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I imagine a man most have a good deal of vanibr to believe, and a good deal of boldness who affirm^ that all the doctrines he holcte are trae, and all he rejects are fiJse. — Btttf. FroMkUn. Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the troth of which is so dear and distinct that they tannot be doubted. — Huxley. Everyone must think in his own way to arrive at tryth. — Goethe. Let truth and error grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse in a fair and open encounter ? — MUtoit. Why should I wear my grandfather's hat?— my head was never measured for it. — A. Bromum Aicttt. PRICE, 10 CENTS. MONTREAL. Psmm) BT Tm "COSMOPOLITAN PRESS COMPANY.'* November 1881. :., Sf, ''■•W0'".*7 -:4^ ^.,.dl._;fV' ,' '■ ■■":,,-- '^^^^ "M' ■'■i*.'^ ^■•''' «S ,i»: .1? \ ■«'i ii,'"-, "^ •i N-K ? '1- .V / >. ^1; '-TS> n't iU* 4 r ^^ ,^ S^K i# M ^w^tH'*^""' "■ i- ■■' ^'^■^u ■-^.*i't*"' A REPLY TO T{IE Rev. Fa-^her Graham's l^EOTURE' M I %m m&mmm laettlllir I By a WORKINGMAN. I imagine a man must have a good deal of vanity to l)elieve, and a good dfal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false. — Bent. Franklin. Give unquplificd assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that thev cannot be doubted. — Huxlcv. Everyone must think in his own wny to arrive at truth. — Goethi'. Let truth and error grapple; wlio ever knewtpuh put to the worse in a fair nnd open encounter ? — Milton. • — — — . Why should T wear my grandfather's h:U.^— my liead was never measured for it. — A. Branson Alcott. PRICE, 10 CENTS. MONTREAL, PRnrrBP nr tpe "COSMOPOLITAN PRESS COMPANY." November 1881. / I Sb" ERRATA. * Piijre 2— 1 enth line from bottom, for, And Ireland, read,— In Ireland. 13— Second paragraph from bottom, second line, for. was more suggestive, read, — were more, &c. " 19— Third paragraph from bottom, last line, read,— such a catalogue ol hideous crimes. " 23— Last paragraph, second line, for reign, read,— reigned. '• 24— P'ourth paragraph, fourth line, for prove, read,~proved. 2 5--Eighth paragraph, second line, for cubics, read,— cubits, and in follow ing paragraph, same page, for have, read.—leave. " 26— Fifth paragraph, third line, read,— explain how it is, &c. 2 7~Sixth paragraph, last line, for prosecute, read,— persecute. " 29~-Fifth line, for Plotimus. read.— Plotinus. Mifior typo-errors, especially in punctuation, and orthography, must be left to the kind ivdulgencr of the reader. INTRODUCTION. From an impartial standpoint it is a sad spectacle to witness the frantic efforts of those in whom belief in the myths and supertilions of byj::one cen- turies has become second nature, and whdscek to perpetuate th.it system which would choke inquiry, strangle invcsti/jjation, and clothe the li\ini It rr e d h I) I. But let us seriously consider the devilish phase of your lecture Reverend Sir. In your opening remarks you say "My friends, there are times in the history of the world vvhon the devil is more active than at others. He seems like Uritisii virtue t3 sleep for a century or so, and fiien breaks out with a violence as tremendous as an eruption of Vesuvius and just as destructive. He is very active in this century of ours, and has an army of "Agnostics," "Advanced Scientists," "Free 'I'hinkers," ".Materialists,' etc. at his heels for the speedier damnation of the world, and the further advancement of what they call Free Thought." This Rev. Sir, is truly a devilish sad state of affairs, and a blue look out for the inhabitants of our planet. The Devil must be holding a sort of satanic revival just now in which the big devils, and the little devils, are taking a "long pull a strong pull, and a pull all-togt.thcr,' with the object in view of damnin;j; ev«ry mother's son that has an existence on this speck of the Universe wliich we call the Earth. No wonder you are both excited and angry Rev. Sir. But your Reverence has forgotten to tell us who this Devil is, or where the devil he came fioiu. Does your Reverence really kfiow anything about this awful Devil ? If yes ; why did you not tell us ? If no ; your Reverence is treating of thin., s of whicli you arc ignorant, and according to the syllogism which you offer to lend the foolish ''feelosopher ' — but which I am afraid you cannot spare — "all those who treat of things of which they are ignorant are fools ;" but Father Graham treats of things of which he is ignorant ; therefore Father Ciraham is a fool. This is one of your pills Rev. Sir, and you must not object to your own meclecine. Your Reverence handles the Devil in a masterly manner, popping him in here and there, holding him up one moment, and dropping him like a hot potato the next, never giving us a good look at him or telling us anything about him that would give us an idea as to what kind of a Devil he is. But the Devil is a hot subject Rev. Sir, and you might have scorched your holy fingers had you handled him less gingerly. But as your Reverence leaves us as much in the dark as ever as to the origin or whereabouts of this infernal cause of modern infidelity, and as such cause must be worthy more than a passing glance, let us see what information we can get of his satanic majesty. As it must be a very wicked Devil who would so persistantly seek to damn mankind I conclude. Rev. Sir, that the Devil you speak of must be the Christian Devil, and as there may be a slight difference between the catholic Devil and the protestant Devil, 1 will seek for information on this diabolical subject in the "Douay Bible, ' which the Holy (Ecumenick Council "in the Holy Ghost assembled ' say in the admonition must be accepted "not as the words of men ; but the words of God." Yet with the aid of God's word, we are puzzled to decide whether there is one devil or more than one devil, and I must confess my utter inability to give the devil his due, but as I cannot find the slightest trace of his origin, I suspect that like "Topsy' he "just growed." In the Book of Job, ist Chap. 6 v. we have one devil mentioned, and in Lev. 27, c. 20 V. we have devils mentioned, so that whether it is a singular devil or a plurality of Devils I cannot say, but I favor the idea that it is a very singular devil. *" When we consider the immense army of Popes, Priests, Ministers, Missionaries, Bishops, Archbishops, Monks, Deacons, Bible Societies, Christian Associations, 'Iract peddlars, Bible readers and Revivalists it takes to hold him only partly in subjection, we cannot help thinking that he is a very costly Devil indeed. You say Rev. Sir. that "the Devil deceived our mother Eve." but on consultinji; the word of God, I can find no mention of the Devil in the vt-ry meagre history of that interesting lady contained in the book of CJenesis We have the simple statement in plain language Gen. .3, c. 1. v. 'Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts f)f the earth which the Lord God had made." No sign of the Devil here Rev. Sir. And again same chapter 14 v. we have the Lord Cod punishini: the serpent (not the Devil) because he had deceived our mother Fac, in tln'se words. "And the Lord God said to the serpent : because tlii)u hast done this thing thou art cursed among all cattle and beasts of the earth, ui:,on thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy liie." Not the least allusion to a devil here Rev Sir. This history of the temptation and fall in Eden pl.dnly states, first that God made the serpent more subtle than n,ny of the beasts of the eaith. Secondly, that this subtle serpent lured Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, with but little argument. Thirdly, that God jjunished the serpent for deceiving Eve, by condemning him to crawl, "all the days of his life.'' Now Rev. Sir, where is your authority for saying that the Devil deceived our mother Eve .-■ If you reply that the Devil assumed the form of a serpent to accomplish his fell purpose, then wo have the sorry spectacle of an Allmighty and all-knowing God, punishing a serpent for a crime of which he was inno- cent, while the Devil, laughing in his sleeve at the success of his ruse, gets off ".scot free." Besides Rev. Sir, there is no resemblance between the serpent and the devil, with perhaps the exception of thi; tail, for the popular conception of the devil paints him as black in colour, hooked nose, claw like h mds, curved horns, forked tail, and cloven hoofs which he has great difficulty in concealing. There is but one hypothesis, Rev. Sir, on which you can reconcile the devil of to day with the serpent of Genesis, and that is that the devil, like every other thing in the Universe, is subject to the allmight} law of evolution. I have heard that the devil has the entree to the bes<- of society, and this we cannot doubt when we find that Heaven itself was nut exempt from the visits of this serial tramp. In the divinely inspired Book of Job, ist c. 6 v. we read that "when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan was with them," nor did the Lord manifest the least anger at his prcsevce^ on the contrary, they had quite a pleasant chat together of which the devoted Job was the subject. Job had good reason to remember this and a subsequent visit of Satan to Heaven ; as Satan obtained permission from God to destroy his flocks, murder his children, and leave himself a mass of sores, grovelling on a dunghill, as an example to posterity of the way in which Jehovah rewards his honest and up- right children. As we learn by the case of Job that the devil must get permission from God to tempt us, and as we are not all Jobs, may we not reasonably ask, on the showing of God's own book, which of them is the Worst ? 1 — 5— And further on Rev. Sir, you will find that the "word" itself is a little mixed on this devilish question, for the second Book of Kings 24 c. i v. tells us that "The anger of the Lord was again kindled against Israel and stirred up David among them, saying go number Israel and Judah' or in modern phrase- ology go take the census ; and in the first Book of Chron. 21 Chap, i v. this essence of divine veracity tells us it was the devil did the stirring up^ and caused the census to be taken. Taking the census may seem to wretched unbelievers a very harmless proceeding, but the word of God tells us that it so angered Jehovah, that he sent a plague and killed seventy thous.md of the Israelites in consequence. Therefore though we cannot decide whether Jehovah or Satan caused the census to be taken ; we may be certain that "there is a sonriething or other we can't exactly say what" in the taking of a census, that convulses high Heaven with rage, and brings ' . .h and desolation on the unfortunate children of this angry father; and I have no doubt, but that some dire calamity will overtake the people of Canada in consequence of the sacrilegious conduct of their rulers who, flying in the face of this example, are at present engaged in taking the census. I am afraid there will be the devil to pay for it, But to all those who may be unfortunate enough to raise the devil, or to become possessed of a devil, it will be nutter for rejoicing to learn that Jehovah has not left his children without tiie means f driving him away or casting him out. This divine prescription may be found in the Book of Tobias sixth Ch ip. 8 and 19 Vers, where you w'l read that '^y putting "j, small piece of the heart or liver of a fish on the coals, the smoke thereoi" driveth away all kinds of devils, either from man or woman. Here is a remedy simple, cheap, and sure, which I heartily commend to )0ur Reverenct; as a means to cast out the Free Thought devil. We also read in the Book of Tobias that, "the An^el took the devil and bound him in the desert of upper Egypi,"but shortly after ho is at large again. He seems to euchre Heaven every deal. The Devil is somewhat of a controversialist, as we read in Jude, 9 ver. that he disputed with Michael the Archangel about the body of Moses. He sometimes assumes the duties of clerk of the weathei, as we read that "One day St. Francis de Salles was blessing a churchyard ; a torrent of rain prevented the ceremony." The saint however was in no wise dai: ited, made an exorcism, and immediately the firmament recovered its serenity. Here the faithful may find an example of the infinite wisdom of God who manifested his power, by first permitting the devil to annoy the good saint by a torrent of rain, and then giving the saint the power to exorcise the demon. The skeptic would say, however, that this reminded him of the story of the man who cut his friend's head and then gave him a plaster. The great St. Augustine attributes the prodigies wrought by magicians to contracts with the Devil, and explains how the devil keeps his contract from a desire of being honored. Simple Augustine, peace to thy ashes ! The devil seems to take particular delight in annoying very pious persons, as witness his extraordinary efforts in the case of St. Anthony when he appeared in a number of character chanv^es, but finally losing his temper he beat the saint black and blue, which was to say the least a very shabby prov-oeding. Anthony's guardian Angel must have been off duty that night. The biographers of the Curd of Ars tells us that "at midnight, three great blows on the outer door warned the Cure of Ars of his enemy's presence. After having amused himself by raising an horrible clatter on the staircase, the — 6— Devil entered He betook himself to the bed curtains, clutched them, and shook them furiously. Often he cried out in a scofTing tone : Vianey. Vianey, eater of truffles, we shall have thee!" Let us hope for the sake of the good curd, that tiie truffles of which he appears to h<.