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The Volcano Series.
THE MARTYRDOM
OF _
PERCY WHITCOMB,
I \:';t""
1 4 .‘;_%F '
SOCIALIST AND AGNOSTIC. ' "3
,'>.'.~v~g-- '~
#55
EDITED BY
ERWIN MCCALL (“Volcano”).
PREFATORY CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN I GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND THE AUTHOR. - *g"*'*.""-f ‘

Lounonz
WATTS & CO-, 17, JOHNSOWS COURT’ FLEET ST‘

Price Sixpence.
3”".
L.l‘-459“ 5*
van.’ ‘if:
TEXTS.

“ T /11': 2': 62;! a fragment--a/’r ! my 12' e z't.re{f 2': but a fra_;rmem' !”
-Paacv Wrrrrcoiun.

“ Thepassion for gain is everywhere sapping pure and generous feeling,
and everywhere raises up bitter foes against any reform that may threaten
to turn against a stream of wealth. I sometimes feel as if a great social
revolution were necessary to break up our present mercenary civiliza-
tion, in order that Christianity, now re elled by almost universal worldli-
ness, may come into new contact with the soul, and may reconstruct
society after its own pure and disinterested principles.”- ii/. :E.
C/ianm'ng. * IL W..-
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“ 0 I I 0 0 1'1‘. : " :
The mcreasmg connection between a minister and the communrty,..
while it liberalizesjthe mind and counteracts professional prejudices, has
a tendency to enslave him to opinion, to wear away the energy of
virtuous resolution, and to change him from an intrepid guardian of
virtue, and foe of sin, into a merely elegant and amiable companion.”
-ll- * ii-
“ Nothing has so stripped Christianity of its power as the polluting
touch of the politician, who has caused it to be preached to the lower
ranks, and to be professed by the higher, in order that the old polity
with its inveterate abuses may stand fast, and that the accumulation ,of
property in afew hands may be undisturbed. Religion taught for such
ends is among the worst foes of social progress.”——!6. .
-ll- -ll- ii-
“ The martyr who should try so to walk without deviation of any
sort, turning neither to the right nor to the left in the smallest par-
ticular, must accomplish his martyrdom prematurely on the pettiest side-
issues, and would never live at all to assert at the stake the great truth
which is the lode-star and goal of his existence.”—Grant .41/en.
* -it *-
“ There is no such thing as an independent dfiily press. We are all
slaves! You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you that
dares express an honest opinion. I am paid $150 per week for keeping
honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. The man who
would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would soon be out on the
street hunting for another job. The business of a journalist is to distort
the truth ; to lie outright ; to pervert ; to vilify ; to fawn at the feet of
Mamrnon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. ‘We
are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are intel-
lectual prostitutes, and our time, our talents, and our possibilities are all
property of other men.”—-Car;/'e::z'ans ofa New Yar1:joumalz'.rt.
' bl
\.‘ Q 0’ 41
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‘I
4 TEXTS.
“To indulge one’s instinctive and uncontrolled sense of justice and
right was not, he had found, permitted with impunity in an old civiliza-
tion like ours. It was necessary to act under an acquired and artificial
sense of the same, if you wished to enjoy an average share of comfort
and honour; and to let loving-kindness take care of itse1f.”—_/uda I/re
Obscure.
* -I ‘I
“ I would put a tongue in every one of the poor dumb mouths of the
unchampioned and unenlightened victims of the existing unsocial
régime. Once enlightened, they will be invincible. ”--Percy I/V/n'tcam6.
* * G
“ Who rescued me from slavery?
Thou ! thou, my soul, glowing
With holiest ﬁre l
, Yet didst thou, credulous,
Pour forth thy thanks to him
Who rlrmzbers above P”—Goet/re.
'I' * -I
"‘ Is it notthy piety itself that letteth thee no longer believe in a God?”
—Nr'etz.w/re.
i‘ I l‘
“ Nietzsche said, ‘ My greatest desire is to save all men and to make
them happy. But this can never be, for I and Nature are one. Unto
many life is a failure. These ought to see to it that they succeed better
in dying. It is cowardice that maketh them stick unto their branch.
Verily I am come that ye might have death and death more abundantly;
then shall ye have more abundant life. Only where there are graves
are' there resurrections.’ ”-A Bible jbr At)iez'.rt.r and Egoirtr (aide
announcement on cover).
I’ *
“They said, ‘ Master, this is a hard saying.’ But he replied, ‘ Have
you not been deceived long enough by soft sayings? All saviours, all
creators, are hard. The most careful ask to-day, How is man preserved ?
But I ask as the ﬁrst and only question, How is man surpassed? For
Beyond-man’s sake you must sacriﬁce yourselves, and your neighbours as
yourselves.’ ”--16. _
i ii *
“ Every act is a sacriﬁce—a sacriﬁce of that which we love less for that
which we love more."-—Nr'elzrc/ie.
PREFATORY CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND THE AUTHOR-
‘i":
29, Fitzroy Square, London, ll7;,_;;.~_
*3,
October zznd. F“;-.,
DEAR SIR,--I have read all the passages in yoffr MS. to
which you have called my attention. I do not know any
publisher who would be in the least likely to publish it for you.
As far as I can judge, the case is ingeniously argued and-
well-even eloquently--expressed ; but the whole book,
fundamentally, is pure folly; and I advise you to put it
by and write a sensible book. Let me explain what I
mean.
point of view of any system of thought or ethics, reduces
the world to absurdity or crime, then it is the system, and
not the world, which has been reduced to absurdity; and
the whole criticism, however ingenious, may safely be
discarded as idle. Unfortunately, most people persist in
believing that it is the world which is at fault, although happily
few of them elaborate their criticisms further than to grumble
at their vexations. Your Whitcomb is of no mortal use for
literary purposes except to ﬁgure as a character in the comedy‘
of the type‘ of “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ” of Moliére’s,
whom I recommend to your very careful consideration if you
desire a pleasant tutor in the art of seeing the humour of a
protest against the world being built the wrong way.
Yours very truly,
G BERNARD Snaw.
When a logical criticism of the world, from the
6 INTRODUCTION.
A ut/101’: Rqpéy to ./lfr. S/zaw.
q
DEAR SIR,—I am curious to learn how long it has been
recognised as the quintessence of Ibsenism and Shawism
that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
We expect a Fabian to afﬁrm that the world is built the
right way, but such a sentiment savou'rs of treason in an
lbs,_e_nite. Surely, the Great Prophet of Paradox is caught
napping ‘when he forgets the words of Nietzsche: “The
great-despisers are the great adorers ..... ..What I love in
marrfis. that he is a destruction and an ending.”
, I§'iim _not the ﬁrst man to conceive that a being upon
_;YRllfiS€ ears the still sad music of humanity should strike as
that of sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh, might
be called at least a tragic fool. “Hamlet” and “Jude
the Obscure” are works which I recommend to your very-
careful consideration if you desire an instructive tutor in the'_
art of seeing the tragedy of an effectual protest against the
world being built the wrong way.
There is, I admit, a great deal of pure folly in the world,
and it is for the most part without its appropriate label. I
agree with you that it is the business of a conscientious.
teacher to expose, to label, to impale, to kill folly, wherever
.53, ' it appears. I will not deny that Altruism is pure folly,
-i and that Percy Whitcomb was, in the ﬁrst instance, an
i ' Altruist. But beyond doubt many honest men and women
' _ are caught in the toils of Altruism. There is a ﬁtness
in the fact that Whitcomb began his reforming career as an
Altruist, and thus linked himself to his fellow-beings—and
to reformers especially—-by taking on himself their- com-
monest sin, their crowning stupidity. But on his death-bed
Percy Whitcomb embraces the Gospel of Egoism, and with
his last gasp of breath proclaims it to be the power of Truth
unto Salvation.
Percy Whitcomb becomes at last aconvert to Egoism. But
such steps are rarely attained by sudden ﬂight. Few indeed
of the apostles of the New Religion can boast that they are
-;_free-born. The pathway along which the great majority _of
earnest men and women must travel from the illusions of
Altruism to the impregnable rock of Egoism is a veritable
INTRODUCTION. - 7
Via D0/02-osa-ea journey which may seem comic to those
who have already made it ; certainly not so to those who have
yet to pass the pans altrzzrorum. .
In Percy Whitcomb are exempliﬁed some of the.stages
of this modern Pilgrim’s, Progress. His life will Eiid all
lovers of honesty, all haters of hypocrisy, towards their
natural and inevitable evolution. In his career we see
some of the steps by which a mind, seduced by a thousand
altruistic aberrations, ﬁghts its way to the invulnerable posi-
tion of an egoistic philosophy. , ._ -.,
I believe that a world is built the wrong way, th_e,m_ep {ind “’
women of which are not living in accordance with the _t§'é.iEli-
ings of Egoism. I ﬁrmly believe that Altruism is the ﬁiin
bulwark of our present iniquitous social system. .I:l§élieive
that the martyrdom of countless Jude Fawleys and (ihay;If
say?) Percy Whitcombs will go on until all the, expl6it§dj;‘»*‘-
embrace that Religion of Egoism of which you, l\/Ir:Sha\v,=a'ié“‘
the most brilliant living Professor, Apostle, and Expositor.
But may I add that I greatly fear that the suicides, the
martyrs, and the thousands of other uncomplaining victims of‘
that organized, endowed, and altruistic hypocrisy in the midst
of which we live are not suﬁiciently appreciated by you who
occupy the high position of the greatest living critic,,of thee
drama? I venture to think that if you could put yourself in the place of Jude Fawley, with all its limitations, you \vould"""‘
then observe that your comedy has become a somewhat ‘
tragic one. .Q:.;,._
‘ You confess that PercyWhitcomb has “argued” his “case” ;
“ingeniously,” and “even eloquently.” Hazlitt once said 3,“
that “Nothing is so logical as passion,” and it is the passionate -. ,-,-3.-:.,,,
,_
sincerity of Percy Whitcomb which has produced a martyr-
'
dom so artistically correct that you have mistaken it for a -
“literary” one. Having known Whitcomb in the ﬂesh, I
aﬂirm that I do not believe that his nobility could have been -.
surpassed by that of any character known to history. In
devotion to him and to the cause which he blessed with his i i. .
last words, I have signed, sealed, and delivered unto Death a
compact to give my days and nights to the Religion of
Egoism. Woe to me if I preach not this Gospel, and so‘
execute, as best I may, the last request of my comrade ! I
am not likely to prove false to this death-bed ordination for
the following suﬁicient reasons :-— "
8 INTRODUCTION.
W’
(1) I ever seek but one thing—my own happiness (even as
all men do).
(2) My greatest happiness is in making, or seeing, others
haPPY- _ _
(3) I am unalterably convmced that Egolsm can alone
confer happiness upon mankind.
My ability to give to the world the completer memorials
of Whitcomb’s life will depend upon the reception which the
public accords to this bro:/zure.
The question whether “Percy Whitcomb” is a tragedy or
a comedy is, by your leave, herewith submitted to the judg-
rrient of our comrades.
Yours truly,
ERWIN MCCALL.
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB,
socumsr AND AGNOSTIC.‘
CHAPTER 1.
AN AoNosT1c’s STRAIGHT TALKTO THE CLEROY: HUMAN
BLOOD ON THE ALTAR. ""
*2-
IN fulﬁlment of the dying request of my dear comrade,
Percy Whitcomb, I herewith give to the world these memo-
rials of his ill-starred life. Percy Whitcomb was a young
man who, at a very early age, by sheer power of able
and eloquent preaching, had attained to one of the most‘
lucrative posts in the Methodist body of the States.
Becoming an Agnostic and a Socialist, he resigned his very
proﬁtable position, and in pursuit of an honest occupation
was reduced to beggary and well-nigh starvation. So trans-
formed is he by a long course of suffering and privation that -'
he is unrecognised by his former colleagues in the ministry
when he chances to stroll into their midst for the purpose of
listening to their discussion of the topic, “The Church and
the Masses.” Here, maddened by certain jocose and insult-
ing references made by fat hypocrites to his brief career in
the ministry terminating in failure, Whitcomb-reveals his
identity to them, and in the following words exposes their
cowardly deliberations: “ My friends, allow me to say that
I was exceedingly ediﬁed, and even amused, by the various
contributions to the other subject which you have this day
considered, God. Let me lay down a principle which will
‘P
4
I0 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY \l/HITCOMB.
.\’
mi
. -E5-iio
reveal the utter mockery and worthlessness of your delibera-
tions on this subject. Assuming that you really desire to
know the truth, I will impart to you a principle which
removes a thousand difﬁculties besetting our path in the
search for truth. Fellow truth-seekers, when you hear a
man advocating any doctrine or maintaining any opinion,
do you ﬁrst ask yourselves, ‘What is the relation subsisting
between this doctrine and the salary received by the party
advocating it P’ And then, applying that logical principle
of exclusion which you all learned in the schools, ask this
other question: ‘Would this person receive this salary just
the same if he should perchance advocate an opposite
doctrine?’ Paraphrasing one of your favourite scholasti-
cisms, you will ﬁnd that my principle of the unconditioned
. - siilary will prove an invaluable help to you in the search for
‘ itruth.
For instance, to-day I had but to ask myself,
Would these eloquent eulogists of God be able to draw
the salary they now receive if they should chance to drop
. a word to the effect that they no longer accept the philo-
sophy of Theism——I had but to put this question seriously
to myself to perceive how farcical, how unworthy of a body
of any deliberative dignity, was your consideration of the
topic of Deity. It is in vain for you to say in reply that
you could command other means of support if you should
honestly come to reject Theism, for I know that, with scarcely
an exception, you can do nothing but preach. You have
learned it as you would learn a trade, and you know no
other.”
