English Secularism Part 9

If money were bequeathed to maintain the eclectic criticism of the Scripture, it would be confiscated by Christian law. So to stand apart is indispensable self-defence. Individual Christians, as I well know, devote themselves with a n.o.ble earnestness to the service of man, as they understand his interests; but so long as Christianity retains the power of fraud, and uses it, Christianism as a system, or as a cause, remains outside the pale of respect. Prayer, in which the oppressed and poor are taught to trust, is of no avail for protection or food, and the poor ought to know it. The Bishop of Manchester declared, in my hearing, that the Lord's Prayer will not bring us "daily bread," but that "it is an exercise of faith to ask for what we shall not receive." But if prayer will not bring "daily bread," it is a dangerous deception to keep up the belief that it will. The eyes of forethought are closed by trust in such aid, thrift is an affront to the generosity of heaven, and labor is foolishness. But, alas! aid does not come by supplication. The prayer-maker dies in mendicancy. It is not reverence 'to pour into the ears of G.o.d praise for protection never accorded. Dean Stanley, admirable as a man as well as a saint, was killed in the Deanery, Westminster, by a bad drain, in spite of all his Collects. Dean Farrar has been driven from St. Margaret's Rectory, in Dean's Yard, by another drain, which poisons in spite of the Thirty-nine Articles; and Canon Eyton refuses to take up his residence until the sanitary engineers have overhauled* the place, which, notwithstanding the invocations of the Church, Providence does not see to. To keep silence on the non-intervention of Providence would be to connive at the fate of those who come to destruction by such dependence.

"O mother, praying G.o.d will save Thy sailor!

While thy head is bowed, His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave!"

* See Westminister Gazette London Letter, November 19, 1895.

True respect would treat G.o.d as though at the least he is a gentlemen.

Christianity does not do this. No gentleman would accept thanks for benefits he had not conferred, nor would he exact thanks daily and hourly for gifts he had really made, nor have the vanity to covet perpetual thanksgivings. He who would respect G.o.d, or respect himself, must seek a faith apart from such Christianity.

A divine, who excelled in good sense, said: "Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High. Our soundest knowledge is, to know that we know him not; _and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence_; therefore it be-hoveth our words to be wary and few."*

Mrs. Barbauld may have borrowed from Richard Hooker her fine line:

"Silence is our least injurious praise."**

* Ecclesiastical Polity, book I., 2.

** Charles Lamb was of this opinion when he remarked: "Had I to say grace, I would rather say it over a good book than over a mutton chop." Christians say grace over an indigestible meal. But perhaps they are right, since they need supernatural aid to a.s.similate it.

An earnest Christian, not a religious man (for all Christians are not religious), a.s.suming the professional familiarity with the mind of G.o.d, said to me: "Should the Lord call you to-day, are you prepared to meet Him?" I answered: Certainly; for the service of man in some form is seldom absent from my thoughts, and must be consonant with his will.

Were I to pray, I should pray G.o.d to spare me from the presumption of expecting to meet him, and from the vanity and conceit of thinking that the G.o.d of the universe will take an opportunity of meeting me.

Who can have moral longing for a religion which represents G.o.d as hanging over York Castle to receive the soul of Dove, the debauchee, who slowly poisoned his wife, and whose final spiritual progress was posted day by day on the Castle gates until the hour of the hangman came?

Dove's confession was as appalling as instructive. It ran thus:

"I know that the Eternal One, Upon His throne divine, Gorged with the blood of His own Son, No longer thirsts for mine.

"Many a man has pa.s.sed his life In doing naught but good, Who has not half the confidence I have In Jesus Christ, His blood."*

* From a volume of verse privately circulated in Liverpool at the time, by W. H. Rathbone.

By quoting these lines, which Burns might have written, the writer is sorry to portray, in their naked form, principles which so many cherish.

But the anatomy of creeds can no more be explained, with the garments of tradition and sentiment upon them, than a surgeon can demonstrate the structure of the body with the clothes on. Divine perdition is an ethical impossibility.

Christianism is too often but a sour influence on life. It tolerates nature, but does not enjoy it. Instead of giving men two Sundays, as it might,--one for recreation and one for contemplation,--it converts the only day of the poor into a penal infliction. It is always more or less against art, parks, clubs, sanitation, equity to labor, freedom, and many other things. If any Christians eventually accept these material ideas, they mostly dislike them. Art takes attention from the Gospel.

In parks many delight to walk, when they might be at chapel or church. Clubs teach men toleration, and toleration is thought to beget indifference. Sanitation is a form of blasphemy. Every Christian sings:--

"Diseases are Thy servants, Lord; They come at Thy command."

But sanitation a.s.sa.s.sinates these "servants of the Lord." In every hospital they are tried, condemned, and executed as the enemies of mankind. If labor had justice, it would be independent, and no longer hopeless, as the poor always are. Freedom renders men defiant of subjection, which all priests are p.r.o.ne to exercise. Secularism has none of this distrust and fear. It elects to be on the side of human progress, and takes that side, withstand it who may. Thus, those who care for the improvement of mankind must act on principles dissociated from doctrines repellent to humanity and deterrent of ameliorative enterprise.

CHAPTER XX. SECULARISM CREATES A NEW RESPONSIBILITY

"Mankind is an a.s.s, who kicks those who endeavor to take off his panniers."

--Spanish Proverb.

NO ONE need go to Spain to meet with animals who kick you if you serve them. Spanish a.s.ses are to be found in every land. Could we see the legs of truth, we should find them black and blue with the kicks received in unloosening the panniers of error, strapped by priests on the backs of the people. Even philosophers kick as well as the ignorant, when new ideas are brought before them. No improvement would ever be attempted if friends of truth were afraid of the a.s.ses' hoofs in the air.