^ve been a lover, may have had something to do with this apparition. Then we have him with brazen effrontery tempting Jesus whom he should have known to be God with an offer of the Kingdoms of the earth if he would fall down and worship him, and the next moment he is whining for permission to enter into a herd of swine, which permission, being granted by Jesus, the herd ran into the sea and were drowned This was hard on the owner of the hogs Rev. Sir, but had the devil been drowned as well as the swine, there would not be a parson or priest in the land to day. We also read m holy writ that the devil ''Goeth about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour," this text formed the basis of a sermon delivered by a western preacher who said "dearly beloved, let us consider this texi under the four following heads, ist. Let us inquire who the devil he was. 2ndly. let us consid'.T his location, where the devil he was- 3rdly. his destination •where the de\il he was going, and 4lhly. what the devil he was roaring about ilijyhow.'' ]'.ut let \is consign this roaring and hungry fraud, to tho bottomless pit of oblivion. Not to this weird spectre of the imagination is due "the infidelity of the present day'" Rev. Sir, but to the gradual emancipation of the mind of man from slavery to priest-craft and kingcraft. Not to the ghoulish creations of ignorance R(-'v. Sir ; but to the fact that man is opening his eyes to the reality that the church has ever failed to back her arrogant and blas- phemous claims, by proofs, or her pretences by deeds. Not to Spencer or Mill, but to the impotence of that church or any other which seeks by petitioning invisible Deities to benefit mankind. Aftei eighteen centuries of prayers and prostrations before tinselled altar.s and draped statues, invocations to defunct saints, carrying bones of ditio in procession, sprinkling of holy water, burning of incencc, ringing of bells, and all the paraphernalia by which God's holy Church (?) seeks to propitiate an angry God : after eighteen centuries, during the greater part of which time this holy Catholic Church held undisputed sway over the minds of men. misery, suffering, oppression, poverty, witJi their attendant evils, robbery, murder, and prostitution, have descended as heirlooms to the mass of mankind, and to day ragged, ignorant, and hideous, stare us in the face. To this. Rev. Sir, and the inconsistency of a Church that, while preaching free will, seeks by every possible means to stamp the brand of superstition on the undeveloped brain of childhood, bending the twig that the tree may incline — to the l)lood stained records of your church and to the march of science — which drags no matter how slowly "Gods iioly Catholic Church" after it — you may attribute the infidelity of the present day." And now let us speak of devils we can know something of Devils that have cursed mankind for century. '^I'he blaok brutal devils of superstition and ignorance, that cenuiry after century, have enabled the crafty, the bold, and the heartless, to despoil, outrage, and oppress the simple, the guileless, and weak. The Devil of superstition that in the words of the poet Shelley. "People earth with demons, hell with men. And heaven with slaves " This devil .shielded the tyrant under the wing of Deity, for was it not written "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no ■ I -7— power but of God ; the powers that are, are ordained of God. VVliomsoever resisteth the power resistelh the ordinance of God." This miserable doctrine is responsible for the blood of millions, and has propped many a jjjluttonous despot on his throne ; clothing the king with power from on high, making him the master, instead of the servant of the people. There must be no rebellion against the blue blooded members of the royal tribe who, whether with brains or without, mount the thrones of Europe, antl graciously condescend to spend the money of the common people in licence and debauchery, while the people butcher ©ne another in the name of loyalty for his Most Royal this, or Most (iracious that. And again it is written in this divine Book "Resist not evil." There's a blessed doctrine for the oppressed ones. If any one oppress you, rui> or illtreat you, dont defend yourself like a man ; what though your wife be insulted or your daughter outraged, "resist not," but crawl off to your cowardly liome and try to be happy in the thought that you have not imperilled the safety of the thing you call soul by resisting evil. Be content my dear children, starve and rot, drig out your miserable existences in bye ways and alleys, crowded together in foul dark houses, in filthy yards, where disease, want, and vice, peep iVoai every window and sit at every door ; where ragged children witii a hard look on their faces, stalk barelegged through the streets picking up the stray chips that are to warm the scanty meal, liable to be crushed beneath the wheels of my Lord Bishop's carriage on its way to his palace. *'Be content my dear children, God ordains all things for the best, trust in him and in his own good time he will i\o, "as pleases him best." Give no ear to those ^'intellectual Upers'' and ^'vtoral monstc/s" who tell you to rely on yourselves, who tell you there is no devil to fear, but the devil of ignorance, who tell you, you are under-paid and over-worked, while titled loafers, and fat preachers, grow stout and ro.sy on your earnings; who tell you to demand justice, not charity ; who would change your fear of the supernatural for the love of knowledge ; who would teach you to know your body before speculating about your soul. Those are soul-destro\ing doctrines, my dear children, there must be hewers of wood and drawers of water, toil on we say, and we, your pastors will beg alms from the rich, that you may be fed by the hand of charity. Sa\'e, from your scanty earnings fifty cents per month and we will enroll your names in the Society for the relief of the souls in purgatory,-'^ whose intercession, joined to the masses we will chant — to say nothing of the indulgences we will grant — cannot fail to inliuence Deity in your behalf ; for cash down in the bitter now and now, you may have happiness in the sweet bye and bye. This is the devilish doctrine. Rev. Sir, which, fostered by superstition and backed by the sword, has cursed mankind and stamped heresy and treason on the brow of honesty. But the light has been let in, despots tremble. Th-^ divinity that (did hedge the King in torrner days, might now be rendere. "How dynamite dotli hedge the Kiii;.'_." Privilege alter privilege is being torn from the hands of the Royal us^npeis, to be vested in their rightful owners the people, Man is emerging, Rev. Sir, from the gloomy fog of superstition that for ( iiituries has enveloperl him. 'J he people are tired of the monotonon.s leucarsal of mildewed miracles worked by s.ants, and fathers of a church, whose disciples and sons to day are impotent. They are longing to hear just on- little message from the souls of the faithful departed. They would like to know whether hell is situated East, West. North, or South of this planet. They argue with oneanother, whether the purple and Gold draped Vicar of the. ragged * Socit'ttf pour le soulagem.Mit des ames du purgatoiri, sous le patronage de Mgr. I'Evequc de Montreal. -8- aiid humble Jesus, owns a chart or map of the Universe on which Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, are delineated, with due reference to latitude and longitude. They are beginning to think for themselves. Rev. Sir, and the more they think for themselves, the less need of paying the priest to think for them. The more they rely on themselves, the Ic::.- need of charity. The broader their conception of Nature, the more ridiculous will appear that doctrine which teaches a God like unto a King, and a heaven like a court, where majesty can only be api)roache(l by the intercession of those high in authority. The clay is fiist approaching Rev. Sir, when the people shall rise, freed of this ignorant de\il forever. Common sense with the help of observation and experience wii] exor- cise him ; and Reason, freed of the warp of superstition, will do what Jehovah and his priests have been either unable or unwilling to do, and that is " kill the deviir Yet a little while, Rev. Sir, and the day slvill he pn^t for shaking burning lakes, black devils, and angry gods, in the late of the people, when having outgrown their childish, j^ucrile simplicily they shall treat your threat- enings of the "Raw head and bloody bones " of theology with the coniemptthe black fraud deserves, After sixty hundred years of unexampled activity, matchless generalship* and successful thwarting of the will of Deity; a success which casts reflections oil omnipotence itself, would it not be well, Rev, Sir, to pension off this devil, fuil of years anil honorr,, and get a more manageable quality of devil in his place. lint there are worse de\ils than "Auld Clootie," the devil of religious hate, f )r insta;"ice, this bigoted, persecuting, and intolerant devil, is the necessary attendant of settled religious conviction, and that church by whatsoever name ii may be calh.cl, Pagan, Catholic, or Protestant, when supported by ine civil power, has ]X!rsecuted just in proportion to the pov/er it has wielded ; thus the jKigans killed the catholics, the catholics, killed pagans, jews, protestants, a'ld mibelirvers, the protestants killed catholics, unitarians c,nd dissenters, each and all believing they were doing the will of the Father who. chey say, is in lien\cn and who i., graciously pleased to let his zealous children fight it out as best tliey may. And tliis l)igoted devil is not yet cast out of the heart of man. In our own city we ha\e lately seen the civil and military powers called in to prevent those peisoris \«ho v.-orsliij) Jesus Christ under different banners, from cutting one PMOllK [n!"o:;ts. HlU i, lliose de'.ils are not dead, they are doomed. Thouf'-h they check t!i>.' i;» -ix ii of ]irogrcss ihey are impotent to stop it. Science, or ihe religion of fici.r. is : v\\.', ;:'ing tl^e cobwebs of supersiition from the skies. Those devils are tloora.'d and v,il! die, slov.b,- ii. may be, but none the less surely. In the hihtoiy of this planet gods and devils have lived and have died, i;nK)rant man creates thi^ii. intelligent man destroys them. The devil of the tuUire will not be the ci'exil of the past. Old Nick has ce;).-;ed to be the terror of mankind; cm the contrary he furnishes material for many laughable tales- He has had Ins day ; son cliicn est mort. Not all the bleatings of the sheep .'fy folds roimd their agonized limbs; Vv'Iiile Satan himself and the nobility of Hell danced an infernal cotillion, iolhe ceaseless nui.ic of the damned, but carried out the concepiion of hell tluii had been stamped on the mind of man by the teaching of an ignorant and fiinatical priesthood. St. Augustine declared that all unbaptized infants would be damned though he hoped the tire would be moderated a little for them. Pious Saint ! Solacing belief ! ! Benevolent Creator ! ! ! But this Hell is not shaken in the face of the multitude as of old. The cuol stream of reason is tempering the flames of Hell, and will in time extinguish eni. In the mean time unless your Reverence can offer reasonable proof of —10— the existence of the flaming aggregation of horrors called Hell, you will do well to confine yourself to treating of things of which you know something or that "syllogism" of yours will be again in order. You froth and '■ave and consign us to hell's flames which you say awaits us. At this truly orliiodox outburst, we might tremble indeed did we not know that the pincers, the thumb screw, the faggot, and the stake, have been torn from the Jinncls oi the ]:)riest. You are no longer able to enjoy, as form-'rly, the pleasinri; spectacle of witnessing thsi bodies of those who denied the pretencesof the priest, consigned to the flames, the faithful meanwhile anticipating the joys of Heaven, \sliere ihey hope to contem^jlate the sufferings of their damned fellow creatures in tiie uncomfortable headquarters of Satan. Who shall write the epitaph of the liundreds of thousands which this so called Holy (-atiiolic ("Church Ins murdered in the name of God ? Hell! If there is a liell. it will b;^ so full of those whom Hood calls ''Those pseudo privy councillors of G)d" that the very (lovil Iiim^elf will not be ai)le to wedge the smallest Atheist the world ever produced inside the gates. Vou consign us to hell — wake up man ! you are living in the Nineteenth Centu-y a ul liell is a total wreck — it never had any bottom to it, Father dear, and how r;)ultl you expect it to stand? Hell I The mind involuntarily con- jures !he re i .