IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) t ^ /. ^/ A Ux (/^ '% 1.0 I.I 1.25 't ilM - illllM t m M 12.0 1.8 U IIIIII.6 P» ^"^ <$>: /^ .^% // w (P C'J '•V^ °^i Photographic Sciences Corporation i\ J V «\" ^V L1>' ;\ \ 6^ m ^^ .4^ <«' > « 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 A i € (/a .;i,* would lii< jiisiitirjd in >ilL'n(jinL; mankind." /. .V, .\fill,on l.ihfrty. \ 55 C ilNGERSOLL ^ IN c o > c o c o c o / / / / / / / / /. / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / CANADA. A REPI.V TO \vi:m)Ling, Aki'iiHisiiui' "1!Yst.\.\I)i:k." AND Ol'llKKS. LV.NCII. BY ALLEN PRINGLL Here's freedotn to him that would read. Here's freedom to him tliat would write; Thert's nane ever feared that the truth yhctuld be heard Tiul thev wham the trulli uou'd indite." — /)V/;7/v. " He who 7>'/// not reason is a hipot ; he who cannot is a fool ; and he who dates not is a slave." — Philosopher. I'FR CONIkA. " l)o not try to reason or you are Xo^K^ -Moodv, the r.vanj^elist. SECOND EDITION. .Si.MH THOU.SAND. / / / / / / / / \" / ;/ / V '■ % t ■/ I I I I'm o r\ ■J' r o' ■Jt o 3 3 ^ I rOA'ONTO: B E L F O R D & CO., P U 'H L I S H R R S 1H80. ^*,■j^>'holstered, mild-spoken Ambiguity, decorous Hypocrisy, which is astonished you should think it hypocriti- cal, taking their room and dr.uviiig their wages :' fnjm ze?iith to nadir you Ijave Cant, Cant — a universe of incredibilities which are not even credited, which each n an at best only tries to persuade himself that he credits," — Tho/mis Cailyle. ,, ^ , ,; , ,- " The highest possible w^elfare of all present mankind is my religion ; the peifectibility of the fulurt^ of our race here ijpon this planet is my faith ; and I' Would the \ nie had come, as it yet Will cortte, that this faith were the religion of all mankind." — Lord Queensbury (who was recently excluded from lie English House of Lords because of his unorthodox opinions.) *•> .;.--tj^,.'#--;!^-a.jj£^ri*^*4._ . v^^.-- ^^'^Tjizi: ■ ^..i. » l.t.^3k«-..J^ ilLijJ- S -L ' ■ It s INGERSOLL IN CANADA. A REl'I.V TO WENDLING, ARCHBISHOP LYNCH, "BYSTANDER," AND OTHERS. HY ALLEN PRINGLE SECOND EDITION. SIXTH THOUS.\ND. T 1 TORONTO • BELFORD 6: CO., PUBLISHERS 1880. 'i Nj.^^ / fo 3 CONTENTS. Prkface to Second Editiov ^^'^ , 3 Introductory 7 Rfplv to Wendling . . . II Reply to Archbishop Ia'nch (An Holy Ukase) 35 Reply to "Bystander".. 37 Reply to "A Rationallst" . . 46 REPL^ TO Bray .... 52 The O.^th Question.-(To Canadian Freethinkers) ' 57 'W* ■1 vj .^^ \ PREFACE TO SEOONO EDITION. •TO THE CLERGY AND COLLEGE STUDExNTS OF ONTAIUO. 'u Gentlemen, — Through the generous and voluntary liberality of a ihighl/ esteemed and estimable Freethought friend, and at his sugges- tion. I have been enabled to get out this Second Edition oF my pamphlet, of lipwards of 4,000 copies, chiefly for gratuitous distribution among yourselves. The gentleman referred to conceived the project of sup- plying every Minister in the Province with a copy, and it was further • d'icided to also supply the College Students. The compliment to pamphlet and author, which this action on the part of an intelligent and discriminating Liberal implies, I, of course, duly appreciate. When the work was written a few months ago, at the request of fellow-liberals, I had no expectation that it would ultimately go before so critical and learned a body of readers as the Clergy, Graduates, and College Students of Ontario. I supposed one modest edition of 2,000 copies would be all that would ever see the light. But it has been otherwise desired by my readers. I have, therefore, no further apology to make for presenting you with the work (my object being the advancement of truth), and I earnestly submit for your best consideration its subject matter rather than its literary merits or demerits. The time has come when these great questions must be examined, for they 7^/// come to the front in spite of the most tenacious conservatism. Everywhere, thoughtful men are earnestly looking into them. That the old landmarks in religious belief are being effaced and the Creeds and Confessions rapidly breaking up is becoming every day .more and more apparent. Goldwin Smith, a man of great historical ^•1 I'KEFACK TO THE SKCONl) EDITION. •cumen, has recently said " A i'()ll.i|)sc of religious belief, of the most complete and tremendous kind, is, apparently, now at hand."* The Rev. Hugh I'edley, H.A., Cobourg, in a very able paper in the July (1880) number of the Canadian Monthly, qx\ "Theological Stu- dents and the Times," says : " There t a.i be no doubt that all forms of thought, all systems of belief, however venerable with age, are being handled with the utmost freedom. Skei)ticism is becoming more general, and is protean in its adaptil)ility to < ircumstances. There is the philosophical skepticism for the ( uUured, and popular skepticism for the masses • the Reviews for the select. Col. Itiiiersoll for the peo- ple. No Index Expurgatoriiis, whether Catholic or I'rotestant, whether ecclesiastical or domestic, is barrier strong enough to stem the incoming tide." He also says : " 1 would advocate a manly, courageous dealing with the doubts of the age in all our theological schools." * * * "Let there be no timid reserve. Let our young ministers face the whole strength of the rationalistic position." * * * " It is not enough that ministers should be well read in church history, not enough that they should be able to expound in logical fashion the church doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, ^:c., not enough that they should understand the architecture of a niudcl sermon. These matters are quite right in their place, but the minister should go further. He musl go down to the root (juestion, and encjuire whether the history, the systematic theology, and the homilectics are based on a really Divine Revelation, or only on a series of beautiful legends which foolish, but reverent, hands hav:. wreathed about the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a wonderful, religious genius that long ago illumined the land of Pales- tine." Further, Mr. Pedley says : " We find men talking as if thorough- ness of investigation would inevitably lead to a loosened hold on Christianity. So much the worse then for Christianity. If young men of average intellect, and more than average morality, find that the more keenly they study Christianity, the less able they are to accept it, and preach it, then must Christianity be relegated to the dusty lumber- room of worn-out and superseded religious systems." I J 'The Prospect of a Moral Interregnum."— .///<7///?V- Monthly, Nov., 1879. N '-^ .1 PRKK.VrK TO TffK SKCOXD EDrTION. 5 Mr. Pedley then goes on to point out the effects of ignorance, on the I)art of the minister, of the arguments and writings of Freethinkers. He •says : " If he he pastor in a reading community, he will know less than hiii congre.^ation about matters which it is his special business to ur ,ler- stand. He will stand towards the Mible, as an ignorant Priest stands towards the Pope, accepting an infallibility that he has never proved. He will appear before the intelligent world as a spiritual coward, a craven-hearted man, who dare not face the enemy who is slowly master- ing his domain.s. He w=:, become a by-word and a reproach to the generation which he is confessedly-unable to lead, and which sweeps by with disdainful tread, leaving him far in the rear." These are brave words and frank admissions, which should be well pondered by every clergyman, minister and priest, and every theological student, for should they fail to ac.piaint themselves with the doctrines and arguments of their opponents, they will specdlfy find themselves, as Mr. Pedley warns them, preaching to people who know more than they about matters which it is their special business to know. Yours earnestly for Truth, Seluy, Nov. 22nd, 1880. ' " '** ...L ^,x.-^ INTIIODrcToRV. (\)i.. Koiii, (;. iNr.KKsoi.i., the Atncritan Krectliinkcr and eloqiienr iconoclast, visited Canada in April last and lectured on thcologital subjects in various places, includinj^' I'oronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Belleville and Napance, thereby agitating the thcologital caldron as it has never been agitated before in this ((uintry. And " when Mars was gone the dogs of war were kt loose ! " Sinctf Ingersoll's departure there has been a profuse shower of " Replies" and "Refutations" from the press, and a tempest of denunci.ition and misrepresentation from ihe puljiit. Indeed, before the ' parture of the redoubtable idol-smasher, the vituperation and si. mil com- menced, under the ;egis of "A warning against the Ka'Iai ies of Ingersoll. " The pious Evangelists of the \'. M. C. A >( '("Lunto, (abetted doubtless by the clergy) issued this propagandist "ospti- manifesto contaii.ii.> slanderous statements against Mr. In, r'soll. This, with much more zeal than courtesy, they thrust upon all entering the Royal Opera House on the first evening of the lectures. The lecturer, in opening, branded the base slander of this Cliristian docu- ment that h'. (Ingersoll) had signed a petition to allow obscene matter to pass through the mails, as a wilful and malicious falsehood. .As this calumny is yet reiterated from press and pulpit, implicating all Free- thinkers as being in favor of obscenity, the Resolution on this subject which Col. Ingersoll submitted to the Cincinnati Convention of Freethinkers in September, 1879, will not be out of place here. It was as follows, and passed unanimously : — Resolved^ — That we are utterly opposed to the dissemination through the mails, or by any other means, of all obscene literature, whether in- spired or uninspired, holding in measureless contempt its authors, pub- lishers, and disseminators ; that we call upon the Christian world to expunge from the so-called sacred Bible every passage that cannot be read without covering the cheek of modesty with the blush of shame. The cowardly conduct of the Toronto press, with one or two excep- tions, in reference to Ingersoll's lectures, was as astonishing to liberal- minded men as it was deplorable to all, especially in the " (^ueen City of the West," which is, or ought to be, the centre of intellectual activity and progress in Canada. This exhibition of narrow-minded bigotry on the part of the Toronto press excited (rather unexpectedly to them, no 9! 8 INTRODUCTORY. I doubt) great surprise and severe animadversion from many quarters. The daily Globe and Mail have, of course, a v.^ry wide circulation, and being the leading newspapers in the country, their numerous patrons look to them for all the news on all public questions and events. Imagine, therefore, their surprise and indignation on opening their papers and looking for reports of Col. Ingersoll's lectures in Toronto, to find not a word there ! Not a syllable by these puritanical publishers is vouchsafed to their expectant patrons, who pay their money for — not merely what suits the religious whims and prejudices of publishers and editors— but for all the news. But they would scarcely repeat this mistake— or rather imposition on their readers. They have since unmistakably learned that in this act of pusillanimous se'-vility to the priesthood, they took a false measure of their constituencies ; and lamentably failed to gauge correctly the intellectual and moral status of a majority of their patrons. The honorable exceptions to this servility of the Toronto press, were the Evening Telegram, Weekly Graphic, and National. In Belleville, also, there was, I believe, one commendable exception to the narrowness of the press in reference to Ingersoll's lectures. This was the Free Press, which has on former occasions proved itself broader than most of its contemporaries. The Montreal Canadian Spectator is another notable exception to this vassalage of the Canadian press ; for, though edited by a clergyman, it has pioved itself in favor of freedom of speech and liberty of con- science, and boldly denounces the narrow prejudice and bigotry which would gag Ingersoll to-day if it could, and would have burned him two or three centuries ago at the stake. Chief among the " Replies," and " Refutations " which have issued from the press in Canada since Ingersoll's departure, is that by Hon. Geo. R. Wendling. This honorable gentleman has, for some months past, been shadowing Mr. Ingersoll from [)lace to place with his " reply from a secular stand point ; " albeit in Toronto he preceded his opponent, and replied (?) before the people of that city to a lecture of Ingersoll's which they had never heard. But, as with the Dutch judge, so with our Christian friends, one side of the case was enough to hear in order to be able to give a verdict, and Mr. Wendling was duly applauded for his " satisfactory answer" to the absent heretic! Subsequently, however, Mr. Ingersoll put in an appearance in the Queen City, and gave his lecture on " The Gods," to which his honor- able opponent had replied in advance. This eloquent and argumenta- INTRODUCTORY. 9 tive lecture was greeted with such obvious favor and vociferous applause that the " Willard Tract Depository and Bil)le House " of that city deemed it imperative to do something to counteract the " poisonous " influence that had gone forth. They accordingly hastened forthwith to issue Wendlmg's "Reply to Robert Ingersoll." This Christian politico-religious brochure was heralded by some half dozen Toronto Professors and Doctors of Divinity, and one Vice-Chancellor, to wit : Messrs. McLaren, Rainsford, Potts, Castle, Powis, Antliff and Blake. These gentlemen, in a neat little preface, certify their approval of and admiration for Mr. VVendling's " Reply to the infidelity advocated by Col. Ingersoll," and add the hope that "it maybe circulated by thousands." To this no Freethinker has, of course, any objection, so long as he enjoys an eciuul right to circulate liis documents too. Of this right I propose to avail myself, and briefly review the salient points (if there are any) of some of Ingersoll's Canadian critics. Not that 1 feel called upon to defend Col. Ingersoll. Should defence be necessary, he is amply able to defend himself. But as our Christian friends, like drowning men catching at straws, have, in their alarm for the safety of their creed, desperately clutched a layman, and issued with their un- qualified endorsation, this "lay" reply of Mr. Wendling, who comes before the public, he tells us, " as a citizen, as a business man, as a lawyer, and as a politician," and withal as a " man of the world," I have thought that for another layman— a materialistic layman — (though no lawyer or politician) to examine some of Mr. Wendling's lay logic and legal sophistry and politico-religious hash would be a move in the right direction in the interests of truth. Our Christian friends, in issuing their pamphlet, have very judiciously " improved the occasion " by a liberal sprinkling of admonitory Scrip- ture texts, which adorn the insides of the covers, etc. By these texts we are reminded that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and that " if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book ; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life," etc., etc. But these, our Christian opponents, are not quite consistent. Verily, the Christian Church is not willing to take its own medicine —the medicine it mixes for "infidels." JF^ are warned that if we criticise that book, or take away from the words of it, or ridicule its absurdities, we will surely ■incur the wrath and " plagues " of an angry God ; yet these Christians 10 INTRODUCTORY themselves are complacently doing this very thing. They have already eliminated from its sacred pages infant damnation, and eternal torture; while a " Bible Revision Committee," composed of learned and dis- tinguished dignitaries of different branches of the Christian Church, are now actually engaged in "taking away from the words of this book !"