He who maintains that mankind can be largely improved by material means, imposes on himself the responsibility of employing such means, and of promoting their use as far as he can, and trusting to their efficacy,--not being discouraged because he is but one, and mankind are many. No man can read all the books, or do all the work, of the world.

It is enough that each reads what he needs, and, in matter of moral action, does all he can. He who does less, fails in his duty to himself and to others.

Christian doctrine has none of the responsibility which Secularism imposes. If there be vice or rapine, oppression or murder, the purely Christian conscience is absolved. It is the Lord's world, and nothing could occur unless he permitted it. If any Christian heart is moved to compa.s.sion, it commonly exudes in prayer. He "puts the matter before the Lord and leaves it in His hands." The Secularist takes it into his own.

What are his hands for? The Christian can sit still and see children grow up with rickets in their body and rickets in their soul. He will see them die in a foul atmosphere, where no angel could come to receive their spirit without first stopping his nose with his handkerchief, as I have seen Lord Palmerston do on entering Harrow on Speech Day. The Christian can make money out of unrequited labor. When he dies, he makes no reparation to those who earned his wealth, but leaves it to build a church, as though he thought G.o.d was blind, not knowing (if Christ spake truly) that the Devil is sitting in the fender in his room, ready to carry his soul up the chimney to bear Dives company. Why should he be anxious to mitigate inequality of human condition? It is the Lord's will, or it would not be. When it was seen that I was ceasing to believe this, Christians in the church to which I belonged knelt around me, and prayed that I might be influenced not to go out into the world to see if these things could be improved. It was no light duty I imposed on myself.

A Secularist is mindful of Carlyle's saying, "No man is a saint in his sleep." Indeed, if any one takes upon himself the responsibility of bettering by reason the state of things, he will be kept pretty well awake with his understanding.

Many persons think their own superiority sufficient for mankind, and do not wish their exclusiveness to be encroached upon. Their plea is that they distrust the effect of setting the mult.i.tude free from mental tyranny, and they distrust democracy, which would sooner or later end political tyranny.

These men of dainty distrust have a crowd of imitators, in whom n.o.body recognises any superiority to justify their misgivings as to others. The distrust of independence in the hands of the people arises mainly from the dislike of the trouble it takes to educate the ignorant in its use and limit. The Secularist undertakes this trouble as far as his means permit. As an advocate of open thought and the free action of opinion, he counts the responsibility of trust in the people as a duty.

It will be asked, What are the deterrent influences upon which Secularism relies for rendering vice, of the major or minor kind, repellent? It relies upon making it clear that in the order of nature retribution treads upon the heels of transgression, and, if tardy in doing it, its steps should be hastened.

The mark of error of life is--disease. Science can take the body to pieces, and display mischief palpable to the eyes, when the results of vice startle, like an apparition, those who discern that:

"Their acts their angels are,--if good; if ill, Their fatal shadows that walk by them still."

A man is not so ready to break the laws of nature when he sees he will break himself in doing it. He may not fear G.o.d, but he fears fever and consumption. He may have a gay heart, but he will not like the occupation of being his own s.e.xton and digging his own grave. When he sees that death lurks in the frequent gla.s.s, for instance, that spoils the flavor of the wine. He takes less pride in the beeswing who sees the shroud in the bottle. He may hope that G.o.d will forgive him, but he knows that death will not. He who holds the scythe is accustomed to cut down fools, whether they be peers or sweeps. Death knows the fool at a glance. To prevent any mistake, Disease has marked him with her broad arrow. The young man who once has his eyes well open to this state of the case, will be considerate as to the quality of his pleasures, especially when he knows that alluring but unwholesome pleasure is in the pay of death. Temperance advocates made more converts by exhibiting the biological effects of alcohol than by all their exhortations.

The moral nature of man is as palpable as the physical to those who look for its signs. There is a moral squint in the judgment, as plain to be seen as a cast in the eyes. The voice is not honest; it has the accent of a previous conviction in it. The speech has contortions of meaning in it. The sense is limp and flaccid, showing that the mind is flabby.

Such a one has the backbone of a fish; he does not stand upright. As the Americans say, he does not "stand square" to anything. There is no moral pulse in his heart. If you could take hold of his soul, it would feel like a dead oyster, and would slip through your fingers. Everybody knows these people. You don't consult them; you don't trust them. You would rather have no business transactions with them. If they are in a political movement, you know they will shuffle when the pinch of principle comes.

Crime has its consequences, and criminals, little and great, know it.

When Alaric A. Watts wrote of the last Emperor of the French:--

"Safe art thou, Louis!--for a time; But tremble!--never yet was crime, Beyond one little s.p.a.ce, secure.

The coward and the brave alike Can wait and watch, can rush and strike.

Which marks thee? One of them, be rare,--"

few thought the bold prediction true; but it came to pa.s.s, and the Napoleonic name and race became extinct, to the relief of Europe.

Trouble comes from avowing unpopular ideas. Diderot well saw this when he said: "There is less inconvenience in being mad with the mad than in being wise by oneself." One who regards truth as duty will accept responsibilities. It is the American idea

"To make a man and leave him be."

But we must be sure we have made him a man,--self-acting, guided by reasoned proof, and one who, as Archbishop Whately said, "believes the principles he maintains, and maintains them because he believes them."

A man is not a man while under superst.i.tion, nor is he a man when free from it, unless his mind is built on principles conducive and incentive to the service of man.

CHAPTER XXI. THROUGH OPPOSITION TO RECOGNITION

"So many G.o.ds, so many creeds-- So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs."