to perpetuate these beliefs,

either are not possessed with all the elements of human progress,

or, that having many of such elements, they have others of such

neutralizing and retarding effect as to render the first futile for

such a purpose. That the latter is the case, every year added to his

experience of life removes the doubt, and explains to his understanding

why the religious societies of the world have failed in any great

degree to advance the material and intellectual condition of mankind.

With a moral code, every provision of which plainly indicates the

method of a better social state, these religious societies have

indissolubly associated in their teachings certain doctrinal beliefs,

originating in a semi-barbarous age, and laden with its superstitions,

with that fatal assumption of divine authority which demands their

acceptance every where and for all time. Beliefs of such unbending

rigidity, impossible adaption or amendment, and intolerance of dissent,

on account of their pretended sacred character, that the world has

been kept in a turmoil discussing them since their introduction, and

the more salutary lessons of morality and spiritual hope have been

outranked and submerged by these vain and profitless discussions.

These beautiful and attractive lessons of love, kindness, and charity,

exemplified and taught through a personality, whose gift of genius was

to see, above all other men, the needs of humanity, have attracted

men and women into these religious societies as the hungry are

attracted by stores of food. Once within their lines, and imbued with

the doctrines there found, they see but little abroad in the outside

world but the evil spirit of Sheol. To them, its shadow rests upon

much of the business of life, and with increased obscurity, upon many

of its pleasures. It even shows to them among those humanities which

are without their direction and cue. It is only however among the many

who openly deny their doctrines and authority that the evil spirit is

seen by them in all its hideous and malevolent personality, and their

especial mission is to give battle in that direction. Between he who

doubts, no matter how respectfully, and these religious societies, are

drawn their lines of kindness and charity, and with their sermons of

love, and their protestations of good will to mankind fresh upon them,

they are at any time, transformed, so far as their relations with a

doubter are concerned, into a band of hostile and relentless savages,

with inflictions of punishment, measured in degree by surrounding

enlightenment, from the actual barbaric torture of the savage, to mere

social ostracism and avoidance.

If it were the sole purpose of all Christian organizations to bring

into general practice the civilizing precepts of their founder, they

would become the most powerful agents in the world to human advancement

and the betterment of social conditions, but these precepts are made

subordinate by them, and are neither valued or estimated beyond their

jurisdiction. They count nothing as saving qualities without the

acknowledgment of certain doctrines and methods accompanying them.

Those beautiful sentiments of charity and kindness, always so precious

to the hearts of men, and growing more so as the ages advance, were

not adopted nor promulgated entirely for civilizing purposes, but

mostly with the selfish view of capturing humanity to church interests.

With a like purpose, knowing the mystic tendency of the masses, the

supernaturalisms, made a part of these attractive precepts, were

adopted and upheld; bringing into the world an endless multitude of

barren illusions, provoking acrimonious contentions among men, to

no good purpose whatever, and filling the pages of history with a

description of scenes that are a torture even to the memory.

It is given only to those now living, and who have experienced the

longest terms of life, to personally compare the past with the

present, so far as their limited sojourn in the world extends. They are

living witnesses to the wonderful changes in society and its beliefs

during the short period of two generations only. They have seen many

of these ancient supernatural dreams in all their power of authority,

and have watched them wilt, and finally disappear, under some silent

influence, after argument and reason had exhausted themselves against

them in vain. They have listened to those weekly expositions of

infernal horrors, common at one time, in all the fear and trembling of

childhood, and have later, witnessed the theories and beliefs which

inspired them, with many others equally obnoxious to reason, relegated

to silence and disuse, as antiquated and worn furniture, no longer

serviceable, is consigned to the rubbish heap. Only two generations

ago they have seen the literature of the churches in leather bound

books occupying the best filled, and most easily reached shelves of

the libraries, and now laying neglected among the dust of the cellars;

not one retained for reference, and even their titles forgotten. They

have seen, in their time, the clutches of superstition compelled to

relax its hold upon the throats of many a worthy human enterprise. They

have witnessed the triumph of science in its many skirmishes with

tradition, and have been interested lookers-on, while the famous battle

of evolution raged. They have seen it from start to finish, and the

amusing spectacle of its end, when theology, metaphorically speaking,

dragged its bruised and trembling body out of the dust; and wiping the

blood from its pale and troubled face, unblushingly declared, as it had

in every like outcome before, that there had been no conflict.

With all this, and within their own era of two generations only,

they have seen the world arise to such prodigies of advancement,

such marvels of practical charity and such activities in the pursuit

of knowledge, in so close and quick succession as to fill them with

bewilderment and wonder, and they will recognize, at least such of

them as reflect upon the matter, that after conflicts innumerable,

and setbacks and suppressions, the scientific have prevailed over

the theological methods, and are at work in all the glories of their

triumph, and that the ancient modes of thought are at last masters of

the civilized world after nearly two thousand years of battle. The

thread of civilization has been taken up and spliced at its point

of rupture sixteen centuries ago. All this activity in the building

of roads, bridges and aqueducts, this tunnelling of mountains and

rivers, this straining to make available for the services of man

all the elements of nature, this untiring search to increase the

comforts and conveniences of life, this higher regard for pure secular

learning, regardless of where it may lead, this diversion of art from

the purposes of religious expression only, to an exhibition of nature

in all her beautiful forms, this greater toleration of opinion, this

coming back to the earth in short, after a long period of phantom

chasing in the clouds, is neither more nor less than the revival of

paganism. But paganism with its brutalities filtered out, and the best,

and only civilizing parts of christianity, its hope of immortality,

its lessons of virtue, its brotherhood and socialism retained, the

superstitions of paganism buried forever, and those of christianity

gradually dropping one by one into their graves.

He, who now at three score and ten, remembers when the sound of the

flint and steel was a necessary prelude to the morning fire, when the

open fire place with its crane and pot hooks was the only resource for

warmth and cooking, when the largest city on the American continent

was without sewers or water conduits, when a river steamer was a

wonder upon which the curious gazed, and ocean ones unheard of, when

railroads were in an experimental stage, when the belief that ghosts

flitted about the graveyards was unquestioned and undenied, when

Satan was said to have stalked upon the earth in person, his presence

seriously considered and accounted for by many of the churches, when

witchcraft, only in the throes of death but not yet buried, had many

adherents in animated defence, when the electrical experiments of

Franklin were reckoned in some places as the trifling of an infidel

with the spirit of evil, can best appreciate, by the comparison which

reminiscence affords, of these wonderful changes in thought, and

the significant accompaniment of increased mental activity in all

things benefitting the race. The close relations exhibited in this

comparatively brief period between the growth of rationalism, and that

accelerated movement all along the line of science, learning, and

everything tending to place humanity on a higher plain, is more than

a mere coincidence. It is the operation of cause and effect, better

understood and acknowledged upon a closer examination.

The bursting forth, as it were, during this century of the united

energies of mankind in the direction of knowledge, is an expansion

after the removal of a pressure that has borne down upon them for

ages. Those great things that men have accomplished lately, they

were as capable of centuries ago, and it is not surprising that they

had not until recently made greater advances, when we estimate the

weight of opposing forces. There had been for centuries nothing more

discouraging to the formation of scientific hopes and ambitions than

the theological methods of thought, and the atmosphere which surrounded

them. The more that atmosphere was saturated with the doctrines of

the churches, the more repellent it was to any intellectual effort

toward outside things, and especially one requiring such a monopoly of

mental energy and attention as to interfere with the Christian ideas

of constant and unremitting devotion. There was no cultivated field,

during the thousand years of supreme church jurisdiction, where an

independent scientific ambition could germinate. Within the church

such an ambition was impossible. It was not only against the spirit,

but the very letter of its teachings. Its foundation was laid by its

victory over science, in its overcome of which, it proclaimed divine

assistance and authority. It already possessed a knowledge of all

things appertaining to the earth and the “firmament” above it which

the Almighty desired men to know. The earth was not round, it was the

center of the universe. It stood still while the sun moved daily over

its surface, getting back each morning into its place with the help of

angels. The rainbow was a sign placed in the heavens for a purpose.

Every known phenomenon of nature was accounted for by scriptural

reference. The method of the creation of the world and the origin of

man and of woman also, the church possessed in circumstantial detail.

The moment true science began its work, and ran counter to any of this

fund of knowledge, assumed to have been furnished by the Almighty,

the trouble began. But the trouble was not altogether with the honest

investigator. If his discovery tended to disprove what was known as

scriptural truth, and inadvertently had been allowed to gain the

public ear, every prelate in the church began contriving to refute it.

A new opportunity for fame was opened to every ambitious theologian,

and there immediately began in rebuttal a spinning of texts, and a

style of metaphysical argument, from one end of the church to the

other, which remain to this day as the most remarkable curiosities of

sinuous reasoning and constrained thought on record. All questions of

a scientific character had but one method of settlement, were they

authorized or denied by scripture? If denied as they usually were, the

disturber was either burned at the stake or made to recant. Fame, that

chief incentive to all high effort, offered none of its rewards beyond

theological circles, and during the ten centuries of complete church

supremacy, any advance in knowledge which did not stir the animosity

of theologians gained less public attention and applause than the

wearing of a hair shirt or a crown of thorns. During a thousand years

the church had kept the world slumbering in the darkness of barbarism

and superstition punishing with death those it could not convince. Any

doubter of generally accepted beliefs, either in religion or science,

who can support his position with plausable argument, is entitled at

least to the consideration of being a thinker. The constant taking off

of every such one, during a term counted by centuries, could have no

other effect than to reduce the average of intellectual vigor in the

whole. The husbandman, who removes from his acres of growing grain

the tallest and heaviest stalks, and instead of saving them for seed,

destroys them, insures, in time, the misfortune of dwarfed fields

and diminished harvests. The church, since its complete victory over

paganism in the fourth century, had not produced with its supreme

control over all learning a single noted man of science, or one

promising to be such, whom it had not either suppressed or tortured to

death, not a painter or poet who had not devoted his genius principally

to superstition or sensuality, not a historian whose veracity is not

doubted, and not a single towering man of letters. This, too, in a

people, among whom mingled the descendants of the Greek masters of

literature and philosophy. When, about four centuries ago, secular

learning and free thought began their first open advances since pagan

days, the church, finding in every such movement some disturbance of

its traditions, and making no account of their benefit to mankind,

brought all its powers to bear for their suppression. In laying to do

so it pursued the same cruel policy it had adopted in former contests.

These cruelties and intimidations were practiced at a time when within

the church were openly perpetrated corruptions of the most glaring

character; which together, loosened its hold upon the consciences

of men, and made possible that revolt and division known as the

Reformation, early in the sixteenth century. Coming nearer our own

time, and having to deal with theological conditions not yet entirely

removed, a little more detail is necessary.

The quarter century before and the century following the Reformation

was a remarkable era in the world’s history. It was noted throughout

as a desperate and continuous struggle by men of science to dispel

the darkness that had so long enveloped the Christian world. The

art of printing, then recently discovered, and just coming into

practical working effect, and the thoughts of men thereby communicated

from one to the rest with a facility never before known, had the

effect of arousing mental activities everywhere. From a load only

partially removed men began exploring regions of science that had been

interdicted, and a great movement in positive knowledge began. The

most enlightened men of the time went over to the Reformation, and if

within that body, they had found the shelter and encouragement they

deserved, the sixteenth century and the one following it would have

been the most brilliant period on record except our own, for scientific

discoveries and the world’s advancement. Such a conclusion is justified

by taking note of the wonderful men of genius who came into the world

during that time, who, with all the restrictions and limitations cast

about them by the two churches, laid such new foundations in truth and

learning, that nothing was to be done by subsequent workers in the same

lines but build upon them. Buffon, who may justly be called the father

of natural science, with powers of research and gifts of presenting

results showing genius of a high order, by his simple statement of

truths which are to-day truisms in science, was dragged forth by the

leaders of the Reformation, and forced to recant publicly and to print

his recantation. “I abandon everything in my book respecting the

formation of the earth, and generally all which may be contrary to the

narrative of Moses.” Linnaeus, the founder of a scientific system in

botany, and the discoverer of sex in plants, was constantly hampered

and constrained in his thoughts by the threats of the Reformation. A

pretended miracle of turning water into blood appeared in his vicinity,

and after looking into it carefully he reported that the reddening of

the water was caused by dense masses of minute insects. When news of

this explanation reached the ears of the Protestant bishop he denounced

this scientific discovery as a “Satanic Abyss.” “When God allows such

a miracle to take place,” said he, “Satan endeavors, and so does his

ungodly and worldly tools, to make it signify nothing.” Descartes,

the founder of modern philosophy, and ranked among the foremost

mathematicians of his day, yet, his constant dread of persecution from

Protestantism led him steadily to veil his thoughts, and to suppress

them when they threatened to interfere with theological beliefs.

Leibnitz, the great thinker, who came so near to the discovery of

evolution, Spinoza, and later Hume, Kepler, Kant, Newton and many

others, which want of space prevents mention were likely to have

done much more for science had not the theological atmosphere of the

Christian churches been so unpropitious.

The true story of Galileo, the monumental shame of Christianity, cannot

be told without implicating the younger with the older church. The

Reformation looked on complaisantly and approvingly while this crime

was being committed. It was in complete accordance with its beliefs and

methods. The Copernican system, on account of the adoption of which,

Galileo was persecuted was as strenuously and bitterly denounced by

Protestants as Catholics. Luther says “People gave ear to an upstart

astrologer, who strove to show that the earth revolved, and not the sun

and moon. This fool wishes to revise the whole system of astronomy,

but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand

still, and not the earth.” The recantation of this venerable scientist,

worn out with imprisonment and sorrow, and in fear of torture and

death, is as follows: “I Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a

prisoner on my knees before your eminences, having before my eyes the

Holy Gospel, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse and detest the

error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.” As the sphericity

of the earth was suggested by Aristotle, and its movement had been a

matter of earnest discussion by theologians for ages, we see fit to

transcribe here the argument of one of them, made a long time ago it

is true, but nevertheless a fair sample of the theological methods of

thought. It is copied from a book written by one Scipio Chiaramonti,

and dedicated to Cardinal Barberini. “Animals which move have limbs

and muscles, the earth has no limbs and muscles, therefore it does not

move. It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the Sun, etc., turn round.

If the earth revolves it must also have an angel in the center to set

it in motion; but only devils live there; it would therefore be a devil

who would impart motion to the earth.” All branches of the Protestant

church condemned the theory of the earth’s movement. Calvin asked,

“Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of

the Holy Spirit?” Wesley also denounced the new theory, declaring it

to “tend toward infidelity.” The grand men who were coming forward in

their efforts to advance knowledge unavoidably encroached upon many of

the “truths of scripture” and both churches were equally engaged in

their efforts to suppress them, by argument if possible, but if not, by

fire and stake. The Protestant church, which has always made a claim of

especial enlightenment, vied with the other in its cruel and relentless

warfare upon what is known among the churches as heresy, the proper

definition of which is reason and common sense. We have said that the

case of Galileo was the monumental shame of Christendom; the case of

Servetus was a monumental crime, which Protestantism alone must answer

for.

The persecution of Michael Servetus by John Calvin, one of the leaders

of the Reformation, was one of the most unjust and inhuman exercises of

religious authority that the world has seen. There were many features

in this tragedy of burning at the stake, that were out of the common.

The victim was a man of unblemished character, of great learning,

and a scientist, with a genius for investigation. He was a skilled

practitioner of medicine, out of which profession he derived his

income. He had made some advances in medical science, coming so near to

a discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it is quite likely,

but for his untimely death, he would have reached it instead of Harvey,

many years afterward. His active mind had led him to devote much of his

leisure to the study of theology, and, laboring among its problems, he

strove to reconcile a number of orthodox beliefs and doctrines with

the scientific knowledge of his time, not combating them or contriving

at their destruction, but by changing the sense of words, to make

them apparently accord with known elements of truth. He was an ardent

supporter of the Reformation, and a friend and admirer of Calvin, and

he began and maintained for some time, a correspondence with him, with

the view of obtaining his advice and support. The proposed modification

in the sense of scriptural texts, was not favorably received by Calvin,

and the two were drawn into a controversy, which finally became

acrimonious. The world, at present, partially recovered from its long

period of hypnotized reason, is able to appreciate the small value of

the questions which engaged these two men, and which led one to strike

the other down to death, and it is also able to judge how much Servetus

was in advance of his adversary in their discussions.

Calvin maintained, that under instructions from God, through the

Bible, an infant, dying without baptism, could not escape the tortures

of Hell, a locality described by the same authority, as a place of

horrors, of endless burning amid sulphurous fires, of never ending

thirst, and of a “weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth” through all

time to come. Servetus expressed his doubts of the justice of this

infliction upon sinless infants, and attempted to show that it was

not authorized by the Sacred Book. He also denied the doctrine of the

Holy Trinity, as it was commonly received. He did not deny a kind of

Trinity in the unity of God, but believing that it was merely formal,

and not personal, mere distinctions in the divine essence, and that, as

generally understood, it was a dream, and an invention of the Fathers

of the Church. He also asserted, upon good authority, that there was a

Christian doctrine before there was any adoption of the Hebrew legends;

that these legends did not become a part of the church, until nearly

a century after the great moral teacher had met his cruel death. He

also came as near as he dared, to expressing his belief, that the Son

was merely a man, with the divine inspiration in a large degree. Such

advanced ideas as these, asserted with the positiveness of conviction,

and backed with unanswerable argument, were the cause of his undoing.

Calvin, at this time, was at the head of a church already powerful. He

ruled it with an autocratic will, and upon all questions of doctrinal

beliefs, he was the last court of appeal. He had long accepted the

homage of his followers, as one selected by the Almighty for their

spiritual guidance, and, with the common weakness of humanity, he

became arbitrary and despotic in his management of church affairs. He

was always ready to advise and direct, and in his first letters to

Servetus, assumed some show of argument while denying his doctrines.

Servetus answered him, not with that deference that his adversary

usually received, but in all the spirit of earnest debate. Nothing

more exasperating to Calvin could have occurred, and to cap the

climax of affront, his adversary, a mere layman, published a book

“Christianity Restored” setting forth his advanced views, and with a

reckless temerity, sent the reformer a copy. The controversy between

them immediately degenerated into mutual recrimination and abuse.

Calvin’s anger was raised to a white heat, when he saw the errors and

blasphemies, as he regarded them, and which he had vainly sought to

combat, confided to the printed page, and thrown broadcast upon the

world. Besides the alleged heretical matter of the book, he found

himself taken to task, declared to be in error, and his most cherished

doctrines controverted. But he discovered withal some matter in the

book which pleased him. His enemy had committed himself in abusing the

Papacy: evidence sufficient to convict him at once of blasphemy in the

Roman Catholic city of Vienne in France where Servetus then resided,

and he proceeded at once to put the cruel scheme of his death into

execution. By information to the authorities at Vienne through dictated

letters, he succeeded in having Servetus thrown into prison there, from

whence he escaped, and became an outcast for months. The malignant and

inhuman manner in which this Christian leader followed his innocent

victim, could scarcely have occurred upon any other question but a

religious one, and his murderous intent, from the first, is shown by a

letter from Calvin to a friend in which he says, “Servetus wrote to me

lately, and besides his letter sent me a great volume of his ravings,

telling me, with audacious arrogance, that I should find there things

stupendous and unheard of until now.” He offers to come thither if I

approve; but I will not pledge my faith to him; for, did he come, if I

have any authority here, “I SHOULD NEVER SUFFER HIM TO GO AWAY ALIVE.”

And he proved himself, in this instance, true to his word.

The Roman Catholic authorities of Vienne, discovering after a while

the connivance of Calvin, in putting the execution of his enemy on

them, contrived, it is said, to make his escape easy. They had no

mind to have this work thrust upon them. They probably felt that the

reformers should take care of their own heretics. Servetus, after his

escape, wandered about from place to place, all the time his life in

imminent danger, and finally brought up in Geneva, the home of Calvin,

disguising himself, and hiding in the outskirts. What induced him to

take such desperate chances is not positively known. His intention

is supposed to have been to go to Naples, and to be gone from Geneva

on the first favorable opportunity. Weary of confinement, and always

piously inclined, he ventured imprudently to show himself, at the

evening service of a neighboring church, and being there recognized,

intimation of his presence was conveyed to Calvin, who, without loss

of a moment, demanded his immediate arrest, making his arraignment

himself, and industriously working until the end, as chief prosecutor

and witness. The barbaric cruelty during imprisonment to this famous

man, in an eminently Christian community, and by a Christian leader is

shown by the following letter from his prison cell. “Most noble Lords,

it is now three weeks since I petitioned for an audience, and I have to

inform you that nothing has been done, and I am in a more filthy plight

than ever. In addition, I suffer terribly from the cold, and from colic

and my rupture, which causes me miseries. It is very cruel that I am

neither allowed to speak, nor not have my most pressing wants supplied;

for the love of God sirs, in pity give orders in my behalf.” And here

is another one: “My most honored Lords, I humbly entreat of you to

put an end to these great delays, or to exonerate me of the criminal

charge. You must see that Calvin is at his wits ends, and knows not

what more to say, but for his pleasure, would have me rot here in

prison. The lice eat me up alive, my breeches are in rags, and I have

no change, no doublet, and but a single shirt in tatters.” Thirty-eight

articles of impeachment were drawn up by Calvin, and after a protracted

trial, wherein he acted as chief interrogator, this unhappy victim

was sentenced to be burnt at the stake. Servetus, during his whole

examination, showed himself to be a brave, conscientious, religious

man. His answers to each one of the articles was able, consistent, and

would have been considered in this day unanswerable, and what is more

his views have since been adopted by the most advanced of the Christian

sects. The following is a description of his execution recorded at that

time.

“When he came in sight of the fatal pile, the wretched Servetus

prostrated himself on the ground and for a while was absorbed in

prayer. Rising and advancing a few steps he found himself in the hands

of the executioner, by whom he was made to sit on a block, his feet

just reaching the ground. His body was then bound to the stake behind

him by several turns of an iron chain, whilst his neck was secured in

like manner by the coil of a hempen rope. His two books--the one in

manuscript sent to Calvin in confidence six or eight years before for

his stricture, and a copy of the one lately printed at Vienne--were

fastened to his waist, and his head was encircled in mockery with a

chaplet of straw and green twigs bestrewed with brimstone. The deadly

torch was then applied to the fagots and flashed in his face; and the

brimstone catching, and the flames rising, wrung from the victim such a

cry of anguish as struck terror into the surrounding crowd. After this

he was bravely silent; but the wood being purposely green, although the

people aided the executioner in heaping the fagots upon him, a long

half hour elapsed before he ceased to show signs of life and suffering.

Immediately before giving up the ghost, with a last expiring effort he

cried aloud, ‘Jesus, thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon

me!’ All was then hushed, save hissing and crackling of the green wood,

and by and by there remained no more of what had been Michael Servetus,

but a charred and blackened trunk, and a handful of ashes.” So died in

advance of his age, this victim of religious fanaticism and personal

hate, a fitting triumph of the theological over the scientific methods

of thought, the result among many thousands like it of the adoption of

the Jewish legends by Christianity, and in this case, brought about

by a Christian leader, the founder of a creed, in which to this day,

enough of his spirit remains to make it the greatest enemy of free

thought and liberal opinion, among all the creeds of Protestantism. Of

this disgraceful tragedy was it the spirit of the Master which led the

inhuman crowd to vie with each other in piling on the fagots, or was it

the malign influence of a vindictive and cruel Hebrew God?

Every conflict between science and theology since the days of

Copernicus has resulted in an unequivocal victory for the former.

Both churches resisted the truth of the rotundity and movement of

the earth as though their existence depended upon it. They fought

each question as it arose in the same spirit. The Mosaic account of

the creation, the age of the world, the deluge, the length of man’s

sojourn upon the earth, are questions as effectively settled adversely

to the “truths of scripture” as the one for which Galileo suffered.

And yet Christianity lives, and will continue to live and flourish,

solely on account of the inherent and increasing affinity of the human

heart as civilization advances for the precepts and example of its

founder. If Christianity were destined to fall by the undermining of

its legends it would fall now with the recent destruction of one upon

which its existence appeared to depend, which has, more than any

other, shaped its course and laid the foundation of its rituals. The

doctrine of evolution now established as a truth is the most serious

and apparently destructive one that theology ever met. The fact that

man has ARISEN from a condition of brutality, instead of FALLEN from a

state of perfection is, to ecclesiasticism, a raking blow from stem to

stern, compared with all previous battles with science as the shot of

a modern thirty-two pounder with old fashioned ordinance. The legend

of the fall of man, compared with all others, is the vilest. It was

brought from Assyria, by the Hebrews, who obtained it during their

captivity, from a barbarous people, among whom it was current for ages,

and was thus inserted in our Sacred Book, proofs of which have recently

been found in deciphering the Ninevite records. A suspicion is not

entirely without warrant that it may have been adopted with a purpose

of creating miseries and sorrows in the multitude for the profitable

occupation of a divinely authorized few in the business of consoling

them, and right well has it fulfilled its mission. It has changed the

facial expression of Christendom. It has deepened the furrows of sorrow

upon old age, and fixed lines of care upon the features of youth. It

has brought the undeserved dejection of criminality, and the downcast

of shame, where of right belongs the reflection of hopefulness and

the light of expectancy. It has incalculably multiplied the sorrows

of life, and created for each death a nightmare of imaginary horrors.

This legend is the foundation and inspiration of most of the evil

and cruelty that Christianity has inflicted on human kind. Fabulous

itself, it has been the parent of unrealities, witchcraft and magic for

instance, from which millions of innocent victims have been sacrificed

to torture and death. It has transformed reasonable enjoyments of life

into crimes by the invention of a word, which with the latitude given

its definition, has kept in trembling uncertainty the innocent and

harmless. To the parent it has bestowed the agony of dread for the fate

of departed offspring, guileless infants, as well as the matured. This

legend of the fall of man has established in the paths of life its drag

net Sin, a word of such unlimited theological definition, that any

one of average rectitude, by some trifling inadvertance of thought or

action, is likely to bring upon himself the condemnation of a frowning

God; so that, the worthy as well as the unworthy, may not escape the

services of theological assistance and intercession. But for the doubt

that exists, and has probably always existed, except among the ignorant

and sluggish minded, of the truth of this puerile invention, it would

have reduced humanity long ago to a state of universal hopelessness and

despair.

The theologians have but little left now but the miracles to defend,

and although it must be conceded by them that the miracle of Joshua

has fallen, others whose fallacy cannot be so well demonstrated by

science, are held to with the tenacity of desperation, and in utter

disregard of reason and common sense. Fortunately, in the interest of

truth, we are given an opportunity to study the evolution of miracles,

in a case so modern that every statement in proof of their fallacy can

be substantiated by the current literature of the time. Saint Francis

Xavier was an earnest, sincere and truthful Jesuit, whose religious

services were performed in the middle of the sixteenth century. He

gave up a promising career as professor in a Paris academy, and in

his enthusiasm and devotion to Christianity, went as missionary to

the Far East. Among the various tribes of lower India, and afterward

in Japan he wrought untiringly, toiling through village after village

collecting the natives by means of a hand bell. After twelve years of

such efforts seeking new converts for religion, he sacrificed his life

on the desert island of San Chan. During his career as missionary he

wrote great numbers of letters, which were preserved, and have since

been published, and these, with the letters of his contemporaries,

exhibit clearly all the features of his life. No account of a miracle

wrought by him appears either in his own letters or any contemporary

document. More than that, his brother missionaries, who were in

constant and loyal fellowship with him, make no illusions to them

in their communications with each other, or with their brethren in

Europe. This silence regarding his miracles was clearly not due to any

unbelief in them, because these good missionary fathers were free to

record the slightest occurrence which they thought evidence of Divine

favor. One of them sends a report that an illuminated cross had been

recently seen in the heavens; another that devils had been cast out

of the natives by the use of holy water; others send reports that

lepers had been healed by baptism, and that the blind and dumb had

been restored by the rites of the church; but to Xavier no miracles

are imputed by his associates during his life, or during several years

after his death. On the contrary we find his own statements as to

his personal limitations and the difficulties arising from them fully

confirmed by his brother workers. It is interesting for example, in

view of the claim afterwards made, that the Saint was divinely endowed

for his mission with the “gift of tongues” to note in these letters

confirmation of Xavier’s own statement utterly disproving the existence

of any such Divine gift, and detailing the difficulties which he

encountered from his want of knowing various languages, and the hard

labor he underwent in learning the elements of the Japanese tongue.

With all this evidence, and much more available if necessary, to prove

that Xavier never performed a miracle the church began building them up

for him, unmindful of the fact that he lived in an age of literature,

books and printed correspondence, and not in those remote times when

it held supreme control of all learning and communication by letters;

accordingly, the first of the Xavier miracles began to appear about ten

years after his death. They multiplied from time to time beginning,

it is reasonable to suppose, about the gossiping hearth and eagerly

confirmed by the cloister, until they began to be mentioned in church

literature. The first of which, a letter twenty years after his death

by a Jesuit father entitled “On religious affairs in the Indies” says

nothing of Xavier’s miracles. The next, a publication called “History

of India” thirty-six years after his death by another Jesuit father

dwells lightly on the alleged miracles. The next, sixty years later, a

“Life of Xavier” shows an increase of his miracles, and representing

him as casting out devils, curing the sick, stilling the tempest,

raising the dead, and performing miracles of all sorts. Since Xavier

was made a Saint many other lives of him appeared, one of them one

hundred and sixty years after his death, the best so far written and

now esteemed a classic, in which the old miracles were enormously

multiplied. According to his first biographer he saves one person from

drowning by a miracle, in this one he saves, during his life time,

three. In the first he raises three persons from the dead, in this one

fourteen. In the first there is one miraculous supply of water, in

this one three, and so on, until this date when the Xavier miracles

are counted by hundreds. This case of the evolution of miracles is

largely copied from a recent publication of President White of Cornell

University. It is not only highly instructive as indicating the process

by which these deceptions are evolved, but also tends to the pleasant

and welcome conviction that many of the earnest and self-sacrificing

workers in the field of Christianity, to whom miracles are imputed were

guiltless of them. But more than all it shows the way to a reasoning

mind by which, through the present and coming rationalism, a pure and

worshipful personality shall retain his hold upon the affections of men.

Those men of science and independent thought who went over to the

Reformation, expecting encouragement and protection under it, were

doomed to be disappointed. It was not a movement caused by the pressure

of enlightenment. At that period, both Germany and England were far

below Italy in their conditions of knowledge and learning. It was a

rebellion caused by the oppression of evils, and a desire for change in

the management of church matters only. Every one of the superstitions

of the old church were transferred to the new one. The same, in fact a

stricter literal adherence to the words of scripture in managing the

affairs of life, and in deciding questions of science, were maintained,

the same incessant watchfulness toward those men of learning who were

threatening the “truths of scripture” in their scientific labors, and

the same cruelties invoked for their suppression, and the extinction

of heresy. No more intellectual freedom was permitted, except upon

minor doctrinal points of beliefs, and upon these there began those

controversies which soon broke up the movement into factions or creeds.

The intention of the new church was to do away with those rituals and

ceremonies, which had been adopted from paganism as a compromise in the

second and third centuries, and to bring their church back as far as

possible, to that simplicity which characterized the first teachings of

Christianity. But the leaders of the Reformation never attempted nor

had they any desire to bring back that entire freedom of thought and

expression which existed in the early days. No one with immunity would

be allowed to deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity or the truth of

Immaculate Conception, as the old Greek philosophers were wont to do.

Such vital questions it was torture and death to adversely consider,

Servetus being an early victim to such temerity. There were questions

enough however within the limits of safe discussion, to set agoing

those unending controversies which distinguished Protestantism to this

day. The newly acquired privilege of discussing sacred affairs among

laymen as well as others, were indulged in to such an extent that

debate between the sects, in defense of their several interpretations

of scriptural texts, monopolized in society its hours of intercourse

and conversation. When their leaders were indulging in such discussion

as the dialogue between Eve and the Serpent; whether the Serpent stood

erect on his tail, or in its natural coil when it was addressing Eve;

fixing the hour of this remarkable event; accounting for the manner

in which Noah fed the animals in the ark; how fishes appeared before

Adam to be named by him, and such troublesome problems, laymen were

mostly engaged in the examination of those doctrinal points which were

dividing the movement into sects. Questions that had been settled

centuries before by authority in the old church were dragged forth

to renewed discussion. Luther was describing his frequent interviews

with the devil in his bed room. Demons and witches were poisoning the

air, and bringing calamity and misfortune, against which there was but

one safeguard and remedy, reading texts of scripture and prayer. But

however the sects might differ in their understanding of the sacred

language, upon a number of things they were all agreed; every text of

scripture was to be taken literally; heresy could not be too severely

punished; a curtailment of the pleasures of life increased the chances

of heaven; the world was a “sink of iniquity” destined for early

destruction, and presided over by a God who never smiles, and troubled

by a devil who never sleeps, the latter with millions of offspring, man

pursuing demons, inflicting insanity, sickness and many other of the

misfortunes of life.

In these beliefs the two churches were in entire accord and must

equally answer for the miseries and cruelties they have inflicted upon

humanity in enforcing them. Theories and doctrines so persistently

advanced and upheld by both churches, and which have proved so

disastrous to humanity do not properly belong, and should have no

place in Christianity. They are not only without the authority of the

Master, but are mostly in opposition to his teaching and example.

The most harmful of them owe their origin to the fables and myths

introduced into the sacred book second-hand from Egyptian and Oriental

sources, centuries before the Christian era, and it is not surprising

that legends due to the faculty of romance in the minds of some

barbarous Assyrians or Pharos, far back in the cradles of humanity,

when introduced as foundations for rules of life, and as explanations

of the mysterious processes of nature along the whole line of human

advancement should have been constantly rejected and denied by the

reasoning portion of mankind, and it is scarcely conceivable that now,

within a few months of the twentieth century, they should be upheld by

both churches as inspirations of the Deity. Not so surprising either

when we consider that for seventeen centuries, the undeveloped minds

of youth in all Christendom, have been moulded into the acceptance of

beliefs, which, had they been presented without that gradual absorption

in which reason takes no part would have been long ago rejected on

account of their improbability. In no place is this better understood

than among the churches, and as a consequence, they have been in

perpetual contention with each other for the early education of youth.

The most inspiring and hopeful spectacle in all humanity is an

assemblage, wrapt in the devotional exercises of Christianity,

listening attentively to the eloquent ministrations of an earnest

leader, who pleads the cause of virtue and charity as it is exhibited

in the written life and character of the Model Man. The great central

story never wearies in interest, and never grows old; a willing

sacrifice and suffering for the benefit of mankind. Such never

failing kindness, such lessons of brotherhood, such love for men,

such tenderness for children, such consideration beyond his time for

women, and with such a pathetic and suffering end as to capture their

emotional natures for all time. And above all bringing the tidings of

a hope, that comes to men, as a boat of rescue comes to a storm-tossed

ship slowly sinking into the depths; so cherished in Christian

households as to become a worshiped member of them, to be defended as

one of them, upheld if need be by force of arms and sacrifice of life.

And the lesson of it all, and the hopefulness and inspiration of it

all is, that wherever mankind dwells, be it in castles or cottages,

amid the crowds of cities, or among quiet country fields, there are

laurels everywhere among them all for him who will sacrifice himself

that others may gain; esteem and veneration among them all for him,

whose life is pure, and whose ways are ways of kindness and charity.

Vice can never reign supreme but for a time amid such inherent affinity

for goodness implanted in every human heart, and as the days of general

consent and unobstructed knowledge enlighten and control the affairs of

men, more and more certain, as time rolls on, will come protests and

rebellions against the temporary triumph of evil.

Of that entrancing story which has captured civilization, and has come

to be a part of it, what is there in the Master that deserves such

barbaric surroundings; such inconsequential details of obscure and

barbarous lives; such vindictive retaliations and brutal conflicts,

sacrilegiously involving the Deity as a promoter of them; wild fictions

of early ages, inventions of the infancy of man, conflicting accounts

of historical events, fragmentary parts by different persons at

different periods; explanations in many branches of science, now known

to be mistaken and absurd, and containing texts, that either openly

sanction or have been twisted into service of the most stupendous

outrages that humanity has suffered.

“Considering the asserted origin of these records--indirectly from

God himself--we might justly expect that they would bear to be tried

by any standard that man can apply, and vindicate their truth and

excellence in the ordeal of human criticism. We ought therefore to

look for universality, completeness, perfection. We might expect that

they would present us with just views of the nature and position

of this world in which we live, and that, whether dealing with the

spiritual or material, they would put to shame the most celebrated

productions of human genius, as the magnificent mechanism of the

heavens, and the beautiful forms of the earth are superior to the vain

contrivances of man. We might expect that they would propound with

authority, and definitely settle those all important problems, which

have exercised the mental powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe

for so many centuries, and which are at the foundation of all faith and

all philosophy; that they should distinctly tell us, in unmistakable

language, what is God, what is the world, what is the soul, and

whether man has any criterion of truth; that they should explain to

us how evil can exist in a world, the Maker of which is omnipotent,

and altogether good; that they should reveal to us in what the affairs

of men are fixed by destiny, in what by free will; that they should

teach us whence we came, what is the object of our continuing here,

what is to become of us hereafter. And since a written word claiming

a divine origin must necessarily accredit itself, even to those most

reluctant to receive it, its internal evidences becoming stronger and

not weaker, with the strictness of the examination to which they are

submitted, it ought to deal with those things that may be demonstrated

by the increasing knowledge and genius of many anticipating therein his

conclusions. Such a work noble as may be its origin, must not refuse,

but court the test of natural philosophy, regarding it not as an

antagonist but as its best support. As years pass on and human science

becomes more exact and more comprehensive, its conclusions must be

found in unison therewith. When occasion arises they should furnish us

at least the foreshadowings of the great truths discovered by astronomy

and geology, not offering for them the wild fictions of earlier ages.

They should tell us how suns and worlds are distributed in infinite

space, and how, in their succession they come forth in limitless time.

They should say how far the dominion of God is carried out by law,

and what is the point at which it is his pleasure to resort to his

own arbitrary will. How grand would have been the description of the

magnificent universe written by the omnipotent hand! Of man they should

set forth his relations to other living beings, his place among them,

his privileges and responsibilities. They should not leave him to grope

his way through the vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth

at last, but they should teach him wherein true knowledge consists,

anticipating the physical science, physical power, and physical well

being of our own times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit things that

we are still ignorant of. The discussion of subjects, so many and

so high, is not outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its

manner of dealing with them is the only criterion it can offer of its

authority to succeeding times.”[A]

How unlike this is our asserted Sacred Book, with its fables, its

myths and legends, its deadly texts that have scourged mankind. By its

pretension of divine authority, carrying forward into our civilization

superstitions, that otherwise would have melted away under the light of

knowledge; putting a limit to learning, obstructing it, and denouncing

it, in many of its branches; paralyzing thought, and substituting in

its stead a blind faith, instituted and cultivated by ecclesiasticism,

to bring men under its control; holding up as an example of divine

favor, the low moral standard of barbaric times; recounting murders,

incests, adulteries and obscenities, that would have banished the book

long since from the regions of refinement and civilization, but for

its assumed origin, and which serve, by their easy and undenied access

to young minds, as a stimulation to destructive pruriency; sanctioning

human slavery, and encouraging bloodshed by battle; setting an example

of extortionate tithes for the support of ecclesiasticism; uttering

the most heart-rending curses, as coming directly from the Almighty,

for failure to comply with his assumed commands, and which have

been made the example, authorizing the horrible cruelties inflicted

upon mankind by the churches, literary models as they are of those

anathemas, interdicts, and excommunications, by which the older church

terrorized humanity for fifteen hundred years. “I will also do this

unto you, I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the

burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart,

and ye shall sow your seed in vain; for your enemies shall eat it.”

“I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your

children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, and your

highways shall be desolate.” “For they went and served other gods, and

worshiped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto

them; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land to bring

upon it all the curses that are written in this book.” “Do not I hate

them O Lord that hate thee, yea I hate them with a perfect hate.” “Thou

shalt not suffer a witch to live.” “A man, also or a woman that hath

a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.”

“And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the

sword.” Solely on the authority of such deadly texts as these, and the

book is full of them, the world has been overspread in blood. It was

these that gave Spain a pretended sanction of the Lord to exterminate

fifteen millions of people in Mexico and Peru, with a better and

higher civilization than itself, and to rob them of their wealth and

possessions. It was these, and such as these, that authorized and

instigated the Inquisition, which from 1481 to 1808, put to torture

and horrible death by burning, 340,000 human beings. It was these that

induced the massacre of St. Bartholomew with its 30,000 victims of

fire and sword; the English persecutions under Bloody Mary, in which

three hundred fellow-creatures perished; the almost total annihilation

of the Albigenesis in the south of France. This war was carried on

with more ferocious cruelty than any ever recorded in history; the

fanatical fury of the soldiers was stimulated by the exhortations of

the clergy. At the storming of Baziers, when it was proposed to spare

the Catholics, a monk exclaimed, “Kill all, God will recognize his

own,” and the atrocious precept was but too well observed. The war

terminated by the complete devastation of the country, and the almost

complete extermination of its inhabitants. Following along in the

bloody path of these barbaric scriptural commands, we have to record

the witch burnings of Europe and America, during the term of Christian

supremacy, calculated in the hundreds of thousands; the Crusades, and

purely religious wars since the time of Constantine, whose victims are

beyond computation; and all this to no other purpose or end, but that

the world should be forced into the belief of, what is known to be,

the theological system of a low social development; this the terrible

cost to humanity, for the adoption and systematic retention by the

churches, of the ancient Jewish beliefs and modes of thought; this the

infliction, that ecclesiasticism might prevail, using the sermon on the

mount to capture the consciences of men, and scourging them with the

mandates, curses and punishments of a Hebrew divinity, to bring them

into line for its purposes. In taking these Jewish annals to its heart,

making them a part of itself, as objects of example and worship, has

not Christianity retarded the advance of mankind? Has it not, by them,

obstructed knowledge, prevented a greater expansion of human sympathy,

and prolonged the betterment of social conditions?

In these days of enlightenment and higher thought, the vestiges are

everywhere seen of our fifteen centuries of misdirection. Almost every

Christian life bears the impress of these cruel Hebrew traditions. The

commander of a battleship in the war with Spain, after his slaughter

of numbers of the enemy, assembles his men to give “thanks to the

Lord,” and the next moment cautions them not to cheer because “the poor

fellows are dying,” illustrates, that mingling of Jewish superstition

with the teaching and example of the Master, to be observed everywhere

in our present civilization. The inherent religious impulses of

mankind--natural religion--some of which, finding no more congenial

quarters, is attracted to the churches, regard war with feelings of

greater repulsion than does orthodox theology, indoctrinated in the

belief of its divine sanction, and consequently, the success of the

American arms, so plainly due to natural causes, was celebrated by the

churches in the usual ancient Hebraic method by “thanks to the Lord.”

The supreme intolerance of Christianity which has wrought such havoc

with mankind, is plainly due to the suggestions of Hebrew scripture,

and it is only the natural religion within the churches, and that large

portion outside of them, which is forcing Christianity into a purer

worship, and destroying its superstitions. It demands for all things,

holy as well as unholy, the right of critical examination, and it

sees but little else in our Sacred Book worth preserving, outside the

sermon on the mount, and its extensions. It is this natural religion

of conscience, encouraging and encouraged by science and reason, which

has wrested the control of civilization from ecclesiasticism. Its

intellectual strength prevails at last over the intellectual strength

of theology; but the unthinking of the multitude are many, and the

battle commencing four centuries ago still lingers, theology backed by

its weak numbers, its old weapons destroyed, and science by its strong

men with searchlights.

But the searchlights of science can not disturb the heart of

Christianity. Its doctrine of atonement, destroyed by the established

truth of evolution; its account of the creation and the deluge, proved

to be fables; its miracles discredited, and many of them demonstrated

by science to be untrue, it still holds within itself, an element which

is in harmony with the aspirations of mankind for the coming betterment

on earth and hereafter. All these things that it has lost are but

perverted offrisings from its body, not a part of the body itself.

“Love one another. Do unto others as you would that others shall do

unto you,” are the golden words that have established it in the world

as a living moving power. Of these its soul and life are composed, and

these no arrow of science can reach. Its dogmas aside, every human

being within the precincts of civilization is born a Christian, and

but for its early perversion at the hands of a crafty priesthood, its

intolerant and cruel career from forced and unworthy association, all

men, learned as well as unlearned, would be working in its ranks.