-ind yelL^w flames, the devils with pitch-forks, the sinners and snakes b'jiow, while ;ihovc we see half a dozen sanctimonious individuals in white niglit dresses with goose quill attachments, making tracks for a slit in a cloud where a long bearded person is waiting to receive them, presumably the host, or porter may be ; and we smile Father Graham, in the face of your threat. But the vision fides and with it I beg to drop from sight that bottomless absurdity, Hell. THE ABUSIVE PHASE. I can readily conceive. Rev. Sir, that an honest believer, strongly impressed with the conviction that his creed or faith contained all and every element of truth, shouUl seek to defend, nay more, to propasfate that faith by all legitimate means; and would be iustified in imparting or teaching to others, what he considered to be the truth. pAit tiiat any earnest man, much less a priest, and chosen disciple of the mild and lowly Jesus, should seek to bolster up his cause, by bawling invective, arouses the .sus})icion that the theolo2;ical store-room is as bare of arguments as the fabled Mother Hubbards cupboard was of bones. It mi;.'Jit have been expected, considering your holy office, that your Reverence would have set an example of that mildness, charity, and patient cndcLUOur — to bring the erring sheep back to the fold — which we had been so of'(Mi told is a distinctive mark of the sons of that tender mother^ the church. But no I The old spirit still lingers! Choleric son of a tender mother what a sorry spectacle you j^resent ! While claiming to be a very mouthpiece of Heaven ! you use indecent language. A saver of souls ! You consign us to hell. An expounder of truth! You descend to falsehood. A dispenser of grace ! Yet lacking grace yourself Holding the Catholic Church as the motherof liberty, yet bemoaning those good old days when free thought and speech was suppressed by the dungeon, the sword, and the faggot. >.', *- —11— Holding your church as the mother of civilization yet lamenting in ve state of society'' in which you say "'severe sta the statutes I absence of that '•primitiv( curbed the disintegrating designs of the Atheist." On no other ground, Rev. Sir, than that of temporary insanity, can I un- derstand that you believe you are defending yvar creed or attacking Free Thouglit by the childisl: n.Misense interlarded \vii.h billingsgate which you offer to the provincial world under the name of a lecture. You are angry, no doubt, Rev. lather in God. Angry that men are bold enough to question your right to dogmali/e. Astonished that men challenge your assertions, and demand at Icisl a little proof, to back the claim that you are a chosen vessel.- Ikit you ar^ destined to be astonished still further Rev. Sir, for the time is here in which the assertions of the priest is criticised, and every deviation from truth thrown back in his face. Your sense of duty must have been in a state parallel to the "British virtue" you speak of, slumbering contentedly in the conservative bed of the church, surrounded by the hedge of power and privilege, which superstition has wrested from credulity. What disturbed your Reverence ? Did you dream that the devil in the guise of Tyndall or Darwin was preaching a sermon to your flock, from the book of Nature, and did you observe that there was not one sleepy head in the congre- gation ? Or did you have the nightmare and imagine that Huxley was crushing you under an enormous fossil skull, on which was inscribed the legend 'thirty thousand years old," while Darwin in a cardinal's hat held before your eyes a Papal Lull which made known to all men that ''the Holy Church had fostered Vv'ith tender solicitude the inspired efibrts uf her well beloved Son Chas. Darwin, who, after years of devout a]-)plicalion, had demonstrated the truth of the theory of the -'Origiii of Species." a theory which the Catholic Church had always liekl in great \cnerat'on. but which she had not bcibre felt the necessity of teaching as revealed doctrine," and winding up with the declaration in capital letters that "if any one sluiU not receive the doctrine of evolution in all its parts as set forth by our well beloverl son, the Revd. Chas. Darwin, or shall deny that it is divinely insp-'red, let him be accursed. But whatever the cause, it proved augravating enough to make your Rev- erence arise, gird up your loins and set up to demolish the ogre. Free Thought. Poor, Dear, Father Graham ! jou find yourself like the wife of Johnnie Sands floundering in the Stream in which you vainly imagined to drown Free Thought ; and though like the fiblecl Johnnie our hands are tied; to a certain extent they are neither beliind oar backs nor useless, as your Reverence will perceive before we have done wirli you. You vehemently ask us ''What is matter? What is space? What is Nature, etc' and then without giving a single clue as to the meaning you attach to those words, and forgetting ihii you are unable to answer those questions yourself, though backed by "Roman authority," your theological zeal carries you beyond the bounds of decency, and you abuse Tyndall, Darwin, Huxley, and free thinkers in general, in language unbecoming a common scavenger, Feeling your utter inability to offer or even attempt a refutation of the positions of any of those Gentlemen . you vent your spleen by throwing at their names, names that will be remembered when yours is forgotten — such epithets as "blasphemers.'" "petty brains." "pigmies,' "asses," "blatherskites," "moral monsters," "intellectual lepers," etc. But, Rev. Sir, every epithet marks a weakness, and every coarse word points to a defect in that armor which jou so boastingly assert to be indefectible. Yours is not the language of conscious power to meet the assaults of unbelief —12- but rather the frontic efforts of the drowning wretch who seeks by clutching at straws to prolong existence yet a moment longer. The manner in which you speak of Huxley, Darwin, Tyndall, and others, is a proof to al! thinking men, that you are acquainted with those names by proxy only, or through some prejudiced source. Had your Reverence become acquainted with those Authors at first hand, their honest, manly style must have impressed you, and you might have written your thoughts in a decent manner. But those names require no defence at my hands, Rev. Sir, they represent men whose lives and works place them far above the reach of your lilliputian efforts to criticise or damage. You have the usual charasteristic inuendos about "free love," "sexual affinity," communism. Nihilism, and ant6 natal adjustment of population," which you say" are the logical results of free-thought." Reasoning by analogy Rev. Sir, I might with much more consistency affirm that, ignorant sexual rela- tions, tyranical forms of government, joining scrofulous and consumptive persons in marriage, perpetuation of disease through their sickly tainted off- spring, overstocked families with their prematurely aged mothers and overworked fathers, ungoverned passions, houses of prostitution, jails, penetentiaries, and lunatic asylums, are the logical results of Christianity. That the existintr relations of society are anything but perfect every sane man will admit. That disease, povert)^ prostitution, crime, are existing evils, which every honest man should seek to remeJy, as far as lies in his power, no man will be base enough to deny. While the church has been content to apply her theological salve to the social sores and confined her treatment to the local effect ; Free Tlnnight has in opposition to the customs and habits of generations past, and prejudice present, boldly sought to probe those evils to the core, convinced that the only means of remedying the disease is by removing the cause. Infidels, heretics, blasphemers, have Ijeen the epithets hurled by bigotry at the heads of 'hose men whose free unbiassed, and untrammeled thought has led them to take their place in the front rank of the army of investigators, reformers, and agitators of every age ; doing the pioneer work of humanity, fighting the fight of right against might, rewarded by reviling, persecution, and imprisonment '!ven now, while your holy church uses the power she has usurped to fix the attention aiui hopes of man on another world, situated we can't exactly say where, in whch he is to receive that happiness which is his birthright here and now, while the mass grasp at the shadow and neglect the substance- "Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat." As to Nihilism, I will not take a decided stand. I am not living in Russia, and what we know of Nihilism is no doubt coloured by the channels through which our information reaches us. But this much I will say. Rev. Sir, were I living in Russia, where a despot sat on the throne surrounded by parasites who gorged themselves day after day, year after year, and century after century, on the earnings of an enslaved, knouted, downtrodden people, I should be a Nihilist too ; were I living m a country where I saw thousands of my fellow creatures, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, loaded with chains, beaten witli knout, and consigned to the terrors of Siberia, merely on suspicion of doubting that every government official was appointed by Heaven to oppress them, I would be a Nihilist too. Were I in dpiger of being sent to that hell on earth called Siberia for venturing to assert tnat :he Czar of all the Russias was not the most exemplary ruler on earth, I would be a Nihilist too. Were I to attend church in that country, and a priest claiming to be ordained of Heaven, should tell me from the altar that, " all power is from God, \i fWt^'^'i ■13- the powers that are, are ordained of God ;" should he ask me to join him in prayer, that the ruler above might spare the ruler below; that he might ha\e time for further oppressions and fresh debaucheries \ did he icll me that the Ruler above counted the hairs of our h'jad, and took cognizance ofthe sparrow's fall, yet took no account of the sulYerings of his unfortunate and oppressed children ; I should leave that church a Nihilist, and an unbeliever too. I have not the slightest doubt that if a communistic form of governme nt were established in this country to-morrow we should have that versatile and holy chameleon called the catholic church, brazenly asserting that she had always fostered the tendency of man towards such form of government. And the first steamer from Europe wojld doubtless have on board a Legate, a Cardinal, whose office would be to establish friendly relations with the Vatican, provided the children ofthe country be submitted to their pious training, with a grant of land and exemption from taxation thrown in. However, those social problems do not affect the question at issue ; whether socialism, etc. is, or is not, the logical result of free-thought, is not the question which underlies and is the foundation on which modern inlideliiy rests. These social questions will be decided in the future without the aid of the priesthood. The question at issue is. Is Christianity true ? The silly remarks your Reverence makes regarding the personal appearance of Free Thinkers, is but an advertisement to the cft'ect that your Reverence was at your wits end for material when you put this pebble in your priestly rattle. Your Reverence says 'T do not know whether it is an act of*^ "agnosticism" or profession of "advanced thought" but you will find a large proportion of free thinkers splitting their hair in the luiddle and nourishing their ambrosial locks even unto their shoulders." This idea was no doubt suggested to j'our Reverence by a portrait of Jesus Christ who is represented as splitting his hair in the middle and nourishing his locks even unto his shoulders, and your Reverence will readily call to mind the fact that he was denounced as an infidel and blasphemer by the priests of his day. Again you say. "There is generally a wild chaotic expression of eye about them awfully .suggestive of abysmal thought and the cutting of scientific Gordian Knots. They carry their vests high up like their ears and confusion possesses their coats which are buttoned awry." This is too ridiculous. Rev. Sir. But where you throw a dart, there I have a shield to catch, and a lance to cast in return. I can readily call to mind numerous specimens of the black robed frater- nity, whose facial configuration and cranial development was more suggestive of the prize 11 ng than the pulpit, were it not for the aggregation of adipose cells in the abdominal and lumbar regions, which totally precludes all idea of their possessing the necessary activity ; and completes a tout ensemble which if stripped of its hybrid garments, 1 make bold to affirm would astonish Jehovah himself and be totally unrecognisable as a specimen of the genus man which the Bible tells- us He manufactured in Eden in His own image six thousands years ago. Your silly talk about the Free Thinker wearing his ears "high up," loses all force — even if true — coming from a man who must believe that his ears are in the situation his almighty Designer decreed they should occupy. Besides. Reverend Sir, this association of ears with intelligence smacks strongly of belief in phrenology. You are tainted with heresy, Rev. Sir. -14- Again your Reverence says. '"Pmy Messieurs, what is matter ? What is substance ? What is fhe distinction — the real distinction — between matter and force ? Can you explain what matter and substance is ? No you cannot here in the presence of a thing visible and palpable you are brought to a gaping standstill, and yet you turn around and dare to deny God, on the ground that the existence of the Almighty is unreasonable. Poor pigmies, what asses, as well as blasphemers your pride and petty brains make of you, etc." I will content myself for the present with asking your Reverence a few- questions ill return, imitating as closely as our unaided infidel ignorance will permit, the inspired style of which the above quotation is a mild sample. The Priest talks glibly about "God," "Pure Spirit," "Created Spirit," etc. ad nauseum. Pray Messieurs its interpreieiirs what do you know about God ? Come now ! No dodging the question with some of your long winded sophistries but give us a plain honest answer if you can. Again, ye buds of divinity tell us what is the distinction — the real distinct ion — between pure spirit and created spirit "i What is spirit anyhow .