* Consistency ! thou art a jewel ! ! Greg, Strauss, Colenso, Kenan, Ingersoll, Underwood, and a thousand others, are consigned to Hades for their destructive criticism of the Christians' Bible ; while those learned Christian Doctors of Divinity of the " Revision Com- mittee" can tamper with the " Word of God" and alter it to suit the enlightenment of the age with impunity ! They can excise whole passages without incurring the "plagues" we are told shall be visited upon any man who adds to or takes from it. Now, I have thought if 1 should adopt the advice contained in the Latin proverb, fas est ab hoste doceri, and take a lesson from the in- genious propagandic tactics of our Christian friends in placing con- spicuously before their readers choice texts from their Evangelists and Apostles, it may not be amiss. Hence, we, too, will do a little skirmishing with some choice sayings of some of the most eminent and learned apostles of our school. And to those trenchant utterances of Huxley, Tyndall, Mill, Carlyle, etc., herein given, I beg to direct the careful attention of the reader. To disarm possible criticism, I may say that this little pamphlet has been written by request, amidst a pressure of farm work, in snatches of time intervening between other more imperative duties : and to the advanced Maierialist who has gone over the same ground on the dif- ferent subjects as myself, I may say it is not written for him, as he does not retjuire it. But it is for another class of ^/wrt'j/ liberals, and Christ- ians who have read Wendling and the others replied to, and are in an inquiring mood after truth. And if the arguments are not wholly iieiL* I would simply urge in extenuation that there is scarcely anything new under the sun, and also my entire agreement wiih Montaigne, when he declares he " has as clear a right to think Plato's thoughts as Plato had.' ALLEN PRINGLE. Selbv, Ont., June 25, 1880. * The following appears in the press : — " The New Testament Revision Committee have struck out as spurious the last seven verses of the last chapter of St. Mark." Now why have they clone this thing? To an "outside barbarian" the true reason would appear to be that according to those seven verses there are no Christians on the earth to-day, as not one from the Pope of Rome or the Archbishop of Canterbury down to the humblest follower -Of Jesus can prove himself a Christian by the plain, test therein given. 3- REPLY TO WENDLING. On reading Mr. Wendling's " Reply to Robert IngersoU," it is diffi- cult to determine precisely its theological status, or what are Mr. Wendling's positions, doctrinally, in reference to Christianity. By the flexibility of doctrine, and dubious orthodoxy, displayed therein, it is no easy matter io place Mr. Wendling ; and his uncertain positions and theological gyrations remind one of the famous mathematical definition of Infinity — " a sphere whose circumference is everywhere and whose centre is anywhere." Mr. Wendling says he " champions no creed, no sect," and he assures us he " places humanity above all creeds." Now, Christianity is un- doubtedly a creed ; albeit, some modern theologians, seeing that the dogmas on which it rests are fast crumbling away, have discovered that Christianity is simply a "life." As to "placing humanity above all creeds," this move is decidedly rationalistic and utilitarian. It is clearly a positive doctrine of the Atheistic philosophy ; and it looks more than suspicious that this shrewd lawyer has been " stealing our thunder;'' for he will find no such doctrine in the Bible, and it certainly has no place in Christian ethics or philosophy. The Bible represents man as below everything else rather than above — " a mere worm of the dust." It represents him as utterly depraved, "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and without any good in him. Christianity, in- stead of holding humanity above all creeds, has, without compunction, immolated man by scores of thousands on the bloody altar of creed and dogma. To maintain its creeds intact, Christianity has reddened the surface of the earth with human blood. Therefore, whatever Mr. Wendling may think about the elevation of man above creeds, Christi- anity does not hold humanity above its creeds. With respect to the authenticity and inspiration of the Bible, Mr. Wendling's position is extremely dubious. He tells us that " so much of that book" (the Bible) " as properly records His" (Christ's) " works and truthfully reports His sayings, must be true." But who is to decide which the particular portions are which " properly record" and " truth- 12 REPLY TO WENDLINT!. fully report" Christ's works, especially as these " records" and "reports" are self-contradictory, and more especially as nothing was recorded in Cfcrist's time of His sayings or doings, nor until half a century or more after His death, as historical criticism and research abundantly prove? If Mr. Wcndling believes the Bible to be an inspired book, wholly authentic and true, the foregoing statement about " so much of it" as '■'■truthfully reports," &C., is surely a most extraordinary one. Again, Mr. VV. says, "I say so much of that book as bears upon the Ideal Man" (Christ) "and so much of that book as the Ideal Man has set the seal of His approval on, we may accept as the long sought for moral teacher," &c. As before, I would ask, who is to decide what particular part or parts of this book •' the Ideal Man has set the seal of His approval on ?" or whether the " Ideal Man" ever set His seal upon any of it? or, in- deed, whether this " Ideal Man" ever had other than a purely ideal or subjective existence in the minds of men ? Some able scholars — notably Rev. Robt. Taylor — have, after careful historical research, come to the conclusion that the Christ of the Cospels never existed. But, be this as it may, scholars now generally agree that whether such a per- son as Jesus of Nazareth lived or not, we have no authentic account of Him ; and not a syllable of His alleged sayings was recorded during His alleged lifetime, nor for more than half a century after His death. The reader who wishes to [)ursue this subject of the wholly unauthentic character of the Gospels, &c., &c., is referred to Greg's "Creed of Christendom," Lord Amberley's " Analysis of Religious Belief," and the great work lately published in England, and now reprinted here by the Messrs. Belford of Toronto, viz., " Supernatural Religion." It will thus be seen that Mr. Wendling's doctrinal attitude towards the Bible and Christianity is extremely problematical, and a Materialist ■scarcely knows where to place him, or how to deal with his mongrel positions. Being, as he tells us, "a business man," "a lawyer," "a politician," and "a man of the world," this versatile gentleman has evidently imbibed largely of the utilitarian and humanitarian spirit of the age, while at the same time retaining his Christian predilections ; and hence the hybrid homily with whi,ch we have to deal, and which he calls a " Reply to Robert Ingersoll from a Secular Standpoint." That a layman, however, should give so uncertain a sound as to his orthodox whereabouts, and, in attempting to defend his positions (whatever they are) and answer Freethinkers, should bring forth such a doctrinal non- descript, is not indeed to be much wondered at, seeing that the clergy themselves, being mercilessly driven from pillar to post by modern TIEPLY TO WENDLINO. IJ science and research, occupy the most inconsistent and incongruous, not to say ridiculous, positions, in doctrine and dogma, in ecclesiastical formulary and Biblical exegesis. However, though of dubious doctrine and doubtful orthodoxy, some of Mr. VVendling's positions, or rather assumptions and assertions, are clear enough, and not to be misunderstood ; and in a few of the more important of these I propose to follow him. At the outset he dogmatically postulates the assumption that " what most we need is the conviction that there is a personal God." From social, commercial, and political considerations this belief in a personal God is what \vc most need— so says Mr. Wendling. He talks as though, were it not for this theistic belief, everything would go to the dogs ; and universal, moral, social and political chaos would come. This, however, is simi)ly assumed without a sh.adow of proof. He then goes on with his demonstration (?) of the existence of a personal God ; but it is the old, old story over again. First he assumes, in the face of the highest authorities to the contrary, that " among every people in every quarter of the habitable globe, there exists, and there has existed from the very furthest reach of history, the idea of one eternal and all-powerful God." He then gives us a rehash of Paley's design argument to prove the existence of a God, which he considers conclusive. And, .inally, as if conscious of the weakness of the intellectual argument, he takes refuge in the moral argument, — in conscience in man as showing the existence of a personal God with moral attributes. This is the last refuge of the Theist — the der/u'er retsrri o( the theologian. Driven utterly from the realm of reason they fly to conscience and to consciousness to establish subjectively what cannot be proved intellectually. Now, this sort of evidence may do for the Theist and theologian who are determined to believe in Theos ; but to those who live in the light of rea.son, and in the realm of intellect not wholly submerged by the emotions, such inner- consciousness evidence will not be satisfactory \ for they experience no Bdch subjective proof in their own minds, and do not care to take the mQTQ feelings of others as evidence of anything further than the existence of nervous ganglion and brain. 1 will now take up Mr. Wendling's arguments to prove the existence of a personal God, seriatim, and briefly consider them. As already remarked, before setting out to prove a God, Mr. W. postulates the necessity of one. For the preservation of moral order, social purity, and commercial integrity, what most we need, it is assumed, " is the conviction that there is a personal God." This assertion certainly has ri 14 UEPLY TO WENDLINQ. a queer look when we reflect that Theism is at present the prevaiUng belief among the masses, and has been in the past ; and that our prisons are full of persons who believe in a personal God; and that believers in God ascend the gallows almost daily, and are swung off to " mansions in the skies ! " Here are some half dozen examples of this kind at hand, the whole of which I (juote from one newspaper, a late issue of the Kingston British Whig : — Breaux, who was hanged in New Orleans, "ascended the gallows sniiling and said he had made his peace with God and all men." Bolen, who was executed at Macon, Mississippi, said on the gallows: " My mouth will soon be closed in this world. I rested in the arms of Jesus last night. I am satisfied. I feel guilty of nothing. God is well pleased with my soul." Macon, who was executed at the same place, said, " I feel ready to die, because God has pardoned my sins. 1 risked my soul on the murder, but God has forgiven me. There is not a cloud in the way." lirown, who was also executed at Macon, with the other two, the same day, said, " I have made peace with God, and will surely go to heaven, I will cross the river with a rope around my neck that will lead my wicked soul on to glory. Blessed be God I 1 am going home I " Stone, who was hanged at Washington, and Tatio at Windsor, Vermont, the same day as the four above, both had made their peace with God," and were on their way " to meet the Lord Jesus •Christ." A belief in God did not it seems avail to keep these men, nor thou- sands of others, from crime ; nor does it, in my opinion, to any great extent, operate as a deterrent of crime. People with favorable organiza- tions and good surroundings will not be apt to commit murder whether they believe or disbelieve in a God ; while persons born with bad organizations — bad heads and impure blood — will very likely, under favorable circumstances, continue to follow their predominant impulses, whether they believe in one God or twenty, and, if Christians in belief, they will ultimately rely on that " fountain of blood open for sin and all uncleanness." Unscrupulous men who have strong natural tenden- cies to crime, and believe in the Christian plan of salvation, will, in bad surroundings, scarcely fail to indulge their propensities and finally avail themselves of the " bankrupt scheme " — take a bath in that impure fountain and be "washed" clean (?) like the gentry instanced above. In January and February of this year (i88o) Rev. E. P. Hammond, ihe noted Methodist revivalist, made a professional tour through Canada UEPLY TO WENDLING. 15 |g ps rs Is It in pursuit of his favorite and profitable calling of " saving souls '• (favorite, probably, because profitable). Among other places he visited St. Catharines, and before leaving that city, preached a sermon for the especial benefit, it would seem, of the Universalists. Now, Universal- ism has always been specially odious to the other more evangelical sects, especially the Methodists, who seem positively shotkcd at the horrid idea that hell may perhaps be ultimately emptied of its human contents and all mankind get into heaven. The Universalists appear to have a good degree of that noble human quality, benevolence, and hence they believe that the God they worship is too good to damn forever any creature he has made. For this good opinion of their Creator they iire duly stigmatized, contemned and reprobated by the ultra orthodo.x party, who can brook no nonsense about the possibility of the fires of hell ever being extinguished. These people are evidently well pleased at the idea that there is a place of torture into which the non-elect of their fellow creatures may be turned for ever and ever. How like the God of the Old Testament, these disciples of His are ! Mr. Hammond, it would seem, is of this class ; and accordingly, in the sermon alluded to, proceeded to unbudget himself against Universalism and Universalists in vigorous style. The sermon was reported in the St. Catharines /oiirnal, and called forth an able and spirited reply through the same medium from the Rev. J. B. Lavelle of Fulton, Township of Grimsby. I propose to make some extracts, quite relevant to the subject under consideration, from the reply of Rev. Lavelle, — who is a gentleman, 1 am informed, of exemplary character and broad intelligence, and highly respected. Mr. Lavelle says : " Permit me to say, Mr. Editor, in justice to Universalists, both on this continent and in Europe, among whom are some of the ablest Biblical scholars, and some of the best men, that there is not a particle of truth in Mr. Hammond's representation. * ♦ * Mr. Hammond, with other ministers of the endless misery school, believes in the doc- trine of 'imputation,' 'substitution,' or 'vicarious' suffering of Christ, which they erroneously, as we think, call the Atonement ; and that the greatest villain, who has lived a life of crime, rapine, and murder, can take the benefit of this Spiritual Bankrupt Act (for it is nothing else) at any time before he dies, and 'go to heaven' — yea, even while standing on the gallows, swing ' into glory ' and thus escape the consequences of his wicked life. " For instance, A and B are two consummate villains, and have been so for years, but in a quarrel A murders B — of course B goes to an eternal hell — but A, through the labors of Mr. Hammond and others of the so-called orthodox churches who visit him in his cell before his IG RFPLY TO \VKXDLIN(i. execution— he repents. (?) 'I'hey lay this Spiritual Bankrupt Act before him. He sees it is the only alternative to keep out of hell ; so he takes the benefit of it, is hanged, and goes to heaven. Thus, the murderer gets to heaven by the lucky chance of being the murderer instead of the murdered. If his victim had been fortunate enough to strike the fatal blow, he could have changed places with him ; and so the endless destiny of each would have been reversed by the chance blow of a street fight I Is it, I ask, on such grounds Ciod distributes rewards and punishments ? What must be the moral influence of such a doctrine? " Again ; A lives a life of crime ff)r sixty years, and on the vety ne.xt month or day, repents by taking the benefit of this Spiritual Bankrupt Act, dies and goes to heaven. \i lives a life of virtue and goodness for sixty years, and the very next day or month makes a false step, or com- mits a crime, and is consigned to an endless hell to suffer intense misery without relief and withoi r kni). And yet we are told by the advocates of this unscriptural doctrine that this is a just distribution of rewards and punishments under the government of (Jod who ' is Love,' but above all, THE FATHER. " Look at the case of one Ward, who, in one of our counties a while ago, murdered his wife — was sentenced to death, and attended by his 'Orthodox' spiritual advisers before execution. He also repented (?) and look the benefit o( this Spiritual Bankrupt .Act. When he stood upon the gallows, he said, he ' had but two steps to take — one into eternity and the other into glory.' And his poor wife— what became of her? Gone, ' with all her imperft tions ' to suffer unmitigated misery as long as God himself shall endure, and this, too, according to the unscriptural doctrine of the same churches which teach ' no change after death.' Again we ask, what can be the moral influence of such teaching ? • «••••••# "The truth is the burden of the most of the teaching of the day is, to ' die right ; ' ' make your peace with God in time,' and ' get religion before you die ; ' thus making religion to mainly consist in one general scramble to get into heaven and keep out of hell." As Freethinkers, we boldly impeach the Christian plan of salvation as being essentially immoral in its tendency, — as offering a premium on vice and crime ; and for doing this on previous occasions and designat- ing it a "bankrupt scheme," the writer of this has been the sub- ject of severe and indignant animadversion from his intimate Chris- tian friends. Yet here is a Christian minister who takes substantially the same position as ourselves in reference to the plan of salvation as preached by Methodists and others, and denounces it as a " Spiritual Bankrupt Act." And I have made the above extracts from I 1 RKI'LV TO \VKM'',IN<; 17 'his pen to strengthen my position ag .Inst Mr. Wendling, viz., that a belief in (lod and the IJible is not essential to social and commercial morality, and the safety of the State. On this subject, Lord Bacon, himself a Christian, says : — " Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosoi)hy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not. lUit superstition dismounts all these, and createth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men ; therefore Atheism did never perturb States, for it makes men wary of thems».lves, as looking no further, and we see the limes inclined to Atheism (.as the time of Augustus Caisar) were civil times ; but superstition, that bone of contention of many States, bringeth in a new ptiinum mobile that ravishes all the spheres of government." There are thousands of Atheists in almost every civilized country, and how is it, if Atheism tends to crime, that you will seldom or never find one in prison for any crime ? Huddhism, one of the most ancient religions, long ante-dating Christianity, is essentially Atheistic. It has had, and has now, hundreds of millions of followers, and for pure morality no system of religion has ever equalled it. Webster, the Christian lexicograi)her, admits that Buddhism was " characterized by admirable humanity and morality." The religion of Confucius — of him who taught the " golden rule " five centuries before Christianity appeared — was also Atheistic. Therefore, what we " most need " is, not a " conviction that there is a jjersonal Cod " (we have that already ; all the murderers, thieves and defaulters believe that doctrine), but we need more of the " admirable morality " of Buddhism, and more of the practice of the "golden rule" of Confucius to "do not unto others what you would not they sh.ould do to you." As Kmerson has said, ^* We want some good Paganism." Mr. Wendling's next argument for the existence of a personal God is the assumed universality of the belief in Clod, "among every people in €very quarter of the habitable globe," now and " from the very furthest reach of history," As the value of this argument turns simply on a question of fact, and as every educated or well read man knows that the facts in this case are against Mr. Wendling, and that his assertion is historically incorrect, it is hardly worth while to spend much time over it. However, as some readers may not have looked into the authorities on the subject, I may, perhaps not unprofitably, quote briefly from some of them, and simply refer the reader to others. To say nothing of the Atheistic character of the Buddhistic religion, HEPLV TO WKNDLINO. already referred to, with its millions of followers, there have been, and are to-day, tribes and peoples who have no belief whatever in, or con- ception of. a (lod or (lods. This fact is conclusively proved by such authorities as Livingston, the great African explorer (himself a Chris- tian), Sir John Lubbock, J, S. Mill, Darwin, and even John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who, surely, ought to be good authority with Christians ; and him we will first put in the witness box against Mr. Wendling. Wesley says, in his Sermons, vol. 2, Sermon C : "After all that has been so plausibly written concerning the ' innate idea of (lod ;' after all that has been said of its being common to all men, in all ages and nations, it does not api)ear that man has any more idea of Clod than any of the beasts of the field ; he has no knowledge of God at all. Whatever change may afterward be wrought by his own reflection or education, he is by nature a mere Atheist." Charles Darwin, the greatest naturalist in the world, and who is pro- verbially careful in his statements, has the following on this subject in his " Descent of Man," vol. i, p. 62-3 : — •* There is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers^ but from men who have long resided with sivages, that numerous races have existed and still exist, who have no idea of one or more (lods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea." Again, in vol. 2, p. 377, Darwin says: — '* The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but the most complete, of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is, however, impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand, a belief in all-i)ervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal ; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in the reasoning powers of man, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder. 1 am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, possessing only a little more power than man ; for the belief in them is far more gen- eral than of a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator of the universe does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture." I would refer the reader who wishes to pursue the subject further, to Livingston's writings, to Sir J. Lubbock's " Prehistoric Times," and his " Origin of Civilization," and also to the Authropological Revieiv for August, 1864. \ i REPLY TO WENDMNU. 19 < 'I * Mr. WonJIin^j's next argument to prove the existence of a persona! (lod is the once celebrated but now obsolete "design" arj^ument of Catwell and I'alcy ; but he seems either not to know or he ignores the fact that this " design argument" has been so thoroughly refuted by the sternest logic and most indis[)utable natural f.u ts that the more advanced theologians of the present day have wholly abandoned it. To rcjjroduce these, or to give any elaborate refutation, it is unneces- sary here. The whole matter may be disposed of brictly by one or two simple syllogisms which e\erybody can comprehend. I'he famous "design argument," then, may be formulated into simple syllogistic proi)ositi(;ns thus : — Whatever manifests design must have had a designer : The world manifests design ; 'I'herefore, the world must have had a designer. This is the whole Christian reasoning on the subje( t in a nutshell, and it has been considered by them perfectly conclusive and unanswera- ble. The logic is certainly unexceptionable, that is, the conclusion is ([uite legitimate from the premises; but it so hajipens that the premises are unsound, and in such a case the most unexceptional)le logic goes for naught. If premises be erroneous, though the reasoning be ever so good, the conclusion must lie erroneous. The major premiss of the foregoing syllogism, that '" whatever manifests design must have had a designer," is a i)ure assumption, if by design is meant adaptation in Nature. So, likewise, is the minor premiss an assumption if by design is meant anything more than the adaptation pervading the universe, or at least that part cognizable to us. That the Ji/fuss and adaptation observable in Nature do not establish intelligent design, is amply shown by the highest authorities — by the most eminent naturalists (H;eckel, Darwin, vvc.) of the present day, to whom the reader is referred, and I need not here amplify in that direction. Nor is it at all necessary for my present purpose and work. It is only necessary to ai)ply the Kductio ad absurdum to the above argument from design to show its utter fallacy. We will admit the premises and carry the reasoning of oi.r Christian friends out a little further. By granting the truth of their major projio- sition and reasoning logically from it we can prove more than is whole- some for the theologian, as thus : — Whatever manifests design must have had a designer : God, in his alleged personality and attributes, manifests design ; Therefore, God must have had a designer. 20 IIKI'I.Y TO \VKNI)r,INling us to " ///(fxr between the good and the l)ad ;■' a *\i;///i/f to contlutt." \c., iVc In the light of our present mental science this definition of ( ons( ience is utterly false, ('onscience is not an ///A ///\y/// faculty at all -it is simi)ly a feeling. My modern metaphysics conscience has been relegated from the domain of the intellect to its proper [)lace among the emotions. Hence it lidula nothing, J/zJi^rs nothing as between right and wrong, or anj thing else; for that is a function of intellect. (.!ons( ience, instead ol being a "guide" or "judge," is but a blind impulse needing itself to be guided. It is simply a feeling for the right- a thirsting for the good — but the intellect must decid<' uMt i$ right ; and the nature and character of its decisions will deptno upon various circumstances, such as organization,, education, kc. ; and the dec isions of different individuals as to right and wrong will differ as those circumstances difTer. We hear a great deal about " enlightening the conscience;" but it cannot be done. You might as well talk of enlightening a sunflower, which instinctively turns its head to the light ; or a vino, which instinctively creeps up the portico. The intellect, however, may be enlightened. Kc.ison, which is the only and ultimate arbiter and guide to conduct, may be enlight- ened ; and we m.'iy thus modify, guide and direct the blinil impulses of conscience. The truth is, conscience in man, such as it is, is a deve- lopment — is acfjuired rather than innate ; has been develojicd by Nature instead of "implanted" by God. The moral sense, witliuut doubt, gradually developed in man as he rose in the scale of intelli'jence. Where there is little or no intelligence, the moral sense would be inap- plicable and incongruous, and is not needed, hence does not exist. When it is required, Nature, in perfect keeping with all her other adap- tations, develops it. Darwin, in the "Descent of Man," vol. i, pp. 68-9, says : — "The following proposition seems tome in a high degree probable — namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man." r 22 REPLY TO WENDLIXO. I * On this point John Stuart Mill also has the following in his " Utili- tariani?m," p. 45 : — " If, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but ac- quired, they are not for that reason less natural." The reader is also referred to " Psychological Inquiries," by Sir B. Brodie, for further evidence on this subject. The moral sense, therefore, whi»h exists in p portion of mankind — distinct traces of which are also found in some of the lower animals — has been gradually acquired during the evolution of man from a lower to a higher condition. It has come down to us from primitive barbar- ism through long ages of hereditary transmission. The " spiritual yearnings" of man's nature, thought by Christians to prove a God as their author, have, in like manner, been gradually acquired. These subjective emotions and desires — whether you call them carnal or spiritual — are, unquestionably, in the light of modern science, all mat- ters of gradual development, hereditary inheritance, and education. The great doctrine of EVOLUTION in nature explains them all. Having thus dealt with the arguments of Mr. Wendling in evidence of a personal God — a primary assumption upon which he predicates many other assumptions — there is little else in his " Reply to Robert IngersoU" demanding attention. One or two, however, of his extraor- dinary assertions, it may not be amiss to look into a little ; especially as Mr, Wendling, having waxed valiant over the supposed conclusive- ness of his arguments, triumphantly throws down the glove to "infi- delity" in this wise : — " To my mind the great central thought of Christianity is that every living soul, of ever)- race, of every clime, of every creed, of every condi- tion, of every color — every living soul is worthy the Kingdom * * * And here I challenge infidelit\. I lay the challeiige broadly down, I challenge infidelity to name an era or a school in which this doctrine was taught prior to the advent of the Ideal Man." Here, again, Mr. Wendling's orthodoxy is badly out of joint, and his facts at loose ends. This "central thought" that " every living soul is worthy the Kingdom" has no place in Christianity. It is by no means biblical doctrine, however well so humane an idea'may fit into Mr. W.'s own mind. Hence, to designate the brother/iood of man the "great central thought of Christianity" — a system which is to consign a majo- rity of mankind to an endless hell of fire and brimstone — is purely gratuitous. To claim benevolent fatherhood or brotherhood for a REPLY TO WENDIJNG. 23 ili- ac- B. religion which declares that the road to hell is " broad," and many shall go in therej't, while the way to Heaven is " narrow," and few shall go in thereat, is to play fast and loose with the Bible. To say that " every soul is worthy the Kingdom," and call this the "' great central thought of Christianity," in the face of what ti.'" " Word of God" cheerfully tells us on this subject, is, indeed, a " marv-.'llous tlexibility oi language," which I do not at all propose to tolerate in discussion with "a lawyer," " a politician," " a man ol the world," or any other ma;-!. Hear ye 1 O ! non-elect, what comforting things the Scri[)turc saith to you on your ^' future prospects !" " For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." " For the children being nut yet born, ntithtr hiving done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but ■of him that calleth." '' Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." (Roman?, 8th and gth Chap- ters.) " The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." (Fsalm 58.) " Ye believe not be- cause ye are not of my sheep." (John 10.) "Ye be reprobates." (II, Corinth. 13 ) "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Romans 9.) He hardened their hearts, "That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand." (Mark 4.) "Hath not the potter power over the clay." iS:c. (Romans 9.) "He that believeth not shall be damned." This is benevolent (?) fatherhood, and the spirit of the brotherhood of humanity, with a vengence ! WV are distinctly told that God, " from the beginning," has deliberately fixed upon the ultimate misery and destruction of a portion of His hapless creatures ; that He moulds them as clay in the hands of the potter; hardens their hearts and blinds their eyes, and then tells them He will damn them for not doing what He has prevented them from doing, and what He knows, beforehand, rhey cannot and will not do ! This is what Mr. Wendling calls the " gr«.-r.t central thought of Chriblldnity— that ' every soul is worthy the King- dom,'" — and he calls loudly upon "infidelity" to name an era or a school in which this doctrine was taugiit before the " Ideal Man" taught it. He is right ! We cannot do it ! We may search the philosophies and sacred writings of the Pagans in vain for so fiendish a doctrine. For pure, unadulterated malevolence, the Vedas, the Shaster, the Zend- Avesta, afford no parallel for this truly Christian doctrine. I/, however, Mr. Wendling challenges us to name an era or school in which the brotherhood of man (as we understand it) was taught before the time of the " Ideal Man," we unhesitatingly accept his challenge. It 24 REPLY TO WENDLING. was taught by Buddha, Confucius, and numerous Pagan writers and philosophers long before the time of Jesus, for proof of which I refer the reader to Prof. Max Muller, Sir \Vm. Jones, Lord, Amberly, &c., or to the writings themselves. Mr Wendling desires us to "Tell me (him) why it is that all the creeds of Christendom and all the civilized nations unite in accepting the Ideal Man of Christianity despite the laws of climate and of race ? " I will answer this question in the Irishman's fashion, by asking one or two others. Tell me why it is, if Christianity is a divine system, and its author omnipotent, that, after eighteen centuries of active propagandism and aggression, compassing sea and land to make proselytes, it has to-day, according to recent statistics, but the meagre following of 399,200,000; while Buddhism has 405,600,000, and Brahmanism, Mohammedanism, etc., 500,000,000? Not nearly one- third of the world's population Christians, and the number rapidly diminishing! Tell me why it is, if Christianity is true that its founda tions are melting down like wax in the light of Modern Science ?• Tell me why it is, '^ the Bible is an inspired book, a divine revelation, that scarcely a single really eminent scientist or scholar of the present day accepts it as such ? Tell me why it is that Atheism, Agnosticism, and Rationalism are making such rapid headway among the educated and intelligent, in every civilized country, both in the church and out of it? That the dogmas upon which Christianity rests are doomed ;. and as Froude, the historian, says, " Doctrines once fixed as a rock are now fluid as water?"* If the Bible can bear the light of science and historical research, how is ii that these have already irrevocably sapped its very foundations ; and that, as a consecjuence, the world is completely "honey-combed with infidelity," as a Toronto paper recently asserted of that city ? The only answer Mr. Wendling can give to these (juestions is this : Because Christianity is unable to show its- titles; because the Bible, being human in its origin, and, as a conse- quence, abounding in errors, both in science and morals, cannot bear the penetrating light of modern science and criticism. *" Science and Theology, Ancient and Modern." — The International Rehgio- Science Series. — Rose-Beirord I'ublibhing Company, Toronto. REPLY TO LYNCH. ClirSHLNG (•.') EDICT FKUM ST. MICHAELS PALACE. (Bruiem Fuhmn,) \ F.V (Signed), •'Yours in Christ, John Josei'H Lynxh.' S,NCE IngersoU-s visit >o Canada. Archb.hcp 'f '^- "' '"™^°' ,as also feh called upon .0 issue a bull aga,ns, .l,e ^-e U^nnUrs , and 1 propose to take this •' bull " by the horns and o »/' h>m (1 may say St, L that the Bulls of Rorrre .ere '-8 '^o e,,,ascu .ed e^, «ran«lv enoueh, they still keep wMflyim') V"'^" "" "'^T :«?. ^hTnk sLch I work (lynching the bull) will no. I- "n-ho^ of »A..«,./-V.»,-,hough it may be nrore than ^ ""•^f'^'^^_ indeed possibly a ,,,o,M sin for which I can get no «to/» ' "- ° P e sume to criticise an Archbishop, and break a lance ""h ^.s h b„,K I have, however, desperately resolved ,0 take my chances of pu.gatory or limbo and go in for the bull. ,„,i ^miiirtd to Some 01 the Archbishop's flock, ,t would secrn, 'f '27 'I exercise the natural rights of man to the very m< dest f^tS^ ,o hear Mr Ingersoll lecture, and also altendmg some of the mee mgs of t e Toronto l.„er.l A.ocia,,.,,. Hence the fulm.nat.on of e ao esaid bull," wherein his Grace, with that meekness chan y and "n bo::, of piety and infallibility, orders his peop e -o avo d all contact with these Freethinkers, thetr lectures and the.r wrt.ngs and °hre tens ." Catholics who "go to the meet.rgs and lecture, of the Freethinker or Atheists '■ with refusal of " absolufo,,." wh.ch. prLflytnction, he patron.ingly tells them, he "reserves" to h.m- '"now, may we not indulge the hcpe, in this age of r<»cn, ard lar^d of at least professed liberty, and esoteric freedom of conscer.ce, that. 26 REPLY TO LYN'CH. f every man, be lie Catholic or Protestant, will look upon this attempted exercise of medieval bigotry and intolerance with practical disregard, and deserved contempt. As for the Freethinkers, they can afford to smile at the impotent Archbishop, who seems to imagine himself in the ninth instead of the nineteenth century, and in Rome or Spain instead of the Dominion of Canada. They can but look at him and his foolish " bull" as most ridiculous anachronisms. On reading this precious document it is plain that all this deputy " Vicegerent of God" reciuires to make him a first class modern Torquemada is the j)ower — the outward authority to carry out his subjective hatred of " brutalized " Free- thinkers. But this, thanks to science, and conseciuent civilization, he has not got. 'J'he Rationalist can, therefore, at this day, afford to de- ride the malevolent, though fortunately impotent, ravings of this zealous bishop of an emasculated Church. He and his Church (the whole Christian Church) are, fortunately for humanity, shorn of their wonted strength, which, in the past, they have used with such fiendish ferocity and brutality on human kind. The day has gone by when the Church may light an auto-da-fe around the body of a Bruno. The time has passed when she may thrust a Galileo into prison and force him to recant the sublime truths of Astronomy. She can no longer cast a Roger Bacon into a noisome dungeon because of his scientific investigations. True, she can still, if she choose, excommunicate a Copernicus for what she denounced as his " false Pythagorean doctrine," but that is all. Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Proctor and the rest are safe. This relentless enemy of Science and liberty, and consequently of mankind, can no longer clutch every young science by the throat and strangle struggling truth, which, crushed to earth has risen again in its might ; and history will scarcely repeat itself in the case of Bruno the Atheist, or Galileo the Astronomer, or Roger Bacon the Philosopher, or a thousand other victims of this ruthless " Bourbon of the world of thought"— the Church. She may still continue to fulminate her absurd and innocuous anathemas, but this is abc:'t all. The Holy Inquisition, with its two h ".ndred and fifty thousand human victims ; the Crusades with its five millions ; the massacre of St. Bartholomew with its fifty thousand ; to say nothing of the religious horrors of the Netherlands, of England, Scotland, and Ireland since the reformation — all these holy horrors, let us hope, are hideous blots on the history of the past never to be repeated. Or will it be said of the future history of Christianity, as has been frankly ad- mitted of its past by one of its ardent disciples, Baxter, that " Blood, blood, blood stains every page?" REPLY TO LYNCH. 27 ted ird, to the ead ish ous to ard ree- - + The tables are now turning. The Church, to-day, instead of burning unbelievers, and strangling science by immuring in dungeons its votaries, is herself being strangled by science (with no loss of human blood, how- ever). Her cruel theology and irrational dogmas are prostrate, writhing in their death throes, at the feet of the Hercules of modern science and criticism. A little digression will not be out of order here. Our comic carica- turist at Toronto (of which, on the whole, Canada may feel proud), recently had a cartoon representing the theological (lamaliel of St. Michael's Palace, Toronto, strangling the serpent " Freethought." Now, though usually on the side of truth and impartiality, Grip has undoubt- edly, in this c.Tse, taken an obliciue s(|uint at truth and justice, and has for once, at least, got the cart before the horse. Facts and truth demand that the positions of the gladiators in his cartoon must be reversed, and the zoological nomenclature corrected. And if Grip had read Huxley and Tyndall, and correctly observed the signs of the times, he would scarcely have fallen into this unpardonable error. Let us quote Prof. Huxley on this subject of strangling serpents : — " It is true that, if philosophers have suffeied, their cause has been amply revenged. Extifr:;^uished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of /fercules ; and history records that, whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated ; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget ; and, though at present bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever tf) insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end of sound science ; and to visit, with such petty thunderbolts as its half- paralyzed hands can hurl those who refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primitive Judaism." — Lay Sermons, p. 277-8. From this. Grip will see that instead of the fair form of reason and Freethought (which he represents as a snake) being stiangled by a pre- late of the church, it is the serpent, orthodox)', which is being strangled by the Hercules of science. It is to be regretted that Gfip, notwith- standing his professions of independence and impartiality, is himself obnoxious to the very moral cowardice he has so often fearlessly and justly exposed in others. Else why does he represent Freethought as a snake? Is it because Freethought is yet comparatively weak in num- bers, and unpopular, and because this sort of thing will please the Church, which is popular and powerful ? What characteristic of the snake attaches to Freethought or Freethinkers ? None ; and we fear- 28 IlKPLY TO LYNCH. lessly challenge Grip and the Church on this point. P>eethought has none of the rei)tilian (jualities of hypocrisy, cunning or deceit, but is frank and fearless. Amid all the obloquy, der.Mnciation, i)ersecution, social ostracism, calunmy, and " holy bulls" hurled at them. Freethinkers have the courage of their opinions ; and bear all these, as well as busi- ness detriment, for the sake of what they sacredly regard as truth. What does Prof. Tyndall say of Freethinkers and Atheists? To Archbisiiop Lynch, who, in his pronunciamiento, says, " A person who disbelieves in the Ten Commandments, in hell or in Heaven, can hardly be trusted in the concerns of life ; " and to Grip who cowardly crystalizes this base assertion into a baser cartoon, I quote with pride the language of this noble man, and eminent scholar and scientist. In the Fortni^^htly litview for November, 1877, Prof. Tyndall says: " It may comfort some to know that there are amongst us many whom the gladiators of the pulpit would call Atheists and Materialists, whose lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of morality, would contrast more than favorably with the lives of those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say 'offensive' I refer simply to the intention of those who use such terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious newspapers, has any particular offensiveness to me. If I wished to find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements, whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any kind is subjectively unknown ; if I wanted a loving father, a faithful husband, an honora- ble neighbor, and a just citizen, I would seek him among the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have known some of the most pronounced amongst them, not only in life, but in death — seen them approaching with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a ' hangman's whip,' with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duiies, and as faithful in the discharge of them, as if their eternal future depended on their latest deeds." Let the Archbishop, and Grip, and every reader ponder these brave words of so 'iiigh an authority in defence of the reprobated class stigmatised as "infidels," to which they refer; and then, for corrobo- ration, compare the testimony given with the living facts around them. The Archbishop says, these "foolish men" (the Freethinkers) are " striving to replunge the world into the depths of Barbarism and Pagani=. ' , etc. To those who know that the present attitude of all tl- 1' I r 'ssls and eminent savans towards the dogmas of the Chr. ■ » M^.;.. i', one of undoubted unbelief and hostility; and who aic 1; ■ with the history of the Archbishop's own church ■nn HEPLV TO LYNCH. 29 has It is fon, cers lusi- .1> in particular, during the past fifteen centuries, — to them the Arch- bishop's vituperation is as foolish as it is ridiculous. From the days of Con antine to this year, 1880, the Church, of which this learned (?) prelate is a representative, has strenuously opposed learning, and retarded civilization ; has tolerated no freedom of consc ience or liberty of thought, thus narrowing instead of extending the liberty enjoyed in Pagan and Imperial Rome, over whose ruins she reared her tyrannical head. Talk of " Paganism I " His Church needs, as Emerson puts its, " some good Paganism." She left behind her the liberty even of Pagan Rome, her maligned precursor. Renan tells us, " \Vc may search in vain, the Roman law before Constantine, for a single passage against freedom of thought, and the history of the imperial govern- ment furnishes no instance of a prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine." And, Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, tells us tl.at the Romans exercised this toleration in the amplest manner. " The prosecutions of the Christians by the Pagans, it is now univer- sally conceded by Christian historians, have been greatly exnggernted ; Christians have killed, in one day, for their faith nearly half as many heretics as all the Christians put to death by the Pagans during the whole j)eriod of the Pagan Empire." (The Influence of Christianity on Civilization, pj). 24-5, Underwood.) The Archbishop's Church is, therefore, no improvement in respect of liberty or toleration, on the Paganism he reviles. What progress the world has made in liberty and civilization, has been made, not with the assistance of the Christian Church, but in spite of its determined opposition and deadly hostility. Dr. Draper, author of the " History of the Conflict between Religion and Science," and other works, tells us that ; " Latin Christianity is responsible for the condition and jirogress of Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century," and subsequently avers, "Whoever will, in in a spirit of impartiality, examine what had been done by Catholicism for the intellectual and material advance- ment of iLurope, during her long reign, and what has been done by science in its brief period of action, can, I am persuaded, come to no other conclusion than this, that, in instituting a comparison, he has established a contrast." ('• Conflict,'" p. 321.) Lecky, in his " History of Morals," vol. 2, p. 18, tells us: — "For more than three centuries the decadence of theological influence has been one of the most in- variable signs and measures of our progress. In medicine, physical science, commercial interests, politics, and even ethics, the reformer has been confronted with theological affirmations that have barred his way, which were all defended as of vital importance, and were all com- 90 KEl'LY TO LYNCH. pelled to yield before the secularizing influence of civilization." (Pro- testant as well as Catholic Christianity is, however, obnoxious to this stricture of Lecky.) The Freethinkers "striving to replunge the world into the depths of barbarism!" What can the Archbishop's idea of b.irbarisni be? Doubtless in his priestly mind everything is " barbarism " which do-es not s(iuare with the Encyclical, or with the dogmas of his infallible Church. If, however, barbarism is in reality just the opposite of our most enlightened and highest civilization in Art, Science, Literature and Ethics, it will, I have the presumption to think, be found that those "foolish men" — those "brutalized" Freethinkers — are leading the van of progress forward to a higher civilization, instead of dragging it backward to barbarism. The truth of this is patent everywhere, in every civilized country, and many of our Christian opponents admit it, though Archbishop Lynch may not. A clergyman of Toronto — Rev. W. S. Rainsford, of St. James' Cathedral — (from whom the Archbishop of St. Mary's Cathedral might probably, to his advantage, take a lesson in toleration), in a sermon preached in that city, Nov. 17th, 1878, in speaking of P'reethinkers, made use of the following language, as re- ported in the Globe of the 18th : " This sort of infidelity, that of Materialism, has its students in the laboratory and in the library. It includes men of moral lives, of earnest purposes, * * * men who uphold morality, chastity, self-denial, perseverance with as clear a voice as Christians do, but on different grounds." Years ago the N. Y. Independent, a religious paper, made the follow- ing ingenuous admission : " To the shame of the Church it must be confessed that the foremost in all our philanthropic movements, in the interpretation of the spirit of the age, in the practical application of genuine Christianity, in the reformation of abuses in high and low places, in the vindication of the rights of mjin, and in practically redressing his wrongs, in the intel- lectual and moral regeneration of the race, are the so-called infidels in our land. The Church has pusillanimously left, not only the working oar, but the very reins of salutary reform in the hands of men she de- nounces as inimical to Christianity, and who are practically doing, with all their might, for humanity's sake, what the Church ought to be doing for Christ's sake; and if they succeed, as succeed they will, in abolish- ing slavery, banishing rum, restraining licentiousness, reforming abuses and elevating the masses, then must the recoil on Christianity be dis- astrous. Woe, woe, woe, to Christianity when Infidels by the force of nature, or the tendency of the age, get ahead of the Church in morals, REPLY TO LYNCH. SI 'ro- th is f T and in the practical work of Christianity. In some instances they are already far in advance. In the vindication of Truth, Righteousness, and Liberty, they are the pioneers, beckoning to a sluggish Churcii to follow in the rear." The E7'anj;e/ist aho, made the followint; admission of the same facts r " Among all the earnest minded young men, who are at this moment leading in thought and action in America, we venture to sa\' that four- fifths are skeptical of the great historiial facts of Christianity. What is held as Christian doctrine by the churches claims none of their con- sideration, and there is among them a general distr;.st of the clergy, as aclass, and an utter disgust with tiie very aspect of modern Chris- tianity and of cluirch worship. This scepticism is not flippant; little is said about it. It is not a peculiarity alone of radicals and fanatics ; most of them are men of calm and even balance of mind, and belong to no class of ultraists. It is not worldly and selfish. Nay, the doubters lead in the bravest and most self-denying enterprises of the day." From a Church which has always opposed the education of the people, when she had the power, and exterminated or expatriated the best intellects under her jurisdiction, this talk of Freethinkers "re- plunging the world into the depths of barbarism" comes with a very bad grace from his Grace of Toronto. By this Church the Moriscoes were driven out of Spain — 100,000 of them — and this because they were the friends of progress, of art and science. Buckle, the histo- rian, tells us : — " When they were thrust out of Spain there was no one to fill their places; arts and manufactures either degenerated or were entirely lost, and immense regions of arable land were left unculti- vated ; • • whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled." The Jews also were expelled, as they, too, were in favor of knowledge and improvement, and this was sufficient cause for their expatriation. This relentless enemy — the Church— of all science, all progress in knowledge among the people, ruthlessly exterminated the best minds within its grasp for centuries. Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," vol. I, p. 1 7 1-2, says : — " During the same period the Holy Inquisition selected with extreme care the freest and boldest men in order to burn and imi)rison them. In Spain alone some of the best men, those who doubted and ques- tioned^and without doubting and questiohing there can be no pro- gress — were eliminated during three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year." Talk to us of barbarism and paganism ! A church which, from the time, nearly fifteen centuries ago, when she burnt the Alexandrian 1J2 REIM.Y TO LY.VCH. iLibraries and Museum— the intellectual legacies of centuries to the present time, has never yet called off her sleuth-hounds witli which she has always hunted down the sacred princ iplcs of liberty of thought and freedom of conscience ! A Church which from "the beginning of that unhappy contest," as Mosheim tells us, "between faith and reason, religion and philosophy, piety and genius, which increased in succeeding ages, and is prolonged even to our times with a violence which renders it extremely difficult to be brought to a conclusion," to this day, would hold the world in barbarous ignorance if its paraly/od hand could but avail against the resistless march of knowledge and truth ! Draper, in sjieaking of the condition of the jieople under Catholicity in the 14th century, thus pictures the civilizing (?) and elevating influences of that Holy Religion : — " There was no far reaching, no persistent i)lan to ameliorate the phy- sical condition of the nations. Nothing was done to favor their intel- lectual development, iiKked, on the contrary, it was the settled policy to keep them not merely illiterate, but ignorant. Century after centuiy passed away, and left the peasantry but little better than the cattle in the fields. ♦ * * Pestilences were permitted to stalk forth unchecked, or at best opposed only by mummeries. Bad food, wretched clothing, inadequate shelter, were suffered to i)roduce their result, and at the end of a thousand years the papulation of l^urope had not doubled." For centuries, and centuries, in the Western Empire, subsequent to the invasion of the barbarians, when the Church this Toronto prelate owes allegiance to, had absolute control, such was the dense ignorance that scarcely a layman could be found who could sign his own name. There was very little learning, and what little there was the clergy care- fully and jealously confined to themselves ; and as Hallam, the historian, tells us : — " A cloud of ignorance overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights, who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness." The same historian (Middle Ages, p, 460,) tells us : — " France reached her lowest point at the beginning of the eighth century, but England was, at that time, more respectable, and did not fall into complete degradation until the middle of the ninth. There could be nothing more deplorable than the state of Italy during the succeeding century. In almost every coun- cil the ignorance of the clergy forms a subject for reproach. It is as- serted by one held in 992 that scarcely a single person was to be found in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain, about the age of Charlemagne, could address a common letter of salutation to one another." Lecky, in his " History of Morals," vol. 2, p. 222, tells us that : '''''""^""^'TniiiiTiiiTiT'l'iiiiiiMiaCTi' IIKPI.V TO LVNCH. 8S " Mcdiiuval ('atholicity discouraged and su()|)rfsscd, in every way, secular studies," and further, that, " Not till the educ ation of Kur()i)c passed from tlie monasteries to the universities ; not until Mahomedan science and classical freethought and industrial independence broke the sce|)tre of the I'hurcli, did tlie intellectual revival of Europe commence." And, I would ask Archbishop Lynch, what was the condition of the B)zantine I-lmiiire during the thousand years or upwards of its exis- tence ? An emjiire under the sway of his Church, from its foundation by the first Christian emperor, Constantine — that exemplary Christian murderer who, because the Tagan priests refused him absolution for his enormities, hastened to the bosom of the Christian Church, whose priests he found more pliable, having little compunction or hesitancy about granting absolution to the new proselyte. What is the record of history touching this fi)mpire under the ;egis of Catholic Christianity? The histori;m Lecky thus giaphically sets forth its condition : — " The universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, without a single exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civiliza- tion has yet assumed. Though very cruel and very sensual, there have been times when cruelty assumed more ruthless, and sensuality more extravagant aspects, but there has been no other enduring »ivili/ation so absolutely destitute of all the forms, the elements, of greatness, and none to which the epithet mean may be so emphatically ap]jlied. Tiie Byzantine lMn|)ire was pre-eminently tlu age of treai her)'. Its vices were the vices of men who ceased to be brave without learning to be virtuous. * * * 'Phe history of the empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs and women, of poisonings, of con- spiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpetual fratricides." In speaking of the condition of the Western lunpire the .same author proceeds: — "A boundless intolerance of all divergence of o[)inion was united with an cipially boundless toleration of all falsehood and deliberate fraud, that could favor received opinions. Credulity being taught as a virtue, and all conclusions dictated by authority, a deadly torjjor sank upon the human mind, which for many centuries almost suspended its action, and was only broken by the scrutinizing, innovating and free-thinking habits that accompanied the rise of the industrial republics in Italy. Few men who are not either |)riests or monks would not have preferred to live in the bust days of the Athenian or of the Roman republics, in the age of Augustus, or in the age of the Antonines rather than in any j)eriod that el.ipsed between the triumph of Cliridianity and tJieJourtn'riih century.^' The same historian, whose accuracy Archbishop Lynch will scarcely attempt to impeach, thus judicially and impartially sums up the influen- ces of Catholic Christianity both in the Eastern and Western Empires during many centuries when it had the fullest sway : — c ru IIKIT.Y To I.VNCH. " When wc remember tliat in tlie Uy/antine Kmpire the renf)vatinn power ol" theolojiv was tried in a new capital, tree from I'aj^an tradilicjns, and for more than one thousand )ears unsubdued l)y barbarians, ami that in tlie west, the ('hurc h, for at least seven hundred years after the .sho<;ks of tlit invasion had subsldfd, exercised a control more absolute than any other moral or intellectual aj,'ency has ever attained, it will appear, I think, that the experiment was very sufficiently tried. It is easy to make a calalo^,Mie of the glaring,' vices of aiiti(|uity, and to con- trast them with the jnne niorality of (Christian writings; but, if we de- sire to form a just estimate of the reali/.ed improvement, we must com- pare the classi :al and ecclesiastical < ivili/aticjns as wholes, and must observe in each case not only the vices that were rei)ressed but also the degree and variety of positive excellence attained." Before the art of printing was discovered, the Church had less dit'ticulty in keeping the people in ignorance, hut after the invention of that boon to mankind she found herself ominously confronted with the tree of life from whii h the people would soon learn to pluck the fruit of knowledge. Hence the establishment, by Pope Paul IV,, about the middle of the sixteenth century, of the //u/tx E.\puij;atouus, whose functions, we are told, was "to examine books and manuscripts intended for publication, and to decide whether the peoi)le may be permitted to read them." This is what his (irace of St. Michael's Palace, in Toronto, i)roposes to do for the good (!atholics of that city — decide what they shall read and what they shall not read, as though they were ninnies and not able to dec ide that matter for themselves ! The fact is, however, that, in this priestly arrogance and assumi^tion, the Archbishop is consistent enough ; for, although such mediaeval tyranny is altogether inconsistent with the spirit of this age, and ludicrously out of place in iS8o, in the City of Toronto, it, neverthe- less, perfectly accords with the tenets and spirit as well as the antece- dents of.Jjis Church ; which, while it accuses I-'reethinkers of "barbar- ism," allows not an inch of latitude of private judgment in matters of religion, and tolerates no freedom of conscience : And what is this .but barbarism? All freedom of conscience was fiercely denounced by 'Gregory XVI. as insane folly, and the Archbishop o. Toronto reiterates this unsavory stigma on civilization. A.nd why shouldn't he? Theology never learns. The Church changes not. How can she when she is infallible? Vet an infallible Pope of an infallible Church, not long since, found himself, while encompassed with many difficulties, spiritual and temporal, to be about like other weak mortals in flesh and blood ; and, though infallible, remember, and with the power of miracles and all that, he succumbs and whiningly complains to a vulgar world that RKI't.Y TO I.VNt H. 'A^ he is " a prisoner in his own pala< c in Ronio I " And the hcrctica! and sceptical world — tlic "outside barbarians"— with a contemptuous leer, gape at the ^ueer spectacle of the *' \ iccgcreiU on K.irlh " of an all powerful (lod being obliged so lasily to siictumb to heresy— to a little temporal power. Such, however, is life — or rather the " mysteri- ous ways of providence," which " ways " always seem though, as Cromwell observed, to be on tli" side of the heaviest artillery, - not the artillery of heaven, but the base .irtillery of earth. Indeed, this worldly artillery — the artillery of science and civilizaticjn — has, in this nine- teenth century, been making such havoc with creeds, confessions, and dogmas, that the crowning dogma of all— this fundamental pillar of the Vatican, the dogma < f infallibility was, it woukl seem, fast becoming a dead do;^: ; when the Holy Catholic Church fmds it im- peratively incumbent u[)()n her to attempt a resuscitation. This hap- pened in Rome in '' annodomini" 1S70, at that great Kcumenical Coun- cil — that unicpie anachronism of the nineteenth ( entury. I know not whether that media-val assembly of Holy '■ Fathers in Cod " was hon- ored by the presence of his (Irace of St. Michael's I'alace, in Toronto, or not ; but, be that as it may, his reverence's entire loyalty t(j the notorious Encyclical and Syllabus of that Council is not to be cpies- tioned or doubted. The miniature Toronto /'//// of May' f;th, 1880, has the true Vatican ring of the big bull of the Council in Rome in 1870. It, too, denounced, with its usual, though hi\x\n\ci,'A, anat/tfnia, Atheism, Pantheism, Naturalism, Rationalism and every other ism that failed to scjuare with I'apal dogma. By the fulmination of that Sylla- bus the world learned among many other things, that " No one may interpret the Sacred Scriptures contrary to the sense in which they are interpreted by Holy Mother C!hurcli, to whom such inter])retation belongs." It was further decreed that "All the Chris- tian faithful are not only forbidden to defend, as legitimate conclusions of science, those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doc- trine of faith, especially when < ondemned by the Church, but are rather absolutely bound to hold them f(jr errors wearing the deceitful appearance of truth." As examples of the holy c:anons which were actually fulminated and promulgated by that Ecumenical Council in the latter part of this 19th century, here are a few : — " Who shall refuse to receive, for sacred and canonical, the books of Holy Scripture in their i itegrity, with all their parts, according as they were enunjerated by the Holy Council of Trent, or shall deny iliat or/.-ers, doi^s, and //ars /" Did Jiysia/tJer o\ anybody else ever hear such language from Jngersoll or any other Freethinker? Is it not "offensive to any sensible and right-minded man?" h)oes it not " repel all decent men ? " //jj'^/aw^/er admits that when Ingersoil "attacks dogmatic orthodoxy- he is in the right." AN'hat more does he attack ? This is exactly what he does attack, and Bystander admits that in so doing he is doing right, thus showing that he himself does not believe in dogmatic orthodoxy. Now, if the Christian's God, as described in the Bible, is included in " dogmatic orthodoxy '■' (and He surely must be) is Ingersoil blasphemous in attacking Him ? Surely not, according to Bystander himself. Bystander may say, however, that he does not mean to include the Christian's God in the "irrational and obsolete orthodoxy," against which he admits " IngersoU's arguments are really telling." But does Bystander h\m?,^\{ believe in the God of the Bible? From the tenor of his language he surely cannot. Does he believe in the God of whom the Bible itself gives the following description? (Tor want of time to refer to, and space to insert chapter and verse, they are not given, but every Bible reader will recognize the passages given as substantial!}" correct) : — "He burns with anger; his lips are full of indignation, and W\h. tongue as a devouring fire." " His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him." " The Lord awaketh as one out o f sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine." " Smoke came out of his nostrils, and lire out of his mouth, so that coals were kindled by it." " He had horns coming out of his hand." " Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. ' "The Lord shall roar from on high. He roareth from his habitation. He shall shout as they that tread the grapes." " He is a jealous God." " He stirred up jealousy."' " He was jealous to fury." " He rides uponhorscs." "The Lord is a man of war." " His anger will be accomplished, and h's fury rest upon them, and then he will be comforted.'" "His arrows shall be drunken with blood." " He is angry with the wicked every day." " A fire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn unto the lowest hell. I will heap mischief upon them ; I will spend my arrows upon them I will also send the teeth of beasts U])on them, and the poison of the ser|ients " • ' both the young man and tiie virgin, the suckling also, and the man of gray hairs." [What did the "suck- ling" do to merit this ?1 " He reserveth wrath for his enemies." " He- became angry and swore." " He cried and roared." Ilf 40 REPLY TO HYSTANDEH. 1 ■ 1 ' Does Bystander believe in a (iod like that? whom it is "blasphemy," it seems, for Ingersol to attack ! It is true there are good qualities and attributes ascribed to God by the Bible as well as bad ; but that does not affect the fact that these are ascribed to him ; while the co-existence of two diametrically opposite sets of attributes in the same Being is simply absurd. Why is it blasphemy to attack such a conception of God, any more than to attack any of the other Pagan gods of antiquity ? As he is represented in the Bible, He is certainly no better than they ; and Bystander himself would have little hesitancy in making an onslaught on the Pagan gods. When primitive Judaism and (Chris- tianity set up a (}od for i?//;- worship and adoration, and at the same time tells us, " by the book," that He commanded the cruel, fiendish, and indiscrimate murder of men, women, ai 'nnocent children, we beg to decline to worship, or adore, or believe ii. ; '■uch Being ; and we do not think it "blasphemy " to attack the false ' i ief and the false God. When we read in the " word of God " that the ..jrd commanded one of his prophets to diet on excrement ; that the Lord met Moses at a tavern and tried to kill him (see Exodus, 4, 24) ; that the sun and moon stood still; that it rained forty days and nights, and that nearly the whole world was drowned; that the first man — Adam — was made of clay, and Eve of a rib, about 6000 years ago; that the world was made in six days, and that vegetation flourished before there was any sun, — when we read of all thcsp wonderful things, we beg to be excused from believing them, and claim the right to ridicule them to our heart's con- tent. If this is "disrespect,"' or "insult," or an "ignoble spirit of irreverence," then we plead guilty to the charge, and are willing to abide by it. , ' We do not deny that there may be a God ; we only deny the exist- ence of si#^h a one as the Bible sets forth. We attack only the gods whom jjarbarous peoples have fashioned in thtir own imaginations and set up for our worship, and not any high or noble conception of a Deity. We fully admit the existence of a great and mysterious power or force in the universe which we cannot understand or comprehend. We believe with Spencer in the great Unknown and Unknoicable, and have no "attack" to make upon this power, no word of ridicule, no blasphemy ; but, like Tyndall, stand in its presence with reverence and awe, acknowledging our ignorance. While, however, acknowledging this unseen Power, we decline to anthropomorphise it — to call it a person or being, and invest it with REPLY TO m'STANDEU. 41 » -^ mental and moral functions similar to our own, differing only in degree not in kind. It is only the anthropomorphism we attack — only the superstitions, assumptions and dogmas. We only attack that which is incredible and absurd — that which " shocks reason." We believe in religion — the Religion of Humanity — :o do right — a religion of it'or^'s instead of faith and creeds, and B)itand(r himself admits that '' religion is carrying a weight which it cannot bear," and that, " unless the credi- ble can be separated from the incredible, the reasonable from that which shocks reason, there will be a total eclipse of faith." " The Cosmogony of Moses," says Bystander, "will, of course not bear the scrutiny of modern science ; few probably are now so bigoted as to maintain that it will." If it will not bear such scrutiny, is it blasphemy to attack it, or its author? for the God of the Bible is the alleged author of that Cosmogony, inspiring Moses or whoever wrote it. But -^jViVrt//f the following argument : Intelligence presupposes a greater intelligence, (lod has intelligence. Therefore, there must be an intelligence greater than God. Seeing the logical force of this, he ijuibbles thus ; '■ We do not say that God fias intelligence, but that God is wisdom in form and love in essence, and therefore the infinite source of all intelligence." This will not do, Mr. " Rationalist !" It is entirely too vague. Vou must either contend tor a personal or an impersonal God. {]ive us either Dei'-m or Pantheism, and not an incongruous mixture, and then we will knort on. what ground to meet you. If you mean that God is simply the ; g:^;re- gate, or even the essence, of all intelligence, all love, all good, why this is a mere abstraction, and even an Atheist might accept it; but if you are contending for anything like the Christian's God, as set forth in the Bible, you will have to alter your definitions very materially. As a specimen illustration of " Rationalist's" spiritual method of re- solving Scriptural difficulties I give below his version of the story of Elisha, the children, and the bears, under the "rubbing off" process. We, Freethinkers, he says, will not " object to the bears" when we un- derstand what the story means, and here is his elucidation, verbatim d literatim : — " Elisha represents the external or literal words of Holy Writ on which the mantle of spiritual truth still rests. Children represent affec- tions — don't fond mothers even yet call them ' little loves ?' — The . 1 o correspond to the opposite, and so evil loves which destroy obeuicnce to the external life of goodness, taught in, at least, some of the literal words of Scri|)ture, naturally mock at the baldness of Elisha. Baldness, since it refers to the head, and the head corresponds to thai union of will and intellect in man which rules, and is, the life, and ultimates in the very extreme of its very minute external, corresponds to the most i8 UKI'LY TO A HATIONAIJST. external of the will and thouf^ht of Klislia, who represents the literal nieaninj!; of S( ripture. So this in( ident means that evil loves could see no ultimate good to thfuntlvts in the doing of any good in a practical cvery-day way even where that was clearly enjoined, and rendered as beautiful externally as hair is, and therefore inocketl at it, or rather at what seemed to them the lack of it. Then the bears, which correspond to the animal passions of the animal man, came out of the woods — woods correspond to the natural perc eptions of natural truth in man — and utterly deslroyealdness," and re-read it, and see if you can make anything out of it. What the sentence does really mean is to me as profound a mystery as the incantations of a (lypsy thau- maturgist. It would be interesting to get " Rationalist" to try his hand at spiritualizing some of the following passages of Holy Writ : — " \\\ the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired," ^c. " And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him" (Moses) "and sought to kill liim." "1 have seen (iod face to face." Per Contra : " No man liath seen God at any time." " 1 am the Lord, I change not, I will not go back, neither will 1 repent." J\r Cortlra : *' And Clod repented of the evil that he said lie would do unto them, and he did it not." " Tliyre is no res|)ect of persons with Ood." J'er Contra : Jacob have I loved, and Ksau have I hated." " I am a jealous Ood, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children." /'uld seem to re(|iiirc the touch of "Rationalist's" spiritual interpretation wand. When the lilcra. meaning is " rulihed ofT," the o< cult, spiritual meanin;,.; will appear. .-\s .T sail) [ill- ot" " Rationalihl's" metaphysical philosophy I give tiic f<)lli)\ving : — " Will and love are identical. * Will or love is life. .A ni.nn cannot think unless he wills to think ; and he can only think that whii h he wills- only that and nothing mf)re. lie can only do what he will.s and thinks. There is no action whii ii is not the effec t of will and its thought. A man wills in order to think," etc. He also tells us that Ood gave man a will "as /nc as His own." Muter is spoken of as " mere dead inert matter." Is more evidence than this needed that '' Rationalist " is living in the past, and has utterly failed to gras]) modern thouLrht ? His philoso- phy is liad, hut his metaphysics is worse. Any man who at this day attempts to "refute" .Materialists should at least be somewhat ac<|iiainted with the results of modern thought and scienliiic research ; but "Rationalist" has apparently advanced no further than the occult Swedenborgian mysticism of the last > etitury. Further, to talk io-da> of '• dead inert matter," is to talk the language of an obsolete i)hiloso- phy of the past ; for modern science and phiU)sophy alike agree that matter is not "that mere etnpty C(tf<(h:ity which philosophers have pictured her to be. but the univer.sal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb." As Pope says : — " See thn/ this air, this ocean, and this earth, Ai.L ii'atter r/zz/VX- and bursting into birth.' E(iually absurd is this talk about " Free Will " and " Free Moral Agencv." These metaphysico-theological dogmas have melted in the light of tnental science, and are now as '• dead as a door nail," of which f.ict " Rationalist " will be convinced it he will take the trouble to look into Haniilion, Combe, Mill, lluckle, Lewes, Spencer. Huxley and 'I'yn- dall, and he will then, probably, write no more such nonsense as quo- ted above. It is not necessary, however, tor any observ.mt and thought- D 50 KEPLY TO A RATIONALIST. ful man to go to any authorities outside his own mind to be convinced of the fallacy of the " Free Will " dogma, for his own observation and reflection will do it. And " Rationalist" can have the same conviction without the aid of science or philosophy, — without even observation or reflection. Let him turn to his Bible, which he champions, and read it, and he will find abundant proof (such as it is) that man's will is not free. Let him n^ad the 8th, 9th and Jith Chapters of Romans. Let him then read Phil. 2, 13, " For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Then read Isaiah, 46, 9 10, " I am God and there is nony like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not jet done, saying, my council shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Now, I submit that if an omnipotent and omniscient God has " de- clared the end from the beginning," and ordered all " the things that are not yet done " (and you have his word for it here) how is it possible for mortal and finite man to do any thing contrary to the thing ordered, or accomplish any " end " but the one " declared from the beginning ? " Here you, who believe in God and the Bible, have his word for it that he has declared all things " from the beginning." Man then must do and think as God has declared, and can do nothing else, hence he is not /fee. The idea that " a man cannot think unless he wills to think " is too preposterous (laying the Bible aside) for any reasonable man to accept who is not a slave 'to creeds and dogmas. Let "Rationalist," after reading this sentence, stop reading, and assume a quiescent state (for of course his free will will enable him to do this) — a state of mental pass- ivity, as it were, — let him 7vill nothing for the time being, — and then see if thoughts of some kind do not spontaneously arise in his mind. And th i- REPLY TO RUAY. 53 « V Ingersoll of attacking a theology which, he tells us, is "opposed to all reason," and now "well nigh obsolete." I would simply say if it is " obsolete," it is the stock in trade of the Christian Church to- day. Take away from it this obsolete theology (which is " opposed to all reason,") and there is nothing left of Christianity worth speaking of; for the morality Christianity contains does not of right belong to it. It is Pagan. It has been appropriated hy Christianity, and is not origi- nal with it. There is not a single moral precept in the Bible, but was tr.ught before that book was written. (For proof of this, see Sir Wm. Jones, Max MuUer, Lord Amberly, and "Supernatural Religion.") Therefore, when you take away the dogmas of Christianity — its " obso- lete theology " — you take away Christianity itself to all intents and purposes. And hence the utter inconsistency and ? surdity of our opponents in taxing us with merely attacking a dead theology, when that dead theology is all there is of a religion which they defend and wish to perpetuate. Seeing, then, that the theology of Christianity is admittedly dead, why not give it up and come over to us ? for all you have left — the brotherhood of man — belongs to us : it is our RELIGION OF HUMANITY. As the only salient point, to my mind, in Mr. Bray's reply to Ingersoll is dealt with in the following letter, which 1 addressed to the Spectator, and which appeared in its columns, I have only space here to repro- duce that letter : — To the Editor of the Canadian Spectator : Sir, — In your issue of the loth instant, in a discourse in rei)ly to Col. Ingersoll, I find the following : — "The lecturer, who seemed to imagine that he understood everything else, was compelled to acknowledge that he did not understand why there should be so much hunger and pain and misery. Why, the world over, life should live upon life. When he has cast Jehovah out of the Universe, he is pained and i)uzzled to account for the presence of wrong and surrow. With (iod he cannot account for it; without God he cannot account for it. • • • If Col. Ingersoll, or any other of that school, can give me an intelligent theory of life, and satisfactory solution of the problem of the [tresence of evil and pain without God, I am prepared to consider it." Now, Sir, having the honor (or dishonor, as the case may be,) to be- long to that school, I venture to take up the gauntlet thus throv»n down. From our stand-point we are able, we think, to give an intelligent theory of these things ; and although it may not be wholly devoid of mystery, 54 REPLY TO HHAY. r i we claim it is less mysterious than the Christian theory. We claim that the Materialistic exi)Ianation of the Universe and its phenomena is more reasonable and less mysterious than the Theistic; and this is why we find ourselves compelled to adopt it and become Atheists. On the Materialistic hypothesis of development and evolution we are certainly not " puzzled to account for the presence of wrong and sorrow," how- ever much we may be pained at their fearful prevalence. It is only on the hypothesis of being under the governance of an omnipotent and infinitely benevolent Being that we are utterly unable to account for such a state of things. Although the ultimate tendency of the forces of the Universe seems to be towards a higher, an higher, and more perfect condition, not only for man, but all animai..^ and even plants, yet these forces are, as Science abundantly proves, utterly without mercy — without pity for man or any other animal. Therefore, on the evolution philoso- phy of things, we can reasonably predicate pain, sorrow, and wrong; and are not puzzled at their existence. It is only on the theory of a good God controlling the Universe that we stand dumb with confusion and wonderment in the presence of all this woe, pain, misery, and wrong with which the world is filled — this terrible " struggle for life," where the strong prey upon the weak, where animal eats animal, and man eats man ! The theologians have had upwards of two thousand years to reduce the Materialistic paradoxes of Epicurus on the existence of evil, but have they done so? if there be a God, and He is all-powerful. He could remove the surplus evil and pain from the world, and if He is all- good He uwuld remove it, is an argument which has never yet been answered by a Paley, a Butler, a Dawson, or any other Christian Theist or Bible apologist. I use the phrase "surplus evil and pain" for this reason : As a sort of apology for the rank malevolence abroad in the world*.' and as an argument for the existence of a beneficent God, Christian Theists tell us that pain is necessary as an antecedent to the proper enjoyment of pleasure ; that it is necessary to the growth and development of character; that the storm of the ocean is an essential pre-requisite to the adequate enjoyment of the subsequent calm ; that all smooth sailing would be monotonous and insipid. Now, we will admit this for the sake of the argument ; but there yel remains the mass of surplus evil to be accounted for, which is wholly unnecessary for such corrective and distributive purposes. It may, perhaps, be necessary thai the tempest toss the ship about on the bosom of the ocean in order that the living freight ma; have a keener appreciation of the succeeding J REPLY TO nUAY. 55 calm, and also to develop awe and sublimity in their breasts ; but to accomplish this it is scarcely to the purpose to send all to theljottom of the ocean 1 That we may have a proper relish for our food and a due appreciation of the blessings of a good appetite, it may be necessary that we feel the pangs of hunger and starvation occasionally ; but to give us this wholesome discipline it would seem hardly necessary that millions of human beings should actually be starved to death I Now, on the theory of inexorable /ait.>,* instead of a beneficetit Provi- dence, we are not surprised that a ship which is not strong enough to ride the storm should go to the bottom, even though five hundred bishops and clergymen be aboard supplicating an unknown Clod for succor. On the theory of inexorable and merciless law in which, we are fast bound, we are not " puzzled" that millions of human beings should starve to death when these laws or conditions of Nature are violated in over-population and a false political and social economy. Or when a Tay bridge goes down with its living freight under the pressure of train and tempest, the Atheist is neither surprised nor puzzled : but the Christian, who worships a benevolent (?) God and believes that not a hair falls from his head without His notice, can only look at such a malevolent horror in dumb silence and amazement — he has no explana- tion. Our theory of the presence of evil in the world is, therefore, at least rational ; but, is the Christian theory rational? Is it rational to suppose that all the pain, sorrow, and evil in the world have been caused by the puerile circumstance of a woman eating an apple ? This would be as monstrously unjust as it is irrational and absurd. As to the origin and maintenance of life " without God, "it is quite as comprehensible and rational without God as with one with the Christian conditions and (jualifications. An universe of matter containing the " promise anr" potency of all forms and ([ualities of life " is as intelli- gible and comprehensible as a God outside the Universe embodying the potency of all life. From the time that Lucretius declared that " Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the Gods," and Bruno that matter is the " universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb,"' down to Prof. Tyndall, who discerns in matter " the promise and potency of every form and quality of life," scientists have never been able to dis- cover the least intrusion of any creative power into the operations of * Materinlists, in using the ]ilirase " l.iw of \amrc',"iist' a impulrir exjuession, lint not in tlie popular sense as iiresupposing a law-giver, liy '•lawo! Nature" we simply mean natural sequence — the uniformity of Nature's fiperalions. »1 ( f i I • 56 REPLY TO BRAY. Nature and the afifivirs of this world, or the least trace of interference by any God or gods. In the primeval ages of ignorance and barbarism the gods were supposed to do everything, from the production of wind, rarn, tempest, thunder and lightning, earthquakes, &:c., down to dyspep sia and pototo-bugs. Science now explains all these things and a thousand others. Indeed, in modern philosophy there is no room for the gods in the Universe, and nothing left for them to do. And there cannot beany room beyond it for them, for "above Nature we cannot rise." The Materialistic theory (and to it we subscribe) is that there is but one existence, the Universe, and that it is eternal — without beginning or end — that the matter of the Universe never could have been created, for ex nihilo nihil fit, (from nothing nothing can come,) and that it con- tains within itself the potency adequate to the production of all pheno- mena. This we think to be more conceivable and intelligent than the Christian theory that there are two existences — God and the Universe • — and that there was a lime when there was but one existence, God, and that after an indefinite period of quiescence and " masterly inac- tivity" He finally created a Universe either out of Himself or out of nothing— either one of which propositions is philosophically absurd. And in either case, to say that God would be infinite would be equally absurd. Respectfully. ALLEN PRINGLE. Napanee, Ont., Aprfl 23, iSSo. If •.' \ THE OATH QUESTION. ( T C A N A D I A N F R E E T II I N K E li S . ) As this Pamphlet will be widely circulated throughout Canada ^especially Ontario), it will come into the hands of most Canadian Free- thinkers, and I have therefore thought this an opportune time to bring this question, in which we are all so deeply interested, before the Free- thinkers of Canada, and urge upon them the necessity of agitation for reform. The time has come, I think, for action in petitioning Parlia- ment to remove the serious and most unjust disabilities under which we, as a class, are now placed, and thus have equal rights extended to all citizens. As the law now stands we are deprived of our rights in the courts, and the ends of justice are often defeated, not only to our detriment but that of Christians themselves. If the presiding judge choose to adhere to the strict letter of the law the testimony of Athei.