It came into the world and entered society, making its way from below

upward. Like all movements coming out of the lower levels, it was

socialistic. Its originator, for he cannot be called its leader,

was the first person who had ever appeared in the world as the

instigator of a great reform movement benefitting the whole of mankind

without some apparent or suspected motive, in denial of his absolute

unselfishness, and the movement in its early stages, partaking and

wholly composed of his inspiration, was a pure unselfish socialism.

Its members were bound together by the closest brotherhood, loving and

caring for each other by divine command; declared equal by a mandate

of Heaven, in an age when three-fourths of mankind were outcasts,

uncared, neglected, and abused by a cruel oligarchy, slaves and

dependents, among whom it was a misfortune and misery to have been

born, and having a religion so purposeless and unpromising as to afford

nothing but a momentary spectacular display. To these people the new

religion was as congenial and welcome as the warm sunshine and verdure

of summer after a long sojourn in the Arctic. Its doctrines touched

society where it had most need of their humane precepts and uprising.

For nearly a century no system of dogmas, no doctrine of atonement, no

extensive church authority had been determined, and the whole stress of

religious teaching was directed toward the worship of a moral ideal,

and the cultivation of moral qualities. Its numbers, which had been

looked upon until then, by the higher and governing class with either

contemptuous silence, or occasional argumentative opposition, were

become so increased that their political weight gave promise of a new

field for the exercise of authority and power, and from thence on began

that addition of intellectual forces which have so completely changed

its character.

Every change instituted by its new leaders was with the sole purpose

of increasing its numbers and of augmenting its political weight. They

began by making a compromise with paganism in adopting some of its

rituals, pandering to the imaginations of the uncultivated multitude

by spectacular display, inventing a system of church government with

an executive head, adopting the Jewish annals for its organic laws

and modes of thought, cultivating a belief in miracles and increasing

them on every opportune occasion, until with the one end in view of

overcoming the world as Cæsar did with his legions, more bloody than

Cæsar, taking into their hands a movement full of humanity, instituted

by men in the lower walks of life to soften their hard lines and

give them new hopes, and to increase their sympathies and feelings

of brotherhood, it became, and in many parts of the world remains to

this day, under its attached dispensation of ecclesiastical dogma and

control, a handmaid of kings and emperors in oppression, an upholder

of deadly superstition, an intimidator of free thought and free

learning, an unconcerned looker-on upon the miseries of life beyond

its proselyting interest, careless of the whole world and its affairs,

except so far as it can profit by its theory of exclusive salvation,

and the mouth piece in cant phrases, which have long since lost their

force and meaning, of a lingering barbarism.

And yet the world was never so much in need of a pure Christianity.

An expanded benevolence cherished and assisted as much by skepticism

as the churches is one of the characteristics of modern society.

Although the physically strong do not prey upon the physically weak

as pitylessly as in the olden time, the financially strong are

preying upon the financially weak with as little conscience, and the

intellectually strong are preying upon the intellectually weak with

as much cunning, as they were in barbaric times. Civilization has

increased the two last mentioned evils. The straggling masses under

a load of grinding wealth, in their better knowledge are no longer

appeased by the promises of an adulterated and composite Christianity,

whose chief business for centuries has been to set before them an

awaiting paradise, in recompense for their earthly wrongs; but now, the

multitude impressed with a knowledge belonging to these times, is proof

against these allurements. The toiling millions who make easy places

for the few, and increase their wealth, and who have carried out to a

successful end the brilliant material advancement which surrounds us,

is the world proper, all the rest are merely dependants. Into this

world and down among these quarters from whence it came Christianity

must prepare itself to re-enter, and of this the shadow is already

to be seen. It must discard its dogmas and superstitions, which it

has even now consigned to partial obscurity and silence, and in place

of them, take on the things of the world. It must go among the money

changers of the temples, and into the halls and by-ways of legislation,

giving battle everywhere with evil; for it is through these that the

world is given or denied its betterment, and it must set science on its

right hand, recognizing it as an attribute of the Deity. Christianity

with this companion, its pure ideal recovered from its ecclesiastical

mists, setting out on its new journey through the world, blazing the

way for truth instead of suppressing it, conforming itself in all ways

to the natural religion of mankind, would become to humanity what

the sun is to the earth, comforting the souls of men by its hopes,

enlarging their charities by its precepts, and warming into life many a

germ of virtue and goodness, which else, would never have blossomed, to

shed its moral fragrance on the earth.

The foregoing was written to indicate that line of thought, whose

convictions are briefly expressed, here and there, through the pages

of this little book, now offered to the public in its third edition.

It is always safer and pleasanter to deal with received theology in

the spirit of reverence, usually found in literature; thus offending

no one, and meeting the approval of a worthy and influential class;

but, there are other reasons why an adverse criticism of theological

methods and beliefs, are not so often publicly exploited as their

importance to society deserves. In the first place experience has

shown that errors of religious belief, fixed upon the mind in infancy

and youth, are seldom removed by discussion. We are not yet arrived

at that stage, when the love of truth so predominates in the minds of

men, that they will sacrifice every prejudice, and reject all opposing

influence to obtain it. Christianity has imposed an elaborate system of

prejudices on every young mind within its jurisdiction and they have

become entwined with all the most hallowed associations of childhood,

appealing so strongly to the affections, that any expressed denial of

their exact truth excites, in most cases, a feeling of resentment, and

often stirs to petty persecution. A large majority of the human race

accept their opinions from authority, and all authority heretofore has

encouraged beliefs, which appear so inseparably connected with the

moral well being of society, and which hold in continued supremacy,

institutions and modes of thought whose subversion it is alleged

would be in many ways dangerous. Yet, the fact remains that it is

mostly through its inroads upon these old beliefs that the world has

arrived at its present stage of progress, and the opinion of orthodox

theologians that they should be retained in their entirety, or of

others that they should be abolished, cuts no figure; because, whether

for good or evil in the opinions of men, Providence has ordained, that

those only which represent the truth shall live, and knowing this of a

certainty, it becomes of the greatest interest to discover what society

is likely to lose or gain by that modification of religious beliefs,

wherein only the truth shall remain. If we cannot foretell this future

condition with certainty, it is largely foreshadowed by past and

present experience. What the world has lost in the modification of

religious beliefs, would be hard to find, what it has gained would

take volumes to recount. In the most important of all human interests,

liberty of person, liberty of conscience, and liberty of speech,

there has been, as yet, no adequate acknowledgement by mankind of

the great services of the silent and avowed skepticism which brought

about the consummation of these blessings. The writings of Moses, the

recorded wisdom of Solomon, the encyclicals of popes, and the sermons

of bishops and priests, both Protestant and Catholic, in their rising

up of the lowly, in their encouragement of brotherhood, and in that

exact and even justice to all men, so far as their practical services

to humanity in these directions can be measured, sink into an empty

insignificance, when compared with those organic declarations and

laws, upon which this great republic was founded, and which were the

outcome and product of a then recent enlightenment, due to the combined

efforts of European skeptical writers, who by their genius of sarcasm

and incisive argument, were disturbing the old theological modes of

thought, and awaking the world to wide strides in rationalism. That

these new American rules of political equality, beacons of liberty for

men to follow and admire, obtained their inspiration and incentive from

those new lights in literature, which, at that time, were stirring the

world of thought, there can be no question. In these famous American

documents, were embodied the practical carrying out of principles,

enunciated, and suggested by the European writers, and the most active

of the men engaged in the noble work of forming the new government,

are known to have been disciples of these leaders of anti-theologic

thought. Our Declaration of Independence and Federal Constitution,

stand, to-day, grand achievements of modern scientific thought, and

conspicuous triumphs of rationalism, over old methods, foreshadowing in

these, its great works, a better wisdom to govern the affairs of men,

than all the ages guided by Hebrew tradition. Yet, in these documents

will be seen an overflowing of natural religion, and the spirit of the

Master. “Do unto others as ye would that others shall do unto you.”

If we have for more than fifteen centuries, yielded ourselves to

doctrines, conveyed to us through all the highways of life, so

assiduously, that neither infancy, youth, manhood or old age, have

escaped their tireless importunities for acceptance; doctrines, which

consign seven-eighths of humanity to eternal torture for no faults to

most of them but a lack of opportunity, which under Providence has been

denied, it is not unreasonable to conclude, with this experience of

the mutability of human understanding, that there are other beliefs

fastened on our minds by ages of custom and mistaken thought, equally

untenable, which may be as justly placed in our catalogue of errors.

Where then shall we look for truth? Authority, as we have seen, is

not an infallible guide. We shall never know how much the industrious

promulgation of error is due to the selfish love of corporate power,

how much to a pure benevolence. Neither are the brightest minds safe

monitors in all things of thought. Aristotle defended slavery, Hobbes

persecution, Johnson witchcraft, and Gladstone religious superstition;

but, for all that, we shall never arrive at the extremity of despair;

for a cultivation of the mind, the deductive use of positive knowledge,

and the untrammeled exercise of reason, lead to truth, as directly,

as the line of gravity points to the center of the earth, and only by

these will its reign be established in the world.