•• If God is "Being simply" according to St. Thomas, what is lie according to some ot the earlier saints and fathers of the church? Of what did this pure spirit make the Universe.? Did he make it out oi something, or out of nothing ? Eut some thing cannot come from nothing you will admit ; therefore he made it out of something. If so! How came this something to be in existence ? Now, is it not more reasonable to believe that this boundless Universe with its inherent forces eternally existed, without beginning, without end, ratiier than believe than an infinite something awoke from an eternal coma six thousand years ago and broke the bieatliless, cheerless, silence of limitless space by speaking conntless millions of whirling solar systems into existence ? Again, ye heavenly insurance agents. When this infinite something created the Universe did he place it inside of Himself, or outside of Himself unt of bodily suffering can altera mental convictiim. Thohe who under pain say they see the error of their previous belief, had never thought out the prublem for themselves." 'J'he last sentence in the above quotation dictated just seven years before )ou built the ethgy you call Thos. 'I'elfer, gives effectual answer to all those so called death bed recant;itions of anonymous individuals which are continually happening no one knows where. And then your Reverence speaking of the Free Thinkers says "They are faithful to the oft repeated injunction of Voltaire 'lie. lie, something will stick. ' The brazen effionlery of th.is assertion, Rev Sir, is only efiualled by the plentiful bid. oi" evidence to substantiiite it. I challenge you for proof that Voltaire ever used those words in the sense you attribute to them. Ciive us the context and keep from making a wry face if you can. No, no. Father (]raham, Voltaire the poet, the wit whose biting sptire and scathing denunciation of tilled frauds, and priestly shams, earned for himself the hatred of nobility and priesthood, and caused him to be twice imprisoned ere he had reached the age of forty, may have put those words on Jesuit lips, but in the sense you give them I deny. But Voltaire is dead ! — ' A jackass kicked a lion once ! — But the lion was dead ! — Sic transit gloria Graham ! Once more youi Reverence sajs •'! turn over the page of human annals and find Atheism a l)hick and ominous blotch — at iiitervals in the world's history." Tile only eviaence your Reverence offers to ])rove the blackness of Atheism is, that "it excited discontent in the masses, and whispered soft flatteries in the f'dv of kings. Sang in the sublime numbers of Homer, and darkened the smooth ryihmn of Virgil, Laughed with the eas\ genius of Horace, and threw off the mask with I'ropertius,'" besides doing a numoer of equ.Uly black and slnriil things, all of which you say "proves its origin and mission, — viz, "the d'jvil's guerilla waiiare against the majesty of the Most High, and the immortal interests of mankind." '1 he de\il -has -cropped- up-again. ^'ou seem to forget. Rev. Sir that if the devil carries on a guerilla warfare against t!ie majesty of liie most High" and the "immortal interests" of man- kind are at stakt;, that your church leaches that the rijost High graciously jier- mits your fnciui \.\\ii devil to carry on such warfare, tiiai in fact it is the w^ill of God. If his Majesty so wislierl he might at any moment annihilate the devil and Atheism wouici cease as a natural consequence. If the "immortal interests," <.)f his Majesty's children areal stake, and if he cared a button for said "immortal interests," he would fore-close with the devil at once. Dodge and evade the question as you will, \our Most High is the fore knowing author of all things; if you say that he made the devil good but that he fell through pride, then the devil was no less the deliberate creation of your most High because he endowed the angel with pride, which caused his fall, and He knew millions of ages before he created him what misery and suffering would ensue in consequence. Surrounded by the boundless nothing from which he created all things, communing with himself from ettrnit) . he saw unfolding out of the infinite — in— darkness, the Hells overcrowded with sufferers, while the mansions of Heaven had ''Rooms to Let" pasted over every door. Before there was an atom in existence He saw the misery, the slavery, the wars, the massacres, the burnin,cjs, the persecuiions. the ramines and plagues, the earthquakes and avalanches, spreading desohition and suJYering over one little planet in his Universe. He saw all this from cteniity the priest telli> us, and llicn has the hare- faced presumption to say He is a "pure .ict" and could not ]jo.-,-;il)ly create e\il. If He is a pure act. why did he create prido, VvhiLJi v.as tantamount to creating the devil honestly and fairly at once ? Jf this Most Hi;;h wishi-d to ha\e a d^ vil He is not all |i;nod. if He did not want a devil and yot one, liis intcnlions wishes or plans are at fuili and He is not all wise nor all powerful. AgaLi, Reverend Sm-, I ask you in the name of humanity — Why dont (iod kill the de\il and thus make us all good catholics at once ? There is o black sheep ne\'er yet constituted a white one. When pTotestantism shook off some of the delusions whieh arrojj^ant ''Roman Authority" imposes in the name of religion, men were unable to cast off the bigotry and fan.itiscism which sixteen centuries of priestly dominance had imbedded in their minds. Though protestantism retains a good deal of the bigotry and persecuting spirit which was so c.irefully fostered in the mother church, yet to day it shows the meiual vigour which is the result of even a step or two outside the limits prescribed hy" Roman Authority. ' Its ministers meet the unbeliever face to face, and man to man, and seek in intcllectunl combat to maintain thdr ground and are thus entitled to our respect. Some of her ministers arc even to be found battling side by side with the infidel for the rights of the people. But where shall we find a priest who dares to meet the champions of free thought on the public platform ? Id no doubt Allah, and a christian 5 ; evolute, ember that phases of east make leverence deceived but their n pleased ited tact, ig it ever jht have nembers oing no of what robbed ng with of the ■olligan an all, and It fc )f No ch 11 roll would (his antl (he (hack some le of \(ecn uting- hows iniits •Iv in X'Ct. (lie fice —21- / do not know of one, nor did I ever hear of one. T^ey prefer to boast from the pulpit, where they are secure from answer of what they could do if they wished ; or confine themselves to publishinsf their denunciations in the columns of newspapers that dare not accept anything in the shape of a reply. And then you say that ''the catholic Church is the objective point of attack; and that "in every atheistic onslaught, there is much enlarging on Galileo, the inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew etc.," which you affirm to be " protestant slander and exploded lies. ' It would have been far more to your credit had vou/r^y'g"/^ those i^/i'r/z^/ acts to be "protestant slander and exploded lies" instead of merely saying so, for with the enforced recantat'on of Galileo, — the thousand fires of the Inquisition — the "Te Heum" sung, and the 'medal struck by Pope Gregory' XIII, * commemorative of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, staring you in the face, your assertion to the contrary is utterly worthless. I have not met a single attempt at refutationof any of those historical facts that does not leave the impartial reader more than ever convinced of their truth, and of the vmdictiveness with which the church wielded the power she possess- ed during the middle ages. Again your Reverence says, "certainly the vagaries of the ancient skeptics were backed by genius, but ability seems not to be necessary to their modern representatives." The same remark holds good of the ancient priests. They backed their assertions by miracles, cured the sick, prophesied, called fire from Heaven, cast out devils, turned sticks into snakes etc., but one can almost weep over the degeneracy of their modern representatives, who are perfectly impotent, and have such a poor reputation at the court of Heaven that they could not influ- ence Jehovah to destroy the potato bug, or even alter its tastes to suit a different kind of diet ; thistles for instance. And now, Rev, Sir, let us consider the questions which you so vehemently put to the Free Thinker viz. "What is matter? What is Force? etc. Matter, Rev. Sir. is everything we know of. Matter I believe to be the eternal self existent, "Universal mother of all life, manifesting its latent powers in an endless variety of modes. We know nothing of "force separate from matter. Matter and Force are coeternai. But if your Reverence demands to know the very essence of those things, you are asking a question which neither Pope nor scientist can answer, and your Reverence will please remember, that while despising matter and claiming intimacy with its creator, with a so called infallible authority at your back, you mast descend from the pedestal of pride and humbly acknowledge with the scientist that you also have no answer to those questions. In the words of an honest man Prof John Tyndall "Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and philosopher, one and all " Again you ask "What is space i Something or nothing? It is extended you must admit, very well then etc." and then after telling us that here again our boasted reason stands "paralysed and agape" you wind up the sentence by a flourish about the creator of "matter and space, and all things." Well. Reverend Sir, I will deal with the question of "space"' as far as my heretical dullness will permit. "Space" is something cr nothing. If space is nothing, it is non existent, and but a waste of time to talk about it. But space exists you will admit, therefore space is something ard here, Rev. Sir, you have an uncreated some- thing which is indispensably nrceisary to the existence of all other things. • Faith of our Fathers. TT —22— I ! By no effort of the mind can we conceive of space as non existent. Blot out the Universe, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, God himself, space still remains. Tuerefore space is absolutely independent of all other existences. Therefore when your Reverence says God is absolutely independent of all other thin?2;s. you are attributing to God that which of right belongs to space alone, and when your Reverence talks of the great Creator of matter and space, you affirm that there was a time when space was not, to talk of God as creating space is to say that G.od like a geometrical point does not occupy space. That which does not occupy space is nothing. Therefore your "great creator is nothing. No doubt your Reverence will readily conceive of a god, living, being, existing before he had a quarter of an inch of space to live, be, or exist in ; but I con- fess that this is more than our "shallow ' conceptions will admit. Give me one god, or a thousand gods if you will. Father Graham, but do not set him or them creating space or we part company at once. But it is when your Reverence essays to deal with the question of evil in the world* that the inherent weakness of your hypothesis of an almighty, and all good intelligence, designing and governing the world, comes to the surface. How lame the apologies, how inconclusive the arguments of those who try to reconcile the misery and suffering of the governed with the infinite goodness and power of the governor ! Faith and reason struggle for the mastery. Let me with all due respect, ask your Reverence, how a benevolent God can contemplate the sufferings of his children on earth with indifference ? For thousands of years he has watched the struggle for existence. He has seen man pitted against man in battle. He has seen man butcher his fellow man and — sickening sight — he has seen man gorging himself with the flesh of his brother. He has seen millions of his children perish in bloody wars, and cruel persecutions undertaken in his name and to his greater glory ; yet he has not unmistakably manifested himself to his children. Even to day the Turk is ready to die in defence of "Islam," the Indian to lay down his life to "Juggernaut,'' and the sincere christian for "Christ." Yot heaven is silent ! No voice from on high solves the problem. Again let me ask your Reverence. Is it an intelligent force that causes a Lisbon earthquake or strews the Island of Chios with mangled bodies? Is it an intelligent force that sweeps the earth in the destructive tornado? Can we infer an intelli!e and declining, may sometimes, when kept awake with a hacking cough 'feel disposed to grow impatient with your creator, and fretfully ask : — Why •'am r tortured thus V why is my young life to go out in its prime ? Others are ^'stron'i- and robust while I have never known a day's health. My dear child, *'the diffjrfnce between you and your robust neighbour is just this : your grand- "faiher neglecled the laws of health anJ your neighbour's did not." On th'i hypothesis of a benevolent ordainer this is sorry consolation to the sufferer and rather a poor illustration of iLe love of God for his children, especially v/hen v;c remember that the "grandfather" might have been exposed to th i "s'n-ere storm" through no fault of his. He might have been on an <'rrand of mercy, or he may have been a poor toiler trudging wearily home after a hard day's work, overtaken by the storm and no shelter at hand ; and the consumption ensues just as surely as in the other case, the respective con- ditions being equal. Here then v/e have physical evil descending through generations, irres- pective of the wish to accept or avoid the exposure. ^'our Reverence has in this case given a very good illustration of the law <)\' heredity as regards predisposition to physical disease, and will you deny in t'le face of the facts to the contrary, that man does not inherit predisposition to clrunkeness and crime ; to mental as well as physical traits. In the words of Miriam Evans a free woman. "What ! shall the trick of nostrils and of lips Descend through generations, and the soul That moves within our frames like god in worlds, Tmprint no record — leave no documents. Of her great history." No : Rev. Sir, you cannot separate moral and physical evil — they go hand i'i hand — Poverty, disease, crime, Wealth, usury, oppression, — where one of ihose evils exist there also may be found the others. Again, Rev. Sir, if the consumptive grandfather neglected the "laws ot I'.ealtli," will you. as a /r/;rjr of the law-maker, please tell us what are \.\-?. '-laws of health" ? And where may they be found ? If t lie world is governed by a benevolent intelligeni: governor, how is it that after nearly two thousand years of intimate business relations with heaven, man is so ignorant of the "laws of health" to day.^ Would not a merciful and lo\ing God — as Col. Ingersol puts it — have Tiade health catching instead of disease? Is ii not true — that .scientific research, patient study profiting by experience, SuP.ilary conditions, and medical treatment have done more to give man a ];no\v'e'dp;e of 'he laws of health, than all the prayers, processions, sacrifices, and ceremonials which have been offered up to Heaven for thousands of years ? You can not deny it Reverend Sir. Hut in the changed attitude of the christian to day as compared with that of ill;' past, we may trace a gradual evolution from a reliance on the ^^Oakm supernatural" to a reliance on the natural, plain and simple. rjeiry after deity has been clothed in the attributes o^ nature. God after God has reign above the clouds, swaying the destinies of men, sending light- ning from on high, breaking up the fountain of the deep, convulsing the earth in their wrath, and engulphing the children of men, crushing with inexorable injpartiality the saint and die sinner. Altar after altar has been raised to their -24— glory, temple after temple dedicated to their worship. Martyr after martyr has sealed his belief with his blood. Yet to day those gods are dead, their altars thrown down, their temples in ruins, the martyrs forgotten, the worshipers no more. A new God sits on the celestial throne and history is repeating itself. There have been jealous gods and angry gods, gods of battle and gods of peace, but all gods have been changeable gods, their ears have been open to the flatterer, and offering'-, of gold and silver have found favor in their eyes, their nostrils have found delight in the smell of the burnt offering; and their wrath is appeased by the shedding of blood. Nature, and Nature only is ever the same, eternal, immutable, all embra- cing. Her epistles are carved on the rocks and her eternal gospels written in the heavens — deaf to the voice of prayer yet answering intelligent effort. In nature there is no good, no evil, there are results, there are consequences. Ignorance of or non-adaptation to our environments produce results which we call evil, while adaptation to our surroundings produce results which we call good. Good and evil are relative terms. So long then as man neglects to study and adapt himself to those conditions which expeiience has prove to result in happiness and health, so long shall he suffer. And now let me say that when your Reverence can answer the question '•What is matter" etc., when you can produce force separate from matter, when you can show us mind without matter, when you can define what matter is, vhat mind is — when you can prove that matter, nature, does not possess the "promise and potency of all terrestrial life" then, and not until then, hav.,? you the right, to dogmatize about "the great ceator of matter, space., and all things. It is astonishing that any sane man should at this day advance the ^Josiiic cosmo'^ony, with its snake-talking, apple-picking, Adam-exiling. God-repenting, dclugc-drowniiig, rainbow-setting, Baron Munchausen-outdoing nonsense to account for the existence of the universe. The book of Genesis, with its account of the creation temptation and fall, viewed in the light of a poetic essay, is worthy our respect and consideration, but when it is crammed down the throat of common sense as the production of God himself we are alike disgusted with the book and its author and snap our fingers ;.t the anathema of the holy (Ecumenic council of Trent 'in the Holy Ghost assembled ' who said that God is the '"immediate author of the old and new testament." If ever there was blasphemy — outrageous blasphemy — it was when those 1 itiful misguided mortals, decked in tawdry arrogance decreed that God v/as the immediate author of the Bible. The book itself gives the lie to the assertion for no god with half an ounce of sense would give such a description of himself as the Bible contains, and hope to obtain anything but the contempt of every honest man. Let any man who can read, and understand what he reads, silence the fears with which the take care's! ah beware's ! and oh my's I of the priest have fettered him — let him read that venerable snake story, let him read of the "great creator of matter and space and all things" walking in paradise at the afternoon ;ur. let him compare this god in Genesis with the limitless, formless conception of Thos. Aquinas and recojicile them if he can. Let him listen to this God in Genesis testifying to the truth of the serpents assertion that they should "be as gods.' Hear him say 'Behold Adam is become as one of us," and then imagine him trembling, lest Adam "stretch forth his hand and eat of the tree of life" — and thus become his innnoital equal— castuig him out of paradi.se. —25- I Let him think a few minutes over the statement that "the sons of God went in to (he daughters of Uien," how children were the result who were "the mighty men of old, men of renown " Let him hear this God repenting, sorry, that he had made man and re- solving to destroy every living thing, notwithstanding that a short time previously he had pronounced it all very good. Let him read how Noah — the second father of the human race — who "found grace before the Lord" also found the means to get drunk, and lay helpless and indecent in his tent, a fit subject for a Uecorder's Court. And when he hears the curse pronounced on "Chanaan" and all hopes of a regenerated race fade from his mind, let him read the miserable sophistries tacked on in the shape of foot notes to this delectable account of creation, repentance, and destruction, and if he does not rise a free man with a full con- viction that the Kook of Genesis is a slander on the almighty and a libel on the infinite, it is because his reasoning faculties have become aborted, or have been battered out of shape by the iron mace of superstition. Now with all respect for ^'Cuvier" — who by the by, did not believe in ''Roman Authority," and was therefore, on the broad road to destruction — and while conceding to him all the admiration which his achievements command, we cannot draw the line where science halts even at his name. To say there have been no scientific discoveries made or progress attained since Cuvier died, half a century ago is tantamount to saying that there has been no progress in the construction of locomotives since the days of George Stephenson. How comes it, Rev. Sir, that you are forced to grope among past records for your evidence V Is it not an admission that the ever accumulating evidence on the scientific side grows stronger every day ? Besides, Cuvier sets the convulsions of nature — which is not a covering of the whole earth with water fifteen cubics above the highest mountain top, as the bible teaches — one, or two thousand years further bach than the bible account. A universal deluge such as the bible teaches would have the self same traces in all places — broadly speaking, but this is not the case, as it is evident from 1 1. ;_ examination of the deposits that they do not belong to the same periods of time, and the fact that in some cases they are fresh water, and in others salt water deposits. But the speculations of Cuvier have nothing to do with the deluge recorded in the Bible ; it must stand or fall on its own merits. Now if the Bible is the "word of God" the statements therein made should fit the facts, and should give a true account of the causes of which the rainbow is the result. Now, Rev. Sir, I venture to lay down the axiom, that any statement in the "word of God ' which is contradicted by the "works of God" is false ; and I heartily accept your axiom that "any system that endorses or uses a single sophism is false and erroneous." Now your system, Rev. Sir, would have us believe that something less than four thousand years ago the rainbow made its debut in the heavens as a guarantee to the inhabitants of this pigmy planet that God would never more drown the world with water — which is after all not very consoling to those who object to cremation. Now Father Graham I ask you as an honest man, — considering the facts that the rainbow is simply the refraction of the sun's rays in the falling rain drops, and that at the present day any school boy knows how to produce one whether you really believe that there was no rainbow before the deluge, assum- ing such to have taken place .'' —26— Do you mean to say that for two thousand years not a cloud, visible or invisible floated above the surface of our earth ? Do you mean to say that for two thousand years life was supported on this planet without a drop of water descending from the skies ? Do you honestly believe that green things grew on this earth before the sun was in existence ? Would you be so kind as to tell us in what orbit the earth moved, before the sun was created ? If God made the moon to rule the night, why does she not do so regularly ? Evolution beinj;' on your hypothesis, an absurdity, and the Bible teaching that the human family have descended from one couple only, will you please explain hov^' is that we have so many different types of mankind in existence to day ? I hope your Reverence will not lay those divergencies of form and colour to the agency of "the devil" we must draw the line some where. The fact is, Rev. Sir, that the rainbow and other phenomena of nature which the theologians have advanced to support their system, prove too much. Tn short, as science explains the phenomena of nature, tracing them one after the other to their primal causes, the rainbow, in its turn, once a witness for the priest, has turned state, Queen's evidence, and the Book of Genesis, the so- called word of God, stands convicted of error by the testimony of nature itself. If this so-called word of God is a false witness at one point of the evidence how can we depend on it at any other point ? The Book of Genesis is the production of some dreamy, poetic soul, and as such is very nice, but unfortunately for you, not true. This is so palpable that a!l intelligentchristians, many of your fellow priests included, acknowledge that there is no evidence of a total deluge, and pin their faith to Bishop Colensos "Inundation." The Bible teaches a total, not a partial deluge, ergo the Bible is at variance with the evidence. The deluge, as the Bible gives it, is an exploded humbug, a stumbling block in the way of progress, a disgrace to any god, and unworthy the belief of man, woman, or child. And now. Rev. Sir, I arrive at that portion of your lecture which you say you "approach with fear.'' Why do you fear. Rev. Sir } Surely the priest who consigns people to hell, absolves sinners, frees the souls in purgatory, and talks generally as if he was the earthly end of a telephonic connection with heaven should not fear when he approaches the subject of deity. If any man should be able to answer questions or defend his faith, the priest should be that man. ■lad the priest satisfactory answers to give to the honest inquirer there ♦. p ,;■" no infidelity to complain of ; for to say that any man would reject •MA.\. c tory evidence of a belief on which his future happiness depended is to say what is contrary to common sense. iherctoi e I suspect Rev. Sir, that this assertion of your approaching this portion ot your subject with fear is put with the object of raising fear in the minds of your hearers, thus inviting that mental state which is best suited for , absorbing any nonsense your Reverence may think fit to administer in the name of God. •27— . Now what in the Universe is there to fear ? Of what are you afraid ? You say God is a good God — a pure spirit — infinite in love and knowledge, power, and benevolence. Now a God who knows all things must know how ignorant mankind is — the clergy included — in all things pertaining to himself. He knows that millions are going to hell yearly because the evidence which his disciples offer is largely anonymous, unreliable, and contrary to the reason he himself has endowed them with. Being a "pure act," infinitely good, he would be impelled by his very na- ture to reveal himself to his children so that they could not err in his identity. Just, merciful, benevolent, he would not consign his own creature^ to an end- less torture for using the reason he conferred upon them, and following the truth wherever the truth may lead. Therefore, Rev. .Sir, there is no cause for fear. A good God will not, a just God cannot blame the man who seeks to understand before believing, rather than believe without understanding. It is not a question of the existence of one God, or more, or none, it is a question of whether there was, is, or ever shall be a human being who did, does, or ever shall know anything about God, the Eternal, the Inscrutablef call it what you will. We have on this planet a man who claims to represent the creator of the millions of suns and systems that move in limitless space, A "legitimate suc- cessor" of the vacillating Peter who denied his master in his hour of trial. A microscopic organism, comparatively speaking. A would be ruler of the earth. A granter of indulgences. A Pope — "The God of the Vatican. To ask this little God or his subordinates how it is that with benevolence, power, and knowledge personified in the ruler ; anarchy, oppression, and injustice are permitted to prosecute the ruled, is surely reasonable What proofs can the Vatican God or his representatives offer in support of their claims .-' Can they perform a miracle ? Not one ! though their word of God asserts that "these signs shall follow them." Can they drink poisonous mixtures with impunity, and are serpents harmless in their hands ? No ! though the word of God declares that these signs a'so r.hni j follow them. Can this Pope or his representatives point to a single autbentiratcd inst;ince where they have benefitted mankind by any other than human means, suuL;ested by reason, observation, and experience ? No ! Is the so-called Unity of this system a proof of its divine origin, or superi- ority over other systems? No! It is simply a result of discipline, ""i'he German or British army, furnish like results, merely because the many are ma- chines in the hands of the few. Where man is, there is divergency of opinion ; where freedom is, this divergency will find expression in speech ; but where men '■'think in herds" and follow lines of thought laid down by persons long since deceased, there will be found that sf.mblance of unity, which is attained by no other than human means. Therefore the Unity of the church is no proof whatever of its divine origin. In fine, Rev. Sir, have you any real knowledge of God ? Answer honestly. yes or no. You admit that the finite cannot grasp the infinite. Why not be honest at once and acknowledge that you know nothing about the infinite ? It is then without fear that I proceed to examine some of your statements. Your reverence says "God is a pure Spirit, or speaking more exactly "according to St. Thomas, God is simply Being. Now human sp 'cch lias no "adequate expression for God or his attributes, because human speech is the •*manifestation of human thought, which is necessarily finite. VVhen we say "God is Being simply, the human mind is able to remove from the idea of (iod "everything that is irreconciliable with that definition ; but the definition itself —28— ^'remains infinitely beyond our comprehension. We can apprehend the defi- "nition but shall never comprehend it," You assert that God is a ''pure Spirit" or "more exactly" according to St. Thomas, Iking simply. • This assertion suggests a few questions. How do you know God is a "pure Spirit ?" or how did St. Thomas know "more exactly" that God is '"Being simply." And why chose St. Thomas rather than some of the earlier saints and fathers, Rev. Sir ? Am I to infer from your choice of St. Thomas that the "church was lelt for thirteen centuries without an exact definition of God? Or, Father dear, had you lived prior to St. Thomas, would you have defined God differently .? And, why, pray, do you chose the speculations of St. Thomas rather than the Bible definition ? Do not the conclusions of St. Thomas closely resemble the conclusions of Arisiotle ? Your Reverence says ''God is Being simply" and that "the mind can remove everything that is irreconciliable with that definition, but the definition itself remains infinitely beyond our comprehension. What a convincing proof of the existence of Deity we have here ! In the one breath you assert God to be a ''pure Spirit," and in the next tell us that a '•pure Spirit" is utterly unthinkable for when the 'human mind" has removed "everything that is irreconciliable with that definition" there is nothing left in the mind, and when you say it is infinitely beyond our comprehension" you say that we do not, nor ever shall know anything about God. Again if '-human speech has no adequate expression for God or his attri- butes" how can you presume to dogmatize about God ? to say "this is God's wish" or that "is God"s will" ? Of what arrogant presumption you are guilty when you say to the atheist '•away to the hell which awaits you." How sinful, how utterly indefensible is thj position of the priest, who knov/nig that he has neither conception of, nor speech lo express the attributes of (jod, yet speak of, and dogmatize about him as if he were his next door neiglibour. W'hai the priest wishes, God wishes ; they are one and inseparable. Is it not strange that your Reverence does not arrive at the conclusion that luid God wished man to talk about him, he would have given him the necessary power lo do so ? Then your Reverence mentions the "idea of God" but an "idea" is some- thing that we understand — partially at least — and is conceivable by the mind. If you have an idea of God it was your duty to present that idea. But you have no such idea for when every thinkable thing is removed from the mind there remains an utter blank. But let us compare some of the conceptions of the early christian fathers and apologists, * with the conception of St. Thomas. "Justin Martyr ascribes to God shape and locality, without describing the shape or locality ; he considered it heresy to hold that the soul is taken up to heaven ; and holds that men rise with the same bodies." "Tatian held that there are two spirits in the universe, manifesting them- selves in individual varieties of form. At one time they lived in union, but the lower spirit became desobedient and sought a baser fellowship with matter, Body and Mind^^m'iiV V —29— yet after all, when reunited as in man with the higher spirit it becomes immortal.'" Maximus could not accept the immensity of God, because he could not conceive how two substances could exist together in the same space." "Plolimus agrees with Plato ; the One or the Good is the primary essence from which all things have sprung." "Clement of Alexandria srsys a positive knowledge of God is impossible ; we only know what he is not." He was no doubt as near the mark as any. "Origen holds that God is absolutely incorporeal, yet further remarks that the word incorporeal is not to be found in scripture, and that spirit strictly speaking means body." "Tertullian, held that Deity was a pure luminous aether diffused eveywhere. What is not body is nothing. Who shall deny that God is a body though he be a spirit ? Here we have the views of some of the early christian fathers ; and we are tempted to exclaim, what unity of opinion, what harmony of ideas exist between those learned doctors of the one true church ! True some irreverent person forgetting that it is a mortal sin to ask ques- tions which the priest find difficulty in answering, might demand which if any» of those learned and holy men is right ? And in our own day we have the eloquent Father Thos. Burke ringiniT changes on the same subject after this fashion : — "Until the sin of Adam Go praises, glorifying him to his face, shouting eternal flatteries in his ears ; selling his favors, a patron of the deceitful and a hater of simplicity, "Jacob have 1 loved and Esau have I hated'* says this God, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob," in fact a very select quality of (Jod, as the editor of "Truth" puts it. "Great God, what a God ! And the people have worshipped this God ! A God who delights in bloody sacrifices, and glories in glittering altars ! This is the God with whom the people have shared their hard earned dollars, building magnificent temples in his honor, subscribing in the name of this saint and in the name of that, while their own homes are miserable and they go dirty to church on Sunday for want of a public bath in which to wash their bodies. But now that the people are waking from their long sleep, they are beginning to ask themselves, the question "is it all true.!*" They feel, rather than know that there is something wrong ; printing, electricity, steam — annihilating time and .space — putting the news of the world in their hands each day, shortening the hours of labour, making them acquainted with distant countries and peoples, giving them truer conceptions of past races and religions, their ears are open —30— to the propliccy th.it the clay is not far distant when man controlling the forces of nature sh.ill be a stranger to slaving toil. And now when the people have succeeded to a great extent in hurrying the ghost, the witches, and the fairies — now that they arc beginning to cross examrne this God of Genesis, the priests are introducing the limitless, formless, incomprehensible God of Thcs. Aquinas. But it has always been so ; there has been a God for the priest and a God for the people. Think of this Infinite. Limitless, Formlessness, deriving plea- sure from the light of wax condies and the burning of incense ! If God is limitless without form, pervading heaven and earth, he must be in heaven and in earth, in purgatory and in Hell, in man and beast, in all things, for to S3y there is a spot where God is not, is to limit him ; he ceases to be infinite. And then, God is a pure act and cannot possibly create evil. This assert- ion n)ay be satisfiictory to some, but I confess that to my mind there is not the least difference in the case of an almighty and all-knowing God creating evil at once and creating the possibility of evil, with the certain knowledge that evil would result. What would you say of a man who should place his children to play in a garden, knowing there was a deadly rattlesnake at liberty within its boundaries .^ Would a Coroner's jury e.Kculpate him when, confronted with their swollen corpses, he sought to defend himself by saying, "oh I told them not to approach the shady part of the garden under penalty of being bitten"' ? No, Rev. Sir, there is not a man or woman, who would not dei5pise him, nay hold him guilty of wilful murder. And this is just what this Bible God did. He knew that the devil was in Eden, he knew he was after no good, he had kicked him out of Heaven, and will you tell me in the name of Heaven what he let him into paradise for, if it was not a necessary part of that divine plan of salvation which no doubt occupied the divine mind during the countless agos which preceded creation. But the "word of God" contradicts the assertion that God does not create evil. Here are a few quotations from his own Book. "I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil : I the Lord do all these things." (isa. 45 C. 7 v.) and again in the 2nd epistle of Paul to the Thes. 2 C. 10 v. "Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe a lie." A^ain, 3 Kings 22 C. 22-23 v. "And he said I will go forth and be a lying ispirit in the mouth of all his jirophets. And the Lord said: Thou shalt de- ceive him. and shalt prevail : go forth and do so." "Now therefore behold the Lord hath given a lying spirit in the mouth of all thy prophets that are here ; and the Lord hath spoken evil against thee." "And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh King of Egypt." Ex. 14C.8 v. "And J will harden the hearts of the Egyptians to pursue you."' "And when the prophet shall err, and speak a word : I the Lord have deceived that prophet." Here are but a few of the sayings of this "pure act," who *'cannot possibly create evil ' Why he glories in it, he exults in it. "Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it." "I make peace and cr^ite evil, I the Lord do all these things." He actually boasts of it. yet your I'nverence says he is a pure act and c;ftinot possibly create evil" and would no doubt wriggle out of the dilemma by miserable sophistries such as : • h God dont exactly create evil, or put lies in a persons mouth, he merely pern ts evil spirits to do .so, that is, he makes a lie appear as iruth, but only of course to those who do not believe the priest. t^ul upon such a caricature of a God, who at one moment is rejoicing over the repentant sinner, and the next sending him "the operation of error" that he may believe a lie ! And it is the belief in such a God as this that has induced the people to swallow the blasphemies your church has perpetrated tinder the name of invo- cation of the Saiuts, or prayer by proxy, granting indulgences, remission of sins, infiillibility etc. But when pushed by intelligent inquiry, or the growing thcight of the day, this wictchedconceptionof a God disappears and the unknowable God of Thos. Aquinas takes its place and we no longer recognise the blood-loving Jehovah. The golden throne, the bearded patriarchs, the angel choir, the cherubins and seraphins (whatever they may be) all fade from sight. With this conception of God. Jesus, Mary, — those who have been transported to heaven body aiul bones, come tumbling back to earth; there is neither right hand, nor left hind, before nor behind, above nor below. It is no longer "our lather who art in heaven" but Our Father who art everywhere in and through all things. And then, Rev. Sir, what do you know, nay how can you know anything of such a God ? How can you with truth say God is this, or that, when on your own admission God is unthinkable ? Would it not be more CDn.sistent. more humble, to acknowledge your ignorance, and devote some of your time to the investigation of an all-embracing Nature, from whose bosom you have sprung into conscious being, and into whose bosom you and I and every other being must return. THE DESIGN ARGUMENT. I ste that your Reverence has wound up " Paleys watch" and given us the usual dose of design. Your Reverence says " tell a savage who has never seen a watch that it made itself, and he will treat you to a smile of contempt. ' True, Rev. Sir, and you might proceed to explain to this same savage that the watchmaker had cut the wheels, great and small, out of a lump of nothing, and he v/ould probably believe you, though you would be telling an untruth; but if you tell the savage who has never heard of the telegraph or telephone that you can converse with a person two thousand miles distant, he would doubtless brand you a liar though you were telling the truth. Such arguments may have weight witii savage or superficial minds, but they do not appeal to intelligence. And again, Rev. Sir, I am inclined to think that if your savage found a watch in runnincr order, — or noticing the moving hands and hearing the ticking noise — ho would "bow down and humbly adore" it. Now if there is any parity or resemblance between Nature and a watch, there is the same parity or resemblance between a Universemaker and a %v-aichmakcr. Now if the Universemaker can build a world out of nothing, a watchmakef' cnn make a Vvatch out of nothing. If you will not compare God to a watchmaker, do not compare Nature to a watch. To say th.it Nature furnishes evidence of a designing intelligence, is to say tliat necessity or Vvant cxij^ted in the designer previous to the design, which is ^hvj means to an end, to supply the necessity or want which he must have felt. ' Thus, man, to supply his need of a time measure contrived, designed and constructed the watch. But the metals out of which the watch is constructed previously existed ; he merely cuts, hammers and fits them together in the form of a watch, the component parts of which, as to substance cannot be destroyed. -32- To impute design to the rnfinite is to say that the Infinite needs or wants, which is absurd. If you say that an Almighty intelligence designed the Uni- verse, then everything that is, is so because the design is so : that is, all the visible forms of matter, life, etc., is but the manifestation of the pre-existing design. \ It needs but a few minutes thought to convince ourselves that the suffering, torment, and misery existing on our planet, is far in excess of the happiness, and therefore does not imply benevolence in the designer. What torments are imposed daily on millions of living creatures to supply our stomachs with food ? "What 1" I hear your Rev. say "would you compare man to a beast?" though in some cases the beast might not be complimented by the comparison, such is not my intention, but I do say that if its life is designed to be sacrificed to support ours, that indifference to susceptibility to pain in man and beast, furnishes scanty proof of a benevolent designer. Vegetables and plants derive their life and growth from the soil, sun, and atmosphere,. Worms, locusts, potato bugs, etc. destroy vegetation. The larger animals, birds and fishes destroy the smaller ones and sometimes man himself. While man destroys them all in the struggle for life and in turn becomes food for the lower forms of life. But it is not only in death that man is preyed upon, for in life his stomach furnishes an habitation for difi'trent kinds of worms, whose existence is often purchased at the price of his,while dozens of varieties of disgusting parasites suck his blood, bite, and burrow in his skin, helping to make life miserable, to saynothingof cancers, malformations, monstrosities, etc. which your Reverence will have difficulty in proving are evidence of benevolent design. "Whoever" says Giebel, "expects to find in nature nothing but wisdom, conformity, and design, let him exercise his acumen in the study of the natural history of the tapeworm; the main object of its life consists in the production of eggs, the developement of which can only be effected by the sufferings of other creatures." What evidence of intelligent, benevolent design can your Reverence find in the Siamese twins, or in that type of humanity known by the name of "Aztec ;" counterparts of whom may be found in nearly every town and village on our globe? Your Reverence can not say that those monstrosities are the effect of sin, or the work of the devil, because monstrous phenoinena are met with in man, beast, bird, and even in the vegetable kingdom. What evidence of benevolent design can your Reverence find in wolves, tigers, cobras, anacondas. Boa Constrictors, rais, wasps, vampires, and the hundreds of other dangerous and deadly reptiles, insects, and animals, from whose depredations and attacks man must be ever on the alert to protect himself ? Is it with deep and fervent feelings of gratitude to a benevolent designer that the industrious farmer offers, as a burnt offering, the pan-ful of potato bugs which he has just picked off the plants in his potato patch ? Does it manifest faith in a good God, when we see whole communities turn out to destroy his creations ? ^ Has not man in his struggle for existence been obliged to set a price on the heads of destructive animals that have at times threatened his very existence ? Is not man obliged to ii^ake laws to protect useful animals from becoming extinct.^ —33— " ' ~ Docs not the action of man, in protecting some, and exterminating other species, show an utter want of confidence in the benevolence and power of tlie creator? To the believer in Nature, Nature furnishes no evidence sf a super-natural designing intelligence. Nature herself is "Alpha and Omega." Nature was, is, and shall be, not necessarily as she appears to us to day, for as we know that in the past this earth presented different aspects and produced different forms of life from those now existing; so in the future this planet may present different aspects and produce other forms of life than those now existing. Whether this planet in the future shall roll through space freighted with intelligent beings or shall circle for ages cold and lifeless, the change is of as little consequence in Nature as the change from living to dead corpuscle in the blood of the annual ; it is a part of Nature, life, growth, death, and life again, never beginning, never ending, unchangeable in her endless change. Man, conscious for a time, may design and contrive to attain results ; but Nature, all-engendering springs up in countless modes of life and motion. Millions of leaves in a pasture ground, and a pasture ground on every leaf Billions of drops in an ocean, and an ocean in every drop. Prom the infinitely great to the infinitely small, Nature is one infinite life. The mould on an old shoe, or a mountain range, testify equally to her creative powers. The limits which man imputes to Nature do not exist in Na- ture, but in our limited conception of Nature. Your Reverence says "Design exists in the Divine Mind as the exemplar of those things which he has d"'=igned. The design of the world was in God be- fore the world began to exist. Creation was the exterior manifestation of divine design." Your Reverence here means one of two things. First. That design existed in the Divine Mind from eternity ; that is, that the design of the Uni- verse is coeternal with God, and therefore was never planned or designed ; then as an architect who builds after plans already in existence cannot lay claim to the title of designer, so the plan of the Universe being co-existent with God, is eternal and exists independant of a designing intelligence — exists independant of God. Therefore adaptation, harmony, order, or apparent design in Nature do not prove a Designer. Or secondly. If your Reverence means that there was a time when neither the Universe nor the design existed, then there was a time when design became an addition to the "Divine Mind," and that mind to which a new perception can be added is not infinite. I return the "design argument" and "Paley's watch" to your Reverence and the first time you meet a savage ask him what kind of a watch may be made out of nothing ? CONCLUSION. Before concluding, let me say a few words on the profound (?) reasoning with which your Reverence "sweeps away like a cobweb, the atheistic stupidity which claims the world to be eternal." After the usual manner of your kind, you first awaken prejudice in your hearers, by putting the eternity of matter on the index expurgatorius, not daring to put the materialist conception of the Universe fairly ; you are guilty of bad faith yourself while warning your flock against "infidel bad faith on this and every other point." ■ ' —34— ^ Now I hold it to be bad faith to misrepresent knowingly the views of an adversary. Therefore, when your Reverence says 'the first mover of the world was the world itself, say the atheists" you are saying that which the very title of the subject of your remark at the moment, viz. " the eternity of matter," proves to be a falsehood ; for how can that which is eternally moving have a "first mover" ? To tht; atheist who believes that the Universe is the One Infinite Existence, how silly and ridiculous must your assertion appear, that "the first mover of the world was the world itself, say the atheists.' It but proves to the atheist your utter inability to deal with the question of eternal motion, as you can not rid your mind even for a few moments of a "first mover," you are unable seemingly to rid yourself of the idea that matter is dead substance, without properties, while force is. a separate entity which moves it ; on the contrary, the atheist holds that force without matter does not exist : force is a property of matter, matter being eternal force is eternal, and your "first mover" an absurdity. Heraclitus of Ephesus says ; "The Universe, containing all that exists has been created neither by a God nor by a man ; but has always existed and will ever remain a vivifying fire, being kindled and extinguished according to definite laws." "A thing without properties is a nonentity" says Drossbach. Annihilate matter, and force, intelligence, life, — everything that is, vanishes. As something cannot be made out of nothing, neither can something be resolved into nothing. If your Reverence would spare an hour per day from the time you devote to the glorification of your idols to the study of natural phenomena you would, perhaps, speak of your fellow creatures who have arrived at different conclu- sions from yourself, with more respect and a new feeling. Buchner in his "Force and Matter" says, "If the material particles capable of an electric condition had never existed, there would have been no electricity, and we should never have been able by mere abstraction to acquire the least knov^ledge or conception of electricity. " Heat and light," says Czolbie, "arise, as experience shows, like electrical and magnetic phenomena, from the reciprocal relations of molecules and atoms." "No one" says Vogt, "has ever ventured to maintain that a power of secretion can exist independant of a gland. or contractility independant of muscular fibre." Creation, Rev. Sir, I hold to be merely a change or transformation of substance already in existance, and in accordance with its own inherent forces. Your Rev. by assuming that matter or the Universe needed a first mover, begs the whole question. Your silly talk about the protoplasm is but an admission that you are not acquainted with the writings of Tyndall, Huxley and others who have made the genesis of life an earnest study. There is not a scientist or freethinker to day worthy of the name who does not recognise creation — in the above sense — as necessary to account for life in the protoplasm as it is to account for life in the man. That — as Huxley says - protoplasm in lobster may become protoplasm in man, is reasonable, for the component parts of our bodies are continually changing ; the beef, bread , fish, potatoes, that we eat one day, becoming part and parcel of ourselves the next , grass one day, ox the next, and dignified by the name of man the day after ; all t^' ; I say, is reasonable, and all observation and experience will go to prove , I J truth of the assertion ; but that protoplasm in piiest should have the power to give absolution or deal damnation to protoplasm in laymau surpasses indeed the wildest scientific dreams. -35— Your premi.ses being self-contradictory and false, your conclusions are without value. And after all. Rev. Sir, what has the eternity of matter, or the protoplasm to do with the truth of Christianity, or the existence of the Christian or Cible Cod ? Belief in the existence of God, Rev. Sir, is quite possible while rejecang the God of R(jman Catholicism or the God of any other creed. The God of whom your Reverence speaks, "as whispering in the solitude of the wooes, rushing in the 'Jornado, and raging in the hurricane on Alpine heights," and you might hiue added — in whose resistless \y.iih man, believer or unbeliever is of no more consequence than the dust of the earth; — is but the God of Nature, wnd lia 5 nofhing in common with the changeable flattery-loving Phan torn who is said lo dwell above the "highest stars ;" — a very indefinite region, which is receding from this planet in proportion as the telescope increases in power. Think of the God who speaks in the starry hosts of heaven — contemplate the myriads of suns, stars, and constellations v/hich sparkle in the infinite depths of space, and then think of the God which some good catiiolic has painted — depicting him as a bald-headed old man in a red cloak — creating them. Ga.zc wonderingly into the infinite depths until you seem to lose your very identity, desires, hopes, jealousies fading away, your being .seems merged into that of the Universe, — the dew drop is merged in the ocean and you be- come one with the all ; — and tlum contemplate the miserable scarecrow of a de\ il creating God who -ica/i's us to shout his glory, and who is perpetually tr)uip!: the creatures he has joade to see if they are faithful to him ! Think of the infinity, the vastness, the power manifested to us in the Uni- ver::c ; think of the myriads of worlds which we have every reason to believe arc peopled with living beings, and then think of the keys of Heaven being placed in the hrnds of an atom on this little planet we call earth! No, No, Rev. Sir, you must not rob the everlasting God of Nature, to deck the usurper you have placed in the clouds, who is every way worthy of you, and you are worthy of him. He created you in a place called PMen six thcusand years ago and to day you, as befits your high station and mighty genius, return the com- pliment by creating him ; and of what ? Truly may it be said that the priest and not the materialist makes of matter — a God We are often told by the priest that "the catholic cb; 'ch is the mother of learning.' Well yes. She is the mother of that learning which makes man a cringing slave It the foot of the priest. Here is a quotation from Tyndall's ''Belfast Address" which speaks volumes on this point. "In Nov. 1873 Seventy of the Students and Ex-Students of the Catholic University in Ireland, com- plain to the Episcopal Board that, the lect "(! list for the faculty of science did not contain the name of a single i rofessc ■ .'the Physical or Natural sciences, and point with bitterness to the fact, that the name of no Irish Catholic is known in connection wi'h Physical or Natural sciences." Your Reverence is bold enough to say "the world moves." Is not this assertion rank heresy 'i Have you forgotten that in the Pontificate of Paul the fifth, that your church denounced the doctrine which teaches that the world moves as, "that false Pythagorean doctrine, entirely opposed to Holy writ" and further "In orch^r that this opinion mav not further spread, to the damage of catholic truth, it is ordered that lliis ;uk1 all other books teaching the like doc- trine be suspended, a.ul by tho decree they are all respectively suspended, forbiflden and condemned ' ^ Here is an example of how this infallible church with the "inde'ectable armor souirht to crush a scieniific truth. And what is the result ? <.. —36— The church has been forced by science to eat every word of her arrogant decree, and the doctrine she condemned as being contrary to "Holy writ" is taught to day in every catholic school. A cotnet appearing in the heavens is looked upon as a matter of course in our day, but when Halley's comet appeared in 1456 *'the Pope com- manded the church bells of Europe to be rung to scare the monster away." Comment is needh'ss. Your Reverence says that, "if every man, woman and child in the ranks of Christianity, were as depraved as Captain Kidd, or Cacus, what has that to do with the principles of Christianity?'* Weil. Reverend Sir, why did you not discuss the principles of christi .niiy; instead of heaping abuse on people who are just as conscientious as you a:e, and less vituperative ? If the Spencers, the Mills, the Tyndalls, and Darwins, are intellectual "pigmies" when compared with the mighty genius of your Reverence — if you can sweep away the conclusions of modern scientific thought as you would a cobweb, — why hide your light under a bushel ? — why waste so rhuch pure ( ! ) science and profound learning (?) in the columns of an obscure sheet, th« greater number of whose readers must have wondered what you were talking aboui half the time; but who ''though they failed to reach the particular sophism," no doubt thought your Reverence very clever? Why not publish a few cut of the ''fifty sim,,ie arguments" which you are prepared to "furnish," in the columns of some liberal or scientific Journal, if you honesily believe that "any one" of them "would sweep away like a cobweb the Atheistic stupidity which says that the world is eternal"? Is it the knowledge that in diose Journals you W'Ould not be secure from reply, that keeps your Reverence back ? or was it merely a bit of brag and an untruth as well ? And after all. Rev. Sir, I think that the depravity of men, women, and children in tlic ranks of Christianity would have a great deal to do with the principles of chris'ianity;" you boast that the catholic is born into his religion as the fish into water, and certainly witii each succeeding advance in life the priest administers a fresh dose of superstition. With capability of reading comes the "Lives of the Saints," "the Glories of Mary" and others of that ilk which prepare him for accepting still greater absurdities. He is completely in the hands of the priest. If after all this he turns out ''a bad lot," will you tell us of what earthly use are the principles of clinstianity as applied by the catholic church ? The principles of Christianity as we know them in the churches have had a fair and favorable trial ; the church has been backed by the civil power, mo- ney and landed properties have been bestowed on her in every christian land, for hundreds of years the people have bent their necks to the yoke of the priest, for centuries they have been led by the nose, epoch after epoch the priest has sung his sophistries in their ears, and century after century the people have wallowed in filth, drunkenness and crime ; christians make more whiskey, sell more whiskey, and drink more whiskey than the people of all other creeds on the globe combined. Christians boast unceasingly of their brotherly love, and prove it by slan- dering their fellow christians ere they have left the church steps. Christians in broadcloth and in si!k sweep through the aisles of christian churches to their comfortable pews, while poverty' stricken christians, ragged and unwashed herd together on the bare iloor. The fact is — the almighty dollar iules, and the priest well fed, well clothed and well housed, cares little lor the p-^ -pie so long as the privileges of the church are »qI intwrft^red with, / -3?- If by the principles of Christianity you mean those maxims of brotherly love and morality ascribed to Jesus, I reply that those moral maxims were taught by others long before the time Jesus is said to have lived, and are no more the property of Christianity than of any other system. Good men have been put to death in all ages on the charge of heresy and blasphemy and Jesus paid the penalty of opposing a then powerful priest-hood with his life. Men were just, patriotic, and sober long before Jesus lived ; he but repeated what others had taught and practised before him. If Jesus Christ lived to day he would be denounced by christians as a communist, a tramp, and a heretic. But if you mean thcj dogmas of infallibility, confession, transubstantiation, immaculate conception, purgatory, etc. I believe they have a great deal to do with the vice and intemperence which exist in christian lands to day. Some of the greatest ruffians the world has ever known have been firm believers in those dogmas, Belief in the principles of Christianity did not prevent the slaughter of thousands of unfortunate women, who were tortured, burnt, racked and drowned on the ridiculous charge of witchcraft, or of dealings with the devil. Why do christians to day ignore the commands of God in Ex. (22 C. 18 v.) " Thou shalt not suffer a Wizard to live" ? Why are the commands of God (Ex. 22 C. 20 V.) — to put the unbeliever to death — not enforced in these days ? Why do not christians burn the heretic as in the good old days when "severe statutes" protected their Deity from the assaults of unbelief Christianity to a certain extent fosters crime, because the sinner can al- ways fall back on the divine insolvent act, and heaven is as near the gallows as the altar. When your Reverence says that "a man may be a good husband, father, and citizen, and yet be a very great rascal" you simply make yourself ridicu- lous. A man who is a good father, husband and citizen fulfills all the duties of this life and can afford to pity the miserable bigotry of your Revere nee, who judges every man a rascal who does not think as you do. For my part, Rev. Sir, I would be well content to see the world peopled with men, every one of whom was "a good husband, father and citizen," having the "best possible civil and domestic qualities." Your Reverence is enraged because the Free Thinkei dares to defend 'limself from Christian calumny, which spares neither the living nor the dead. You 5ay that infidels boast of their virtue, etc. Your Reverence feels on this question something like the man who, having iiad a monopoly of a certain line of business for years, views with anger and dismay the opening and elTorts of a rival establisment. But con?5ole yourself. Rev. Sir, the heretic can never hope to rival the church in this respect, for whatever claims he may have to do and be, he has to fight and work for. Thomas Paine the unbeliver, awoke the spirit of manhood on this continent a century ago, and to day it is a home for all those whose spirit will not brook the Tyrant's control. Robert Owen, the infidel and socialist and his coadjutors, Heniy Fawcett says, "were the pioneers of many useful social reforms. At his factory at: New Lanark the first systematic effort was made to secure the education of factory children and to protect them against over Avork. He was also, in part, the originator of the first infant school, established in London in 1819. Heretics, men emancipated from the thraldom of Roman Catholicism, have shed their blood and sacrificed their lives for the rights of the Irish people. A heretic to day (Parnell) has organised one of the greatest reform movements that Ireland has ever witnessed. —38— lirAdlaugh in iMigland is fi^iitinfj the fio;ht of right against might; he is opposed (.stensibly on the ground that he is an unbeliever, but rcaHy because he is the unrompromising foe of llie many frauds by which the liritisli peo])le are robbed of their money to support titled idlers in luxury. And after the heretic has been imprisoned, after his name has been covered with oblfjquy, after the rebellion has became a revolution, after that which was against law and order, has become law and order, then the priest mounts the pulpit and claims the credit and reward, saying to the people "see what we the Lord s annointcd have done for you." The priesthood with a few individual exceptions did all in their power to crush the land league at its birth; and it was only after they saw that the mo- vement could not be stopjied that they recognized the danger of further oppo- sition and in some cases have gi\en their aid to the movement. For those priests , who, remembering they were men also, have from the first stood with the jjeople. I have nothing but respect. But the policy of a priest or two has not the effect which the distinct utterance of the church would have. True, the pope " loves his Irish children;" but this is a very non- committal statement, and no doubt his Irish children have earned his love by their contributions to his coffers. And now if your Reverence does not like to have the little peccadillos of ("hrisiians held up to the light •■' ''^v, pause before you ascribe a tendency towards a degrading sensualism' t 'se who do not obey your command to "bow down and humbly adore;" wuc you denounce Luther and the 8th Henry, remember ConstantJne and Borgia, when you would speak of Atheism as a "black blotch on the jjage of human Annals, turn first to the history of your chinch ; think of the many blood) sacrifices she has offered to heaven in the iKune of (Jod, think (A' the trials by combat, and neglect of sanitary precautions, V, !iich was the logical result of a blind trust in Providence. \^'hL■n you speak of your God "providing for the widow and orphan" turn to our daily papers arid read of widows and orphans starving to death, freezing to death, and worked to d'-ath, and hold your peace ; and when you next deli- ver a lecture on "the infidelity of the present day," j^lease to rtmember that it is not a question of how a man parts his hair, or buttons his coat ; not a ques- tion of whether there are good protestants, good catholics, and good infidels, for there are good and bad of each ; not a question of whether there is more brain above tlie christian ear than above the infidel ear ; not whether socialism is the logical result of free thought, for with socialism some of the best men of the world are identitied, and \ou cannot deny that its object is to remove ignorance, poverty, and misery, from among the peojvle ; — for which reason no doubt your church denounces it — not a question of wliether there is one God or none, but whether you Xvwrf anything about God ? — whether Christianity as exhibited by the church of which you. are a notable product, or as regarded in the light — or ra- ther darkness — of its supernatural origin, and astounding miracles, is really trtie? When you can transmute legend and fable into the gold coinage of fact, the bell-met;d that rings so loudly through your lecture will pass as legal mintage among thinking men — but not till then. And n.AV, Rev. wSir. we part company. If I have handled you somewhat rudely, be good enough to consider thnt delicacy of touch is not to be expected of a man whose hands are hardened with daily toil. And vou. kind n-aders, brother-toilers, whatever your religious opinions may be, i ask that you will 'speak me fair" and if you cannot allow that I have done "the state some service" you will not deny me honesty of purpose nnd love of truth. A WORKINGMAN lue.'' Ithe I^Se hat ted nis Ind ?.;-vffe'=:'.'t's;^ i^ym^-^m ;:■• :'-V-. ¥i,- ■•'■•; -A-- ■,■ ' ■*'■•&< '('.A»ivj*>-'-7,.!i;i;, yi^*,.' • !-.-■■ . • ..-■■■■<■ •i'.-'-- • ., ' ■ V >1 I. ^ " . ■'■-■. "1 fV, . . ^■^/Lf'.'w^;:; -■ i\ •'^,» '..i.