^ts is refused. It is very easy to see how the gravest injustice could be inflicted upon Freethinkers and Christians alike under this unjust law. A Freethinker may be the only witness to a case involving the interests of a Christian, or he may be the only witness for himself as against a Christian ; and by his not being eligible as a witness the ends of justice are defeated. Or an unscrupulous believer may claim that he is a Free- thinker to get rid of giving evidence altogether. It is true there seems to rest with the Judges a large amount of discretionary power as to whom they will or will not accept to give evidence ; and the majority, perhaps, of our Canadian Judges exhibit a commendable spirit of liberality in the matter of accepting the testimony of Freethinkers. But occasionally one is to be met with, too full of religion and bigotry to recognize our rights or extend any discretion in our favor. In the city of Toronto, a few months ago, the testimony of two respectable and intelligent witnesses was refused because they did not believe the dogmas 58 THE OATH gl'ESTION. of the popular religion.* As an offset to this, however, an Ottawa. Judge recently showed his fairness and liberality by allowing a Juryman Freethinker, who declined to take the oath, to make an affirmation. The Grand Juror referred to, Mr. John Law, of Ottawa, is described as a gentleman of " unimpeachable honor and probity," and hence his sim- ple affirmation being, as he stated, fully binding on his conscience, would, or certainly ought to, have more weight than the oaths of many witnesses (believers) who are taken into the witness box. The presiding Judge, doubtless, so regarded the matter, and therefore, in his discre- tion, magnanimously allowed Mr. Law to affirm. In England, under "The Evidence Amendment Act" of 1869,32 and 33 Vic, c. 68, s. 4, Atheists can make the following affirmation instead of taking the Christian oath, and the Court must allow all Freethinkers to do so who demand it : " I solemnly promise and declare that the evidence given by me to the Court, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." i \ We want a similar Act in Canada, and then Counsel will not be able as now to badger witnesses about " infidel belief," and turn the court into an inquisition; nor will a bigoted judge have it in his discretion to order Atheists down from the witness-box as not fit to give evidence. At almost every sitting of our courts it is demonstrated beyond a doubt that believers in the Bible, who take the oath on that Book, do not all tell the truth under oath. Every judge and lawyer in the land knows this, and all know it who have much to do in courts of law. The simple word or affirmation of an honest man, whether Christian or Infidel, is better than a thousand oaths of many believers in the Bible, who are without hesitation taken into the witness-box. Moreover, the Atheist in making the above affirmation under the Act referred to, is subject to the same penalties for perjury as the Christian is in taking the usual oath. There is, therefore, no good reason why we should not have a similar Act here, and it behooves us to begin to move towards its consummation Freethinkers are getting numerous in Canada, and they are, to say the least, as exemplary citizens, socially and morally,as theirChristian neighbors? Why then should they be longer denied equal rights with their Christian neighbors? In England they still * Since writing this I have lieen informed Ity one of the witnesses alluded to, that no blame can be fairl;- imputed to the presiding Judge in this case, as he felt com- pelled, against his sympathies, to carry out the unjust law. THE OATH I^IESTION. .W have a State Religion, yet the rights of Rationalists in this respect are conceded to them. Here we have no state religion, and yet we suffer under religious disabilities which are utterly out of keeping with the spirit of the age, and which are fast being swept away in every civilized country. The Bradlaugh imbroglio recently in the English House of Commons has had the effect of opening some people's eyes, especially those conservative Christians who are still afflicted with lingerings of that bigoted, intolerant, and persecuting spirit which formerly lighted the fires of Smithfleld, hung ([uakers, imprisoned so-called "blas- phemers," and violated civil contracts in the name of God. In the last election in England, a few months ago, Charles Bradlaugh, the eminent Atheist and Republican, was elected to the English House of Commons for the borough of Northampton, and in entering the House he claimed his right, instead of taking the Parliamentary oath, to affirm under the Act referred to above. The House at first refused, vacillated, appointed Committees, and vigorously debated the matter ; while the bigoted members at once proceeded to unbudget themselves in true Christian style against the " vermin" Atheist. Meanwhile the level- headed Atheist knew what he was about, and, as the secjuel showed, proved himself more than a match for the English House of Commons. Meanwhile also, the people of England — the working classes — were watching the whole business, and finally when Bradlaugh was refused both oath and affirmation, and the intention to keep the Atheist out of Parliament became manifest, they (the people) promptly came to the front. Just then it began to dawn on "the powers that be" that vox popuU, vox Dei had more truth than poetry in it. The people of Eng- land — the producers — (called "lower classes" by the "upper" «^«-pro- ducers) assembled in scores of thousands in indignation mass-meetings all over England, demanding the admission of Charles Bradlaugh (their best friend) to his rightful seat in the English House of Commons. The aforesaid "powers that be" took the alarm. Seeing that the " voice of the people" was even more jiotent than the "voice of God," they pru' dently bowed to its mandate. They perceived that no Clock Tower, or other tower in England would hold the workingman's friend even for the space of seven days. Bradlaugh must be released or the House of Brunswick might peradventure soon be in mourning — not, probably, for spilled blood, but for a crown, aye, a crown ! No wonder the English Government feared to see Charles Bradlaugh enter the House of Con> mons. He had impeached the House of Brunswick. And it was no " soft impeachment." No, but a terribly hard indictment ! Was it ever ' ! ' 60 THE OATH (iUKSTION. answered ? No, it was too true to answer. The only answer was from Lord Randolph Churchill in the House of Commons, and it was characteristic. This rabid monarchist, with much more Christian zeal than know- ledge or discretion, took Bradlaugh's " Impeachment of the House of Brunswick" and cast it vicionsly under his feet on the floor of the House of Commons. That was the way the " Impeachment" was answered ! Well, as Shakspeare says, " let the galled jades wince !" Hut the Atheist had his revenge ! They had put him in the Tower, but they very soon let him out. He had been somewhat accustomed to fighting the Eng- lish Government, having beaten them twice, and he feared not. He was imprisoned one day, but released the next. An Act was speedily passed giving more even than Bradlaugh at first demanded — giving every member who wishes in future, the right to affirm instead of taking the Christian Oath. Bradlaugh has accordingly made his affirmation as he at first demanded, and has taken his seat in the English House of Commons as M. P. for Northampton.* And now let every Freethinker throughout the civilized world rejoice, for this is a great victory for our cause ! The eloquent champion of our dearest rights has achieved a glorious victory on the very threshold of the English Parliament before he enters it ! Let us take courage ! The indomitable and invincible Iconoclast has now attained a position where his voice will be heard in * The press of CaiiadJi, with very few exceptions, Imve done Mr. Bradlaujjh a fjreat injustice in connection witli tiie oath ques'-ion, as tiiey liave (perhaps unintentionally) utterly misrepresented him. 'i'liey have charged that he " flaunted his Atheism before the House of Commons,'' that he at first refustd to take the oath on conscien- tious grounds and subsequently "swallowed his scruples" and ofifered to take the •oath ; and that, therefore, the Atheist is without conscience and without principle, ■sacrificing all for place. Now, this is all utterly untrue. He did not flaunt his Atheism before the House. He did not refuse to take the oath, but simply claimed to be allowed to affirm. The .Speaker having intimr.ted to Mr. Bradlaugh that if he desired to address the House in explanation of his claim he would ite permitted to do so, Mr. Ikadlaugh said, " I have repeatedly, for nine years past, made an altirmation in the highest courts of jurisdiction in thii- realm : 1 am ready to make such a declara- tion or aflhimation." And subsequently when Mr. Bradlaugh otTered to take the oath, it was after he had made an explanation that although a portion of it to him was a meaningless form, yet that the oath as a whole, if he look it would be binding on his conscience substantially the same as an affirmation. These are the facts, all taken from authentic official sources, and not from what bigoted and prejudiced cor- respondents have sent us across the ocean. My authority is the record of the pro- ceedings of the Parliamentary Committees on the Bradlaugh case, where the facts I have stated were distinctly brought out in evidence, to which source I beg to refer the newspapers of this country and call upon them to make the amende honorable by setting this matter right before their readers. ■ r TMK OATH QUESTION. 61 behalf of liberty and the rights of man the world over I He is called "coarse" by some over-cultured people, but his coarseness is of the kind the world needs, and therefore wy do not object to it The super- stitions, and errors, and wrongs, and oppressions still weighing down our fellow-men need bare-hande.l ("coarse") handling, without gloves, and Mradlaugh wears none of these, but fearlessly throws down the gauntlet to falsehood and oppression whenever and wherever found But I fear I am getting a little off the Oath Question here in nu en- thusiasm for Charles Hradlaugh, Member of I'arliamenl for Northamn- ton. ^ In conclusion, I beg to again urge upon my fellow Freethinkers throughout Canada the necessity of taking such action as will secure for us our legal rights in the Courts of this country. I trust that the petitions to Parliament for an Evidence Amendment Act, which we design ere long to put in circulation, may be numerously signed and diligently circulated by the liberal friends in the various places to which they will be sent. SEI.I3V, Lennox Co., Ont., July, i8So I ! ■ < -^ ) ?; iti — -m " It can do truth no service to Mink the hut. know i to all who hnve t!ie nius'. ordinary ;ic.|unintance with literary hi^to^\•, that a huge portion of tho noM'.'st and ii'ost vahiahU.' moral teaching has hecn ihe work, not onl\ ofiiirn \\ho did nor know, hut ot' iiujn who kririv and rejected, the (diriv.i,,n faith."- y". .S. Mill. ■ Tie historv of Christ Is ( oniained in records which exhihit conlni ions thai cannot he re( oik ikd. in!])erlLCtiMns that w.oidd Lireatly tract Iron) even adniittt-d human ( ompositic^n-;, and erroneous princi- ples ot" morahty that would hardly have lortnd a place in the most in- complete sv-iteiu of the philosophers ol' (Jreece and Rome."-— AV?'. Dr. Giles. '• That any human creature, he he peer or peasant, man or woman, pauper or millionaire, sliould he* visited with p.dns and penalties he- cause of nis or her spci'ulaiive opinion (»., a suhject w hereon hut few even of prol'essini; Christians are agreed, is a i)itter satire on our vaunted liberty. My J.ords. it is the spirit which lighted the martyr-fTTes of Snnihfield, and led to the stake gallant and i.ohle souls sucl: ns Hruno. It is a nohle (^•)mpanv \iju are phtcing me in, my Lords, and I shall thank vou for it." //'/r lie. " Thou shalt n)t calumniate. , •,. .; .. - "Thou shalt not speak of injuries. "'I'hou shalt not excite (]uarrels, by repeating the words of others. " Thou- shalt not hate." "^ — Moral Precepts from Buddhistic Sacred Books. '/.. " I'discern in matter * * tlic jjioniise and potency of all forms and (lualitirs of lile."- 7V«\ tar the greater part of said god^^fn- nnt in the piihhc, wiiellier ciinoni/ed by Pope or l^opulas, art mere dumb apises and be.iuiilul prize-oxen- nay, some of them, who ivc articul.ite lacuUy, are devils instead of (lods. A poor man that woiW save his soul ahve is reduced to tne sad necessity of sharply tryiiti^ //is ,i;'u/s, wiieiher they are divine was Carlyle. " These (iospels, so important to the Church, have not come to us in one undis[)ute(l form. We have no authorised copy of them in their original language, so thai we may know in what i)recise words they were originally written. 'I'he authorities Irom which we derive their sacred texi are various ancient copic^, wiitten by hand on parchment. Of the Gospels there are more than fp e hundred of these manusciipts of vari- ous ages, from the fourth century afier Christ to the fifteenth, when printing superseded manual writing fur jjublication of books. Of these five hundred and more, no two are in all points alike : probably in no two of the more ancient caw even a few consecutive venes be found in which all the words agree." Dean Al/orJ, "■\ff(m' to Study the Nt-^v Testament. " 1 find Armenian Christians who say that it is a sin to eat a bare; Greeks who affirm that the HoiyCrhost does not proceed from the Son; Nestgrians who deny that Mary is the mother of (jod : Latins who boast that in the extreme West the Ciiristians of Europe think quite contrary to those of Asia and Africa. ' 1 know that ten or twelve f Hs in F^urope anathematise each other; tl»e Musselmen disiain Christians, whom they nevertheless tolerate ; the Jews hold in equal execration the Christians and Mu-selmen; the Fire-worshippers despise them all ; tj>e remnant of the Sabeans will not eat with either of the other sects ; and the lirahmin c;uinot suffer either Sabeans, or Fire- worshippers, or Christians, or Musselmen, c- Jews. I have a hundred times wished thai Jesus ('hrist, in coming to be incarnated in Judea, had united all the sects under his laws. I have asked myself why, being (iod, he did not use the rights of his divinity; why, incoming to deliver us froni sin, he has left us in sin ; why, in coming to enlighten all men, he has left almost all men in darkness. I know 1 am nothing; i know that from the depth of noy nothingness I have no right to inter- rogate the Being of Beings ; i)ut 1 may, like Job, raise a voice of respectful sorrow from the bosom, of my misery." — Voltaire. V