W. S.

INTRODUCTORY.

My habitation is upon the plateau of a mountain in California. I

entered this region and became a settler by a fortuitous event. About

thirty-five years ago, I took a summer outing from a close application

to business in the metropolis, and came here for a deer hunt. One of

those beautiful animals that I had wounded with my rifle led me further

into this wild and picturesque locality than I had intended to go, and

I thus arrived upon this spot, as I believe, the first white man that

ever set foot upon it. Reaching here late in the afternoon, I found

myself too far out of my path to return by daylight, and so, building

a fire, I spent my first night alone in this weird place. It was the

first time in my life that I had slept where some human creature was

not within the sound of my voice, and from that night I date a change

of sentiment, thought, and feeling, which has altered my career, and

made me, what I have chosen to be, a recluse.

I had been living in the world about thirty years amid the artificial

surroundings of a city. I had scarcely looked upon the sky and heavens,

except between the margins of opposite house-tops. I had viewed from

infancy, without emotion, the rising and setting of the sun from a

horizon of chimneys and steeples; and when these exhibitions first

presented themselves to me here in this crystal atmosphere, with

an expanse from this altitude so new to me, they appeared like a

revelation. I seemed to have been suddenly ushered into the world,

and to be looking for the first time in my life upon the stupendous

phenomena about me.

Until this moment I had not approached a realization of the

magnificence and prodigious wonders which the heavens afford to our

observation. It was here also that I began for the first time to

enjoy those beautiful and curious processes of nature, where the

bursting germs, ascending gradually out of the soil, change their

shapes, multiply their organs, and after a time crown themselves with

brilliant and deliciously flavored flowers. In my new observation and

intimacy with plant growth, with some previous knowledge of the science

appertaining to it, and with a newly discovered delight in marking the

changes of position and the characters of the heavenly bodies by the

greedy acquirement of all the information within my reach, I have come

to forego, without regrets, the social pleasures of life.

By the liberal laws of my country, I have become possessed of this

attractive spot, and thus far, I have chosen to retain it in its

natural state. I came here a young man. I am now old. Thirty-five years

of my life have been spent on this elevation, with a self-banishment

from society, without in the least abating my interest in human

affairs. My communication with the world is mostly through books. A

weekly newspaper or two, and such other publications as I may order,

are left for me in a hollow tree several miles away by the district

messenger; and thus no important event or new discovery in the world

escapes me.

I have constructed with my own hands a cabin, having much convenience

and comfort, and also some outhouses, which shelter my poultry and a

pair of gentle cows, which latter, finding abundant food in the natural

grasses about, come to me regularly at milking time, seemingly as much

for the pleasure of being caressed, as to furnish me the principal

nourishment of my life.

There is a trout steam in the center of my possession, with expansions

here and there, which serve as bathing places for myself, and out of

which pure and cool drink is supplied to the few domestic animals

about me. This stream makes its way through the bottom of a hollow,

and is so overhung by the lofty branches of trees which grow upon its

borders that the sunlight only enters in patches, and is so reflected

by the restless surface of the water as to mark its devious way with

the appearance of a line of flashing mirrors. The surrounding dense

body of foliage, from at least a hundred varieties of trees and

shrubs, is tinted with a variegation of color seldom seen outside the

tropics. This charming spot has its voices, as restless as the lights

and shadows which play about within. Each miniature waterfall has its

liquid note; while during certain hours there comes from every quarter

of the foliage above a confused melody of birds, who, I have reason to

believe, assemble there for entertainment and gossip.

Outside of this watered region, my homestead is interspersed with

openings, where the rich loam only awaits the labor of cultivation

to produce a wealth of grain or fruit. Every tree and shrub within

my possession of half a mile square, by long familiarity, seems to

have become a part of myself. We are living and ageing together. I

have watched in them the development of infancy, the slow and gradual

approach to youth, and the turning point from maturity to old age.

Among these old monarchs of the woods is here and there one tipped with

the signs of superannuated decay. About their feet lay many of their

withered, sapless limbs. They have lost their symmetry, and stand in

scraggy outline. I see from year to year their gradual giving up of

life, while beside them a new generation arises. There is a fellow

feeling between us. My hair grows thin and white and my step is no

longer firm and elastic. Like them my share of life is growing to a

close, and yet I am an infant in years compared to many of them. I bow

to them with a sentiment of reverence. They are my old men. The younger

ones are my children--mine! What a grand thing it is to have these in

my possession,--to hold in my own right such a choice piece of this

blossoming earth, where all the mysterious forces are at work day and

night for me alone!

I have come also to have an abiding interest in the creatures who by

nature are inhabitants of this place. Long ago have I laid aside my

gun as an instrument of destruction, and it rests now on its pegs

above my pillow only as a defense. By slow degrees I have gained a

confidence with the native birds and animals which surround me, so that

it is wonderful how many of them welcome me and enjoy my presence.

There swarm to my poultry fold at feeding time myriads of quail and

other birds, who with an amusing assurance, run about my feet and

dispute for the crumbs that I scatter. The gray squirrels may be often

seen scampering down from their hiding places in the trees to meet

me, in expectation of their accustomed relish of wheat grains, which

are stowed away for them in my pockets. I have three pet deer, quite

tame and domesticated, whose intimate acquaintance was brought about

in a singular way. Sitting on my doorstep one bright afternoon, I had

listened for some time to the baying of hounds in the neighboring

mountains, when presently there came bounding toward me, in terror,

a trembling doe, and with her beaming eyes fixed upon me, seeming to

invoke my pity, she literally threw herself into my arms. Taking in

the situation at a glance, I tried to force her into my door before

the dogs arrived. Too late for that, I could only arm myself with

a stick from my woodpile, when the whole yelping pack were upon us.

It was a hard fight, and only after many bites and scratches from

the disappointed hounds did I beat them off. I kept her in a secure

outhouse for a few days, where two beautiful fawns were born to

her; and ever since the mother and offspring have been my favorite

pets, following me about like children. My acquaintance with other

of the creatures about, though not so intimate, is still of such a

confidential kind that they manifest no terror at my approach, and I am

thus enabled to realize, by this free exhibition of them, how teeming

with animal life is the earth in its most favored parts.

In my earlier years I have felt the cold blasts and torrid heats of

other climes. I now rest myself in the happy satisfaction that I

have found in this equable temperature and agreeable surroundings a

place where one may look upon life as a blessing. I have acquired

enough knowledge of some of the sciences to make an instrument or

two of service to me, and I take especial interest in my telescope

of three inches aperture, in the use of which I spend many an hour

which otherwise might hang heavily on my hands. I have also a good

microscope and field glass. Through the latter I bring to view the

distant hillsides and mountain tops, observing, frequently, groups of

deer grazing tranquilly, and at times a family of panthers gamboling

on the green carpet of an opening, or an eagle feeding her young upon

the inaccessible brink of a precipice; and on rarer occasions, a bear

complacently munching acorns under some prolific old oak a mile away.

My microscope has revealed to me a world of wonders. I have discovered

by it the limitable range of our senses, and how far below as well

as above us the infinite extends. I grope about in the darkness of

my understanding between an atom and the outside limit of the stars,

every step toward either showing an increase of distance. These things

I pursue, not with the spirit and application of a student, but

rather for the entertainment which they furnish and the meditation

they invoke. I have learned all that is known of the motions and

eccentricities of heavenly bodies within my telescopic vision, and

I never look upon them without rapture. What are all other shows to

this? How many of these countless worlds are inhabited? What beings are

upon them? How do they compare with us? Has it been given to them to

comprehend eternity? Is knowledge with them intuitive or acquired? Thus

do I lose myself in these bewildering fancies.

It may appear that I have avoided my share in the cares and duties of

human association. If I have, it is from no lack of sympathy with my

kind. I look upon my fellow-men from my distant and somewhat isolated

point of view, without the usual diversion of active affairs, and both

my pity and admiration are aroused. The sufferings and sorrows of my

kind seem appalling to me from this position, while their heroism in

the struggle for knowledge seems to me grand beyond expression. I

feel myself in the midst of civilization, and yet apart from it. If

I have been a loser from that lack of social attrition which arouses

the activities of thought, it is, nevertheless, certain that I have

not been submitted to a combination of those influences which render

an error plausible. The opinions and thoughts of the world come to

me, and I pass them in review with a full sense of the fallibility of

individual opinion, as well as an abiding faith in the steady approach

of that collective truth, which, sooner or later, will overspread the

world.

THE MAN FROM MARS.

CHAPTER I.

My telescope is mounted in an apartment adjoining my cabin, with an

elevated exposure, and has some extra contrivances for the convenience

of adjustment, designed and constructed by myself. The instrument can

be raised and lowered at pleasure, and is protected by a movable dome,

which is easily laid aside by means of a couple of pullies. It is a

good one, and for its size has remarkable power. I have been enabled

to reach with it double stars of the sixth magnitude, frequently

observing even Orion, with its beautiful double and multiple systems.