Continuing, Whitcomb said: “A year since I attended a
meeting of ministers who were considering the labour ques-
tion. All agreed that something was wrong. Only two or
. three would endorse the position that something should be
done. These two or three said: ‘We must change the
present conditions in such a gradual manner that vested
interests will scarcely feel it.’ Perhaps I used, on that
occasion, wholly unjustiﬁable language when I said to my
brother clergymen: ‘You meet to consider the mighty
problem of human misery; you confer as to your duties
towards conditions which ruthlessly grind down millions of
your brothers and sisters to dust and death, and the best of
'- you can reach no nobler resolution than this, that you will
in no wise endanger your positions of privilege for the
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB. 11
purpose of helping the poor---yes, the noblest of you secretly
chensh the dastardly hope that God will postpone the
proletariat’s day of vengeance till you have had your selﬁsh day
and have ceased to be.’ ‘ We must graa'ual{y get rid of the
vampires,’ said one of the speakers. Perhaps I waswrong in
saymg: ‘You see justice everywhere violated, but, noble
army of martyrs, you all suck the sweet and magnanimous
hope that the redress of outraged justice will be so slow that
none of the vampires of this generation, including yourselves,
shall be harmed; and you will use all the inﬂuence which
you possess to make that hope a reality. You ask. of God
only one thing, the opportunity to justify, in‘spite of
mﬁnite opportunities for usefulness, this damning epitaph-—
T rice.’ for Seventy Years, and [rwarz'a&{y Found Wa1ztz'2zg.i_i’,’.,
Here Whitcomb was interrupted by a dozen memli,th%'
rising to a point of order.
speech, free speech.” The chairman vainly attempting to
restore order, Whitcomb left the church. But on the
following day he again attempted to address the Congress,
Unable to make himself heard above the interruption's to
which he was subjected, he walked over to the reporters’
table, and, addressing his remarks to the representatives of
the press, he said: “These hypocrites think they can
suppress me, but we shall see.” He then took from his
inside coat-pocket, and placed on the reporters’ table, a
bulky manuscript, which was addressed to the manager of
the City Press Association. This act had the effect of
restoring comparative quietness in the church. Summon-
ing his hoarse voice for a last effort, Whitcomb spoke as
follows : “Hypocrites, you who have reduced the practice of
selﬁshness and cowardice to a complete science, do you not"
know that your eternal and hypocritical pratings sicken all.;‘_
That self-sacriﬁce which you assume to‘
honest souls?
worship I exemplify before you. You must know, you do
know, that, by your heartless hypocrisies and shameless
subterfuges, by your marble-hearted indifference to the cry
of the submerged section of the race, you cause streams of’
blood, oceans of tears, to ﬂow in every land. You know by
what diabolical arts and evasions you have thus far escaped-
your just share of responsibility for these wrongs. My blood
you shall not escape.
blood alone which shall stain your altars; it is equally the
-
or
Other members cried f‘EreEt?i-
I have sworn it. But it is not my.'.-.- ..
12 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB.
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blood of the millions at whose slaughter you connive. This
blood you take, and this blood shall rest upon your heads.”
In less time than it takes to tell it, Whitcomb mounted the
pulpit platform, drew from his outside left coat-pocket a
small revolver, and, standing by the altar, he put a bullet
in his breast. The subsequent proceedings were in the
hands of the surgeons and police, who were immediately
summoned. Whitcomb was removed, in an unconscious
state, to the City Hospital, where he now lies at the point of
dfepth. A young lady, Miss ——-, to whom Whitcomb was
fcirmerly betrothed, was in the church at the time of the
tragedy, and, fainting at the gory sight, was borne to her
hotel- in an unconscious state. We understand that the
doctor gives no hope of Whitcomb’s recovery.
, ' The following is the letter handed by Whitcomb to the
"- reporters a moment before his attempted suicide :--
“ To 2‘/ze [Manager qf 2‘/ze C ity Press Assocz'atz'on of C/zicago.
“ DEAR S1R,—-Yesterday I was trying to speak what seemed
to me the truth. The members of a Christian Conference
would not permit me to speak. After leaving the Con-
ference I pawned what books I had and a watch left me by
my father. I got from the pawnbrokers only a little over
four dollars. I then committed to paper the substance of
the remarks I had intended to make at the Conference, my
1 intention being to print the manuscript as a pamphlet and
-F‘-sgive it to each member of the Conference. But the printers
demanded more money than I had, and they were inexorable.
. My God! how it maddened me to see how all men and all
t_h_ings conspired to suppress the truth. In my despair I
once more became a believer, in speech at least. ‘God
needs help,’ thought I ; ‘he is chained, Prometheus-like, to
that adamantine rock—-the human heart.’ I was over-
whelmed with pity for Omnipotence, and I sobbed myself to
sleep with the piteous question, ‘Will not some one help
God? Almighty God, cannot I help you?’
“And then I had an idea, an inspiration, so beautiful, so
majestic, so divine, that it soothed my weary brain with an
'~. inelfable peace, and for the ﬁrst time in months I slept as
,,..*.-‘.1’ -peacefully as a babe under its mother’s tenderest caressing.
“ God spoke to me in a dream, saying: ‘Thou art a man,
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB. 13
and, being such, thou canst not see the spirit of the pawn-
broker triumph over the spirit of truth. Very well, thou
dost not need to see it. Napoleon Bonaparte sacriﬁced
millions of lives for a vulgar ambition of personal dominion.
Is there no one on earth to-day willing to sacriﬁce one life
for the noble ambition of proclaiming the truth? There
was a time when to state this question was to answer it. Is
that time forever past?’
“ I awoke from my dream with the ‘ Everlasting No ’ upon
my lips. ‘Pawnbrokers! Pawnbrokers! Maledetta! l\’Iale'-L
detta 1’ I cried. ‘ I have something as powerful as your
greasy cheques and your omnipotent gold. I will blow_ o_ut
my brains at the base of the altar of hypocrisy, and then will‘a
whole world, and not merely an obscure assembly of traitors,
listen to the truth. Shall the truth be cheapened? Must‘ _
not “the same inexorable price be paid for the same great
purchase”? Hath the Jew corrupted me that I, a man,
capable of self-sacriﬁce, stand “jewing” with God on the
price of truth? Alas, sirs, she is cheap at the cost of a
million men of the existent types.’ After all, such a death
is an act of the purest egoism, since the proclamation of the
truth is the highest joy_ I know.
“ I leave for the use of the press the enclosed address to
the Church Congress. In my room will be found certain
autobiographical fragments, which I desire to be given to my
friend, Erwin McCall.
“PERCY WHITCOMB.”
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CHAPTER II.
MY GOD! MY GOD! WHY Hasr THOU FORSAKEN ME?
PERCY WHITCOMD’S unspoken address to a Church Congress
at"Ghicago consists of three sections, the ﬁrst of which is
entitled “ My God! My God! Why Hast Thou Forsaken
Me P” We publish the following extract from it :--
35"“ ' “-_GEN'I“LE1\[BN,—-Last week I received a letter from one of
your number who wrote to persuade me to return to the
ministry. His argument was that the hypocrisy involved
was justiﬁable. He closed his letter with the words, ‘Come
and be a martyr.’
“Ah, little did he dream that for three months I had tasted
meat but once, and that my daily portion was two or three
cents’ worth of half-rotted bananas, or, in failure of that, such
alms as beggars receive. ‘ Come and be a martyr ’—
indeed ; and single tickets to the banquet of the martyrs
yesterday cost three dollars each. Look on that picture, and
then look on this--a late entry in my diary:
“ September 7th.—Eat nothing to-day.
“September 9th.——Wandered out to the country, and found
some berries to eat. Brought back enough for another day.
.,*,-’_$*i“ September I 1th.--Did not have anything to eat to-day,
but went to church and heard a thrilling discourse by
the Bishop on ‘ Spiritual Hunger,’ which he thinks far more
‘ painful than any physical hunger could possibly be. His
text was, ‘ Man cannot live by bread alone.’ Of course, as
his salary is only about seven thousand dollars a year, he
knows whereof he speaks. On this subject I would like to
have the opinion of Paley, who was ‘too poor to keep a
conscience.’ Perhaps the Bishop is too rich to keep one.
“September r2th.—-I ﬁnd ten cents in the streets and fare
sumptuously to-day—pay ﬁve cents for a small steak, two
cents for a piece of pie, and three cents for a cup of coffee.
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB. 15
“Followers of Christ, you honoured me with your opinion
of God. As a pleasing variation, allow me to declare to you
what a man for whom a certain theory about God is no
longer the bread of life, has come to think on this sub'ect.
I can make my position plainer if I should repeat a story
which was related by one of the speakers at your Congress.
It is that of the street arab, who was taken, mortally
wounded, to a hospital. Desiring to pray and not knowing
how, he was told by his religious attendant that, if he would
hold up his hand at prayers, God would see and count it-
just the same. So the boy held up his hand till he could
do so no longer, and then the little fellow-sufferer in,‘ the
next berth propped it up with his pillow, and, thus testifying
to his faith, he was found dead. The lady who related this
story to you alluded to this ‘faith so absolute and pitiful,’
My friends, when you go to the bottom of this subject=.I'-
I!
think you will ﬁnd that all such absolute faith in Deity is
pitiful. Yes, you will ﬁnd that any faith, however slight, in
any power outside of human agency is pathetic enough, and
that an absolute faith in such a power is incomparably the
most pitiful and ruinous thing in all the vast compass of
mortal disillusionment.
“You speak of ‘God the Supreme Consoler’---Reason
teaches us to say ‘ God the Supreme Betrayer.’
“If Desdemona had really played the Moor false, you
would agree with me that his absolute faith in her were
pitiful indeed. Now, such an absolute faith Desdemona
QM-g_
seems to have placed in Deity, who surely played her false. ;
In vain did she call on ‘mercy in the pitying heavens.’ In
her last extremity of anguish, in her insupportable and _ ;-.‘
heavy hour, God forsook her absolutely, completely. -.In_"
the hour of supreme trial he no less basely betrayed
Savonarola, Bruno, Brutus, Jesus, and all the martyrs who,
giving to truth and to humanity the last full measure of pi
devotion, have, in the pitiless darkness of dungeons, shed
their unperceived and -unappreciated tears. Always has God
betrayed the hearts that have loved him most unreservedly,
and the baseness of the betrayal seems always to be in
direct proportion to the trust reposed in him. Brutus
proclaimed the death of virtue from the tomb, and Jesus, ~ '
out of the dark, unfathomed depths Of his uncompanioned
misery, cried out, ‘ My God ! My God ! Why hast thou for-
1:‘:-
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16 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY \VHlTCOMB.
saken me ?’ Was the God so vainly invoked by Desdemona
and Savonarola, that God of which Brutus andJesus despaired,
lacking' in power or'in love? Well, it matters not, for, lacking
either quality, he is no longer God. What is that God worth
whohas thus forsaken the faithful of every age; who surveys,
unmoved and unmoving, the holy heroisms of martyred men
and women; who, like Peter, denies the just and earnest;
who hides when danger is near; who skulks in the-face of
-‘’=‘ the foe; who has no power, or else no inclination, to shield
,, s-the honest and the virtuous? Surely, in this practical age,
which has claimed that it subjects the most hoary heirlooms
of_,the past to utilitarian tests, men will no longer tolerate,
even for rhetorical purposes, this Divine Impotence, this
acctrrsed ﬁgment of fear, which, born in the aboriginal
_ _arkness of the race, has been sustained through the
btiéntirries by all the artiﬁces which knaves, for their own
fattening, could practise upon human cowardice and
imbecility.
“I hope I have not shocked you, for I have but just
reached my chief indictment against the Divine administra-
' tion of earthly affairs. Let us go to that hour in which
Siebel, reluctantly revealing to Valentine that his sister had
been ruined, exclaimed: ‘ O God, in thy mercy, befriend an
erring child.’ ‘Yet this is what God never has done. At
this very minute, my friends, while you may perhaps be lost
-5‘ in amazing contemplation of God’s unutterable goodness,
3,.-, .1 thousands of young, tender girls, in every one of our great
Christian cities, and under the shadow of our great_Christian
"I cathedrals, are being lured to irreversible, eternal ruin. Aye,
_;-.3; -'?<.',_ in those great cities wherein the Arch-episcopal representa-
"’43‘I<_,‘l;' I; _. gtiyes of the carpenter of Nazareth live in imperial splendour,
J _,=hi1ndreds of mothers, for the bread that pays the rental to
-113 "I the ‘churches of the Blessed Redeemer’ and saves from
'-‘Y‘.“r.eviction and starvation, hawk their own daughters’ virtue
"' on the street. Procurers and procuresses, by the thousands,
P ' ' drug their victims to a swift damnation, with less hesitation
than they would exhibit in killing a chicken.
“Why does God connive at the destruction of these inno-
cents? What are the terms of this compact between
-','-;,-‘T’ omniscience and Concupiscence? Ah! we are told that
God’s object and justiﬁcation herein is this: he desires to
impart strength and self-sufficiency to these poor girls (in
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY \VHITCOMB. 17
order, no doubt, that they may learn to dispense with Deity);
but those who tell us this inform us also, in the same
breath, that the souls of these wretches and wrecks are
everlastingly ruined. Wearying and preposterous apologists
for Divine Incompetency, take, oh, take your Cruel Hypocrisy
out of the heavens, for they can never smile brightly above
us until the Eternal Juggler with human happiness, the Divine
Juggernaut for ever crushing humanity under its wheels, is
banished thence evermore.
“ DO you not think that, if God had any power, and also _
had a human heart, he would interpose to stop this infernal . '
panorama—to stop the payment of . this ghastly tribpte,
which hell unchallenged collects, not annually but unce'aIs-
ingly, out of the most beautiful, the most trusting, the
weakest, the most helpless, the most defenceless of earth_’s_H
inhabitants? But, for power to rescue them from their -fate',';_"
and for pity to lessen the bitterness of their fall, these
miserable sacriﬁces on the altar of lust might as well pray:
to Mephistopheles himself as to any God that we know of.
“ Nevertheless, in the midst of these unquenchable ﬂames
of hell, the good Christian ﬁnds abundant evidence of the -
good God’s existence. I will give you an illustration of
such a sublime faith. I quote this from yesterday’s paper,
in which a reporter describes a visit to the queenly apart-
ments of a great singer, who is recognised by Christian
souls, I am informed, as the very perfection of Christian
character :— . '1.
3: If
-4
l‘,
“When Mme. stepped into her apartments at the Auditorium last
evening, she found ample evidence that her friends in Chicago had not
forgotten her. The rooms had been converted into perfect bowers of -r. ’-' superb ﬂowers. Every shelf and table had its perfumed burden. It ‘:0 U f, was a pleasant surprise, and made an impression upon the great artist._-;"
‘ Truly, I am the happiest woman alive,’ she said, in answer to the ,_ greeting of the reporter.
“ ‘ ‘Nhy is that ?’-with a little laugh. “Just look at those flowers, -'-" -,6" ‘ if
and find it in your heart, if you can, to ask me such a question again. '
Is it not enough to make me happy? So many kind friends. It is
three years since I was here before, and you see they remember me.
Ah, this is a good world after all ! Everyone is so kind to me, so very
kind ;’ and Mme. absently pulled the leaves from a great rose
and watched them as they sank in circles to the floor.


“Here is the religion of your contemporary Christianity.
Every one is so very kind to me, therefore God exists and God
18 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY IVHITCOMB.
is good. Now at last we ﬁnd the long-looked-for impregnable
rock of Holy Scripture ; now we perceive the profound and
adamantine doctrine upon which all the theologies, theo-
gonies, and theodicies may safely rest; now we recognise
the‘ sublime religious principle which shall utterly and ﬁnally
confound all atheism and scepticism, of whatsoever land or
clime ; and this is that principle : ‘ I am in possession of every
luxury; I personally have never known a want or woe ; there-
1’; fore God exists and is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving.’
“Could human selﬁshness and heartlessness descend to
, I deeper and more damnable abysses of degradation than in
such a statement of faith? Bah! I spit upon such a
religion ! I spit upon its Deity!”
#-
J r
I I
et-
|R-‘
CHAPTER III.
on
NOT A GOD-FORSAREN MAN, BUT A MAN-FORSAKEN GOD. "
THE second section of Percy Whitcomb’s unspoken address
is entitled “N Ot a God-forsaken Man, but a Man-fors‘_aken
God ,” and is as follows :-
“Mv FORMER BRETI-IREN IN THE IVIINISTRY,-——-{I rim,
aware that in your pulprts you claim to present a gospel Of
glad tidings. The gladness of your gospel'is ever emphasized, '
and the question of its truth or falsity seems to be a wholly
minor consideration. I show you a more excellent way-1
present to you the true tidings of Agnosticism; whether they
be glad or otherwise, no matter. Said your most dis-
tinguished apologist, Bishop Butler: ‘Things are what they
are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be;
why, then, should we desire to be deceived P’ In other words,
he who will accept tidings merely because they are glad,
merely because they please him, is, in the opinion of the
Bishop, a very unwise person.
behalf of the true gospel of Agnosticism, or Materialism, if
you please—-that gospel which seeks to know, and to have. ' '
others to know, things as they are, be the consequences
what they may to personal complacency, individual egotisrn,
and all the effeminate hysteria and irrational ecstasies of
religion-sick women and children. My heart, outraged and
betrayed by its trust in Deity, no longer cries out, in
pathetic impotence, ‘My God! My God! Why hast thou
forsaken us P’ but my mind, conquering the aboriginal
barbarism and fear which have so long domineered and
degraded it, perceives that God has never forsaken man,
because he has never done a single thing for man, and it
reads on every hand the evidence that enlightened man at ‘
last forsakes God, and hunts this ineffable infamy out of his
In effect the Bishop.“l-
discredits a gospel of sheer complacency, and argues in
G-Q '
20 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB.
heart and out of his brain. Do you want a vivid picturing
of this fact, that the most advanced of earth have already
forsaken God? Come with me to a colony wherein we ﬁnd,
in closer proximity than they are ever elsewhere seen, the
highest, so-called, and the lowest of earth-—an ocean
steamer. In such a colony you may witness also the
extremes of religion and inﬁdelity. I once looked into one
. of those rooms in the steerage, where, amid indescribable
'=ﬁlth and rags, and in an atmosphere never changed for
weeks at a time, human wretches are crowded together
more compactly placed than they would lie in contiguous
coffins; I there saw men covered with vermin, praying to
God in thanksgiving for his amazing mercies. I then went to
.the saloon, where I saw men in broad-cloth and women in silks
satins, who proclaimed by every feature of their person-
._ ality their reliance upon human helps and agencies alone.
But I am told that it is the last atrocity of brutality to seek
to rob the poor man of his religion. Even Renan and
,~‘.','- Rousseau, in moments of inexplicable apostacy, are found
telling us that when they sit in some great cathedral-—
monstrous monument of injustice though it is—-they yield
themselves to the serene peace of the spot and exclaim:
‘Truly we do wrong to disturb the solaces which poor
working men and women ﬁnd here, for these are their only
comforts in life.’ And both of these so-called apostles of
humanity seem quite willing to acquiesce in a state of things
"f,:,.ir'hich leaves the working man, and his descendants to the
‘} remotest generatron, without any solaces in life other than
6- 1
Q)‘;
the musty and moth-eaten mutterings and the ten-thousand-
"-fold-discredited promises of a priest.
‘-1"“ ‘Cast thy burden on the Lord and trust his constant
.*~-' - ca're’—-this is a sentiment which I ﬁnd in the poorest homes
+' . only, in poor farms and pauper asylums; but I do not ﬁnd
P,‘ ',
'5 .
2.
,,"~.l.‘-‘ institutions, on the walls of our congresses and courts of
“T justice, or even in the homes of the great and wealthy
families of earth. I ﬁnd this sublime trust in the super-
Lhuman only among the poor, the ignorant, the neglected;
among those who have fallen hopelessly behind in life’s
_ struggle ; among the members of salvation armies ; among the
‘ betrayed, the lost, the disinherited ; among those who, having
trusted God, have now, as a consequence, become the
5 r
P
i-_-,. it on the walls of large and successful and powerful-
\
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB. 21
pauper wards of those who have looked after this world’s
goods
“I arraign the Christian Church as the chief culprit in
this long-sustained and impious conspiracy against the
happiness of the human race. She is a perfect representa-
tive of the Divine Inactivity, the Eternal Apology—aye, she
has perfectly mastered the art of doing nothing while teach-
ing the people to say: ‘Thy will, not mine, be done, for
thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.
and ever, amen.’ I charge the Church with the propagation
of principles which utterly destroy intellectual rectitude and
moral responsibility. What is the black catalogue of her
crimes? She presumes to abolish, as by magic, all‘ the
retributions and compensations of the physical and moral
world as reason perceives them, and substitutes in their
stead factitious and ﬁctitious penalties and rewards-‘—over'
which, of course, she has exclusive and absolute control-- ‘
placed in other, and for what we know, imaginary worlds.
By her unscrupulous jugglery with the laws of nature; by ~ .
her mountebank advertisements offering to violate the laws
of the universe, or suspend their operations, for a dollar a
year; by her infamous assurances, extended to weak and
emotional natures, that a condition of mental degradation,
a suspension of reason, an act of faith, will wipe out the
penalties of all misconduct--by these and countless other
acts equally infamous the sum-total of her malign inﬂuences ..._ is spent towards the destruction of all mental wholeness and "
all moral responsibility—-two factors equally essential to the’. Q
welfare of the race.
“If you ask me for the inﬁnite source of these inﬁnite
4
I_ p
- ,1
m-,
woes, I assure you that it is the belief in God. I but echo
‘the sentiments of the high priest of lrberty when I say;
‘Talk not to me of religion, for three thousand years of bitter experience prove to me that he who broaches this‘ _." ’
subject to me has designs upon my conscience or upon my 2, ,." ',
purse.’ And I quote another proven apostle of humanity 11..
when I say, ‘If there is a God, we [must destroy Him,’ for
the essence of divinity is authority, and authority necessi-
tates slavery. So I have said to myself: ‘I will test this
Supreme Being; I will, in the name of Humanity, brand
him as the guilty author of all the inhumanities and
iniquities which ﬂourish and fatten under the shelter of his
22 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB.
indifferent omnipotence.’ I have invoked nameless ana-
themas upon the Almighty God of the Universe; I have
branded him as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Tyrant of
Tyrants, Tsar of Tsars. I have exhausted my imagination
in the invention of still more unutterable and audacious
impieties, more damning indictments and more insolent
apostrophes to the Divine character. I have pursued my
assaults upon Deity on condemned and rotten cattleships,
hundreds of miles from shore, where the Supreme Majesty
and the Inﬁnite Mind could have stricken my blasphemous
tongue with the silence of eternal death, and buried my
accujrsed body under a thousand fathoms of avenging billows.
I have yearned for such a visitation of inﬁnite power more
_ than, any royal pretender ever yearned for his throne, that
_ sothe eternal enigma might be solved and men would know
that God is. -It may be that my impiety must yet expiate
its ciimes in some frightful inﬂiction of divine wrath ; but I
-‘court this martyrdom with quenchless enthusiasm. Yes,
“ gladly would I give my body to be burned, I would submit
tcf extermination with joy, if only the truth might be known,
and we could feel some certainty respecting that which one
hundred generations of hired comedians and Christian
sciphists have failed to afford any evidence of whatever-—
namely, the existence and usefulness of Deity. Vergniaud-
like, I can but cry: ‘ Let my name sink into an immortality
of oblivion ; let my fame perish utterly from the recollection
-(of men ; let my body be burned, quartered, or sawn asunder;
but let humanity be free, free from all superstition and from
all misconception.’
“ But till I am thus sacriﬁced upon the altar of offended
Divinity, I shall continue to declare the eternal and irre-
concilable enmity between religion and progress. By my
" last act I would unmask the divine traitor to humanity, and
.--reveal to the people that the Christian Church is their
greatest enemy. Would that I could draw a veil over the
victim of Calvary; but, alas, the blood of that martyr has
been the seed of too many oppressions and hypocrisies.
-Yes, under the shadow of the cross an unreckoned host of
hypocrites and idlers have escaped from the heat and the
brunt-of the battle of life. In the name of him who had
not where to lay his head the robbers have bled the people
at their pleasure, and to-day, even, millions of dollars are
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB. 23
paid as tribute to these unchallenged exploiters of the
masses. I perceive at last that Bakounine was right when
he called Jesus a deceiver of the people. Self-deceived by
his own love and compassion he may have been ; neverthe-
less, he remains the arch-enemy and deceiver of the people.
He deceived the people, betrayed their interests, and pre-
pared them for centuries of oppression, servitude, and
damnable injustice when he adjured them to rest content,
meek and unaspiring, in their wrongs and poverty. He
showed himself the true friend of the rich, the powerful,
and the unscrupulous, when he gave to them the tyrant-club
of superstition; that club which has ever been used to-
Cudgel the people into uncomplaining servitude; that Club
which has robbed the people not of the substance merely,
but of the very hope for, and aspiration towards, equity and ‘
peace; that accursed weapon of superstition and fear which,
backed by the perverted use of the most tremendous
emotions of the human heart, has become, in the name of
God and Christianity, an incomparable instrument of
oppression and cruelty, an unrebuked and ruthless asses‘-
sinator of man’s liberty and happiness.”
CHAPTER IV.
OUR MODERN PROFITS: A CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCH.
THE third and last section of Whitcomb’s address is as
follows :-
“"Yes, our modern prophets—-I pray you will pardon my
5-' adoption of the phonetic system in the title of this chapter;
1t is‘ a revision, the propriety of which will stand un-
-challenged.
“Modern proﬁts, you desire to know the truth; I will
help you ﬁnd that truth. There lies before me a copy of
the Chicago jlforrzzizg Post, in which appears an interview
with Rev. , who resigned a pastorate in this city
some time ago, with the intentron, it was understood,
of starting a new rehgrous socrety in your midst. To a

committee, who waited upon this clergyman with reference
to his intention, ‘he said that he would never again take
charge of a church of the ordinary sort.’ The paper adds:
‘. ‘ He was pressed to explain what he meant by that; and he
went on to say that, as he was independent of salary, he
could follow his beliefs entirely, and that he fundamentally
disapproved of a church in which all the income goes to
expenses, minister’s salary, music, and like expenditure. He
said that when he could get enough people who felt as he
felt, about the true scope of a church, he was going to
organize one after the manner of the early Christian Church,
in which the minister was not a salaried officer, but merely
the leader of the congregation. All the revenues of the
church should go, he said, for charitable, humanitarian
work. The friends who were calling upon him exclaimed
emphatically that that was exactly the idea they would best
like to carry out. Two meetings were held, promptly, at
the house of , and the interest shown in the enter-
prise and the number of prominent names pledged to

THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMIL / 25
it left the project no longer in doubt. One of the most
beautiful halls in Chicago is hall. It is practically
certain that it will be taken for regular services.’
“Some interesting questions would, I should think,
suggest themselves to every reader of this interview. Does
this clergyman mean to confess that he has never hitherto
enjoyed the luxury of following his beliefs entirely? Does
he mean that all ministers who are not so fortunate as him-
self in being independent of salary are simply, as Paley
said of himself, ‘too poor to keep a conscience’? I used to
wonder very much why X, Y, and Z, who were so inspired
on the theory of Christian brotherhood, never seemed to do
anything in the practice of that creed. This was a puzzle
to me till I found out who were sitting in the pews of their
churches. Real estate robbery, interest and dividends
robbery, every form of legitimized plunder, had its repre-
sentatives in those pews; and these men were the solid
members of the church. There is only one thing which
could make life tolerable to me—I would have some induce-
ment to live if I could see any possibility of exposing thesé
huge hypocrisies ; but no one knows, who has not beaten his
head against its seven-walled citadel, how vain are all
Ordinary methods of attack upon this omnipotent octopus
of legalized and Christianized plunderism. Is there not some
rich manin all the world who will endow one prophet to go
forth to every city in the land to fell the Goliaths of the
Church with the pebble of truth? I furnish such a David
with a method of attack. Let him challenge the churches
of our great cities to publish to the world the following
data :—
“I. The salary paid to their minister.
“2. A list of members, with their occupations, and the
amounts they severally contribute to the church funds.

“ 3. A certiﬁed statement of all property owned by the '
church.
“4. The amounts in interest and rent and other dividends
paid annually to the church as a corporate body, and to the
members individually.
“5. If the minister of any given church is indepen-
dent of salary, let a statement be made of the exact
investments or property rights upon which this indepen-
dence is based.
26 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB.
“ There is not a leading church in any city of the Christian
world which will dare accept this challenge.
“These preachers with big salaries—you may say that
they love their wives and babies; yes, and I, too, have the
instincts of lover, husband, father. But are not these
metfable joys too clearly purchased at the price of chains
and slavery—in short, at the price of hypocrisy? And if this
be the price, then let all the world know it; let no one be
longer deceived. Am I not following the testimony of one of
our leading clergymen when I say that, unless you have an
independent salary, you cannot hope to follow your beliefs
entirely? This testimony I can completely endorse. There-
fore, to every young man about to enter the ministry I would
cry-: Take this warning, and know that, unless you are inde-
pendent of salary, you will ﬁnd that your ordination will
siniply prove condemnation-—condemnation to a life of half-
truth, if not of absolute hypocrisy.”
CHAPTER V.
THE DISILLUSIONMENT or DEATH. '
PERCY W HITCOMB lingered on for ﬁve days after hi_§
attempted suicide. He was attended by his sister, by the
young lady to whom he was at one time engaged to be married,
and by myself. For four days he was almost constantly
delirious. The presence of his beloved calmed his perturbed
and lacerated spirit as nothing else could. With her to gaze
upon he could for a moment forget his excruciating sufferings.
On the day before his death he was visited by a pathetic
illusion. We three were watching over him as he ﬁtfully
slept. He suddenly started up and uttered this strange
monologue :—
“Once, a long while ago, I was in great misery. The
doctors recommended an ocean voyage. They said it
would have a soothing and restful inﬂuence over me. They
were right. How calm and peaceful that sea seemed ! How
its coolness contrasted with the terrible heat in my head I I
remember how, often leaning over the side of the vessel, I
would gaze into the sea, envying it, it seemed so cool, so
unperturbed. Yet I saw that I could not dream of sharing
that calm, but must live and work-—work for mother, work
for you, Eloise; for you, Mary; for you, Erwin; for all the
world, work for everybody.”
When he had spoken thus he signiﬁed his desire to lie
down, and then continued: “Yes, the young should live-—
the young must live—--but the old may as well perish.”
Miss said to him : “ But you should not think of death ;
you are young yet.” He slowly replied: “The time of
which I was just speaking was thousands of years ago.
Young, young! who said I was young? Bah! I am the
ancient misery of the race; I am six thousand years of age.

.1
1'“
-<4
28 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB.

Oh, Eloise,” he cried, taking the hand of Miss , “you,
too, have grown -old. Ah, who could have imagined that
our dreams of bliss could have come so true—-that we could
have grown old together. Yet what enchantment your face
still has for me; it seems no older than when we wed, 10,
these many years ago. There is a song I wish you would
sing, as in the old days ; it ends with these words :
‘ Nothing is steadfast, nothing is true,
But your love for me and my love for you.’ ”
So saying, he fell, smiling, into a deep sleep.
'11 On the morning of the ﬁfth day after his attempted suicide
Whitcomb for the ﬁrst time seemed void of pain and in full
possession of his mental faculties. Conscious of his
' ,_ -‘approaching end, against all my protests he persisted in
q 3‘ "-.i?“-‘- discussing with me the ethics of his deed. In this connec-
it-’F-Q tion I have to confess to conduct which to many will seem
_ *' in the highest degree cruel--uselessly cruel. A letter con-
._ " ,. 2 ' mining a fragment of an essay, “On the Luxury of Being a
“ Reformer,” had reached Whitcomb’s boarding-house on the
" day, and almost at the very hour, of the tragedy in the church.
This letter I, in conjunction with his sister, had taken the
liberty of opening. And now, since our conversation
touched at so many points with the contents of this letter, I
-" thought it my sacred duty to let Whitcomb read it, although
it declared all self-sacriﬁce to be pure folly.
After reading this letter Whitcomb slept several hours,
and woke for the last time about ﬁve o’clock on the after-
_ 4‘-1"‘ noon of September 30th. His conversation now showed
* F that he saw things clearly, and saw them whole. He told
' ' us that the hour of his deliverance was now ready to strike.
' He; spoke as one consciously delivering his last words as he
sa1 :-
- “Every tragedy should have its memorial, its moral.
' -.5? , Pardon me, friends, for having hoped that mine might not
3 ' be utterly forgotten. You will ﬁnd a manuscript in my
"’. " trunk; this manuscript is the sole memorial of this tragedy.
' Friend McCall, I entrust it to you for publication, if any
publisherof it can be found. It is but afragment,”he said; and,
after a pause, added: “ My life itself is but a fragment.” A
prolonged and painful silence ensued, broken at last by his
“‘ saying: “If there are proﬁts, McCall, you will not forget
h in
1 s " . '
,!'
*3
THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY WHITCOMB. 29
mother-—poor mother.” Again_ his thoughts became too
deep for speech. But soon he continued, saying : “ Perhaps
I deserve condemnation. Doubtlessthe conviction that the
present conditions .of existence involve the sacriﬁce of all
ideals has in some measure been suggested and vitiated by
a longing for rest. Yes, I have ignobly sighed for the sweet
sleep of death—I have longed for the unfathomed, the
inviolable tranquillity of the grave. It was a weakness,
friends, but it was a weakness born of love—-born of a con-
suming compassion for the disinherited of earth.”
Again he paused ; then we, who had known his boundless
admiration for Mazzini, were astonished to hear him say :—
“Forgive me, Mazzini, noble spirit whom I once called.
my master, forgive me for saying that your transcendent
genius seems to me to have its limitations. I cannot see
how your gospel can ever save the world, proposing, as, it
does, to do so by first sacriﬁcing the most ardent and
unselﬁsh spirits of earth. To this complexion has that
gospel brought me at last.” -
His breathing had become heavy. His sentences were
punctuated by painful gasps for breath. He spoke with the
impeded accent of a dying man, as, continuing, he said :-
“Friends, mark well the things which I now tell you. I
have both feared and hoped that death would bring its own
peculiar and dreadful disillusionment. Those fears, those
hopes, are realized. I have just breath enough to say that I
regret the step which I have taken.
this incomparable wisdom I pay an awful price. This un-
earthly wisdom, which, had I but known it one week ago,
might have saved my life, declares to me that I die as the
fool dieth. It is a wisdom indispensable, I see, to all who
would serve their race, and I do not wholly deplore the price
I pay for it if you, my friends, will proclaim it to the would-be
reformers of this and every succeeding generation, that it
may perchance save some who would otherwise fall victims
to their overwhelming compassion for human suffering and
their too-painful consciousness of human imperfection. Yes,
friends, I am sure I could leave at least one helpful message
to the world-—it would be‘ How T0 SUCCEED IN THE WoRLD,
by a Suicide.’ McCall, you were right in all you said to me.
Too late to proﬁt by the discovery, I realize that I have been
Yes, now that it is too,
late, I would, if it were possible, recall the fatal shot. For
30 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY “IHITCOMB.
.a fool-a noble fool if you please, but none the less a fool.
The world is a jungle, McCall, but it may be made a para-
disc, and I should have helped to make it such. I see
my mistake. I see how much needs to be done. I see
that the highest duty for those who see these things is to
live and ‘work—work to educate the world; to play the
hypocrite, if need be, in order to live and work. Because
I knew that the vast majority of men were hypocrites,
and at the same time were indifferent to human welfare, I‘
-‘f falsely concluded that the two things were identical and in-
‘ separable. No two things could be more different than
the old duty and the new duty. The old duty was to die
_ ~-for the truth; the new duty is to live for the truth. Self-
preservation has become the ﬁrst law of the modern
' martyr’s character. We must tell the world all the truth
,_ , -consistent with self-preservation. Because I could not be
,1“ absolutely frank with the world, because I could not tell it'
" -the whole truth, because I would not sacriﬁce upon the
. - altar of humanity’s welfare the dictates of my conscience
/(the highest sacriﬁce I could make, yet how insigniﬁcant
compared with the happiness of all the race), because I
could not work just as I wished, I foolishly threw my life
, ., _' away. Proclaim your saving gospel, McCall, to all mankind,
‘f{‘j ,. and say that the last act of Whitcomb, of whom it has been
.
I
- \§
1:,
,,;';' truthfully said he could not dream of wronging a brother or
a sister—-say that his last act was to embrace this gospel.
i'Thus perish I upon the altar of altruism, that altruism which
might indeed help those who are incapable of it, but which
,'.' ruthlessly murdersits own exemplars. Forgive me, thou
*2:-.. ' , , deathless genius of humanity ! Forgive me, I knew not what
' - .I did. After life’s fever” the sentence was never ﬁnished.
' The Sleep of Death, whatever that may mean, ensued.

POSTSCRIPT.
THE following letter, written by Whitcomb shortly before
his leaving the ministry, shows that he had convinced him-
self that a true man must necessarily practise some form of -
hypocrisy in order to live at all in the midst of the fools and
charlatans by which we are surrounded ; but he did not feel
able to pay this price of existence :— ..
“ DEAR FRIEND,-—Your letter is full of good advice-the
wisdom back of it has, I am sure, cost you dearly. I recog-
nise in your letter the Voice of Poverty—and this Voice is
also an utterance of Deity. Truly have I not said that this
Voice of Poverty is the most authentic of all the voices of
God—-have I not dedicated my life to the task of seeking V
out and soothing all these accents of agony—all these articu- '
lations of anguish? And behold, I at last perceive that my
own poverty and its cure is the most sacred task, the
divinest duty devolving upon me. .
“Signor, do not conceive that I attempt to satirize your
sublime principle of justiﬁable hypocrisy—the doctrine of a
divine disobedience unto the heavenly vision. Herein is no
treason, but the supremest sacriﬁce; for to an earnest soul . _
what greater renunciatwn is possible than the necessary ‘
abandonment, even for a second, of the dearest jewel—-
fidelity to the highest truth? But above this Highest Truth
is a Higher Law-—the law of self-preservation. ’
“Good master, do I not deserve my diploma--a certiﬁ-
cate of diplomacy? For what you tell me in your letter
would possess no validity for me if I were a millionaire, nor
for anyone who is a millionaire. It is Poverty (Hail ! Thou
God of Starvation and Salvation) which has reduced you to
this philosophy--which has revealed to you this saving
Gospel. I agree with you utterly, but between us there
32 THE MARTYRDOM OF PERCY \VHITCOMIL
need be no accursed mental reservations. Let us, if we
' must, worship in public that God of Duplicity before whom
‘ L7 _, _. ._,the'race lives prostrate in most damnable adoration; but at
" '5' if least let us, between ourselves, breathe nothing but the
f sf:‘3'§l,-‘tﬁmosphere of absolute sincerity. God will pity our neces-
‘ R isiity, honour our conﬁdence, and not refuse us a whiff or two
of the breath of Divinity. Ah, how my soul is suffocated,
asphyxiated in thispoisoned air, full of lies, vermin, and all
‘ unutterable, - loathsome, slimy__ things.’ How I have cried
L; ,,;t':.. .for one single diaught of air, straight from the Olympian
1''a,- - ', Mount and the grottoes of the Gods-—or a breeze from the
‘ " , _un'troddenAntarctic--bracing as the air never polluted by
,contact with man, or the land he lives on.
Q
I . ' ,r.“ Good sir, on'c_:e admit the principle that for the bread of -
!“.‘*;~;;i;',';*i'-""1.-";~,~_~r jl_i_fe you are justified in leaving a little of the truth unsaid,
.‘".'il"‘;‘:~i"l-;,"*f"’f’z1n“tl you may"g'o ‘on, by a logic of irreproachable legitimacy,
" " ",1 ;. to‘ the‘ conclusion that you can for the same reason leave all
, s‘ unsaid,’_or' .even deny all truth. ‘The triumphs of Logic--
,.-;.'.,i,,, .-,',these, are the only sacred things on earth; her body alone is
":“_“"’.-i“.~.." Y»-I5"-_inviolable'; her alone we may not ravish.
"[,?.= 3 “I believe in Logic, Father Almighty ! Unmaker of
" - . Heavens and maker of Earth! With hand outstretched to
jf ‘, 5;, ” ?Heaven, I swear I follow _Thee alone! _
;,';-Wf‘,1jf;i<:'L “_Then discard all sohcitude for me. If I sacrrﬁce myself,
it will not be on the altar of an inexorable moralism--the
*l.’;':-i".':’-*:,j»:, ethics of Absolutism. I affirm the relativity of all human
"‘- ,3; knowledge; I deny the categorical imperative (which never
, . ‘ had any existence save for the rich, the powerful, and their
1,, i~‘.r"~ faithful allies-—-the fools of earth). I have torn out of my
.4
,."|
5* '5. -
as
J‘ ;'|h
L ‘_ -
Pft“‘#
,-.11 5*
? 5“
J‘,
0‘;
t“::;g_€l::‘S,i;’L;‘ jg mirid, root and branch, the insufferable insult and outrage of
;;';,’£i’*, -*"~ ;;a_n external Deity. Pray, good master, give me thy certiﬁ-
_ ~" , “cate of mental salvation.” -
‘:_f1l*'*“ L. _. In a letter of date subsequent to the above, Whitcomb
‘*2 " pr wrote :--. I
‘,- “ Intellectually I can easily convince myself of the neces-
$3 *-' Ii. srty,andeven, in some sense, the justlﬁableness, of hypocrisy;
if but I frankly confess that life is not so dear to me as to be
purchased at the price of such turpitude.”
The letter concluded with these words :—-
“THE FLESH rs wn.r.rnc, BUT THE SPIRIT rs WEAK.”


_ £2? I : Qfheither priest, politician, ,n0r\.physician.”
’“\
7 - ; - I . K‘ T, .i -. 'f~"I'hie Volcano Series.-~ '1.‘
~ ~
" I-1“ _ , Or, the Gospel ~Arr0rdmg_to Metzsrke.
‘ - BY',,“VOLCANO.”
' l


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I ‘1-Efxtraifrfronz “ail Bzib/e At/m'.rt: anal £gro:'rl; ”:—-I O ,
2 E "II Iconsecratei eccentricity.’ The world isnsaved by‘ its fshockers: I
' Accursed are the poor in spirit, for they are fo'od'for thJe'priests,‘-the tyrants and the sophists of earth;”_ - ' " \_ ' " V
.\ ‘if I suvrirotind you with neighbours whodo not need your ministrations 5 i. ', +that thus you.may,be free to develop yourselves.‘ Verily place of
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fan odour which bringeth salvation arid a new hope.” ’ - " -_ p __ at _ '
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l
~j~~B~I;B.~.L~~E~~, FOR A~T~H~EI$~TS ~A~1~!D~EG0IsTS;~