I can easily discover with it the most distant planet Neptune, and by

their progressive displacement, I have seen and recognized with it

most of the asteroids. I can get with it a fine view of Jupiter, that

magnificent planet fourteen hundred times larger than our Earth, and

have observed the black spots upon its surface, and the transit of its

moons. The grand spectacle of Saturn and its rings is brought to my

observation with remarkable clearness. I have so frequently looked into

the dismal caverns and upon the towering mountains of our satellite,

the Moon, that its marks and bounds are as familiar to me as the

neighboring hills. But life is short, and amid all this illimitable sea

of worlds, I have fixed my attention upon but one, for that special

study which my few remaining years will permit. The heavenly body which

most engages my attention is, excepting our satellite, the nearest one

to us, our neighboring planet Mars.

I believe that body to be inhabited by beings in many respects like

those of the earth. My conclusion is adduced from many known facts

concerning it. Mars has an atmosphere like ours. Its density does not

differ materially from the Earth. The heat it derives from the sun,

possibly modified by atmospheric conditions, is quite likely the same

as ours. It has zones of varying temperature, and seasons of summer and

winter like the Earth. Its days are about the same length as ours. The

ice and snow of its polar regions are plainly perceptible, and vary in

arrears exactly in accordance with its changing positions and distances

from the sun. From which we may infer, without a doubt, that its

atmosphere contains moisture of the same chemical composition as ours,

and is condensed into rain and snow as with us.

There are striking points of difference, however, between Mars and the

Earth. Its diameter is a little less than half that of our planet, and

its surface is only about a quarter of ours, while its volume is but a

seventh part of our globe. Furthermore, instead of a single satellite

like ours it has two moons, which revolve in opposite directions around

it, neither of which in point of size can be compared to ours.

My knowledge of astronomy not being profound, it has been the greatest

pleasure and gratification to me to verify, by my own observations,

the calculations and theories of the abler scientists. Appertaining

to Mars, it is perhaps needless to say that there is a diversity of

opinion among astronomers touching its physical conditions. The unusual

red color of its reflected light, its bright and dark spots, and the

variation which is observed in the forms overspreading its disc, are

differently accounted for. It is among such questions as these, then,

that my imagination and ingenuity are free to exercise themselves,

and the desire to settle some of these disputed points to my own

satisfaction increases the eagerness of my observation.

I have watched for many years, with anticipations of pleasure, when

Mars would be in opposition,--or in other words, when, during its

revolution upon its orbit, it comes nearest to the Earth. These

occurrences of about every two years are holidays of pleasure and

enjoyment to me. There are, however, rarer oppositions of Mars, which

occur only twice in a century, when the distance between us is reduced

to the smallest limit; and it has been my good fortune to get a finer

view of this heavenly body at this shorter distance than will few human

beings at present alive.

It can well be imagined what a supremely interesting event this was to

me. Days before its culmination did I watch its progress approaching

nearer and nearer to the Earth. Each succeeding night exhibited to me

its slowly magnifying proportions, and the greater distinctness of

objects on its surface. Here was a world of beings, no doubt, with aims

and enterprises like ours, rolling headlong through the heavens with

a known velocity of fifty-four thousand miles an hour. This planet

was now approaching, hourly, its greatest possible proximity to the

Earth. That I should lose no time in devouring, as I may say, this

unusual spectacle, I had provided my telescope with a kind of clockwork

contrivance, by which it exactly kept pace with Mars on its westward

course. During these few days, I had forgotten everything else in my

eagerness to feast my eyes on this rare show. The nights had been

favorable to observation; and each evening after turning my instrument

on the rapidly approaching planet, my interest became so transfixed and

absorbed that all my ordinary physical wants were suppressed. I had

lost in these few days of mental excitement all inclination for food

and sleep. No one could be freer from superstition than I, yet my mind

was uneasy under an unaccountable premonition. It gave some anxiety to

think that on the very night of culmination, when my interest would be

at its height, a change of weather might cut off the scene. But aside

from this, in my somewhat feverish condition, I could not restrain a

sense of some impending and momentous event in my personal affairs.

Some strange influence seemed to be disturbing the usual tranquil and

placid condition of my mind. I aroused myself from this, however, and

became thoroughly myself when the sun went down on the evening of

my hope, and left an atmosphere that was as perfect as I could wish

for. The sky was calm and clear, with just enough moisture in the air

to increase its transparency. The ordinary evening sounds appeared

stilled. Neither nighthawk nor owl seemed abroad, and the usual

rustling of leaves and swaying of tree-tops was suppressed by a calm

that struck me as strange. The day had been moderately warm, and the

sun-distilled odors of the firs and pines, condensed by the coolness

of twilight, were filling the air with an agreeable perfume, as though

Nature was burning incense in the celebration of some ancient rite,

during which every living and breathing thing about seemed bowed in

silent reverence. I had never known until now what assurance there was

in the natural sounds which nightly fell upon my ears. In my mountain

home no feeling of loneliness ever came over me before. I felt an

especial longing now for the sound of a human voice, for a companion

upon whom I might discharge myself of the suggestions and beliefs

appertaining to the subject of my investigation and study. My mind was

filled with conclusions touching the physical condition of Mars, which

each new observation tended to corroborate. I had my theory to give of

its rose-colored light. I had seen the clouds moving upon its surface,

its polar snows, and its very atmosphere. I had no doubt whatever,

now, that it was inhabited, and the anticipation of soon seeing it in

its most favorable opposition with the Earth, was accompanied with

a yearning that some human creature might share with me the rare

spectacle.

As the twilight faded, I looked with my naked eyes toward the east,

and my other world was showing its red light near the horizon like a

rising sun in miniature. At midnight it would reach its culmination,

when viewing it through the least possible thickness of our atmosphere

in its vertical position, I would see it as no human being could

see it again for over half a century. The oppressive silence and

tranquility remained unbroken, and as I seated myself in my observatory

and adjusted the telescope, I felt myself not quite in my accustomed

vigor of health. The temperature had perceptibly raised, when it had

usually fallen as the night advanced. The air was sultry. A sensation

of qualmishness came over me. It came to my mind now that I had abused

myself by a long neglect of sleep and regular meals. But no sooner

had I brought my instrument to a focus than I was myself again. Our

beautiful neighbor was mounting the heavens, reflecting the sun’s

light in a delicate crimson tint, and in size of outline beyond my

expectation. I could plainly mark its rotation upon its axis by

noting the slow movements of spots upon its disc, and their sudden

disappearance over its limb. The hours seemed minutes to me. My fatigue

and illness were forgotten. In my rapture of enjoyment the lingering

wish increased that some fellow creature might share it with me. My

telescope, in tracing the planet’s course had very nearly obtained

a vertical position, when I was astonished to see the distant world

suddenly disappear, and begin to vibrate back and forth over the

aperture of my instrument. A moment’s reflection explained the matter.

The Earth had shaken. So trifling, however, was the disturbance about

me that it had not been felt. But I had lost my focus, and Mars was

already on its backward journey. My grand holiday was over.

I immediately lowered the telescope and replaced its protecting dome.

Gathering the few hasty notes I had prepared during my observation,

for future reference and elaboration, I made my way to an apartment

of my cabin which serves me for a library and bed chamber. A number

of shelves filled with books occupy one of its sides. My bed rests

in a corner. An easy chair stands besides a table in the center, and

under a window, proportionately large, fronting the south, is placed

a cushioned lounge of some pretentions to comfort and luxury. I threw

myself upon this, after laying away my papers, and the lower panes of

my window being on a level with my head, I looked out into the night.

The moon in its last quarter was just peeping over a near mountain.

Its light, partly obstructed by a network of tree-tops, was throwing

figures of light and shade over the adjacent opening, so that the

ground appeared to have spread upon it a colossal carpet, with

fantastic decorations of ebony and silver. The air had grown a trifle

cooler. A gentle breeze was stirring out of the West, and the silence,

that had recently fallen so mysteriously upon me, was being followed

now by a normal condition of unrest. As the moon rose higher, its

fanciful shadows upon the ground dissolved, and the level plateau

adjacent to my window was uniformly covered with a clear, bright light.

Looking again, and quite sensibly impressed with the changed condition

of things about me, I descried the figure of a man, not far from

my window; and, strange to say, I was neither alarmed nor startled

at his presence. His face, of which I saw but little more than its

profile, was turned upward looking at the moon, and its expression was

unmistakably one of admiration and wonder. His long, and apparently

well-cared-for hair and beard, reflected a golden sheen under the light

above. His arms were folded, and his shape and attitude impressed me as

being majestic.

While fixing my gaze intently on this strange form, an expression

of something wanting about it took possession of me, when presently

I observed with surprise, that although standing under the bright

and unobstructed light of the moon, no shadow was visible about it.

He remained for some time as immovable as a statue, gazing upon our

satellite as one who had never before looked upon so wondrous a

sight, and then, with the air of one on unfamiliar ground, he made an

inquiring survey of my cabin, and then directed his careful footsteps

toward my doorway.